One duty of a young sailor is to tar down the fore and aft stays. At any time and under any circumstances this was a precarious undertaking, and yet these fine young athletes would undertake it quite joyously, provided it was called for in the ordinary course of their duty, and there was no intimation or suspicion of it being intended as a "work-up" job, as they called it. The main and mizen stays stretched from mast to mast; the fore stays were more perpendicular, as they stretched from the masts to the jib-boom and bowsprit. It was usual to have a boatswain's chair to sit and be lowered down in while tarring these stays. Some mates disdained pampering youths with a luxury of this kind, so disallowed it, and caused them to sit in a bowlin' bight instead. But the most villainous thing of all was when a boy for a mere technical offence, perhaps, indeed, no offence at all, would be ordered to ride a stay down without either chair or bowlin'. The tar-pot was held in one hand, the tarring was done with the other, and the holding on was managed by a process of clinging with the legs and body as they slid along in a marvellously skilful way; and woe to the unhappy culprit who allowed any drops of tar to fall on the decks or paint-work! Sometimes these lads lost their balance and fell with their bodies under the stay, and failed to right themselves; in that case they had to slide down to where the stay was set up, get on top of it again, and climb up to where they had left off tarring. They were not allowed, even if they could have done so, to ride over the painted portion by sliding over it. Occasionally there occurred fatal falls, but this was a rare thing. I remember losing my balance while riding down a main top-gallant stay. The tar-pot fell to the deck, and I very nearly accompanied it. There was much commotion caused by this mishap, as part of the contents of the bucket had splashed on the covering board and white-painted bulwarks. The exhibition of grief was far-reaching. The captain and his devoted officers made a great noise at me; they asked with passionate emotion why I didn't let my body fall instead--"there would have been less mischief done," said they! Of course they did not mean that exactly, though to the uninitiated it would have seemed uncommonly like it. The indications of combined grief and fearful swearing might have meant anything of a violent nature. I could not be disrated, as I was only a cabin-boy, but a substitutionary penalty was invoked against me. The chief officer, who had a voice and an eye that indicated whiskey, was a real artist in profane language. He vowed that as sure as "Hell was in Moses" I would never become worthy the name of a British sailor. This outburst of alcoholic eloquence touched me keenly, and ever since that time I have wondered wherein this original gentleman saw connection between the great Hebrew law-giver and the nether regions.