His CAPTORS. 215 



Forty Hours' Drag. Six Miles of Line. 



The wind blowing a moderately brisk breeze, 

 the top-gallant-sails were taken in, the courses 

 hauled up, and the top-sails clewed down ; yet 

 in this situation she was towed directly to wind- 

 ward, for an hour and a half, with the velocity 

 of one and a half to two knots an hour, the 

 whale all the while beating the water with its 

 fins and tail, so that the sea around was in a 

 continual foam. At length, near eight o'clock, 

 after forty hours of incessant exertion, this te- 

 nacious assertor of his vast animal vigor and 

 territorial rights was killed. 



There is an instance given by Captain Scores- 

 by where a Greenland whale was at last killed 

 who had drawn out ten thousand four hundred 

 and forty yards, or about six miles of line, at- 

 tached to fifteen harpoons, besides taking one 

 boat entirely under water, which disappeared 

 and was never seen, the harpoons by which it 

 was held to the whale probably drawing out 

 under the immense pressure, and leaving it to 

 sink, or to rise under the ice. 



But the most dreadful display of the whale's 

 strength and prowess yet authentically record- 

 ed was that made upon the American whale 

 ship Essex, Captain Pollard, which sailed from 



