Whales as the Whalers Knew Them 201 



other notable characteristics of these monstrous 

 animals but one remains to be mentioned here. 

 Alert, swift, and mighty, some whales of the 

 fighting kind have defied for years the ablest 

 whalers of the seven seas. With each successful 

 resistance to attack such whales have seemed 

 to gain in skill, and to increase in ferocity. The 

 name of "Moby Dick, the White Whale," was 

 taken from a fighting whale that was known to 

 all whalers in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century as Mocha Dick. Nevertheless a time 

 came when a whale boat paddled up unawares 

 upon even the mightiest and wisest of the fighters. 

 The man at the bow was so skilful or so fortu- 

 nate that he drove both harpoons "to the hitches" 

 at a point where they, in part, at least, paralyzed 

 the fighting spirit of the veteran. The mate 

 then hurried forward, and before the animal 

 had recovered enough of its customary strength to 

 turn on the boat, the deadly lance was plunged 

 into its side, and its "life" was reached. Flinch- 

 ing and bellowing under the intolerable pain 

 it strove to fly, but the convulsions of death 

 soon seized upon it. In wild agony it flung itself 



