“Lizards’ tails!”
“Yes; I am about to procure some for dinner, and you shall see my preserve.”
In the course of the day I walked with my host a short distance up the hill, when we stopped at a large pit, covered with a net-work, made of whales’ sinews. The man who accompanied us, descended, and soon returned with a pail full of lizards, confined by a similar net over them. He then took them out one by one, and pulled their tails, which were immediately left in his hand. He then notched the stump, and threw the animal into the pit.
“Of what use is it to return the animals?” observed I.
“Because their tails will grow again, by next year.”
“But why, then, were the stumps notched in the middle?”
“That they might have two tails instead of one, which is invariably the case,” replied my host.
But I will not tire your highness with an account of all that I saw, and which occurred during my stay on that island. If I were to enter into the excellence of their government, which consisted of a great harpooner, and two councils of first and second harpoons, or of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, ceremonies at births, and marriages, and deaths—of their amusements, and their ingenious supply of all their wants, it would afford materials for at least two volumes quarto, without margin. I shall therefore confine myself to stating, that after a sojourn of six months, I became so impatient to quit the island, that I determined to encounter any risk, rather than not accomplish it.
My host, and all the principal inhabitants, finding that no persuasions could induce me to stay, consented at last to furnish me with the means, which I had hit upon to make my escape.
I omitted to mention to your highness, the whales had been rendered so docile, that they not only were used for draught on the lake, but even for carrying on their backs. I never could be persuaded to mount one, I had such a horror of being seated on a fish’s back, after my travelling on the shark; but I had often crossed the lake in one of the great whale boats towed by one or two of the animals fastened to it by loops over their tails. This conveyance suggested to me the idea of my escape, which I proposed to make by means of one of these large whale boats, covered completely in, and to be towed out of the mouth of the lake by one of the draught whales.