Sketches Afloat with the Whalers 263 



Captain Sparks and his men were adrift in the 

 torrid zone, a thousand miles from land, in an 

 open boat twenty-eight feet long. The keg of 

 water which they had taken with them when 

 leaving the ship had been emptied before the pur- 

 suit of the whale was abandoned. For six days 

 they sailed toward the land with no food nor any 

 water except a little saved during rain squalls. 

 Then a school of whales appeared. To the mind 

 of any ordinary whaler, knowing, as all do, the 

 ugly disposition of the bulls usually found with 

 such schools as this was, the whales were to be 

 avoided by a crew in the condition of Captain 

 Sparks and his men. To the captain, however, 

 they seemed to offer a chance for life, and he and 

 his men, rising superior to the weakness that 

 weighed them down, pulled into the school and 

 killed a whale that they might eat its flesh. Later 

 they were picked up and brought to land. 



In a Diary of a Whaling Cruise, by Victor 

 Slocum, published in the Forest and Stream, in 

 December, 1907, is a story that describes a not 

 uncommon experience of the whalemen after 

 striking a whale. It says: 



