Take the matter of food and drink, for instance. Evidence from the _Cairo_ shows that the sailors ate in messes of about 15 men, and each mess had a special chest to hold its gear: tin plates, cups, spoons, glass condiment bottles, scrub brushes, a washtub, and an earthenware jug of molasses. Every man took care of his own utensils, and he scratched his name or initials on each piece. Those who could not write at least could make an identifying mark. The glass condiment bottles bore embossed labels, “U S NAVY” on one side and “PEPPER” or “MUSTARD” on the other. No one had ever seen such bottles before, but there were more than 300 on board, some still holding their original contents. [Illustration: _The _Cairo’s_ bow and stern sections being reassembled at Pascagoula, Miss._ Courtesy, Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation] The officers dined in a separate mess, and they had finer fare. The dishes were ironstone: the knives, forks, and spoons were made by Rogers and Brothers and the Hartford Manufacturing Company. Much of the ironstone had been broken, either in the mine explosion or in salvage, but a representative collection survived intact. These show that much of it had been made in England by J. Wedgwood and sold to the Government by J. J. Brown, Importer, New Albany, Ind. Cooks prepared the food for officers and men in big copper and iron pots on an iron cooking range ironically named “Southern Belle” but manufactured by S. A. Burton and Company of Cincinnati, Ohio; and the discovery of a rolling pin suggests that the fare sometimes included biscuits and pastry. The commissary storeroom yielded hundreds of barrels with bones inside—all that remained of the salt beef and pork that formed a major part of all naval diets during that period. Nearby stood the remnants of a butcher block, a two-handed meat cleaver, and several scales. Here, presumably, the boat’s butcher stood as he cut and issued the meat for the messes. Officers overcame the monotony of their diet with the help of spirits as well as condiments. From their section came bottles for whiskey, rum, still wines, and champagne, some of them unopened. Other bottles offered evidence on medical care, for many contained the remains of their original contents. These included potassium chlorate (a drug prescribed for many complaints of the period), blue mass for syphilis, quinine, rhubarb, ammonia, sulphur, zinc chloride (used as an antiseptic and astringent), and ferric chloride, often prescribed as an iron tonic. Most of these bottles required professional analysis for identification, but others are so familiar that a smell was enough to know that they held iodine, castor oil, camphor, turpentine, or linseed oil.