When a ship was paid off out of Malta Harbour, it was the custom that there should be a man standing erect on each of the trucks, main, mizen and fore. Many a time have I seen these men balanced more than 200 feet in the air, strip off their shirts and wave them. And once I saw a man holding to the vane-spindle set in the truck, and I saw the spindle break in his hand, and the man fall.... In the course of my experience, I have seen a man fall off the main-royal yard, be caught in the belly of the mainsail slip down the sail, catch the second reef-line with his {26} legs, and hold on until a topmate ran aloft with a bowline and saved him. I have seen a man fall off the maintopsail yard, and be caught in the bight of the mainsheet in the main rigging, and run aloft again. And this was at sea. And several times I have seen a man fall from aloft to be dashed to pieces upon the deck. One of the closest escapes I have ever had occurred aloft in the _Marlborough_. Being midshipman of the mizenroyal, I was furling the sail, leaning forward upon the yard, gathering in the canvas, my feet braced backward upon the footrope, when another midshipman, leaping upon the footrope, accidentally knocked it from under my feet. For two or three seconds I hung by the tips of my fingers, which were pressed against the jackstay of the mizen-royal yard (the rope running taut along the top of the yard to which the sail is bent) under which I could not push my fingers, and then, at the last moment, I found the footrope again. I have never forgotten my feelings, when I saw certain death approaching while my feet were clawing about for the footrope. When the hands were turned out to bathe, John Glanville, chief boatswain's mate, would go up to the main-yard, stand with one foot on the yard and the other on the preventive braceblock, and thence take a header. The height was between 50 and 60 feet. Once he struck the sea sideways, and was injured, so that he was never quite the same man afterwards. But any other man would have been killed. On another occasion, when the ship was hove-to for the hands to bathe, the captain of the forecastle hauled the jib sheet aft, and the ship began to glide away from the officers and men, myself among them, in the water. Luckily all got on board again.