18 
HISTORY OF THE WHALE. 
This disastrous encounter occurred near the equa- 
tor, at 1000 miles’ distance from land. Provisioned 
and equipped with whatever they could save from 
the wreck, twenty men embarked in three slender 
whale boats, one of which was afterwards crazy and 
leaky. One boat was-never heard of afterwards. The 
crews of the others suffered every misery that can be 
conceived, from famine and exposure. In the cap- 
tain’s boat, they drew lots for the privilege of being 
shot, to satisfy the Tabid hunger of the rest. After 
7 v- 
nearly three months, the captain’s boat, with two sur- 
vivors, and the mate’s boat with three, were taken up 
at sea, 2000 miles from the scene of the disaster, by 
different ships. 
The source of the most constant alarm to the 
whale-fisher is connected with the movements of that 
powerful animal, against which, with most unequal 
strength, he ventures to contend. Generally, indeed, 
the whale, notwithstanding his immense strength, is 
gentle, and even passive ; seeking, even when he is 
most hotly pursued, to escape from his assailants, by 
plunging into the lowest depths of the ocean. Some- 
times, however, he exerts his utmost force in violent 
and convulsive struggles ; and every thing with which, 
when thus enraged, he comes into collision, is dissi- 
pated or destroyed in an instant. The Dutch writers 
mention Jacques Vienkes, of the Barley Mill, who, 
after a whale had been struck, was hastening with a 
second boat to the support of the first. The fish, 
however, rose, and with its head struck the boat so 
furiously, that it was shivered to pieces, and Vienkes 
