Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/41

20 under the bows. Every thirty seconds or so they came up to blow, and then sank beneath the water, leaving only a few feet above their backs. I saw them distinctly for several minutes, without cessation, thus propelling their vast bulk through the great deep. It was a most novel sight to me to see these two whales simultaneously gliding side by side, and even with the ship. Had they been a pair of naiads harnessed to the car of Neptune, they could not have been more uniform in their movements. They came up together, "blowed" together, and descended together.

Meantime two boats were lowered, with a chosen crew, to give chase. Swiftly they shot toward their prey; but the whales immediately altered their course, the boats following after them. For an hour was the chase continued; but, in spite of all efforts, the whales escaped, and our disappointed comrades returned.

For several days after this, nothing of note occurred worth narrating. A delicate snowbird lighted on the rigging, and, according to nautical ideas, was the augury of good luck. Other marine birds and porpoises were seen, but there was little to relieve the monotony of our life except when the winds increased to a gale. Then, indeed, I found a change that in one respect I could admire. To myself, who had never before been upon the vast ocean, it was truly magnificent to behold the mighty workings of the great deep! On one occasion, which I well remember, the sea appeared in "white caps," the bounding billows playing with us all day in fantastic gambols, while the ship plunged fearfully down into a deep abyss; then, like a thing of life, would she leap skyward, as a mad wave struck the bow in all its fury, burying it beneath the sheet of spray, which flew far and wide in its impotent wrath. But the George Henry heeded it not. Like a lion shaking the dews of heaven from his mane, so did our good ship appear, bathed in crystal drops, but still driving on and on majestically. Rarely did I enjoy myself more than when those storms encountered us. It seemed to me as if no one could, to the fullest extent, appreciate the beauty, the