LIFE AT SEA. 275 



the side of a whale, slumbering iipon the ocean, sixty or 

 eighty feet in length, and a harpoon is plunged into his 

 body. His efforts to destroy his tormentors or to escape 

 from them are terrific. The ocean is lashed into foam by 

 blows from his enormous flukes, which would almost dash 

 in the ribs of a man-of-war. Often he rushes at the boat 

 with lightning speed and with open jaws, and it is crushed 

 like an egg-shell in his mouth. 



In this frightful warfare many are maimed and many 

 lives are annually lost. Yet it has its joys and emoluments, 

 for, if ordinarily successful, in the course of fifteen or 

 twenty years a whaleman will lay up a moderate compe- 

 tence for the rest of his days ; and meanwhile, notwith- 

 standing the unfavourable influences which are often at 

 work in the whale-ship, many are forming noble characters. 



Although it is no genial soil, yet virtue, humanity, true 

 nobility, and the fear of God, can live and grow in a whale- 

 ship. "We met them upon this occasion combined in 

 Mr. Boyle, which it would be ingratitude towards God's 

 grace not to acknowledge. But who, that knows it, would 

 choose a life in a whale-ship, or life anywhere at sea ? 

 Who does not rather say with one that knew whereof he 

 spake, — 



' Eternal ocean ! old majestic sea ! 

 Ever I love from shore to look on thee, 

 And sometimes on thy billowy back to ride, 

 And sometimes o'er thy summer breast to glide ; 



T 2 



