From this time up to July 4th we saw little and done less, with the single exception of lowering away for a sperm whale on June the 6th, but seeing nothing of him after we had dropped our boats. On the 4th, whilst in company with the Europa, making for the Abrolhas’ Islands, we sighted sperm whales, lowered, struck, and killed one. Previous to striking we had hoisted our ensign, which was imitated by the Europa. This signal was a bond of copartnership between the two ships during the day’s operations, each being entitled to half the proceeds of the day’s capture. The Europa did not fasten, but chased the whales to windward, in which pursuit we lost sight of her; meantime we tried out our whale and stowed it between decks, so that we would have but little trouble in giving her her half of it when we met. After some days we fell in with her, when her captain, with a generosity unusual with his profession, declined taking any part of it, assigning as a reason our long-continued bad luck; saying, that after having taken but one whale in six months, it would be too bad to deprive us of half of that. The Europa had experienced a hard time of it since we had last seen her, meeting with several of those accidents which the vicissitudes of a seaman’s life render him ever liable to--having, in the first place, shipped a sea that went completely over her, and stove the three larboard boats almost beyond repair; then, again, having run close in towards the land in hopes of seeing us, she had been jammed between the Turtle Dove, Abrolhas’ and main land, in a gale of wind, when crowding sail to madness was their only hope; but, fortunately, a timely shift of wind enabled them to clear the main land by a hair’s breadth, and dispelled all their gloomy fears. On the 16th both vessels stood in for the Abrolhas’ Islands, and at 9 o’clock were snugly anchored amid the cluster, of which, by ascending our tops, twenty-five different islands could be counted. As soon as our ground-tackle was secured, we struck the topsail and topgallant yards and the topgallantmasts, housed our mizzen topmast, and then unbent all the sails, except the spensers: our object being to present as little surface as possible to the action of the wind; thereby rendering our anchorage more secure. The anchorage showed coarse white sand, combined with pulverized coral and shell, which constitutes excellent holding-ground.