>C 91 



"WHALES HAS FEELIN'S. 



" Whales has feelin's as well as anybody. They don't like to be stuck in th© 

 gizzards, an' hauled alongside, an' cut in, an' tried out in these here boilers no 

 more'n I do! " — Barzy Mack's Biology. 



The whale having gone down, we waited for 

 him to come up again. Three boats danced idly 

 upon the warm Madagascan water — the mate's, 

 the second mate's and my own. The sun blazed 

 viciously down from a cloudless sky. 



We lay well apart, covering a large area of 

 swelling, billowy sea. When the whale came up 

 again, the real battle would begin. 



A whole hour we waited in anxious expectance. 

 As is natural at such times, my thoughts, mean- 

 while, ran back years and years to other whales 

 and other fights. Once when I was a cabin boy I 

 had stood three hours in the stern of a stoven 

 boat, sunk just to the gunwale, while two wounded 

 whales were cutting about and making the water 

 white with their huge flukes, so near that it 

 seemed they must kill me. Was the monster, 

 down below in those vague amethystine depths, 

 preparing some such terrors for the present occa- 

 sion ? I recalled, too, how once a dying whale 

 had brought his spout-hole up against our boat 



