His bathroom, connected with a large salt-water tank, filled each morning by the deck washers, was on the port side, and two spare staterooms opened into the after cabin from port. A bulkhead divided these private quarters from the forward or mess cabin, off which were the pantry, storeroom, steward's room and slop chest. The mates were berthed in two staterooms on either side of the after cabin, but their doors opened into a sort of thwart ship vestibule running the width of the after cabin just below the break of the poop. The mizzen mast came down through the after end of the mess cabin, and a large brass lamp swung in gimbals just below the long skylight. A repeating rifle in a rack above the captain's bunk, and two revolvers on each side of the chart table, composed the offensive battery. A long brass telescope reposed in a rack in the companion, and at the foot of this was slung a very good mercurial barometer. Typical of the best traditions of the sea, such were the quarters of the after guard. Forward we were not done so well. The fo'c'sle took up the forward part of the deck house and was sheltered from the force of the sea and wind by the high break of the fo'c'sle head. These quarters were divided by a bulkhead running fore and aft, to separate the watches, and plain unpainted bunks lined the sides. Light was afforded by a poor lamp set in a hole in the wall between the two sides, a cheap expedient thought of, no doubt, by some thrifty soul who knew that this was far better than the traditional whale oil, or slush dip, of the hoary days when sailor men were shoved below decks in reeking quarters just over the fore peak. However, the fo'c'sle was home to us. We lived there and had our being amid an atmosphere not altogether bad; what we lacked in conveniences we made up for in ingenuity. Above a few of the bunks were rough calendars marked on the woodwork, some of them from previous voyages. Brenden kept track of our position by notching each day on the scantling overhead. Under these marks he had signs that stood for the N. E. trades, the Line, the S. E. trades, etc. All sorts of little shelves were rigged up to hold tobacco, matches, ditty bags, well thumbed books, old newspapers, and what not. Lines of marline were stretched above the bunks for drying clothes. The scheme of society within the sacred walls of our castle was a sort of despotic democracy. The ruling class, the able seamen of the watch, Marshall, Frenchy, Brenden, were the arbiters of all matters temporal and mundane. This was by mutual consent and should be so. In addition to this, Jimmy was the autocrat of the crowd and ruled us with an iron hand, though there was not a man forward but could have hove him overboard.