174 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " OACEALOT:' 



the line. I suppose the skipper's eagle eye must have 

 caught sight of the trailing part of the line streaming 

 beneath, for suddenly he plunged overboard, reappearing 

 almost immediately with the line in his hand. He 

 scrambled into the boat with it, cutting it from the 

 whale at once, and starting his boat's crew hauling in. 



Then there was a hubbub again. The captain of 

 the Narragansett, our first rival, protested vigorously 

 against our monopoly of the line ; but in grim silence 

 our skipper kept on, taking no notice of him, while we 

 steadily hauled. Unless he of the Narragansett choose to 

 fight for what he considered his rights, there was no help 

 for him. And there was something in our old man's 

 appearance eminently calculated to discourage aggression 

 of any kind. 



At last, disgusted apparently, with the hopeless turn 

 affairs had taken, the Narragansett' s boats drew off, and 

 returned on board their ship. Two of our boats had by 

 this time accumulated a mountainous coil of line each, 

 with which we returned to our own vessel, leaving the 

 skipper to visit the present holder of the whale, the 

 skipper of the John Hampden. 



What arrangements they made, or how they settled 

 the Narragansett' s claim between them, I never knew, but 

 I dare say there was a costly law-suit about it in New 

 Bedford years after. 



This was not very encouraging for a start, nor did 

 the next week see us do any better. Several times we 

 saw other ships with whales alongside, but we got no 

 show at all. Now, I had hoped a great deal from our 

 cruise on these grounds, because I had heard whispers 

 of a visit to the icy Sea of Okhotsk, and the prospect was 

 to me a horrible one. I never did take any stock in 



