ii6 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



When these preliminaries had been arranged, the captain 

 made a brief speech in which he attempted to strike the key- 

 note of the voyage, especially in the relationship between officers 

 and men. The subject-matter of these talks was rather stereo- 

 typed, though the manner of presentation varied with the ec- 

 centricities of the individual captains. There was often an 

 explosive effort to impress or to intimidate the crew through so- 

 phisticated bravado. The following example, together with 

 a colorful description of the attendant circumstances, was set 

 down by J. Ross Browne, who had been a stenographic re- 

 porter in the United States Senate before starting out upon his 

 whaling voyage.^ 



"The captain deliberately stalked the quarter-deck, exuhing in the 

 'pomp and circumstance' of his high and responsible position. Every 

 step he took bespoke the internal workings of a man swelling with 

 authority. . . . With his hands stuck in his breeches pockets, he 

 then approached the break of the quarter-deck, and, straddling out his 

 legs to guard against lee-lurches, asked if all hands were present. One 

 of the officers replied in the affirmative. 



"The scene was at once grotesque and impressive. Fourteen men, 

 comprising the whole crew, were huddled together in the waist, at 

 the starboard gangway. Of these four were Portuguese, two Irish, 

 and eight Americans; and certainly a more uncouth-looking set, in- 

 cluding my friend and myself, never met in one group. The Portu- 

 guese wore sennet hats with sugar-loaf crowns, striped bed-ticking 

 pantaloons patched with duck, blue shirts, and knives and belts. They 

 were all barefooted, and their hands and faces smeared with tar. 

 On their chins they wore black, matted beards, which had apparently 

 never been combed. The color of their skin was a dark, greenish- 

 brown, if the reader can imagine such a color, and was calculated to 

 create the impression that they never made use of soap and water. 

 The variety of dress in which the rest of the crew were habited was 

 fully as striking as that of the Portuguese. Some wore Scotch caps, 

 duck trowsers, red shirts, and big horse-leather boots; others, tarpaulin 

 hats, Guernsey frocks, tight-fitting cloth pantaloons, and red necker- 

 chiefs. Several were bareheaded and barefooted, having lost their 

 hats and shoes in the late gale. All the green hands, which included 

 most of the Americans and the two Irishmen, were still cadaverous 

 and ghastly after their sea-sickness, and not more than two had yet 

 entirely 'squared accounts with old Nep.' Altogether we were the 

 most extraordinary looking set of half-sailor nondescripts possible 



1 Browne, J. R., "Etchings of a Whaling Cruise," pp. 33 ff. 



