Zanzibar and Kamchatka, Tasmania and the Seychelles knew the lean, sun-dried Yankee whaleman and his motto of a "dead whale or a stove boat." The Civil War did not drive him from the seas.

The curious fact is that his products commanded higher prices in 1907 than fifty years before, but the number of his ships rapidly decreased.

Whales were becoming scarce, and New England capital preferred other forms of investment.

The leisurely old sailing craft was succeeded by the steam whaler, and the explosive bomb slew, instead of the harpoon and lance hurled by the sinewy right arm of a New Bedford man or Cape Verde islander.
Roving whaler and armed East Indiaman, plunging packet ship and stately clipper, they served their appointed days and passed on their several courses to become mere memories, as shadowy and unsubstantial as the gleam of their own topsails when seen at twilight.

The souls of their sailors have fled to Fiddler's Green, where all dead mariners go.