"Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the half-hours are struck, is tolled for the funeral, and all who choose to be present, assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the mainmast, while the forepart of the quarter-deck is occupied by the officers. In some shipsand it ought perhaps to be so in allit is made imperative on the officers and crew to attend the ceremony. If such attendance be a proper mark of respect to a professional brotheras it surely isit ought to be enforced, and not left to caprice. There may, indeed, be times of great fatigue, when it would harass men and officers, needlessly, to oblige them to come on deck for every funeral, and upon such occasions the watch on deck may be sufficient. Or, when some dire disease gets into a ship, and is cutting down her crew by its daily and nightly, or it maybe hourly ravages, and when, two or three times in a watch, the ceremony must be repeated, those only, whose turn it is to be on deck, need be assembled. In such fearful times, the funeral is generally made to follow close upon the death.
"While the people are repairing to the quarter-deck, in obedience to the summons of the bell, the grating on which the body is placed, being lifted from the main-deck by the messmates of the man who has died, is made to rest across the lee-gangway. The stanchions for the man-ropes of the side are unshipped, and an opening made at the after-end of the hammock netting, sufficiently large to allow a free passage. The body is still covered by the flag already mentioned, with the feet projecting a little over the gunwale, while the messmates of the deceased arrange themselves on each side. A rope, which is kept out of sight in these arrangements, is then made fast to the grating, for a purpose which will be seen presently. When all is ready, the chaplain, if there be one on board, or, if not, the captain, or any of the officers he may direct to officiate, appears on the quarter-deck and commences the beautiful service, which, though but too familiar to most ears, I have observed, never fails to rivet the attention even of the rudest and least reflecting. Of course, the bell has ceased to toll, and every one stands in silence and uncovered as the prayers are read. Sailors, with all their looseness of habits, are well disposed to be sincerely religious; and when they have fair play given them, they will always, I believe, be found to stand on as good vantage ground, in this respect, as their fellow-countrymen on shore. Be this as it may, there can be no more attentive, or apparently reverent auditory, than assembles on the deck of a ship of war, on the occasion of a shipmate's burial.
Virgil Æneid, lib. iii. v. 390. DRYDEN.