OUR FIRST CALLING-PLACK 95 



no thieving ship-chandler had any hand in supplying 

 our outfit with shoddy rope and faulty chain, only made 

 to sell, and ready at the first call made upon it to carry 

 away and destroy half a dozen valuable lives. There 

 was one coil of rope on board which the skipper had 

 bought for cordage on the previous voyage from a 

 homeward-bound English ship, and it was the butt of 

 all the ofiicers' scurrilous remarks about Britishers and 

 their gear. It was never used but for rope-yarns, being 

 cut up in lengths, and untwisted for the ignominious 

 purpose of tying things up — '* hardly good enough for 

 that," was the verdict upon it. 



Tired as we all were, very little sleep came to us that 

 night — we were barely seasoned yet to the exigencies 

 of a whaler's life — but afterwards I believe nothing short 

 of dismasting or running the ship ashore would wake us, 

 once we got to sleep. In the morning we commenced 

 operations in a howling gale of wind, which placed the 

 lives of the ofiicers on the " cutting in " stage in great 

 danger. The wonderful seaworthy qualities of our old 

 ship shone brilliantly now. When an ordinary modern- 

 built sailing-ship would have been making such weather 

 of it as not only to drown anybody about the deck, but 

 making it impossible to keep your footing anywhere 

 without holding on, we were enabled to cut in this 

 whale. True, the work was terribly exhausting and 

 decidedly dangerous, but it was not impossible, for it was 

 done. By great care and constant attention, the whole 

 work of cutting in and trying out was got through with- 

 out a single accident ; but had another whale turned up 

 to continue the trying time, I am fully persuaded that 

 some of us would have gone under from sheer fatigue. 

 For there was no mercy shown. All that I have ever 



