MAMMOTH SEAS. 
61 
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fellow would not imagine any tiling unless tor a ‘con- 
sideration;’ and, if tli^re is such a thing as a whale over 
a hundred feet long, I believe he has seen him, in which 
case it is worth mentioning.” 
“Dec. 4. — I observed indications of a strong current 
on the tops of the heavy westerly swells as they rolled 
by us. One of them which I measured roughly from 
the mizzen-rigging — my eye being elevated twenty feet 
above the sea-level- — ^ proved to be ten feet high, or 
twenty feet from its top to the bottom of the valley, and 
to be about one hundred yards from the one that fol- 
lowed it. Its velocity was about thirty feet a second. 
Tliese swells, so different from the short ones of the 
Atlantic and other confined bodies of water, came under 
our stern with a power acquired from the immense 
stretch of space over which they roll, and lift the ship 
upon their rising breast, urging her ahead with an in- 
creased velocity, and leaving us bow up and stern down, 
to be similarly treated by the next in turn. Ugly com- 
panions they would be among the broken rocks of a lee 
shore.” And now for the Malay Islands. 
It was on the 24th of December, 1853, that we sighted 
that of Java, and the next morning we were at anchor 
oft‘ the town of Anger, situated on its western extreme. 
We stopped there to get a pilot, if possible, to take us on 
to Batavia; and, though there was none to be found at 
that time, we bought a late coast-chart from the authori- 
ties, by Avhich we worked up to Batavia the next day. 
We found the Hancock and Cooper already there, and 
the following day the former left for our surveying- 
ground, — distant now only a few hours’ sail, — ordering us 
