"WHALES HAS FEELIN's." 171 



account, fully to grasp their meaning. In fact 

 I know of only one land-lubber who ever really 

 caught the spirit of the whale-hunt, and that is 

 old Walt Whitman, who wrote those splendid, 

 pictorial lines (albeit they go devoid of rhyme, 

 and, in place of precise metre, have only a feeble 

 and slovenly wobble) : 



the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again! 



1 feel the ship's motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes 



fanning me. 

 I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There she 



blows ! 

 Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest — we descend, 



wild with excitement, 

 I leap in the lowered boat, we row toward our prey where he lies, 

 We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass, 



lethargic, basking, . 

 I see the harpooner standing up, I see the weapon dart from his 



vigorous arm ; 



swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling, 



running to windward, tows me. 

 Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again, 



1 see a lance driven through his side, pressed deep, turned in the 



wound, 

 Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him 



fast. 

 As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and 



narrower, swiftly cutting the water — 

 I see him die. 

 He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then 



falls flat and still in the bloody foam." 



Barring the single sentence " I see the moun- 

 tainous mass," (apparently Whitman thought a 

 whale cruised around two-thirds out of water, like 



