34 THE CEUHSE OF THE "CACHALOT,'' 



CHAPTEE V. 



ACTUAL WARFARE. OUR FIRST WHALE. 



Simultaneous ideas occurring to several people, or 

 thought transference, whatever one likes to call the 

 phenomenon, is too frequent an occurrence in most of 

 our experience to occasion much surprise. Yet on the 

 occasion to which I am ahout to refer, the matter was 

 so very marked that few of us who took part in the day's 

 proceedings are ever likely to forget it. 



We were all gathered ahout the fo'lk'sle scuttle one 

 evening, a few days after the gale referred to in the 

 previous chapter, and the question of whale-fishing came 

 up for discussion. Until that time, strange as it may 

 seem, no word of this, the central idea of all our minds, 

 had been mooted. Every man seemed to shun the subject, 

 although we were in daily expectation of being called 

 upon to take an active part in whale-fighting. Once 

 the ice was broken, nearly all had something to say 

 about it, and very nearly as many addle-headed opinions 

 were ventilated as at a Colney Hatch debating society. 

 For we none of us knew anything about it. I was 

 appealed to continually to support this or that theory, 

 but as far as whaling went I could only, like the rest of 

 them, draw upon my imagination for details. How did 



