It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head standers
of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not so,
is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole historian
of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, that in
the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly launched in
pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty spars along
the seacoast, to which the look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats,
something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few years ago this same
plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying
the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach.
But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the one proper
mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads are kept
manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their regular turns
(as at the helm), and relieving each other every two hours.
In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant
the mast-head: nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful.
There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along
the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you
and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea,
even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at
old Rhodes.
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