ON THE SOLANDER GROUNDS. 337 



the vast, inhospitable Southern Ocean. Throughout the 

 dark and stormy night our brave old ship held on her 

 unwilling way right gallantly, making no water, in spite 

 of the fearful strain to which she was subjected, nor 

 taking any heavy sea over all. Morning broke cheer- 

 lessly enough. No abatement in the gale or change in 

 its direction; indeed, it looked like lasting a month. 

 Only one ship was visible far to leeward of us, and she 

 was hull down. Our whale was beginning to swell 

 rapidly, already floating at least three feet above the 

 surface instead of just awash, as when newly killed. 

 The skipper eyed it gloomily, seeing the near prospect 

 of its entire loss, but he said nothing. In fact, very 

 little was said ; but the stories we had heard in the Bay 

 of Islands came back to us with significant force now 

 that their justification was so apparent. 



Hour after hour went by without any change what- 

 ever, except in the whale, which, like some gradually- 

 filling balloon, rose higher and higher, till at nightfall 

 its bulk was appalling. All through the night those on 

 deck did little else but stare at its increasing size, which, 

 when morning dawned again, was so great that the 

 animal's bilge rode level with the ship's rail, while in 

 her lee rolls it towered above the deck like a mountain. 

 The final scene with it was now a question of minutes 

 only, so most of us, fascinated by the strange spectacle, 

 watched and waited. Suddenly, with a roar like the 

 bursting of a dam, the pent-up gases tore their furious 

 way out of the distended carcass, hurling the entrails in 

 one horrible entanglement widespread over the sea. It 

 was well for us that it was to leeward and a strong 

 gale howling ; for even then the unutterable fcetor 

 wrought its poisonous way back through that fierce, pure 

 blast, permeating every nook of the ship with its filthy 



