CHASE AND CAPTURE, ETC. 
159 
rocks, and relentless savages may beset him on every 
side, requiring all the moral and physical energy of 
which our nature is possessed, to escape the manifold 
dangers which surround them, but which the whale 
fisherman looks upon without dread, passing among 
them in his gallant bark, and carrying off in triumph the 
rich giant of the ocean. 
When in pursuit of the whale with the boats, it occa- 
sionally happens that just at the moment the harpoon is 
about to be plunged into its body, the whale suddenly 
descends, leaving nothing hut a vortex to mark the spot 
where but a moment before it was seen floating ; but its 
course, however, has been observed, and the boats are 
placed in a position to be as near as possible to it when it 
again rises to breathe ; the time, as has been before stated, 
when he will do this is known to a minute. If they should 
be more fortunate in the next rising of the whale, and they 
succeed in darting the harpoon into its body, then imme- 
diately after the first struggles of the wounded animal, 
and when he is lying exhausted from his enormous 
exertions to escape, or free himself from the harpoon, the 
boat’s head is placed close to its side, and the headsman 
begins to destroy it by thrusting his lance into its most 
vital parts, which lie near the fin, or darting at it from a 
distance ; at the moment of lancing, he cries “ stern 
all the oars are then immediately backed, and the 
boat’s stern becoming its cutwater, it is thus removed 
from danger without the loss of time and trouble in turn- 
ing. Again, when feeling the lance, the whale plunges 
and throws itself in all directions, lashing the water with 
