and fifty of the islands of the enemy, and taking
three more with the men in them: the rest took
to their oars and fled. The conquerors pursued
them a little way, and in the evening returned to the
wreck, seizing the remainder of the enemy’s
vessels, and getting back some of their own, for they
had themselves lost no less than fourscore islands
in the engagement. They erected a trophy for
this victory, hanging one of the conquered islands
on the head of the whale, which they fastened their
hawsers to, and casting anchor close to him, for they
had anchors immensely large and strong, spent the night
there: in the morning, after they had returned
thanks, and sacrificed on the back of the whale, they
buried their dead, sung their Io Paeans, and sailed
off. Such was the battle of the islands.
From this time our abode in the whale growing rather
tedious and disagreeable, not able to bear it any
longer, I began to think within myself how we might
make our escape. My first scheme was to undermine
the right-hand wall and get out there; and accordingly
we began to cut away, but after getting through about
five stadia, and finding it was to no purpose, we
left off digging, and determined to set fire to the
wood, which we imagined would destroy the whale, and
secure us a safe retreat. We began, therefore,
by burning the parts near his tail; for seven days
and nights he never felt the heat, but on the eighth
we perceived he grew sick, for he opened his mouth
very seldom, and when he did, shut it again immediately;
on the tenth and the eleventh he declined visibly,
and began to stink a little; on the twelfth it occurred
to us, which we had never thought of before, that
unless, whilst he was gaping, somebody could prop up
his jaws, to prevent his closing them, we were in danger
of being shut up in the carcase, and perishing there:
we placed some large beams, therefore, in his mouth,
got our ship ready, and took in water, and everything
necessary: Scintharus was to be our pilot:
the next day the whale died; we drew our vessel through
the interstices of his teeth, and let her down from
thence into the sea: then, getting on the whale’s
back, sacrificed to Neptune, near the spot where the
trophy was erected. Here we stayed three days,
it being a dead calm, and on the fourth set sail;
we struck upon several bodies of the giants that had
been slain in the sea-fight, and measured them with
the greatest astonishment: for some days we
had very mild and temperate weather, but the north-wind
arising, it grew so extremely cold, that the whole
sea was froze up, not on the surface only, but three
or four hundred feet deep, so that we got out and
walked on the ice. The frost being so intense
that we could not bear it, we put in practice the
following scheme, which Scintharus put us in the head
of: we dug a cave in the ice, where we remained
for thirty days, lighting a fire, and living upon the
fish which we found in it; but, our provisions failing,
we were obliged to loosen our ship which was stuck
fast in, and hoisting a sail, slid along through the
ice with an easy pleasant motion; on the fifth day
from that time, it grew warm, the ice broke, and it
was all water again.
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