The report was unfavorable.
Four days' fuel only was left; and it was clear that even had the vessel been nearer than she was to her intended cruising ground, this would have been rather a short supply with which to venture on so dangerous an experiment.

Reluctantly, therefore, the scheme was relinquished, the fires let down, propeller hoisted up again, and sail made to the southward and eastward _en route_ for the coal depot.
The ship was now out of the track of commerce, and for some time scarcely a vessel was seen.

The 2d November, however, brought a prize in the shape of the ship Levi Starbuck, five days out from New Bedford, on a whaling voyage of thirty months to the Pacific Ocean.

Like all whalers, she carried a stronger crew than is common with other vessels of similar tonnage, and twenty-nine prisoners were transferred from her to the Alabama.

Being bound, too, on so long a cruise, she was well furnished with all necessaries, and the captor was enabled to supply himself from her with various articles of which, by this time, and after the rough weather he had experienced, he had begun to stand somewhat sorely in need.
Not the least highly-prized among the spoils of the Levi Starbuck was a noble collection of cabbages and turnips, fresh from their native soil! These were, indeed, invaluable.