FORECASTLE AND CABIN 69 



long voyage during which desertion was not regarded with 

 longing by a goodly number of the foremast hands. So des- 

 perate and insistent was this desire that it was translated into 

 action by three out of every ten men, on the average, who were 

 shipped in a vessel's home port. 



The whalemen who contemplated desertion with such pas- 

 sionate intensity were actuated both by a pull and by a push. 

 The pull came from the real and fancied delights of life 

 ashore, especially when cruising in the South Pacific. To men 

 imprisoned for months on the drab and narrow decks of a 

 slow-moving whaleship, the languor and luxuriance of the 

 South Sea Islands made a powerful appeal. During the dog- 

 watches the older hands recounted yarn after yarn which 

 glorified the pleasures of those islands by a grotesque mingling 

 of fact and fancy. With imaginations thus stimulated, many 

 of the long night-watches were spent in discussing both licit 

 and illicit satisfactions and the means of attaining them. And 

 gradually yarns, discussions, and imagination merged into a 

 burning desire to get ashore, no matter what the conditions or 

 consequences. 



But an even stronger motive lay in the push. Life on board 

 the average whaler was hemmed in by physical limitations 

 which were often revolting and at times well-nigh intolerable. 

 The forecastle was small, ill-ventilated, dirty, and often filled 

 with vermin. The food was cheap, coarse, miserably pre- 

 pared, maddeningly monotonous, and at times spoiled and 

 indigestible. On passage there were interminable watches 

 filled with hard, dirty, and dangerous work 5 and on the whal- 

 ing grounds stretches of furious and exhausting exertion al- 

 ternated with periods of unutterable tedium and boredom. 

 Rigid discipline was intensified into brutal driving, cruel abuse, 

 and profane threats. The original outfit, provided at extor- 

 tionate prices, included articles of such poor quality that they 

 had to be replaced long before the end of the cruise; and the 

 consequent resort to the slop-chest involved the purchase of 

 more high-priced but low-quality goods. 



These conditions, together with the resultant labor turnover 

 and its waste and inefficiency, were due in part to what may 

 be called the labor policy of the industry. Whaling, it is true, 



