My only experience with snakes had been with these little green or mottled-brown grass snakes, about two feet long or less, or with adders, and a couple of big blacksnakes. The blacksnakes I let alone, but I was accustomed to catch the grass snakes and treat them as pets. I had a box in our back yard, covered with wire netting, in which I put them, and kept them until my mother made too strenuous objection to the practice. Then, although I could not understand why she should object so strongly, I bowed to the inevitable. They were pretty things, and quite harmless; even useful, but she neither knew nor cared about that. So, when I saw that snake in the jungle, instead of letting him go peaceably, as anybody else would have done, and glad that he was going, I leaped after him. It was not so very big, perhaps three or four feet long.

The snake hurried when I jumped, but I kept on, and it stopped and faced me, rearing its head erect, some distance from the ground. Its hood puffed out, and its head waved slowly from side to side. I began to be scared then, and backed away. There was a slight movement in the vines and bushes back of the snake, they parted silently, and I saw Peter looking at me. I did not speak, but pointed at the snake. Peter did not delay. His axe fell upon the snake, and cut it cleanly in two parts.

“Come, lad,” said Peter. “We missed you, and nobody knew which way you ’d gone. They ’re about done.”

I remonstrated. “But, Peter, my tree.” And I pointed at the fallen monarch of the forest, which was about six inches through at the butt, and twenty-five feet long.

Peter smiled. “Aye, lad, I heard it fall. It was by that I found you. Maybe we ’ll get it, and maybe not. I think they ’re ready to put off to the ship and are waiting for us.”

So I followed him, leaving my precious tree, and leaving the pieces of the snake still writhing about on the ground. According to all my lore, they would continue to writhe until sunset, which was not far off. I determined to add to my curriculum a brief course upon snakes. I felt sure that the course would meet Mr. Brown’s approval, and that he was qualified to give it.

We made sail on the Clearchus, and stood for the southern end of Madagascar; rounded it, and stood northerly. There was rather a strong current against us, but the wind held strong from the east and southeast, and we made nearly four knots in spite of the current. Peter was occupied with the stove boat. He had little help, but he did not want any. There was a fascination in watching his deliberate movements, every one of which was to the certain end; the same kind of fascination which I used to feel in watching Oman, a cabinet-maker, at work. Oman seemed slow, and his manner of working would not have been approved by a modern efficiency expert, but he knew his trade from top to bottom, and was a master workman. He loved his work, as any master workman must. Not one of his deliberate movements was wasted, and the beautiful end was reached with surprising ease and quickness; and what an end it was! Peter was no cabinet-maker, but his method of working was the same.

When we had made about half the length of Madagascar without even raising a spout, we fell in with another New Bedford whaler, the Apollo, and Captain Nelson went aboard of her for a gam with Captain Hendrickson. I did not go. They gammed from early morning to late in the afternoon, and then I saw Captain Nelson’s boat coming back. The mate of the Apollo, who had been visiting us, hurried away with his men. As far as I could gather from what I overheard, the master of the Apollo had not com­mun­i­cated anything of value. She was a full ship, however, on her way home, and the old man—Captain Nelson—felt sure that she had found some new cruising ground, either in the Indian Ocean or in the Pacific, he thought more likely the Indian Ocean. He had spent the day in detective work, trying to find some clue to its location, but without result. Whaling captains, when they have happened upon a new field, guard the secret as carefully as they can, but it leaks out in a year or two. No doubt Captain Hendrickson was laughing at him at that moment. He said this, standing on deck, looking back at the Apollo sinking into the sea behind us. She was hull down already, enveloped in a purple haze, for the sun was near its setting. The captain stood for some time silently gazing, until the old-fashioned square topsails of the Apollo were lost in the haze. Then he turned, smiling, to go below.

“I ’ll find it, by Godfrey,” he muttered to himself, “if I have to comb these seas with a fine-toothed comb.”

Two days later we raised a spout nearly in sight of Tamatave. Tamatave is on the east coast of Madagascar, in about 18° south latitude. It was a calm morning, and the whale was about three miles off. He was lying lazily on the surface, and we watched him for an hour and a half, waiting for him to go down. At last he decided to go. His flukes went straight up into the air, and he went down in a very leisurely manner, as if it was almost too much trouble to eat. It was as if he sighed and said, “Well, here goes. I suppose I must get to work.” That was the way I felt on that morning, and I had no doubt the whale felt much the same. Why should n’t whales feel so?