boat and try to destroy it. Very few indeed would survive such
an attack, unless the tactics were radically altered. No doubt
they would be, for practices grow up in consequence of the
circumstances with which they have to deal.

After the usual time spent in furious attempts to free himself
from our annoyance, he betook himself below, leaving us to await
his return, and hasten it as much as possible by keeping a severe
strain upon the line. Our efforts in this direction, however,
did not seem to have any effect upon him at all. Flake after
flake ran out of the tubs, until we were compelled to hand the
end of our line to the second mate to splice his own on to.
Still it slipped away, and at last it was handed to the third
mate, whose two tubs met the same fate. It was now Mistah Jones'
turn to "bend on," which he did with many chuckles as of a man
who was the last resource of the unfortunate. But his face grew
longer and longer as the never-resting line continued to
disappear. Soon he signalled us that he was nearly out of line,
and two or three minutes after he bent on his "drogue" (a square
piece of plank with a rope tail spliced into its centre, and
considered to hinder a whale's progress at least as much as four
boats), and let go the end. We had each bent on our drogues in
the same way, when we passed our ends to one another. So now our
friend was getting along somewhere below with 7200 feet of
1 1/2-inch rope, and weight additional equal to the drag of
sixteen 30-feet boats.

Of course we knew that, unless he were dead and sinking, he could
not possibly remain much longer beneath the surface. The
exhibition of endurance we had just been favoured with was a very