

THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 353 



ed against the soft bottom of his stomach, when I heard his 

 old jaws come together with a noise like the flap of a main- 

 top-sail in a gale before the ear-ring is hauled out. I was 

 pretty much tuckered out for want of breath for a little 

 while, an' I sot down on the sou'-east corner of his liver, and 

 swung my legs York fashion, while I got my wits aboard. 

 It wasn't at all dark down there, for there was ten thousand 

 of them little shining sea-jellies, stickin' all around in the 

 wrinkles of his stomach, and there was plenty of room, too. 

 Bymeby I got easier, an' kind o' accepted the situation, when 

 I saw a black patch on the starboard side of the stomach 

 well forrard, and I walked over to see what it migbt mean. 

 I picked out a jelly-fish bright enough to light a pipe a'most, 

 and held it up, and I saw pricked in Injey-ink, in great big 

 printin' letters, " JONAH. B.C. 1 683." Then I knew just 

 where I was, and began to feel real bad. I remembered how 

 my old mother used to read that story to me when I was a 

 babby, to turn me agin' whalin', and how I used to tell her 

 that harpoons weren't invented in them days. I kind o' felt 

 as if a judgment had come on me, and I took a fresh quid 

 for consolation sake. I saw at once that Timor Tom warn't 

 used to tobacco, for a kind o' turnin' of the stomach began. 

 So I picked up a jackknife I saw layin' on the floor, and 

 hacked a big plug all into little bits, and slipped 'em into 

 hundreds of little poutin' mouths in the stomach, that I saw 

 a-gapin' at me. 



" ' The physic worked to a charm. The whale began 

 heavin' an' squirmin' real awful, when, all at once, the stom- 

 ach turned clean over with a flop like an earthquake, and I 

 was shot out with about a cart-load of chawed squid that 

 laid around the floor. The mate's boat was then pickin' 

 up Captain Sartori and the crew, and they took me in too. 

 When I told them about the printin', they laughed right 

 out ; but when I showed them the horn-handled jackknife, 



