THE WHALERS' ADVENTURES.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 4, Issue 58, 13 March 1851, Page 4

THE WHALERS' ADVENTURES.

On the 27th of May, 1817, the Royal Bounty, an English ship, fell in with a great number of whales, in seventy degrees twentyfive minutes, north latitude and longitude, live degrees cast. There was neither ice nor lund in sight- The boats were manned and sent in pursuit, and after a chase of five hourj, one of them, which had rowed out of sight of the ship, struck one of the whales. This was about four o'clock in the morning. The captain directed the course of the ship to the point where he had last seen the boats, anil about eight o'clock got sight of ont; which displayed the signal of being fist. Soon after, another boat approached the first, and struck a second harpoon; and by midday, two more harpoons wero made fnst. But such was the astonishing vigour of this whole, that although it constantly dragged through the wuter from four to six boats, together with sixteen hundred fathoms of lino, yet it pursued its flight nearly as fast as a iiont could row, and whenever one passed beyond its tail* it would dive. All endeavours to lanco it wero therefore vain, and the crews of the 1-iose boats moored to those that were fast, thu whale all the time steadily towing them on. At eight o'clock in the evening, n line was tnken to the ship, with a view of retarding its /light, and topsails were lowered, but thu harpoon drew. In three hours another line was taken on board, which immediately snapped. At four in the afternoon of the next day, thirty-six-hours after the whale was first struck, two of the fast lines were taken oh board the ship. At length, near eight o'clock, after forty hours of incessant exertion, this tenacious asserter of his vast animal vigour and toiritorial rights was killed. The most dreadful display of the whale's strength and prowess yet authentically recorded, was that made upon the American whale-ship Essex, Cnpt Pollard, which sailed from Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean, in August, 1019. Late in the fall of the same year, when in latitude forty of the South Pacific, a school of sperm whales were discovered, and three boats were manned and sent in pursuit. The mate's boat was struck by one of them, and he was obliged to return to the ship in order to repair the damage. While he was engaged in that work, a sperm whale, judged to be eighty-five feet long, broke water about 20 rods from the ship, on her weather bow. He was going at the fate of about three knots an hour, and the ship at nearly the same rate, when he struck the bows of the vessel just forward of her chains. At the shock produced by the collision of two such mighty masses of matter in motion, thu ship shook like a lpaf. The seemingly malicious whale dived and passed under the ship, graphs her keel, and then appeared at about the "distance of the ship's length, lashing the sea with fins and tail, as it suffering the most horrible agony. He was evidently hurt by tho collision, aud blindly frantic with instinctive rage. In a few minutes, he seemed to recover himself, and started with great speed directly across the vessel's course to the windward. Meantime, the hands on board discovered the ship to be giadually settling down at the bows, and the pumps, were ordctcd to be rigged. Wliih: the crew were working at them, one ot the men cried out, " God have mercy ! he comes again !" The whale had turned about one hundred rods from the ship, and was making for her with double his former speed, his pnthway white with foam. Rushing head on, he struck her again at the bow, and the tremendous blow stove her in. The whale dived under again and disappeared, and the ship foundered in ten minutes from the first collision. But Axe souls ont of the txventy xx ere saved. In anr.ther authentic instance, xvhen a boat was chasing a whalp, he suddenly turned to xriudward and made directly for Ins pursuers, who xvere so cxciied by the chase as to be blind to danger. On, therefore, they madly ruslicdj without trying to avoid the infuriated monster, so eager xvere they to plunge their irons -into him till the boat struck with such force upoll the whale's head as to throw the oarsmen from their thwarts. At the s.iniCj moment, the boat-sleeior let fly his two harpoons into the mammoth body, which rolled over on its back j and before the boat could get clear of danger, being to the xvinilxvard, a heavy sea struck it, riul threw theiit directly into the whale's mouth ! All, of course, Bprang for their lives; and they h.id barely time to

throw themselves clear of tlio boat before it was crushed to pieces by those ponderous jaws, and its ejected cretv were, providen'ially, nil picked up by another boat.— llea. Henry T. Cheever,