st as feebly as a calf.
But that, I was told by the skipper, was nothing to go by down here.
He believed right firmly that there were no small whales to be found in
these waters at all. He averred that in all his experience he had never
seen a cow-cachalot anywhere around Stewart's Island, although, as
usual, he did no theorizing as to the reason why.

Eagerly we took to the boats and made for our first fish, setting
alongside of him in less than half an hour from our first glimpse of his
bushy breath. As the irons sank into his blubber, he raised himself
a little, and exposed a back like a big ship bottom up. Verily, the
skipper's words were justified, for we had seen nothing bigger of the
whale-kind that voyage. His manner puzzled us not a little. He had not
a kick in him. Complacently, as though only anxious to oblige, he
laid quietly while we cleared for action, nor did he show any signs
of resentment or pain while he was being lanced with all the vigour
we possessed. He just took all our assaults with perfect quietude and
exemplary patience, so that we could hardly help regarding him with
great suspicion, suspecting some deep scheme of deviltry hidden by
this abnormally sheep-like demeanour. But nothing happened. In the same
peaceful way he died, without the slightest struggle sufficient to raise
even an eddy on the almost smooth sea.

Leaving the mate by the carcass, we returned on board, the skipper
hailing us immediately on our arrival to know what was the matter with
him. We, of course, did not know, neither did the question trouble us.
All we were concerned about was the magnanimous way in which he, so to
speak, made us a present of himself, giving us no more trouble to secure
his treasure than as if he had been a lifeless thing. We soon had him
alongside, finding, upon ranging him by the ship, that he was over
seventy feet long, with a breadth of bulk quite in proportion to such a
vast length.

Cutting-in commenced at once, for fine weather there was by no means to
be wasted, being of rare occurrence and liable at the shortest notice to
be succeeded by a howling gale. Our latest acquisition, however, was of
such gigantic proportions that the decapitation alone bade fair to take
us all night. A nasty cross swell began to get up, too--a combination of
north-westerly and south-westerly which, meeting at an angle where the
Straits began, raised a curious "jobble," making the vessel behave in
a drunken, uncerta