Monkshaven

The magnates of Monkshaven were those who had the largest number of
ships engaged in the whaling-trade. Something like the following was
the course of life with a Monkshaven lad of this class:--He was
apprenticed as a sailor to one of the great ship-owners--to his own
father, possibly--along with twenty other boys, or, it might be,
even more. During the summer months he and his fellow apprentices
made voyages to the Greenland seas, returning with their cargoes in
the early autumn; and employing the winter months in watching the
preparation of the oil from the blubber in the melting-sheds, and
learning navigation from some quaint but experienced teacher, half
schoolmaster, half sailor, who seasoned his instructions by stirring
narrations of the wild adventures of his youth. The house of the
ship-owner to whom he was apprenticed was his home and that of his
companions during the idle season between October and March. The
domestic position of these boys varied according to the premium
paid; some took rank with the sons of the family, others were
considered as little better than servants. Yet once on board an
equality prevailed, in which, if any claimed superiority, it was the
bravest and brightest. After a certain number of voyages the
Monkshaven lad would rise by degrees to be captain, and as such
would have a share in the venture; all these profits, as well as all
his savings, would go towards building a whaling vessel of his own,
if he was not so fortunate as to be the child of a ship-owner. At
the time of which I write, there was but little division of labour
in the Monkshaven whale fishery. The same man might be the owner of
six or seven ships, any one of which he himself was fitted by
education and experience to command; the master of a score of
apprentices, each of whom paid a pretty sufficient premium; and the
proprietor of the melting-sheds into which his cargoes of blubber
and whalebone were conveyed to be fitted for sale. It was no wonder
that large fortunes were acquired by these ship-owners, nor that
their houses on the south side of the river Dee were stately
mansions, full of handsome and substantial furniture. It was also
not surprising that the whole town had an amphibious appearance, to
a degree unusual even in a seaport. Every one depended on the whale
fishery, and almost every male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be,
a sailor. Down by the river the smell was almost intolerable to any
but Monkshaven people during certain seasons of the year; but on
these unsavoury 'staithes' the old men and children lounged for
hours, almost as if they revelled in the odours of train-oil.