We continued off the Island of Madagascar up to November 27th, without aught to mar, or rather improve, the general and almost uninterrupted bad weather--thunder and lightning storms following each other with scarce any intermission. During this time we occasionally saw a whale-ship, and, if the weather permitted, failed not to while away a part of this dreary period in gammoning. One day, whilst so engaged, we learned that the chief mate of the ship Martha, of Fairhaven, had lost his life in much the same manner as did the seaman belonging to the Brewster. The mate was not seen to leave the boat, neither was any other of the boat’s crew injured; but it appears that the boat had been rashly carried into a perilous and unwarrantable situation by the mate, and, in the bustle attendant to extricating the boat under such circumstances, it is supposed that whilst the others were busy in trimming boat and attending to the line, the whale, by a sweep of the flukes, struck the officer so suddenly and so severely as to put it out of his power to give an alarm, whereby to attract their attention. Undoubtedly his death was instantaneous; but little exertion on the part of the whale would be required to supply a sufficiency of force to crush vitality from the frame of the strongest or proudest of the human race. This accident is attributed to carelessness, and, from my own observation, I should say that at least two-thirds of the fatal accidents that occur to whalemen, in pursuit of their prey, result from gross carelessness or recklessness on the part of the boat-header. Some years ago it was unusual to hear of a fatal accident to those engaged in the pursuit of the whale. At that time the fish were plenty, and boatheaders, as a class, were cool, sagacious, and experienced men, who had been accustomed to and occupied in the whaling business for years. These men would not risk their boat and crew to almost certain destruction to strike a whale, or to be the first boat fast, or to get a fatal lance before another boat arrived; but, working carefully and securely, they bided the time until a fit opportunity presented itself, and then, guided by their long experience, applied the lance expeditiously and fatally. This race of whalemen has, however, been supplanted by another of younger men, who were brought into the field by the prolific grounds of the Arctic Ocean and Ochotsk Sea, inhabited as they were by myriads of bowhead whales that had never been chased or interfered with by whalemen; consequently, they had not learned from the past to use all the expedients furnished them by nature to avoid and combat against the wiles and stratagems of men. Hence, little else was necessary to capture the bowhead but to have a boat and crew, pull alongside the fish, dart the irons into him, and, ere the bewildered creature had recovered from his astonishment, drive in the lance and kill him; but now that the bowhead has grown more wary,