"Besides having all hands, we used to be kept going all night long in the watch on deck, and after we got round the Cape into the south-east trades we had to work every minute, either doing necessary duty, or else performing military drill with handspikes, or something of that sort. Night times our principal work was polishing the iron belaying-pins and eye-bolts, for when we went into 'Frisco' every piece of iron-work about deck shone like silver. We all had our stations rubbing the iron with our sheath-knives, and every half hour, when the bell struck, we had to call out like sentinels. This is the way it would go: First, the man on the forward house, who was polishing the cook's stove-pipe, would sing out: 'Cook's stove-pipe, one bell and all's well!' Then would come, 'Starboard main-topmast staysail sheet iron belaying-pin, one bell and all's well;' 'starboard eye-bolts main-rigging;' 'strap of main-topsail halyard block;' and so on. When all the workmen had sung out, you'd hear, 'Starboard handspike gangway sentinel, one bell and all's well;' and then the port side the same. These were two men that had to walk with shouldered handspikes on the bridges that went from the top of the after-house to the boat's gallows. At the last the mate would hail the skysail-yard, and a voice would come down, 'Man in the moon, one bell and all's well.' This would be some unlucky chap who was lowest down in the mate's good graces, but got kept highest up in the air. "That was the way every half hour at night when we were not pulling and hauling. You wouldn't think men would stand such nonsense? I assure you they did though, and they didn't dare to growl even in the forecastle, for there was some one prowling about outside, pretty often, listening to what was said; and if a man growled he was very apt to get licked next watch. The second mate gave one man an awful thrashing, for no other reason I believe than because he overheard him saying in his watch below, 'This is a humbugging old workhouse.'