THE CAPTAIN'S WHALING EXPER: ENCE , 77 



" It's a wretched business," said the old man, 

 seriously " a wretched business. I suffer more 

 and more every cruise I m-ake. When I was yet 

 a young man, the matter appeared to me in a 

 different lisrht; but as I grow old, my desire to 

 tay at home with my family increases, and it 

 seems like tearing one's heartstrings to depart on 

 a cruise with the probability of being gone four 

 long years. 



" I have b^en five voyages," he continued, after 

 a pause. " One of these lasted forty-nine months, 

 during which time, I heard from home but once. 

 In fifteen years of my whaling life, I have 

 spent just seventeen months at home. I have 

 never been present at a birth or death in my 

 family. I can never expect more than two or 

 three letters from home in the course of a thirty- 

 six or forty-eight months cruise. And when 1 

 now look back upon the life I have lived and 

 consider how few and brief have been my enjoy- 

 ments, and how little I have been able to con- 

 tribute to the happiness of my family, if it were 

 not for my belief that it will be all right in 

 heaven " said the old man earnestly " I should 

 not have the courage to live." 



" But, sr " remarked the second mate, who had 

 boen, with me, a listener to the captain's words, 

 "I find that I enjoy myself more in the few 

 months I remain on shore, aft 3r my return from 

 a voyage, than I could in all the three or four 

 years, had I remained on shore altogether. The 



