But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details
not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to
be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed,
and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they
represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first
engraving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might,
just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and
bearing high in the air upon his back the terrific wreck of the
stoven planks. The prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is
drawn just balancing upon the monster's spine; and standing in that
prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an
oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale,
and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of the
whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The half-emptied line-tub
floats on the whitened sea; the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons
obliquely bob in it; the heads of the swimming crew are scattered
about the whale in contrasting expressions of affright; while in the
black stormy distance the ship is bearing down upon the scene.
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