194 WHALING 



him a rap on the head, "with a quiet admonition that it was 

 contrary to rules to turn the head to look, v/hen pulling on to a 

 whale." 



The boat-steerer missed the whale; the "school" — the word 

 is Whidden's — was gallied; the mate went into paroxysms of 

 fury and drove his men for an hour up to windward on the track 

 of the fast-fleeing whales. The captain "broke " the blundering 

 boat-steerer, when the boats returned to the ship, and sent him 

 forward, and the general ill temper that ensued made life on 

 board the Samuel Robertson 2l burden. 



When the ship touched at Papeete for water and a new fore- 

 topmast, Whidden ran away again, narrowly escaping the police 

 to whom the crafty Kanaka that helped him escape tried to be- 

 tray him for the reward; and thence, having still in mind the one 

 idea to reach California and the gold fields, by the long journey 

 home and out again if he could not succeed in going directly 

 thither, shipped on board a second whaler, the barque George 

 of Stonington, for the voyage home. 



On reaching Stonington, the captain and the agent tried hard 

 to persuade him to join the ship Betsy Williams, which was 

 fitting out at New Bedford for a three years' voyage in the 

 Pacific, but young Whidden had had enough of whaling, and the 

 gold rush of '49 was in full swing. He hastened, instead, to 

 Boston where he shipped in the barque Tiberias for San Fran- 

 cisco, for an advance of $13 and $2 a month. 



What could a whaling captain do, when boys, burning with 

 the fever for gold, were using the whaling vessels for their own 

 ends? Young Jack Whidden had the makings of as good a sailor 

 as a master could desire, and in his time he rose to be captain 

 and part owner of the handsome and able barque Keystone. 

 But he was out of one whaler and on board another as soon as 

 the whim seized him, and was quite too canny a youth to let 

 himself fall into the hands of those who were looking for him. 



Nor does the story of runaway whalemen and of whalemen 

 seduced from the first object of their voyage end the tale of the 

 blow that the gold rush of '49 struck at whaling. The hst of 



