Sketches Afloat with the Whalers 285 



men who, although yet comparatively young, 

 is distinguished for his energy and his uniform 

 success. Spare in his form, there is a restless- 

 ness in his eye and frame which seems to indicate 

 that his soul is absorbed in his pursuit and con- 

 quered by his ambition to succeed. . . . He 

 has worked his way by degrees to the station 

 of principal owner in a large ship, starting as 

 he did a common sailor, and by his own efforts 

 has already earned a considerable fortune. . . . 

 This man has been a source of vast profit to his 

 employers, and while we are writing is probably 

 hurling the harpoon into a whale upon waves 

 so high and beneath clouds so dark that other 

 mariners would deem it prudent to lay to for pres- 

 ervation from the winds." 



The whalemen were the frontiersmen of the 

 sea. Their life was at least as rude and as dan- 

 gerous as that of the home makers who built 

 log huts between the villages of hostile savages 

 in the West. And on the whale ship as on the 

 frontier, the man who had ambition and energy 

 and endurance always won out at last. 



