XIV 



A BOY WHO WENT WHALING 



HE WANTED adventure and, by the gods he got it. He 

 went in an old whaler down to the stormy waters of the 

 Horn. From a stove boat, he jumped literally out of a whale's 

 mouth. He hunted for treasure buried by pirates on an island 

 whither, to this very day, men resort on the same errand. 

 He escaped with his life from a band of armed men who nearly 

 trapped him, when as a runaway sailor, he lay concealed in a 

 hut high in the Peruvian Andes. He saw the death of the 

 great lone whale of Paita. By an odd turn of his whaling 

 voyage, he became, first, a clerk at a South American port, then 

 a consul; and when he resigned his office and embarked for 

 home, he carried with him a fortune in gold. 



This boy whaleman, Leonard Gibbs Sanford by name, was 

 no mere vagabond adventurer. His father owned thousands 

 of acres of timberland in up-state New York, and served his 

 district in the House of Representatives. His mother was the 

 youngest of the seven daughters of Dr. Leonard Gibbs of 

 Granville. It is easy to understand why there was a family 

 upheaval when the Sanfords discovered that sixteen-year-old 

 Len was running away to sea — in what established household 

 would there not have been? But in meeting the situation raised 

 by the exploit of their lively son, the father and mother mani- 

 fested uncommonly sound judgment. 



If he was determined to go to sea, they reasoned, why, let him 

 go, but in good standing and in a good ship. So they gave him 

 a chest and an honest outfit, which no young sailor ever got 

 from the soulless landsharks of our ports, and arranged that he 

 should sail on a whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean in the ship 

 Lancer, of New Bedford, whose captain, Aaron C. Cushman, 

 was an old friend of George Sanford, the father. 



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