which were slack.  Once the wheel-rope parted, which might have been fatal to us, had not the chief mate sprung instantly with a relieving tackle to windward, and kept the tiller up, till a new rope could be rove.  On the morning of the twentieth, at daybreak, the gale had evidently done its worst, and had somewhat abated; so much so that all hands were called to bend new sails, although it was still blowing as hard as two common gales.  One at a time, and with great difficulty and labor, the old sails were unbent and sent down by the buntlines, and three new topsails, made for the homeward passage round Cape Horn, which had never been bent, were got up from the sail-room, and, under the care of the sailmaker, were fitted for bending, and sent up by the halyards into the tops, and, with stops and frapping-lines, were bent to the yards, close-reefed, sheeted home, and hoisted.  These were bent one at a time, and with the greatest care and difficulty.  Two spare courses were then got up and bent in the same manner and furled, and a storm-jib, with the bonnet off, bent and furled to the boom.  It was twelve o’clock before we got through, and five hours of more exhausting labor I never experienced; and no one of that ship’s crew, I will venture to say, will ever desire again to unbend and bend five large sails in the teeth of a tremendous northwester.  Towards night a few clouds appeared in the horizon, and, as the gale moderated, the usual appearance of driving clouds relieved the face of the sky.  The fifth day after the commencement of the storm, we shook a reef out of each topsail, and set the reefed foresail, jib, and spanker, but it was not until after eight days of reefed topsails that we had a whole sail on the ship, and then it was quite soon enough, for the captain was anxious to make up for leeway, the gale having blown us half the distance to the Sandwich Islands.

Inch by inch, as fast as the gale would permit, we made sail on the ship, for the wind still continued ahead, and we had many days’ sailing to get back to the longitude we were in when the storm took us.  For eight days more we beat to windward under a stiff top-gallant breeze, when the wind shifted and became variable.  A light southeaster, to which we could carry a reefed topmast studding-sail, did wonders for our dead reckoning.

Friday, December 4th.  After a passage of twenty days, we arrived at the mouth of the Bay of San Francisco.

[1] I have been told that this description of a whaleman has given offence to the whale-trading people of Nantucket, New Bedford, and the Vineyard.  It is not exaggerated; and the appearance of such a ship and crew might well impress a young man trained in the ways of a ship of the style of the Alert.  Long observation has satisfied me that there are no better seamen, so far as handling a ship is concerned, and none so venturous and skilful navigators, as the masters and officers of our whalemen.  But never, either on this voyage, or in a subsequent visit to the Pacific and its islands, was it my fortune to fall in with a whaleship whose appearance, and the appearance of whose crew, gave signs of strictness of discipline and seaman-like neatness.  Probably these things are impossibilities, from the nature of the business, and I may have made too much of them.