78 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
specting them from Eddie, who noticed us gazing 
with ill-concealed admiration at the monsters as they 
neared our schooner. Your “ turner ” is longer look¬ 
ing, more lithe, and a faster swimmer when com¬ 
pared with the portly gentleman whose broader beam 
and more abundant oil has gained for him the title 
of “right whale” ( B. mysticetus ), and we could 
easily see from his rapid and even graceful motion 
through the water that he must be a much more diffi- 
cult quarry to contend with than his more greasy 
relative, who is so great an object of solicitude to all 
on board a whale ship. This fellow has an awkward 
habit of sinking out of reach of his captors for a 
period of three or four days after he has been killed, 
and the enforced delay is often rendered futile by the 
failure of the flukes of the harpoon to take firm hold 
of the skin. In the interval, between the successful 
pursuit and its reappearance again upon the surface, 
the body becomes much distended by the gases gene¬ 
rated during its rapid decomposition after death. The 
men, after risking their lives in the dangerous pursuit, 
are often deprived of their expected gain by the sink¬ 
ing of the carcass altogether, and when success lias 
crowned their efforts, and the inflated carcass re¬ 
appears upon the surface of the sea once niore, the 
air above is soon filled by thousands of screaming sea- 
