SPERM WHALE LOST. 113 



a few days, and waste his oil upon the ocean 

 like that of thousands before. 



I felt not a little anxiety for the captain and 

 boat's crew, engaged thus alone and out of sight 

 amid a horde of infuriated and frightened 

 whales, all the time fastened to one of them by 

 his harpoons, and momently liable to be struck 

 and upset. It was a pleasurable relief to hear 

 them announced from the masthead as returning, 

 though I could not help regretting that they 

 should have to come back with only their labour 

 for their pains; and, when seemingly in the 

 very arms of victory, after all the hazard and 

 toil of the chase, to be compelled to abandon 

 the lawful prize, which perhaps an hour's lon- 

 ger holding to would have made their own. 

 But such, time and again, is a whaleman's 

 fortune. To him, emphatically, 



" There 's many a slip 

 'Tween the cup and the lip." 



From the conduct of those whales, from what 

 I before observed, and from what others, well in- 

 formed, have told me, it was evident to me that 

 the societies of these great sea monsters seldom 



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