Autobiography of an unidentified sailor born in 1826 in Deal, Kent County, England. He went to sea in January 1840 on a whaler and describes his reasoning for becoming a sailor, a whale hunt and islands visited including Trinidad and Galapagos. Includes water colored ink sketches of natives as well as ink sketches of a sperm whale, the author, without clothes on, being pulled onto the ship to escape a shark, and a giant turtle. Also includes quotations of the bible and mathematical problems related to navigation. The author did not intend to publish his account but wrote it for his family, twenty-five years after he had set sail.