Certainly the monotony on board must seem intolerable to the Canadian, accustomed as he was to a life of liberty and activity. Events were rare which could rouse him to any show of spirit; but that day an event did happen which recalled the bright days of the harpooner. About eleven in the morning, being on the surface of the ocean, the _Nautilus_ fell in with a troop of whales—an encounter which did not astonish me, knowing that these creatures, hunted to death, had taken refuge in high latitudes. We were seated on the platform, with a quiet sea. The month of October in those latitudes gave us some lovely autumnal days. It was the Canadian—he could not be mistaken—who signalled a whale on the eastern horizon. Looking attentively, one might see its black back rise and fall with the waves five miles from the _Nautilus_. “Ah!” exclaimed Ned Land, “if I was on board a whaler, now such a meeting would give me pleasure. It is one of large size. See with what strength its blow-holes throw up columns of air an steam! Confound it, why am I bound to these steel plates?” “What, Ned,” said I, “you have not forgotten your old ideas of fishing?” “Can a whale-fisher ever forget his old trade, sir? Can he ever tire of the emotions caused by such a chase?” “You have never fished in these seas, Ned?” “Never, sir; in the northern only, and as much in Behring as in Davis Straits.” “Then the southern whale is still unknown to you. It is the Greenland whale you have hunted up to this time, and that would not risk passing through the warm waters of the equator. Whales are localised, according to their kinds, in certain seas which they never leave. And if one of these creatures went from Behring to Davis Straits, it must be simply because there is a passage from one sea to the other, either on the American or the Asiatic side.” “In that case, as I have never fished in these seas, I do not know the kind of whale frequenting them!” “I have told you, Ned.” “A greater reason for making their acquaintance,” said Conseil. “Look! look!” exclaimed the Canadian, “they approach: they aggravate me; they know that I cannot get at them!” Ned stamped his feet. His hand trembled, as he grasped an imaginary harpoon. “Are these cetaceans as large as those of the northern seas?” asked he. “Very nearly, Ned.” “Because I have seen large whales, sir, whales measuring a hundred feet. I have even been told that those of Hullamoch and Umgallick, of the Aleutian Islands, are sometimes a hundred and fifty feet long.” “That seems to me exaggeration. These creatures are only balaeaopterons, provided with dorsal fins; and, like the cachalots, are generally much smaller than the Greenland whale.” “Ah!” exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes had never left the ocean, “they are coming nearer; they are in the same water as the _Nautilus_.” Then, returning to the conversation, he said: