CHAPTER NINETEEN 



Homeward Bound 



CAPTAIN GALLOWAY had become very impatient. The 

 return cruise along the Line had done Httle to increase the 

 oil cargo. The Merit ah had met a big English whaler 

 which had filled her holds twenty-three months out from 

 Hull and a German whaler seventeen months out from 

 Bremen which had killed only eleven whales. 



Having taken on fresh victuals and found three replace- 

 ments for his crew among the natives in the Marquesas 

 Islands the captain decided to let his ship try her fortune 

 on the grounds that lay south of the Equator offshore of the 

 Spanish Main ; for it was November, the month when the 

 season there began. 



During the two months that followed there were many 

 in the Meribah who believed that all the sperm whales in 

 the Pacific had assembled within a small area of the tropics 

 between the latitudes of go and i oo degrees west. Some 

 days whales were killed at a greater rate than the blubber 

 could be cut and tried-out and the cargo increased so 

 rapidly that soon there was not an empty barrel in the 

 ship. When every odd tub and bucket had been filled 

 and sealed the men caulked their sea chests and filled 

 those with oil. 



When at last one of the men asked if he could use the 

 coffee-pots Captain Galloway decided that it was time to 

 set course for home. 



