52 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



guese and mulattoes from the Azores and Cape Verde Is- 

 lands, Spaniards, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Dutchmen, Ger- 

 mans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Gay 

 Head Indians, negroes from the United States, Africa, and the 

 West Indies, Maoris from New Zealand, Kanakas from the 

 Sandwich Islands,^ natives from other South Sea Islands, and 

 half-breeds who represented the crossing of many different 

 stocks. The colorful, picturesque, and exotic character of the 

 crews resulting from this conglomerate mixture of races and 

 nationalities is presented nowhere so well as in Herman Mel- 

 ville's classic novel of whaling life, "Moby Dick." ^ 



The social and economic groups represented in the fore- 

 castles displayed the same extreme diversification. There 

 were adventurous youths from inland farms and workshops 

 who had been attracted by the mendacious advertising of the 

 shipping-masters, by love of the sea, or by the lure of foreign 

 travel; spoiled sons of indulgent parents who had run away 

 from home or who had been sent into whaling in an effort 

 to correct their indolent and spendthrift habits j reckless and 

 impatient persons who were temperamentally unfitted for the 

 conventional restraints imposed in a civilized community; and 

 roving adventurers who chose a whaling voyage as one means 

 of gratifying a dominating wanderlust. There were also im- 

 moral and unprincipled wretches who wanted to get "off sound- 

 ings" in an attempt to elude the Ten Commandments. These 

 included confirmed drunkards, vagrant ne'er-do-wells, unap- 

 prehended criminals, escaped convicts, and dissipated and dis- 

 eased human derelicts of every description. And finally there 

 were alert, intelligent lads from prosperous whaling families 

 who were being initiated into the traditions of the industry 

 and who expected to carry on the family fortunes; capable and 

 self-respecting seamen who felt a real pride in their calling 



* This term Kanaka seems to have been applied originally to natives of the 

 Sandwich Islands, now more commonly known as the Hawaiian Islands; but 

 gradually it came to be used more loosely in referring to any South Sea 

 Islander. 



^Melville actually made a voyage as a foremast hand on a sperm whaler; 

 and consequently this volume, while properly classed as fiction, contains many 

 descriptions of whaling life which are amongst the best, as they certainly are 

 the most readable, which we possess. 



