Four years aboard the whaleship. Embracing cruises in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Antarctic oceans, in the years 1855, '6, '7, '8, '9

Front matter

FOUR YEARS

ABOARD THE

WHALESHIP.

Preface

Havine been one of the crew of an American whaleship, I cruised on the ocean for the four years of my life that have just elapsed. During this long period it frequently occurred to me, and excited my wonder, how little knowledge of the whaling-service in its practical features was possessed by the people ashore, excepting a small portion of those residing in cities whose maritime trade is represented almost exclusively by whaleships.

My convictions as to the utility of an exposition of one’s daily experience in this service — of the good, bad, and indifferent fortune, as well as the perils of a pursuit which engages so many of our American youth —were so forcible, that ( vii )

vill PREFACE.

I was led, at the moment of embarking on my voyage, to keep a log-book or journal, in which, at the expiration of each nautical day, I noted the different employments of the crew, manner of sailing the vessel, incidents arising in the capturing of whales, general personal treatment, amount and quality of provisions, and the phases of the weather in different latitudes.

Thus a description of life at sea alone came within my original intention; but as I progressed, and became more interested in my self-imposed task, (which, by the way, enabled me to occupy pleasantly what would otherwise have been weary and unprofitable hours,) it seemed to me, that my journal would not be complete, unless I should also describe the seaman’s bearing when ashore, at liberty, and unrestrained by discipline; and, as such a description involved adventures in various localities of the globe, I at first was unconsciously betrayed into a still farther enlargement of my task: namely, to incorporate the most striking (or, rather, those in which I was most interested) features and characteristics of the countries and people we visited.

PREFACE. 1X

My object, however, was merely to complete a narrative which might be read to my relatives and friends, in the family circle, by the homestead fireside: fancying, indeed, that it would really interest and amuse those, whose knowledge of such incidents in a whaleman’s cruise, both on the sea and land, was limited.

Publishing a book was not, therefore, within the object aimed at; but through the advice of many kind (possibly, too partial) friends, I have been induced to submit the manuscript to my generous and enterprising publishers, who, despite its imperfections, have determined to present it to the public.

Such being the ground upon which I have now come forward as an author, I trust that due allowance will be made for the literary imperfections of my book, when I further state, that the entire matter comprised in my journal was written at sea, on a sailor’s chest, amongst seamen, by night and by day, amid storm and calm, in localities situate between the latitudes 41° 30’ north and 45° south, and longitudes 71° west and x PREFACE.

170° east—embracing a wide field for observation : and comprehends bird’s eye views in Australia, New Zealand, and other British possessions in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans, also in the Malay, Mascarenha, Azore, and Abrolhas’ islands.

Throughout the recital, I have confined myself entirely to facts, without drawing on my imagination for coloring; but I have been forced, from a fear of being too voluminous in this, my first effort, to omit much that came under my observation during the voyage, which at some future period I may find time to lay before the public.

Before taking leave of the subject, I would, if it were in my power, press upon the notice of the Federal government the necessity of cherishing and encouraging this important branch of our commerce.

If good seamen are to be formed anywhere, it is in the whaling-service of this country. Here it is, on a three or four years’ voyage, that a

PREFACE, xi man becomes acquainted with the minutise of a. seaman’s duty; and from the great proportion of the time spent at sea in vessels cruising for whales, the crew become perfectly familiar with, and wholly at home upon, the sea.

The class of men, too, who sail from home in our whaling-vessels, being generally well-informed men, and having home-connections, understand and appreciate our free institutions; but it is too often the case that, in the absence of any special inducement to remain true to their engagement, a large proportion of the original crew desert from the vessel. To obviate this, the government should attach a bounty to the earnings of every sailor who remains in this service, in the same vessel, for three years or more; and by this means foster a class of citizens accustomed to danger and emergencies, not only in their everyday occupation of battling with the elements, but by their familiarization with peril in their conflicts with the Leviathen of the deep— citizens, who would at all times be prepared to take charge of our Navy, and defend the nation’s honor and privileges against the world!

xl PREFACE.

With these brief prefatory observations, I respectfully throw myself upon the generosity of » the reading community, and plead my novitiate in the world of letters to secure me from too rigid a criticism.

WILLIAM B. WHITECAR, Jr.

PHILADELPHIA, July 26th, 1859.

FOUR YEARS

ABOARD THE

WHALESHIP.

CHAP Pm ret:

In June, 1855, having decided upon embarking on a whaling voyage, I took the steamboat from Philadelphia to Tacony, thence by railway to New York, where, after a delay of a few hours, I boarded the steamer Metropolis, and after a fine run of twelve hours, landed in Fall River; there I entered the cars, and at five o’clock of the morning of June 20, I took up my quarters in the city of New Bedford.

I immediately instituted inquiries as to the preliminaries attendant on the preparation for such a voyage. Isoon acquired this information, and was consigned to the tender mercies of one of that class known by seafaring men as Land-sharks, a description of whom I shall attempt hereafter.

This person treated me with much urbanity, desiring me to leave my hotel to reside at a boarding-house of his selection, stating to me at the same time that numbers of whalemen, outward and homeward bound, were located there. My suspicions were slightly

2 (18 )

14 BOARDING-HOUSE.

aroused regarding the accommodations of this boarding-house, by the earnestness with which he urged my locating in it; but no other inducement was requisite for me to coincide with his wishes than the one he last named; I being desirous, before going afloat, to mingle and converse with the initiated, to learn, if possible, something concerning the profession in which I was about to embark. So, without more ado, I proceeded to this domicile, which was located on South Water Street. It was kept by a - widow lady, who, for the moderate sum of four dollars per week, for each, furnished just such edibles as you do not get at the Girard, in Philadelphia, or the Metropolitan, in New York. The meat was, in nine cases out of ten, salted; she wishing, in the abundance of her forethought, to render the salt junk, which she knew would form the principal article of our diet when at sea, agreeable to our palates; or, on the other hand, desiring to give us a predisposition to scurvy ere yet we were aboard ship. These motives were variously assigned by we tyros as the cause for the over-proportion of the saline in our food ; as for those who had been at sea before, they appeared to relish the old lady’s corned pork and beef, and if we made any remark to them in reference to its profusion, they would answer us pertinently, “You will eat werse grub than that, old fellow, before you have done with whaling;” and these prophetic words ofttimes recurred to my memory months, ay, years, afterward. Do not think, kind reader, that I was rendered fastidious by former indulgence ; far from it. I had made up my mind to a change of diet, but not to so great a one; for in the

LAND-SHARKS — OUR BARQUE. 16 four weeks that I remained in this house, we never had but one meal of fresh meat —it was fried beefsteak; and even that the cook and a supernumerary, who had been engaged to assist him, with the aid of a jug of New England rum, managed to burn to a cinder, so that we were compelled to resort to our old provender.

As soon as my companion and myself had become members of this household, we, with our assiduous friend the Shark, proceeded to the agent’s, with whom he wished us to engage, and after being approved by the Captain, and having made inquiries as to the character of the vessel and her commander, we enrolled our names upon the articles of the Barque Pacific, of New Bedford, Captain John W. Sherman, bound to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, to cruise for sperm and right whales. The vessel was of three hundred and eighty tons burthen, capable of carrying three thousand barrels of oil, and fitted out for forty months; she was then undergoing thorough repairs, having but two months previously returned from a voyage of thirty months’ duration, in which she had _ been very successful; and this, with several previous very remunerative voyages, had given her the name of a lucky ship, which insured her a good crew; seamen, as a class, being superstitious, are always eager to sail in a ship with which some favorable omen is, or has been, connected, auguring from such data her subsequent success.

As she would not be ready for sea for about three weeks after I had joined her, I had plenty of leisure time to look around me. The principal objects in my eyes were, of course, the

16 THE WHARVES.

wharves and shipping; and, indeed, the scene there presented was one of interest to any observer; bustle and activity was everywhere apparent; ships loading, discharging, repairing, &c., in every direction. Here one might be seen hove on her beam-ends, receiving a new copper jacket; another totally dismantled, preparatory to receiving new spars; on ‘another the riggers were aloft at work, with their merry song; below, still another might be seen weather-beaten and shabby, her copper covered with moss and barnacles, she having returned but a few hours before from a long voyage, and the casks being hoisted from her hold contain part of her cargo of oil, gleaned, during her four years of cruising, from the monsters of the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic Oceans. Alongside this weatherworn ship, and in strong contrast with her whole appearance, lies a smart, trim-looking vessel, such a one as makes Jack Tar’s heart bound to look at; her hull is perfect in model, her spars all rake jauntily aft, her yards are squared by the lifts and braces, whilst the fresh appearance of her paint gives her a coquettish look and bespeaks her ready for sea.» They are now putting aboard of her the remnant of her provisions not yet stowed; and as we pass up the gangway we come in contact with a sailor’s chest being conveyed aboard under the Argus eyes of its hardy owner, who forms one of her crew.

On the wharves hundreds of coopers are employed coopering oil casks. Their continual strokes of hammer upon driver, united with the heavy rolling of the oil trucks, creating a Babel-like confusion from which a stranger is glad to escape.

NEW BEDFORD. py!

Whichever way we cast an eye we see oil casks or whalebone, harpoons or lances, or some one or other of the various et ceteras belonging to the whaleman’s pursuit; in fact, the yield of the whale supports New Bedford, and is the nucleus around which clusters all the manufactures of the city; and its vitality as acommunity must ever depend upon the number of vessels it sends out in pursuit of the whale. » After gazing again and again at these objects, to me so interesting, I diverted myself by walking through the town, with no other object but to kill time—hours seeming days, and days months, that intervened between this time and the day fixed for our departure ; in fact, I had become so infatuated with the idea of going to sea, that I viewed everything through a glass whose tint was blue—blue water always dancing and rippling before my mind’s eye. In my perambulations through this city of whalemen I found that it was laid out with something like care—the streets, like those of Philadelphia, at right angles; many of the houses neat and well built, and, with the exception of a part of one street near the river, wear a quiet and respectable aspect. One street is an exception to the rule, it being occupied by houses of ill-fame, where many a dollar, earned by exposure to the storm on a long voyage, has been filched from the hardy mariner by the harpies who occupy its tenements; and after what I had always read and heard of the puritanical exactness of our New England brethren, I confess that I was astonished that such a sink was permitted by the citizens of the Bay State to remain in existence for the unsophisticated seaman to be entrapped by. A liquor law had been

a” B

18 GREEN HANDS.

passed by the legislature of the State of Massachusetts, and whilst I was in New Bedford was professedly in operation—but only professedly, as numbers of houses existed wherein liquor was sold, which, from their public location, must have been known to the authorities.

At my boarding-house, arrivals were continually soccurring of young men, from various parts of the Union, to embark on board whale-ships. I viewed with regret the extreme youth of many of them. There is a systematized mode of procedure carried on in our larger Atlantic and Lake cities, for the purpose of recruiting this service. Shipping agents engage young men, taking advantage of their inexperience or necessities, paint whaling and its appurtenances in vivid colors, induce them to sign their names, and then convey them to New Bedford; and when they come to review their outfit bills, they will find a charge of from ten to fourteen dollars for the agent’s services. Among the arrivals at our house was one from Western Pennsylvania, who talked sailor, walked sailor, and dressed sailor, rolling when he walked so as almost to take in a pocketful of sand on each side, and wore an immense kedge anchor on his neckerchief; he was looked at by the inexperienced as a prodigy, but by old sailors with a contemptuous expression, always accompanied by the remark, “Too much salt water there.” This individual was afterward the most miserable poltroon in our ship, and despite his vauntings of personal qualifications as a seaman, lashed himself with a yard arm gasket to the main topgallant rigging whilst engaged in furling the main topgallant sail. Such

WE GO ABOARD THE VESSEL. 19 is generally the case—men who talk loudly of their ability ashore are apt to be inefficient at sea.

And now, after remaining until wearied out, our ship is ready to sail to-morrow. As is customary on the day before sailing, each man proceeds to his outfitter and procures his clothing; the owners usually allow to the foremast hands an advance of seventy-five dollars, for which the foremast hand gives the outfitter an order, and receives his clothing. The Shark, or outfitter, charges double the price of good, for worthless articles, which must be taken at his prices, as thereis no redress. By the time the foremast hands’ board-bill and pocket-money are deducted from his advance, the wardrobe he is able to procure is slender and insufficient, so that in the course of a few months he will be compelled to resort to the slop-chest, where, if the ship has been successful, he will be eagerly welcomed —the more so, as the Captain is often interested in the profits of the slop-chest; if unsuccessful, and he has a liberal Captain, his necessities will be supplied; if, on the other hand, he should be parsimonious, scowling looks will be all the relief he gets, and he will be forced to beg from his shipmates, who will not allow him to suffer, although the prudent are cautious, as in a three years’ voyage every man must be careful of his effects, as they constitute his capital.

Having procured our outfits about three o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, July 25d, we went aboard, desiring to pass one night on the vessel before she sailed. Soon after we hauled out into the stream, and were towed by a steamboat down to Clarke’s Point, where we let go our larboard anchor. During

20 FIRST NIGHT ABOARD.

the afternoon others of the crew arrived, amongst them a fine-looking old tar who knew the ropes, and had a three gallon jug of New England rum stowed away in his chest, which, as soon as carried into the forecastle, he produced and passed around time after time, until all those who would imbibe were more than half seas over, making night hideous with their discordant clang. At noon the next day the Captain and others came aboard in the pilot boat. The sails were loosed, windlass manned, anchor hove up to the inspiriting chant. We are bound to the Western Ocean, and soon the old Pacific was aweigh and off to sea again, leaving the land of her flag far in the distance.

All was bustle and confusion aboard the ship, we having no less than fourteen green hands, and the few foremast hands who had before followed the sea were so overcome by the ardent that they were useless; so that the officers were obliged in almost every case to execute their own orders. We were blessed with a head wind, and were obliged to beat out of the bay, and, with the consequent hurry and excitement attendant on tacking ship, little leisure was left to us for reflection ; but as the sun sank low in the horizon, and the blue hills of the land of my birth, and love, and veneration—the home of me and mine—were gradually becoming more and more indistinct—as I looked around me on the expanse of water, extending on every side, I felt alone; and then, and not till then, did I feel the momentous character of what I had undertaken ; then I bethought me of the thousand little comforts of home, the many kindnesses I had received from relatives and

SEA-SICKNESS. pi friends, and I leaned my head on the bulwarks, and felt as if I knew what desolation and heart-sickness were for the first time. This state of affairs could not last long, so I rallied and attempted to look brave and careless; but the effort was vain, for if any person had taken the trouble to look at my lugubrious countenance, they could have seen, that under an attempted careless exterior I carried an aching breast ; but all hands were too fully occupied by their personal feelings to notice me, and so it passed unremarked.

Towards evening, that most annoying and distressing of all petty maladies —viz., sea-sickness, made its appearance amongst our green hands; having experienced it before, I escaped with but little annoyance ; not so with some other poor fellows, and amongst those I noticed the person I mentioned before, who claimed so intimate an acquaintance with the sea, utterly prostrated ; a few hours previous he was the blithest of the party, and was singing with great zest —

“A life on the ocean wave, And a home on the rolling deep.”

but now, alas! he was tuneless, and almost breathless : but I imagined that had he been able to sing, the burden of his lay would have been —

‘¢The sea, the sea, the horrid sea.”

This individual, from a circumstance which I have before alluded to, had received the appellation of Kedge Anchor, or Cage Anchor, or it was sometimes abbreviated to Cage; and as he will figure repeatedly

22 KEDGE ANCHOR.

as I proceed, I may as well at the outset give him the cognomen by which he was known during his stay aboard with us. His sickness, and ludicrous exclamations of “I wish I was on the steam-wagon again” (he had formerly been brakeman on the New York and Erie Railroad), and pathetic entreaties to be allowed to die in peace, when desired to do anything, excited the mirth of all, no sympathy being tendered to him except in one instance, when one of the seamen offered him a pint of salt water, assuring him it was a cordial; a mouthful was sufficient to undeceive him, he spat out the nauseating draught, and the queer expression he wore on his phiz, and no less queer entreaty to take the darned thing away, were so humorous as to shock his auditors into merriment, and secured him against farther molestation.

The reason that so many green hands are shipped in vessels engaged in this trade, is, that they are to be engaged for a trifling proportion of the vessel’s earnings, and the great difficulty of procuring those who have before been to sea, to go before the mast a second time; no man whomsoever, if he can make any pretensions to mediocrity, being obliged a second time to go before the mast; he is always qualified for the post of boat-steerer, and can attain it without any trouble; and those who are not disgusted with their first voyage and have a particle of energy or ambition in their composition, invariably do so; and from boatsteerer gradually ascend to be captains. Whaling is, in fact, a progressive service, and although the probation comprises the best part of a man’s life, yet the pinnacle of their fame is an

SETTING TIE WATCIES. 93 honorable one; and as the boys who are educated in New Bedford are brought up with the idea that to be a whaling skipper is the ne plus ultra of all stations in life, so they consider it as the acme of all their ambitious hopes.

At dusk the captain called the ship’s company aft, and addressed them to the effect, that we were all together bound on a long voyage, in all probability to last for years, and he considered it as necessary that we should at the outset fully understand each other. He then went on to say that all hands should receive a sufficient supply of such provision as was in the ship, so long as it was not wasted. He stated that none of the crew forward should be misused or imposed upon by the officers. He then told us, that if there were any rascals in the crew he should detect them; and concluded by stating that as long as we used him well, he should return the compliment, and vice versa. This was plane sailing, and all understood him. Immediately afterward the watches, chosen from the boatsteerers and crew by the chief mate and second mate, were set; the chief mate had the first choice; the second mate, who heads the captain’s watch, succeeded him: at the same time the boats’ crews were chosen by the officers, as before, the chief mate having the first choice, and so in succession according to rank, until the fourth mate had chosen. In many ships that carry four boats the captain heads his own; but most, like us, have a fourth mate, who supplies his place. But to return to setting the watches, which took place at seven o’clock, P. M.; the starboard, or captain’s watch, headed by the second, assisted by

24 THE VESSEL’S HISTORY.

the fourth mate, comprising half the foremast hands and two boatsteerers, had the first turn in. On being ushered into the steerage or forecastle, those who had been in the habit of having soft beds and comfortable bedding provided for them by the hands of affectionate mothers, although somewhat prepared for a difference, were surprised at their sleeping accommodations—rude boxes, or rather berths, built to the sides of the ship, about five feet long, and two and a half in width, furnished with a pair of blankets, a quilt, and a bed, which, according to the amount of attention paid to the outfit of the occupant, varied from a hair mattress in one case, to the common corn husk or straw tick. However, this was no time to soliloquize over past comforts, so all bundled in without ceremony; and in a short time, from the unusual exercise of the day, to judge from the nasal organism floating through the air, profound slumber reigned throughout the between-decks of the ship. And now, that one half the ship’s company are enclosed in the embraces of Morpheus, we will glance round and take a peep at our vessel and crew. The vessel, as I before mentioned, is an old fashioned barque, built to ply as a packet between New York and Liverpool, which duty she performed with faithfulness and satisfaction to her owners; and in her palmiest days bore the reputation of being the fastest ship out of New York; but the improvements in shipbuilding necessitated her owners to dispose of an old and faithful servant, and replace her with a modern modelled craft—safer could not be. She was bought by a New Bedford merchant, who, after altering her for the purpose, put her into the whaling trade, where

HER OUTFIT. 35 for years she maintained her reputation as a swift sailer, until clippers were introduced to compete with her, when, of course, she was obliged to succumb. From this port she made many successful voyages, enriching her owners and increasing her good name, until 1855, at which time she was fifty-three years old, and with the exception of being new topped and coppered, the latter at the completion of each voyage, she had undergone no repairs. Her great age attests to her staunchness and seaworthiness, and_ by. all who had sailed in her the greatest confidence was ever expressed.

On board of her was every article for the maintenance of men whose principal resources for forty months lay in her cargo. There was, in the iron implement line, everything that is used at sea, from a needle to an anchor; clothing of all kinds and sizes; provisions, muskets, ammunition ; tawdry articles to trade with the semi-civilized natives of the East India and Madagascar Isles; tin ware, soap, shoes, tobacco, and saddles for the inhabitants of Australia ; also sails, rigging, spare boats, and all other necessaries to equip and enable her to sustain herself for three years. Whalers, unless some serious accident befalls, do not usually enter ports where their necessities can be supplied at other than exorbitant prices, except the last one, where they always calculate to dispose of surplus provisions, boats, and rigging: being in a hurry to get home, they make some port of note so as to be detained as short a time as possible in getting rid of them. The reason for touching at obscure places, is the great danger of losing men by desertion, which always occurs in commercial ports.

26 DESCRIPTION OF THE OFFICERS

Besides all these she carried outboard four boats pendant from dayits, resting on cranes; one on the starboard quarter, which gives it its name; one on the port quarter, called the larboard boat, is the chief mate’s; directly forward of it, on the larboard side, are the waist and bow boats—the former headed by the second, the latter by the third mate; the starboard boat is headed by the Captain or fourth mate, as the case may be. Each boat has a crew of four men, beside the boatsteerer and officer, and carries two tubs of line, harpoons, lances, boat spade, hatchet, knives, keg with water, keg containing lantern, matches, candles, tobacco, pipes, bread, and a drug. Having now pretty closely analyzed our vessel and her cargo, we will glance over the inmates. The Captain, a large, powerful man, with a face apparently expressive of frankness and good nature. The chief mate, J. B. H., a young man of twentysix, rather below the medium height, with an eye like a hawk, quick to think and quick to act—a first-rate officer. D. E., the second mate, a corpulent man, below the average height, with an excellent mind and noble heart. The third mate, J. D., formerly boatsteerer in this ship on her preceding voyage, and the fourth mate, C. A., both powerful, hearty fellows, energetic and pushing, putting their shoulders to the wheel on all occasions where strong hands and brave hearts are wanted; these, with the steward, inhabited the cabin or after part of the between decks of the ship. -All were Massachusetts men ; none of them had ever learned trades, or been employed in business ashore, but had pursued their perilous profession from boyhood up, in every ocean

AND OF THE CREW. QT and in every clime, from the frozen north to the frozen south, and, hitherto, had always been successful.

The boatsteerers were four in number, two of whom had before steered boats and made voyages in that position ; the remaining two had each sailed one voyage before the mast— one of them in this same good old barque, to the frozen realms of the Ice king, in the Arctic Ocean, whence the vessel returned, in the course of thirty months, with four thousand five hundred barrels of oil; these four, with the cooper, occupied the steerage, an apartment directly forward of the cabin.

The foremast hands, eighteen in number, of whom but four had ever been to sea before, were a youthful, reckless, merry set, from all over the Union. We had but two foreigners, Germans, in the ship — the cook, and one of the crew. Many of the youngsters were New Bedford boys, performing this voyage as apprentices. With the exception of the Captain and old Jack Miller, as hardy an old tar as ever stepped a ratline, and who could spin a yarn to order that would put Baron Munchausen to the blush, there was not a married man, or one who was over twentysix years of age aboard the ship. To attempt, with the exception of the Massachusetts men, to assign a reason for any of our shipmates’ choosing whaling as a profession, would be mere conjecture. Any one could see at a glance they were neither poverty-stricken norindolent; but on examining their features, a roving unsettled expression might be detected by a close observer, on the lineaments of each —a certain love of change, so all-absorbing with most young