Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III OCEAN FISH AND OCEAN FISHING (continued) After this long introduction I must relate my cetacean experiences. Seldom are whales seen close to the Straits of Dover, but I recollect that many years ago, when crossing over to Calais, a
school
came close to the mail-packet, and one whale, a sixty-footer, suddenly rose close to the side, and, frightened by our paddle-wheels, arched its back, and dived clean under our hull, rising again about a mile away on the other side. South of the Line, and just out of the tropic of Capricorn, we (the passengers and crew of the fine old ship Superb) sighted several sperm whales. Probably, out of curiosity, eight great fish came alongside and rather alarmed the skipper, for although his ship was of good tonnage and teak- built, it would have been no joke if several hundredtons of living whale flesh had rubbed up against her sides. There was, however, no getting rid of the creatures, and they kept us company for some time, doing their ten knots an hour without any apparent effort. Seen so close, their skin looked remarkably smooth and oily, and their .somewhat clumsy- looking frames beautifully adapted for slipping through the water with a minimum of resistance. Until we neared Port Philip Heads we saw no more whales, except a great distance off; but one lovely morning, when the land about Cape Otway was sighted, and the sweet scent of mimosa blossom and the not unpleasant pungent smell of bush-fires was in our nostrils, two gigantic sperm whales, bull and cow, deliberately crossed our bows near the surface, so close that if the breeze had freshened at the moment we should have run them down or been forced to alter our course. Everybody crowded on to the forecastle head, whence they could trace their full outline, as …