WHALERS AND WHALING. 



proved to be still another whaler, which dropped anchor right along 

 side her battered comrades at New Bedford. The wharf was all bustle 

 and excitement as the crew came ashore in the fur coats and caps 

 they had worn in the Arctic regions, and eagerly scanned the assem- 

 bled crowd for the faces of parents and friends. One poor fellow 

 looked solemn and forlorn, although he was met by his mother, for 

 he was sick with scurvy, and had to be taken home in a carriage. 

 And mighty lucky he was to be landed in his own town instead of 

 some port hundreds of miles away, where there was nobody to care 

 for and look after him. 



The crew numbered twenty-four men, all told. They had been 

 away a year and a half, and spent all the winter before hemmed in by the 

 ice of Hudson Bay, where they were constantly tantalized by seeing hun- 

 dreds of whales, but could only capture three on account of the ice. The 

 young boat steerer who told me with pride that he had harpooned and taken 



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