268 WHALING 



By the end of the second day, the last of them all, except a single 

 man who had stayed with the fleet, was on board one or an- 

 other of the seven vessels. Some of the whale-boats went out 

 under sail — a trip to chill the blood; some under oars. Not 

 one was lost. 



On board the Progress, James Dowden master, there crowded 

 one hundred and eighty-eight officers and men, three women, and 

 four children — one a babe in arms. To the three captains who 

 had brought their wives. Captain Dowden gave his own cabin 

 and stateroom, and let them divide the quarters as they pleased. 

 *'In the after cabin," one of them says, "we just managed to 

 fit in by putting one man on the transom and two men and 

 myself on the floor, but we were all very thanldul for what we 

 had. The other captains and officers divided quarters in 

 the forward cabin, and rough berths were put up between 

 decks for the sailors and boat-steerers, so that finally every- 

 body was provided for except Captain Dowden, and I never 

 did know where he managed to get his sleep." 



Some vessels carried more; some, less. On board all of them 

 the conditions were much the same. 



Throwing to the winds their own voyages and their earn- 

 ings for a year — nearly twenty years later Congress awarded 

 the owners, by way of damages for the benefit of themselves 

 and their officers and crews, $138.89 for each man their vessels 

 rescued — the seven vessels sailed away with their twelve 

 hundred refugees. And still, slowly, deliberately, the pack 

 ice swung south ! Not a life was lost, but in vessels and outfits 

 and oil and bone the captains and crews had abandoned be- 

 tween one and two million dollars. Two weeks after they 

 sailed away the long-desired northeast gale raged for days, 

 and forced the ice-fields back from the shore. Had the whale- 

 men waited in the ice just two weeks longer, they might have 

 saved the greater number of their vessels and most of their 

 gear and cargoes; but to foresee that northeast gale required 

 more than human vision. 



The one man who stayed behind said the next year that he 

 would not spend another winter in the Arctic for $150,000. 



