WHALES AT NIGHT. 223 



cndaveroiis glccam upon the boat, so that we looked to 

 each other like ghosts. For many rods astern, our wake 

 was revealed in a line of rushino; illuminated foam ; while, 

 here and there beneath the surface, the tracks of sharks 

 were denoted by vivid, greenish trails, crossing and 

 recrossing each other in every direction. Further away, 

 and distributed in clusters, floated on the sea, like con- 

 stellations in the heavens, innumerable medusae, a species 

 of small, round, refulgent fish, only to be met with in the 

 South Seas and the Indian Ocean. 



" Suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air 

 a bushy jet of flashes, accompanied by the unmistakeable 

 deep-breathing sound of a sperm whale. Soon the sea 

 all round us spouted in fountains of fire ; and vast forms, 

 emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon 

 raisino^ their heads above water, and sliakino- off the 

 sparkles, shewed where an innnense shoal of cachalots 

 had risen from below, to sport in these phosphorescent 

 billows. 



" The vapour jetted forth was far more radiant than 

 any portion of the sea ; ascribable, perhaps, to the origin- 

 ally luminous fluid, contracting still more brillancy from 

 its passage through the spouting canal of the whales. 



" We were in great fear lest, without any vicious inten- 

 tion, the leviathans might destroy us by coming into close 

 contact with our boat. We would have shunned them, 

 but they were all round and round us. Nevertheless we 

 w^ere safe ; for, as we parted the pallid brine, the peculiar 

 irradiation which shot from about our keel seemed to 



