we were one of the new gunboats sent out by Mr. Welles to protect the whale fishery. It was indeed remarkable, that no protection should have been given to these men, by their Government. Unlike the ships of commerce, the whalers are obliged to congregate within small well-known spaces of ocean and remain there for weeks at a time, whilst the whaling season lasts. It was the most obvious thing in the world, that these vessels, thus clustered together, should attract the attention of the Confederate cruisers, and be struck at. There are not more than half a dozen principal whaling stations on the entire globe, and a ship, of size and force, at each, would have been sufficient protection. But the whalers, like the commerce of the United States generally, were abandoned to their fate. Mr. Welles did not seem capable of learning by experience even; for the Shenandoah repeated the successes of the Alabama, in the North Pacific, toward the close of the war. There were Federal steam gunboats, and an old sailing hulk cruising about in the China seas, but no one seemed to think of the whalers, until Waddel carried dismay and consternation among them.

It took us some time to remove the crew of the Ocmulgee, consisting of thirty-seven persons, to the Alabama. We also got on board from her some beef and pork, and small stores, and by the time we had done this, it was nine o'clock at night; too late to think of burning her, as a bonfire, by night, would flush the remainder of the game, which I knew to be in the vicinity; and I had now become too old a hunter to commit such an indiscretion. With a little management and caution, I might hope to uncover the birds, no faster than I could bag them. And so, hoisting a light at the peak of the prize, I permitted her to remain anchored to the whale, and we lay by her until the next morning, when we burned her; the smoke of the conflagration being, no doubt, mistaken by vessels at a distance, for that of some passing steamer.

To those curious in such matters, I may state that a large sperm whale will yield twenty-five barrels of oil from the head alone. The oil is found in its liquid state, and is baled out with buckets, from a hole cut in the top of the head. What can be the uses in the animal economy to which this

immense quantity of oil in the head of the fish is applied? They are probably twofold. First, it may have some connec tion with the sustenance of the animal, in seasons of scarcity of food, and secondly, and more obviously, it appears to be a provision of nature, designed on the same principle on which birds are supplied with air-cells in their bones. The whale, though a very intelligent fish, and with an affection for its "calf," almost human, has but a small brain, the great cavity of its skull being filled as described. As the specific gravity of oil is considerably less than that of water, we can be at no loss to conjecture why the monster has so bountiful a supply, nor why it is that it carries the supply in its head. As is well known, the whale is a warm-blooded mammal, as much so as the cow that roams our pastures, and cannot live by breathing the water alone. Instead of the gill arrangement of other fishes, which enables them to extract from the water sufficient air to vitalize the blood, it has the lungs of the mammal, and needs to breathe the atmosphere. The oil in the head, acting on the principle of the cork, enables it to ascend very rapidly, from great depths in the ocean, when it requires to breathe, or "blow." See how beautiful this oil arrangement is, too, in another aspect. It enables the monster, when it requires rest, to lay its head on the softest kind of a pillow, an ocean wave, and sleep as unconcernedly as the child does upon the bosom of its mother.

On the day after the capture of the Ocmulgee, we chased and overhauled a French ship, bound to Marseilles. After speaking this ship, and telling her that we were a United States cruiser, we bore away north, half west, and in a couple of hours made the island of Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, and a favorite island to be sighted by the whalers, for the correction of their chronometers. Approaching it just at nightfall, we shortened sail, and lay off and on during the night. This island is an exceedingly picturesque object. It rises like a huge mountain from the depths of the sea, with the bluest and deepest of water all around it. It is rock-bound, and there is scarcely any part of it, where a ship might not haul alongside of the rocks, and make fast to the shore. It rises to the height of a thousand feet and more, and is covered with a luxuriant

vegetation, the substratum of rock being overlaid with a generous soil. The climate is genial for three-fourths of the year, but almost a perpetual gale howls over it in winter. At a distance, the island appeared like an unbroken mountain, but as we approached it, many beautiful valleys, and gaps in the mountain presented themselves, with the neat white farmhouses of the lonely dwellers peeping out from beneath the dense foliage. It was indeed a beautiful scene to look upon, and such was the air of perfect repose and peace that pervaded it, that a ship of war seemed out of place, approaching its quiet shores.

The next day, Sunday, dawned beautiful and bright, and the Alabama having approached this semi-tropical island, sufficiently near to inhale the fragrance of its shrubs and flowers, mustered her crew for the first time. The reader has now been sufficiently long with us to know, that when we speak of "muster" on board a ship of war, we do not mean simply the calling of the roll, but a ceremony of dress and inspection. With clean, white decks, with the brass and iron work glittering like so many mirrors in the sun, and with the sails neatly trimmed, and the Confederate States flag at our peak, we spread our awnings and read the Articles of War to the crew. A great change had taken place in the appearance of the men, since I made that stump speech to them which has been described Their parti-colored garments had been cast aside, and they were all neatly arrayed in duck frocks and trousers, well-polished shoes, and straw hats. There was a visible improvement in their health, too. They had been long enough out of Liverpool to recover from the effects of their debauches, and regain their accustomed stamina. This was the first reading of the Articles of War to them, and it was curious to observe the attention with which they listened to the reading, occasionally eying each other, as they were struck by particular portions of them. These Articles, which were copied from similar Articles, for the "better government of the Navy of the United States," were quite severe in their denunciations of crime. The penalty of death frequently occurred in them, and they placed the power of executing this penalty in the hands of the captain and a court-martial.

Jack had already had a little foretaste of discipline, in the two weeks he had been on board; the first lieutenant having brought several of them to the "mast," whence they had been sent into confinement by me, for longer or shorter intervals, according to the grade of their offences; and he now began more distinctly to perceive that he had gotten on board a ship of war, instead of the privateer he had supposed the Alabama to be, and that he would have to toe a pretty straight mark. It is with a disorderly crew, as with other things, the first blows are the most effective. I had around me a large staff of excellent officers, who always wore their side arms, and pistols, when on duty, and from this time onward we never had any trouble about keeping the most desperate and turbu lent characters in subjection. My code was like that of the Medes and Persians-it was never relaxed. The moment a man offended, he was seized and confined in irons, and, if the offence was a grave one, a court-martial was sitting on his case in less than twenty-four hours. The willing and obedient were treated with humanity and kindness; the turbulent were jerked down, with a strong hand, and made submissive to discipline. I was as rigid with the officers as with the crew, though, of course, in a different way, and, both officers and men soon learning what was required of them, everything went on, on board the Alabama, after the first few weeks, as smoothly, and with as little jarring as if she had been a wellconstructed and well-oiled machine.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CAPTURE OF THE STARLIGHT, OCEAN ROVER, ALERT, WEATHER-GAUGE A RACE BY NIGHT · - CAPTURE OF THE ALTAMAHA, VIRGINIA, AND ELIJA DUNBAR—A ROUGH SEA, TOILING BOATS, AND A PICTURESQUE BURNING OF A SHIP IN A GALE.

WE

E were running in, while the muster described in the last chapter was going on, for the little town, or, rather, sea-side village of Lagens, on the south side of the island of Flores, and, having approached the beach quite near, we hove the ship to, and hauling alongside, from the stern, where they had been towing, the whale-boats of the captured ship, which we had brought away from the prize for this purpose, we paroled our prisoners, and, putting them in possession of their boats, shoved them off for the shore. I had two motives in thus landing my prisoners in their own boats, or, to speak more properly, in the boats which had once belonged to them. It saved me the trouble of landing them myself; and, as the boats were valuable, and I permitted the prisoners to put in them as many provisions as they desired, and as much other plunder as they could pick up about the decks of their ships -excepting always such articles as we needed on board the Alabama-the sale of their boats and cargoes to the islanders gave them the means of subsistence, until they could communicate with their consul in the neighboring island of Fayal.

We had scarcely gotten through with the operation of land. ing our prisoners, before the cry of "sail ho!" came to us from the mast-head; and we made sail in chase of a schooner which was approaching the island, hoisting the English colors to throw the stranger off his guard. As the two vessels were sailing toward each other, they approached very rapidly, and