HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 121 



of their stores, which were found to consist of but three gallons of water, 

 not a mouthful of i)rovisions of any kind having been saved! Their 

 boats each contained eleven men, and such was the condition of them 

 that it required unremitting bailing to keep them afloat. 



The next morning at daylight, the vessel being still above water, the 

 captain, who alone dared venture on board, succeeded in cutting away 

 her masts with a hatchet. This being done, she righted. The crew then 

 went on board, and, with the aid of their whale-spades, cut away the 

 cable which still hung around the foremast, and when that went over- 

 board the ship sat nearly upright. Holes were now cut in the decks, 

 in the hope of saving some provisions, but all that could be got was five 

 gallons of vinegar and twenty pounds of bread. 



It must have been with indescribably heavy hearts that these wrecked 

 mariners set off" from the so lately gallant ship that had been for many 

 months their home, and to which they must have become attached, as 

 every true sailor does to his vessel. On the wide waste of waters, in 

 boats which, at their best, are but frail shells, but which now were in 

 poor condition, and leaking, with but twelve quarts of water, and not one 

 full day^s stock of food., their situation was, indeed, appalling. The terrible 

 alternative was forced upon them, that unless a speedy rescue could be 

 effected, the time was near at hand when the life of one or more of their 

 number must be sacrificed that the others might survive. With what 

 horror must they have recalled the terrible tale of the loss of the Essex, 

 and remembered how, one by one, her crew wasted away and died, 

 or how, when the fearful lottery of death was drawn, a miserable wreck 

 of a man, a merely animate mass of skin and bones, yielded up his life 

 to prolong that of his comrades ! 



Happily their story was to be no further the counterpart of that of 

 Captain Pollard and his men. Steering northerly, hoping to reach a 

 rainy latitude, and thereby prolong with water that life which they 

 had no food to sustain, on the 22d of August they sighted a sail, sig- 

 nalled it, and to their indescribable joy were seen, and soon they trod 

 the deck of the ship Nantucket, of Nantucket, Capt. llichard C. Gibbs.* 



*The Houolulu Friend, dated May 6, 1854, reports that about five months after this 

 disaster, this pugnacious whale was taken by the Rebecca Sirums, of New Bedford. 

 Two of the Ann Alexander's harpoons were found in him, and his head had sustained 

 serious injuries, pieces of the ships's timbers being embedded in it. Disease had robbed 

 him of his propensity to resist attack or of any further '' carrying of the war into Africa." 

 He yielded to his captors from 70 to 80 barrels of oil. Among other cases of the attack 

 by whales upon a ship may be mentioned one where the Pocahontas of Holmes's Hole 

 was assailed. Two boats had been lowerd, and one had fastened to a whale. In attempt- ^ 

 ing to lance the whale, he turned upon the boat and crushed it to atoms. The other boat 

 picked up the crew and returned to the vessel, which was run down toward the victor 

 in the previous contest. When within two boat's length, the whale turned upon the ship, 

 striking her bow with such violence as to start one or two planks and break one or two 

 timbers on the starboard side. The Pocahontas was obliged to put into Rio Janeiro, leak- 

 ing 250 strokes per hour. The merchant-ship Cuban, of and for Greenock, from Demerara, 

 in 1857 was attacked by a whale, which struck her with such force as to completely stop 



