82 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



ing region turned him over in two different 

 boats, and afterward " knocked them into kind- 

 ling wood," while spouting blood in thick clots; 

 and yet this whale, with singular tenacity of life, 

 lived four hours afterward. He came up along- 

 side the boat, and turned it over with his nose, 

 and then, with his flukes, deliberately broke it 

 up. Of course the crew had to take to Nature's 

 oars, and they all marvellously escaped unhurt, 

 although one of them was carried, sitting upon 

 the whale's flukes, several rods, till he slid off 

 unharmed from his strange sea-chariot. This 

 man could say, in one of the sailor's rude rhymes 

 whom we have already quoted, 



" Although he furiously doth us assail, 



Thou dost preserve us from all danger free. 



He cuts our boat in pieces with his tail, 

 A.nd spills us all at once into the sea." 



This northwest cruising ground was first 

 visited in the spring of 1836 by two or three of 

 the Chilian whalers, who saw, indeed, numerous 

 whales, but gave it as their opinion that the 

 fishery could never be prosecuted there with any 

 success, by reason of constant and dense fogs. 



