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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Optimistic whaleman

From the Pacific Commercial Advertiser September 21, 1859

The Advertiser was a Honolulu paper, so many of the readers were whalemen, who always enjoyed a story from the fleet. And here is one that would have raised a hearty laugh.

The life of a whaleman is full of hardship and danger; and only a strong hand and a stout heart can secure advancement in the profession. A great proportion of those who embark in home ports, know little of the trials that lay in the long cruise before them. But a few weeks since, we published an account of a whole class, just graduated in one of the northern New York colleges, embarking together for a three years cruise in a whaleship, before the mast; and we are now told of another young gentleman who, satiated with all the pleasures that a comfortable home could afford, resolved to seek a new variety of pleasure, and a quicker way of making a fortune, by shipping as a greenhand on board a whaler. "It's of no use," said he, "to dissuade me. My decision is irrevocable; and I would even go if I was sure of never catching more than one whale a day!

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