stood
upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me
do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in
particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand
at the helm. But what of that? Could he talk sentiment or philosophy?
Not a bit. His library was eight inches by four: Bowditch, and
Hamilton Moore.

And what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a
quotation from Burton on Blue Devils; what to me, indeed, were
flat repetitions of long-drawn yams, and the everlasting stanzas
of Black-eyed Susan sung by our full forecastle choir? Staler
than stale ale.

Ay, ay, Arcturion! I say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly
dull. Not only at sailing: hard though it was, that I could have
borne; but in every other respect. The days went slowly round and
round, endless and uneventful as cycles in space. Time, and time-
pieces; How many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it
swung to the ship's dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. Sacred
forever be the Areturion's fore-hatch--alas! sea-moss is over it
now--and rusty forever the bolts that held together that old sea
hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. Nevertheless, ye lost
and leaden hours, I will rail at ye while life lasts.

Well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. Bill Marvel's stories
were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed
into each other, and were united for aye. Ned Ballad's songs were
sung till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts
of the sails. My poor patience was clean gone.

But, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the Line
in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale.

But whither now? To the broiling coast of Papua? That region of sun-
strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. Far
worse. We were going, it seemed, to illustrate the Whistonian theory
concerning the damned and the comets;--hurried from equinoctial heats
to arctic frosts. To be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe,
our skipper had abandoned all thought of the Cachalot. In desperation,
he was bent upon bobbing for the Right whale on the Nor'-West Coast
and in the Bay of Kamschatska.

To the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this
juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. But this much let me say:
that Right whaling on the Nor'-West Coast, in chill and dismal fogs,
th