And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses.
But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation
of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.
Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem,
where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor
sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing
nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.



CHAPTER 7

The Chapel



In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel,
and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean
or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot.
I am sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out
upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear,
sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my
shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way
against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered
congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled
silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm.
Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other,
as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable.