566 WHALE FISHERY. 



which, by their number, indicated a most urgenjttieces- 

 sity for assistance. Two or three men were, at the same 

 time, seated close by the stern, which was coWliderably 

 elevated, for the purpose of keeping it down, while 

 the bow of the boat, by the force of the line, was drawn 

 ^Kown to the level of the sea, and the harpoojer, by 

 ihe friction of the line round the bollard, was erBloped 

 M in smoky obscurity. At length, when the ship wasfcarce- 

 ^ly 100 yards distant, we perceived preparations for quitr ^ 

 ting the boat. The sailors' pea-jackets were cast upolP* 

 the adjoining ice, the oars were thrown down, the 

 crew leaped overboard, the bow of the boat was bu- 

 ried in the water, the stern rose perpendicular, and 

 then majestically disappeared. The harpooner, having 

 caused the end of the line to be fastened to the iron ring 

 at the boat's stern, was the means of its loss ; and a 

 tongue of the ice, on which was a depth of several feet 

 of tvater, kept the boat, by the pressure of the line 

 against it, at such a considerable distance, as prevented 

 the crew from leaping upon the floe. Some of them 

 were, therefore, put to the necessity of swimming for 

 .^iheir preservation, but all of them succeeded in scramb- 

 ling upon the ice, and were taken aboard of the ship a 

 few minutes afterwards. I may here observe, that it is 

 an uncommon circumstance for a fish to take more than 

 two boats' lines in such a situation ; none of our har- 

 pooners, therefore, had any scruple in leaving the fast- 

 boat, never suspecting, after it had received the assist- 

 ance of one boat, with six lines or upwards, that it 

 would need any more. 



' Several ships being about us, there was a possibility 

 that some persons might attack and make a prize of the 

 wh&e, when it had so far escaped us, that we no longer 

 retained any hold of it. We, therefore, set all the sail 

 the ship could safely sustain, and worked through seve- 

 ral narrow and intricate channels in the ice, in the direc- 

 tion I observed the fish had retreated. After a little 

 time, it was descried by the people in the boats, at a 

 considerable distance to the eastward ; a genera! chase 

 immediately commenced, and in the space of an hour 

 three harpoons were struck. We now imagined the fish 



