WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 81 



wet you do not think of, with seventy or eighty tons charging 

 in front 0f you and the chance of getting in the harpoon any 

 moment. For several hours we chased in this wonderful 

 piece of sea, so brimful of life, but the whales dodged about 

 at a most unusual rate ; possibly their rapidity of motion 

 was caused by the host of dolphins and porpoises that leapt 

 alongside them and crossed their course ; and for all these 

 hours we could occasionally descry our neighbour through 

 the rain showers and failing light, still in tow of her prey. 

 Not till about nine o'clock did she fire a second gun and 

 we hoped she had got in another harpoon to finish her 

 prolonged fight. 



Often we were close to a whale but not in such a 

 position as to be able to swing the gun towards it. For 

 some time a huge fellow surged close alongside within one 

 or two feet of our starboard beam and never touched 

 us. I think they must have a sense by which they can 

 judge their distance from a vessel's or boat's side or ice : 

 one can hardly believe they judge the distance by the eye 

 alone. 



At about ten o'clock our real chance came we crashed 

 down from a high sea almost on top of a whale as it rose 

 unexpectedly, but it was too close, we could not depress the 

 gun enough to get the foresight on, but the next rise, the 

 moment after its blast we were high in air and let drive as we 

 came down and were fast and sure. 



I do not know how to describe the grand rush of a huge 

 whale or that fractional pause of uncertainty after the boom 

 and smoke and flame and the whirl of great rope. It is heart- 

 stopping, almost solemn. You watch the seething black 

 boil where the whale has gone down, with small flecks of 

 scarlet in it, and the great cable fading down into the depths, 

 and the gun-wads smoking on the water. Then off goes 

 the cable to right or left ! Sixty to seventy miles an hour, 

 cutting the water into foam, and we swing into the course 

 of the whale. Before going fairly in tow on this occasion, 

 an unusual thing happened. The whale's huge head, 

 immediately after it sounded, suddenly shot up twenty 

 yards in front of our bows, twenty feet in the air, and 

 F 



