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For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.

"'The only earthly friend we had to look to, in our bereavement, was Captain Hartly; and he could only promise to assist me if I would enter the navy, or go on board a merchant-ship. My poor mother objected to this, and I remained at home another twelvemonth, and again mourned the loss of a dear relative.

We ventured to question Harry about the ship that would receive us; and he said she was a French merchant-ship, and the captain a great friend of his, a good Protestant, who was willing to take on board any company he should bring. 'I hoped, said I, 'it might have been the Good Hope.

The second was a frigate called the Belle. The king made a present of this vessel to La Salle. He had furnished it with a very complete outfit, and with an armament of six guns. The third, called the Aimable, was a merchant-ship of about three hundred tons. It was heavily laden with all those implements and goods which it was deemed would be most useful in the establishment of a colony.

For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this and rightly ascribed it to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked.

Then Hermas proceeded to the little harbor, to bargain with the fishermen of the place for the boat which he needed While he was talking with an old Amalekite boatman, who, with his black-eyed sons, was arranging his nets, two riders came at a quick pace towards the bay in which a large merchant-ship lay at anchor, surrounded by little barks. The fisherman pointed to it.

It has absolutely no right to sink the merchant-ship without warning and without making efficient provision for the safety of the passengers and crew. That is the common law of civilized nations. To break it is to put one's self beyond the pale. Some Germanophile critics have faulted me for calling the Teutonic submarines "Potsdam pirates."

In trying to raft them ashore, or on board of some merchant-ship, they must have drifted off to sea. This we inferred from the ropes that length-wise united them, and which, from one point of view, made them resemble a long sea-serpent. They were struck into the gun-deck, where, the eager crowd being kept off by sentries, the cooper was called with his tools.

Once, at a very large evening party, I heard him arguing strenuously, and very triumphantly, against a veteran captain of a merchant-ship, who had circumnavigated the world with Cook, that the degrees of longitude were equal in length all over the world, be they more or less for he never descended to details and that the further south you sailed the hotter it grew, though the worthy old seaman pointed to what remained of his nose, the end of which had been nipped off by cold, and consequent mortification, in the anti-arctic regions.

Our own jib-boom was snapped off short, and as quickly as is a twig in frosty weather. Supposing the ship had struck, every soul rushed on deck. They thanked God it was only the drowning of some forty fellow-creatures, and the destruction of a fine merchant-ship. We hauled the single poor fellow that was saved on board. The consternation among the officers was very great.