"There were lots of other moves they put up with. There were five or six men in our watch that didn't know much, and the mate took a particular fancy to hazing them. One morning he came forward with some canvas for fools' caps, and made these men sew them in their watch below. Then he took some empty flour barrels, knocked the heads out, and cut holes each side of the top. We all wondered what was to pay now, and at night we found out. He called these men aft, made them put on the fools' caps and dismount one of the guns that stood by the after-hatch. Then each man got into a barrel and ran his arms through the holes, so that he had a kind of wooden shirt on. The mate made a rope fast to the gun-carriage, and taking his seat, he made the men grab the rope and haul him fore and aft the deck. He sat on the carriage, holding a long stick with a sail-needle in the end, with which he pricked up all the men he could reach, wherever the barrels didn't protect them, and he cursed the rest in a way that hurt most as bad." "Mr. Bangs, didn't the captain have anything to say to all this?" I asked. "Not that I know of. I believe it just suited him. He didn't do any fighting himself, but he'd get on top of the house and everlastingly curse us." "Did you ever get struck?" I asked. "No sir." "I suppose not," said I. "I never heard a man tell a yarn yet about a wild ship, but he always went clear himself." "But it's a fact," said the second mate, "Bill Holmes and I were about the only ones in the crew, except Jackson, that didn't get a rap on the head before the ship got to 'Frisco.' I expect we got spared because we were Yankee boys, but I came pretty near catching it once or twice. "Some of the men were shamefully beaten for no cause whatever, except that they were good-natured Dutchmen. The mate used to fight with a belaying-pin, or else use his fists, but the second and third mates always carried brass knuckles in their pockets, and when they cut a man's face open it sometimes made an ugly sore. But the fighting didn't worry me as much as the blackguardism, for sometimes we'd go along a few days without a blow being struck. There was no let up, though, to bad words. Every order was followed up with oaths and vile language. All the officers from mate to boatswain were tarred with the same brush, and when all hands were on deck shortening sail, or tacking ship, I don't believe hell could have furnished worse talk. I often wondered what Mr. Jones would have thought if he could have dropped down aboard, and Bill Holmes used to say that he thought Mr. Jones would have done service to the cause of humanity if he'd taken a little pains to pick out a decent captain and mate to oversee his sailors in the 'Bloodhound,' in addition to his speech-making. "We had a quick passage of one hundred and five days, but we didn't get to Frisco any too soon to suit us, and we all cleared out bag and baggage as soon as the ship got to the wharf.