164 A Whale Run Down. 



given some unusually violent convulsions with its 

 tail and fins. I am told that a whale having its 

 young one in company will, when struck, invariably 

 kill it if she gets a chance, which accounts for the 

 disappearance of our small one. 



3 p. m. — Flinching was completed about eight 

 o'clock, and everybody being thoroughly done up, 

 went to their beds, where they are to be allowed to 

 remain undisturbed until four o'clock. The fish 

 appear to know this, for in the forenoon there were 

 a number of them playing round the ship in all 

 directions, and we actually struck one which was 

 laying ahead of the ship, with our fore foot, appa- 

 rently without the effect of frightening it away, for 

 it rose shortly after close to us ; the captain, how- 

 ever, very properly, will not call the men up until 

 they have had their sleep. Some time ago I asked 

 the captain if he had ever known or heard of a case 

 in which a ship had come into collision with a whale, 

 and he answered in the negative. Such an event 

 cannot, therefore, be of frequent occurrence, though 

 it is mentioned by the historian of Frobisher's third 

 voyage to the north-west in 1578, that one of his 

 ships, the " Salamander/' u being under both her 

 corses and bonets, happened to strike a great whale 

 with her full stemme with such a blow that the ship 

 stoode still, and stirred neither forward nor back- 

 ward. The whale thereat made a great and ugly 

 noyse, and cast up his body and taile, and so went 



