Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/75

 for the gratification of my curiosity. I went in a whale-boat rowed by coloured men, natives of the islands, who were very daring and expert in this pursuit. We saw a whale, with her calf, playing round the coral rocks; the attention which the dam shewed to its young, the care she took to warn it of danger, was truly affecting. She led it away from the boats, swam round it, and sometimes she would embrace it with her fins, and roll over with it in the waves. We contrived to get the "vantage ground" by going to seaward of her, and by that means drove her into shoal water among the rocks. At last we came so near the young one, that the harpooner poised his weapon, knowing that the calf once struck, the mother was our own, for she would never desert it. Aware of the danger and impending fate of its inexperienced offspring, she swam rapidly round it, in decreasing circles, evincing the utmost uneasiness and anxiety; but its parental admonitions were unheeded, and it met its fate.