“It beats my comprehension quite entirely,” replied my father; “and yet I have seen animals with a great deal of sense.  In one ship, we had a sheep who would chew tobacco and drink grog.  Now go ahead again.”

“Well, we had waited about half an hour, when we saw a whiff at the masthead of the ship; we knew that it was to direct our attention to some other point, so we looked round the horizon, and perceived that there was a ‘school’ of young bulls, about three miles from us.  We were four boats in all; and the first mate desired my boat and another to go in chase of them, while he remained with the other two, for this old whale to come up again.  Well, off we went, and soon came up with the school:  they are the most awkward part of whale fishing; for they are savage, and, moreover, easily ‘gallied,’ that is, frightened.  I picked out one, and tried to come up with him; but he was very shy, and at last he raised his head clean out of the water, and set off at the rate of ten miles an hour; this showed that he was aware of danger.  I had just thought of giving him up, and trying for another, when he suddenly turned round and came right toward the boats.  That we knew meant mischief; but, in coming toward us, he passed close to the other boat and the steersman gave him the harpoon right well into him.  This made him more savage, and he stood right for my boat, plowing up the sea as he rushed on.  I was all ready in the bow with the harpoon, and the men were all ready with their oars to pull back, so as to keep clear of him.  On he came, and when his snout was within six feet of us we pulled sharp across him; and as we went from him, I gave him the harpoon deep into the fin.  ‘Starn all!’ was the cry as usual, that we might be clear of him.  He ‘sounded’ immediately, that is, down he went, headforemost, which was what we were afraid of, for you see we had only two hundred fathoms of line in each boat; and having both harpoons in him, we could not bend one to the other, in case he ‘sounded’ deep, for sometimes they will go down right perpendicular, and take four lines, or eight hundred fathoms, with them; so we expected that we should this time lose the whale as well as our lines, for when they were run out we must either cut or go down with him.  Well, the lines ran out so swift that we poured water on them that they might not fire—­and we thought that it was all over, for the lines were two-thirds out, and he was going down as fast as ever, when all of a sudden he stopped.  We were hauling in the slack lines, when we saw him rise again, about a quarter of a mile off.  It was a hurrah, for we now thought that we had him.  Off he set with his nose up, right in the wind’s eye, towing the two boats at the rate of twelve miles an hour; our stems cleaving through the sea, and throwing off the water like a plume of feathers on each side of the bows, while the sun’s rays pierced through the spray and formed bright rainbows.  We hoped soon to tire