88 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



all vessels could be expected. In cases of accident or of un- 

 usual delays the owners might remain in ignorance of the fate 

 of some of their whalers until February or March. And in 

 sperm whaling, with its longer and more irregular voyages, 

 there were even stronger probabilities of delay and of com- 

 plete loss. One faithful wife, for instance, wrote more than 

 a hundred letters to her husband during the course of a three- 

 years' voyage. But when they compared notes upon his re- 

 turn, it was found that he had actually received but six of the 

 hundred messages. The others had been lost in shipwrecks 

 or had traveled thousands of miles in vessels which never 

 chanced to cross his path. 



In the larger ports, however, there was a very different 

 type of homecoming. There the self-appointed reception 

 committees were made up of runners, outfitters, grog-dis- 

 pensers, boarding-house keepers, prostitutes, and other species 

 of landsharksj and the details of the welcome were in full ac- 

 cord with the character of the committee members. But 

 whether he was received by a community of friends and rela- 

 tives in a small town or by a group of landsharks in a larger 

 one, the stay of the whaleman in his home port was likely to 

 consist of a few bewildered weeks sandwiched in between two 

 extended voyages. 



To the whaleman the shore meant a holiday, a vacation, or 

 a debauch. In port, and only there, was he able to find free- 

 dom from the restrictions of discipline, release from dullness 

 and monotony, respite from hardship and danger, and deliver- 

 ance from vile food and abominable living quarters. The 

 stored-up yearnings and repressed desires of months gushed 

 forth in unrestrained exuberance, and the whole psychological 

 stage was set for an emotional explosion which was inevitable 

 unless the person in question was a confirmed stoic. Coming 

 to land presented the only opportunity for satisfying desires, 

 gratifying appetites, and indulging in a mad round of activities 

 which could be lived over in retrospect during many weary 

 months at sea. Discretion and caution were thrown to the 

 winds, and utter abandon became the order of the day. The 

 very recklessness of much shore behavior, ranging from stren- 

 uous and extravagant pleasures to hectic and degenerate dis- 



