The Plover is but five months from home, and her crew had previously done no whaling--she having taken no oil; therefore it was amusing to watch the woebegone and rueful countenances with which the boats’ crews obeyed the order of their officers to pull up to the whale, whilst, on the contrary, when ordered to pull in the opposite direction, their faces would brighten up with an expression of heartfelt relief; and then to look at our own fellows, inured to all the vicissitudes of this adventurous pursuit, taking everything as coolly as if engaged in the most ordinary occupation; making sport of hardships and a jest of danger; eager as the most insatiate sportsman to be in at the death; assisting their boat-sheader to the utmost, anticipating his orders, and acting out all his requirements; so that boat, officer, and crew, seemed to be a nicely constructed machine, working by a secret spring actuating the muscles of each of its occupants with the self-same power. Even when their boat was stoven they had a jest to crack at the greenhorns. Poor fellows, they were much more entitled to our commiseration than derision; we have been through the mill, and have seen and suffered, whilst they, unless circumstances should very much favor them, are doomed to a three years’ stay in the Indian Ocean, where, if “forthcoming events cast their shadows before,” they are fated to discover that their one stoven boat is but a foretaste of what they will experience in that line before their time is up. Before we saw the whale we observed a ship some five miles to windward, with her boats down, and another about the same distance to windward of her, manœuvering as if for whales. We subsequently ascertained that, between noon and the time we struck, five vessels had attempted to capture this whale. All these vessels being in a direct line with our own ship, the whale following a straight course and going to windward, they gave up the chase as useless. We only succeeded by dropping our boat when he was a short distance to leeward, and at a time when the sun’s rays favored a near approach to him. He was a noble fellow, and well worthy the trouble we had with him.