96 THE WHALE AND 



Rhymes of an Ancient Mariner. 



CHAPTER VI. 



DIFFERENT CRUISING GROUNDS AND NORTHWEST 

 WHALING. 



Thou didst, O Lord ! create the mighty whale, 



That wondrous monster of prodigious length : 

 Vast are his head and body, vast his tail ; 



Beyond conception his unmeasured strength. 

 When he the surface of the sea hath broke, 



Arising from the dark abyss below, 

 His breath appears a lofty stream of smoke, 



The circling waves like glittering banks of snow. Anon. 



IT will be readily surmised that none but a 

 genuine son of the sea, a veritable Cape 

 Homer, " homeward bound," in the great 

 South Pacific, could make these characteristic 

 rhymes, and many other rude but expressive 

 ones, which there is not room to transcribe here. 

 The sailor that made them says of himself, in 

 the course of some doggerel staves of autobiog- 

 raphy, 



I twice into the dark abyss was cast, 



Straining and struggling to retain my breath ; 



Thy waves and billows over me were past ; 

 Thou didst, O Lord ! deliver me from death. 



Different practised whalemen tell me of 



