h, Dampier, and Lord
Anson anchored. Three boats were immediately sent on shore. I went in
one with the doctor, who wanted to collect a species of mint, an
excellent preventive against scurvy. It was found in such abundance
that two boats loaded with it were sent back to the ship. We made tea
of it, which we much enjoyed, after having had only pea-coffee to drink
for so long. I half expected to meet Robinson Crusoe himself coming
down to welcome us to his island, for we saw numbers of his goats among
the craigs, though we in vain tried to catch one of the patriarchs of
the flock, to ascertain whether its ears were nicked. Anson's men
discovered several venerable animals with long beards, which had
evidently been so treated by Selkirk himself, but that generation must
have long since died out. The dogs Anson saw have also disappeared,
being more easily shot than the goats.

Pulling a short distance from the shore, we got out our fishing-lines.
So beautifully clear was the water as the sun shone down into it, that
we could actually see the fish take the hook. They bit with wonderful
avidity, and in a short time we caught as many rock-cod and other fish
as we required. After this we stood along the coast, seldom within
sixty miles of it, yet in sight of the snowy summits of the towering
Andes. This part of the ocean is called by whalers "the off-shore
fishing ground," extending from Valparaiso to Panama, and about four
hundred miles westward from the land. We were tolerably successful,
having killed four whales.

I shall not forget the scene the deck presented to my eyes the night
after the blubber from our first whale had been stripped off and cut up
while the crew were engaged in "trying out," that is, boiling it down
into oil, to be stowed away in casks below. Along the deck were
arranged the huge "try-pots," with brightly blazing fires beneath them,
the fuel being the crisp membrane from the already used blubber. On
each side of the "try-works" were copper tanks or coolers to receive the
oil as it flows over the sides of the pots with the rolling of the ship,
or is ladled into them when sufficiently boiled. Some of the men
stripped to the waist, and, begrimed with smoke and oil, were working
away with forks or ladles, either throwing in the blubber, chopped into
small pieces, or skimming off the scraps, or baling out the oil; others
of the men were in the blubber-room, heaving on deck the horse-pieces,