testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The
Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and
judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,
utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm
Whale HAS done it.

First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of
Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw
spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales.
Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very
large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore
directly down upon the ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull,
he so stove her in, that in less than "ten minutes" she settled down
and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since.
After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in
their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more
sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods
shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second
time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he
has never tempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard is a
resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was chief mate of
the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and
faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this
within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*


*The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact
seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance
which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the
ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to
their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being
made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for
the shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were
necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated
resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had
just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his
companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings." Again:
"At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening
before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my
mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many
of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied
that I am correct in my opinion."

Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a
black night an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any
hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing;
the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed
upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful
contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the
dismal looking wreck, and THE HORRID ASPECT AND REVENGE OF THE WHALE,
wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its
appearance."

In another place--p. 45,--he speaks of "THE MYSTERIOUS AND MORTAL
ATTACK OF THE ANIMAL."


Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807
totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic
particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,
though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual
allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J---, then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to
be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship
in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon
whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the
amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen
present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so
smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a
thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after,
the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But
he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few
moments' confidential business with him. That business consisted in
fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps
going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair.
I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview
with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted
from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will
stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little
circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof.
Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian
Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of
the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth
chapter:

"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next
day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather
was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged
to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind;
it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest
sprang up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger
than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was
not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship,
which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was
impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed
in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up


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