[1] The cook's title in all vessels.
[2] The proportions of the ingredients of the tea that was made for
us (and ours, as I have before stated, was a favorable specimen of
American merchantmen) were a pint of tea and a pint and a half of
molasses to about three gallons of water. These are all boiled
down together in the ``coppers,'' and, before serving it out, the
mess is stirred up with a stick, so as to give each man his fair
share of sweetening and tea-leaves. The tea for the cabin is, of
course, made in the usual way, in a teapot, and drunk with sugar.
[3] I do not wish these remarks, so far as they relate to the saving
of expense in the outfit, to be applied to the owners of our ship,
for she was supplied with an abundance of stores of the best kind
that are given to seamen; though the dispensing of them is
necessarily left to the captain. And I learned, on our return,
that the captain withheld many of the stores from us, from mere
ugliness. He brought several barrels of flour home, but would not
give us the usual twice-a-week duff, and so as to other stores.
Indeed, so high was the reputation of ``the employ'' among men and
officers for the character and outfit of their vessels, and for
their liberality in conducting their voyages, that when it was
known that they had the Alert fitting out for a long voyage, and
that hands were to be shipped at a certain time,-- a half hour
before the time, as one of the crew told me, sailors were steering
down the wharf, hopping over the barrels, like a drove of sheep.
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