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We had a gam one day, on this voyage, with a Yankee whale-ship, and a first-rate gam it was, for, as the Yankee had gammed three days before with another English ship, we got a lot of news second-hand; and, as we had not seen a new face for many months, we felt towards those Yankees like brothers, and swallowed all they had to tell us like men starving for news.
The first thought I had was, that it might be a boat, with the crew of some wrecked vessel, or perhaps the boat of some whale-ship, out over night, and we had run it down in the darkness. Another scream! but less loud than the first. This started us, and we ran forward, and looked over the bows, and over the sides, to leeward, but nothing was to be seen or heard. What was to be done?
Both May and Trenfield always behaved well and soberly, and although they had been whale-ship sailors they were always very careful in their language when we were with them.
Sometimes this is of importance, as, when all the boats are away together in chase of whales, three or four men alone remain on board to take care of the ship. A whale-ship, therefore, though she has great care and expense bestowed on her, has not, in port, the graceful and elegant appearance possessed by some other ships, bound to more genial climes.
Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score of feet an hour. Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whale-ship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone.
The following story is certainly true; and while it shows how powerful a creature the whale is, it also shows what terrible risk and sufferings the whaleman has frequently to encounter. In the month of August 1819, the American whale-ship Essex sailed from Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean. She was commanded by Captain Pollard.
A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea.
It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.
The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries and more ago, the command of a whale-ship was not wholly lodged in the person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an officer called the Specksynder.
The captain of the whale-ship was very kind to us, and when he found that the sailor named Falaoa did not wish to part from us on account of Selema, whom he wished to marry, he gave his consent, and said he would land us all here at Nufilole, where there was a white man who would be kind to us.
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