Word: pollarding
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Captain George Pollard of Nantucket, Mass, had been out in one of the whaleboats himself, that day in 1820, when the whaler Essex began to founder. Nobody could have been more dismayed than Captain Pollard when he headed back to his stricken ship. "My God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter?" he cried. And from Mate Chase, bobbing with other survivors in a small boat, came the laconic answer: "We have been stove by a whale...
...troubles of Pollard and his men were just beginning. For the next three months, with no charts, the survivors sailed three small open boats in a wandering course over some 3,000 miles of the South Pacific. They were reduced soon to eating flying fish which flopped against their sails, and finally to cannibalism...
Drawing of Lots. On the 73rd day, recorded Captain Pollard later: "We looked" at each other with horrid thoughts in our minds . . . We loved one another as brothers . . . yet our looks told plainly what must be done." That was to draw lots to decide who would be shot for food...
...been eaten; the three in the third boat were never found. There was no official investigation; none of the survivors ever stood trial. Most lived to a ripe old age, though they never quite got over their experiences. Mate Chase used to cache food away in his attic. Captain Pollard, trying to tell the story, broke off: "I can tell you no more-my head is on fire at the recollection...
...POLLARD GARRISON Hollywood, Calif...