ut of the blubber--the former a laborious and
often a dangerous process, the latter, anything but an odoriferous one.
The death of a whale is the signal for the arrival of a host of
sharks--blue, brown, and shovel-nosed--all eager to make a meal off the
defunct leviathan. "We were all day surrounded with sea-fowl of various
kinds--haglets, peterels, &c.--picking up floating particles of blubber as
it passed astern, and vast numbers of large blue sharks that kept
continually plunging on the fish, and rendered it very unsafe for the man
to go down and point the hook into the hole cut for it; indeed we were
frequently obliged to jerk him up off the whale out of their way by the
aid of the rope round him for that purpose." The carcass and head on
board, the fires are lighted, the kettle boils, and the ship speeds
merrily on her course--the crew reckoning their share of gain, and
listening anxiously for the welcome sound of "There he blows!"--the
look-out man's usual cry on sighting a whale.

When he left the Stratford, Dr Coulter bade adieu to the grand seasport of
whale-catching, in which he had taken the passive part of a spectator. But
his hand, if unskilled to hurl the harpoon, was familiar with rifle and
fowling-piece. Both of these, with an ample supply of lead, powder, and
shot, his kind friend, Captain Lock, left with him at the mission of Yerba
Buena, literally Good Grass, a Californian town in the bay of St
Francisco. And as soon as pure air, repose, and the use of the Temescal,
or hot-air bath, had restored the doctor's health, he scoured his
fire-arms and made ready for the chase. A looker-on at sea, on terra firma
he proved himself a perfect Nimrod. From that day forward nothing that
wore fur or feather could escape his sure eye and steady hand. From the
quail to the swan, from the frightened squirrel to the formidable grisly
bear, all birds and beasts felt his power, and fell before his unerring
rifle. Nor had he long to wait for opportunities of distributing his
bullets with fatal effect amongst foes whose form was human, although in
customs and civilisation they were but one degree above the brutes of the
forest. After some months' stay in California, taken up chiefly with
hunting and fishing excursions, but of which the doctor, anxious to get to
sea again, gives but a brief account, he began to consider how he should
best reach his rendezvous at Tahiti. He had plenty of time before him; but
the whaling seaso