il, our attention called by a sudden lull
in the wind. We had rounded Saddle Point, a prominent headland, which
shut off from us temporarily the violence of the gale. Two hours later
we found ourselves hauling up into the pretty little harbour of Port
William, where, without taking more than a couple of hands off the work,
the vessel was rounded-to and anchored with quite as little fuss as
bringing a boat alongside a ship. It was the perfection of seamanship.

Once inside the bay, a vessel was sheltered from all winds, the land
being high and the entrance intricate. The water was smooth as a
mill-pond, though the leaden masses of cloud flying overhead and the
muffled roar of the gale told eloquently of the unpleasant state affairs
prevailing outside. Two whale-ships lay here--the TAMERLANE, of New
Bedford, and the CHANCE, of Bluff Harbour. I am bound to confess that
there was a great difference is appearance between the Yankee and the
colonial--very much in favour of the former. She was neat, smart, and
seaworthy, looking as if just launched; but the CHANCE looked like some
poor old relic of a bygone day, whose owners, unable to sell her, and
too poor to keep her in repair, were just letting her go while keeping
up the insurance, praying fervently each day that she might come to
grief, and bring them a little profit at last.

But although it is much safer to trust appearances in ships than in
men, any one who summed up the CHANCE from her generally outworn and
poverty-stricken looks would have been, as I was, "way off." Old she
was, with an indefinite antiquity, carelessly rigged, and vilely unkempt
as to her gear, while outside she did not seem to have had a coat
of paint for a generation. She looked what she really was--the sole
survivor of the once great whaling industry of New Zealand. For although
struggling bay whaling stations did exist in a few sheltered places far
away from the general run of traffic, the trade itself might truthfully
be said to be practically extinct. The old CHANCE alone, like some
shadow of the past, haunted Foveaux Straits, and made a better income
for her fortunate owners than any of the showy, swift coasting steamers
that rushed contemptuously past her on their eager way.

In many of the preceding pages I have, though possessing all an
Englishman's pride in the prowess of mine own people, been compelled
to bear witness to the wonderful smartness and courage shown by the
American whaleme