North or South, where the climate forbids man’s encroaching. They are also becoming more wary, and it is only by the most careful management that a boat can approach so as to strike them; they taking the alarm at the least variation in the motions of the waves, and the slightest noise being sufficient to alarm them. Formerly, if we are to believe tradition, such was not the case; and certainly the following anecdote, which, I engage, will be told for many years to come by men who will attest to its perfect reliability, will, to some minds--though I must confess they will be of small caliber if they give credence to it--go to substantiate such a premise, to wit: It formerly was the practice to provide each boat from a whale-ship with a number of bricks. On lowering for, and approaching within a respectable distance of the whale, the boatsteerer was directed to heave one of these bricks at him. If he took no notice of the insult, he was pronounced perfectly safe and tractable, the boat was then laid on and the irons darted; but if, on the contrary, he used his flukes or fins, and made the white water fly, the boat was pointed for the ship; the fishermen being perfectly satisfied with the display of his belligerent powers without a nearer approach, and very well contented to await a more safe and favorable opportunity of increasing their store of oil. On the 27th of November we gammoned the ship Plover, of New Bedford; her mate and his boat’s crew being on board our ship, and our captain and a boat’s crew aboard of her. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, our masthead’s man sung out for sperm whales. After a short observation our mate lowered away, and in less than ten minutes fastened. Immediately the Plover’s mate and our second mate dropped their boats, and several boats from the Plover pulled for the scene of operations. After some little difficulty, a second boat fastened. Our mate, going on to lance the whale, had his boat crushed to pieces, the whale having turned towards him suddenly and grasped the boat in his jaw, making it a wreck in a moment; the crew were pitched head over heels into the water, whilst the boat, being so much damaged, as to be useless, floated away without being taken notice of. The crew were soon picked up, and in other boats were trying to revenge their sense of injury on the whale. The third mate of the Plover now essayed to lance the whale, but with no better success, his boat being stove in the same manner. Our second mate next tried and succeeded; the other boats, having encircled the whale, diverted his attention, and we turned him up. The whales on the Madagascar ground are notorious for their belligerent propensities, and I have been assured by old habitues of the vicinity, that if a boat-header escapes once in three times from having his boat stove, more or less, he is either an admirable manager, or a wonderfully lucky fellow.