We had not been long in these icy regions before we reaped an ample reward for all the dangers we had encountered. As we looked over the side, we observed the water full of animalcules, while vast quantities of shrimps of various sorts were seen in the neighbourhood of the icebergs; but what still more raised our hopes of finding whales, were the numbers of large squid, or cuttle-fish, on which, as I have said, they chiefly feed. We were watching a huge fellow floating near the ship, with outstretched tentaculae, of arms, extending an immense distance from his head, and with which he was dragging up into his voracious mouth thousands of animalculae every moment--and from his size he seemed capable of encircling the body of any unfortunate person he might find swimming--when the cry was heard from aloft of "There she, spouts--there she spouts!" In an instant Newman's lecture of natural history, which he was giving us, was brought to a conclusion. All hands were on deck, and four boats were manned and lowered, and pulled away after no less than three fine bull whales, which appeared at the same instant round the ship. There is a danger in attacking a whale near an iceberg which is avoided in the open sea. When he is fast, he may sound under it, and come up on the other side; but instinct warns him not to come up so as to strike his head against it. Newman and I had already gone in the boats, and had proved ourselves no bad oarsmen on the occasion. He, indeed, had been allowed by the captain to use the harpoon when one of the officers was ill, and had succeeded in striking his first fish in a way which gained him much credit. On this occasion, however, we both remained on board. Suddenly, not far from the ship, another whale rose to the surface, and, in a most extraordinary manner, began to turn, and twist, to throw half his huge bulk at a time out of the water, and furiously to lash it with his tail till he was surrounded with a mass of foam. The boats were in another direction, or we should have thought he had been wounded, and had a lance or harpoon sticking in him, from which he was endeavouring to free himself. He swam on, however, and approached the ship, still continuing his extraordinary contortions. As he drew near, he lifted his enormous head out of the water, when we saw hanging to his lower jaw a large fish, twenty feet long or so, from which he was thus in vain endeavouring to free himself! We had no little cause to be alarmed, as he drew near, for the safety of the ship herself; for, in the blindness of his agony, he might unintentionally strike her, or he might rush against her side to get rid of his pertinacious enemy. More than once the whale threw himself completely out of the water; but the fish still hung on to his bleeding jaw. Together they fell again into the sea, while all around them was stained of a crimson hue from the blood so copiously flowing from the worried monster.