218 ZOOLOGY. 



In the year 1835, the ship Pusie Hall encountered a 

 fighting whale, which after injuring and driving off her 

 four boats, pursued them to the ship, and withstood for 

 some time the lances hurled at it, by the crew, from 

 the bows of the vessel, before it could be induced to 

 retire : in this affair a youth in one of the boats was 

 destroyed by a blow from the whale, and one of the 

 officers was severely lacerated by coining in contact 

 with the animaPs jaw. 



A highly tragical instance of the power and ferocity 

 occasionally displayed by the Sperm Whale, is recorded 

 in the fate of the American South-Seaman Essex, Cap- 

 tain G. Pollard. This vessel, when cruising in the 

 Pacific Ocean, in the year 1820, was wrecked by a 

 whale under the following extraordinary circumstances. 

 The boats had been lowered in pursuit of a school of 

 whales, and the ship was attending them to wind- 

 ward. The master and second-mate were engaged 

 with whales they had harpooned, in the midst of the 

 school, and the chief mate had returned on board to 

 equip a spare boat, in lieu of his own, which had been 

 broken and rendered unserviceable. While the crew 

 were thus occupied, the look-out at the mast-head re- 

 ported that a large whale was coming rapidly down 

 upon the ship, and the mate hastened his task, in the 

 hope that he might be ready in time to attack it. 



The Cachalot, which was of the largest size, con- 

 sequently a male, and probably the guardian of the 

 school, in the meanwhile approached the ship so 

 closely, that although the helm was put up to avoid the 

 contact, he struck her a severe blow, which broke off a 

 portion of her keel. The enraged animal was then ob- 



none of the crew were injured ; and the whale, which was spouting blood 

 at the time it did the mischief, was soon after dispatched by the other boats. 



