Hearne was an American, and forty-five years of age.

He was an active, vigorous man, and I could see him in my mind's eye, standing up on his double bowed whaling-boat brandishing the harpoon, darting it into the flank of a whale, and paying out the rope.

He must have been fine to see.
Granted his passion for this business, I could not be surprised that his discontent showed itself upon occasion.

In any case, however, our schooner was not fitted out for fishing, and the implements of whaling were not on board.
One day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I had gone forward to watch the gambols of a "school" of the huge sea mammals.
Hearne was pointing them out to his companions, and muttering in disjointed phrases,-- "There, look there! That's a fin-back! There's another, and another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high.
Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps.
Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies.

But there's nothing to be done in this traffic-box; one cannot stretch one's arms.