WHALERS AND WHALING. 



of these long voyages, — three or four years they lasted in old times — 

 not knowing whether your nearest and dearest are alive or dead, or 

 what other changes may have befallen. One of the sailors of this 

 very Whaler was met by the news that his father had died last summer. 



And that reminds me of the story of a young fellow who was 

 obliged to sail from New Bedford on the day his mother was buried. 

 Everybody felt so sorry for him and his poor old father left alone 

 in his sorrow. Three years later the son returned and was met on 

 the wharf by the old man who gave him a hearty slap on the back, 

 and said jovially, "welcome home lad, come up to the house and 

 let me introduce you to your mother." 



It is all very fine and poetical to talk about a "life on the ocean 

 wave," and the "jolly tar/' and that sort of thing, but none of us 

 have the least idea of a whaleman's real life, and its dreadful hard- 

 ships, until we go on board a whaler just in from a voyage. In the 



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