To be clean again! How good it felt:—ship, gear, and man.
But how often was it no sooner achieved than a yell from the masthead announced
“She blows! She blows!”
and all the weary business had to be gone through with again.
MAIN HATCH SURGERY
Some English and Scottish whalers carried surgeons, but it was not the custom in Yankee ships. Whatever casualties befell his men, the captain attended to as best he could.
Heroic tales are related of bone settings and amputations without anesthetics aboard whaleships that pay high tribute to the fortitude of that vanished race of hardy seamen.
