CHAPTER XX.
HOW THEY SLEEP IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
No more of my luckless jacket for a while; let me speak of my hammock,and the tribulations I endured therefrom.
Give me plenty of room to swing it in; let me swing it between twodate-trees on an Arabian plain; or extend it diagonally from Moorishpillar to pillar, in the open marble Court of the Lions in Granada'sAlhambra: let me swing it on a high bluff of the Mississippi--one swingin the pure ether for every swing over the green grass; or let meoscillate in it beneath the cool dome of St. Peter's; or drop me in it,as in a balloon, from the zenith, with the whole firmament to rock andexpatiate in; and I would not exchange my coarse canvas hammock for thegrand state-bed, like a stately coach-and-four, in which they tuck in aking when he passes a night at Blenheim Castle.
When you have the requisite room, you always have "spreaders" in yourhammock; that is, two horizontal sticks, one at each end, which serveto keep the sides apart, and create a wide vacancy between, wherein youcan turn over and over--lay on this side or that; on your back, if youplease; stretch out your legs; in short, take your ease in yourhammock; for of all inns, your bed is the best.
But when, with five hundred other hammocks, yours is crowded and jammedon all sides, on a frigate berth-deck; the third from above, when"_spreaders_" are prohibited by an express edict from the Captain'scabin; and every man about you is jealously watchful of the rights andprivileges of his own proper hammock, as settled by law and usage;_then_ your hammock is your Bastile and canvas jug; into which, or outof which, it is very hard to get; and where sleep is but a mockery anda name.
Eighteen inches a man is all they allow you; eighteen inches in width;in _that_ you must swing. Dreadful! they give you more swing than thatat the gallows.
During warm nights in the Tropics, your hammock is as a stew-pan; whereyou stew and stew, till you can almost hear yourself hiss. Vain are allstratagems to widen your accommodations. Let them catch you insinuatingyour boots or other articles in the head of your hammock, by way of a"spreader." Near and far, the whole rank and file of the row to whichyou belong feel the encroachment in an instant, and are clamorous tillthe guilty one is found out, and his pallet brought back to itsbearings.
In platoons and squadrons, they all lie on a level; their hammock_clews_ crossing and recrossing in all directions, so as to present onevast field-bed, midway between the ceiling and the floor; which areabout five feet asunder.
One extremely warm night, during a calm, when it was so hot that only askeleton could keep cool (from the free current of air through itsbones), after being drenched in my own perspiration, I managed to wedgemyself out of my hammock; and with what little strength I had left,lowered myself gently to the deck. Let me see now, thought I, whethermy ingenuity cannot devise some method whereby I can have room tobreathe and sleep at the same time. I have it. I will lower my hammockunderneath all these others; and then--upon that separate andindependent level, at least--I shall have the whole berth-deck tomyself. Accordingly, I lowered away my pallet to the desiredpoint--about three inches from the floor--and crawled into it again.
But, alas! this arrangement made such a sweeping semi-circle of myhammock, that, while my head and feet were at par, the small of my backwas settling down indefinitely; I felt as if some gigantic archer hadhold of me for a bow.
But there was another plan left. I triced up my hammock with all mystrength, so as to bring it wholly _above_ the tiers of pallets aroundme. This done, by a last effort, I hoisted myself into it; but, alas!it was much worse than before. My luckless hammock was stiff andstraight as a board; and there I was--laid out in it, with my noseagainst the ceiling, like a dead man's against the lid of his coffin.
So at last I was fain to return to my old level, and moralise upon thefolly, in all arbitrary governments, of striving to get either _below_or _above_ those whom legislation has placed upon an equality withyourself.
Speaking of hammocks, recalls a circumstance that happened one night inthe Neversink. It was three or four times repeated, with various butnot fatal results.
The watch below was fast asleep on the berth-deck, where perfectsilence was reigning, when a sudden shock and a groan roused up allhands; and the hem of a pair of white trowsers vanished up one of theladders at the fore-hatchway.
We ran toward the groan, and found a man lying on the deck; one end ofhis hammock having given way, pitching his head close to threetwenty-four pound cannon shot, which must have been purposely placed inthat position. When it was discovered that this man had long beensuspected of being an _informer_ among the crew, little surprise andless pleasure were evinced at his narrow escape.