Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/16

 DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN. For several years the command of the " Pilgrim " had been entrustcd to Captain Hull, an experîenced seaman, and one of the most dexterous harpooners in Weldon's service. The crew consisted of five sailors and an apprentîce. Thîs number, of course, was quîte insufficient for the process of whale-fishing, which requires a large contingent both for nnanning the whale-boats and for cutting up the whales after they are captured ; but Weldon, following the example of other owners, found it more economical to em- bark at San Francisco only just enough men to work the ship to New Zealand, where, from the promiscuous gather- ing of seamen of well-nigh every nationality, and of needy emigrants, the captain had no difficulty in engaging as many whalemen as he wanted for the season. This method of hiring men who could be at once discharged when their services were no longer required had proved altogether to be the most profitable and convenient. The " Pilgrim " had now just completed her annual voyage to the Antarctic circle. It was not, however, with her proper quota of oil-barrels full to the brim, nor yet with an ample cargo of eut and uncut whalebone, that she was thus far on her way back. The time, indeed, for a good haul was past ; the repeated and vîgourous attacks upon the cetaceans had made them very scarce ; the whale known as "the Right whale," the " Nord-kapper " of the northern fisheries, the " Sulpher-boltone " of the southern, was hardly ever to be seen ; and latterly the whalers had had no alternative but to direct their efforts against the Finback or Jubarte, a gigantic mammal, encounter with which is always attended with considérable danger. So scanty this year had been the supply of whales that Captain Hull had resolved next year to push his way into far more southern latitudes ; even, if necessary, to advance to the régions known as Clarie and Adélie Lands, of which the discovery, though claimed by the American navigator Wilkes, belongs by right to the îllustrious Frenchman Dumont d'Urville, the commander of the "Astrolabe" and the " Zélée." The season had been exceptîonally unfortunate for the