Sketches Afloat with the Whalers 253 



thing to make them light, but they were always 

 eaten with avidity. The men ate their food sit- 

 ting on benches in front of their bunks in the fore- 

 castle. Young gentlemen accustomed to table 

 elegancies found forecastle conversation and eat- 

 ing habits deplorable at times, until custom had 

 changed their habits of thought. 



Finally a day came when a lookout saw the 

 spout of a whale, or the form of a whale breeching, 

 or the tail of a whale lashing the water, and 

 straightway he roused the ship by bawling : 



"There she b-1-o-w-s ! Blows! B-1-o-w-s ! 

 There she breeches! There she white-waters!" 



The crews hurried to their boats and the captain 

 climbed to the main crow's nest. The ship was 

 headed for the whale, the "pod," or the "school," 

 as the case might be, and then when the captain 

 thought her near enough, he ordered the boats 

 away. The mate in each boat took the steering 

 oar, and the harpooner the bow oar. The light- 

 est man in the crew had the stroke oar and also 

 attended the sheet of the mainsail. His oar was 

 formerly 12 or 14 feet long, but may now be no 

 more than 9. The oarsman forward of the 



