Rebuked, in a measure, by this daring attack of their commander, as well as encouraged and stimulated by its success, one of the hitherto hesitating boats immediately followed for a similar object; but the officer commanding it, not having the same tact, advanced incautiously, at an unfavourable moment, and too far within the range of the enemy’s destructive members, as to subject himself and comrades to a formidable peril. The tail of the fish was again reared into the air, in a terrific attitude over the boat. The harponeer, who was directly underneath, happily discovered his danger, and leaped overboard; and the next moment the threatened stroke was impressed with tremendous force upon the centre of the boat, which literally buried it in the water! Providentially, no one was hurt. The officer who leaped overboard, escaped certain death by the prompt adventure. The huge tail (a member measuring perhaps twenty feet in width, extending to a superficial area of about eighty square feet, and weighing from one to two tons), struck the very spot on which he had previously stood. The effects of the blow on the boat were extraordinary. The keel was broken; the gunwale, and all the planks, except two, were cut through; and it was evident that the boat would have been completely divided, had not the tail struck directly upon a deep coil of the whale-lines. The crew, succoured by the various boats lying around, were all speedily picked up; but the boat was so thoroughly smashed as to be rendered useless. This alarming discouragement, with the crippling of their strength and resources by the destruction of one boat and the withdrawal of another for the conveyance to the ship of the drenched and shivering sailors, threw the principal burden of the exploit of capture on my Father. For though other harpoons, after some minor adventures, were struck, the actual killing of this leviathan of its tribe was effected by himself. Contrary to the usual habits of the Greenland whale, this individual, instead of occasionally seeking the depths of ocean for its protection, especially on receiving a fresh and painful wound, remained mainly at the surface. Its natural energies, but yet little acted on by the exhausting influence of the _pressure_ of water, were consequently very little impaired; for the superficial wounds of harpoons produce no immediate effect upon life.