Publisher's Synopsis
Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight of land; cruisingafter the sperm-whale beneath the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on thebillows of the wide-rolling Pacific-the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else!Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweetpotato left; not a single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which oncedecorated our stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the deliciousoranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays-they, too, are gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit.Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so much ado about a fourteen-days' passageacross the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of thesea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up inlittle cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing todisturb you but 'those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping overhead', -what would ye say to our six months out of sight of la
