ENEMIES 187 



nothing to eat except the shark and a few flying fish, when 

 they sighted a sail, which answered their signals of distress. 

 The strongest of them were so weak they could scarcely stand, 

 when the vessel, the barque Hanseat, of Hamburg, took them 

 on board and cared for them. 



Not long after, Captain Durfee of the Harriet, having cruised 

 for days in search of the boats, v/as on his way to Oahu, when 

 the Hanseat spoke him and put the lost officers and men on 

 board. 



The story of the boat lost from the Westport barque, Janet, 

 Captain Hosmer, shows what the Harriet's men were spared. 

 Captain Hosmer himself went in one of three boats lowered for 

 whales off the coast of Peru on June 23, 1849. A fresh breeze 

 was blowing, and all three boats having got fast to different 

 whales, they separated. Captain Hosmer had killed his whale 

 and was towing it back to the barque — the breeze had consider- 

 ably stiffened meanwhile — when the boat capsized, and boat- 

 keg, lantern, boat-bucket, compass, and paddles were lost. 



When the crew had righted the boat it lay full of water and 

 gunwale deep, so they lashed the oars across the thwarts to 

 keep her from again capsizing, and set a signal of distress. 



The other boats, at the time, were in plain sight and less than 

 two miles away. The captain and the boat's crew saw them 

 take their whales alongside the Janet and saw the barque bear 

 down upon them — to within a mile. 



Then she stood off on another course until nightfall. 



Hauling up in the lee of the whale, the captain's men found 

 it impossible to bail the boat. So they cut loose, water-logged 

 though they were, and set sail for the barque; and all night long, 

 from time to time, they caught glimpses of her lights. But 

 she had been some three miles away at sunset, and at dawn she 

 was still three miles away, and no signals they could make 

 attracted her attention. 



There was tragic irony in their situation. It was like one 

 of those nightmares in which the gasping victim runs till he 

 can run no more, yet remains always in the same place. They 



