Captain Nelson was going over for a “gam.” Now a gam is nothing more nor less than a gossip: each gives the other what news he has, the gossip of home from the outbound captain, and from the inbound the gossip of whales and their ways, and news of whalers and captains that he has met, the number of barrels of oil that the George and Susan has taken, the accident to the Addison, the men that the Gosnold lost by a fighting whale on the Carroll grounds, and any other items of interest that he can remember. The two captains, before they get through, may be telling anecdotes of other whalemen or of whales, or they may be talking of home or of Nantucket and Old Ma’am Hackett’s garden. They may have something hot and glasses between them, and the gam may last an hour {45} or three hours or all day. It all depends upon the men. Two captains have been known to spend all day gamming, and to turn up again in the morning for more of it, but such an abuse of the practice is very rare. The gam has its useful purpose as well as its pleasant one—although any pleasant purpose is useful. The outbound captain gets the most out of it, the news of ships and of men, but most of all, the news of whales, and how they are running that season, and where they are to be met in plenty; much more recent news than he had when he sailed. But any really vital news likely to be of benefit to himself—a new whaling ground discovered, for instance, hitherto unknown, in which whales are plentiful—he carefully keeps to himself. The crew are not so careful, although many of them are close-mouthed. The vessel had been cutting in, as Captain Nelson could tell without his glass, and as Peter Bottom and every other old hand could tell. I could not see what they were doing, and I have no reason to think that any of the green hands could. She was more than three miles away, and there was a light bluish haze which made it difficult to see clearly, but I got a pair of battered field glasses from the rack, and managed to make out dimly the outline of some sort of a flimsy structure on her side, the crew all crowded up by the windlass, and something bulky being hoisted in over the gangway. Captain Nelson had given me the use of those old field glasses, as nobody else wanted them. I would have carried them about with me, for I felt very proud and important at having glasses of my own; but it would have taken a dray or an ice wagon at least to carry them.