Sketches Afloat with the Whalers 265 



carried him down. Cases where a man was taken 

 down so swiftly that the crew did not see it done 

 are on record. Sometimes the line jammed in 

 the crotch in the bow of the boat and carried 

 boat and all down. Sometimes the whale came 

 to the surface, striking the bottom of the boat 

 through accident. Men were kicked overboard 

 by the bomb-throwing guns. Bullen suffered 

 this mishap, and then, in trying to save himself, 

 he unwittingly dragged himself up on top of the 

 whale he had shot just as it was going into its 

 death flurry. He managed to cling to the harpoon 

 during the flurry, but was laid up for three weeks 

 after he was rescued. 



An interesting story of a whale boat lost from 

 a ship is that told by Captain Roland F. Coffin in 

 An Old Sailor s Tarns. Coffin was in the captain's 

 boat, and the captain held on to a whale that ran 

 away all one night. They killed the whale in the 

 morning, "waifed" it, and then started to sail 

 back and find the ship. 



"We missed the ship some way. Arter runnin' 

 till noon the next day and seein' nothin' of her, 

 the old man made up his mind that we had run 



