I said that old Jack was appointed inquisitor. He went about his task very methodically. Taking a number of matches, he handed one to each of the denizens of the forecastle, stating that he would call on them to return them in half an hour, and that the one who should then have possession of the longest one would be considered the culprit. On calling the matches in, one was found to have been broken off by its recipient, and information was immediately given to the captain by old Jack, who had satisfied himself regarding the guilty party. The boy was questioned, but denied the point so strenuously that we did not know whether to think him guilty or not. The captain let it pass without further remark, and some twelve months afterwards we discovered the offender; then the boy who had previously been suspected, acknowledged that he had broken off his match so that there should be no question about his having the longest one; and in his endeavors to ward off suspicion, took the readiest means of arousing it--old Jack saying that his conscious guilt caused him to break his match. When our North latitude had been almost run out we were struck by a very heavy squall. By working smart we managed to get all snug without being damaged. On the succeeding morning we saw three merchant vessels, one of whom had lost her maintopmast; a second, her foretopgallant mast; and the third a whole suite of sails. A fourth vessel, that we saw to windward in distress, with several vessels around her, appeared from her heavy rolling to be water-logged. During the night she fired rockets and blue-lights. All these vessels, as we ascertained, had met these casualties in the squall that we experienced. It is customary with merchant vessels to hang on to their canvass until the very last minute, and, as in nine cases out of ten these ships go short-handed, the consequence is, that when a heavy squall breaks upon them, something must go before they get their sails stowed. If asked their reason for crowding sail in such a manner, they will answer you with a shrug of the shoulders, that “Time is money;” but it is not so with a whaleship, except when homeward bound--then everything that a ship will drag or carry is packed on to her to make her keep pace with the impatient spirits aboard. When on the whaling-ground, however, the ship is allowed to glide along under easy sail, royal yards, studding-sail booms, and, if in boisterous latitudes, the foretopgallant mast is sent down, and the flying jib-boom is sent in, so that if bad weather comes on suddenly, the little canvass spread makes her easy to handle. Another advantage the whaler possesses, she has thirty-four or five men to handle a vessel of three or four hundred tons, whereas a merchant ship of the same size would not have more than a dozen; hence the great proportionate disparity between the accidents to whalemen and merchantmen. The whaler is better manned, and is not drove under by a press of sail, whilst