Madagascar is nearly a thousand miles long, and from three to five hundred miles from the coast of Africa, the narrowest part of the Mozambique Channel, opposite Mozambique, being about two hundred and sixty miles broad. {210} We were therefore well out of sight of land almost all the time that we cruised in those waters. Although the wind was southerly—the southeast trades—and by all the rules we should have run directly through the Channel and beat slowly back again, we did not do so, but steered a zigzag course, wearing ship as we approached either side of the Channel. The captain was so certain of seeing whales there that he did not want to miss the first chance, and that chance was as likely to come one way as another. The chance came when we had been in the Channel four days and were on the second leg of our zigzag. I was busy in the cabin, but I heard the faint musical cry, “Ah—bl-o-ows!” I dropped everything, and ran on deck. It was early, breakfast being just over. There they were to the east of us, three beautiful plumes rising together, shining in the sun, drifting for a moment, and dissolving gradually into nothing. We manœuvred for position—if it is proper to speak of anything as clumsy as the Clearchus as manœuvring—and waited for the whales to sound. They took their time about it, at which I did not wonder. It was very pleasant at the surface in the sun, and they lay lazily at their length, spouting now and then. We got to windward of them, and as near as the captain thought was safe—a gallied whale is hard to get. Still they did not go down, and we lowered four boats; all but Mr. Macy’s. The boats were put into the water carefully, so as not to make a splash that the whales would hear, they cast off in silence, and the men took to their paddles. I counted as a man, for I was at what was getting to be my usual place in Mr. Brown’s boat.