Although ancient and modern historians may abound in descriptions of man’s daring by “flood and field,” and the many accidents and hairbreadth escapes which accompany his voluntary exposure to a multitude of dangers, surely the recital of his doings in the chase and capture of that leviathan of the deep, the sperm whale, can be second to none in the interest it must excite in every contemplative mind. It is not in the field, jungle, or thick forest that these hardy adventurers seek their prey, upon man’s natural element, where, should any untoward accident occur, assistance of some kind can be readily obtained; but on the vast ocean, at times thousands of miles distant from any habitable land, where they are not only exposed to the dangers which beset them in their adventures with these monsters of the deep, but to others still more terrible, in which the dreaded typhoon forms no inconsiderable part; or when, near lands distant and barbarous, dangerous reefs, sunken rocks, and relentless savages may surround them on every side, requiring all the moral and physical energy of which our nature is possessed to escape the manifold dangers which beset them, but which the whaleman looks upon without dread, passing among them in his gallant bark, and bearing off in triumph the valuable giant of the ocean. Even in these latitudes, the equatorial, we often experience heavy, and sometimes terrible gales of wind. On Wednesday, March 10th, having just cleared our decks from the last “fare of oil,” a heavy gale set in from the westward, which continued for four days, with scarcely a moment’s interruption. The “Mohawk” lost some of her sails, and had her bow boat swept off the cranes. We lost our foretopsail and mainsail, which were literally blown into ribbons. The weather was very thick, the rain descending in torrents, accompanied with heavy thunder and lightning. On Sunday, the 14th, the gale broke, and the clouds lifting, disclosed to our view, but a short distance to windward, Hall’s Island, which we had drifted past. The sun, making his appearance once more, gladdened the hearts of all, and for the first time in four days we took an observation, and found that we were in long. 174° 36´ E., having been drifted by the current from long. 171° E., with but ten miles difference in latitude, being about two hundred and sixteen miles to the eastward of the spot where we took the gale. We very narrowly escaped going ashore the previous night, although unconscious of it at the time. The weather was very thick, and it would have been impossible to have seen land any distance; but, by the safe guidance of an ever-merciful Providence, the two ships were swept through a passage between Knox’s and Hall’s Islands not more than ten or twelve miles in width, and dangerous to pass through in broad daylight. The first intimation that we were any where in the neighborhood of land was when Hall’s Island broke upon our astonished vision to windward, and then did we