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This shows as close observation of nature on their part as the Indians display, and reminds me of the names the Makahs give to the months: December, the moon when the gray whale appears; March, the moon of the fin-back whale; April, the moon of sprouts and buds; May, the moon of the salmon-berry; June, the moon of the red huckleberry; November, the moon of winds and screaming birds.
Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale with a charmed spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his home and separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and without touching or looking upon a woman.
"The whole point of the story depends upon its having been Jonah's whale. Under the circumstances, the only thing I can do is to sit down. I regret the narrowness of mind exhibited by my friend Jonah, but I must respect the decision of the court." "I must take exception to the Baron's allusion to my narrowness of mind," said Jonah, with some show of heat.
He had been left alone on an iceberg in the Polar seas, when the boat in which he was chasing a whale and all the other hands had been lost. He had been stranded on the coast of Africa, and made captive by the natives; when escaping, he had been nearly torn to pieces by a lion, only managing to scramble up a tree just as the monster's claws were within a few inches of his heels.
"Well, it's a whale of a submarine, isn't it?" continued Bill in a brave effort to be funny. Ted agreed, but was in no humor for joking, and hurried amidships to join Jack, who had remained within call of his commander. For some moments the boys discussed the predicament of the Dewey, the unfortunate circumstances that had led her aground, and the possibilities of being floated again.
"Haul in haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed on.
Poor Goliath was indeed to be pitied, for his well-known luck and capacity as a whaleman seemed on this occasion to have quite deserted him. Not only had his boat been stove upon first getting on to the whale, but he hadn't even had a run for his money.
Presently, a couple of hundred yards from the boat, on the starboard side, the whale came up to spout, evidently having turned from the direction in which it had been slowly traveling, and the rowers made for the new objective. This time there was another long wait. "How long do they stay down, Hank?" asked the boy.
"I am not a native of this island," observed he, as we walked along; "it is more than four hundred years since it was first inhabited, by the crew of a French vessel, which was lost in the Northern Ocean. But I do not wish to leave it. I was cast on it in a whale boat, when separated from the ship in a snow-storm, about twenty-five years ago.
I seemed to feel the crunching of the boat's timbers in those awful jaws, and I must have swooned in looking forward to my own terrible fate. When I regained my senses, all was quiet around me. Off the side of the boat, at some distance, a whale floated on the water. After waiting a few moments, I ventured to crawl forward on the thwarts, and found the whale-line was still attached to the bow.
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