A DYING INDUSTRY 315 



taken him for a broker or an insurance agent; but he had been 

 whahng, boy and man, for twenty-eight years. 



The swarthy boss rigger, as he leaned against the try-works 

 and kept one eye on his men, told stories of the southern island 

 where he was bom, of his coming to America with his father 

 when he was fourteen years old, and of his shipping in a whaler 

 for a voyage of four years. After a year and a half the mate 

 had sent him back with papers recommending him as boat- 

 steerer. 



"In those days," he said by way of apologizing for his youth- 

 ful ambition, ''young fellows was aiming to get ahead at sea." 



He left his ship at the Galapagos Islands and came home^ 

 already he had adopted America — and shipped for a short voy- 

 age, from which he returned just ten days before his first ship 

 came in. 



When the first ship made port, her Old Man, who seems to 

 have had a rough humour, roared at the captain of the second 

 ship, '' Do you know anything about that boy that ran away 

 from me at the island?" 



Then everyone laughed and said, ''There he is!" And there 

 he was ! On the main yardarm right above the Old Man's head. 



At that, the mate who had sent him home grinned and said, 

 "Did he miss any whales? If he did, I'll skin him, for it was 

 me recommended him." 



"He never missed one," the second skipper repHed. "We 

 got thirty-one whales and his boat got twenty-one of them." 



That same old barque, on whose deck the rigger told the story 

 of his life, was bound across the Atlantic to the southern whaling 

 grounds and the River Plate. I went into her cabin, where 

 for more than forty years master whalers had lived. I went 

 into her forecastle crowded with boxes, trunks, bags, bales, 

 crates, and heaven knows what else, shipped across to one of 

 the Cape de Verde Islands, with here and there a battered suit- 

 case thrown into a bunk, and saw deep hollows worn by the 

 feet of whalemen now dead and gone. 



Leaving the Wanderer^ I watched for a time the riggers at 

 work on board two schooners whose white davits showed them, 



