[Gutenberg 59684] • Life and Adventure in the South Pacific

Published in New York in 1861. John D Jones was a name written in pencil on the title page and may have been one of the two authors.

Preface:

The present volume lays no claim to literary merit. Two young men, led to engage in the whale-fisheries, and spending five years in the employment, have compiled from their log-books and their recollection a plain, unvarnished narrative of this period. The work is placed before the public as an account of localities few have visited, and the detail of an employment of which little is generally known. The chief effort in the way of style has been to give vivid descriptions, and make the reader the companion of the traveler. Aside from the information of the volume, it is enlivened by "life on shipboard."

In these days of many books, in which "voyages" have no small representation, it may seem almost presumptuous to put forth another tale of travel. Yet every traveler has his own experiences; and the sailors who offer here their narrative for the landsman's inspection believe that their yarn is not an old one, and they have some confidence that the reader will not say it is a dull one.

Excerpts:

.......At four P.M. all sail was taken in, the ensign half-mast, and again were all hands called to "witness burial service." and the body committed to the deep.

......Reader, when you die, it will be, we trust, in the Sabbath calm of your hushed chamber; but the poor sailor dies at sea, between the narrow decks of his rolling home. The last accents that reach your ear will be those of love and affection, such as alone flow from a mother's heart and a sister dear; the last sounds that reach the dying sailor's ear are the hoarse murmur of that wave which seems impatient to grasp its victim. You will be buried beneath the green tree, where love and grief may go to strew their flowers and cherish your virtues; but the poor sailor is rehearsed in the dark depths of the ocean, there to drift about in its under-currents till the great judgment day. Alas! for the poor sailor, often the child of misfortune, impulse, and error, his brief life fraught with privations, hardship, and peril, his grave, at last, the foaming deep! Though man pity him not, may God, in his great mercy, remember his weaknesses and trials, and save him through his Son!

......On Saturday, May 21st, we "gammed" with our old friends of the "Mohawk." Probably the reader is unacquainted with the meaning of the term "gam," which is peculiar to whalemen alone. It is simply visiting from one ship to another. When two ships meet, one captain invites the other to come on board and pass the day. On his arrival with a boat's crew, the chief mate of the vessel that has given the invitation returns with a boat's crew from his own ship to the stranger, thus leaving the two captains on one ship, and the two mates on the other, and exchanging boat's crews. The first salute generally is, "How are you, shipmate? how long are you out? how much oil have you got? what part of the States are you from?" But a short time elapses before all hands are acquainted; the visitors are invited into the forecastle, where some time is spent in spinning yarns. After a short general conversation, the song is called for, and some one, generally the singer of the ship, leads off, singing some love-ditty, pirate, or sailor song, all hands joining in the chorus, and making the welkin ring. The song goes round, and he who can not sing must spin a yarn; all must contribute to the general amusement. The day passes pleasantly away, all labor being suspended except the look-out for whales and sailing the ship. These " gams" are to the sailor moments of recreation, and serve to create general satisfaction among all hands.