CHAPTER X.
A SEA-PARLOUR DESCRIBED, WITH SOME OF ITS TENANTS I MIGHT as well give some idea of the place in which the doctor and I lived together so sociably.
Most persons know that a ship's forecastle embraces the forward part of the deck about the bowsprit: the same term, however, is generally bestowed upon the sailors' sleeping-quarters, which occupy a space immediately beneath, and are partitioned off by a bulkhead.
Planted right in the bows, or, as sailors say, in the very eyes of the ship, this delightful apartment is of a triangular shape, and is generally fitted with two tiers of rude bunks.

Those of the Julia were in a most deplorable condition, mere wrecks, some having been torn down altogether to patch up others; and on one side there were but two standing.

But with most of the men it made little difference whether they had a bunk or not, since, having no bedding, they had nothing to put in it but themselves.
Upon the boards of my own crib I spread all the old canvas and old clothes I could pick up.

For a pillow, I wrapped an old jacket round a log.

This helped a little the wear and tear of one's bones when the ship rolled.
Rude hammocks made out of old sails were in many cases used as substitutes for the demolished bunks; but the space they swung in was so confined that they were far from being agreeable.
The general aspect of the forecastle was dungeon-like and dingy in the extreme.