68 The Rorquals 



or to be so filled to overflowing with the sheer delight 

 of living. Rest seems impossible to them, and there- 

 fore, while a swift steamer of say fourteen to sixteen 

 knots will soon lose their company, a vessel going only 

 four or five will not keep it long, the one because it 

 is impossible for them to continue playing their pranks 

 around and about her at that speed for more than a 

 few minutes, the other because she does not permit 

 them to get as much exercise as they need. A speed 

 of six to ten knots suits them very well, and I know 

 of few prettier sights than, when going at that speed 

 on a clear moonless night, is afforded by a troop of 

 these agile cetacea gambolling under the bows in mazy 

 whirls of glowing green light, or spreading out fan-wise 

 in broad bands of lambent flame as they rush towards 

 the horizon and in a minute or two converge upon 

 the ship again like a series of blazing torpedoes bent 

 upon her destruction. 



They seem, more perhaps than any other of the 

 sea-folk, to have a wonderful prescience as to the 

 weather. This peculiarity is noticed in Shakespeare 

 {Pericles, Act ii., Scene i). 



■yd Fisherman : ' Nay, master, said I not as much, 

 when I saw the Porpus how he bounced and tumbled ? 

 They say they are half-fish, half-flesh ; a plague on 

 them ! they ne'er come but I look to be washed.' 



All seamen realise that the abnormal activity of a 

 creature eilways extraordinarily active presages a storm ; 

 indeed, it would be impossible to pass the matter 

 without notice. To see a school of Porpoises some 

 thousands strong rushing at amazing speed across 

 the foaming sea with a roar like that of billows breaking 

 upon a reef during a landward gale, and to notice that, 

 even in that mad and apparently objectless race, in- 

 dividuals are here and there hurUng their quivering 



