Note 66 — Chapter XXIX · HOMEWARD BOUND.

In Preadamite times—that is to say, the times of Drake and Raleigh—this was the custom of the English service also; but it having been discovered that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” and that accidents and negligences were continually happening during the dog watch, a regular afternoon watch was established, and the dog watch reduced to four hours, and divided into two; so that the whole ship’s company could relieve one another systematically, and not, as before, by private arrangement; and that the whole could have two uninterrupted hours below, between four and eight in the evening, for their evening meal, or any other occupation. The whole afternoon watch was called the dog watch, because in the full light,—and Norwegian ships did not go to sea in the winter because they were frozen up,—the work was supposed to be so easy that the dogs were sufficient to keep it.