rly known as the "Coast
of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average
annual catch of 40,000 barrels of oil was taken, which, at the average
price of L8 per barrel, will give some idea of the value of the trade
generally.

The Australian colonists, early in their career, found the sperm whale
fishery easy of access from all their coasts, and especially lucrative.
At one time they bade fair to establish a whale fishery that should
rival the splendid trade of the Americans; but, like the mother country,
they permitted the fishery to decline, so that even bounties could not
keep it alive.

Meanwhile, the Americans added to their fleet continually, prospering
amazingly. But suddenly the advent of the civil war let loose among
those peaceable cruisers the devastating ALABAMA, whose course was
marked in some parts of the world by the fires of blazing whale-ships. A
great part, of the Geneva award was on this account, although it must be
acknowledged that many pseudo-owners were enriched who never owned aught
but brazen impudence and influential friends to push their fictitious
claims. The real sufferers, seamen especially, in most cases never
received any redress whatever.

From this crushing blow the American sperm whale fishery has never fully
recovered. When the writer was in the trade, some twenty-two years ago,
it was credited with a fleet of between three and four hundred sail; now
it may be doubted whether the numbers reach an eighth of that amount. A
rigid conservatism of method hinders any revival of the industry, which
is practically conducted to-day as it was fifty, or even a hundred
years ago; and it is probable that another decade will witness the
final extinction of what was once one of the most important maritime
industries in the world.

THE CRUISE OF THE "CACHALOT"

CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND

At the age of eighteen, after a sea-experience of six years from the
time when I dodged about London streets, a ragged Arab, with wits
sharpened by the constant fight for food, I found myself roaming the
streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts. How I came to be there, of all
places in the world, does not concern this story at all, so I am not
going to trouble my readers with it; enough to say that I WAS there, and
mighty anxious to get away. Sailor Jack is always hankering for shore
when he is at sea, but when he is "outward bound"--that is, when his
money is all gone--he is like