72 NIMMOD OF THE SEA; OM, 



No unnecessary work on sails and rigging is done on 

 tlie crui sing-ground, as all energies are husbanded for the 

 emergencies which arise in the toilsome chase. Thus, after 

 a long cruise, a whaler presents a woefully bleached and 

 ragged appearance, with her ragged or well- patched sails 

 and loose ratlines flying in the the wind, until scarce foot^ 

 hold is left to shin aloft. The seizings and servings are 

 frayed and crazy, the canvas is blackened with the sooty 

 snioke of burning scraps in the try-works, and the poor hull, 

 with the damaged paint of her fancy work, is but a sorry 

 ghost of the neat ship which left port perhaps eight months 

 ago. In this condition, as she creeps into port to refit, our 

 whaler is a subject of merriment and sport to green hide- 

 droghers and simple merchantmen, who are seldom at sea 

 long enough to soil the paint of their ships, or to get their 

 sea-legs and the manners of deep soundings aboard. But 

 think, dear reader, of eight long months with sea and sky 

 alone above and about us ! Three-quarters of a long year, 

 and not a glimpse of God's blessed land ! Might not these 

 ephemera of the sea make allowance for us communicants 

 with the wildernesses of the ocean ? 



" Oh, wedding guest ! this soul hath been 

 Alone on the wide, wide sea : 

 So lonely 'twas, that God himself 

 Scarce seemed there to be." 



This Vth of February the life of the voyage commences. 

 The morning watch washed down decks, manned the mast- 

 heads, made sail, braced forward, and kept a lookout for 

 whales — all the sharper, since yesterday we struck into great 

 numbers of the floating mollusks, the "Portuguese man-of- 

 war," and had great schools of fish (the albicon) about us. 

 Tliese are evidences that we are at such a meeting of the 

 great oceanic currents as constitute the feedinn;-grounds of 



