Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/77

 had struck her: she towed them at the rate of ten or eleven miles an hour; and had she had deep water, would have taken the boat down, or obliged them to cut away from her.

The two boats were so much employed, that they could not come to our assistance for some time, and we were left to our own resources much longer than I thought agreeable. 1 was going to swim to the calf whale; but one of the men advised me not to do so, saying that the sharks would be as thick about him as the lawyers round Westminster-hall; and that I should certainly be snapped up, if I went near: for my comfort he added, "These devils seldom touch a man, if they can get anything else." This might be very true; but I must confess I was very glad to see one of the boats come to our assistance, while the mother whale, encumbered with the heavy harpoon and line, and exhausted with the fountain of black blood which she threw up, drew near to her calf, and