The next Sunday, unlike the two preceding ones, was a day of rest--on one of the former being engaged in whaling, and on the next in cutting-in. Being a line day we gammoned with the James Allen; whilst so employed, we noticed a brig to leeward with her colors set at the mizzen-peak. At first, little attention was paid to her; but the colors continuing set, we squared our yards and ran off to her. She proved to be the brig Julia, of Hobartown, five months out, with twenty-eight tons of sperm oil. Her reason for showing her colors was, that she had on board a boat’s crew, who, with two other boats’ crews, now ashore in the vicinity, belonging to the brig Maid of Erin, of Hobartown, separated from their vessel, having lowered for whales just at nightfall, and lost sight of the brig in their eagerness to capture whales. There was no one aboard the Maid of Erin, except a few inexperienced hands, and the boat’s crew expressed their apprehensions of some casualty to her, should it come on to blow. What the result was I never learned, as a short time afterward we left the cape, proceeding northward to Kangaroo Island. Seeing no whales, we changed our course to the westward, passing the Recherche Islands, and having a fine view of Pollock’s Reef--a dangerous line of rocks, a long distance from the main land, extending for several miles, over which the sea roars and tumbles in huge broken masses, impressing the beholder with a sense of danger as he gazes upon it. Just before reaching this locality we saw right whales, but could get nowhere near them. Soon afterward we gammoned the ship Lapwing, of New Bedford; she brought letters from home for us, but gave them to the Alexander, supposing that we still remained off New Zealand. Whilst gammoning with her, a line of dangerous reefs was sighted close to us, and, during the night and following day, we carried sail to get a wide berth from it, and ran the old ship into a school of sperm whales. We lowered away our boats. The second mate fastened, and the whale sounded, taking out most of his line; the third mate ran down and attached his line to it, just in the nick of time, and saved the whale. The whales in this vicinity plunge and sound deeply, when first struck. Half an hour previous to the second mate’s fastening, the first mate struck a fellow that carried off all his line.