ssex_ sailed from
Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean. She was commanded by Captain Pollard.
Late in the autumn of the same year, when in latitude 40 degrees of the
South Pacific, a shoal, or "school," of sperm whales was discovered, and
three boats were immediately lowered and sent in pursuit. The mate's
boat was struck by one of the fish during the chase, and it was found
necessary to return to the ship to repair damages.

While the men were employed at this, an enormous whale suddenly rose
quite close to the ship. He was going at nearly the same rate with the
ship--about three miles an hour; and the men, who were good judges of
the size of whales, thought that it could not have been less than
eighty-five feet long. All at once he ran against the ship, striking
her bows, and causing her to tremble like a leaf. The whale immediately
dived and passed under the ship, and grazed her keel in doing so. This
evidently hurt his back, for he suddenly rose to the surface about fifty
yards off, and commenced lashing the sea with his tail and fins as if
suffering great agony. It was truly an awful sight to behold that great
monster lashing the sea into foam at so short a distance.

In a short time he seemed to recover, and started off at great speed to
windward. Meanwhile the men discovered that the blow received by the
ship had done her so much damage, that she began to fill and settle down
at the bows; so they rigged the pumps as quickly as possible. While
working them one of the men cried out--

"God have mercy! he comes again!"

This was too true. The whale had turned, and was now bearing down on
them at full speed, leaving a white track of foam behind him. Rushing
at the ship like a battering-ram, he hit her fair on the weather bow,
and stove it in, after which he dived and disappeared. The horrified
men took to their boats at once, and in _ten minutes_ the ship went
down.

The condition of the men thus left in three open boats far out upon the
sea, without provisions or shelter, was terrible indeed. Some of them
perished, and the rest, after suffering the severest hardships, reached
a low island called Ducies, on the 20th of December. It was a mere
sand-bank, which supplied them only with water and seafowl. Still even
this was a mercy, for which they had reason to thank God; for in cases
of this kind one of the evils that seamen have most cause to dread is
the want of water.

Three of the men resolved to r