e
fishing in those quarters, amply rewarded for the dangers we had
encountered by the success we met with. Sometimes, however, we were
days and days together without even seeing a whale; and several were
lost, after chasing them with much toil and difficulty.

Newman contributed much all the time to keep the people in good humour,
by always finding them employment; and Captain Carr, unlike some masters
I have met with, afforded him every assistance in his plans. Among
other things, he established regular classes below, and, with the
exception of one or two very idle, stupid fellows, all the crew belonged
to one or other of them. Besides a reading and writing class, he had an
arithmetic and geography class, and a music and a drawing class. His
singing class was the most numerous, and he very soon taught nearly all
hands to sing together in admirable tune and time. I at first
exclusively attended the reading and writing class, devoting every
moment I was off duty to my books; so that, much to my own surprise and
delight, I soon found that I could read with ease and satisfaction.
Writing was a more difficult task: to one whose fingers had never been
accustomed to the cramped position required for holding a pen. Still,
Newman had a way of overcoming that difficulty. Making me throw the
weight of my body on my left side, he left my right hand and fingers
free, and kept me for some time with a dry pen simply moving up and down
across the page. Even when I had begun to form letters, at the
commencement of every lesson he made me follow this plan for a few
minutes, that, as he said, I might get my fingers into training before I
disfigured the paper and became disgusted with my own performance. He
himself seemed never to grow weary of teaching. No ignorance or
stupidity daunted him; and it used to surprise me that a man of such
extensive information and extraordinary talents, should take the trouble
of imparting knowledge to people who were so immeasurably his inferiors.
I used to observe, from the first, that he was never for a moment idle.
"Ned must always be doing something or other," old Tom observed of him.
"It's all the better for him that he is afloat. If he were on shore,
he would be doing mischief." His great object seemed to be to fly from
himself. Sometimes, when I was talking with him, from the strangeness
of his remarks, and from his bursts of feeling, I thought that there
must be a touch of madness abo