The magnates of Monkshaven were those who had the largest number of ships engaged in the whaling-trade.  Something like the following was the course of life with a Monkshaven lad of this class:—­He was apprenticed as a sailor to one of the great ship-owners—­to his own father, possibly—­along with twenty other boys, or, it might be, even more.  During the summer months he and his fellow apprentices made voyages to the Greenland seas, returning with their cargoes in the early autumn; and employing the winter months in watching the preparation of the oil from the blubber in the melting-sheds, and learning navigation from some quaint but experienced teacher, half schoolmaster, half sailor, who seasoned his instructions by stirring narrations of the wild adventures of his youth.  The house of the ship-owner to whom he was apprenticed was his home and that of his companions during the idle season between October and March.  The domestic position of these boys varied according to the premium paid; some took rank with the sons of the family, others were considered as little better than servants.  Yet once on board an equality prevailed, in which, if any claimed superiority, it was the bravest and brightest.  After a certain number of voyages the Monkshaven lad would rise by degrees to be captain, and as such would have a share in the venture; all these profits, as well as all his savings, would go towards building a whaling vessel of his own, if he was not so fortunate as to be the child of a ship-owner.  At the time of which I write, there was but little division of labour in the Monkshaven whale fishery.  The same man might be the owner of six or seven ships, any one of which he himself was fitted by education and experience to command; the master of a score of apprentices, each of whom paid a pretty sufficient premium; and the proprietor of the melting-sheds into which his cargoes of blubber and whalebone were conveyed to be fitted for sale.  It was no wonder that large fortunes were acquired by these ship-owners, nor that their houses on the south side of the river Dee were stately mansions, full of handsome and substantial furniture.  It was also not surprising that the whole town had an amphibious appearance, to a degree unusual even in a seaport.  Every one depended on the whale fishery, and almost every male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be, a sailor.  Down by the river the smell was almost intolerable to any but Monkshaven people during certain seasons of the year; but on these unsavoury ‘staithes’ the old men and children lounged for hours, almost as if they revelled in the odours of train-oil.