CACHELOT EMBAYED. 353 



his course, and the shores reverberated the sound 

 made by the dilated blows he struck upon the sur- 

 face with his tail. He coasted the shore as if he 

 looked for some outlet he had remembered, but 

 which he could not find again ; and some hours elapsed 

 before he took ground in that circular convulsive 

 sweep, which is described as being made by these 

 animals when exhausted, and which whalers call the 

 ' flurry.' This laid him fast stranded on the shal- 

 lows, and rolled upon his side. This capture was 

 related to me by General Kayer la Rivierre, the 

 Commandant of a neighbouring arrondisement, who 

 witnessed it. The Sword-fish was not taken, but 

 the body of the stranded animal bore wounds, evi- 

 dently inflicted by some such ocean enemy. 



" Moreau de St. Meri, in his History and de- 

 scription of the old French Colony of St. Domingo, 

 relates that in his time (1785), in the months of 

 March, April, and May, as many as five and twenty 

 vessels from the North American States could be 

 seen on the coast off" Sale Trou near Jacmel, fishing 

 for Cachelot Whales, and, he adds, for Souflleurs 

 {Balcenoptera), and that this fishery was with equal 

 spirit and success pursued within the gulf to the 

 west of the colony ; — that is, within the Bight, 

 in which I saw the Cachelot breach. The whale 

 fishers resorted to Turk's-island to boil their oil. 



" I must not omit to mention that that rejecta- 

 mentum of the Spermaceti Whale, * odoriferous 

 Ambergris,^ has been occasionally found on the coasts 

 of these and the Bahama Islands, of very considerable 

 size and weight. 



