le, the skipper of the JOHN HAMPDEN.

What arrangements they made, or how they settled the NARRAGANSETT's
claim between them, I never knew, but I dare say there was a costly
law-suit about it in New Bedford years after.

This was not very encouraging for a start, nor did the next week see us
do any better. Several times we saw other ships with whales alongside,
but we got no show at all. Now, I had hoped a great deal from our cruise
on these grounds, because I had heard whispers of a visit to the icy Sea
of Okhotsk, and the prospect was to me a horrible one. I never did take
any stock in Arctic work. But if we made a good season on the Japan
grounds, we should not go north, but gradually work down the Pacific
again, on the other side, cruising as we went.

Day after day went by without any fresh capture or even sight of fish,
until I began to believe that the stories I had heard of the wonderful
fecundity of the Coast of Japan waters were fables without foundation,
in fact. Had I known what sort of fishing our next bout would be, I
should not have been so eager to sight whales again. If this be not a
platitude of the worst kind, I don't know the meaning of the word; but,
after all, platitudes have their uses, especially when you want to state
a fact baldly.

CHAPTER XV. WHICH COMES UNCOMFORTABLY NEAR BEING THE LAST

All unversed as I am in the finer shades of literary craftsmanship,
there is great uncertainty in my mind whether it is good or bad "art" to
anticipate your next chapter by foreshadowing its contents; but whether
good or bad art, the remembrance of my miseries on the eventful occasion
I wish to describe was so strong upon me as I wrote the last few lines
of the previous chapter that I just had to let those few words leak out.

Through all the vicissitudes of this strange voyage I had hitherto felt
pretty safe, and as the last thing a man anticipates (if his digestion
is all right) is the possibility of coming to grief himself while fully
prepared to see everybody else go under, so I had got to think that
whoever got killed I was not to be--a very pleasing sentiment, and one
that carries a man far, enabling him to face dangers with a light heart
which otherwise would make a nerveless animal of him.

In this optimistic mood, then, I gaily flung myself into my place in the
mate's boat one morning, as we were departing in chase of a magnificent
cachalot that had been raised just after breakfast. Th