864 IRRESOLUTION OF OUR CAPTAIN. 



at the time of making them he was perhaps sincere. 

 But he suffered his opinions to be changed by the 

 slightest cause. If he gammoned with a ship, he 

 found in her skipper an adviser, who recommended 

 to liim a prolific whaling-ground — one on which, 

 he was told, he could not fail to take five hundred 

 barrels of oil, probably, even altogether fill up. 

 These golden visions he received and credited, (al- 

 though I cannot but think that it was against his 

 better judgment — for, certainly, if a vacillating, he 

 was not a stupid man,) and away he would go to 

 the promised El Dorado. Thus he exhausted his own 

 as well as the patience of every one else by a fruit- 

 less search for sperm whales that had been long ago 

 captured ! 



Where we were now stopping was the ground on 

 which the barque Monmouth, two years since, cap- 

 tured two hundred barrels of oil ; and hence our 

 captain imagined that we would be likely to do the 

 same ; but in this there was about as much proba- 

 bility of any success and remuneration at all com- 

 mensurate to the time and trouble expended, as tye 

 £idd treasure seekers have received for their labori- 

 ous and chimerical search. 



Under such phases of aftairs, I have written some 

 half-dozen different times, stating to those whom I 

 addressed that I would certainly be home at the 

 periods that had been severally and distinctly deter- 

 mined on. Some of these letters bore the date of 

 August, 1858 ; and I do not know but that those who 

 received them may have set down such disparities 

 to wilful misrepresentations, or a sickening anxiety 

 on my part to get home, leading me to believe in 



