We were cruising in open water soon afterward with two whaling ships in sight, the _Reindeer_ and the _Helen Marr_, both barkentines and carrying five boats each, when we raised a school of bowheads straight ahead and about five miles distant. There were twenty-five or thirty whales and a broad patch of sea was covered with their incessant fountains. The other ships saw them about the same time. The long-drawn, musical "Blo-o-o-w!" from their mastheads came to us across the water. Aboard the brig, the watch was called and all hands were mustered to the boats. Falls were thrown off the hooks and we stood by to lower as soon as the captain gave the word. There was equal bustle on the other ships. Traveling before a favoring breeze in the same direction as the whales, the three vessels waited until they could work closer. Each captain in the meanwhile kept a watchful eye on the others. None of them proposed to let his rivals get the start. The _Reindeer_ was to windward of us, the _Helen Marr_ on our lee. When the ships had reached within a mile of the whales Captain Shorey sent our boats down. Instantly the other skippers did the same. Soon thirteen whale boats were speeding on the chase. Fine sailing weather it was, with a fresh breeze ruffling the surface of a gently heaving sea. With all sails set and keeping well apart, the boats heeled over, their crews sitting lined up along the weather gunwales. There seemed no chance of any clash or misunderstanding. There were plenty of whales, and with any luck there would be glory enough and profit enough for all. Like a line of skirmishers deployed against an enemy, the boats stole silently toward the whales. We soon saw the great animals were busy feeding. A few inches below the surface the sea was filled with "whale food," a round, diaphanous, disk-like jellyfish about the size of a silver dollar and perfectly white. When he arrived in this Arctic Ocean whale pasture the water seemed snowy with the millions of jellyfish. With open jaws, the whales swam this way and that, making zigzag swaths a hundred yards long through the gelatinous masses, their great heads and backs well out of water, their fins now and then flapping ponderously. When they had entangled a sufficient quantity of the jellyfish in the long hair hanging from the inner edges of their teeth they closed their mouths with reverberating snaps that sent the water splashing out on either side.