hout holding on, we were enabled to cut in this
whale. True, the work was terribly exhausting and decidedly dangerous,
but it was not impossible, for it was done. By great care and constant
attention, the whole work of cutting in and trying out was got through
without a single accident; but had another whale turned up to continue
the trying time, I am fully persuaded that some of us would have gone
under from sheer fatigue. For there was no mercy shown. All that I have
ever read of "putting the slaves through for all they were worth" on the
plantations was fully realized here, and our worthy skipper must have
been a lineal descendent of the doughty Simon Legree.

The men were afraid to go on to the sick-list. Nothing short of total
inability to continue would have prevented them from working, such was
the terror with which that man had inspired us all. It may be said that
we were a pack of cowards, who, without the courage to demand better
treatment, deserved all we got. While admitting that such a conclusion
is quite a natural one at which to arrive, I must deny its truth. There
were men in that forecastle as good citizens and as brave fellows as you
would wish to meet--men who in their own sphere would have commanded and
obtained respect. But under the painful and abnormal circumstances in
which they found themselves--beaten and driven like dogs while in the
throes of sea-sickness, half starved and hopeless, their spirit had been
so broken, and they were so kept down to that sad level by the display
of force, aided by deadly weapons aft, that no other condition could
be expected for them but that of broken-hearted slaves. My own case
was many degrees better than that of the other whites, as I have before
noted; but I was perfectly well aware that the slightest attempt on my
part to show that I resented our common treatment would meet with the
most brutal repression, and, in addition, I might look for a dreadful
time of it for the rest of the voyage.

The memory of that week of misery is so strong upon me even now that my
hand trembles almost to preventing me from writing about it. Weak and
feeble do the words seem as I look at them, making me wish for the fire
and force of Carlyle or Macaulay to portray our unnecessary sufferings.

Like all other earthly ills, however, they came to an end, at least
for a time, and I was delighted to note that we were getting to the
northward again. In making the outward passage round