2G0 TEE CBUISE OF TEE " CACEALOT» 



circumstances, knowing the peculiar habits of the hump 

 back and the almost impossibility of competing with him 

 in the open sea ; but they had lured us on to forget all 

 these things in the ardour of the chase, and then exposed 

 our folly. 



Then ensued a week or two of uneventful cruising, 

 broken only by the capture of a couple of cows — one just 

 after the fruitless chase mentioned above, and one several 

 days later. These events, though interesting enough to 

 us, were marked by no such deviation from the ordinary 

 course as to make them worthy of special attention ; nor 

 do I think that the cold-blooded killing of a cow-whale, 

 •who dies patiently endeavouring to protect her young, 

 is a subject that lends itself to eulogium. 



However, just when the delightful days were beginning 

 to pall upon us, a real adventure befell us, which, had we 

 been attending strictly to business, we should not have 

 encountered. For a week previous we had been cruising 

 constantly without ever seeing a spout, except those 

 belonging to whales out at sea, whither we knew it was 

 folly to follow them. We tried all sorts of games to 

 while away the time, which certainly did hang heavy, 

 the most popular of which was for the whole crew of the 

 boat to strip, and, getting overboard, be towed along at 

 the ends of short warps, while I sailed her. It was quite 

 mythological — a sort of rude reproduction of Neptune and 

 his attendant Tritons. At last, one afternoon as we were 

 listlessly lolling (half asleep, except the look-out man) 

 across the thwarts, we suddenly came upon a gorge 

 between two cliffs that we must have passed before several 

 times unnoticed. At a certain angle it opened, disclosing 

 a wide sheet of water, extending a long distance ahead. 

 I put the helm up, and we ran through the passage, find- 

 ing it about a boat's length in width and several fathoms 



