can not have. His past life is
always present to him; everything that we are forbidden he regrets.
His head is full of old recollections. And we must understand him.
What has he to do here? Nothing; he is not learned like you, sir; and
has not the same taste for the beauties of the sea that we have. He
would risk everything to be able to go once more into a tavern in his
own country."

Certainly the monotony on board must seem intolerable to the Canadian,
accustomed as he was to a life of liberty and activity. Events were
rare which could rouse him to any show of spirit; but that day an event
did happen which recalled the bright days of the harpooner. About
eleven in the morning, being on the surface of the ocean, the Nautilus
fell in with a troop of whales--an encounter which did not astonish me,
knowing that these creatures, hunted to death, had taken refuge in high
latitudes.

We were seated on the platform, with a quiet sea. The month of October
in those latitudes gave us some lovely autumnal days. It was the
Canadian--he could not be mistaken--who signalled a whale on the
eastern horizon. Looking attentively, one might see its black back
rise and fall with the waves five miles from the Nautilus.

"Ah!" exclaimed Ned Land, "if I was on board a whaler, now such a
meeting would give me pleasure. It is one of large size. See with
what strength its blow-holes throw up columns of air an steam!
Confound it, why am I bound to these steel plates?"

"What, Ned," said I, "you have not forgotten your old ideas of fishing?"

"Can a whale-fisher ever forget his old trade, sir? Can he ever tire
of the emotions caused by such a chase?"

"You have never fished in these seas, Ned?"

"Never, sir; in the northern only, and as much in Behring as in Davis
Straits."

"Then the southern whale is still unknown to you. It is the Greenland
whale you have hunted up to this time, and that would not risk passing
through the warm waters of the equator. Whales are localised,
according to their kinds, in certain seas which they never leave. And
if one of these creatures went from Behring to Davis Straits, it must
be simply because there is a passage from one sea to the other, either
on the American or the Asiatic side."

"In that case, as I have never fished in these seas, I do not know the
kind of whale frequenting them!"

"I have told you, Ned."

"A greater reason for making their acquaintance," said Conseil.

"Loo