202 WHALING 



value in civilized ports attracted the covetous eyes of savage 

 potentates, they would strike such a bargain as Captain John 

 Potter of the barque Coral struck in 1870, and triumphantly 

 entered in his log, when he, "Sould to the king of Zongotobu 

 175 Pound of whale teeth for 50 a Pound." 



Sometimes whalers, if homeward bound or sailing directly 

 from one port to another, carried passengers. Leroy S. Lewis, 

 an oldtime master whaleman who once had occasion himself to 

 take passage home in the Arnolda, Captain James Crowell, 

 master, gives a first-hand picture of such a vessel in the first 

 entry of his own journal of the voyage. " Sailed for Talcahuano 

 with a light and pleasant breeze from the S.S.E. . . . We 

 have on board a number of Passengers. Mr. Proctor, wife and 

 seven children from the age of sixteen down to seven. Also 

 Mrs. Gibbs and son. But they are a sick family about this 

 time and are likely to remain so for the present, and I suppose 

 J. C. is glad on one account and that is they do not eat anything. 

 Poor boys thay are laying in there births and I should judge by 

 ther looks that they did not care wheather schoal kept or not." 

 The Arnolda, unhappily, was not the best of ships in which to 

 sail, as Mr. Lewis — he had not then, I believe, become captain — 

 plainly indicates when they were some two months on their way 

 and his accumulating indignation found its way into his journal. 

 " The honorable Captain J. A. Crowell is seriously affected with 

 one of his ugly spels. I had much rather hear it thunder. He 

 is the meanest man that I ever see. I would not sail a Voyage 

 with him for all the Oil that she caught. It is a wonder to 

 me that she caught as much as he has. He personally does not 

 deserve any. A mean man and a mean disposition makes things 

 very pleasant on ship board." And two days after that: "J. 

 C. Today has been quite passable. I should think that he 

 might be comadating enough to the Ladies to get out water 

 that is fit to drink because that in the butt is not fit to drink. 

 But what can you expect from a hog but a grunt." 



In a log book in my own small collection — the log of the whal- 

 ing barque Draco, homeward bound to New Bedford — there is 

 the brief, grim story of another little group of passengers, a 



