hether they were
tantalizing us or not, I cannot say, but certainly it looked like it. In
spite of their well-known speed, we were several times so close in their
wake that the harpooners loosed the tacks of the jibs to get a clear
shot; but as they did so the nimble monsters shot ahead a length or
two, leaving us just out of reach. It was a fine chase while it lasted,
though annoying; yet one could hardly help feeling amused at the way
they wallowed along--just like a school of exaggerated porpoises. At
last, after nearly two hours of the fun, they seemed to have had enough
of it, and with one accord headed seaward at a greatly accelerated pace,
as who should say, "Well, s' long, boys; company's very pleasant and
all that, but we've got important business over at Fiji, and can't stay
fooling around here any longer." In a quarter of an hour they were out
of sight, leaving us disgusted and outclassed pursuers sneaking back
again to shelter, feeling very small. Not that we could have had much
hope of success under the circumstances, knowing the peculiar habits of
the humpback and the almost impossibility of competing with him in the
open sea; but they had lured us on to forget all these things in the
ardour of the chase, and then exposed our folly.

Then ensued a week or two of uneventful cruising, broken only by
the capture of a couple of cows--one just after the fruitless chase
mentioned above, and one several days later. These events, though
interesting enough to us, were marked by no such deviation from the
ordinary course as to make them worthy of special attention; nor do I
think that the cold-blooded killing of a cow-whale, who dies patiently
endeavouring to protect her young, is a subject that lends itself to
eulogium.

However, just when the delightful days were beginning to pall upon us,
a real adventure befell us, which, had we been attending strictly to
business, we should not have encountered. For a week previous we had
been cruising constantly without ever seeing a spout, except those
belonging to whales out at sea, whither we knew it was folly to
follow them. We tried all sorts of games to while away the time, which
certainly did hang heavy, the most popular of which was for the whole
crew of the boat to strip, and, getting overboard, be towed along at the
ends of short warps, while I sailed her. It was quite mythological--a
sort of rude reproduction of Neptune and his attendant Tritons. At last,
one afte