THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 45 



ing was not neglected, and we collected our rents as faith- 

 fully as did the closest landlord of the dry land. A sailor 

 should be able to direct the building of his ship from 

 royal-truck to keelson, and rig her with his own hand from 

 a rope-yarn to the " hawser bend." But he must also know 

 the altitude of the sun which will cast a true forked shad- 

 ow on a piece of duck, as pattern for a pair of trowsers ; he 

 must work the American eagle and a true -lover's knot in 

 blue yarn, to quilt his flannel shirt against the cold of the 

 cape ; he must plait the split palm-leaf into pointed sennit 

 for his tarpaulin hat ; he must never want protection for his 

 feet against cutting rocks, when his club can secure him 

 a seal or sea-lion; he must stand by a shipmate in trouble; 

 jump at the order of his officer, never "sodger," of all 

 things, never question about God and his ways on deep 

 water, and never flinch from the tallest kind of a row when 

 the honor and good name of his mother or country are call- 

 ed in question. Such was the teaching on the forehatch 

 of the Chelsea, as we scudded past the mouth of the La 

 Plata, and made preparation to meet the old Storm King 

 who has his home in the Antarctic. 



As the days lengthened and the nights grew less dark, 

 the more exact history of the business we were engaged in 

 occupied many of the idle hours of the night-watch, our ship 

 bowling along, without labor or care other than that of the 

 man at the helm and the lookout on the bows. In this lore 

 my special crony, Posey, delighted. To question him on 

 the history of Nantucket, New Bedford, Sag Harbor, or New 

 London, and of the famous captains who had fished in these 

 beautiful towns, was to open the flood-gates of his knowl- 

 edge. Often, on the quarter-deck and on the forecastle, he 

 would talk to delighted audiences about the antiquity of our 

 craft, and the high honor in which it had been held by great 

 princes and powerful nations of the earth. Posey was a 



