She asked about the stops to be made in going around the Horn,
and figured mentally a little after each place was named--I believe now,
she half expected that I would desert the ship and walk home from one of
these spots, and was figuring on the time it would take me.
When the robins were building their nests, the new steam whaler,
"Champion," left New Bedford for parts unknown (_via_ the Horn), with
the sea-sickest chief engineer that ever smelt fish oil. The steam plant
wasn't very much--two boilers and a plain twenty-eight by thirty-six
double engine, and any amount of hoisting rigs, blubber boilers, and
other paraphernalia. We refitted in San Francisco, and on a clear summer
morning turned the white-painted figurehead of the "Champion" toward the
north and stood out for Behring sea. But, while we lay at the mouth of
the Yukon river, up in Alaska, getting ready for a sally into the realm
of water above the Straits, a whaler, bound for San Francisco and home,
dropped anchor near us, the homesickness struck in on me, and--never
mind the details now--your Uncle John came home without any whales, and
was mighty glad to get on the extra list of the old road.
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