The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-12-23


| eyes closed. In the boat were also to be seen
the feathers and bones of penguin and the pu-
| trid skeleton of a seal, all Of which had been
| eaten, save portion of the head and the dis.
| tended viscera broken calabash also. and a
sun-shrivelled bladder. Cut, in great, struggling,
unskilled letters on one Of the benches. the res.
cuers read these few words ~ lfE7
:, "Ps'ished, Of the coast Of Patagonia, Jaspar
| Fleming and b. @s8',' =
The open jack-knife, which still lay beside the
| unfinished inscription, seemed to indicate that
| the inscribing hand had refused to do further
| duty.
Tenderly those rough sailors raised up the
cadaverous famine,victims, and with simulta-
neous impulse placed their hands over the
gaunt ribs, in search of throb from the slug
gish hearts
"This one is alive +" was shouted
sand this one, tool"
The motion seemed somewhat to revive the
elderly one, his dry lips opened little, and he
whispered
"Jasp- boy, raise the signal; / hear blocks
| a-creaking"
But the other gave no sign of life beyond
that falntest hattering at the heart
8" Give way, my heartes," shouted Captain
Hussey, as they were taken aboard his boat, the
other towing astern " Give way, now, like good
fellows, and Wen save them yet Caboose ahoyl y
hailed he, kill that old hen, and make some
soup. Lively, now lively, lads
Soon they were alongside, aboard, and the
captain and mates, with tenderest care, min
lstering to the starvelings, dropping rum be-
tween their dry, cracked lips, moistening their
| inane eyelids and their shrivelled palates with
water, feeding chicken-soup to them out of a
spoon, until, by night, Brawny Brook was able
! to clasp the Captains hand in his feeble, bony
| fist, and murmpred:
All right Cap'n; I'm coming round once
more; only fetch Jasper up, and God Almighty
bless ye"
And Jasper himself had opened his mouth
tor the careful dole of water, had opened his
anguish eyes, and motioned increasingly for
more, more Of the God-given drink.
We have no need to tell of the long struggle
of those starved men with death, and how at
last they conquered-feebly, slowly, but finally
compassionate, in a month, when the plodding
old tlirt was well out in the pleasant ATTITUDES,
and had taken, tryed out" and slowed away,
! some two hundred barrels of oil, the two were
once more able to walk the deck and tell their
story Save the seal and the penguin, they had
| had nothing to eat for manufacturing which
whole time they had rowed northward from
Fuego, hoping to catch some vessel-and the
seal had become so putrid towards the last, B.
b. said, funnily, that they could only swallow it
| by holding tight upon their nostrils with thumb
| and hnger, and sitting to windward during the
buzzards meal. They had battled through it,
however, and though still fine specimens of the
| Calvin Edison type of mortality, were ready for
work. Would they join the ships company GU,
for three years whaling voyage2 An oars
man and harpooner had been lost off AS
sumption. Nothing would suit them better
| b. b. was bred to the harpoon, could strike O
biscuit at thirty yards and Jasper, thanks to his
| bOyish training, could pull as good an oar as
any, slim and white though he was. The young
man had the sinews of an Indian under thai
aristocratic thin skin. So they signed the ships
articles, and were assigned for wages to B. b
the one-hundredth, and to Jasper the three
undred-and-twentieth clay" or share in the
proceeds of the cruise.
| This is not the golden land, is it, B. B. ? .
| said Jasper, ruefnlly, to his comrade, "not to
touch land for six months, perhaps year, and
| cruising all the time after whale in this old
grease-pot. Phew! what an ancient and fish
| like smell the old Coquette has, She's as
| greasy frt as the fat favorte of the King of
Dahomey is reported to be, who weighs two hun
dred and forty, and lubricates herself daily with
pint of palm oil What would my dy.mother
| say, were she to see me in these tarred ducks
and this check-shirt, my only WARDROBE Per-
| haps twould please her to see the prodigal
among his husks +" and his brow grew dark.
Nay, Jasp., my hearty, that's not the way TO
| look at it. Think if we had gone down with
yon poor Captain, or stayed by yon poor fool OF
| mate, or had been anywhere else in our boat
except in the path of an empty whaler with
sharp lookouts. You and | would have been
| scraping acquaintance with Davy Jones, ell ?
stray shots in his old locker, would we not AS
for thy mother, doubt not but she d think thee a
better man than she knew thee before lad, for
| thou vert very creamfaced and afraid of tar
when thou first came aboard the Clipper"
And now?" said Jasper, looking at his
rather horny palms.
b. b. chuckled at the youths vanity, as he
| slyly winked and said:
lis thing to be proud of, eh, lad, that
hard hand. Why, look We, Jasper, / take it
that when man works this kind O. work who
has no need to do it, he is sorter spelling God S
pattern, whereby he was meant for something
else, and is not really working, but playing"
"Do | not earn my bread?" asked Jasper,
Indignantly.
Aye, and thy meat too, for that matter but
thou doth it sptefully, like the shark snaps at the
| caboose leavings. Such grub don't sit easy on
a mans stomach. Thou hast sense enough,
lad, TO do thy work as the rest do, but at heart
thou art every inch as finley as when thou used
| to sport white gloves and run after the gals
ashore. The sea is for the likes of me, Jasper,
not for such as thee"
The sea is for me too" began Jasper, fierce
ly, "and l shall never -
There she blows There she bows-blows-
ows There, she blowsi" Sang out the mast
head, and Jasper did not stop to finish his SEN
tence as he hurried to his place in the boat
nd mod ,ffa h. Ill =.
spite the oaths and persuasions of Captain
and mates, vociferously yelling from their steer
ing posts.
So the old Flirt went on with her cruise
bowling to the long Pacific swell with the quaint
stately clumsness of an antique minuet dancer.
And, as she went on, strength grew into the
sinews and flesh upon the bones of Brawny
Back and Jasper, and they revealed in the wild
though toilsome life of the sperm.whaler.
In regard to the incidents of this cruise of
the Flirt, the ship in search of such vulgar
thing as sperm oil, the Jasper in quest of so in
tangible, evanescent thing as contentment,
we shall not enlarge. And we shall leave the
reader to decide upon the question which natu.
rally suggests itself: whether was the ships OBJ
ject or Jasper's the nobler? Canst solve me
this problem ? Canst say positively whether
John Hussey's smoky "tryingout" of whale.
blubber for oil, and, thereafter, for hard dollars
was base, ignoble pursuit. in comparison with
that of this Childe Harold Jasper, fleeing grief
he was courageless to face, and toiling till his
palms hardened, to tire down his souls unrest :?
1t IS very debateable matter, conjecture and
one not easily to be settled. However, it is
with this soi-croydat Childe Harold, and not
with barrels of oil nor " fakes of blubber, try
pots, harpoons, aud such like, that we have to
deal, aud must therefore refrain from telling
of the Flirts wanderings and "reefrovings !"
how they encountered the Typhoon in the