We lost an anchor through the incident, and received some small damage
to the keel, but no other injury was done--even this, I believe, upon
second thought, was unintentional--done in playfulness only! "A shark
can take a joke," it is said, and crack one too, but for broad, rippling
humour the whale has no equal.
"If this be a sample of our adventures in the beginning," thought I, "we
shall have enough and to spare by the end of the voyage." A visit from
this quarter had not been counted on; but Sancho Panza says, "When least
aware starts the hare," which in our case, by the by, was a great whale!
When our breath came back and the hair on our heads settled to a normal
level, we set sail, and dodged about under the lee of the cape till a
cove, with a very enticing sand beach at the head of it, opened before
us, some three miles northwest of where we lost the anchor in the
remarkable adventure with the whale. The "spare bower" was soon bent to
the cable. Then we stood in and anchored near a cliff, over which was a
goat-path leading in the direction of a small fishing village, about a
mile away.
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