THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 199 



cers hold men in thvall to such humiliation? It is not a 

 mere question of the power. The distinction of the quarter- 

 deck and the forecastle disappear at such a moment, and offi- 

 cer and sailor face the occasion as men governed by one law. 

 Sept. 20 {Sunday). According to rules, we abstain from 

 all labor on Sunday, save the necessary handling of the ship 

 and the pursuit of whales, if any are seen ; and of course we 

 keep the try-works going, should we have blubber on board. 

 In these warm, calm, and bright latitudes we spend the day 

 very quietly ; a few men write or draw ; some scrimshone, or 

 carve keepsakes for friends from bone of the whale's jaw, the 

 ivory of the teeth, or the rich woods and mother-of-pearl 

 found on the islands ; some read ; and some sleep. We have 

 on board a scant ship's library of uninteresting religious 

 books, provided by some Seaman's Friend Society with kind^ 

 ly intent, and an inexhaustible store of tracts entirely too 

 childish for men famishing for intellectual food, We turn 

 unsatisfied from these dying experiences of some good souls 

 as they descend to the dark stream of death, as we live ha- 

 bitually so close to the brink of the sombre river that we 

 ai'e ndt impressed by them. Pardon me for speaking plainly, 

 but the picture of our life would be incomplete if I withheld 

 expression of the thoughts of the foi-ecastle on such subjects. 

 The comments of the men on these tracts, if heard by the 

 givers, would not encourage their distribution. Seamen see 

 so little difference between the partial and capricious Deity 

 pictured by the dyspeptic fancies of presumptuous writers 

 and their own officers, that they mix up in a disrespectful 

 juinble captain, gods, and mates. Half mutinously they an- 

 swer "Ay, ay, sir," alike to the order to " scrape top-masts " 

 from the one, and " Stand by to keep the Sabbath-day holy " 

 from the other. Now I pray you, good hearts who really 

 wish to elevate these rough children of the sea, not to jump 

 to the conclusion that my shipmates reject all religion. I 



