The boat lay by awaiting the “rising” of the cetacean. Twenty minutes passed, twenty-five, stroke-oarsman began to feel hungry; thirty, thirty-five, and still the line was either slowly running out or taut; but soon it began to slacken. “Haul line! haul line!” said the officer, peering into the water. “He’s stopped.” The line was retrieved as fast as possible and carefully laid in loose coils on the after platform. “Haul line, he’s coming! Coil line clear, Vera!” said Mr. Braxton, shading his eyes with his hand and looking over the gunwale at an immense opaque spot beginning to outline itself in the depths below. [Illustration: DRAWN BY W. TABER. ENGRAVED BY J. W. EVANS. FAST TO A WHALE.] “Look out! Here he comes! Stern all! Look out for whale!” But the mate’s injunctions were received too late. The whale, fairly out of breath, came up with a bound and a puff, scattering the water in all directions, and catching the keel of the boat on the bunch of its neck. The boat bounded from this part of the whale’s anatomy to the hump, and, careening to starboard, shot the crew first on the whale’s side and then into the water. The stroke-oarsman now began to feel wet. The whale, terrified beyond measure by the tickling sensation of the little thirty-foot boat creeping down its back, caught the frail cedar craft on one corner of its flukes, and tossed it gracefully, but perhaps not intentionally, into the air, as one would play with a light rubber ball. As the boat descended, with one tremendous “side wipe” of the mighty caudal fin, and with a terrible crash that was heard on the ship nearly two miles away, the whale smashed it into kindling-wood. [Illustration: A WHALE-BOAT CUT IN TWO.] This is only one of the exciting tales Mr. Brown has to tell, and the history of whaling in every country could add many more. He tells us that approaching a whale at all times is like going into battle, and says that many of the deeds remembered by old hands were purely heroic, since the danger might have been avoided by declining to attack the animal under the especially hazardous conditions that often present themselves. The persecution suffered by whales of all kinds in all parts of the world made the more valuable kinds so scarce by the middle of the present century that many voyages were almost fruitless, not only by reason of small catches, but because the substitutes invented for whalebone, and the constantly increasing use of mineral oils had lowered prices to an almost ruinous level. The American fleets suffered with the rest, until during the Civil War they were nearly swept from the seas by the ravages of the _Shenandoah_ and other Confederate privateers.