120 THE OLD CRUISING-GROUND. 



the maintopgallant yard-arm, when one, with a mis- 

 chievous grin, pushed the other oti'; but though the 

 poor fellow fell on deck, he escaped with slight injury. 

 With a fine breeze, we steered a southerly course, 

 along the West coast of New Holland, uutil we arrived 

 on our old cruising-ground. The weather here, 

 although a few weeks previously we had found it 

 uncomfortably warm, after our visit to so much lower 

 latitudes, felt quite chilly, and woolen shirts, stock- 

 ings, and underclothes — articles of apparel to which 

 we had long been strangers — were hunted up from 

 out of the way nooks and corners of chests, and 

 donned. We here saw the ship Stephania, of New 

 Bedford, making a passage for Anglers, whence her 

 courseweuthomeward. She was leaking badlj-, and 

 her crew grumbled at the oppressive labor of pump- 

 ins: in the existino; hot weather. She had considerable 

 right whale oil, taken off the Island of Desolation, 

 which island was described by her crew as a miser- 

 able place for cruising — cold weather, with heavy 

 gales, prevailing there almost all the time. A few 

 days previous to our meeting her, they had been 

 fast to a large sperm whale, which crushed a boat in 

 its huge jaws, seriously injuring the captain's hand 

 at the time. 



