/ 



MEK OF THE 'ALEXANDER'' 25 



steerers, steward, cooper, cook, and cabin boy. 

 Captain Shorey was not aboard. He was to 

 join the vessel at Honolulu. Mr. Winchester, 

 the mate, took the brig to the Hawaiian Islands 

 as captain. This necessitated a graduated rise 

 in authority all along the line. Mr. Landers, 

 who had shipped as second mate, became mate; 

 Gabriel, the regular third mate, became second 

 mate; and Mendez, a boatsteerer, was advanced 

 to the position of third mate. 



Captain Winchester was a tall, spare, vigor- 

 ous man with a nose like Julius Caesar's and a 

 cavernous bass voice that boomed like a sunset 

 gun. He was a man of some education, which 

 is a rarity among officers of whale ships, and was 

 a typical New England Yankee. He had run 

 away to sea as a boy and had been engaged in 

 the whaling trade for twenty years. For thir- 

 teen years, he had been sailing to the Arctic 

 Ocean as master and mate of vessels, and was 

 ingrained with the autocratic traditions of the 

 quarter-deck. Though every inch a sea dog of 

 the hard, old-fashioned school, he had his kindly 

 human side, as I learned later. He was by far 



