LAND-SHARKS — OUR BARQUE. 15 



four weeks that I remained in this house, we never 

 had but one meal of fresh meat — it was fried beef- 

 steak ; and even that the cook and a supernumerary, 

 who had been engaged to assist him, with the aid of 

 a jug of New England rum, managed to burn to a 

 cinder, so that we were compelled to resort to our 

 old provender. 



As soon as my companion and myself had become 

 members of this household, we, with our assiduous 

 friend the Shark, proceeded to the agent's, with whom 

 he wished us to engage, and after being approved by 

 the Captain, and having made inquiries as to the cha- 

 racter of the vessel and her commander, we enrolled 

 our names upon the articles of the Barque Pacific, of 

 'New Bedford, Captain John W. Sherman, bound to 

 the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, to cruise for 

 sperm and right whales. The vessel was of three 

 hundred and eighty tons burthen, capable of carrying 

 three thousand barrels of oil, and fitted out for forty 

 months ; she was then undergoing thorough repairs, 

 having but two months previously returned from a 

 voyage of thirty months' duration, in which she had 

 _ been very successful ; and this, with several previous 

 very remunerative voyages, had given her the name 

 of a lucky ship, which insured her a good crew ; sea- 

 men, as a class, being superstitious, are always eager 

 to sail in a ship with which some favorable omen is, 

 or has been, connected, auguring from such data her 

 subsequent success. 



As she would not be ready for sea for about 

 three weeks after I had joined her, I had plenty 

 of leisure time to look around me. The prin- 

 cipal objects in my eyes were^ of course, the 



