414 The Story of the New England Whalers 



ing with the Siberians she went over to the Alaska 

 coast and thus had the misfortune to get caught 

 with the whaler fleet of that year. 



Captain Davis said that even when the ice was 

 coming in over the shoals on the Alaska coast, 

 just before all hands were driven from their ships, 

 the officers of the fleet, instead of bewailing their 

 fate, managed to get some comfort out of life 

 by going ashore, from day to day, and shooting 

 wild fowl. The fall migration was at its height, 

 and as Captain Davis described the flight, the 

 geese were so numerous that they formed an 

 almost unbroken procession "a few rods wide 

 and just as long as your eye could reach. That 

 sounds like a fish story, don't it ? Well, it's 

 the truth, just the same. They were lower down 

 than the eaves of a four-story house, and there 

 was scarcely a break in the procession large enough 

 to see a church steeple through, always suppos- 

 ing that a church steeple had been there," said 

 the captain. "The number of wild fowl killed 

 was so great that, on the Victoria, at least, the 

 men got tired of them, and were glad to get back 

 to salt pork and beef." 



