122 ENGLISH WHALERS. 



shipped, he gave him up for lost. To ascertain, he 

 cried aloud his name at the top of his voice, but the gale 

 prevented it from being heard a short distance from 

 the speaker. He then despatched a person into each 

 top, who sang out for him without result. After all 

 had decided that he was overboard, without hope of 

 relief, he was found snugly ensconced in the star- 

 board boat, totally unaware of the apprehensions 

 entertained for his safety. 



On the 6th and 7th of August we fell in with the 

 barques Aladdin and Lady Emma, and the brig 

 Jane, all of Hobartown, carrying the English flag. 

 These were the first whalers we had seen carrying 

 other than our own glorious banner. We gammoned 

 them, and found them but indifi^erent craft — their 

 rigging poor, and scarce any discipline existing aboard 

 of them ; their slouching arrangements contrasting 

 unfavorably with our own neat and tidy appearance. 

 Their crews are composed principally of convicts who 

 have served out their terms of sentence, and ticket-of- 

 relief men : with such material it is scarcely possible to 

 form a good crew. Their officers and captains were, 

 in many cases, from the same class of society ; and 

 on board one of the barques the master was so igno- 

 rant as to be compelled to carry a navigator, who 

 directed all the movements of the ship, except when 

 they were whaling. A few Yankees were amongst 

 them — in every case deserters from American whalers. 

 The residue of their crews contained representatives 

 from all parts of the world — black, yellow and brown ; 

 Portuguese, New Zealanders, Ivanackas from all of 

 the South Sea Islands, and Negroes. Aboard some 

 of these ships the forecastle is partitioned into two 



