he said he 'thought she'd turn out about forty barrels.'
"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't? Where do the whales go to, now and then?—I sailed with one captain who used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, he knew that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say, myself; but this I can say,—they go ashore. You may look hard at that, but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon. We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their men,—singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'
"'Good-night, Capt. T———! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was the last words they said to us.
"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'
"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made up in the land,—across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.
"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale, and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's convenience. Now, then,'—as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of it,—'give way, strong as you please,—and we'll head her off, before she knows it.'
"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.
"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails reefed,—the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water comes pouring aft,—and Captain Cope calls out to reef topsails,—double-reef fore and mizzen,—one reef in the main. The mates are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips, to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,—"Haul away to leeward!"—repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the glorious thrill of the sea,—to look down the sloping deck into the black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It
