The three recruits were added to his muster-roll and gradually initiated
into the mysteries of sailor's life on a war vessel.
Poor Sukey for several days was fearfully seasick; but he recovered and
was assigned to his mess. Fortunately they were all three assigned to
the same mess. The common seamen of the _Macedonian_ were divided into
thirty-seven messes, put down on the purser's book as Mess No. 1, Mess
No. 2, Mess No. 3. The members of each mess clubbed their rations of
provisions, and breakfasted, dined and supped together at allotted
intervals between the guns on the main deck.
They found that living on board the _Macedonian_ was like living in a
market, where one dresses on the door-step and sleeps in the cellar.
They could have no privacy, hardly a moment seclusion. In fact, it was
almost a physical impossibility ever to be alone. The three impressed
Americans dined at a vast _table d'h?te_, slept in commons and made
their toilet when and where they could. Their clothes were stowed in a
large canvas bag, painted black, which they could get out of the "rack"
only once in twenty-four hours, and then during a time of utmost
confusion, among three hundred and fifty other sailors, each diving into
his bag, in the midst of the twilight of the berth-deck.
Terrence, in order to obviate in a measure this inconvenience, suggested
that they divide their wardrobes between their hammocks and their bags,
stowing their few frocks and trowsers in the former, so that they could
change at night when the hammocks were piped down.
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