The routine of ship’s life turns on the watches, the alternate four hours on and four hours off of the crew. Only in case of urgency is it permissible to call the watch below, and hence any deck work, such as altering or shortening sails, when it is not immediately imperative, waits for the changes of the watch at 8, 12, and at 4, when all the crew are available; those also are meal hours for the forecastle, with which those of the cabin must not clash. The afternoon or dog watches are of two hours only, from 4 to 6 and 6 to 8, in order to secure that the same hours are not kept on two consecutive days by the same members of the crew. It is a strange life from the point of view of the landsman, especially in its bearing on the hours of sleep: eight hours on and eight hours off duty would have seemed preferable, but it is the general rule throughout the merchant service, and the men are accustomed to it. My own daily round began with ordinary domestic duties, which were seldom accomplished before 11 o’clock. On Saturday the work took even longer, as, in addition to the usual business of life, the weekly stores were given out to the forecastle, and fresh boxes of provisions were fetched up from below and decanted into tins for shelves; if weather permitted the main hold was opened. Not only do a marvellous number of small things need attention on a boat, but every action takes much longer, owing to the constant movement of the vessel; each article, for example, has to be put down so that it cannot be overthrown by a sudden lurch. To my friends who were anxious as to what we did for exercise, I replied that to give out stores in a rolling boat, in imminent danger of having the whole contents of a shelf thrown at one’s head, was an acrobatic performance which involved sufficient activity to last the twenty-four hours. The same is also true in degree of every muscular movement, so that the need was rarely felt for such artificial exercise as deck promenades. This was as well, for as both the lifeboat and cutter were carried in the waist of the ship when we were at sea, the space available for “constitutionals” was prescribed.