Search -
The Cruise of the Cachalot Around the World After Sperm Whales
The Cruise of the Cachalot Around the World After Sperm Whales Author:Frank Thomas Bullen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FISHING BEGINS. During all the bustle of warlike preparation that been going on, the greenhorns had not suffered fi inattention on the part of... more » those appointed to look a- them. Happily for them, the wind blew steadily, the weather, thanks to the balmy influence of the G Stream, was quite mild and genial. The ship undoubtedly lively, as all good sea-boats are, but motions were by no means so detestable to a sea-si man as those of a driving steamer. So, in spite their treatment, perhaps because of it, some of poor fellows were beginning to take hold of thin, "man-fashion," although, of course, sea legs they none, their getting about being indeed a pilgrimage pain. Some of them were beginning to try the dreadf "grub" (I cannot libel "food" by using it in such, connection), thereby showing that their interest in lifi even such a life as was now before them, was returnin They had all been allotted places in the various boa intermixed with the seasoned Portuguese in such a wa that the officer and harpooner in charge would not dependent upon them entirely in case of a sudde emergency. Every endeavor was undoubtedly to instruct them in their duties, albeit the teachers were all too apt to beat their information in with anything that came to hand, and persuasion found no place in their methods. The reports I had always heard of the laziness prevailing on board whale-ships were now abundantly falsified. From dawn to dark work went on without cessation. Everything was rubbed and scrubbed and scoured until no speck or soil could be found; indeed, no gentleman's yacht or man-of-war is kept more spotlessly clean than was the Cachalot. A regular and severe routine of labor was kept up; and, what was most galling to me, instead of a regular four hours watch on and off, ...« less