XIII 



LIFE ON BOARD AND OFF 



IF YOU wonder what life on board whaling vessels of those 

 days was like, the old log books will give you many hints. 

 True, it is a rare log book that deviates from the brief stereo- 

 typed account of the weather, bearings, the vessel's course, and 

 the employment of the crew, but there are occasional entries 

 that speak volumes. They give few indications of the lucrative 

 side of whaling — the side where sat the men who bought and sold 

 vessels, who paid for the outfits and turned cargoes of oil into 

 money, who accumulated great fortunes and built handsome 

 houses and lived as became the merchant princes they were. 

 Rather, the fragments of life in the log books are from the lines 

 of the ''scorned and rejected" who sweated at their oars and 

 handled iron and lance. 



From the log of the ship Winslow, 1830, I quote the follow- 

 ing entry for December 25th: ''These 24 hours commences 

 with a heavy gale from W. S. W. furled fore & mizzen top 

 sail & main sail middle & latter part the same with light rain 

 this is Christmas day & sl hard one it is to instead of feast- 

 ing on geese & turkeys we must be content with salt junk & 

 flower duff & but little or no prospect of getting round Cape 

 Horn." 



Life in the old whalers had, indeed, its minor annoyances. 

 When the mate of the ship Abigail, which sailed for the whaling 

 grounds in 1835, found occasion to remark in the official log 

 "there is plenty rats on board, cockroaches and bedbugs A 

 plenty," we can rest assured that the pests were peculiarly 

 abundant and trying. There is a suggestion of rough humour, 

 too, such as it is, in another log book which reports that on 

 March 13, 1842, all hands were "in the cabin breaking out for 



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