68 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



sinking into the lethargic and degenerate life of a "beach- 

 comber," with a native wife and native drink as the only 

 solaces. 



In spite of its desperate character, however, desertion was 

 often the readiest means of escape. For other probabilities 

 included only death and discharge. Death came, on the aver- 

 age, to one member of a crew during the course of each long 

 whaling voyage j and it came in a variety of forms. As the 

 result of illness or disease, due to exposure, hardship, and 

 privation J after weeks of thirst and starvation in an open 

 boatj in the midst of battle with wind, wave, or an "ugly" 

 whale J or in the wake of a foul line, a stove boat, or a razor- 

 edged cutting-spade, — in some guise death visited each crew, 

 on the average, at least once. 



Discharges, although wholly within human control, were by 

 no means easy to secure. The difficulties of hiring new hands, 

 together with the statutory requirement of advance wages with 

 each discharge, were enough to insure that. A man suffering 

 from chronic illness or permanent incapacity might expect to 

 be honorably released. At rare intervals a consul might be 

 induced to listen favorably to a recital of grievances and to 

 order the discharge of certain seamen. And at times the 

 financial or disciplinary strategy of a cruise might cause a 

 master to dismiss certain hands, particularly in the case of 

 the "seasoners" who were shipped for relatively short-run 

 periods. But aside from these factors, the whaling hands 

 found distressingly few reasons which appealed to the cap- 

 tains as constituting adequate grounds for discharge. 



As month after month of privation, abuse, and monotony 

 wore away, the most spirited and the most sensitive members 

 of a crew gradually came to feel that nothing could be worse 

 than life on a whaler. Youth, vitality, and the instinct of 

 self-preservation prevented them from actively courting death 

 as a method of escape 5 and consequently they wooed discharge 

 or desertion with a desperate ardor. And since, upon the 

 whole, the inflexible will of the captain was even more diffi- 

 cult to attack than the obstacles of their environment, deser- 

 tion came more and more into favor. It is safe to say that 

 the heyday of the whaling industry witnessed scarcely a single 



