For many years the American colonists completely engrossed this branch of the whale fishery, contentedly leaving to Great Britain and the continental nations the monopoly of the northern or arctic fisheries, while they cruised the stormy, if milder, seas around their own shores. As, however, the number of ships engaged increased, it was inevitable that the known grounds should become exhausted, and in 1788, Messrs. Enderby's ship, the Emilia, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale ship Syren opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North Pacific, afterward familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average annual catch of forty thousand barrels of oil was taken, which, at the average price of £8 per barrel, will give some idea of the value of the trade generally. From the crushing blow of the civil war the American sperm-whale fishery has never fully recovered. When the writer was in the trade, some twenty-two years ago, it was credited with a fleet of between three and four hundred sail; now it may be doubted whether the numbers reach an eighth of that amount. A rigid conservatism of method hinders any revival of the industry, which is practically conducted to-day as it was fifty or even a hundred years ago; and it is probable that another decade will witness the final extinction of what was once one of the most important maritime industries in the world. In the following pages an attempt has been made--it is believed for the first time--to give an account of the cruise of a South Sea whaler from the seaman's standpoint. Its aim is to present to the general reader a simple account of the methods employed and the dangers met with in a calling about which the great mass of the public knows absolutely nothing. * * * * * At the age of eighteen, after a sea experience of six years from the time when I dodged about London streets, a ragged Arab, with wits sharpened by the constant fight for food, I found myself roaming the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts.