f their saline properties. Choice
old water too, decanted into stout six-barrel-casks, and two pints of
which is allowed every day to each soul on board; together with ample
store of sea-bread, previously reduced to a state of petrifaction, with
a view to preserve it either from decay or consumption in the ordinary
mode, are likewise provided for the nourishment and gastronomic
enjoyment of the crew.

But not to speak of the quality of these articles of sailors' fare,
the abundance in which they are put onboard a whaling vessel is almost
incredible. Oftentimes, when we had occasion to break out in the hold,
and I beheld the successive tiers of casks and barrels, whose contents
were all destined to be consumed in due course by the ship's company, my
heart has sunk within me.

Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with
whales continues to cruise after them until she has barely sufficient
provisions remaining to take her home, turning round then quietly and
making the best of her way to her friends, yet there are instances when
even this natural obstacle to the further prosecution of the voyage
is overcome by headstrong captains, who, bartering the fruits of their
hard-earned toils for a new supply of provisions in some of the ports
of Chili or Peru, begin the voyage afresh with unabated zeal and
perseverance. It is in vain that the owners write urgent letters to him
to sail for home, and for their sake to bring back the ship, since it
appears he can put nothing in her. Not he. He has registered a vow: he
will fill his vessel with good sperm oil, or failing to do so, never
again strike Yankee soundings.

I heard of one whaler, which after many years' absence was given up for
lost. The last that had been heard of her was a shadowy report of her
having touched at some of those unstable islands in the far Pacific,
whose eccentric wanderings are carefully noted in each new edition
of the South-Sea charts. After a long interval, however, 'The
Perseverance'--for that was her name--was spoken somewhere in the
vicinity of the ends of the earth, cruising along as leisurely as ever,
her sails all bepatched and be quilted with rope-yarns, her spars fished
with old pipe staves, and her rigging knotted and spliced in every
possible direction. Her crew was composed of some twenty venerable
Greenwich-pensioner-looking old salts, who just managed to hobble about
deck. The ends of all the running ropes, with the exce