NEW BEDFORD. 17 



Whicliever way we cast an eye we see oil casks 

 or whalebone, harpoons or lances, or some one or 

 other of the various et ceteras belono-ino: to the 

 whaleman's pursuit ; in fact, the yield of the whale 

 supports New Bedford, and is the nucleus around 

 which clusters all the manufactures of the city ; and 

 its vitality as a community must ever depend upon the 

 number of vessels it sends out in pursuit of the whale. « 

 After gazing again and again at these objects, to me 

 so interesting, I diverted myself by walking through 

 the town, with no other object but to kill time — hours 

 seeming days, and days months, that intervened be- 

 tween this time and the day fixed for our departure ; 

 in fact, I had become so infatuated with the idea of 

 going to sea, that I viewed everything through a 

 glass whose tint was blue — blue water always dancing 

 and rippling before my mind's eye. In my perambu- 

 lations through this city of whalemen I found that 

 it was laid out with something like care — the streets, 

 like those of Philadelphia, at right angles ; many of 

 the houses neat and well built, and, with the ex- 

 ception of a part of one street near the river, wear a 

 quiet and respectable aspect. One street is an excep- 

 tion to the rule, it being occupied by houses of ill- 

 fame, where many a dollar, earned by exposure to 

 the storm on a long voyage, has been filched from 

 the hardy mariner by the harpies who occupy its 

 tenements ; and after what I had always read and 

 heard of the puritanical exactness of our JSTew Eng- 

 land brethren, I confess that I was astonished that 

 such a sink was permitted by the citizens of the Bay 

 State to remain in existence for the unsophisticated 

 seaman to be entrapped by. A liquor law had been 

 2* B 



