OUR CREW. 
63 
on Tuesday morning tlie whole fleet is again in motion, 
all being evidently as anxious as we are to get away, 
and the scene is a stirring one as the sails are once 
more shaken out to the morning breeze. The fishing 
smacks lay a little closer to the wind, but we soon 
•overreach them, and the fine sailing qualities of our 
schooner are soon evident to all. There is a kind of 
pardonable pride in such a display, and we revel in our 
success over our unknown opponents. 
The wind blows fresh, and the sea runs high, but the 
schooner tops the waves in gallant style, and the race 
grows exciting as we quickly outrun each sail in turn ; 
once fairly on our way, we notice that the fishermen 
haul off towards their fishing-banks, while the mer¬ 
chantmen who hold on our course are evidently bound 
like ourselves due north. 
Now we turn to the men on board, and listen to the 
tales of daring they have to tell, so different in character 
to the usual experiences of men whose lot it is to sail 
in lower latitudes ; here the talk is of adventures with 
whales, and amongst the ice-bergs, their shipwrecks 
and disasters of every kind. Often it happens that 
the ships they sail in are badly found, wanting in the 
commonest necessaries of life, and but ill-adapted for 
the purpose they are intended to serve. From the 
accounts we listen to of whaling adventures we soon 
