Another anecdote, this time from the log of a whaleship, the _Union_ of Nantucket, Captain (?) Gardiner. While pursuing his calling off the West Coast of South America, the sperm whale he was fighting with flung its jaw upwards and across the boat, catching him by the head and shoulders. The blow did not sweep him overboard, but laid his scalp back from his skull; broke his right jaw, tearing out five teeth; broke his left arm and shoulder-blade, and crushed the hand on the same side between the whale's jaw and the gunwale of the boat. In this deplorable state he was carried on board his ship. His young officers, naturally bewildered by the appearance of his broken body, did not know what to do for him. They may well have been excused for considering his case hopeless. His brave spirit, however, did not recognize defeat. He gave directions, mostly by signs, for the preparation of bandages and splints, and instructed his willing but ignorant helpers in the way of using them. When all had been done that he wished or could think of, he ordered the vessel to be taken into port, and, although apparently at the point of death, he lay on deck in a commanding position and piloted his ship in. A Spanish surgeon was brought on board, who, as soon as he saw the sufferer, advised sending for a priest, as the case was hopeless. This advice was lost upon the valiant Yankee, who sent a messenger a distance of thirty miles for another doctor--a German. This gentleman hastened down to the ship, dressed the skipper's wounds, and had him transported on an improvised ambulance slung between two mules up to the healthy highlands of the interior. In six months' time he was fit to resume command of his ship, which meanwhile had made a most successful cruise under the mate. His left hand, unhappily, had been so badly mangled that it was hardly more than a stump, the first two fingers being so twisted in the palm that he was afterwards always obliged to wear a thick mitten to keep them from being entangled in a lance-warp while he was lancing a whale. This good man was for a quarter of a century master of a whaler, and lived to be nearly ninety years old.