LONGING FOR HOME — OUR ORIGINAL CREW. 339 



was deemed amply sufficient for our consumption 

 on the short cruise off Madagascar, and during our 

 passage home. 



The time of our leaving for home was now set 

 to be New Year's Day, 1859. This period, so long 

 and devoutly praj^ed for, we Avere assured would not 

 under any circumstances be again postponed, and 

 we hoped that it would not ; for vre had been out 

 very long, and all were thoroughly convinced that 

 longer cruising for whales would be entirel}'- useless. 

 To be plain ; all wanted to get home. The whole 

 ship's company, too, felt and expressed the opinion, 

 that the voyage was unlucky, and they wished to 

 begin a new one, under better auspices. Our con- 

 tinual ill fortune in not seeing whales, and having 

 our boats stoven, had so deeply engendered this feel- 

 ing that a general lukewarmness prevailed, which 

 could only be dissipated by a notice from the mast- 

 head that sperm whales were about, when indeed all 

 would again become as eager as we were at the com- 

 mencement of the voyage. 



There were now, of the thirty who sailed from 

 home in the vessel, but twenty-one remaining ; yet 

 even this is a much larger proportion of the original 

 crew than is usually carried home from a voyage of 

 such length as ours. The cabin had lost one of its 

 members; the steerage was intact — the same boat- 

 Bteerers remaining as when we first set sail ; and of 

 the foremast hands ten, besides the cook, remained: 

 making twenty one in all. "We had now been so 

 long together, that the withdrawal of one of our 

 number would produce a feeling like that caused by 

 the separation from a member of one's own family; 



