generous
they are with it.

_Mr Barlow._--That is not unfrequently the case, and should be a lesson
to many of our rich at home, who imagine that they have nothing to do
with their fortune but to throw it away upon their pleasures, while
there are so many thousands in want of the common necessaries of life.

_Tommy._--But, pray, sir, have you no more particulars to tell me about
these Greenlanders? for I think it is the most curious account I ever
heard in my life.

_Mr Barlow._--There is another very curious particular indeed to be
mentioned of these countries; in these seas is found the largest animal
in the world, an immense fish, which is called the whale.

_Tommy._--Oh dear! I have heard of that extraordinary animal. And pray,
sir, do the Greenlanders ever catch them?

_Mr Barlow._--The whale is of such a prodigious size, that he sometimes
reaches seventy or eighty, or even more than a hundred feet in length.
He is from ten to above twenty feet in height, and every way large in
proportion. When he swims along the seas, he appears rather like a large
vessel floating upon the waters than a fish. He has two holes in his
head, through which he blows out water to a great height in the air,
immense fins, and a tail with which he almost raises a tempest when he
lashes the sea with it. Would you not believe that such an animal was
the most dreadful of the whole brute creation?

_Tommy._--Indeed, sir, I should! I should think that such a fish would
overset whole ships, and devour the sailors.

_Mr Barlow._--Far from it; it is one of the most innocent in respect to
man that the ocean produces, nor does he ever do him the least hurt,
unless by accidentally overturning vessels with his enormous bulk. The
food he lives upon is chiefly small fish, and particularly herrings.
These fish are bred in such prodigious shoals amid the ice of those
northern climates, that the sea is absolutely covered with them for
miles together. Then it is that the hungry whale pursues them, and thins
their numbers, by swallowing thousands of them in their course.

_Harry._--What numbers indeed must such a prodigious fish devour of
these small animals!

_Mr Barlow._--The whale, in his turn, falls a prey to the cruelty and
avarice of man. Some indeed are caught by the Greenlanders, who have a
sufficient excuse for persecuting him with continual attacks, in their
total want of vegetables, and every species of food which the earth
affords. But