189 
THE WHITE WHALE 
Secondly: The ship Union , also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 
totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, hut the authentic particu- 
lars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from 
the whale-hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it. 
Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J , 
then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened 
to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on hoard a Nantucket 
ship in the harbour of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning 
upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to he sceptical touching the 
amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen pres- 
ent. He peremptorily denied, for example, that any whale could so 
smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimble- 
ful. Very good; hut there is more coming. Some weeks after, the 
Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he 
was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few 
moments’ confidential business with him. That business consisted 
in fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his 
pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and 
repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s inter- 
view with that whale as providential. I tell you, the sperm whale will 
stand no nonsense. 
I will now refer you to Langsdorff' s Voyages for a little circumstance 
in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you 
must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusen- 
stem’s famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present 
century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter. 
“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next 
day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather 
was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to 
keep on our fur clothing. Eor some days we had very little wind; it 
was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the north-west sprang 
up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the 
ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived 
by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full 
made its appearance.” In another place — p. 45, — he speaks of “ the mysterious 
and mortal attack of the animal .” 
