And as upon the invasion of
their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains;
so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas,
the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels,
and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there,
come up among icy fields and floes! and in a charmed circle
of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.
But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned
for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have
concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously
diminished their battalions. But though for some time past
a number of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been
annually slain on the nor'west coast by the Americans alone;
yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance
of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter.
Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness
of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we
say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one
hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions
elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes.
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