These sealing expeditions were also at that period more or less voyages of discovery. For years there had been rumors of a mythical island called Auroras, embellished with romance and mystery by the whalers of Nantucket, New Bedford, and New London, and described as lying away to the eastward of the Horn, concerning which no forecastle yarn was too extravagant for belief. Whaling captains by the score had spent days and weeks in unprofitable search for it. On this voyage Captain J. P. Sheffield, of the Hersilia, landed at one of the Falkland Islands, where he left his second mate and one sailor to kill bullocks for provisions, and then sailed away in search of the fabled island.
Young Nat Palmer proceeded to capture and slay bullocks, and when, after a few days, a ship hove in sight, he piloted her into a safe anchorage, and supplied her with fresh meat. This vessel proved to be the Espirito Santo, from Buenos Ayres, and the captain informed Nat that he was bound to a place where there were thousands of seals, and where a cargo could be secured with little effort, but he declined to disclose its position. The mind of the young sailor naturally turned to the magic isle of Auroras, where, according to the saga preserved beside the camp-fires of corner grocery stores in New England whaling towns, silver, gold, and precious gems lay scattered along the beach in glittering profusion, the treasure of some huge galleon, wrecked and broken up centuries ago, when Spain was powerful upon the sea.
There must have been something about the whale fishery highly inspiring to the imagination, though to see one of the greasy old Nantucket or New Bedford blubber hunters wallowing about in the South Pacific, one would hardly have suspected it, yet among the spinners of good, tough tarry sea yarns, some of the authors of narratives relating to the pursuit and capture of the whale are easily entitled to wear champion belts as masters of pure fiction. Whaling is one of the least hazardous, the most commonplace, and, taken altogether about the laziest occupation that human beings have ever been engaged in upon the sea. Sailors aboard the clippers fifty years ago used to refer to whale ships as “butcher shops adrift,â€� and on account of the slovenly condition of their hulls, spars, sails, and rigging, a “spouterâ€� was generally regarded among seamen as one of the biggest jokes afloat. As a matter of fact the whale is about as stupid and inoffensive a creature as exists, and when occasionally he does some harm—smashing up a boat, for instance—it is usually in a flurry of fright, with no malice or intent to kill. If a whale possessed the instinct of self-defence he could never be captured with a harpoon, but he has evidently been created as he is for the benefit of mankind, and incidentally as a temptation to scribes, from the days of the indigestible Jonah even to the piscatory romancers of our own times.
Well, the captain of the Espirito Santo, after filling his water-casks, laying in a stock of provisions, and giving his crew a run ashore sheeted home his topsails, hove up anchor, and departed. Young Nat took such a lively interest in the welfare of this craft that he carefully watched her progress until the last shred of her canvas faded upon the horizon. He judged by the sun, for he had no compass, that her course was about south.
Three days after the departure of the Espirito Santo, the Hersilia appeared. Captain Sheffield had found nothing and seen nothing, except the cold, gray sky, and the long, ceaseless heaving of the Southern Ocean’s mighty breast, a few stray, hungry, screeching albatross, and once in a while, for a moment, a whale, with smooth, glistening back, spouting jets of feathery spray high in the keen, misty air, then sounding among the caverns of the deep. He had returned, like so many other credulous mariners, empty-handed, but he found his young second mate in a white heat of enthusiasm as he reported to his commander what he had learned, and finally, with the hopefulness of youth, declared his belief that “we can follow that Espirito Santo, and find her, too.� And they did, for in a few days she was discovered lying at anchor in a bay off the South Shetlands, islands at that time unknown in North America, though soon to become famous as the home of seals. The officers and crew of the Espirito Santo greeted them with surprise, while their admiration took the substantial form of assisting to load the Hersilia with ten thousand of the finest sealskins, with which she returned to Stonington.
This exploit spread like wildfire through New England whaling ports, and secured Captain Palmer at the age of twenty, command of the Stonington sloop Hero, “but little rising forty tons,� on board of which he sailed again for the Antarctic seas, as tender to the Hersilia, in 1819. Upon this voyage, after calling at the Falkland Islands for water and provisions, they again steered for the South Shetlands, and the Hersilia and Hero returned to Stonington with full cargoes of sealskins.
In 1821, Captain Palmer again sailed in the Hero upon an expedition to the South Shetlands, composed of six vessels commanded by Captain William Fenning of the brig Alabama Packet. By this time, however, the seals had been nearly exterminated, and Captain Palmer sailed farther south in search of new sealing-grounds, until he sighted land not laid down on any chart. He cruised along the coast for some days and satisfied himself that it was not an island, and after anchoring in several bays without finding any seals, although the high cliffs and rocks were covered by multitudes of penguin, he steered away to the northward with light winds and fog.
One night the Hero lay becalmed in a dense fog, the cold, penetrating mist drenching her sails and dripping from the main boom along her narrow deck. At midnight Captain Palmer relieved his mate and took the deck for the middle watch. When the man at the helm struck one bell, the captain was somewhat startled to hear the sound repeated twice at short intervals, for he knew, or thought he knew, that the only living things within many leagues were whales, albatross, penguin, and the like, nor did he recall ever hearing that these harmless creatures carried bells with them. The men of the watch on deck were really alarmed, for in those days superstition had not by any means departed from the ocean. The crew had heard of the fierce Kraken of northern seas, and suddenly remembered all about the doomed and unforgiven Vanderdecken, to say nothing of mythical local celebrities, renowned in all the barrooms of coast towns between Cornfield Point and Siasconset Head, nor were their fears assuaged when at two bells the same thing happened again, and so on through the watch.
Captain Palmer, however, concluded that, strange as it seemed, he must be in company with other vessels, and so at four o’clock he left the mate in charge of the deck with orders to call him if the fog lifted, and turned in for his morning watch below. At seven bells the mate reported that the fog had cleared a little and a light breeze was springing up, and by the time Captain Palmer got on deck two large men-of-war were in sight not more than a mile distant—a frigate on the port bow and a sloop of war on the starboard quarter, both showing Russian colors. Soon the United States ensign was run up at the main peak of the Hero and floated gaily in the morning breeze. The three vessels were now hove to, and a twelve-oared launch was seen approaching from the frigate, her crew and officer in the stern sheets in uniform. As she swept round the stern of the Hero the crew tossed oars and the coxswain shot her alongside. She really looked almost as large as the little sloop; at all events the Russian officer stepped from her gunwale to the deck of the Hero. The officer spoke English fluently, and presented the compliments of Commander Bellingshausen, who invited the captain of the American sloop to come on board his ship.
Captain Palmer was all his life a man of purpose rather than of ceremony, though by no means deficient in dignity and self-respect. He accepted the invitation, and giving an order or two to his mate, stepped into the launch just as he stood, in sea boots, sealskin-coat, and sou’wester. They were soon alongside the frigate, and Captain Palmer was ushered into the commander’s spacious and luxurious cabin. The scene was impressive; the venerable, white-haired commander surrounded by his officers in uniform, and the stalwart young American captain standing with respectful dignity, his rough weather-worn sea-dress contrasting with his fresh, intelligent, handsome face. Commander Bellingshausen smiled pleasantly, and taking his guest by the hand, said kindly, “You are welcome, young man; be seated.�