THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 959 
their harpoons, but not one of them could get near 
enough to give him a fatal lance. He towed them 
all in various directions for some time, taking care 
to descend’ below the surface the moment a boat 
drew up over his flukes, or otherwise drew near, 
which rendered it almost impossible to strike him 
in the body, even when the lance was darted, 
although the after part of his ‘small’ was perfo- 
rated in a hundred places: from these wounds 
the blood gushed in considerable quantities, and 
as the poor animal moved along, towing the boats, 
he left a long ensanguined stain in the Ocean. At 
last, becoming weak from his numerous and deep 
wounds, he became less capable of avoiding his foes, 
which gave an opportunity for one of them to pierce 
him to the life! Dreadful was, that moment, the 
acute pain which the leviathan’ experienced, and 
which roused the dormant energies of his gigantic 
frame. As the life-blood gurgled thick through the 
nostril, the immense creature went into his ‘flurry’ 
with excessive fury; the boats were speedily sterned 
off, while he beat the water in his dying convul- 
sions with a force that appeared to shake the firm 
foundation of the Ocean.”* 
Few occurrences in a long voyage are more gene- 
rally interesting and exciting than the sight, and par- 
ticularly the speaking, of another ship. Even in 
crossing the Atlantic this is the case; but how much 
more in a voyage to the Pacific, where many months 
may elapse without the appearance of a vessel! The 
* Hist. of Sperm Whale, p. 176. 
