I say, I breakfast with you every morning. Did you know exactly the state of the larder and store-room of our mess, you would wonder that I do not include all my meals in the avowal. For some time past, on each successive day, the giving out of article after article for our table, has been reported, till nothing now remains but salt beef, so hard as fully to justify the sailor’s cognomen of “Uncle Sam’s Mahogany,” and salt pork as rusty as the beef is hard. No potatoes or other vegetables, no butter better than rancid lard, and no bread fit to be eaten except the ship’s “hard tack,” are left. Dried beans and peas we have, but both filled with weevil, which the cook has devised no means of separating, before being served, from the article itself. The consequence is, that when they come to us in the form of soup, the floating insects drowned and overdone, are the most conspicuous part of the mess, and when baked, give to the dish the appearance of being already well peppered. I can join very cheerfully in a jest over such untempting fare, and think of home; but cannot, like some of my messmates, persuade myself into the illusion that the little black insects speckling our board are only a rich condiment to give zest to the repast, and with them partake of it con gusto.
Yesterday our last turkey, after having given flavor to a tureen of watery soup, was served as a boiled dish. As we were about taking our seats at the table, a suggestion, made either seriously or in mischief, that the poor bird had not waited for the cook to bring its head to the block, but had died unexpectedly of its own accord, put a participation of either soup or meat, on my part, out of the question; and led, by the time the report had made the circuit of the table, to a kind of impromptu Court of Inquiry in the case. The steward was at once summoned by the head of the mess, who, fond of a joke, and knowing that the fat and shining negro, now honored with this office, like many of the more imitative and aspiring of his race, was somewhat grandiloquent in his language, put to him the question—“Steward, are you quite sure that the old fellow under this cover was entirely vigorous when he was taken from the coop?” “No! sir, he wasn’t wigorous at all! he was perfectly good!” “Why, steward, what do you suppose I mean by vigorous?” “I don’t know, sir, but I suppose from the way you ask me, something bad.” “Well, steward, I do not wish to be too particular in this investigation, but just tell me this much, could the old fellow really stand on his legs when he was killed?” “Sartain, sir, he could.” “Then, gentlemen,” says Mr. ——, addressing himself to the mess, “I go for the turkey,” and lifting the cover disclosed to view a mere skeleton in a shrivelled bag of skin, with scarce an ounce of flesh on the whole carcass.
You must not infer, either from the feelings expressed at the beginning of this date, or from the dietetic disclosure into which I have been incidentally betrayed, that I am otherwise than entirely content and happy: as much so as I well can be in this world of imperfection and sin. This is attributable, however, chiefly if not solely to the conviction in mind and heart, that I am at the post of duty—
“The shepherd of a wandering flock
That has the ocean for its wold—
That has the vessel for its fold;”
and am, as I trust, in a spirit cheerfully and faithfully to meet its responsibilities. Whether to any high result or visible effect, it is not in the power of man to say. The sufficiency for this is of God alone. I am thankful that I feel no discouragement in the use of the means for moral reformation and spiritual grace in those around me. Nothing but personal experience could persuade one of the almost insurmountable obstacles that exist, on board a man-of-war, to the conversion of any of the crew, and to a life of godliness in one of their number, or make him credit without close observation, the number and the power of
“The secret currents that here flow
With such resistless under-tow,
And lift and drift with terrible force