The following are in the hold:—1. The boatswain’s and carpenter’s store-room; 2. The powder magazine; 3. The tanks and water-casks; 4. The shot-well; 5. The pump-well; 6. The provision-stores; 7. The spirit-room; 8. The bread-room. The after-magazine is situated under the front of the great gun-room. Thus the ship is now described so far as her hull is concerned, and now I will say a few words about getting in the masts.
When this is to be accomplished, which is rather a formidable job, the ship is first taken alongside of a shear-hulk, or into a dry dock, by the side of which are erected shears. A very fine specimen of the latter machinery is to be seen in Woolwich Dock-yard. The shear-hulk is a large, strongly-built vessel, and well moored by strong chains in a convenient spot on the water, where any ship can approach her. This vessel is fitted with a strong, perpendicular mast; and two others, called the shears, fixed on pivots or hinges to strong frame-work on the deck. The upper ends, meeting in a point, are suspended by strong latches from the mast-head in a slanting direction, leaning to such a distance over the side of the hulk, as to hold the mast to be fixed in the ship alongside her directly over the holes in the deck; when they are lowered into their places, and fixed tight with wedges—of course it is only the lower masts that require the adoption of this method to fix them in their places—and when their great length and consequent weight are considered, it is very certain none better could be used.
The length of the main-mast in a large, first-rate ship, is about one hundred and eighty feet from the keel to the top; the main-top-mast is sixty feet; above it the main-top-gallant-mast, forty-four feet, being altogether about two hundred and sixty feet, from which, if we deduct fifty-two feet, the depth of the hull, we have left two hundred and eight feet, the height of the main-mast above the deck. In light winds, royal and sky-sail-masts are set, which will add from thirty to forty feet to its height.
Large men-of-war, such as the one I have described, will carry a great number of hands; they frequently amount to a thousand, of which two hundred are marines; yet, although a ship is thus thronged with people, the admirable order and regularity with which everything is conducted, preserves her from many of the disasters to which smaller ships with fewer hands are liable.
It has been ascertained that the actual weight of a seventy-four gun-ship, including the hull, rigging, guns, stores, officers and men, together with six-months’ provisions, amounts to two thousand eight-hundred tons, and the quantity of water displaced when the ship is afloat is equal to about one hundred thousand cubic feet.
The stowage of large ships is admirable. The live-stock often forms a considerable item in a ship’s stowage. It is generally for the use of the officers, and consists of cows, sheep, pigs, and poultry. The latter, and sheep, are stowed away upon the main-deck, under the waist, between the guns; and the pigs in that part of the ship called the manger, on the lower or gun-deck; the cows are kept in boxes or stalls; the sheep in pens, in one or two tiers; and the poultry in hen-coops. The whole are under the charge of the butcher and poulterer.
I could tell you a great deal more about ships and shipping, but space prevents me doing so; and as a great many of our ships are now engaged in the war against Russia, it will not be out of place to hope that our brave sailors may not be “savagely slaughtered” by the Russians, and that the Great Bear may have his claws clipped before we have done with him.
