XU FOREWORD. 



puzzling sound in a landsman's ear, it will be well to 

 elucidate right here. 



"Gamming", is deep-sea gossiping. Two whaleships, 

 meeting on a long cruise, perhaps thousands of miles from 

 home, will heave to after the day's whale hunt is over, 

 and the captain's watch of one ship will go a-visiting in 

 the forecastle of the other. And then marvellous would 

 be the whale-stories passed round over the cards and to- 

 bacco ! Captain Eobbins' grist of just such characteristic 

 whaleman's yarns took the picturesque name, The Gam. 



The redskins were the first whalemen of North America. 

 White explorers as far back as the days of the Cabots found 

 the Indians expert and intrepid hunters of blackfish and 

 right whale, whose feeding grounds were then close in- 

 shore. For more than a century before the country was 

 successfully colonized, train-oil and whalebone were pur- 

 chased from the Indians by those British sailors who kept 

 voyaging to the tempting fishing grounds of the New 

 World. 



The whale played no inconspicuous part in the coming 

 of the Pilgrims, who, when they sought a place in which 

 they might exercise freedom of worship, had a canny eye 

 on the fisheries as a means of livelihood. A Mayflower 

 chronicle records that large whales "of the best kind for 

 oil and bone" came and played round the ship as she lay 

 at anchor inside Cape Cod — a fact which helped mightily 

 to decide them to seek no further for a home. 



Indian-fashion, the Pilgrims and first settlers set about 

 their early ventures in whaling. Drift whales, dead ones 

 floated inshore, made a considerable part of the redmen's 

 catch. But they did not hesitate to launch their light 

 canoes through the surf, swarm in dozens about a monster 



