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His delight is to place a black or coloured silk handkerchief lightly over his neck, and to confine its ends across his breast by means of one of the small bones or vertebræ of a shark, which forms a neat, white, perforated cylinder. Some very prime dandies of the mizen-top fold a part of their handkerchief over the shoulders and back; but it requires the aid of a handsome person, and a good deal of modest assurance, to make this tolerable.
They must also provide themselves with four pairs of duck trousers, a straw hat for fine weather, and a canvas or beaver one for squalls, though this need not be insisted on. Shoes are not much used, except by those whose work lies aloft; and prudent hands generally keep a blue jacket by them, in case of rain or night-work. It is not a bad rule to muster the crew occasionally with blue jackets, even in hot weather, to see that such things are really in existence.
HANDY STORAGE
As a seaman's kit generally forms his whole property, it ought to be carefully preserved…soeternally are they interfered with by some inconsiderate officers. "Pipe the bags up!" "Pipe the bags down!" "Stow the bags afresh!" "Pipe to scrub the bags!" and twenty such orders are given in a day in some ships…
INTO THE HOLD
I remember a captain…directing them [the crew] to roll up all their blue clothes, worsted stockings, and so on, in neat bundles, each having the name and number of the person it belonged to written on a wooden tally, and fastened to it. These being all collected, and packed carefully in well-dried, watertight casks, were stowed away in the hold…
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| Artifacts from the HMS St. George wreaked on the west coast of Jutland in December of 1811. Strandings Museum St George, Ulfborg Denmark. |
