We reached the Japan grounds in May of 1874, and cruised thereabouts until August. Then we stood to the southward, loafing past the Volcano Islands, the Ladrones, Carolines, Solomon and Fiji Islands, always on the lookout for whales, and taking a number of them. We were on the New Zealand grounds early in November. We had only average success on the Japan grounds and our cruise to the southward; pulled in many a fruitless chase, and most of the whales we did get made no fight worth mentioning, for which the men were thankful. Two of the whales, however, did seem to think their lives worth fighting for, and one of the two fights was successful from the whale’s point of view.

The first of these fights occurred about the middle of the northern summer. We were off the coast of Japan a hundred miles or so, and it was blowing hard from the southwest, when we raised this lone spout to windward. I was standing by the weather fore rigging, having escaped work in the cabin—the officers were rather lenient as to my duties in the cabin in view of my work in the boat, but I tried not to be conspicuous when I was loafing—I stood by the fore rigging, with arms folded upon the rail. So far as I can recollect, I was thinking of nothing at all, but letting the wind blow on my face, and enjoying myself. Suddenly there came a spout about a mile off, and just before my eyes, a perfect plume. I had not seen the whale rise, and even after the spout I saw nothing of his body. The cry came down from the masthead immediately, and I moved, expecting that my boat might be called upon.

The call did not come, however. We were to leeward of the whale, and the ship was manoeuvred for half an hour, trying to get to windward of him, and waiting for him to sound. We did not succeed in getting a windward berth, for he was moving slowly to windward, and kept his advantage. He did go down when he got good and ready, his flukes going into the air until he seemed to be standing on his head, half submerged, and he disappeared, apparently going straight down.

Mr. Brown and Mr. Tilton then lowered, but they did not hurry about it, for the whale had gone down less than a mile from the ship, and it was likely that he would stay down for an hour. We pulled to the spot we had chosen as the most likely, and waited, occasionally pulling a few strokes to hold our position. Mr. Tilton was a quarter of a mile away. While we waited, the ship worked up past us, and got about a quarter of a mile directly to windward of us. Mr. Tilton guessed nearer than Mr. Brown. The whale rose beyond Mr. Tilton’s boat, coming up on a half-breach. We heard the tremendous splash of it, and saw Mr. Tilton’s men begin to pull; then we began to pull, and I saw no more of what was going on except the oars and the backs of the men directly before my eyes, and Mr. Brown’s unexpressive face, as he stood at the steering oar.

We chased that whale for nearly two hours before Azevedo had a chance to strike. Then I saw Mr. Brown’s face light up.

“White water!” he said. “He’s fast.”

I, for one, was glad. It is no play to pull a whaleboat into the teeth of such a sea and wind as there was then.

“She spouts thin blood,” he added, a moment later. “Sounded.”

We took it easy after that, and soon came up with Mr. Tilton. The whale had sounded out all his line before we got there, and the ship was hull down to leeward, but coming as fast as she could.

There was nothing to do but to wait. The whale must have gone down at a terrific rate, and he had gone straight down, for he came up in fifteen or twenty minutes, and a short distance ahead of us. We pulled frantically. Just as I saw the huge body beginning to show at the corner of my eye, half awash, the Prince darted with all his strength, both irons, with great rapidity. At the same moment Mr. Brown hove mightily upon the steering oar, to lay the boat around, crying out to the Prince to take the lance to him. The boat responded, and for a brief interval we ran with the whale, the starboard oars against the gunwale, and I trying my best to get in the slack of the line before we began to fall astern, while Kane held my oar for me. The Prince had seized a lance almost before Mr. Brown had got the words out of his mouth, and had plunged it twice into the whale. Mr. Brown had given another twist to the steering oar, and we sheered off just as the flukes struck the water with a noise like a big gun and the effect of a cataract. I had let go the line and grabbed my oar again, and we just did get out of the way as the whale sounded, with a side cut of flukes.

He did not go deep enough to take out all our line, although he came near it; but we held him there, with the bow of the boat pulled down within a foot of the water, the stern raised a little, and every other sea breaking into the boat, which kept Kane and me bailing. Mr. Tilton came up, and he and Mr. Brown thought the whale done for; virtually dead. The whale did not rise, and at last Mr. Tilton pulled for the ship, which was coming up pretty fast, to get a new line.

Still we waited. The whale did not move. Mr. Tilton had boarded the ship, got his line, and shoved off again. We began to wonder if it was a dead whale that we had at the end of that line, and we all relaxed. The whale had been down an hour, and Mr. Tilton was not halfway to us, when the bow was suddenly released, and the stern fell back gently, with a little splash. The strain on the line had eased, and he was coming up. How fast he was coming, and where he would rise were questions of some interest, but no more than that. He was a dead whale, or as good as dead.

I was aroused to something more than interest by the rasp of the whale’s teeth against the boat, and his jaw shot into the air, it seemed to me for fifty feet. As it passed me, I saw the tip of the jaw was curled around into a tight spiral. That spiral jaw fascinated me. I could not keep my eyes off it, and I did not think of the boat spade. There was no time to use it, anyway, even if I had thought of it. The whale had the boat fairly in his mouth, between the tub and the after oar, and he lost no time in closing, biting it cleanly in two. The water rushed in upon me, still sitting at my oar. I saw the stern sheets fall square with the whale’s snout, and Mr. Brown step off upon it and dive. Then the water closed over me for an instant; but I had not let go my oar, and I came to the surface, sputtering, and hugging the oar close. I do not remember that I was frightened, but my whole attention was occupied, and I did not know what was happening to the others, nor to myself, until I found myself on the bottom of the forward half of the boat. I have often wondered just how I got there.

As soon as I was in a condition to observe anything, I saw the whale feebly butting the stern of the boat from side to side, about fifteen feet away, while Black Man’el and Mr. Brown were swimming, Man’el as if he were hurt. I saw Mr. Brown help Man’el to the steering oar, which still swung there, and then the whale turned to our half of the boat. His butts were so feeble—no more than gentle pushes—that we had no difficulty in holding on; and, after pushing us about for two or three minutes, he very simply rolled over upon his side, fin out.

Mr. Tilton’s crew had seen our predicament, and had been pulling hard for us, and Mr. Macy had lowered from the ship. Mr. Tilton took us off. Black Man’el was the only one hurt. He had an ugly wound in his arm, which the whale’s teeth had caught and ripped from shoulder to elbow, but no bones were broken. I thought the boat was hopelessly stove, and of no further use to anybody, except for firewood; but Captain Nelson had Mr. Macy pick up the pieces, and Peter afterward made another boat of them.

The whale made seventy-three barrels. His deformed jaw was saved and cleaned, and when the Clearchus got home, it was added to the collection of such curiosities. It is now in the Whaling Museum.

The outcome of the other fight was different. The officers were at breakfast when we heard the cry from the masthead, and we all ran on deck at once. There were many spouts, quite a large school, four or five miles to leeward. We ran down for them, getting the boats and their gear ready as we went; and at a distance of about a mile we lowered four boats, all but Captain Coffin’s. His ankle was still giving him some trouble, although he used it. I have no doubt that that was just the reason it troubled him, for he had used it too soon and too much, and he was a great heavy man.

The whales in the school were, most of them, rather small cows; but there were two bulls of good size, about eighty or ninety barrels, Mr. Brown guessed. The boats devoted their attention to them. There was sea enough to make it easy to approach the whales, and they were to leeward, which made it easier still. Mr. Baker and Mr. Macy took one, while Mr. Tilton and Mr. Brown took the other. Mr. Baker struck his whale first, and Mr. Macy did not get fast to him at all, for he immediately ran to windward, not very fast, towing Mr. Baker, with Mr. Macy in pursuit. I did not see much of it, naturally; but Mr. Macy failed to catch him, and when he had taken Mr. Baker five miles to windward of the ship, the whale increased his speed, and the line parted. Starbuck had not been able to get both irons into him, and the second harpoon, skittering along on the top of the water, had cut and frayed the line. I could imagine Mr. Baker’s flow of language at that accident, which is one of the regular risks of the business. There was nothing for the two boats to do but to get back and try to find the rest of the school, but the school had gone. So had we.

Meanwhile we had struck our whale. We approached him from behind. I heard the hoarse bellow of his spout getting nearer—he was the loudest spouter I ever heard; we passed his flukes, which worked slowly and lazily, for he had not seen us, and the sea made too much noise for him to hear us; then we passed his small and his hump. Then Mr. Brown nodded to the Prince, and he stood up, I suppose, although I saw nothing of him. Then Mr. Brown laid the boat around, and we ran spang into the whale’s body just aft of his fin, and the Prince darted both of his irons as Mr. Brown yelled to us, “Stern all!” The whale gave one convulsive leap ahead, his flukes went into the air, and came down again, drenching everybody in the boat, and he sounded instantly and rapidly. He took out line very fast, one tub and half of the other; then he turned, and came up again as fast as he went down. The line went out very nearly as fast when he was coming up as when he went down, but it was held on the loggerhead, so that it did not all go out. He breached a short distance from the boat, almost his whole length out, falling back with a great noise and a splash which filled us half full of water.