On the 14th we again met whales, which were not seen until within the ship’s length of us. Our boats were lowered away in haste. A moment afterwards, those of the Pamelia, who was not more than a mile distant from us, were also in the water. Our bow-boat fastened ten minutes after striking the water, and in an incredibly short time the whale was dead, and ours. The remaining boats continued in pursuit of the school, and got near enough to enable the boatsteerers to dart, though at long distances, and without producing any other effect than a pricking of the prey, at which they raised up their huge bodies, and with their flukes thrashed the sea all around them into a boisterous foam. Finding it useless to continue the pursuit, the boats came aboard, and the ship’s head was put in the direction of the whales. We then proceeded to cut in. The Pamelia, meantime, ran down to us; when, with a disinterestedness uncommon to rival whalemen, our captain informed hers of the direction in which the whales had gone. Not being encumbered, as we were, with a whale in tow, she soon passed us. An hour afterwards we saw her lower away and capture a whale, which, as ours done for us, yielded in the neighborhood of one hundred barrels of oil: the whales of this ground all averaging about the same quantity. They are larger, in general, than I have seen them in lower latitudes, besides being always in better condition than when found in a warmer climate, and their blubber on the application of heat almost wholly dissolving into oil.