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Davy was in the Sydney trade in the 'Elizabeth' until March, 1836; he then left her and joined the cutter 'Sarah Ann', under J. B. Mills, to go whaling at Port Fairy. In the month of May, Captain Mills was short of boats, and went to the Hopkins to look for the boat lost by Smith. He took with him two boats with all their whaling gear, in case he should see a whale.
Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad. But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg.
It was an ideal whaling day smooth water, a brisk breeze, a brilliant sun, and plenty of whales. I was, as became my position, in the rear when we went into action, and hardly hoped for an opportunity of doing much but dance attendance upon my seniors. But fortune favoured me.
As soon as the sails were trimmed the skipper walked to the break of the poop, and, with the air of a captain of a seventy-four, gave the order, "Clear ship for action!" Then the mate ventured to remark that half of the guns were down below on the 'tween decks, where they had been put out of the way for the generally peaceful occupation of whaling. "Well, get 'm up.
A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet.
A party of six had run away from an American whaling vessel, and had landed a little to the southward in a boat, which was shortly afterwards knocked to pieces by the surf. They had now been wandering up and down the coast for fifteen months, without knowing which way to go, or where they were. What a singular piece of good fortune it was that this harbour was now discovered!
As Hendrik modelled and sewed, he told me a wondrous tale of the great North Polar Sea, where he had gone in a whaling vessel, and had stayed all winter among mountains of ice and snow. There his boots had worn out. So he had bought these skins from queer little people there, who live in snow huts, and instead of horses or oxen, use dogs to draw their sleds.
He had chattels, however, that were of some estimation among seamen; and Roswell Gardiner, or "Gar'ner," as he was called, the young seaman par excellence of the Point, one who had been not only a whaling, but who had also been a sealing, and who at that moment was on board the deacon's schooner, in the capacity of master, had been applied to for advice and assistance. By the agency of Mr.
Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from.
For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.
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