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Updated: June 5, 2025
But while in the ordinary merchantman there are decidedly "no more cats than can catch mice," hardly, indeed, sufficient for all the mousing that should be done, in men-of-war and whaleships the number of hands carried, being far more than are wanted for everyday work, must needs be kept at unnecessary duties in order that they may not grow lazy and discontented.
Fifty years ago, when the white cotton canvas of the ships of the American whaling fleet dotted the blue of the Pacific from the west coast of South America to the bleak and snow-clad shores of the Siberian coast, these lonely islands were perhaps better known than they are now, for then, when the smoky flames of the whaleships' try works lit up the night-darkened expanse of the ocean, and the crackling of the furnace fires and the bubble of the boiling oil made the hardy whalemen's hearts grow merry, many a white man, lured by the gentle nature and amiable character of the Ellice Islanders, had built his house of thatch under the shadow of the rustling palms, and dwelt there in peace and happiness and overflowing plenty.
And Ponapé is a great land to such a man as me." "Etonu! Etonu! I know it. Thrice have I been there when I sailed in the whaleships. A great land truly, like the island called Juan Fernandez, of which I have told thee, with high mountains green to the summits with trees, and deep, dark valleys wherein the sound of the sea is never heard but when the surf beats hard upon the reef.
Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could I being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time."
'We have seen many whaleships in our harbors, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are they? "'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You must have heard of it. "'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North. "'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup.
Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.
Terrible scenes were enacted about its "blackguard beach," orgies of wild debauchery and bloodshed indulged in by the half-savage and utterly lawless crews of the whaleships. But it never attained to any real importance. As a port of call for whalers, it enjoyed a certain kind of prosperity; but when the South Sea fishery dwindled, Russell shrank in immediate sympathy.
I knew that if my husband had escaped the murderous designs of Rawlings and his fellow criminals that he would return to Arrecifos, and to Arrecifos I determined to go, even if only to die. Whaleships, so my rescuer told me, frequently called at Ocean and Pleasant Islands on their way to the North-West Carolines and Japan, and I decided to remain on the lonely little spot and wait for one.
Even a non-seafaring man would have thought that there was a lack of discipline displayed, but Frewen, whose life had been spent on whaleships where the slightest liberty on the part of foc'sle hands towards the after-guard meets with swift and stern punishment, felt as if he would have liked to have kicked them all in turn, and then collectively.
In former times Nantucket numbered as many whaleships belonging to her port, as did any town on our seaboard. Indeed, she was built up from the produce of the ocean, and carried the palm for years as being first among the American whale fisheries; but her number has dwindled away, till not one-fourth of those homeward-bound ships are destined for the port of Nantucket.
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