Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/24

 trade journals took the matter up mainly with this view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, Lloyd's List, The Steamboat, The Maritime and Colonial Review, all the papers devoted to the Insurance Companies, which threatened to raise their premiums, were unanimous on this point.

The opinion of the public being thus pronounced, the United States took the initiative.

Preparations were made at New York for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal. A frigate of great speed—the Abraham Lincoln—was fitted out for sea at once. Commodore Farragut pushed forward the armament of the ship rapidly.

At this very time, as always happens, when they had determined to pursue the monster, the monster did not turn up. For two months nothing was heard about it. No vessel had fallen in with it. It seemed as if this unicorn had some knowledge of the toils being spread around it. Too much had been said about it, and by means of the Atlantic cable too. So argued the funny ones, who maintained that this “sly dog” had intercepted some telegram, which he had turned to his own advantage.

So there was the frigate supplied with material for a lengthened cruise, and formidable apparatus for the monster's capture, and no one knew whither she must sail. The general impatience was increased when, on the 2nd of July, it was announced that a steamer of the San Francisco and China line had seen the animal three weeks before in the South Pacific Ocean.

The excitement caused by this intelligence was intense. Commodore Farragut had not twenty-four