AT SEA: ON PASSAGE 141 



ending appeal j and there was a joyous contagion about the 

 boisterous songs, for which the leader produced both familiar 

 and extemporized verses and all hands roared out the choruses. 

 Practical jokes, displaying a broad, rollicking sense of humor, 

 often created great hilarity. From time to time, too, there 

 would be dancing or "skylarking" — the whaleman^s term for 

 good-natured, informal wrestling or sparring. But boxing 

 and card-playing were vigorously frowned upon by most 

 whaling captains. 



In more quiet moods, recreation included reading, writing, 

 drawing, scrimshawing, smoking, re-examining old letters or 

 other reminders of home and friends, and mending. The 

 veteran tar was adept in the use of a needle j and necessity 

 taught him to perform such prodigies of thrift in mending the 

 various articles of his wardrobe that he was often clad in gar- 

 ments made up of "patch upon patch, and a patch over all." 



But the two most picturesque forms of diversion, both pe- 

 culiar to whaling, were "scrimshawing" and "gamming." 

 A "scrimshawer" was one who carved and decorated by hand 

 numerous articles made from the teeth and jaw-bone of the 

 sperm whale. To most whalemen such slow, tedious work was 

 a welcome means of whiling away many spare hours of a three 

 or four years' voyage. Both utilitarian and ornamental ar- 

 ticles were produced in forms and quantities limited only by 

 the perseverance, skill, and ingenuity of the carvers j but cane- 

 handles, pie-wheels, chess-men, and miniature vessels were 

 among the most familiar products of these floating workshops. 



"Gamming," on the other hand, was as brief and infrequent 

 as "scrimshawing" was long and constant. When two friendly 

 whalers met at sea, the captain of one vessel, with a boat's 

 crew, went aboard the second whaler while his first mate re- 

 mained behind to entertain the mate and a boat's crew from 

 the other craft. Both parties, after weeks or months of soli- 

 tary cruising, were hungry for the news, gossip, and reading 

 matter of the other. Work was suspended and replaced by 

 singing, dancing, and yarn-spinning j "duflF" or some other 

 delicacy was added to the menuj and a general holiday spirit 

 pervaded both vessels. The resulting relief from weeks of 



