Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/98

70 was presented to our view this "great Leviathan of old," incessantly rising to blow, and at times rearing itself in the air, in all the attitudes characteristic of rage, displaying to man that, were it sensible of its power and strength, the destruction of those who dared to approach it could not fail to be inevitable. At one instant, its immense head was greatly elevated, and a cloud of fume issued from its organs of respiration; it then raised its mountain-back, bristling with the goading harpoon, which it endeavoured to displace by various contortions of its body; finally throwing itself into a perpendicular posture, with its head downward, and its monstrous tail lifted to a surprising height, it made the lobes crack by the effort with which they were whirled in every direction, and dashed them upon the surface with a violence, that could not have failed to annihilate whatever had opposed its force.