cooling water. I informed him that Nineveh no
longer existed, at which he was gratified beyond measure; for his only
knowledge of events happening on the earth had been derived from the
wrecks which had sunk into his domain. I found that he was badly
informed upon matters of science, and he heard my theories of
harmonizing the universes with impatience. In his days, he said, no
such ideas were broached, and he was indifferent to the intellectual
development of his subjects.

"My visit was brief, for, though the palace of Jonah had a sepulchral
grandeur about it--a mighty cavern beneath the waves--yet the
glittering stalactites which studded the roof, and the cold columns of
ice supporting its halls, nearly froze me, and at length I made ready
to depart.

"An escort of 'thrashers,' or grampuses, accompanied me. The Seer-King
would have detached a cohort of white whales, but the animosity of my
tribes might have provoked combat. I left the cetacea with some
foreboding. They were allied in some degree to man; they were capable
of some human impressions; their blood was warm like mine; they
breathed with lungs; they had double hearts; and nourished kindness
for their offspring. But I was now about to be delivered over to the
cold, cruel, gluttonous tribes of the fish. The family of sharks
received me. They could not be counted for multitude. The terrible
_requiem_ of the storm--the cannibal white shark--welcomed me with
open jaws; the blue shark flung up his caudal for joy; the fox-shark
lashed the sea; the northern shark glared through his purblind orbs;
the hammer-head dilated his yellow irides; the purple dog-fish made a
low purring huzza; and the spotted eyes of the monk-fish glistened
with satisfaction. The hound-shark, the basking-shark, and the
port-beagle were not less loyal; and these, the most perfectly
organized of my cartilaginous tribes, handed me over to the
deep-swimming Norwegian 'sea-rat.' Thus I kept steadily southward, the
water growing warmer hour by hour, now riding on the serrated snouts
of saw-fishes, now moving in the midst of battalions of sword-fish,
now acknowledged by the great pike, now vaulting above the surface on
the backs of flying-fish, now clinging to the spines of sturgeons, now
passing through illimitable shoals of cod, now borne by the swift
sea-salmon, now dazzled by the golden scales of the carp, now passing
over miles of flat-fish, now hailed by monster conger-eels, now
swimming