280 SALMONIA. 



our whalers with Captain Scoresby for in- 

 stance: 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 employed my- 

 self the harpoon ; and after all it must be a 

 tedious operation, that of watching the sink- 

 ing 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 de- 

 scending in small space, he puts himself in the 

 power of the whaler ; whereas, if he knew his 

 force, and were to swim on the surface in a 

 straight line, he would break or destroy the 



