V ' Among the Shar^ks and Whales ' 413 



away or simply ' sounding ' to the ' bottom of the 

 deep blue sea ' ? And if that mighty sabre does 

 belong to a hostile thresher, why does it not 

 ' thresh,' or at least make a decent chop at the 

 threshed, if there be strange beasts below who will 

 not permit him to dive ? 



How stupid is brute force when blinded by 

 passion ! ' Ain't it sad to see whales gettin' mad 

 and actin' jest like human beins ? ' ' Wall, I 

 dunno.' If this is being blinded by passion, it 

 seems to me that being blinded by passion would be 

 a very good thing in a shindy ; for here, if the com- 

 batants do kick up the deuce of a spray, they 

 certainly do not seem to be doing each other any 

 very great harm. I know not whether marine 

 animals ever get up ' naval demonstrations,' but this, 

 if it be a hostile affair, must be something like them ; 

 like Bardolph and his modern representatives, ' they 

 face it out and fight not' 



For my own part, the more I study this mixture 

 of thunderstorm and geyser, this apparently mortal 

 antagonism between coal-black flukes and silver 

 sabre (by the way, Frithiof seems to have seen 

 something of the sort), the more I am drawn to the 

 conclusion that, like many other rows, there is mighty 

 little fight in it after all. A proof of what people 

 used to say in those wicked times when personal 

 courage was considered a better national and 

 domestic defence than mere 'jaw,' 'the bigger the 

 row, the worser the fight.' 



