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Show KEPT LOG OF VOYAGE WHALER'S INTERESTING TALE I OF YEARS AGO. Diary of Young Nantucket Sailor Makes Good Reading at the Pres-j Pres-j ent Day Hard Life of Hunters of Leviathans of the Sea. (Special Corrcspondenco.) William 11. Mncy rwntt a senman half n century nRo. He sailed In tlio whaling whal-ing tradu from Nantucket, and hl.s journal of one otii;e. which lasted -II months nnd 20 days, has Just turned up In tho collection of a Ilostonlnn who Is fond of such curiosities. curios-ities. Tills particular log was n great prize, for it Is fur and away ahead of tho ordlnaiy thing of its kind. Not only was It kept with a fidelity most unusual through thu dreary months of back-hreaklug work on a whaler In two oceans, but the sailor had n sene of humor which no nmmint of feeding on salt horse and hardtack could squelch. He had also n talent for humorous drawing, and his pages are nono of them iinlllustratcd, Capt Isaac 1). Hussuy of Nantucket was innster, nnd tho voyage began some time in the fall of IS II. Tho log, which Is written In nn old-fashioned, unruled, leather-hacked blank-book blank-book of foolscap size, begins, after nn Illuminated nnd gaudy title page, qulto uniform!), on Nov. 20. 1811. At tho head of tho page Is a large-hand caption, "Bound to the Western Islands." Isl-ands." "Strong breeze and heavy sea as usual," he begins his log, looking first, like every good Bailor, to tho weather record. "Saw n school of whales going to windward like fury, i hut 'twas so rough wo couldn't low er. All hnnds mad ns Sam Hill. Night i very squall) ; at 10 had to reef main-1 main-1 topsail " And ho draws n fat black tluke to Indicate a whale seen, but not caught; this Is part of the whale fisherman's fish-erman's sign-manual which Is followed fol-lowed faithfully all through the hook. In tho margins of tho pages. When thov got the whale, he wan painted In ith a while Imlo In his sldo to re-curd re-curd the nimlipr of barrels of oil he .welded AIoi him wns recorded the lnat Hint got him, and Ills number in Hie list ' Ilw-ry pirttii.iblo eve .t was pictured. pic-tured. Sunday, Nov. 21, they began siting inasthi ml wntchos for whales, an I tin-re In the mnrgiu is the spider sailor sitting ns near the truck ns he could get. , They saw whales nil tho way to the I WiMtorn ish.nds, but got none; ono tln Mr Swnln, the mate, who later 1 turned out to be n prlzo hoodoo, low-' low-' ered fur a sperm whale. Hut It was , n'reidy sundown, nnd tho captain ro-i ro-i called the boat by u signal. Another i time they were too "wild." They began to meet ships after they i had crossed tho linr on Christmas day 1 and had fomo tine tricks upon tho greenhorns " Saturday, Jan. 22, Mr, Swaln'H hoodoo hoo-doo began its work. They lowered for I n Bperia whale, r and "Mr. Swnln -OgJS got stove, crow ifcjJ' hung to tho boat fr?frf0&? about nn hour and $it$r wcri) picked up by S&L 'u waist boat. cyX"r!t'$ Jackson and Uuko . --,iii?:h'.rK,r ea,iy gim0, tho "Stove Boat." wn,,;r 1,eluK VCIy cold." That wns all and the Incident would not have had so much space It Jackson Jack-son and Duke had not been nearly gone. It Hashes up tho thought of tho hardiness of Mncy nnd his mates; nover a word of tho dilllculty of reefing reef-ing In a frightful gnlc. In tho night, In the snow, with tho sails like boards nnd tho frail foot ropes dancing. The very next day Mr. Swain got ' stovo again, "but got aboard without help, but tho waist boat" not having to go to his assistance "took a largo whale." That night theio was a heavy gale, but they secured tho whale with doubled lluke, ropes and did not lost him. He was an 85-barrel monster, and would have yielded moro but thoy had to tow him for two days und he oozed away much oil. Thev met tho ship Ititssoll of Dart- Dlackflsh and Dillflsh. mouth a llttlo town outsldo Now Bedford Bed-ford almost forgotten to day, but famous fa-mous then threo months out and "clean," that is without nay oil, nnd "old man wont aboard to havo a gam," which Is whalereao for a chat. Tho voyago goes on, each dny with 1 its separate Interest. Tho folks who Bpealt of tho "boundless monotony of llfo at sea" ought to hnvp bon In this business. They took blockflsh, nnd hated them, but Mncy drew their pie-1 Hires Just tho same while he cursed them. All tho tlmo n steady routlno of refitting, cf rigging, tarring, point-1 lug, scraping nnd washing clothes went on as weather permitted and opportunity offered, They landed on ltoblnson Crusoe Island after pouches, caught lots of rock cod and "had a chowder of fish scales nnd salt water at sunset." Luck was not nltogethcr with them. Thoy mot ships no longer out, but with 300 barrels to their 130, which must havo caused some envy; they struck n sperm whnlo nnd tho Iron drew out, nnd they killed a humpback "nnd ho sank." Thoy dropped anchor In I'nytn fo: tho first time since tho beginning of tho trip, nnd the first thing to do In a Journal was of course to record the ships that wcro In port. They were the only whaler, but shortly tho whalers whal-ers began to gather, Tho length of time each cne was out, how much oil sho had her name, hailing port and - captnln, nil were pv JSA carefully set down. fS, $S One sblj) got an WSivV &a extra Hue: "Ship fcrW fU" John Thatcher of m1 w& Now Bedford, six- fj wj teen months out, Jfv j-flL. 400 bnrrels of H sperm oil, had a Those mnn on ' board with his leg baton Blackflh. off by a shark. Then came n long dull spell, with nothing taken but an occasional blacklist!. black-list!. Tho margins bear an cccaslonal ship or tho outline) of an Island, but tho pages are devoid of over) thing except weather reports. They sailed In company with several ships "gamming." "gam-ming." and on Sunilny. March 22, 1842, they saw whales in big excited letters. It Is no wonder the Journalist was excited, for his boat took two of tho whales, ono of them being nn 80-bnr-rol proposition, tho stnrboard boat and tho waist boat each getting one. In that one day thoy moro than doubled dou-bled their oil. nnd Just a week later they whooped It up again with two more whales, striking nnd losing n third. Mncy oven keeps track of what tlio Milps in company with tho l'oto nine did; tbo .Mercury of Now Bed-lord Bed-lord got one, nnd tho Dartmouth none. It was August, 1842, before they got ' another whale; then they took four In one day. larboard and stnrboard boats each getting two. Mncy kept tabs on tho whales with the utmost Nlnety-Barrel Whale, scrupulousness ns to which boat was entitled to credit; ono whnlo ho ovon labeled "doubtful." At the end of his book, on a blank page ho added up tho takings, and probably was not n llttlo proud to show that the larboard boat had 41 to tlio starboard boat's 32 nnd tho waist boat's 35. All tho detail which (Its with Pacific island life girls swimming off to tho ship In shoals, rafting water, cocoa-nuts cocoa-nuts and bnnallnns, are In Macy's pages. Thoy took on flvo Kanakas to supply tho plnco of one Englishman when ho dually swam a.miore nnd got nway, nnd started off again. The whales camo In twos, nnd three, nnd boforo tho end of tho year tho Potornnc had GC0 barrels of oil In her hold. But tho whales camo so Infrequently that Mncy felt moved to wiito: "Oh, dear, whero's all tho whales! whales!! whales!!!" on Oct. 25. In November thoy got seven of them In threo days, but Macy was not too busy to mako ethnological observations ob-servations on tho tribes of natlvos that cnino nboard at almost every Inland they made. Ho says: "Tho men of Touching Islnud nro a fine-looking fine-looking set, well mado nnd stout, and havo n very neat appearance," To prove It, he paints u picture of a canoe full of them. Mncy didn't like blnckflsh. Ho expressed ex-pressed his feelings every tlmo thoy got ono. In Innguago of tbo forecastle somotlmes, nnd on Dec. 4, 1812, when thoy took two ho Hays, "I trust In God will be tlio last wo will over got. P. M., light nlrs." In May. 1813, nfter traveling with tho redoubtable Macy for moro than n yenr. wo get tho astounding note on page (IS. "This day I completo my 17th year " And ho has been using nt lenst in year-old language half through his Journal. It was November, IS II, before their thirst for whalo oil was sntlated. They then had 2,200 barrels, and hauled their wind for Sytluoy. Here thoy nc tually saw on an excursion plainer which passed them In tho harbor "a wblto lady, tlio first wo have seen for 32 months." They refitted and made sail for the United States Dec. 10. They managed to get n number of whales on tho way homo, too, so It was not till Sunilny, May 4, 1815, that thoy brought to at Nantucket. |