Time from Rio, two days; distance, 70 miles.
The wind and tide being adverse, compelled us to wait outside for a
favourable change. While comfortably anchored at this place, a huge
whale, nosing about, came up under the canoe, giving us a toss and a
great scare. We were at dinner when it happened. The meal, it is
needless to say, was finished without dessert. The great sea
animal--fifty to sixty feet long--circling around our small craft,
looked terribly big. He was so close to me twice, as he swam round and
round the canoe, that I could have touched him either time with a
paddle. His flukes stirring the water like a steamer propeller appeared
alarmingly close and powerful!--and what an ugly mouth the monster had!
Well, we expected instant annihilation. The fate of the stout whale-ship
_Essex_ came vividly before me. The voyage of the _Liberdade_, I
thought, was about ended, and I looked about for pieces of bamboo on
which to land my wife and family. Just then, however, to the infinite
relief of all of us, the leviathan moved off, without doing us much
harm, having felt satisfied, perhaps, that we had no Jonah on board.
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