THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 391 



compared with the internal condition of affairs. The pro- 

 visions we had brought from home were exhausted, and re- 

 placed by worse supplies picked up at Valparaiso. Our beef \ 

 required much practice before it would remain on the stom- 

 ach. Even when the offended nose endured, the stomach' 

 protested ; and had it not been for the abundant supply of 

 molasses to lubricate our gritty, sandy biscuit, we must have 

 gone under. Our slop-chest was exhausted, and we made 

 shift by patching and working old sail-cloth into our cloth- 

 ing. 



Our voyage was a poor one, and the " lays " of the men 

 were exhausted, and most of them were in debt to the ship. 

 Our crew, short-handed and disheartened, were morose and 

 quarrelsome, only a few of the original remaining. The 

 ship so loved became almost a prison to me, and long since 

 I ceased .to keep a journal of the constantly recurring disa- 

 greeable incidents of the life about me. I became a human 

 terrapin, shutting my shell, and waiting for the weary months 

 to bring deliverance. We had all long since given up the 

 expression " When I get home," and adopted the hopeless 

 " If I get there." Now that the voyage was nearly over, I 

 failed to find "a joy in the thought of it, and time and events 

 were indifferently accepted as matters of course. 



In such moods, neither glad nor sorry, penniless, and with- 

 out resources, we mechanically went through our duties, or 

 wore away the tedium of liberty on shore. When they told 

 me of the great earthquake of two years ago, which swallow- 

 ed up the city of Concep9ion, only a few miles from our last 

 port, it failed to interest me. " Of course earthquakes will 

 swallow cities," I muttered ; " why not ?" 



Thus drearily our recruitment went on until the prepara- 

 tions of the ship were completed. A new set of sails -were 

 bent, the rigging was tarred down, the ends were stopped, 

 and ratlines seized ; and, as far as our lockers would afford, 



