On this ground, after numerous lowerings away and coming aboard--after seeing whales almost daily, although we found it impossible to get within gun-shot of them, they appearing shy and not at home--one Sunday afternoon the mate and fourth mate lowered away, the other boats being retained aboard the ship. No sooner were we down than, encouraged by the regular movements of the fish, we were convinced we should make a capture, and therefore the chase was conducted with an eagerness not displayed in our former lowerings away. No sooner had we touched the water in the larboard boat, than the mate, after glancing at the spout, gave us orders to shove the boat clear of the ship; then “Out with your oars, my hearties;” and to make us the more eager, he offered us a dollar apiece should we make a capture. As we neared the whale, sinking his voice to a whisper, he urged us to greater exertions, by continually speaking of the whale. “There she lays, my boys; an old soaker, with a back as broad as the deck of our ship. Pull, lads, pull with a will! Give way! every man, fore and aft. Do pull! The boat scarcely moves. Now one more try. She is only two seas off. What do you say now. Put the boat right on top of her. Pull hard, do pull!” Now we draw nearer and nearer, and his enthusiasm is at a boiling heat for fear that we will yet lose the whale; and determined to give vent to his excitement, he offers all his clothes, all his tobacco, and all his money, if we will only get the boat alongside the fish, which by this time is done. Just as the mate heaves his hat over in despair, the boat glides against the monster’s unwieldy carcass at a portion of his body which secures us from the sweep of his immense flukes, and the boatsteerer springs to his feet, and, with nervous arm, drives his harpoon to the socket in the yielding blubber. The mate now loses his excited manner, and, throwing the boat from the whale to escape the mighty effort he makes for our destruction, again becomes the cool and steady whaleman; but our work is not yet done. No sooner is the fish struck, than off he goes, like a charger with the bit in his teeth, perfectly unmanageable, and for an hour we dash through the water at locomotive speed, until the whale exhausts himself with the violence of the effort. Now comes the order to haul line, and the boat is gradually drawn into the whale’s neighborhood, when a bomb lance is discharged, and, fortunately, is lodged on the line of the vertebra, disabling his whaleship from farther flight. They were cognizant of our operations aboard the ship, where the mastheadsman sung out, “There he gives it to him,” the moment we fastened; and immediately after, “The larboard boat’s fast.” The two boats on the cranes were lowered away, manned, and pulled for the scene of action. They arrived in about fifteen minutes after the whale was struck. The waist boat was the second fast. The fish was bleeding at every pore, hand-lances having been darted into him.