The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fighting the Whales, by R.M. Ballantyne
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Title: Fighting the Whales
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21731]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE WHALES ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
FIGHTING THE WHALES, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
IN TROUBLE, TO BEGIN WITH.
There are few things in this world that have filled me with so much
astonishment as the fact that man can kill a whale! That a fish, more
than sixty feet long, and thirty feet round the body; with the bulk of
three hundred fat oxen rolled into one; with the strength of many
hundreds of horses; able to swim at a rate that would carry it right
round the world in twenty-three days; that can smash a boat to atoms
with one slap of its tail, and stave in the planks of a ship with one
blow of its thick skull;--that such a monster can be caught and killed
by man, is most wonderful to hear of, but I can tell from experience
that it is much more wonderful to see.
There is a wise saying which I have often thought much upon. It is
this: "Knowledge is power." Man is but a feeble creature, and if he had
to depend on his own bodily strength alone, he could make no head
against even the ordinary brutes in this world. But the knowledge which
has been given to him by his Maker has clothed man with great power, so
that he is more than a match for the fiercest beast in the forest, or
the largest fish in the sea. Yet, with all his knowledge, with all his
experience, and all his power, the killing of a great old sperm whale
costs man a long, tough battle, sometimes it even costs him his life.
It is a long time now since I took to fighting the whales. I have been
at it, man and boy, for nigh forty years, and many a wonderful sight
have I seen; many a desperate battle have I fought in the fisheries of
the North and South Seas.
Sometimes, when I sit in the chimney-corner of a winter evening, smoking
my pipe with my old messmate Tom Lokins, I stare into the fire, and
think of the days gone by, till I forget where I am, and go on thinking
so hard that
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