104 THE WHALE AND 



History of Northwest Whaling. 



one of the sailor's rude rhymes whom we have 

 already quoted, 



Although he furiously doth us assail, 

 Thou dost preserve us from all danger free 



He cuts our boat in pieces with his tail, 

 And spills us all at once into the sea. 



This northwest cruising ground was first 

 visited in the spring of 1836 by two or three of 

 the Chili whalers, who saw, indeed, numerous 

 whales, but gave it as their opinion that the 

 fishery could never be prosecuted there with 

 any success, by reason of constant and dense 

 fogs. The following year several more of the 

 Chili fleet started to the northward, " between 

 seasons," and, looking further to the north and 

 westward, found better weather, and made a 

 good cruise. During the three years following 

 few ships were found there ; but upon the al- 

 most entire failure of the southern whale fish- 

 ery, the right whalemen were forced to turn 

 their prows to those inhospitable seas, and the 

 northwest, as all men know, became a very 

 El Dorado to the intrepid American whalers. 

 This cruising ground extends properly from the 

 thirty-fourth to the fifty-ninth degree of north 

 latitude, and from the coast of America, in west 

 longitude say one hundred and thirty, to the 



