but for captains as well. Nothing is ventured now. The risks of swift
passages cannot be abided. Freights are calculated to the last least
fraction of per cent. The captains do no speculating, no bargain-making
for the owners. The latter attend to all this, and by wire and cable
rake the ports of the seven seas in quest of cargoes, and through their
agents make all business arrangements.

It has been learned that small crews only, and large carriers only, can
return a decent interest on the investment. The inevitable corollary is
that speed and spirit are at a discount. There is no discussion of the
fact that in the sailing merchant marine the seamen, as a class, have
sadly deteriorated. Men no longer sell farms to go to sea. But the time
of which Dana writes was the heyday of fortune-making and adventure on
the sea--with the full connotation of hardship and peril always
attendant.

It was Dana's fortune, for the sake of the picture, that the _Pilgrim_
was an average ship, with an average crew and officers, and managed with
average discipline. Even the _hazing_ that took place after the
California coast was reached, was of the average sort. The _Pilgrim_
savoured not in any way of a hell-ship. The captain, while not the
sweetest-natured man in the world, was only an average down-east driver,
neither brilliant nor slovenly in his seamanship, neither cruel nor
sentimental in the treatment of his men. While, on the one hand, there
were no extra liberty days, no delicacies added to the meagre forecastle
fare, nor grog or hot coffee on double watches, on the other hand the
crew were not chronically crippled by the continual play of
knuckle-dusters and belaying pins. Once, and once only, were men flogged
or ironed--a very fair average for the year 1834, for at that time
flogging on board merchant vessels was already well on the decline.