ended a considerable depth; and, on its
re-appearance, evinced an uncommon degree of irritation. It made such
a display of its fins and tail, that few of the crew were hardy enough
to approach it. The captain, (Captain Scoresby's father,) observing
their timidity, called a boat, and himself struck a second harpoon.
Another boat immediately followed, and unfortunately advanced too far.
The tail was again reared into the air, in a terrific attitude,--the
impending blow was evident,--the harpooner, who was directly
underneath, leaped overboard,--and the next moment the threatened
stroke was impressed on the centre of the boat, which it buried in the
water. Happily no one was injured. The harpooner who leaped overboard,
escaped certain death by the act,--the tail having struck the very
spot on which he stood. The effects of the blow were astonishing. The
keel was broken,--the gunwales, and every plank, excepting two, were
cut through,--and it was evident that the boat would have been
completely divided, had not the tail struck directly upon a coil of
lines. The boat was rendered useless.

Instances of disasters of this kind, occasioned by blows from the
whale, could be adduced in great numbers,--cases of boats being
destroyed by a single stroke of the tail, are not unknown,--instances
of boats having been stove or upset, and their crews wholly or in part
drowned, are not unfrequent,--and several cases of whales having made
a regular attack upon every boat which came near them, dashed some in
pieces, and killed or drowned some of the people in them, have
occurred within a few years even under my own observation.

The Dutch ship Gort-Moolen, commanded by Cornelius Gerard Ouwekaas,
with a cargo of seven fish, was anchored in Greenland in the year
1660. The captain, perceiving a whale a-head of his ship, beckoned his
attendants, and threw himself into a boat. He was the first to
approach the whale; and was fortunate enough to harpoon it before the
arrival of the second boat, which was on the advance. Jacques Vienkes,
who had the direction of it, joined his captain immediately
afterwards, and prepared to make a second attack on the fish, when it
should remount again to the surface. At the moment of its ascension,
the boat of Vienkes happening unfortunately to be perpendicularly
above it, was so suddenly and forcibly lifted up by a stroke of the
head of the whale, that it was dashed to pieces before the harpooner
could discharg