he third boat, but was checked by the line
from the one that had struck her: she towed them at the rate of ten or
eleven miles an hour: and had she had deep water, would have taken the
boat down, or obliged them to cut away from her.

The two boats were so much employed that they could not come to our
assistance for some time, and we were left to our own resources much
longer than I thought agreeable. I was going to swim to the calf
whale; but one of the men advised me not to do so, saying that the
sharks would be as thick about him as the lawyers round Westminster
Hall; and that I should certainly be snapped up if I went near: for
my comfort he added, "These devils seldom touch a man if they can get
anything else." This might be very true; but I must confess I was very
glad to see one of the boats come to our assistance, while the mother
whale, encumbered with the heavy harpoon and line, and exhausted with
the fountain of black blood which she threw up, drew near to her calf,
and died by its side; evidently, in her last moments, more occupied
with the preservation of her young than of herself.

As soon as she turned on her back, I had reason to thank the "Mudian"
for his good advice; there were at least thirty or forty sharks
assembled round the carcasses; and as we towed them in, they followed.
When we had grounded them in the shallow water, close to the beach,
the blubber was cut off; after which, the flesh was given to the black
people, who assembled in crowds, and cut off with their knives large
portions of the meat. The sharks as liberally helped themselves with
their teeth; but it was very remarkable, that though the black men
often came between them and the whale, they never attacked a man. This
was a singular scene; the blacks with their white eyes and teeth,
hallooing, laughing, screaming, and mixing with numerous sharks--the
most ferocious monsters of the deep--yet preserving a sort of truce
during the presence of a third object: it reminded me, comparing great
things with small, of the partition of Poland.

I found that there was neither honour nor profit for me in this
diversion, so I no more went a whale fishing, but took my passage to
Halifax, in a schooner; one of those vessels built during the war,
in imitation of the Virginia pilot boats; but, like most of our
imitations, about as much resembling the original as a cow is like a
hare, and bearing exactly the same proportion in point of velocity.
And