Fortunately, I was alone in the world.  No one, as far as I knew, cared a straw what became of me; so that I was spared any worry on that head.  And I had also a very definite and well-established trust in God, which I can now look back and see was as fully justified as I then believed it to be.  So, as I could not shut my ears to the cruelties being carried on, nor banish thought by hard work, I looked up to the stately stars, thinking of things not to be talked about without being suspected of cant.  So swiftly passed the time that when four bells struck:  (two o’clock) I could hardly believe my ears.

I was relieved by one of the Portuguese, and went forward to witness a curious scene.  Seven stalwart men were being compelled to march up and down on that tumbling deck, men who had never before trodden anything less solid than the earth.

The third mate, a waspish, spiteful little Yankee with a face like an angry cat, strolled about among them, a strand of rope-yarns in his hand, which he wielded constantly, regardless where he struck a man.  They fell about, sometimes four or five at once, and his blows flew thick and fast, yet he never seemed to weary of his ill-doing.  It made me quite sick, and I longed to be aft at the wheel again.  Catching sight of me standing irresolute as to what I had better do, he ordered me on the “look-out,” a tiny platform between the “knight heads,” just where the bowsprit joins the ship.  Gladly I obeyed him, and perched up there looking over the wide sea, the time passed quickly away until eight bells (four o’clock) terminated my watch.  I must pass rapidly over the condition of things in the fo’lk’sle, where all the greenies that were allowed below, were groaning in misery from the stifling atmosphere which made their sickness so much worse, while even that dreadful place was preferable to what awaited them on deck.  There was a rainbow-coloured halo round the flame of the lamp, showing how very bad the air was; but in spite of that I turned in and slept soundly till seven bells (7.20 a.m.) roused us to breakfast.

American ships generally have an excellent name for the way they feed their crews, but the whalers are a notable exception to that good rule.  The food was really worse than that on board any English ship I have ever sailed in, so scanty also in quantity that it kept all the foremast hands at starvation point.  But grumbling was dangerous, so I gulped down the dirty mixture mis-named coffee, ate a few fragments of biscuit, and filled up (?) with a smoke, as many better men are doing this morning.  As the bell struck I hurried on deck—­not one moment too soon—­for as I stepped out of the scuttle I saw the third mate coming forward with a glitter in his eye that boded no good to laggards.

Before going any farther I must apologize for using so many capital I’s, but up till the present I had been the only available white member of the crew forrard.