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+====== TRAVELS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN ======
+===== CHAPTER VII =====
+//The Baron relates his adventures on a voyage to North America,
+  which are well worth the reader's attention--Pranks of a whale--A
+  sea-gull saves a sailor's life--The Baron's head forced into his
+  stomach--A dangerous leak stopped à posteriori.//
+I embarked at Portsmouth in a first-rate English man-of-war, of one
+hundred guns, and fourteen hundred men, for North America. Nothing
+worth relating happened till we arrived within three hundred leagues
+of the river St. Laurence, when the ship struck with amazing force
+against (as we supposed) a rock; however, upon heaving the lead we
+could find no bottom, even with three hundred fathom. What made this
+circumstance the more wonderful, and indeed beyond all comprehension,
+was, that the violence of the shock was such that we lost our rudder,
+broke our bowsprit in the middle, and split all our masts from top to
+bottom, two of which went by the board; a poor fellow, who was aloft
+furling the mainsheet, was flung at least three leagues from the ship;
+but he fortunately saved his life by laying hold of the tail of a
+large sea-gull, who brought him back, and lodged him on the very spot
+from whence he was thrown. Another proof of the violence of the shock
+was the force with which the people between decks were driven against
+the floors above them; my head particularly was pressed into my
+stomach, where it continued some months before it recovered its
+natural situation. Whilst we were all in a state of astonishment at
+the general and unaccountable confusion in which we were involved, the
+whole was suddenly explained by the appearance of a large whale, who
+had been basking, asleep, within sixteen feet of the surface of the
+water. This animal was so much displeased with the disturbance which
+our ship had given him--for in our passage we had with our rudder
+scratched his nose--that he beat in all the gallery and part of the
+quarter-deck with his tail, and almost at the same instant took the
+mainsheet anchor, which was suspended, as it usually is, from the
+head, between his teeth, and ran away with the ship, at least sixty
+leagues, at the rate of twelve leagues an hour, when fortunately the
+cable broke, and we lost both the whale and the anchor. However, upon
+our return to Europe, some months after, we found the same whale
+within a few leagues of the same spot, floating dead upon the water;
+it measured above half a mile in length. As we could take but a small
+quantity of such a monstrous animal on board, we got our boats out,
+and with much difficulty cut off his head, where, to our great joy, we
+found the anchor, and above forty fathom of the cable, concealed on
+the left side of his mouth, just under his tongue. [Perhaps this was
+the cause of his death, as that side of his tongue was much swelled,
+with a great degree of inflammation.] This was the only extraordinary
+circumstance that happened on this voyage. One part of our distress,
+however, I had like to have forgot: while the whale was running away
+with the ship she sprung a leak, and the water poured in so fast, that
+all our pumps could not keep us from sinking; it was, however, my good
+fortune to discover it first. I found it a large hole about a foot
+diameter; you will naturally suppose this circumstance gives me
+infinite pleasure, when I inform you that this noble vessel was
+preserved, with all its crew, by a most fortunate thought! in short, I
+sat down over it, and could have dispensed with it had it been larger;
+nor will you be surprised when I inform you I am descended from Dutch
+parents. [The Baron's ancestors have but lately settled there; in
+another part of his adventures he boasts of royal blood.]
+My situation, while I sat there, was rather cool, but the carpenter's
+art soon relieved me.
+----
+Go to [[CHAPTER VIII]]