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I learnt that the Mississippi had but recently arrived from France, and that she had only been three weeks upon the ground she had taken up for the season's whaling. As yet no whales had been seen, and the season was said not to commence before the end of June or beginning of July.
The ship-owners and refiners of that whaling metropolis were slow to believe that their monopoly could ever be threatened by newer sources of illumination; but gas had become available in the cities, and coal-oil and petroleum were now added to the list of illuminating materials.
One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal.
There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling.
Vanquished Often, who had a vague notion of the greatness of her uncle's Menike friends, Teddy and Gotali, and of the desirability of an alliance with one of their tribe, approached me softly and rubbed my back in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of the whaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and the "Black Ball line."
We all went down into the cosy, well-furnished cabin, where refreshments were set before us by the steward, and where we talked for an hour about the news of the world, from whaling in the South Pacific to dog-driving in Arctic Asia, and from Weston's walk across the North American continent to Karakozef's attempt to assassinate the Tsar.
"She is going after luck, and will accept of it, in whatever form it may turn up." "She is rather small for the whaling business, though vessels of that size have done well, by keeping close in upon our own coast." "We shall know better what she will do after she has been tried," returned Gardiner, evasively. "What do you think of her for the Banks of Newfoundland?"
Some five years ago the writer formed one of the crew of a little steamer of fifty tons, named the Jenny Lind, which was sent out along the coast in the futile endeavour to revive the coast whaling industry. Through stress of weather we had frequently to make a dash for shelter, towing our one whale-boat, to one of the many tidal rivers on the coast between Sydney and Gabo Island.
But just then the renowned French explorer Captain Dumont d'Urville, unaware of Dillon's activities, had already set sail to search elsewhere for the site of the shipwreck. In essence, a whaling vessel had reported that some medals and a Cross of St. Louis had been found in the hands of savages in the Louisiade Islands and New Caledonia.
But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward.
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