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Updated: June 7, 2025
The Diana's crew a set of worthless outcasts who had been picked up at the islands from the refuse of whale-ships were all as drunk as beasts, and had a set-to on the beach with their captain, who was in no better state than themselves.
The news of the presence of "signs" sent a thrill of joy through the hunters of the olden time only equalled on board of whale-ships when the man at the lookout cries "there she blows". It rarely happens that this cunning, amphibious animal can be seen moving free, either on the river banks, or in the water; for nature has given him no powerful weapons with which to defend himself when surprised and attacked; but, what is better, she has endowed him with exceedingly sensitive eyesight and hearing, which enables him to detect the approach of danger in time to escape.
It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland seas.
By dusk we had finished, and I was just dressing to go to supper aboard one of the American whale-ships which were lying near us, when the trade wind, which had been lusty enough all day, suddenly fell a very dangerous sign at that season of the year.
But more gold hunters poured in over the passes to the south, more voyageurs and fur traders forced a way through the Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled up from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale-ships to the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly fashion.
"I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask, "that some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap, his watch he's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season?
To their joy the brown-skinned natives of Tawere behaved very kindly to them, for several whale-ships, and, later on, the missionaries of the London Missionary Society's ship, had visited their island, and the people were well-disposed to white men.
There was so little room, and the eddying flows of wind under the high land were so baffling, that at various times during our passage in it appeared as if nothing could prevent us from getting stuck upon some of the adjacent hungry-looking coral reefs. Nothing of the kind happened, however, and we came comfortably to an anchor near three other whale-ships which were already there.
Nevertheless, it could not be denied that their sole means of communication with the outer world, as well as market for their goods, the calling whale-ships, were getting fewer and fewer every year; so that their outlook was not, it must be confessed, particularly bright. But their wants are few, beyond such as they can themselves supply.
Once inside the bay, a vessel was sheltered from all winds, the land being high and the entrance intricate. The water was smooth as a mill-pond, though the leaden masses of cloud flying overhead and the muffled roar of the gale told eloquently of the unpleasant state affairs prevailing outside. Two whale-ships lay here the TAMERLANE, of New Bedford, and the CHANCE, of Bluff Harbour.
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