Sailors and Mail

In Chapter 48, Melville describes the roles of the Purser, the Purser's Steward, and the Postmaster in a Man-of-war. Although there were as many as 500 men crammed onto one of these ships, it must have been a lonely existence to endure a three-year cruise. It was, after all, pretty much the SAME 500 men for all three years. So one can imagine the appeal of mail call, in this time before email, air mail, or shipboard radio or telegraph. Melville's example of the desparation of the sailer with no mail really brings it home:

Ex-officio, the Purser's Steward of most ships is a sort of Postmaster, and his office the Post-office. When the letter-bags for the squadron -- almost as large as those of the United States mail -- arrived on board the Neversink, it was the Purser's Steward that sat at his little window on the berth-deck and handed you your paper -- if anty there were to your address. Some disappointed applicants among the sailors would offer to buy the epistles of their more fortunate shipmates, while yet the seal was unbroken -- maintaining that the sole and confidential reading of a fond, long, domestic letter from any man's home, was far better than no letter at all.

Now that's lonely.