424 
FOREST AND ^ STREAM. 
[May 30, lyoj. 
put another iron into him, then the whale sounded 
again, but did not stay down long, and when he came 
up this time he started towing us in a ciicle, but soon 
tired and stopped again. Now he was ready to be 
lanced. The mate generally does the lancing, but this 
boat-steerer always did the lancing for Watson in this 
boat. I wanted to lance that whale, but if I made a 
mistake my boat would be smashed, and I and my 
crew lost; there was no boat near to pick us up. I 
could order Woodruff back here and do the lancing 
myself, but was afraid I would make a mess of it. 
"Do you think I can lance him?" I asked. 
"Why, yes; if you want to, yon can. You have seen 
it done often enough." 
"Yes, and I want to do it; I want to have it to say 
that I killed my whale. I will never get another chance 
like this." 
He took my steering oar, and going forward I 
picked up the- lance. When about two lengths from 
the whale I nodded and the oars came up, but the 
momentum of the boat carried it up close to the 
whale. Bracing myself now I drove the lance in, then 
pulling it out, drove it in again, then jerking it out I 
called, "Stern all!" and the boat was sent astern in a 
hurry. But we need not have been in one, the whale 
did very little thrashing around, and in ten minutes 
rolled belly up dead. Next I got a line on him to tow 
him, then looked to see where the ship was. It was 
coming to me at full speed, the lookout having reported 
me fast some time ago, and the ship had been kept 
close in to me since. I had my whale lashed alongside, 
mine being the first to be brought in, then had my 
boat hoisted in and stepped on deck. I felt a foot 
taller than I had when I had left the deck two hours 
before. The second largest whale we had taken on the 
voyage was lashed alongside there, and it was mine. 
The old captain was marching backward and forward 
across the deck near the wheel. Going up I saluted 
and said, "I have to report, sir, that I have brought 
that boat back and a whale also." 
"Yes, sir, I see you did, and you brought me a good 
one, too; you have done well, sir." 
The other boats came in during the next hour, bring- 
.ing in two small ones between them; they had to tow 
theirs in, while we lay here hove to, but these three 
filled us up, and we were ready to go home now. 
We were nearly out of coal, having only a few tons 
left, and were not using the steam except when it was 
absolutely necessary. The nearest coal would be in 
the Straits of Magellan, and it would be a good deal 
out of our way to go for it, but we were ahead of 
time anyhow, so the old man concluded to go there 
when off Cockburn. Channel, the entrance to the straits, 
we got up steam again. It is dangerous for a ship as 
large as ours to go in here under sail, though most 
steamers use the straits instead of doubling Cape Horn, 
and a ship under sail has been known to pass through 
them; our old New Bedford whalers sometimes did it. 
There is probably only one meaner spot on the globe 
than in here in these straits, and that one is just below 
them, ofiE the Horn. . 
There is a penal colony here belongmg to Chili, most 
of the prisoners seemed to be here for having been 
engaged in some revolution at home, from what I could 
learn about them. They seemed to be, most of them, 
quite intelligent, and they did not appear to be 
guarded very closely. They cannot get away, for if 
they left by land and were not frozen to death, the In- 
dians would kill them. 
I tried to see some of the Patagonians, but did not 
succeed in meeting any of them; they are perfect say- 
ages, and the men average six feet in height, this 
place is called by the English Port Famine. When we 
were ready to leave I had my cabin and engine room 
searched in real earnest, and not in the crew's imagina- 
tion. The Chilian officer of the guard, a young fellow 
hardly more than a boy, did the searching, but it was 
convicts he was looking for, not boys. I took him 
all over the ship to show it to him after the officers 
had convinced him that we had no convicts, and did not 
want any, and it was from him that I got most of my 
information about this country. He spoke very fair 
English, and finding that I had been a soldier he 
questioned me about our army, and told me about his; 
then going ashore he and I visited the prison, and 1 
took dinner with him in his quarters. Just after v/e 
had got clear of the straits our lookout reported a sail. 
As she was several miles to the windward, we would 
not have paid any attention to her, but the lookout 
said that she seemed to be in distress, so we stood 
down to her. She proved to be an English merchant 
ship and had her ensign set at half-mast, union down. 
Our' captain asked what was wrong, and they said that 
they had no water; could we spare them some? 
"Yes, all you want. Send your boat." 
While the boat was coming I went down and got a 
bucket of fresh water and brought it up. When thpir 
boat came alongside I saw that it was m charge of a 
boy of 18, the ship's second mate; he was the captain s 
son he told me; his boat's crew were all, except one, 
young Irishmen, the one being a Dane. I passed the 
water down to the nxate, but before taking any of it 
himself he passed a cup of it to each one m his crew. 
He said they had been on short allowance of water 
for a week, and had used the last this morning. They 
had been 168 days out from London and had been 14 
days off Cape Horn trying to double it. 
On my remarking that he was the youngest mate I 
had ever seen, he told me that he had been born at sea 
and had always followed it, and could now sail his ship 
anywhere on the globe. 
We gave them eight casks of water, all they would take, 
and Captain Williams sent one of our boats, with me m 
charge of it, to help get the water to them. I was a 
mate for a short time to-day myself again, that was 
for getting him that whale. Had I stayed with this 
captain I no doubt would have been a sure-enough 
mate in time. After we had got the water on board 
the captain asked me down to his cabin and set out the 
wine and cigars, while the young mate poured a drink 
and cigar to each of my boat's crew. Captain Williams 
had told me to offer the captain anything he might 
need in the way of supplies, but he said they had plenty 
now to last them to Valparaiso; they meant to call in 
there; the ship was bound for San Francisco. When 
we were leaving them the young mate walked aft to 
his colors, that had been set right-side up now, and be- 
gan to dip them; I took ours and dipped them in re- 
turn. 
We called in again at Crusoe's Island, then ran across 
to Valparaiso, and while we lay here, I had a chance 
to repay Woodruff, the boat-steerer, for getting me 
that whale, and did it in a rather funny way, too. He 
had gone ashore, got drunk and fallen into the hands 
of the police, and I being ashore, concluded to get him 
released, for if the captain had to do it Woodruff would 
hear about it afterward. Going to the calaboose I 
found an old judge, who, while he could speak English, 
could not read it, as I soon discovered. I had on a 
suit of clothes made of officers' cloth and a cap on 
which Marblehead had worked in yellow silk letters 
an inch high "Engineer"; the judge took me to be a 
mate. I let hini_ keep on thinking so, and a.sked for 
my man. Yes, I could have him; and giving an order 
in Spanish to two officers, they each took a rifle, which 
was carried there then instead of a club, and going back 
to the cells brought Woodruff out between them. I 
was afraid that he might still be drunk and give us 
away, but he took in the situation as soon as he saw 
me and stood in front of me holding his cap in his 
hand. 
"Well, Woodruff, what is wrong here. Drunk again 
as usual, are you?" 
Yes, sir. he had been drunk, but he hoped I would 
overlook it this time; it would not occur again, sir. 
"Not for fourteen days, it won't. I have overlooked 
it in your case too often. It don't do you any good. 
Could you come ashore if you tried and not get 
drunk?" , 
Yes, sir, he thought ?o. 
"Well, I don't. You are a disgrace to your ship and 
the flag you sail under; get aboard the ship now and 
see how fast you can do it; I'll have a pair of irons 
there ready for you; it will be fourteen days this time." 
"He knock two of my men here down, and tell 
me he can whip all the men I got," the old judge told 
me. 
He could have done it and so could any o! us if 
the police did not use their guns, but I f!V''i"not say this 
to the judge. f''-^^ 
"Oh, he is not half as dangerous as he looks to be; 
I can handle him. How much will his rule be?" 
"Un peso, one dollar, if 'you are^^ijo^ivg to punish 
him." - — 
"I am going to do it, then, and he '^hows it." And 
handing the judge his dollar ye left, . Iruff taking 
care to keep far enough bei.i'nd me t carry out the 
idea of my still being a mate. 
From Valparaiso we ran up to Callao, Peru, and here 
I took a saddle horse and rode out lD Lima to see the 
cathedral, said to be the finest one in South America; 
Lima is only a few miles from Callao, its seaport; a 
street car line runs out to it now. 
Next we ran across to Honolulu and left our native 
crew there, then steamed to San Francisco, and the 
white crew were paid off and discharged; very few had 
more than a few dollars coming to them, having drawn 
their wages close up at the different ports we called at. 
Most whaling crews are paid by what is called a 
"lay." They get their share of the price of what oil 
is taken, but this ship belonged to a stock company, 
who paid regular wages and took the oil themselves. 
It would have been better for most of these men had 
they been compelled to wait for their pay until now; as 
it was, the most of them would have to hunt a ship 
right away or let a shipping boss hunt it for them, 
then let him skin them. 
I had not drawn a cent of pay, I had not needed it; 
I had taken money with me and brought part of it 
back, and now had all my wages due me, except what 
I owed for clothes. The captain counted out $485, 
then $25 more, saying, "These are for that whale you 
got me. I told the agent about it, and the company 
paj^s you this." The whale would be worth at least a 
thousand dollars to them, but I had never expected a 
cent for it. The captain was anxious to have me ship 
again, but I told him I would go back to the army now, 
that I had only gone this time to see the islands. 
The captain told me that he meant to send a good 
organ to Pitcairn's Island, and that one of the com- 
pany's ships that would sail now in a few days had 
orders to call there and leave it. I saw a way now 
to get my stuff to them, and went to work right off to 
find what I wanted to send. I hunted through nearly 
all the book stores in the city for a copy of the 
"Mutiny of the Bounty"; most of them had never 
heard of it. At last I found a man in a second-hand 
book store who knew it, but he told me it had been out 
of print for forty years or more. I got a fine copy of 
"Robinson Crusoe," a school geography and large 
atlas, a chart of the flags of all nations in colors, a 
history of the United States, a copy of Dana's "Two 
Years Before the Mast," Greenwood's "Reuben David- 
ger," "The Cruise of the Beagle," Cooper's novel, "The 
Crater," "Cast Up by the Sea," "Gulliver's Travels," 
about two dozen boys' magazines, a lot of pictures, 
more white paper, crayons and pencils, enough hooks 
and lines to last these boys a lifetime, more knives, 
drawing books, water colors and brushes, and a large 
bundle of dry. goods for the women. When I had this 
stuff all collected my room at the hotel looked like a 
variety store. I had so much of it that I was afraid 
the ship would not carry it for me, so I went to see 
the captain. We had met this ship among the islands 
last summer; she was lying at anchor there with a 
broken shaft and her engineers could not mend it; 
they were two more such "engineers" as we were, only 
more so; the captain called them blacksmiths. I and 
my partner went to work on his shaft and mended it 
after a plan of mine; it held for him until he got home, 
he told me. 
"You can send a ton if you want to, he assured me; 
"and can come and deliver it yourself. I am keeping 
a berth in my engine room open for you. Captain 
Williams has told me about you. You got him a 
whale, I am told." 
"Yes, sir, I was lucky enough to get him one." 
"Yes, he told me all about it; he gives you a good 
character, and a good one from him means something 
with us. He said you were one of the few landsmen 
he had ever carried that w(.>uld make a sailor, lie 
said he never had to follow you .with a chib to keep 
you from getting drunk; he had never seen the .sign 
of whisky about you.'' 
"No, sir; I took care that he did not. I knew thai 
to get along with him I would have to cut the whisky 
out, and I cut it out." 
"Now come with me this voyage and I'll have you 
qualified for a mate when we get home and make you 
one, that is what you want, is it not?" 
"No, sir, I don't intend to follow the sea any longer. ' 
"Well, Williams said he thought you wanted a mate's 
berth, and he told me that I had carried worse mates 
than the one you would make right now." 
"I am much obliged to him, 1 am sure, but I don't 
want to go again; if 1 did it would be with him." 
"You are different then from some men I have met, 
you could not pay them enough to get them to sail 
with him the second time." 
"Yes, sir, there are such men, but the most of them 
are men that neither you nor Captain Williams would 
want the first time if you knew them; they have to be 
put in irons too often; I never had the least trouble 
with Williams." 
I boxed up my stuff and put a letter in the box, tell- 
ing the old governor to give the box to John just as it 
was; that there were no shotguns in it. I directed it 
to the Governor, Adams Town, Pitcairn's Island. Then 
I took a train to St. Louis to go to the cavalry again. 
I did not hear from the island for the next ten 
years; but in 1884, just ten years after I had left the 
island, I found myself in San Francisco again, I had 
come down from Arizona with a lot of military pris- 
oners, who were going to Alcatras Island, in the har- 
bor, a military prison; and after I had got rid of them 
I took in the town again, and did not omit the docks, 
either. I found a schooner that had just come from 
the island, and asked for the governor and Johnnie. 
The captain told me that the governor was still liv- 
ing, but he could not place John. "He may be the 
young man who acts as the governor's aid," he said. 
"He has a grandson about 25 years old, who seems to 
be running things there just to suit himself. When 
I was there anything I wanted I had to apply to him 
for before I got it, and he is as sharp as. a steel trap, 
too; he may be your young friend." 
Yes, he was Johnnie, there could be no doubt about 
that; and so he had never gone a-whaling. 
Since writing this the news has reached us of a hurri- 
cane and tidal wave that swept the Society Islands in 
January of 1903, destroying half of the people on them. 
There were none of those Society Islands that I saw, 
and I was ashore on several of them, but were at 
least 20 feet above high tide. If a wave high enough 
to wash people out of cocoanut trees a hundred feet 
high passed over those islands it must have blotted 
out Pitcairn's Island. Cabia Blanco. 
— • — 
Bird Nesting. 
The average man (if he thinks of the subject at all, 
which is doubtful) imagines, I suppose, that every tree 
or thicket at this season of the year is full _ of birds' 
nests and that he has only to poke his nose in to find 
them. Let him try it. I will bet him a new hat that 
he may go poking around all day through Central 
or Prospect Park without being able to find a single 
nest, except by mere accident. 
But he must not think the worse of his eyesight on 
this account. The fact is, a bird's Tiest generally is 
about as hard to find as the proverbial needle in the 
bundle of hay. (I speak, of course, of the nests of the 
Passerines or smaller variety of birds.) 
However naturalists may differ on the question of 
protective coloring in plumage, there can be no differ- 
ence between them, I fancy, as to protective coloring 
or assimilation in nest building. The closeness with 
which a bird can make its nest harmonize with its sur- 
roundings is little less than marvelous. 
When I was a boy my fondness for bird-nesting 
amounted to a passion almost, and many is the holiday 
(and, I fear, day stolen from school) I passed in wan- 
dering through the woods, or by hedgerows, with eye 
keenly on the alert. I remember that nothing used 
to surprise me more than that I should find so few 
nests. * Often I would feel convinced that I must have 
passed some, and would retrace my steps to examine 
certain spots— dense, leafy thickets, or close, grassy 
hedges — where it seemed to me birds couldn't help 
building, but usually in vain. "Where do they build, 
anyway?" I would exclaim, not without resentment, 
deeming, with boyish logic, that the birds had no 
right to conceal their nests. I was unacquainted then 
with nature's scheme of protective coloring and 
assimilation. I do not doubt that I often failed to see 
nests that were directly under my eye. Indeed, I re- 
call that I seldom found a nest except through some 
indiscretion on the part of the owner. 
Now, if this is true of the trained eye of a -boy, hoAV 
much more true must it be of the eye of an adult, 
which either never had any cunning or has lost it! _ 
This was brought home to me forcibly during a re- 
cent stroll through Prospect Park. 
On the shore of the lake is a thick, scrubby tree 
of the thorn family, in which during the winter I had 
observed the remains of a nest, probably a bluebird's. 
During my recent stroll I passed this same tree, which 
was covered with green leaves and blossoms (present- 
ing a very different appearance from what it had in 
the cold, bleak days of January), and it occurred to me 
that possibly the bluebird had returned and built in it. 
So I went up to it, and getting directly under the 
branches, made a careful examination, but no new nest 
