One of the oldest, truest, and most often quoted of all sea-sayings is that “God sends meat, but the devil sends cooks.” The first part of this saw is really a concession on the sailor’s part, for few of them truly believe that the Deity has much to do with the strange stuff usually served out as meat on board ship. The latter half of the proverb is taken for granted, and while admitting to the full the thanklessness of the task of endeavouring to dish up tasteful meals with such unpromising materials as are usually given to sea-cooks to work upon, it certainly does seem truer than the majority of such sayings are apt to be.  
But in justice even to sea-cooks let it be said that they have but a hard life of it. Cooking is a hobby of my own, and I feel a positive delight in the preparation of an appetizing dinner, which culminates when those for whom it is dressed partake of it with manifest enjoyment. Between the calm, unhindered task of shore-cooking and the series of hair-breadth escapes from scalding, burning, or spoiling one’s produce that characterizes sea-cooking there is, however, a great gulf fixed, and with a full consciousness of the unromantic character of his trials, I must confess a deep sympathy with the sea-cook in his painful profession.298 Even in the well-ordered kitchens of a great liner, where every modern appliance known to the art is at hand, and where the chief cook is a highly paid professional, each recurring meal brings with it much anxiety, and, when the weather is bad, much painful work also. There is no allowance made. Whatever happens, passengers and crew must be fed, although the roasting joints may be playing “soccer” in the ovens, the stew-pans toboganning over the stove-tops, and the huge coppers leaping out of their glowing sockets. Let all who have ever gone down to the sea as passengers remember how faithfully the cooks have justified the confidence reposed in them, and how punctually the varied courses have appeared on the fiddle-hampered tables without even a hint as to the series of miracles that have produced them. Still, in large passenger steamers there is a fairly large staff of cooks, unto each of whom is given his allotted task, so that the labour, though severe, is not so complicated as it must necessarily be in vessels where one unfortunate man must needs be a host in himself. In sailing-ships on long voyages the cook’s berth is perhaps the worst on board, for he has to hear the continual growling of the men at the brutal monotony of the food (which he cannot help), and he must, if he would not be badgered to death, perform the difficult task of keeping on good terms with both ends and the middle of the ship. Under the blistering sun of the tropics, or amid the fearful buffeting of the Southern seas, he must perform his duties within a space about six feet square, of which his red-hot stove occupies299 nearly half. And, as a pleasant change, he is liable to have the weather door of his galley burst in by a tremendous sea, and himself in a devil’s dance of seething pots, and all the impedimenta of his business hurled out to leeward.
 
Necessarily such a service does not appeal strongly to many, and often in English vessels of small size prowling about the world begging for freight, some very queer fellows are met with filling the unenviable post of cook. In the course of a good many years of sea-service I have met with several cooks, each of whom deserves a whole chapter to deal comprehensively with his peculiarities, but chief among them all must be placed the exceedingly funny fellow designated at the beginning of this sketch. The Wanderer was a pretty brigantine of about 200 tons register, built and owned in Nova Scotia, and at the time of my joining her as an A.B. was lying in the Millwall Docks outward bound to Sydney, Cape Breton, in ballast. She had quite a happy family of a crew, while the skipper was as jolly a Canadian as it was ever my good fortune to meet with. We left the docks in tow of one of the little “jackal” tugs that scoot up and down the Thames like terriers after rats, but, owing to the vessel’s small size and wonderful handiness, we dispensed with our auxiliary just below Gravesend, and worked down the river with our own sails. As soon as the watches were set all hands went to supper, or tea, as it would be called ashore, and going to the snug little galley with my hook-pot for my modicum of hot tea, I made the acquaintance of the cook. He was a300 young fellow of about two and twenty, able-looking enough, but now evidently ill at ease. And when, with trembling hand, he baled my tea out of a grimy saucepan with another saucepan lid, I regarded him with some curiosity, fancying that he had the air of a man to whom his surroundings were the most unfamiliar possible. Supper consisted of some cold fresh meat and “hard tack,” so that any deficiency in the cookery was not manifest beyond a decidedly foreign flavour in the tea, making it unlike any beverage ever sampled by any of us before. But we were a good-natured crowd, willing to make every allowance for a first performance, and aware that the “Doctor,” as the cook is always called at sea, had only joined on the previous day. Nevertheless, we discussed him in some detail, arriving at the conclusion that by all appearances he would be found unable to boil salt water without burning it, which, according to the sea phrase, marks the nadir of culinary incompetence.
 
Next morning it was my “gravy-eye” wheel, the “trick” that is, from four to six a.m. The cook is always called at four a.m. in order to prepare some hot coffee by two bells, five a.m., and, as may be expected, the comforting, awakening drink is eagerly looked forward to, although it usually bears but a faint resemblance to the fragrant infusion known by the same name ashore. Two bells struck, and presently, to my astonishment, sounds of woe arose forward, mingled with many angry words. I listened eagerly for some explanation of this sudden breach of the peace, but could catch no connected sentence.301 Presently one of my watchmates came aft to relieve me, as the custom is, to get my coffee, and I eagerly questioned him as to the nature of the disturbance. With a sphinx-like air he took the spokes and muttered, “You’ll soon see.” I hastened forward, got my pannikin, and going to the galley held it out for my coffee. The cook had no light, but he silently poured me out my portion, and wondering at his strange air I returned to the fo’c’sle.............