{"id":"01KG8AMESJ6WGRMW2C2QKNMHF6","cid":"bafkreif7jqneyw77qwfm3io4nnukaviajow3d5xgytz5gzcyeihbvq27fa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2270,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":2199,"text":"\r\nCHAPTER XV.\r\nA SALT-JUNK CLUB IN A MAN-OF-WAR, WITH A NOTICE TO QUIT.\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was about the period of the Cologne-water excitement that my\r\nself-conceit was not a little wounded, and my sense of delicacy\r\naltogether shocked, by a polite hint received from the cook of the mess\r\nto which I happened to belong. To understand the matter, it is needful\r\nto enter into preliminaries.\r\n\r\nThe common seamen in a large frigate are divided into some thirty or\r\nforty messes, put down on the purser’s books as _Mess_ No. 1, _Mess_\r\nNo. 2, _Mess_ No. 3, etc. The members of each mess club, their rations\r\nof provisions, and breakfast, dine, and sup together in allotted\r\nintervals between the guns on the main-deck. In undeviating rotation,\r\nthe members of each mess (excepting the petty-officers) take their turn\r\nin performing the functions of cook and steward. And for the time\r\nbeing, all the affairs of the club are subject to their inspection and\r\ncontrol.\r\n\r\nIt is the cook’s business, also, to have an eye to the general\r\ninterests of his mess; to see that, when the aggregated allowances of\r\nbeef, bread, etc., are served out by one of the master’s mates, the\r\nmess over which he presides receives its full share, without stint or\r\nsubtraction. Upon the berth-deck he has a chest, in which to keep his\r\npots, pans, spoons, and small stores of sugar, molasses, tea, and\r\nflour.\r\n\r\nBut though entitled a cook, strictly speaking, the head of the mess is\r\nno cook at all; for the cooking for the crew is all done by a high and\r\nmighty functionary, officially called the “_ship’s cook_,” assisted by\r\nseveral deputies. In our frigate, this personage was a dignified\r\ncoloured gentleman, whom the men dubbed “_Old Coffee;_” and his\r\nassistants, negroes also, went by the poetical appellations of\r\n“_Sunshine_,” “_Rose-water_,” and “_May-day_.”\r\n\r\nNow the _ship’s cooking_ required very little science, though old\r\nCoffee often assured us that he had graduated at the New York Astor\r\nHouse, under the immediate eye of the celebrated Coleman and Stetson.\r\nAll he had to do was, in the first place, to keep bright and clean the\r\nthree huge coppers, or caldrons, in which many hundred pounds of beef\r\nwere daily boiled. To this end, Rose-water, Sunshine, and May-day every\r\nmorning sprang into their respective apartments, stripped to the waist,\r\nand well provided with bits of soap-stone and sand. By exercising these\r\nin a very vigorous manner, they threw themselves into a violent\r\nperspiration, and put a fine polish upon the interior of the coppers.\r\n\r\nSunshine was the bard of the trio; and while all three would be busily\r\nemployed clattering their soap-stones against the metal, he would\r\nexhilarate them with some remarkable St. Domingo melodies; one of which\r\nwas the following:\r\n\r\n     “Oh! I los’ my shoe in an old canoe,\r\n          Johnio! come Winum so!\r\n      Oh! I los’ my boot in a pilot-boat,\r\n          Johnio! come Winum so!\r\n      Den rub-a-dub de copper, oh!\r\n      Oh! copper rub-a-dub-a-oh!”\r\n\r\n\r\nWhen I listened to these jolly Africans, thus making gleeful their toil\r\nby their cheering songs, I could not help murmuring against that\r\nimmemorial rule of men-of-war, which forbids the sailors to sing out,\r\nas in merchant-vessels, when pulling ropes, or occupied at any other\r\nship’s duty. Your only music, at such times, is the shrill pipe of the\r\nboatswain’s mate, which is almost worse than no music at all. And if\r\nthe boatswain’s mate is not by, you must pull the ropes, like convicts,\r\nin profound silence; or else endeavour to impart unity to the exertions\r\nof all hands, by singing out mechanically, _one_, _two_, _three_, and\r\nthen pulling all together.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ3JZG0J0ZTJQ5TQ2KVE","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMESJRA3D73KG8DGZ7JJA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.682Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:43.939Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}