So complete was this enormous leap, that for an instant we saw him fairly up in the air, in a horizontal position, at a distance from the water not much short, I should think, of half his own breadth! His back, therefore, must have been at least twenty feet, in perpendicular height, over our heads! While in his progress upwards, there was in his spring some touch of the vivacity with which a trout or a salmon shoots out of the water; but he fell back again on the sea, like a huge log thrown on its broadside; and with such a thundering crash, as made all hands stare in astonishment, and the ‘boldest held his breath for a time.’ Total demolition, indeed, must have been the inevitable fate of our party, had the whale taken his leap one minute sooner, for he would then have fallen plump on the boat! The waves caused by the explosion spread over half the anchorage; nor, if the Leander herself had blown up, could the effects have extended much further. As we rolled about in the cutter from side to side, we had time to balance the expediency of further proceedings, against the tolerable chance of being smashed to atoms under the whale’s belly at his next leap. All idea of capturing him was now, of course, given up; if, indeed, any such frantic notion could ever seriously have entered our heads. But our curiosity was vehemently roused to witness such another feat; and, after lying on our oars for some time, we once more detected the whale’s back at a little distance from us. “Let us poke him up again!” cried one of the party. “Agreed! agreed!” roared out the others; and away we dashed, in hopes of producing a repetition of this singular exploit. The whale, however, did not choose to exhibit any more, though we were often near him. At last he fairly bolted, and took the direction of the North Rock, hoping, perhaps, to make his escape by the narrow passage known only to the most experienced pilots of those intricate regions. It was not until after we had entirely lost sight of the chase, and when we had rowed so far, that we could just see the top of St. George’s Island astern of us, that we had leisure to remark the change of weather, which had taken place during this absurd pursuit. The sky had become overcast, and the wind risen to such a smart breeze from the south-west, that, when we again put the boat’s head towards the island, it was quite as much as we could do to make any headway at all, and sometimes we hardly held our own. Had the wind increased only a little more, we must inevitably have been blown to sea—and even as it was, it cost us many hours of severe tugging at the oars to regain the anchorage, just before night-fall, completely worn out.