Fighting the Whales, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Fighting the Whales

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21731]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE WHALES ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

FIGHTING THE WHALES, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

IN TROUBLE, TO BEGIN WITH.

There are few things in this world that have filled me with so much astonishment as the fact that man can kill a whale! That a fish, more than sixty feet long, and thirty feet round the body; with the bulk of three hundred fat oxen rolled into one; with the strength of many hundreds of horses; able to swim at a rate that would carry it right round the world in twenty-three days; that can smash a boat to atoms with one slap of its tail, and stave in the planks of a ship with one blow of its thick skull;--that such a monster can be caught and killed by man, is most wonderful to hear of, but I can tell from experience that it is much more wonderful to see.

There is a wise saying which I have often thought much upon. It is this: "Knowledge is power." Man is but a feeble creature, and if he had to depend on his own bodily strength alone, he could make no hea

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