uwekaas, with a cargo of seven fish, was anchored in Greenland,
in the year 1660. The captain, perceiving a whale ahead 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 afterward, and prepared to make a
second attack on the fish when it should remount 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 discharge
his weapon. Vienkes flew along with the pieces of the boat, and
fell upon the back of the animal. This intrepid seaman, who
still retained his weapon in his grasp, harpooned the whale on
which he stood; and by means of the harpoon and the line, which
he never abandoned, he steadied himself firmly upon the fish,
notwithstanding his hazardous situation, and regardless of a
considerable wound that he received in his leg in his fall along
with the fragments of the boat. All the efforts of the other
boats to approach the whale and deliver the harpooner were
futile. The captain, not seeing any other method of saving his
unfortunate companion, who was in some way entangled with the
line, called him to cut it with his knife and betake himself to
swimming. Vienkes, embarrassed and disconcerted as he was, tried
in vain to follow this council. His knife was in the pocket of
his drawers, and being unable to support himself with one hand,
he could not get it out. The whale, meanwhile, continued
advancing along the surface of the water with great rapidity,
but fortunately never attempted to dive. While his comrades
despaired of his life, the harpoon by which he held at length
disengaged itself from the body of the whale. Vienkes, being
thus liberated, did not fail to take advantage of this
circumstance. He cast himself into the sea, and by swimming
endeavored to regain the boats, which continued the pursuit of
the whale. When his shipmates perceived him struggling with the
waves, they redoubled their exertions. They reached him just as
his st