136 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



tain of this ship on another voyage, found a 

 large barnacle in the centre of a sperm whale's 

 junk, which must have got there in the same way 

 that stones, and deers' horns, and toads, get into 

 the solid heart of trees, by being lodged in the 

 bark, and then overgrown by it. 



When old Captain Bunker, of New Bedford, 

 of whom almost everybody in America has 

 heard, was on a cruise in the ship Howard, in 

 north latitude thirty degrees thirty minutes, and 

 east longitude one hundred and fifty-four de- 

 grees, he threw a harpooon into a large whale, 

 but the whale was not captured, and the har- 

 poon of course lost. It was about five years 

 afterwards, that, being precisely in the same lati- 

 tude, and east longitude one hundred and forty, 

 he made fast to a noble whale, and, after a hard 

 struggle, succeeded in getting him alongside. 

 And lo ! when cutting him up, a harpoon, 

 rusted off at the shank, was found fast anchored 

 in the old fellow's " cut- water." "Hallo !" said 

 Captain Bunker, jesting, " here is my missing 

 old iron." What he said in joke proved to be 

 very truth, for the blubber-kept harpoon was 



