Lot 740A email save

WHALING - COOMER, George. Autograph manuscript ti

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[N.p.: c. 1880]. 19 pp., 4to (215 x 180 mm). Written in pencil. Condition: minor marginal soiling to first page, light creases. Housed in cloth folding case. a whale hunt off the california coast. Coomer, a native of Bristol, Rhode Island and author of The Young Whaler (New York, 1903) herein recounts the tale related to him by a young sailor of a particularly exciting whaling expedition undertaken by the "Minerva" off of the coast of Santa Barbara. Having already taken a number of whales in the area and "scrubbing the decks of blubber," the ship and crew encountered a "handsome sloop yacht" from Santa Barbara, the "Puma," whose passengers were apparently all young women. The captains of each vessel remarked on how exciting it would be if the ladies could be treated to the excitement of a whaling encounter, an event that took place when the yacht spotted a large whale a few miles after departing the meeting with the Minerva. The author then goes on to provide the details of taking the whale with longboats and lances within sight of the ladies waving their hankerchiefs on deck, the reality of which they were unprepared for as at the end they "had passed the initial ordeal" and wanted no further encounters with a "galleyed" whale.

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