AT SEA: ON PASSAGE 115 



curse or a blow from one of the mates served as an irresistible 

 argument. 



And certainly no incentive less violent and menacing would 

 have succeeded. For few situations were less likely to en- 

 courage voluntary activity. The nauseated and enfeebled 

 condition of the sufferers, the coarse and poorly prepared food, 

 the ugly, cramped, and dreary living quarters, the terror of 

 contemplating the first trip into the dizzy heights of the rig- 

 ging of a rolling vessel — all these elements combined to pro- 

 duce an abject state in which any exertion seemed repellent 

 and impossible. The annals of whaling, like those of the mer- 

 chant marine, are filled with admittedly inadequate attempts to 

 depict the utter misery and hopeless dejection of the first forty- 

 eight hours on shipboard. 



The task of the officers, too, was no light or pleasant one. 

 Starting out with a crew whose members, with few exceptions, 

 were intoxicated, seasick, or inexperienced, they faced the ne- 

 cessity of creating and preserving a spirit of discipline, of 

 familiarizing the men with manifold duties, and of building up 

 a state of collective efficiency. Inebriety and seasickness soon 

 wore away J but the transformation of inexperience and callous 

 indiff^erence into effective labor was a long, slow process ac- 

 companied by the ruthless and often brutal enforcement of a 

 stern policy. 



The first official steps in this process were taken during the 

 dog-watches of the first day out, when the whole crew was 

 called aft to be divided into watches. The two watches were 

 headed usually by the first and second mates j and these of- 

 ficers made alternate choices until all the names on the crew 

 list had been drawn. If the boat-crews were to be organized 

 at the same time, the captain and each of the mates, in order 

 of rank, chose the hands who were to man their respective 

 whaleboats. Each of the three or four boats carried by the 

 average whaling vessel was manned by a crew of six, including 

 the officer in command. Theoretically these original assign- 

 ments to watches and boat-crews were to remain unchanged 

 throughout the entire voyage j but in actual practice transfers 

 and changes were often necessitated by desertion, illness, ac- 

 cident, and death. 



