of, though they generally reach the land, or are rescued by some other vessel. Notwithstanding these causes of disaster, ship after ship returns without losing a man by death.

Among the accidents that have occurred in the prosecution of this business, the loss of the ship Essex, Captain George Pollard, Jr. of Nantucket, is one of the most remarkable. It was thus described in an authentic narrative of the event, published by the mate of the ship, Mr. Owen Chase.

'I observed a very large spermaceti whale, as well as I could judge about eighty-five (?) feet in length. He broke water about twenty rods off our weather bow, and was lying quietly with his head in a direction for the ship. He spouted two or three times, and then disappeared. In less than three seconds he came up again, about the length of the ship off, and made directly for us, at the rate of about three knots. The ship was then going with about the same velocity. His appearance and attitude gave us at first no alarm, but while I stood watching his movements and observing him, but a ship's length off, coming down for us with great celerity, I involuntarily ordered the boy at the helm to put it hard up, intending to sheer off and avoid him. The words were scarcely out of my mouth before he came down upon us at full speed, and struck the ship with his head just forward of the fore chains. He gave us such an appalling and tremendous jar as nearly threw us all on our faces. The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few moments like a leaf. We looked at each other in perfect amazement, deprived almost of the power of speech. Many minutes elapsed before we were able to realize the dreadful accident, during which time he passed under the ship, grazing her keel as he went along, came up alongside her to leeward, and lay on the top of the water, apparently stunned with the violence of the blow, for the space of a minute. He then suddenly started off in a direction to leeward. After a few moments' reflection, and recovering in some measure from the sudden consternation that had seized us, I, of course, concluded that he had stove a hole in the ship, and that it would be necessary to set the pumps going. Accordingly they were rigged, but had not been in operation more than one minute, before I perceived the head of the ship to be gradually settling down in the water. I then ordered the signal to be set for the other boats, (at that time in pursuit of whales,) which I had scarcely despatched, before I again discovered the whale apparently in convulsions on the top of the water about one hundred rods to leeward. He was enveloped in the foam, that his continual and violent

threshing about in the water had created around him, and I could distinctly see him smite his jaws together as if distracted with rage and fury. He remained a short time in this situation, and then started off with great velocity across the bows of the ship to windward. By this time the ship had settled down a considerable distance in the water, and I gave her up as lost. I however, ordered the pumps to be kept constantly going, and endeavored to collect my thoughts for the occasion. I turned to the boats, two of which we then bad with the ship, with an intention of clearing them away and getting all things ready to embark in them, if there should be no other resource left. While my attention was thus engaged for a moment, I was roused by the cry of the man at the hatchway, "here he is,— he is making for us again." I turned around, and saw him about one hundred rods directly ahead of us, coming down with apparently twice his ordinary speed, and to me it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions, and his course toward us was marked by a white foam of a rod in width, which he made with a continual violent threshing of his tail. His head was about half out of water, and in that way he came upon, and again struck the ship. was in hopes when I descried him making for us, that by putting the ship away immediately, I should be able to cross the line of his approach, before he could get up to us, and thus avoid, what I knew, if he should strike us again, would be our inevitable destruction. I called out to the helmsman "hard up," but she had not fallen off more than a point before we took the second shock. I should judge the speed of the ship at this time, to have been about three knots, and that of the whale about six. He struck her to windward, directly under the cathead, and completely stove in her bows. He passed under the ship again, went off to leeward, and we saw no more of him.'

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This disastrous encounter occurred near the equator, at one thousand miles' distance from land. Provisioned and equipped with whatever they could save from the wreck, twenty men embarked in three slender whale boats, one of which was already crazy and leaky. One boat was never heard of afterwards. The crews of the others suffered every misery that can be conceived, from famine and exposure. In the captain's boat, they drew lots for the privilege of being shot to satisfy the rabid hunger of the rest. After nearly three months, the captain's boat, with two survivors, and the mate's boat with three, were taken up at sea, two thousand miles from the scene of the disaster, by different ships..

There have been other instances of shipwreck, caused by the shock of these leviathans. In 1807, the ship Union of Nantucket, Captain Gardner, was totally lost between Nantucket and the Azores, by a similar concussion. But no other instance is known, in which the mischief is supposed to have been malignantly designed by the assailant, and the most experienced whalers believe that even in this case the attack was not intentional. Mr. Chase, however, could not be persuaded to think so. He says that all he saw produced on his mind the impression of decided and calculating mischief' on the part of this maddened leviathan.

The whaler sometimes roams for months, without finding his prey; but he is buoyed up by the expectation of finally reaping the profits of a great voyage. To some minds, the pursuit of such gigantic game has a tinge of the romantic. There must be a thrilling excitement in the adventurous chase. 'The blood more stirs to rouse a lion, than to start a hare.' Many become passionately attached to the business, notwithstanding all its privations, and reluctantly leave it at last. They have moments of most pleasing anxiety, and meet with some incidents of the most enlivening cast. On the south-east coast of Africa is Delego Bay, a calm smooth place, frequented by vessels from various parts of the world. In this bay, a few years since, a whale was observed about equally distant from an American and an English ship. From both, the boats were lowered, manned and pushed off in an instant. They sped with the velocity of the wind. The scene reminds one of the competitors for the prize in Eneas's boat-race on the shores of Sicily.

'Olli certamine summo

Procumbunt: vastis tremit ictibus aenea puppis,
Subtrahiturque solum.'

'Now, one and all they tug amain: They row
At the full stretch, and shake the brazen prow,—
The sea beneath them sinks.'

The English, at first ahead, perceiving their rivals gaining up-on them, bore wide off to keep them out of reach of the whale. When the two boats were nearly abreast, one of the American sailors leaped from his seat, and with extraordinary agility hurled the ponderous harpoon over the English boat,-it struck the

monster in the vital part,-the English boat shrunk back under the warp,-the waves were crimsoned with blood, and the American took possession, while the whole bay echoed and reëchoed with repeated shouts of applause.

Our whalemen have brought nautical science to great perfection. The voyage round the southern extremity of Cape Horn has always been represented as a most boisterous one. It was once thought so hazardous, that some national vessels have preferred to be buffeted about in the straits of Magellan, to attempting it. But the great whale fleets are never intimidated, and rarely does an accident occur to damp their ardor. A boat or a spar are the most serious losses they suffer, and their unfailing success, in effecting a passage, has been a subject of wonder to the naval officers of Britain. In the south seas, they have brought to light islands before unknown, and found men who had never before seen a ship, or civilized man,-men who exhibited the same savage ferocity, to which so many navigators have fallen victims in the Pacific. On the latest maps and charts we find more than thirty of these islands, and reefs bearing the names of Nantucket captains and merchants. To one is applied the harmonious title of New Nantucket.

Our sealers have been equally adventurous in their explorations. A few years since, two Russian discovery ships came in sight of a group of cold inhospitable islands in the Antarctic ocean. The commander imagined himself a discoverer, and doubtless was prepared, with drawn sword, and with the flag of his sovereign flying over his head, to take possession in the name of the Czar. At this time he was becalmed in a dense fog. Judge of his surprise, when the fog cleared away, to see a little sealing sloop from Connecticut, as quietly riding between his ships, as if lying in the waters of Long Island sound. He learned from the captain, that the islands were already well known, and that he had just returned from exploring the shores of a new land at the south; upon which the Russian gave vent to an expression too harsh to be repeated, but sufficiently significant of his opinion of American enterprise. After the captain of the sloop, he named the discovery Palmer's land,' in which the Americans acquiesced, and by this name it appears to be designated on all the recently published Russian and English charts.

A singular fact, connected with the whale and seal fisheries, VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 82.

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illustrates the truth that accident, or private and individual enterprise, can often effect more than the most costly expeditions. Many are the voyages that have been undertaken for the purpose of reaching the poles of the earth. It is known, that after the disruptions in summer, the vast masses of ice generally drift away from the polar regions. Attempts have been made to thread a passage through the drift ice, and thus reach the pole ; and again the visionary scheme has been devised, of dashing over it with a sledge and reindeer, and thus taking the poles, as it were, by storm. They have all failed; but the English whalers at the north and our sealers at the south, have several times found themselves beyond the ice, where the vast and smooth expanse opened to them, inviting them to explore those unknown and awful mysteries, about which the imaginations of men have for ages been busied.' Captain Scoresby tells us what were his emotions when within 470 miles of the pole. He felt that it was in his power to penetrate those dreary solitudes, unexplored by man, since the fiat of the Almighty brought the universe into existence. He was restrained from the attempt, by the reflection, that his voyage was private, for private ends. That this region is frequently open, is confirmed by the fact, that large numbers of whales come over that part of the globe. Roused to enthusiasm by such reports, a gentleman by the name of Reynolds promised to place his little vessel where she should turn round on the very axis of the earth every twenty-four hours.' For this purpose he thought he had obtained an appropriation from the last administration, but it was vetoed by the present. A private company fitted out the brigs Seraph and Annawan, to aid him in his researches, but the attempt proved as futile as all similar ones. The vessels returned with great loss, and were sold, we believe, under the hammer of the auctioneer.

We have not mentioned one important branch of the whale fishery, the more important, as it threatens to divert the British southern fishery to another part of the earth. The settlers at New South Wales have carried it on for several years with great spirit and success. At the port of Sydney alone, in 1830, sixteen vessels were actually employed, and nine new ones were building. Their proximity to the most eligible fishing stations enables them to perform three voyages, while the English and Americans perform two. While they reach the grounds in fifty days, the latter are frequently seven months in