THE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 211 



Talcahuano and Valparaiso, in Chile, and Payta, Callao, and Tumbez, in Peru. At 

 these places usually could be obtained any needed recruits, and the picturesque 

 scenery, blended with those sunny climes, together with the charms of the beautiful 

 women, made their periodical visits to the coast peculiarly attractive, and wrought 

 an entire temporary change from the life on '"blue water." The abrupt and lofty 

 group of islands — the Galapagos — which extend into both latitudes from the equa- 

 tor, and the little island of Cocos, situated in the rainy region on the border of 

 Panama Bay, were frequently visited, and became more familiar to the whalemen, 

 in many instances, than their Atlantic homes. Every ragged mountain and verdant 

 valley of the former were traversed in hunting the gahpago, or "elephant terrapin," 

 which furnished them with ample supply of the most delicious meat, and the 

 latter was resorted to for fresh water, which was dipped from cascades flowing out 

 of their natural reservoir beyond the wooded bluffs. And upon the rocks about 

 the beach of Chatham Bay, rudely chiseled, are the records of those pioneer whale- 

 fishers, together with the dates of the visits of transient vessels, from the pigmj' 

 shallops of Drake's time to the magnificent national ships of the present century. 

 The War of 1812 caused another cessation in American whaling, yd it was revived 

 simultaneously with the declaration of peace ; and, as early as 1815, ships were in 

 pursuit of the balajnas amid the icy regions of the north and south, and the Cacha- 

 lots in both hemispheres. Not unfrequently American whalemen were the discoverers 

 and pioneers to distant islands and coasts when engaged in their legitimate pursuits ; 

 and they were often the first to display our national flag in commercial marts 

 remote from their home havens. In this connection we will mention the fact that, 

 in 1792,* at tlie peak of the ship Waslungloi}, of Nantucket, under the command 

 of George Bunker, was hoisted the first American ensign ever spread to. the breeze 

 in the port of Callao. Characteristic of the life they led, the love of adventure 

 tempted the whalers to turn their prows even from the sunny shores of Peru, and, 

 with flowing sheets, they coursed over the Pacific until, in latitude 5"^ to 10^ south, 

 and longitude 105^ to 125^ west, the objects of pursuit were found in countless 

 numbers, whose huge forms blackened the waves, and whose spoutings clouded the 

 air as far as the eye could discern. This discovery was made by Captain George 

 W. Gardner, in the ship Globe, of Nantucket, in 1818. f The captain named it the 

 "Off-shore Ground," and ere long this circumscribed spot in the ocean was whitened 

 by the sails of fifty ships. 



Captain Winship, of Brighton, ]\lassachusetts, reported to his friends at Nan- 

 tucket, that on a voyage from China to the Sandwich Islands, he had seen large 

 * Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, No. 57, p. 29. t Nantucket paper. 



