This was to scrub decks, just as in a well-ordered household the servant cleans the door-step before anyone is astir; the decks of a ship giving as good a notion of what her commander is like, as the door-step of a house does of its mistress! For this job the men forward rigged the head pump and sluiced the forecastle and main-deck; while we apprentices had to wash down the poop, having a fine time over it dowsing one another with buckets of water, and chasing each other round the mizzen-mast and binnacle, or else dodging the expected deluge behind the skylight--sometimes awaking Captain Gillespie up, and making him come up the companion in a towering rage to ask "what the dickens" we were "kicking up all that row for ?" Once, as he came up in this way, Tom Jerrold caught him full in the face with a bucket of water he was pitching at me; and wasn't there a shindy over it, that's all! "Old Jock" was unable to find out who did it, for of course none of us would tell on Tom, and the water in the captain's eyes prevented him from seeing who was his assailant; but, he immediately ordered Tom, as well as Weeks and I, all up into the cross- trees, Tom at the fore, Sam at the main, and I on the mizzen-mast, to "look out for land," instead of having our breakfast.
As we were some hundreds of miles off the nearest coast, our task of looking out for land was entirely a work of supererogation; still, we did not realise this, and strained our eyes vainly until we were called down from aloft at "two bells," after the hands had all had their breakfast and there was nothing left for us.

This was "Jock's" satisfaction in return for the shower bath he had been treated to so unceremoniously.

Tom Jerrold afterwards said that he did not notice Jock coming up the companion way, and that of course he would never have dreamt of treating the captain so disrespectfully; but, as Master Tom invariably grinned whenever he made this declaration, Weeks and I, as well as Tim Rooney, who somehow or other got hold of the yarn, all had our suspicions on the point.
However, this is a digression from the description of our daily duties.
After scrubbing decks, each watch alternately had breakfast; and then, as now, when the wind was fair and hardly a brace or rope required to be handed from morning till night or from night till morning, we and the rest of the crew were set to work unravelling ends of junk and picking oakum, like convicts.
After being thus disintegrated, the tow was spun into sennit or fine twine and yarn which is always of use on board, quantities of it being used in "serving" and "parcelling" for chafing gear.
At noon, the crew had their dinner, watch in and watch out, but we apprentices had to wait till the captain and mates had theirs; although, as I've already mentioned, we saw little of the delicacies of the cabin table except occasionally of a Sunday, on which day, sometimes, Captain Gillespie's heart was more benevolently inclined towards us apparently.
During the afternoon watch on week-days we were allowed to amuse ourselves as we liked, and I frequently took advantage of this opportunity to learn all that Tim Rooney and Adams could teach me forward--the two being great cronies, and busying themselves at this period of the day, if there were nothing to call their attention elsewhere, in doing odd jobs on the forecastle, the one in the sailmaking line and the other attending to his legitimate occupation of looking after the weak points of the rigging, all concerning which came within his special province as boatswain.
After tea, all hands were allowed to skylark about the decks below and aloft until the end of the second dog-watch at "eight bells;" when, the night being fairly on us in the southern latitudes we were traversing, those whose turn it was to go below turned in, and the others having the "first watch" took the deck until they were relieved at midnight and retired to their well earned rest.

But, of course, should "all hands" be called to take in sail, on account of the wind shifting or a sudden squall breaking over the ship, which fortunately did not happen at the time of which I am speaking, those who might only have just turned in had to turn out again instanter.

In the same way, I may add, had the weather been stormy and changeable all of us would have had plenty to do in taking in and setting sail, without leisure for sennit reeving and yarn spinning and playing "Tom Cox's traverse" about the decks from morning till night, as we did in those halcyon days between the tropics.
We sighted Martin Vas Rocks, to the eastward of Trinidad Islands, in latitude 20 degrees 29 minutes south and longitude 28 degrees 51 minutes west, a little over a week from our leaving the Line, having made a very good passage so far from England, this being our thirty-sixth day out.
Soon after this, the south-east trades failing us and varying westerly breezes taking their place, we hauled our wind, altering our course to south-east by south, and making to pass the meridian on the forty- seventh parallel of latitude.