In a few minutes another of these portly inhabitants of the deep came rolling along with a rowdy, swaggering gait, close to the surface of the water. The mate, cool and collected, took a careful aim, and again threw the iron, which entered his victim, and then shouted with the voice of a Stentor, "Haul in! Haul in!" And we did haul in; but the fish was strong and muscular, and struggled hard for liberty and life. In spite of our prompt and vigorous exertions, he was dragged under the brig's bottom; and if he had not been struck in a workmanlike manner, the harpoon would have drawn out, and the porpoise would have escaped, to be torn to pieces by his unsympathizing companions. As it was, after a severe struggle on both sides, we roused him out of the water, when the mate called for the jib down-haul, with which he made a running bowline, which was clapped over his tail and drawn tight; and in this inglorious manner he was hauled in on the deck. The porpoise is a fish five or six feet in length, weighing from one hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds. The name is derived from the Italian word PORCO-PERCE, or hog-fish; and indeed this animal resembles a hog in many respects. It has a long head, terminated by a projection of its jaws, which are well filled with sharp teeth, white as polished ivory. The body is covered with a coat of fat, or blubber, from one to three inches in thickness, which yields abundance of excellent oil; and the flesh beneath is not very unlike that of a hog, but more oily, coarser, and of a darker color. The flesh, excepting the harslet, is not much prized, though some sailors are fond of it, and rejoice at the capture of a porpoise, which gives them an agreeable change of diet. A few days after this event, being to the southward of Bermuda, I climbed to the fore-top-gallant yard, and casting my eyes around, saw on the verge of the horizon a white speck, which made a singular appearance, contrasting, as it did, with the dark hue of the ocean and the clear azure of a cloudless sky, I called to a sailor who was at work in the cross-trees, and pointed it out to him. As soon as he saw it he exclaimed, "Sail, ho!" The captain was on the quarter-deck, and responded to the announcement by the inquiry of "Where away?" "About three points on the larboard bow," was the rejoinder. We had not spoken a vessel since we left Portsmouth. Indeed, we had seen none, excepting a few fishing smacks on St. George's Bank. The sight of a vessel on the broad ocean ordinarily produces considerable excitement; and this excitement is of a pleasing character when there is no reason to believe the stranger an enemy. It varies the incidents of a tedious passage, and shows that you are not alone on the face of the waters; that others are traversing the ocean and tempting its dangers, urged by a love of adventure or thirst of gain.