ne occasion I had nearly paid with my life for the gratification of my
curiosity. I went in a whale-boat rowed by coloured men, natives of the
islands, who were very daring and expert in this pursuit. We saw a
whale, with her calf, playing round the coral rocks; the attention which
the dam showed to its young, the care she took to warn it of danger, was
truly affecting. She led it away from the boats, swam round it, and
sometimes she would embrace it with heir fins, and roll over with it in
the waves. We contrived to get the "vantage ground" by going to seaward
of her, and by that means drove her into shoal water among the rocks.
At last we came so near the young one, that the harpooner poised his
weapon, knowing that the calf once struck, the mother was our own, for
she would never desert it. Aware of the danger and impending fate of
its inexperienced offspring, she swam rapidly round it, in decreasing
circles, evincing the utmost uneasiness and anxiety; but the parental
admonitions were unheeded, and it met its fate.

The boat approached the side of the younger fish, and the harpooner
buried his tremendous weapon deep in the ribs. The moment it felt the
wound, the poor animal darted from us, taking out a hundred fathom of
line; but a young fish is soon conquered when once well struck: such was
the case in this instance; it was no sooner checked with the line than
it turned on its back, and, displaying its white belly on the surface of
the water, floated a lifeless corpse. The unhappy parent, with an
instinct always more powerful than reason, never quitted the body.

We hauled in upon the line, and came close up to our quarry just as
another boat had fixed a harpoon in the mother. The tail of the furious
animal descended with irresistible force upon the very centre of our
boat, cutting it in two, and killing two of the men; the survivors took
to swimming for their lives in all directions. The whale went in
pursuit of the third boat, but was checked by the line from the one that
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