ir as Fritz saw it
doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces
him with its sword."

"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists
seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation,
that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs,
or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of
Jonah?"

"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been
associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of
separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the
Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the
Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the
ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in
particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a
horse, without mangling it."

"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back
of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."

"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.

"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster
who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to
be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to
move all the quicker for the dose."

"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The
carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a
whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the
way to shorten the period."

"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of
waggons, "these fellows have no cares."

"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you
suppose that it dies of grief?"

"Who knows, Master Jack?"

"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker;
"it commences by living three years under water in the form of a
maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny
covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four
or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month
of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off
a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns,
and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect;
then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe,
it dies--hence it is called the