WHALERS AND WHALING. 



of indigestion. It is very rare and valuable, and sells for three hundred 

 dollars a pound. 



In the palmy days of whaling, when voyages often lasted four 

 years, and no submarine telegraph brought news from home to distant 

 lands, each whaleship when she went out, carried letters and messages 

 to fathers and husbands far away, in case their ship should be spoken, 

 and when two whalers met on the high seas, they would lay to, 

 sometimes for hours, the crews exchanging visits and letters, comparing 

 adventures and having a rare old gossip together. A " gam," as they 

 call it. Gam means gossip. One can well imagine the joy of these 

 chance meetings — and the sorrow too — if some poor fellow heard of 

 the death of wife or child, as must occasionally have happened. Now 

 and then the Captain took his wife with him on one of these long 

 voyages, and New Bedford women thought nothing of going round 

 Cape Horn or up to the Arctic Ocean. 



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