WHALERS AND WHALING. 



tugs bustle in and out close by, making them look still more weath- 

 er beaten and deserted by comparison. You can't help feeling that 

 they must be sensitive and unhappy at being put on the retired list, 

 and clean forgotten in spite of the fierce battles they have fought 

 with the winds and waves, and the fame they have won for their 

 native City, which owes chiefly to them the wealth and prosperity 

 she enjoys today. 



They are not large vessels. The largest does not measure 

 more than 125 feet long, and the bows are ornamented w T ith curious, 

 battered old figure heads, like those you read about in tales of the 

 sea. The stern is cut as square and straight as the end of a house, 

 and the masts, which were painted white originally, have turned a 

 sort of hoary grey, and have bits of rigging still clinging to them 

 and waving forlornly in the breeze, like an old man's thin wisps of 

 hair. The copper sheathing of the sides and bottoms has been torn 



