f four or five knots. It may be said,
here, that the Martha went into the passage, and that the whale was
floated into shallow water, where sinking was out of the question, and
Bob and his Kannakas, about twenty in number, went to work to peel off
the blubber in a very efficient, though not in a very scientific, or
artistical manner. They got the creature stripped of its jacket of fat
that very night, and next morning the Martha appeared with a set of
kettles, in which the blubber was tried out. Casks were also brought in
the sloop, and, when the work was done, it was found that that single
whale yielded one hundred and eleven barrels of oil, of which
thirty-three barrels were head-matter! This was a capital commencement
for the new trade, and Betts conveyed the whole of his prize to the
Reef, where the oil was started into the ground-tier of the Rancocus,
the casks of which were newly repaired, and ready stowed to receive it.

A week later, as the governor in the Mermaid, cruising in company with
the Henlopen and Abraham, was looking out for whales about a hundred
miles to windward of the Peak, having met with no success, he was again
joined by Betts in the Martha. Everything was reported right at the
Reef. The Neshamony had come in for provisions and gone out again, and
the Rancocus would stand up without watching, with her hundred and
eleven barrels of oil in her lower hold. The governor expressed his
sense of Betts' services, and reminding him of his old faculty of seeing
farther and truer than most on board, he asked him to go up into the
brig's cross-trees and take a look for whales. The keen-eyed fellow had
not been aloft ten minutes, before the cry of "spouts--spouts!" was
ringing through the vessel. The proper signal was made to the Henlopen
and Abraham, when everybody made sail in the necessary direction. By
sunset a great number of whales were fallen in with, and as Capt. Walker
gave it as his opinion they were feeding in that place, no attempt was
made on them until morning. The next day, however, with the return of
light, six boats were in the water, and palling off towards the game.

On this occasion, Walker led on, as became his rank and experience. In
less than an hour he was fast to a very large whale, a brother of that
taken by Betts; and the females had the exciting spectacle, of a boat
towed by an enormous fish, at a rate of no less than twenty knots in an
hour. It is the practice among whalers for t