ters, and the greater number of them were going to melt in the
Pacific or the Atlantic.

Under the command of Captain Hull, a good seaman, and also one of the
most skilful harpooners of the flotilla, was a crew composed of five
sailors and a novice. It was a small number for this whale-fishing,
which requires a good many persons. Men are necessary as well for the
management of the boats for the attack, as for the cutting up of the
captured animals. But, following the example of certain ship-owners,
James W. Weldon found it much more economical to embark at San
Francisco only the number of sailors necessary for the management of
the vessel. New Zealand did not lack harpooners, sailors of all
nationalities, deserters or others, who sought to be hired for the
season, and who followed skilfully the trade of fishermen. The busy
period once over, they were paid, they were put on shore, and they
waited till the whalers of the following year should come to claim
their services again. There was obtained by this method better work
from the disposable sailors, and a much larger profit derived by their
co-operation.

They had worked in this way on board the "Pilgrim."

The schooner had just finished her season on the limit of the Antarctic
Circle. But she had not her full number of barrels of oil, of coarse
whalebones nor of fine. Even at that period, fishing was becoming
difficult. The whales, pursued to excess, were becoming rare. The
"right" whale, which bears the name of "North Caper," in the Northern
Ocean, and that of "Sulphur Bottom," in the South Sea, was likely to
disappear. The whalers had been obliged to fall back on the finback or
jubarte, a gigantic mammifer, whose attacks are not without danger.

This is what Captain Hull had done during this cruise; but on his next
voyage he calculated on reaching a higher latitude, and, if necessary,
going in sight of Clarie and Adelie Lands, whose discovery, contested
by the American Wilkes, certainly belongs to the illustrious commander
of the "Astrolabe" and the Zelee, to the Frenchman, Dumont d'Urville.

In fact, the season had not been favorable for the "Pilgrim." In the
beginning of January, that is to say, toward the middle of the Southern
summer, and even when the time for the whalers to return had not yet
arrived Captain Hull had been obliged to abandon the fishing places.
His additional crew--a collection of pretty sad subjects--gave him an
excuse, as they say, and he