476 
A SUBMARINE SOMERSET. 
or cutting across his course with silent, cat-like move- 
ment. 
“ The harbour being small, the water smooth and 
polished, the day beautifully bright, and our positions 
quite elevated, we could follow most of their motions 
while under water nearly as well as when they swam on 
the surface; and the maimer in which they would turn 
from danger was really astonishing. In their doublings 
they put me in mind of the fox. One old gray-backed 
fellow I remember in particular, who, while swimming 
leisurely along from a pursuing boat, suddenly turned a 
deep somerset -without disturbing the surface of the 
water at all, and a minute later breached some three or 
four hundred yards directly astern. Two boats — one of 
which had been sneaking upon him from either bow — 
had evidently caused this retrograde movement. 
“Xo sooner had this old fellow’s huge body breached 
again to view, than the three boats, who seemed to be 
devoting their particular attention to him alone, crept 
swiftly back toward him with their noiseless paddles ; 
but, while yet some distance o"ff, his body, which had 
since his reappearance floated lightly and motionless on 
the surface, seeming suddenly deprived of every thing 
that was buoyant, dropped perpendicularly out of sight, 
leaving nothing to tell of his previous sunning process 
save a few curling eddies. As a round-shot would have 
sunk, so sank he from the eyes of liis pursuers, and when 
next seen was pretty well in with the calves and grampus, 
more than half a mile from his former position. The 
boats, however, judging with singular accuracy as to his 
submarine course, had followed him with such effect as 
