THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 349 



the vision of the writing remained, but I had no memory at 

 that moment of the words nor of the person, save that she 

 was young and of pleasing presence. But a new peace pos- 

 sessed my whole being. The long-repeated questioning was 

 answered, and gradually the vision slumbered in my memo- 

 ry. It might have remained in oblivion, as an idle fancy, 

 but for the sequel which elevates it into a real interview of 

 stranger spirits living on opposite sides of the earth. 



Two years from the time of the dream, and months after 

 the returned sailor had resumed the staid, orderly habits of 

 home-life, his mother, who was a zealous worker for the 

 emancipation of the Southern slave, received a letter from 

 the treasurer of a woman's antislavery society, requesting 

 the collection of certain pledges of money made by neigh- 

 boring friends of the cause. The letter was passed to the 

 son, with the desire that he should collect the funds and 

 transmit them to the writer. When his eyes rested on the 

 writing, the long-forgotten vision of the Pacific rose vividly 

 before the mind's eye ; the well-known characters of the mys- 

 tic card were before him, and the words, " By this shalt thou 

 surely know me," were recalled. Here was his affinity, and 

 in what guise ? A treasurer of an antislavery society ; a 

 woman abolitionist ; a female intermeddler in other people's 

 business ; a strong-minded creature ; a " blue ;" a bore, of 

 course; and probably old. Such were the terrible fancies 

 which grew out of the now familiar handwriting. An in- 

 voluntary farewell to home, and the acceptance of an await- 

 ing berth for a second voyage, flits through the mind of the 

 reader. You must know that the barbarian of the waters 

 was strongly imbued with the patriotic and peculiarly Amer- 

 ican idea, that an abolitionist embodied all that was to be 

 despised by every true lover of his country and kind. A 

 mother and brother engaged in it alone saved the cause from 

 his utter condemnation. So with a fervent " Get thou be- 



