Quadrupeds, fyc. 3135 



they ascertained this, than they immediately resolved at all hazards 

 to secure so rich a prize ; and knowing that no time was to be lost, 

 and that if the whale was to be despatched it must be done before the 

 tide again arose, and so enable him to get out to sea, they set to work 

 at once. Now the only arms they possessed were their knives and 

 anchor-cable, so that their chance of killing the whale seemed small 

 indeed. However, nothing daunted, they resolved to await the arri- 

 val of other boats, in the hope that one of them might bring some 

 better weapon, wherewith to despatch the monster of the deep ; mean- 

 while, by way of doing something, and in order that their treasure 

 might not give them the slip, and sneak off to sea in the dark, they 

 just made fast one end of their cable to the boat, and lashed the other 

 round one of the fins of the whale. He seems to have beeu a good- 

 natured, placid, easy-tempered fellow, for he did not resent this as an 

 impertinence, and indeed up to this point seems quite to have entered 

 into the sport ; for when firmly attached to the boat by his fin, and 

 as the tide was now rising and gave him more room, and be began to 

 grow impatient at the non-arrival of more boats, by w r ay of diversion, 

 and to change the scene, away he started down the channel in which 

 he had been stranded, and took the boat, and the now somewhat ter- 

 rified boatmen, away with him at a fearful rate. Fortunately for the 

 fishermen, he did not go straight down the channel, or he would soon 

 have been in deep water, and out to sea again, without a chance of 

 being captured, even if he did not upset the boat and drown the men, 

 which was by no means improbable : however, he took the wrong 

 turning, and soon stranded himself again in water shallower than 

 before. 



This little divertissement had been just enough to show the boat- 

 men that he was a monster of considerable power, and that although 

 lashed to their boat, he was not yet their prey ; so, being now joined 

 by several other boats, though none brought them any other weapons 

 than knives, they resolved to attempt his death with these insignificant 

 tools. So one of our hardy boatmen (setting the example which was 

 so well followed by Mr. Gordon dimming, in slicing out of the living 

 hippopotamus a handle to hold on by, whilst being towed about in the 

 water), coolly begins to cut a hole in the whale's side, through which 

 when large enough he hoped to thrust his hand, until the knife should 

 reach some vital part. How long the whale entered into and ap- 

 proved of this sport, I cannot say ; this was rather a sore trial to his 

 good nature, and indeed he seems to have lost his temper at this point, 

 and to have lashed his tail, and spouted out water, and made such a 



