and wore corporal's swabs before I left
Woolhurst, besides an embroidered collar
of magnificence:—distinctions due to some
plan-drawings of wonderful minuteness; in
one of the woods of which could be counted
five-and-sixty distinct trees, and in which all
the houses were quite square, all the roads
quite straight, and all the rivers tortuous.
I managed also to remain unhurt amidst the
swoops which the official eagles used to make
periodically upon the lambs of the Cadet
Company; for I was not expelled, but was
presented with a regulation sword.

A DIGGER'S DIARY.

IN OCCASIONAL CHAPTERS.

July 5th.—I have been obliged to drop a
week of my Diary (indeed I see no chance of
keeping it regularly) in consequence of taking
my turn to attend to the serving out of
provisions for our mess, the cooking, the washing
up, and other pleasing occupations. Hitherto,
Waits had good-naturedly taken my turn
in addition to his own, in consequence of my
indisposition. The duties I was now called upon
to perform, were of a kind that were very near
to reducing me again to my late prostration.
I was in so delicate and touchy a state after
the Bay, that I think I should never have
recovered the tone of my stomach, if I had
not suddenly bethought me of my kind aunt's
last present—the bottle of cherry-brandy.
A brandy-cherry was the first thing that
re-assured me I was a man. For some days
previous to that restorative I had the impression
that I was only an empty pump—a
miserable tube of gutta-percha.

I entered upon my new duties with the
proper amount of apparent alacrity, and the
natural degree of inward surprise and disgust
at the trick that had been put upon me
by Messrs. Saltash and Pincher in keeping all
this drudgery a profound secret. First, then,
I had to be up at six, when the hatches were
opened by the third mate at the main, and
tne fourth mate at the forward hold; unless
they overslept themselves, or had other
duties elsewhere, in which case I had to wait
half-an-hour or an hour, as the case might be.
The fourth mate served out the allotted
portions of fresh water for each mess, while the
third mate served out biscuit, salt beef, pork,
or something else. As it was impossible
to be in both places at once, if it happened
that the number of my mess was called for
beef when I was at water, it generally
followed that for that day our mess was
minus either water or beef, and I had to bear
the blame. So, with biscuits and preserved
herrings; soup and bouilli and salt pork;
chloride of lime and pickles or flour; one or
other was always liable to be lost. As there
were no stated hours and system in the serving
out, an immense quantity of time was wasted.
Mr. Swasher, the fourth mate, professed to
serve out the water the first thing in the
morning, and we accordingly attended round
the fore-hold at half-past six, when the
hatches were taken off; but it frequently
happened, either that he had something else
to do, or else he had to broach a fresh cask,
and could not get it up, or get himself down
to it without great labour and a good many
hands. We therefore did not receive the
water till perhaps three o'clock, having had
to wait round about all the time, or risk
losing it. The waiting at both hatchways was
constantly prolonged by the sale of tobacco,
bottled porter, and ardent spirits on the
captain's private account—a sort of tap and
chandlery in the dark, which the second and
third mates managed for Captain Pennysage.
The regular serving out of provisions was
always stopped to meet any of these
customers. By these means, from five to seven
or eight hours were occupied in the course of
the day by those whose turn it was to get
the provisions, and obtain the cooked dishes
from the cook-house, where there was
considerable disorder.

What a life it was for those two young
men, the mates, who ought to have been
learning seamanship! In the fore-hold,
where Mr. Swasher remained nearly the
whole day, his life was spent among watercasks,
bottled-beer casks, cases of wine
(execrable Cape, called pale Sherry), and cases
of brandy, gin, and rum, with champagne that
resembled stale lemonade. The wet, torn,
and besmutched appearance of Mr. Swasher,
when he came on deck for a little fresh air in
the evening, or for ten minutes in the course
of the day, gave him very much the look of
a hunted water-rat. Mr. Rokeby lived in
the suffocating obscurity of a chandlery in
a low-roofed cellar, in which he was
constantly bumping his head against beams,
and jamming his feet between boxes, kegs,
casks, and broken cases full of nail-points.
Scales, weights, and measures were strewed
around; and he occasionally sat on a fallen
sack of flour to rest himself, with the mouth
of the sack vomiting whiteness, as he wiped
his reeking forehead with his bespattered and
bedaubed shirt-sleeves, and turned a fatigued
and worried face upwards—all yellow with
mustard and gleaming with lamp oil.

A word about the cooks. They were all three
the dirtiest beasts ever seen, and the
intermediate passengers' cook, in particular, was
like a man made of kettle-smut and grease.
Clothes, hands, feet (naked), and face were all
alike; and out of the head of this thing
there looked a pair of prominent bright
eyes which gave him a sort of devilish
appearance, equally ridiculous and horrid.
This grim object had rather a predilection
for me, in consequence, I think, of my
having given him, by Arrowsmith's advice,
half a tumbler of rum on the first day of
entering upon my new office. It was unfortunate
that on this very day he should happen
to spoil all the soup; but I saw that he felt