CHAPTER VI. 
LIFE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN WHALEMEN. 
In taking a general view of whaling life, we find it replete with incidents of 
during adventure, hardship, and deprivation. The vessels first emplo} r ed in cleep- 
sea whaling were so contracted, that no degree of comfort could be afforded to 
their crews, who, by sheer, ambitious hardihood, maintained existence on board 
during their short voyages. As the pursuit became extended, requiring larger 
vessels, the barks and brigs of the fishers were much improved, while the 
absence from their native shores was more prolonged. At this period a system 
for fitting out vessels for long voyages was inaugurated, as well as the establish- 
ment of effective discipline on board, for which well-regulated whale -ships have 
always been noted; and the whale-fishery steadily advanced under the judicious 
management of those able and systematic business gentlemen, whose names have 
long since become as familiar in the remotest parts of the ocean world, as the 
ships named in their honor. The broad expanse of the Atlantic soon became too 
limited a field for the vast enterprise, and in consequence of this, the fourth 
epoch in the fishery was inaugurated, when still larger vessels were sent out to 
search the nearly unknown waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These vessels 
doubled Capes Horn and Good Hope, in their wanderings, which were so pro- 
tracted, under the most favorable auspices, that the "green hands," many of 
whom never had snuffed the ocean's breezes until afloat on board a whaler, 
returned to their New England or Western homes, transformed into seamen and 
whalemen. 
The Cape Horn and Indian Ocean voyages were at first of comparatively short 
duration ; but as the pursuit was followed to more distant seas, three years or 
more passed away before the return of these cruisers.* During this long absence, 
*The sperm -whaling voyages were the most Pacific, which was amusingly illustrative of the 
protracted and tedious. Some forty years ago, tact and energy of her master in managing 
an incident transpired on board a sperm whale- affairs, after wearing away nearly a whole sea- 
ship, while cruising about the equator, in the son with indifferent success. Near the close of 
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