420 AN UNEXPECTED CATASTROPHE. 



fancy of ours, judging from personal observation, that the 

 whaler is always graver, more reserved, and less excitable 

 than other " sons of the sea ; " and such may well be the 

 case in men who spend so much of their lives in Arctic 

 solitudes, and are so constantly brought face to face with 

 death. To none can the simple but earnest words of 

 Scoresby's prayer, written specially for the use of the 

 crew of a whaling-ship, come with greater force : "Grant 

 us, we beseech thee, O God, a continuance of thy favour ; 

 preserve us, while we trace the treacherous deep, from 

 every evil from rocks and shoals ; from fire and tempest ; 

 from sea and ice ; from distress and accident ; and from 

 every danger, seen and unseen, known and unknown." 



The catastrophe we are about to relate occurred on the 

 homeward voyage of* the Baffin. 



She had been overtaken by a violent storm, but no 

 water had yet been shipped, though the tremendous sea 

 that was running beat with all its fury on the vessel's 

 quarter or beam, being in a direction of all others the 

 most dangerous. A fatal wave, however, at length 

 struck the quarter with tremendous violence, and throw- 

 ing up a vast weight of water, carried along with it, in 

 its passage across the deck, one of the harpooneers, or 

 principal officers, who, in concert with several others, was 

 employed on the weather-rail, endeavouring to secure one 

 of the boats hanging over the side, carried him quite 

 over the heads of his companions, and swept him into the 

 sea ! Most of the crew being under water at the same 

 time, his loss was not known until he was discovered 

 just passing under the vessel's stern, but out of reach, and 

 lying apparently insensible upon the waves. He was 

 seen only for a few seconds, and then disappeared for ever ! 



