Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The bark Kate Williams, Captain Hale, of the regular packet line between Boston and Fayal, which arrived at Boston on Friday last, had a remarkable escape on her passage. The Boston “Journal” thus described the incident. “About nine o’clock one morning a seaman aloft cried out that there was a whale on the port bow. Captain Hale stepped to the port quarter, and almost immediately could have laid his hand upon the upper jaw of a sperm whale which had paid an unwelcome visit to the vessel. It was a cow whale, about sixty feet in length, which had set upon them, and had she struck the vessel a little further under the Kate Williams would probably never have been heard from after leaving Fayal. As it was, the vessel received a pretty good shock, and lost a portion of her mizzen channels. This monster had seen the bark about the time the sailor discovered her, for she immediately sunk and came up with great force right at the vessel’s stern. Captain Hale thinks her mouth measured at least fifteen feet, and her under jaw was felt to scrape the bottom of the vessel as she glided swiftly away from her unexpected enemy. The whale fared as badly as the bark, no doubt, for the quarter deck was covered with pieces of the leviathan’s outer skin and the “mud” that is found between it and the tougher hide. The Kate Williams was sailing rapidly at the time, and in about fifteen minutes the fish was out of sight. While the latter could be seen she appeared swimming about looking for the vessel, and evidently in a rage.