ot have been, as far as
appearances went, a navigator in the ship except the captain, if it be
not a misuse of terms to call him a navigator. If the test be ability
to take a ship round the world, poking into every undescribed,
out-of-the-way corner you can think of, and return home again without
damage to the ship of any kind except by the unavoidable perils of
the sea, then doubtless he WAS a navigator, and a ripe, good one. But
anything cruder than the "rule-of-thumb" way in which he found his
positions, or more out of date than his "hog-yoke," or quadrant, I have
never seen. I suppose we carried a chronometer, though I never saw it or
heard the cry of "stop," which usually accompanies a.m. or p.m. "sights"
taken for longitude. He used sometimes to make a deliberate sort of
haste below after taking a sight, when he may have been looking at a
chronometer perhaps. What I do know about his procedure is, that he
always used a very rough method of equal altitudes, which would make a
mathematician stare and gasp; that his nautical almanac was a ten-cent
one published by some speculative optician is New York; that he never
worked up a "dead reckoning;" and that the extreme limit of time that
he took to work out his observations was ten minutes. In fact, all
our operations in seamanship or navigation were run on the same
happy-go-lucky principle. If it was required to "tack" ship, there was
no formal parade and preparation for the manoeuvre, not even as much as
would be made in a Goole billy-boy. Without any previous intimation,
the helm would be put down, and round she would come, the yards being
trimmed by whoever happened to be nearest to the braces. The old tub
seemed to like it that way, for she never missed stays or exhibited
any of that unwillingness to do what she was required that is such a
frequent characteristic of merchantmen. Even getting under way or coming
to an anchor was unattended by any of the fuss and bother from which
those important evolutions ordinarily appear inseparable.

To my great relief we saw no more whales of the kind we were after
during our passage round the Cape. The weather we were having was
splendid for making a passage, but to be dodging about among those
immense rollers, or towed athwart them by a wounded whale in so small
a craft as one of our whale-boats, did not have any attractions for me.
There was little doubt in any of our minds that, if whales were seen,
off we must go while day