In the docks of London and Plymouth, it is not unusual to find sailors born on board ship: from their childhood to their old age they have never set foot on shore; spectators of the world which they have never entered, they have seen the land only from the side of their floating cradle. In this life reduced to so small a space, beneath the clouds and upon the depths, all things become life-like to the mariner: an anchor, a sail, a mast, a gun are persons that excite his attachment and that have each their history. The sail was torn off the coast of Labrador; the master sail-maker put in that patch which you see there. The anchor saved the ship when she had dragged her other anchors among the coral-reefs of the Sandwich Islands. The mast was broken in a squall off the Cape of Good Hope; it was all in one piece; it is much stronger since it has consisted of two pieces. The gun is the only one which was not dismounted in the fight of the _Chesapeake._ The news on board is most interesting: they have just heaved the log; the ship is making ten knots. The sky is clear at mid-day: they have taken the altitude; we are at latitude so-and-so. We have taken our reckoning: we have made so many miles in our course. The variation of the compass is so many degrees: we have gone up north. The sand is running badly through the hour-glass: we shall have rain. They have seen stormy petrels in the wake of the vessel: we must look out for a squall. Flying-fish have been showing in the south: the weather will settle down. A clear spot has formed in the clouds in the west: that's a sign of wind; the wind will blow from that side tomorrow. The water has changed colour; pieces of wood and wrack have been seen floating by; there were ducks and gulls in sight; a small bird came and perched on the yards: we must heave to sea, for we are approaching land, and it is not good to come alongside at night. In the hen-coop is a favourite and, so to speak, sacred cock, which has survived all the others; he is famous for having crowed during a fight, as though he were in a farm-yard in the midst of his hens. Below decks lives a cat: a greenish tabby, with a hairless tail and bushy whiskers, firm on his paws, able to bring a back-balance and side-balance to play against the pitching and the rolling of the ship; he has been twice round the world and has saved himself from shipwreck by climbing on a barrel. The ship-boys give the cock biscuits soaked in wine, and Tom has the privilege of sleeping, when he pleases, in the second mate's fur-coat.