Having spoken with the historians at Mystic Seaport, this is a compilation of incidents which occurred during Bullen's four voyages on whalers, during which he rose from the position of able seaman to first mate. It is a terrific account of whaling during the 1800s.

This is really a world history course and a study of the end of both the age of sail and the whaling trade. Frank T. Bullen (1857-1915) ascends from ordinary seaman to first mate on the two-year cruse of the whaling ship, Cachalot. Published in 1899, this book has all the dramatic impact of Two Years Before the Mast by Dana, but has much more action torture of seamen, and the killing of a ruthless captain combined with a fantastic course in world geography a century ago. This should be considered the definitive book on what it was like to live before the mast during a two year circumnavigation of the globe. Many whales were slaughtered, but not without a heavy toll in human life. Read the book and see if you were as surprised as I to find out the real root of the term, the cutting edge.

Bullen deals frankly and easily with his opinions on race relations among the crew and with local natives. Bullen also goes into great detail on the merits of this old tub as it rides out a cyclone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This reader gained a new respect for the awesome power of wind and wave with a real appreciation of what it takes to make a sailing ship truly seaworthy. It is worth the read to see how much and how little our world has changed in 100 years. I ran across and origional edition and the art work was a perfect compliment to the text.