NINTH DAT.] AMUSEMENTS. 241 



transient gratification to render her miserable, and 

 by making a flaw in an inestimable and brilliant gem, 

 utterly to destroy its value. v 



PHYS. You might go on and cite almost all the 

 objects of pursuit of rational beings, as, by distinction, 

 they are called. But to return to your favourite 

 amusement. I wonder that, with such a passion for 

 angling, you have never made an expedition in one 

 of our whalers with Captain Scoresby for instance ; 

 you would then have enjoyed sport of a new kind. 



HAL. I should like much to see a whale taken, 

 but I do not think the sight worth the dangers and 

 privations of such a voyage. It would only be an 

 amusing spectacle and not an enterprise, unless, 

 indeed, I myself employed the harpoon ; and after all 

 it must be a tedious operation, that of watching the 

 sinking and rising of a fish obedient to a natural 

 instinct, which, in this instance, is the cause of his 

 death. 



POIET. How ? 



HAL. The whale, having no air bladder, can sink 

 to the lowest depths of the ocean : and, mistaking 

 the harpoon for the teeth of a sword fish or a shark, 

 he instantly descends, this being his manner of 

 freeing himself from these enemies, who cannot bear 

 the pressure of a deep ocean, and from ascending and 

 descending . in small space, he puts himself in the 



