"Well, my men," he said, "I have lost some of my crew, and I suppose you'll have no objection to entering regularly for the voyage in their place. You'll share with the other able seamen eighteenpence for each tun of oil, you know, besides monthly wages." We told him that we should be glad to enter, and would sign articles when he pleased; and that we would answer for Tom Stokes, that he would do the same. Behold me at last, then, as I have styled myself, PETER THE WHALER. We were now standing to the northward, and rapidly approaching the ice. Before, however, I proceed with an account of my adventures, I will describe the ship, her officers and crew, and the peculiar arrangements made to fit her for the service in which she was employed. Captain Rendall was a well-educated, intelligent, brave, and, I feel sure, a truly religious man. I may say, without more than justice, that he was the father of his crew. His father had been in the same service before him for many years; and he had the advantage of his experience, to which he added the knowledge he himself had gained. I do not give him as a specimen of the masters of all whalers, for I fear there are few like him, though they must of necessity be intelligent and superior men. There were three mates. The chief mate, Mr Todd, was also chief harpooner or specksioneer. Then there were the other harpooners, boat-steerers, line-managers, and coopers, beside foremast-men, landsmen, and apprentices. It is not the custom to pay simply monthly wages; but, as an inducement to all hands to exert themselves in their several capacities in capturing fish, they receive a gratuity for every size fish caught during the voyage, or a certain sum for every tun of oil which the cargo produces. The master gets scarcely any pay if he has no success in his voyage; but for every whale killed he gets three guineas, from ten to twenty shillings for each tun of oil, and a thirtieth to a twentieth on the value of the cargo; so that he may make as much as five hundred pounds by a single voyage. The chief mate may get nearly a hundred, and the seamen twenty-five pounds each. Many of the ships belong to Hull and other northern ports of England and Scotland; but it is usual to touch at the Orkneys or Shetland, to complete the complement of the crew with the hardy islanders who inhabit them.