EXHIBIT O.
Captain Lapham.
Q. What is your full name, Captain?—A. Ezra B. Lapham.
Q. Where do you live?—A. South Dartmouth.
Q. What is your age?—A. Forty-nine.
Q. Where did you commence going to sea, before the mast?—A. Yes, sir; before the mast.
Q. How old were you?—A. Thirteen and one-half years.
Q. Have you been to sea ever since?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. All the way from the forecastle to captain of a ship?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many voyages did you make as master?—A. I commenced to go as master in ’76, and have been every year but two or three since that time.
Q. Where have you been as master?—A. Mostly in the North Pacific. Have been in the Okhotsk Sea and Japan Sea two seasons.
Q. How many times in the Okhotsk?—A. Two seasons.
Q.-What seasons were those?—A. ’86 and ’87.
Q. What is the season in the Okhotsk?—A. I went in July, about the 25th, and I stopped there until the 10th of October one year. One year I came out the 28th of September, but I was sick that time.
Q. What did you come away for; what were the reasons?—A. We calculated the season was about up the 10th of October.
Q. Did the northerly winds and rugged weather set in?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. And the season would last until the bad weather set in?—A. Until the bad weather set in.
Q. That is generally about the first part of October?—A. Yes, sir; anywhere from the first to the middle. Sometimes they stop until the 30th, but very seldom.
Q. Do you know where Vladivostok is?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. When is the best part of the season? You say the season lasts from the 1st of August until the 1st of October. What is the best part of that season?—A. Well, I found it the best——I did the most of my whaling in August, but one year I struck whales up to the 4th of October. I struck two whales on the 4th of October, but didn’t save either of them. I consider September the best month.
Q. Do you know the Cape Horn Pigeon?—A. Yes; she was there the time I was there.
Q. Whom have you sailed for?—A. I. H. Bartlett, William C. N. Swift, Thomas Nye.
Q. Do you know the size of the Cape Horn Pigeon?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. What should you say was a fair, average catch for a season in the Okhotsk?—A. That depends a good deal on the season. Some seasons are better than others.
Q. What should you expect going in there with the Cape Horn Pigeon—what should you think was a fair average catch?—A. I should say 10 whales.
Q. You don’t always get 10 whales?—A. No; but that is always what I go for; always calculate that that is a good, fair catch.
Q. But you feel pretty sure of getting 6 or 7?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. You wouldn’t go unless you thought you were going to get 6 or 7?—A. No, sir.
Q. Suppose you were at Vladivostok with the Cape Horn Pigeon on the 1st day of October, and the northerly winds and rugged weather had commenced, would you consider it expedient to return to the whaling grounds in the Okhotsk Sea?—A. No, sir; I shouldn’t give it the second thought. I should leave, certainly.
Q. Why?—A. Because the season is about up by that time. By the time you got there the season would be gone. Still, of course a ship could go there and take her chances.
Q. You wouldn’t get there until it was time to leave—until after the rugged weather had set in?—A. No, sir.
Q. How long would it take, if the northerly winds had set in, to go from Vladivostok to where the Cape Horn Pigeon was seized?—A. Well, I should think it would take ten days.
Q. So that by the time you got there the season would be practically over?—A. Practically, yes.
Q. About what do those whales in the Okhotsk make—oil and bone?—A. Well, you take a whale making 100 barrels of oil and you will get 1,100 pounds of bone.
Q. That is rather recognized as the average of those whales, isn’t it?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. The question of when the best whaling is, I suppose, depends upon when the whales strike in; it may be August or September?—A. Yes, sir.
Q. It depends a good deal on the feed?—A. Yes, sir; a good deal.
Q. The whales follow the feed somewhat?—A. Yes, sir; that is where you find the whales.
[Page 44]Q. And if you see whales for two or three days running you are pretty sure to see them right along; that is, there is some time during the season when the whales strike on, and then when they are gone of course they are gone?—A. Yes, sir; I consider August and September two very valuable months there.