This is a diary of my great-great-grandfather, Enoch Carter Cloud, who as a young man ran away to find adventure at sea. Thus begins the introduction by Cloud's great-great-granddaughter, Elizabeth McLean, to the personal log of a young sailor on a 19th-century whaling vessel. The author journeys around the world giving richly detailed narratives of encounters with native peoples in Portugal, Africa, New Zealand, the Pacific islands, and the West Indies. He describes a number of whale chases in vivid language, with a surprising note og anguish at the slaughter of the harpoon whales fighting for their lives in a sea of blood.