Not infrequently the sperm-whale, breaking loose from the harpoon, would ignore the boats and make war upon his chief enemy--the ship. The history of the whale fishery is full of such occurrences. The ship "Essex," of Nantucket, was attacked and sunk by a whale, which planned its campaign of destruction as though guided by human intelligence. He was first seen at a distance of several hundred yards, coming full speed for the ship. Diving, he rose again to the surface about a ship's length away, and then surged forward on the surface, striking the vessel just forward of the fore-chains. "The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock," said the mate afterward, "and trembled for few seconds like a leaf." Then she began to settle, but not fast enough to satisfy the ire of the whale. Circling around, he doubled his speed, and bore down upon the "Essex" again. This time his head fairly stove in the bows, and the ship sank so fast that the men were barely able to provision and launch the boats. Curiously enough, the monster that had thus destroyed a stout ship paid no attention whatsoever to the little boats, which would have been like nutshells before his bulk and power. But many of the men who thus escaped only went to a fate more terrible than to have gone down with their stout ship. Adrift on a trackless sea, 1000 miles from land, in open boats, with scant provision of food or water, they faced a frightful ordeal. After twenty-eight days they found an island, but it proved a desert. After leaving it the boats became separated--one being never again heard of. In the others men died fast, and at last the living were driven by hunger actually to eat the dead. Out of the captain's boat two only were rescued; out of the mate's, three. In all twelve men were sacrificed to the whale's rage.