oon deep into its body
through its shell. The creature in a moment was lively enough, and,
after swimming away a short distance, turned and made a snap at the
rope, which it nearly bit in two. We were up to it again, however, and
two or three plunges of a lance quickly finished it. We then secured a
rope to it and towed it to the ship. By means of the windlass it was
hoisted on board. When lying on deck it was found to measure seventeen
feet in length, to be seven feet wide, and four feet six inches in
depth. All on board declared that they had never seen a creature of
that species of the same size. We boiled it down as we would the
blubber of a whale, and it yielded nearly a barrelful. Fish in these
seas are very numerous. Sometimes from the masthead I could see the
whole ocean alive with them.

Before leaving for the Sandwich Islands, for which we were next bound,
we had a day's fishing, and in a few hours caught as many as we wanted.
I here also saw numbers of the paper nautilus floating on the calm
surface of the water. I managed, with a small net at the end of a long
pole, to catch several for my friend the doctor.

I'll not describe our voyage back to Honolulu, the capital of the
Society Islands. There were two or three merchantmen and about forty
whalers at anchor. The entrance to the harbour is surrounded by coral
reefs, and is very intricate. The chief pilot came out in his
whale-boat, manned by natives, and as he passed each ship he hailed to
have a boat sent him to assist in towing us in. In a short time we had
nearly fifty whale-boats, twenty-five on each bow, in two long lines.
It was one of the prettiest sights I ever witnessed, towing on the big
ship at the rate of about three knots an hour between the coral reefs,
making what would otherwise have been a difficult business perfectly
easy. Here we exchanged the fish we had salted down for fifty barrels
of potatoes and twenty of onions. Among the ships was the _Eleanor_,
from which we had parted off Japan. As the old captain had greatly
taken Dr Cockle's fancy, he wished to pay him a visit, and invited me
to accompany him. On getting on board the mate said that he was below,
and considering all things, doing wonderfully well.

"What do you mean?" asked Dr Cockle.

"Why, sir, I'll tell you," answered the mate. "If I ever saw a
wonderful thing done, our captain did it. While the typhoon which
caught you as well as us was at its height