"No doubt about it," he replied. "You could cut the smell with a knife." I was at the wheel and overheard this talk. I smiled. These old sea dogs, I supposed, were having a little joke. The skipper saw the grin on my face. "Humph, you don't believe I smell whale, eh?" he said. "I can smell whale like a bird dog smells quail. Take a sniff at the wind. Can't you smell it yourself?" I gave a few hopeful sniffs. "No," I said, "I can't smell anything unless, perhaps, salt water." "You've got a poor smeller," returned the captain. "The wind smells rank and oily. That means sperm whale. If I couldn't smell it, I could taste it. I'll give you a plug of tobacco, if we don't raise sperm before dark." He didn't have to pay the tobacco. Within an hour, we raised a sperm whale spouting far to windward and traveling in the same direction as the brig. The captain hurried to the cabin for his binoculars. As he swung himself into the shrouds to climb to the mast-head, he shouted to me, "Didn't I tell you I could smell 'em?" The watch was called. The crew of the captain's boat was left to work the ship and Mr. Landers and Gabriel lowered in the larboard and waist boats. Sails were run up and we went skimming away on our first whale hunt. We had a long beat to windward ahead of us and as the whale was moving along at fair speed, remaining below fifteen minutes or so between spouts, it was slow work cutting down the distance that separated us from it. "See how dat spout slant up in de air?" remarked old Gabriel whom the sight of our first sperm had put in high good humor. We looked to where the whale was blowing and saw its fountain shoot into the air diagonally, tufted with a cloudy spread of vapor at the top. "You know why it don't shoot straight up?" No one knew. "Dat feller's blow hole in de corner ob his square head--dat's why," said Gabriel. "He blow his fountain out in front of him. Ain't no udder kind o' whale do dat. All de udder kind blow straight up. All de differ in de worl' between dat sperm whale out dere and de bowhead and right whale up nort'. Ain't shaped nothin' a-tall alike. Bowhead and right whale got big curved heads and big curved backs. Sperm whale's about one-third head and his back ain't got no bow to it--not much--jest lies straight out behind his head. He look littler in de water dan de right and bowhead whale. But he ain't. He's as big as de biggest whale dat swims de sea. I've seen a 150 barrel sperm dat measure seventy feet. "Blow!" added the old negro as he caught sight of the whale spouting again.