THE WHALE FISHEBY. 77 



" I cannot learn that anything certain is known concerning the other abandoned ships. There 

 was a report that some trading vessel understood from the natives, at Point Hope, that during the 

 winter a ship made her appearance off the point, among the ice; that they (the natives) boarded 

 her; that they found no one on her; but on the ice near her the bodies of two men who had 

 perished while trying to reach the land. It seems probable to me that in the strong northeast 

 gales of the fall the abandoned ships were, driven to the southwest, and were drifting around with 

 the ice through the winter, and if not sooner broken to pieces, wTreTcaiTied away in the spring among 

 the ice moving north. The Acors Barus was burned by the natives. 



"The men that spent the winter among the natives report most kind treatment. They say, 

 however, that occasionally they had to flee from one house to another, when the inmates of the 

 first were having a drunken frolic, as at such times they could not be sure of their lives. A few 

 years ago these people- did not know the use of intoxicating liquors. What a comment on our 

 boasted civilization and on the genuineness of our Christianity that this little colony of people, in 

 this most remote corner of the earth, must suffer and be imbruted because of us ! It is a grievous 

 shame, and one that 1 hope will soon come to an end." [The Sea Breeze arrived at San Francisco 

 November 11, having had a long and rough passage down a succession of southerly gales 

 with 1,450 bairels oil, 5,000 pounds whalebone, and 6,000 pounds ivory.] 



CAPTAIN PEASE ON AKCTIC WHALING. Captain Pease, of the ship Champion, of Edgartown, 

 in a letter published in the New Bedford Shipping List, of November 29, 1870, thus describes 

 some of the incidents of Arctic whaling : 



" We made and entered the ice on the 17th day of May, about 40 miles south of Cape Navarin, 

 weather thick and snowing; on the 20th the weather cleared up, showing about a dozen ships in 

 the ice. The weather having every appearance of a gale, I worked out of the ice, and soon found 

 myself surrounded by fifty ships. Saw but one whale in the ice. On the 23d, weather pleasant, 

 two or three ships worked a short distance in the ice ; the next day the fleet commenced following 

 and in a few hours fifty ships were on a race to Cape Thaddeus ; it was oak against ice, and like 

 all heavy moving bodies which come in collision, ' the weakest structure always gives way ;' so 

 with the ships, they all came out more or less damaged in copper and sheathing the Champion 

 four days ahead to Cape Thaddeus, in clear water. 



" Unfortunately, for the first time since whaling, there were no whales. On the 13th of June 

 we lowered for a whale going quick into the ice, Cape Agchen bearing southwest 90 miles, and 

 before getting the boats clear the ice packed around us. From that time until the 26th, so close 

 and heavy was the ice packed around us, that we found it impossible to move the ship. With our 

 sails furled, we drifted with the ice about 12 miles per day toward Cape Agchen, the ship lying 

 as quiet as in a dock, but on the 22d, when close under the cape, a gale set in from the southward, 

 producing a heavy swell and causing the ship to strike heavily against the ice. We saved our 

 rudder by hooking our blubber-hooks to it and heaving them well taut with hawsers to our 

 quarters. Had the current not taken an easterly shore course, the ship must have gone on shore. 

 The wind blowing on shore, which was distant less than half a mile, 5 to 6 fathoms of water under 

 us, ship rolling and pounding heavily against the ice, weather so thick we could not see 50 yards, 

 made it rather an anxious time. For thirty-six hours I was expecting SOUK- sharp-pointed rock 

 would crash through her sides. On the 24th, finding only 4A fathoms water, little current, with 

 the larger pieces of ice around, we let go an anchor and held her to a large floe of ice. Here we 

 broke our sampson-post off in the deck. On the morning of the 25th the weather cleared up, 

 showing our position, to be at the head of a small bay about 15 miles east of Cape Agchen. Here 

 for two days we lay becalmed and ice-bound. On the second day the ice loosened, when we took 



