an assigned and well-known place, but that it should actually be kept in that place.  It is, indeed, quite wonderful how much may be done in the way of stowage by dint of good management.  In a well-regulated ship, there is not a bolt or a bar, nor any kind of tool belonging to the carpenter, nor a single rope great or small; canvas fine as duck, or coarse as No. 1, belonging to the boatswain; nor any description of warlike store in charge of the gunner, which cannot instantly be laid hold of, and conveyed in half-a-minute to any part of the ship, alow or aloft.

At length, when every square inch of the holds, tiers, sail-rooms, and all the cabins and berths below, have been examined, the visitation party return to the quarter-deck, after a full half-hour’s ramble.  As the captain re-ascends to the different decks in succession, the men, who have never budged from their divisions, again pluck off their hats, the marines carry arms the moment his head shows above the coamings, and all the officers stop instantaneously in the middle of their walk to salute their commander, as he once more treads the quarter-deck.

“And now, sir,” says the captain, turning to the first lieutenant, “if you please we will rig the church.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE SHIP CHURCH.

The carpenters and the watch on deck soon carry aft their benches and mess-stools; but these not being sufficient to afford accommodation for all hands, as many capstan-bars as may be required are likewise brought up and placed athwart the quarter-deck, with their ends resting on match-tubs and fire-buckets, or on the carronade-slides.  These seats occupy the whole of the space from the break of the quarter-deck and the belaying bits round the mainmast, as far as the companion-hatchway.  Chairs from the cabin and gun-room are also placed abaft all, for the captain and officers, and on the lee side for the warrant-officers and mids; for it need scarcely be mentioned that due subordination is made to keep its place even in our church.

The pulpit stands amidships, either on the after-gratings, or on the deck immediately before the hatchway.  In some ships, this part of the nautical church establishment consists of a moveable reading-desk, made expressly for the occasion, but brought up from the carpenter’s store-room only when wanted; sometimes one of the binnacles is used for this purpose; and I remember a ship in which the prayer-book was regularly laid on a sword-rack, or stand, holding six dozen naked cutlasses.  The desk is covered over with a signal-flag, as well as the hassock for the chaplain to kneel upon, which is usually a grape or canister shot-box, surmounted by a cheese of great-gun wads, to make it soft.

All this implies that the weather is fine, the awnings spread overhead, and the curtains stretched fore and aft, to keep out the heat and glare.  In rainy or blustering weather the church is rigged under the half-deck, much in the same way, except that the pulpit is placed between two of the guns, and generally on the larboard side, as nearly abreast of the quarter-deck ladder as may be.