144 THE WHALE AND 



The Disappointment. No Anomaly. 



the lines in order to keep the boats from going 

 down with it. Thus they lost not only the 

 fruits of many hours of severe toil, but a large 

 quantity of line and the valuable harpoons also, 

 besides the incalculable moral detriment and 

 loss of spirits from such a disappointment. 



Bad as this luck was, it was not attended 

 with loss of life like the following I have met 

 with in fragments of a sailor's journal, being a 

 contribution to " The Sheet Anchor:" We were 

 cruising, he says, somewhere between the lat- 

 itude of thirty-six and thirty-seven degrees 

 south, and the longitude of sixty-eight degrees 

 east, in search of right whales. It was in the 

 afternoon, and the ship was moving along un- 

 der her top-gallant sails at the rate of about 

 five knots the hour. The most hardened grum- 

 bler could not find fault with the day. At the 

 fore and main top-gallant cross-trees were two 

 men on the look-out for whales. It was now 

 nearly four o'clock, when the man at the main 

 sung out, " There she blows !" He repeated 

 the cry regularly five or six times. All was 

 now excitement among the officers and men. 

 Every one was anxious to know if it was the 

 kind of whale we wanted. The mate hailed 



