CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 



Stove Boats and 

 Dead Whales 



THE Meribah had been in the Pacific just over two years and 

 had cruised along the Equator to the arid volcanic Gala- 

 pagos Islands. Entering Post Office Bay in Charles 

 Island to post letters home in the barrel that had been 

 erected for that purpose on the beach she had found at 

 anchor the Joseph P. Hart, 2l Yankee whaler homeward 

 bound from hunting bowheads in the Bering Straits. The 

 right whaler had taken the Meribah' s letters and stayed for 

 an evening's "gam". 



The right whalemen had spoken of bowheads in which 

 they had found the harpoons of ships known to have been 

 in Greenland waters years before and of their belief that 

 those whales must have travelled the ice-bound passage 

 north of the American continent. Late into the tropical 

 night there had been talk of ships met, of boats stove and 

 of the New England men who had found their graves in 

 the blue waters of the Pacific and the green cold waters of 

 the northern seas. 



Then at dawn the two ships had sailed away together 

 each dipping her ensign in a final farewell as she went her 

 separate way. 



