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MOBY DICK; OR 
sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its strik- 
ing against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, 
as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet 
at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, 
while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, con- 
cluding that we had struck upon some rock ; instead of this we saw the 
monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain 
D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not 
the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that 
very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.” 
Now, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in 
question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adven- 
tures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near 
Boston. I have the honour of being a nephew of his. I have particu- 
larly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He sub- 
stantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large 
one : a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my 
uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home. 
In that up-and-down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, 
too, of honest wonders — the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient 
Dampier’s old chums — I found a little matter set down so like that just 
quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a 
corroborative example, if such be needed. 
Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Eerdinando,” as he calls 
the modern Juan Fernandez. “In our way thither,” he says, “about 
four o’clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty 
leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which 
put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where 
they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. 
And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for 
granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement 
was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no 
ground. . . . The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their 
carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. 
Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his 
cabin !” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, 
and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earth- 
