Chapter 68

A MAN-OF-WAR FOUNTAIN, AND OTHER THINGS.

Let us forget the scourge and the gangway a while, and jot down
in our memories a few little things pertaining to our man-of-war
world. I let nothing slip, however small; and feel myself
actuated by the same motive which has prompted many worthy old
chroniclers, to set down the merest trifles concerning things
that are destined to pass away entirely from the earth, and
which, if not preserved in the nick of time, must infallibly
perish from the memories of man. Who knows that this humble
narrative may not hereafter prove the history of an obsolete
barbarism? Who knows that, when men-of-war shall be no more,
"White-Jacket" may not be quoted to show to the people in the
Millennium what a man-of-war was? God hasten the time! Lo! ye
years, escort it hither, and bless our eyes ere we die.

There is no part of a frigate where you will see more going and
coming of strangers, and overhear more greetings and gossipings
of acquaintances, than in the immediate vicinity of the scuttle-
butt, just forward of the main-hatchway, on the gun-deck.

The scuttle-butt is a goodly, round, painted cask, standing on
end, and with its upper head removed, showing a narrow, circular
shelf within, where rest a number of tin cups for the accommodation
of drinkers. Central, within the scuttle-butt itself, stands an iron
pump, which, connecting with the immense water-tanks in the hold,
furnishes an unfailing supply of the much-admired Pale Ale, first
brewed in the brooks of the garden of Eden, and stamped with the
_brand_ of our old father Adam, who never knew what wine was. We
are indebted to the old vintner Noah for that. The scuttle-butt
is the only fountain in the ship; and here alone can you drink,
unless at your meals. Night and day an armed sentry paces before
it, bayonet in hand, to see that no water is taken away, except
according to law. I wonder that they station no sentries at the
port-holes, to see that no air is breathed, except according to
Navy regulations.

As five hundred men come to drink at this scuttle-butt; as it is
often surrounded by officers' servants drawing water for their
masters to wash; by the cooks of the range, who hither come to
fill their coffee-pots; and by the cooks of the ship's messes to
procure water for their _duffs_; the scuttle-butt may be
denominated the town-pump of the ship. And would that my fine
countryman, Hawthorne of Salem, had but served on board a man-of-
war in his time, that he might give us the reading of a "_rill_"
from the scuttle-butt.

* * * * *

As in all extensive establishments--abbeys, arsenals, colleges,
treasuries, metropolitan post-offices, and monasteries--there are