American Merchant Ships and Sailors

CHAPTER IV

THE WHAL­ING IN­DUS­TRY--ITS EAR­LY DE­VEL­OP­MENT IN NEW ENG­LAND--KNOWN TO THE AN­CIENTS--SHORE WHAL­ING--BE­GIN­NINGS OF THE DEEP-​SEA FISH­ERIES--THE PRIZES OF WHAL­ING--PIETY OF ITS EAR­LY PRO­MOT­ERS--THE RIGHT WHALE AND THE CACHALOT--A FLUR­RY--SOME FIGHT­ING WHALES--THE “ES­SEX” AND THE “ANN ALEXAN­DER”--TYPES OF WHALERS--DECA­DENCE OF THE IN­DUS­TRY--EF­FECT OF OUR NA­TION­AL WARS--THE EM­BAR­GO--SOME STO­RIES OF WHAL­ING LIFE.

In the old “New Eng­land Primer,” on which the grow­ing minds of Yan­kee in­fants in the ear­ly days of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry were re­galed, ap­pears a clum­sy wood­cut of a spout­ing whale, with these lines of ex­cel­lent piety but doubt­ful rhyme:

Whales in the sea Their Lord obey.

It is sig­nif­icant of the part which the whale then played in do­mes­tic econ­omy that his fa­mil­iar bulk should be uti­lized to “point a moral and adorn a tale” in the most el­emen­tary of books for the in­struc­tion of chil­dren. And in­deed by the time the “New Eng­land Primer” was pub­lished, with its quaint let­ter­ing and rude il­lus­tra­tions, the whale fish­ery had come to be one of the chief oc­cu­pa­tions of the sea­far­ing men of the North At­lantic States. The pur­suit of this “roy­al fish”--as the an­cient chron­iclers call him in con­tent­ed ig­no­rance of the fact that he is not a fish at all--had not, in­deed, orig­inat­ed in New Eng­land, but had been prac­tised by all mar­itime peo­ples of whom his­to­ry has knowl­edge, while the re­search­es of arche­ol­ogists have shown that pre­his­toric peo­ples were ac­cus­tomed to chase the gi­gan­tic cetacean for his blub­ber, his oil, and his bone. The Amer­ican In­di­ans, in their frail ca­noes, the Es­quimaux, in their crank kayaks, braved the fury of this aquat­ic mon­ster, whose size was to that of one of his en­emies as the bulk of a bat­tle-​ship is to that of a pigmy tor­pe­do launch. But the whale fish­ery in ves­sels fit­ted for cruis­es of mod­er­ate length had its ori­gin in Eu­rope, where the Basques dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages fair­ly drove the an­imals from the Bay of Bis­cay, which had long swarmed with them. Not a pro­lif­ic breed­er, the whales soon showed the ef­fect of Eu­rope's ea­ger­ness for oil, whale­bone and am­ber­gris, and by the be­gin­ning of the six­teenth cen­tu­ry the in­dus­try was on the verge of ex­tinc­tion. Then be­gan that search for a sea pas­sage to In­dia north of the con­ti­nents of Eu­rope and Amer­ica, which I have de­scribed in an­oth­er chap­ter. The pas­sage was not dis­cov­ered, but in the icy wa­ters great schools of right whales were found, and the chase of the “roy­al fish” took on new vig­or. Of course there was ef­fort on the part of one na­tion to ac­quire by vi­olence a monopoly of this prof­itable busi­ness, and the Dutch, who have done much in the cause of lib­er­ty, de­feat­ed the British in a naval bat­tle at the edge of the ice be­fore the prin­ci­ple of the free­dom of the fish­eries was ac­cept­ed. To-​day sci­ence has dis­cov­ered sub­sti­tutes for al­most all of worth that the whales once sup­plied, and the sub­sti­tutes are in the main marked im­prove­ments on the orig­inal. But in the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth cen­turies the clear whale oil for il­lu­mi­nat­ing pur­pos­es, the tough and sup­ple whale­bone, the sper­ma­ceti which filled the great case in the sperm-​whale's head, the pre­cious am­ber­gris--prized even among the ear­ly He­brews, and chron­icled in the Scrip­tures as a thing of great price--were prizes, in pur­suit of which men braved ev­ery ter­ror of the deep, thread­ed the ice-​floes of the Arc­tic, fought against the cur­rents about Cape Horn, and steered to ev­ery cor­ner of the Sev­en Seas the small, stout brigs and barks of New Eng­land make.

The whale came to the New Eng­lan­der long be­fore the New Eng­lan­ders went af­ter him. In the ear­li­est colo­nial days the car­cass­es of whales were fre­quent­ly found strand­ed on the beach­es of Cape Cod and Long Is­land. Old colo­nial records are full of the law­suits grow­ing out of these pieces of trea­sure-​trove, the find­er, the own­er of the land where the gi­gan­tic car­rion lay strand­ed, and the colony all claim­ing own­er­ship, or at least shares. By 1650 all the north­ern colonies had be­gun to pur­sue the busi­ness of shore whal­ing to some ex­tent. Crews were or­ga­nized, boats kept in readi­ness on the beach, and when­ev­er a whale was sight­ed they would put off with har­poons and lances af­ter the huge game, which, when slain, would be towed ashore, and there cut up and tried out, to the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of a prodi­gious clack­ing of gulls and a wide­ly dif­fused bad smell. This method of whal­ing is still fol­lowed at Am­agansett and Southamp­ton, on the shore of Long Is­land, though the grow­ing scarci­ty of whales makes catch­es in­fre­quent. In the colo­nial days, how­ev­er, it was a source of prof­it as­sid­uous­ly cul­ti­vat­ed by coast­wise com­mu­ni­ties, and both on Long Is­land and Cape Cod cit­izens were of­fi­cial­ly en­joined to watch for whales off shore. Whales were then seen dai­ly in New York har­bor, and in 1669 one Samuel Mav­er­ick record­ed in a let­ter that thir­teen whales had been tak­en along the south shore dur­ing the win­ter, and twen­ty in the spring.

Lit­tle by lit­tle the boat voy­ages af­ter the leviathans ex­tend­ed fur­ther in­to the sea as the in­dus­try grew and the game be­came scarce and shy. The peo­ple of Cape Cod were the first to be­gin the fish­ery, and ear­li­est per­fect­ed the art of “sav­ing” the whale--that is, of se­cur­ing all of val­ue in the car­cass. But the peo­ple of the lit­tle is­land of Nan­tuck­et brought the in­dus­try to its high­est de­vel­op­ment, and spread most wide­ly the fame of the Amer­ican whale­man. In­deed, a Nan­tuck­et whaler laden with oil was the first ves­sel fly­ing the Stars and Stripes that en­tered a British port. It is of a sailor on this craft that a pa­tri­ot­ic anec­dote, now al­most clas­sic, is told. He was un­hap­pi­ly de­formed, and while pass­ing along a Liv­er­pool street was greet­ed by a British tar with a blow on his “hump­back” and the salu­ta­tion: “Hel­lo, Jack! What you got there?” “Bunker Hill, d----n ye!” re­spond­ed the Yan­kee. “Think you can climb it?” Far out at sea, swept ev­er by the At­lantic gales, a mere sand-​bank, with scant sur­face soil to sup­port veg­eta­tion, this is­land soon proved to its set­tlers its un­fit­ness to main­tain an agri­cul­tur­al peo­ple. There is a leg­end that an is­lander, weary per­haps with the ef­fort of try­ing to wrest a liveli­hood from the un­will­ing soil, looked from a hill­top at the whales tum­bling and spout­ing in the ocean. “There,” he said, “is a green pas­ture where our chil­dren's grand­chil­dren will go for bread.” Whether the prophe­cy was made or not, the event oc­curred, for be­fore the Rev­olu­tion the Amer­ican whal­ing fleet num­bered 360 ves­sels, and in the ban­ner year of the in­dus­try, 1846, 735 ships en­gaged in it, the ma­jor part of the fleet hail­ing from Nan­tuck­et. The cruis­es at first were to­ward Green­land af­ter the so-​called right whales, a va­ri­ety of the cetaceans which has an added com­mer­cial val­ue be­cause of the baleen, or whale­bone, which hangs in great strips from the roof of its mouth to its low­er jaw, form­ing a sort of screen or sieve by which it sifts its food out of prodi­gious mouth­fuls of sea wa­ter. This most enor­mous of known liv­ing crea­tures feeds up­on very small shell-​fish, swarm in the wa­ters it fre­quents. Open­ing wide its colos­sal mouth, a cav­ity of­ten more than fif­teen feet in length, and so deep from up­per to low­er jaw that the flex­ible sheets of whale­bone, some­times ten feet long, hang straight with­out touch­ing its floor, it takes a great gulp of wa­ter. Then the cav­ernous jaws slow­ly close, ex­pelling the wa­ter through the whale­bone sieve, some­what as a Chi­nese laun­dry­man sprin­kles clothes, and the small ma­rine an­imals which go to feed that prodi­gious bulk are caught in the strain­er. The right whale is from 45 to 60 feet long in its ma­tu­ri­ty, and will yield about 15 tons of oil and 1500 weight of whale­bone, though in­di­vid­uals have been known to give dou­ble this amount.

Most of the ves­sels which put out of Nan­tuck­et and New Bed­ford, in the ear­li­est days of the in­dus­try, af­ter whales of this sort, were not fit­ted with ket­tles and fur­naces for try­ing out the oil at the time of the catch, as was al­ways the cus­tom in the sperm-​whale fish­ery. Their prey was near at hand, their voy­ages com­par­ative­ly short. So the fat, drip­ping, reek­ing blub­ber was crammed in­to casks, or some cas­es mere­ly thrown in­to the ship's hold, just as it was cut from the car­cass, and so brought back weeks lat­er to the home port--a shipload of mal­odor­ous pu­tre­fac­tion. Old sailors who have cruised with car­goes of cat­tle, of green hides, and of guano, say that noth­ing that ev­er of­fend­ed the ol­fac­to­ries of man equals the stench of a right-​whaler on her home­ward voy­age. Scarce­ly even could the slave-​ships com­pare with it. Brought ashore, this noi­some mass was boiled in huge ket­tles, and the re­sult­ing oil sent to light­en the night in all civ­ilized lands. Eng­land was a good cus­tomer of the colonies, and Boston shipown­ers did a thriv­ing trade with oil from New Bed­ford or Nan­tuck­et to Lon­don. The sloops and ketch­es en­gaged in this com­merce brought back, as an old let­ter of di­rec­tions from shipown­er to skip­per shows, “course wick­er flas­ketts, Al­lom, Co­press, drum rims, head snares, shod shov­ells, win­dow-​glass.” The trade was con­duct­ed with the same piety that we find man­ifest­ed in the di­rec­tion of slave-​ships and pri­va­teers. In or­der that the oil may fetch a good price, and the voy­age be speedy, the cap­tain is com­mend­ed to God, and “That hee may please to take the Con­duct of you, we pray you look care­ful­ly that hee bee wor­shipped day­ly in yor shippe, his Sab­baths Sanc­ti­fiede, and all sinne and prophai­nesse let bee Sur­pressed.” In the Rev­olu­tion the fish­eries suf­fered severe­ly from the British cruis­ers, and when, af­ter peace was de­clared, the whale­men be­gan com­ing back from the pri­va­teers, in which they had sought ser­vice, and the wharves of Nan­tuck­et, New Bed­ford, and New Lon­don be­gan again to show signs of life, the Amer­icans were con­front­ed by the clos­ing of their En­glish mar­kets. “The whale fish­eries and the New­found­land fish­eries were the nurs­eries of British sea­men,” said the British min­istry to John Adams, who went to Lon­don to re­mon­strate. “If we let Amer­icans bring oil to Lon­don, and sell fish to our West In­dia colonies, the British ma­rine will de­cline.” For a long time, there­fore, the whalers had to look else­where than to Eng­land for a mar­ket. Nev­er­the­less the trade grew. New Bed­ford, which by the mid­dle of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry held three-​fourths of the busi­ness, took it up with great vig­or. For a time Mas­sachusetts gave boun­ties to en­cour­age the in­dus­try, but it was soon strong enough to dis­pense with them. By 1789 the whalers found their way to the Pa­cif­ic--des­tined in lat­er years to be their chief fish­ing-​ground. In that year the to­tal whal­ing ton­nage of Mas­sachusetts was 10,210, with 1611 men and an an­nu­al prod­uct of 7880 bar­rels sperm and 13,130 bar­rels whale oil. Fif­teen years ear­li­er--be­fore the war--the fig­ures were thrice as great.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “SEND­ING BOAT AND MEN FLY­ING IN­TO THE AIR”]

Be­fore this pe­ri­od, how­ev­er, whal­ing had tak­en on a new form. Deep-​sea whal­ing, as it was called, to dis­tin­guish it from the shore fish­eries, had be­gun long ago. Capt. Christo­pher Hursey, a stout Nan­tuck­et whale­man, cruis­ing about af­ter right whales, ran in­to a stiff north­west gale and was car­ried far out to sea. He struck a school of sperm-​whales, killed one, and brought blub­ber home. It was not a new dis­cov­ery, for the sperm-​whale or cachalot, had been known for years, but the great num­bers of right whales and the ease with which they were tak­en, had made pur­suit of this no­bler game un­com­mon. But now the fact, grow­ing year­ly more ap­par­ent, that right whales were be­ing driv­en to more in­ac­ces­si­ble haunts, made whalers turn read­ily to this new prey. More­over, the sperm-​whale had in him qual­ities of val­ue that made him a rich­er prize than his Green­land cousin. True, he lacked the use­ful bone. His feed­ing habits did not ne­ces­si­tate a sieve, for, as be­seems a gi­ant, he de­voured stout vict­uals, pieces of great squids--the fa­bled dev­il-​fish--as big as a man's body be­ing found in his stom­ach. Such a di­et de­vel­ops his fight­ing qual­ities, and while the right whale usu­al­ly takes the steel sul­len­ly, and dies like an over­grown seal, the cachalot fights fierce­ly, now div­ing with such a rush that he has been known to break his jaw by the fury with which he strikes the bot­tom at the depth of 200 fath­oms; now rais­ing his enor­mous bulk in air, to fall with an all-​oblit­er­at­ing crash up­on the boat which holds his tor­men­tors, or send­ing boat and men fly­ing in­to the air with a fu­ri­ous blow of his gristly flukes, or turn­ing on his back and crunch­ing his as­sailants be­tween his cav­ernous jaws. De­scrip­tions of the dy­ing flur­ry of the sperm-​whale are plen­ti­ful in whal­ing lit­er­ature, many of the best of them be­ing in that ide­al whale­man's log “The Cruise of the Cachalot,” by Frank T. Bullen. I quote one of these:

“Sud­den­ly the mate gave a howl: 'Starn all--starn all! Oh, starn!' and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed--there was an up­heaval of the sea just ahead; then slow­ly, ma­jes­ti­cal­ly, the vast body of our foe rose in­to the air. Up, up it went while my heart stood still, un­til the whole of that im­mense crea­ture hung on high, ap­par­ent­ly mo­tion­less, and then fell--a hun­dred tons of sol­id flesh--back in­to the sea. On ei­ther side of that moun­tain­ous mass the wa­ters rose in shin­ing tow­ers of snowy foam, which fell in their turn, whirling and ed­dy­ing around us as we tossed and fell like a chip in a whirlpool. Blind­ed by the fly­ing spray, bal­ing for very life to free the boat from the wa­ter, with which she was near­ly full, it was some min­utes be­fore I was able to de­cide whether we were still un­in­jured or not. Then I saw, at a lit­tle dis­tance, the whale ly­ing qui­et­ly. As I looked he spout­ed and the va­por was red with his blood. 'Starn all!' again cried our chief, and we re­treat­ed to a con­sid­er­able dis­tance. The old war­rior's prac­tised eye had de­tect­ed the com­ing cli­max of our ef­forts, the dy­ing agony, or 'flur­ry,' of the great mam­mal. Turn­ing up­on his side, he be­gan to move in a cir­cu­lar di­rec­tion, slow­ly at first, then faster and faster, un­til he was rush­ing round at tremen­dous speed, his great head raised quite out of wa­ter at times, slash­ing his enor­mous jaws. Tor­rents of blood poured from his spout-​hole, ac­com­pa­nied by hoarse bel­low­ings, as of some gi­gan­tic bull, but re­al­ly caused by the la­bor­ing breath try­ing to pass through the clogged air-​pas­sages. The ut­most cau­tion and ra­pid­ity of ma­nip­ula­tion of the boat was nec­es­sary to avoid his mad­dened rush, but this gi­gan­tic en­er­gy was short-​lived. In a few min­utes he sub­sid­ed slow­ly in death, his mighty body re­clined on one side, the fin up­per­most wav­ing limply as he rolled to the swell, while the small waves broke gen­tly over the car­cass in a low, monotonous surf, in­ten­si­fy­ing the pro­found si­lence that had suc­ceed­ed the tu­mult of our con­flict with the late monarch of the deep.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “SUD­DEN­LY THE MATE GAVE A HOWL--'STARN ALL!'”]

Not in­fre­quent­ly the sperm-​whale, break­ing loose from the har­poon, would ig­nore the boats and make war up­on his chief en­emy--the ship. The his­to­ry of the whale fish­ery is full of such oc­cur­rences. The ship “Es­sex,” of Nan­tuck­et, was at­tacked and sunk by a whale, which planned its cam­paign of de­struc­tion as though guid­ed by hu­man in­tel­li­gence. He was first seen at a dis­tance of sev­er­al hun­dred yards, com­ing full speed for the ship. Div­ing, he rose again to the sur­face about a ship's length away, and then surged for­ward on the sur­face, strik­ing the ves­sel just for­ward of the fore-​chains. “The ship brought up as sud­den­ly and vi­olent­ly as if she had struck a rock,” said the mate af­ter­ward, “and trem­bled for few sec­onds like a leaf.” Then she be­gan to set­tle, but not fast enough to sat­is­fy the ire of the whale. Cir­cling around, he dou­bled his speed, and bore down up­on the “Es­sex” again. This time his head fair­ly stove in the bows, and the ship sank so fast that the men were bare­ly able to pro­vi­sion and launch the boats. Cu­ri­ous­ly enough, the mon­ster that had thus de­stroyed a stout ship paid no at­ten­tion what­so­ev­er to the lit­tle boats, which would have been like nut­shells be­fore his bulk and pow­er. But many of the men who thus es­caped on­ly went to a fate more ter­ri­ble than to have gone down with their stout ship. Adrift on a track­less sea, 1000 miles from land, in open boats, with scant pro­vi­sion of food or wa­ter, they faced a fright­ful or­deal. Af­ter twen­ty-​eight days they found an is­land, but it proved a desert. Af­ter leav­ing it the boats be­came sep­arat­ed--one be­ing nev­er again heard of. In the oth­ers men died fast, and at last the liv­ing were driv­en by hunger ac­tu­al­ly to eat the dead. Out of the cap­tain's boat two on­ly were res­cued; out of the mate's, three. In all twelve men were sac­ri­ficed to the whale's rage.

Mere lust for com­bat seemed to an­imate this whale, for he had not been pur­sued by the men of the “Es­sex,” though per­haps in some ear­li­er meet­ing with men he had felt the sting of the har­poon and the search­ing thrust of the lance. So great is the vi­tal­ity of the cachalot that it not in­fre­quent­ly breaks away from its pur­suers, and with two or three har­poon-​heads in its body lives to a ripe, if not a placid, old age. The whale that sunk the New Bed­ford ship “Ann Alexan­der” was one of these fight­ing vet­er­ans. With a har­poon deep in his side he turned and de­lib­er­ate­ly ran over and sunk the boat that was fast to him; then with equal de­lib­er­ation sent a sec­ond boat to the bot­tom. This was be­fore noon, and oc­curred about six miles from the ship, which bore down as fast as could be to pick up the strug­gling men. The whale, ap­par­ent­ly con­tent­ed with his es­cape, made off. But about sun­set Cap­tain De­lois, iron in hand, watch­ing from the knight-​heads of the “Ann Alexan­der” for oth­er whales to re­pair his ill-​luck, saw the re­doubtable fight­er not far away, swim­ming at about a speed of five knots. At the same time the whale spied the ship. In­creas­ing his speed to fif­teen knots, he bore down up­on her, and with the full force of his more than 100 tons bulk struck her “a ter­ri­ble blow about two feet from the keel and just abreast of the fore­mast, break­ing a large hole in her bot­tom, through which the wa­ter poured in a rush­ing stream.” The crew had scarce time to get out the boats, with one day's pro­vi­sions, but were hap­pi­ly picked up by a pass­ing ves­sel two days lat­er. The whale it­self met ret­ri­bu­tion five months lat­er, when it was tak­en by an­oth­er Amer­ican ship. Two of the “Ann Alexan­der's” har­poons were in him, his head bore deep scars, and in it were imbed­ded pieces of the ill-​fat­ed ship's tim­bers.

In­stances of the com­bat­ive­ness of the sperm-​whale are not con­fined to the records of the whale fish­ery. Even as I write I find in a cur­rent San Fran­cis­co news­pa­per the sto­ry of the pi­lot-​boat “Boni­ta,” sunk near the Far­al­lon Is­lands by a whale that at­tacked her out of sheer wan­ton­ness and lust for fight. The “Boni­ta” was ly­ing hove-​to, lazi­ly rid­ing the swells, when in the dark--it was 10 o'clock at night--there came a prodi­gious shock, that threw all stand­ing to the deck and made the pots and pans of the cook's gal­ley jin­gle like a chime out of tune. From the deck the prodi­gious black bulk of a whale, about eighty feet long, could be made out, ly­ing lazi­ly half out of wa­ter near the ves­sel. The tim­bers of the “Boni­ta” must have been crushed by his im­pact, for she be­gan to fill, and soon sank.

In this case the dis­as­ter was prob­ably not due to any rage or ma­li­cious in­tent on the part of the whale. In­deed, in the days when the ocean was more dense­ly pop­ulat­ed with these huge an­imals, col­li­sion with a whale was a well-​rec­og­nized mar­itime per­il. How many of the stout ves­sels against whose names on the ship­ping list stands the fa­tal word “miss­ing,” came to their ends in this way can nev­er be known; but mar­itime an­nals are full of the re­ports of cap­tains who ran “bows on” in­to a mys­te­ri­ous reef where the chart showed no ob­struc­tion, but which proved to be a whale, red­den­ing the sea with his blood, and send­ing the ship--not less sore­ly wound­ed--in­to some neigh­bor­ing port to re­fit.

The tools with which the busi­ness of hunt­ing the whale is pur­sued are sim­ple, even rude. Steam, it is true, has suc­ceed­ed to sails, and ex­plo­sives have dis­placed the sinewy arm of the har­poon­er for launch­ing the dead­ly shafts; but in the main the pur­suit of the mon­sters is con­duct­ed now as it was six­ty years ago, when to com­mand a whaler was the dear­est am­bi­tion of a New Eng­land coast­boy. The ves­sels were usu­al­ly brigs or barks, oc­ca­sion­al­ly schooners, rang­ing from 100 to 500 tons. They had a char­ac­ter­is­tic ar­chi­tec­ture, due in part to the sub­or­di­na­tion of speed to car­ry­ing ca­pac­ity, and fur­ther to the spe­cial­ly heavy tim­ber­ing about the bows to with­stand the crush­ing of the Arc­tic ice-​pack. The bow was scarce dis­tin­guish­able from the stern by its lines, and the masts stuck up straight, with­out that rake, which adds so much to the trim ap­pear­ance of a clip­per. Three pe­cu­liar­ities chiefly dis­tin­guished the whalers from oth­er ships of the same gen­er­al char­ac­ter. At the main roy­al-​mast head was fixed the “crow's nest”--in some ves­sels a heavy bar­rel lashed to the mast, in oth­ers mere­ly a small plat­form laid on the cross-​trees, with two hoops fixed to the mast above, with­in which the look­out could stand in safe­ty. On the deck, amid­ships, stood the “try-​works,” brick fur­naces, hold­ing two or three great ket­tles, in which the blub­ber was re­duced to odor­less oil. Along each rail were heavy, clum­sy wood­en cranes, or davits, from which hung the whale-​boats--nev­er less than five, some­times more, while still oth­ers were lashed to the deck, for boats were the whale's sport and play­things, and sel­dom was a big “fish” made fast that there was not work for the ship's car­pen­ter.

The whale-​boat, evolved from the needs of this fish­ery, is one of the most per­fect pieces of ma­rine ar­chi­tec­ture afloat--a true adap­ta­tion of means to an end. It is clink­er-​built, about 27 feet long, by 6 feet beam, with a depth of about 2 feet 6 inch­es; sharp at both ends and clean-​sid­ed as a mack­er­el. Each boat car­ried five oars­men, who wield­ed oars of from nine to six­teen feet in length, while the mate steers with a prodi­gious oar ten feet long. The bow oars­man is the har­poon­er, but when he has made fast to the whale he goes aft and takes the mate's place at the steer­ing oar, while the lat­ter goes for­ward with the lances to deal the fi­nal mur­der­ous strokes. This cu­ri­ous and dan­ger­ous change of po­si­tion in the boat, of­ten with a heavy sea run­ning, and with a 100-ton whale tug­ging at the tug-​line seems to have grown out of noth­ing more sen­si­ble than the in­sis­tence of mates on recog­ni­tion of their rank. But a whale-​boat is not the on­ly place where a spill is threat­ened be­cause some one in pow­er in­sists on do­ing some­thing at once use­less and dan­ger­ous.

The whale-​boat al­so car­ried a stout mast, rig­ging two sprit sails. The mast was in­stant­ly un­shipped when the whale was struck. The Amer­ican boats al­so car­ried cen­ter­boards, lift­ing in­to a frame­work ex­tend­ing through the cen­ter of the craft, but the En­glish whale­men omit­ted these ap­pendages. A rud­der was hung over the side, for use in emer­gen­cies. In­to this boat were packed, with the ut­most care and sys­tem, two line-​tubs, each hold­ing from 100 to 200 fath­oms of fine mani­la rope, one and one-​half inch­es round, and of a tex­ture like yel­low silk; three har­poons, wood and iron, mea­sur­ing about eight feet over all, and weigh­ing about ten pounds; three lances of the finest steel, with wood­en han­dles, in all about eight feet long; a keg of drink­ing wa­ter and one of bis­cuits; a buck­et and pig­gin for bail­ing, a small spade, knives, ax­es, and a shoul­der bomb-​gun. It can be un­der­stood eas­ily that six men, ma­neu­ver­ing in so crowd­ed a boat, with a huge whale flounc­ing about with­in a few feet, a line whizzing down the cen­ter, to be caught in which meant in­stant death, and the sea of­ten run­ning high, had need to keep their wits about them.

Har­poons and lances are kept ground to a ra­zor edge, and, pro­pelled by the vig­or­ous mus­cles of brawny whale­men, of­ten sunk out of sight through the pa­pery skin and soft blub­ber of the whale. Be­yond these prim­itive ap­pli­ances the whale fish­ery nev­er pro­gressed very far. It is true that in lat­er days a shoul­der-​gun hurled the har­poon, ex­plo­sive bombs re­placed the lances, the ships were in some cas­es fit­ted with aux­il­iary steam-​pow­er, and in a few in­fre­quent in­stances steam launch­es were em­ployed for whale-​boats. But progress was not gen­er­al. The old-​fash­ioned whal­ing tubs kept the seas, while the grow­ing scarci­ty of the whales and the blow to the de­mand for oil dealt by the dis­cov­ery of petroleum, checked the de­vel­op­ment of the in­dus­try. Now the rows of whalers rot­ting at New Bed­ford's wharves, and the som­no­lence of Nan­tuck­et, tell of its vir­tu­al demise.

These two towns were built up­on the pros­per­ity of the whale fish­ery. When it lan­guished their for­tunes sunk, nev­er to rise to their ear­li­er heights, though cot­ton-​spin­ning came to oc­cu­py the at­ten­tion of the peo­ple of New Bed­ford, while Nan­tuck­et found a placid pros­per­ity in en­ter­tain­ing sum­mer board­ers. And even dur­ing the years when whales were plen­ti­ful, and their oil still in good de­mand, there came pe­ri­ods of in­ter­rup­tion to the trade and pover­ty to its fol­low­ers. The Rev­olu­tion first closed the seas to Amer­ican ships for sev­en long years, and at its close the whalers found their best mar­ket--Eng­land--still shut against them. More­over, the high seas dur­ing the clos­ing years of the eigh­teenth and the open­ing of the nine­teenth cen­turies were not as to-​day, when a pi­rate is as scarce a beast of prey as a high­way­man on Houn­slow Heath. The Napoleon­ic wars had bro­ken down men's nat­ural sense of or­der and of right, and the seas swarmed with pri­va­teers, who on oc­ca­sion were ready enough to turn pi­rates. Many whalers fell a prey to these ma­raud­ers, whose op­er­ations were rather en­cour­aged than con­demned by the Eu­ro­pean na­tions. Both Eng­land and France were at this pe­ri­od en­deav­or­ing to lure the whale­men from the Unit­ed Colonies by promise of spe­cial con­ces­sions in trade, or more ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion on the high seas than their own weak­ling gov­ern­ments could as­sure them. Some Nan­tuck­et whale­men were in­deed en­ticed to the new En­glish whal­ing town at Dart­mouth, near Hal­ifax, or to the French town of Dunkirk. But the ef­fort to trans­plant the in­dus­try did not suc­ceed, and the years that fol­lowed, un­til the fate­ful em­bar­go of 1807, were a pe­ri­od of rapid growth for the whale fish­ery and in­creas­ing wealth for those who pur­sued it. In the form of its busi­ness or­ga­ni­za­tion the busi­ness of whal­ing was the purest form of prof­it-​shar­ing we have ev­er seen in the Unit­ed States. Ev­ery­body on the ship, from cap­tain to cab­in-​boy, was a part­ner, vi­tal­ly in­ter­est­ed in the suc­cess of the voy­age. Each had his “lay”--that is to say, his pro­por­tion­ate share of the pro­ceeds of the catch. Obed Ma­cy, in his “His­to­ry of Nan­tuck­et,” says: “The cap­tain's lay is gen­er­al­ly one-​sev­en­teenth part of all ob­tained; the first of­fi­cer's one-​twen­ty-​eighth part; the sec­ond of­fi­cer's, one-​forty-​fifth; the third of­fi­cer's, one-​six­ti­eth; a boat-​steer­er's from an eight­ieth to a hun­dred-​and-​twen­ti­eth, and a fore­mast hand's, from a hun­dred-​and-​twen­ti­eth to a hun­dred-​and-​eighty-​fifth each.” These pro­por­tions, of course, var­ied--those of the men ac­cord­ing to the rul­ing wages in oth­er branch­es of the mer­chant ser­vice; those of the of­fi­cers to cor­re­spond with spe­cial qual­ities of ef­fi­cien­cy. All the re­main­der of the catch went to the own­ers, who put in­to the en­ter­prise the ship and out­fit­ted her for a cruise, which usu­al­ly oc­cu­pied three years. Their in­vest­ment was there­fore a heavy one, a suit­able ves­sel of 300-tons bur­den cost­ing in the neigh­bor­hood of $22,000, and her out­fit $18,000 to $20,000. Not in­fre­quent­ly the ar­ti­sans en­gaged in fit­ting out a ship were paid by be­ing giv­en “lays,” like the sailor. In such a case the boat­mak­er who built the whale-​boats, the rope­mak­er who twist­ed the stout, flex­ible mani­la cord to hold the whale, the sail­mak­er and the coop­er were all in­ter­est­ed with the crew and the own­ers in the suc­cess of the voy­age. It was the most prac­ti­cal com­mu­nism that in­dus­try has ev­er seen, and it worked to the sat­is­fac­tion of all con­cerned as long as the whal­ing trade con­tin­ued prof­itable.

The wars in which the Amer­ican peo­ple en­gaged dur­ing the ac­tive days of the whale fish­ery--the Rev­olu­tion, the War of 1812, and the Civ­il War--were dis­as­trous to that in­dus­try, and from the depre­da­tions com­mit­ted by the Con­fed­er­ate cruis­ers in the last con­flict it nev­er ful­ly re­cov­ered. The na­ture of their call­ing made the whale­men pe­cu­liar­ly vul­ner­able to the evils of war. Cruis­ing in dis­tant seas, al­ways away from home for many months, of­ten for years, a war might be de­clared and fought to a fin­ish be­fore they knew of it. In the dis­or­dered Napoleon­ic days they nev­er could tell whether the flag float­ing at the peak of some armed ves­sel en­coun­tered at the an­tipodes was that of friend or foe. Dur­ing both the wars with Eng­land they were the spe­cial ob­jects of the en­emy's ma­lig­nant at­ten­tion. From the ear­li­est days Amer­ican progress in mar­itime en­ter­prise was viewed by the British with ap­pre­hen­sion and dis­like. Par­tic­ular­ly did the growth of the cod fish­eries and the chase of the whale arouse transat­lantic jeal­ousy, the val­ue of these call­ings as nurs­eries for sea­men be­ing on­ly too plain­ly ap­par­ent. Ac­cord­ing­ly the most was made of the op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ford­ed by war for crush­ing the whal­ing in­dus­try. Whalers were chased to their fa­vorite fish­ing-​grounds, cap­tured, and burned. With cyn­ical dis­re­gard of all the rules of civ­ilized war­fare--sup­pos­ing war ev­er to be civ­ilized--the British gave to the cap­tured whalers on­ly the choice of serv­ing in British men-​of-​war against their own coun­try­men, or re-​en­ter­ing the whal­ing trade on British ships, thus build­ing up the British whale fish­ery at the ex­pense of the Amer­ican. The Amer­ican re­sponse to these tac­tics was to aban­don the busi­ness dur­ing war time. In 1775 Nan­tuck­et alone had had 150 ves­sels, ag­gre­gat­ing 15,000 tons, afloat in pur­suit of the whale. The trade was pushed with such dar­ing and en­ter­prise that Ed­mund Burke was moved to eu­lo­gize its fol­low­ers in an elo­quent speech in the British House of Com­mons. “Nei­ther the per­se­ver­ance of Hol­land,” he said, “nor the ac­tiv­ity of France, nor the dex­ter­ous and firm sagac­ity of En­glish en­ter­prise, ev­er car­ried this most per­ilous mode of hardy in­dus­try to the ex­tent to which it has been pushed by this most re­cent peo­ple.” But the elo­quence of Burke could not halt the British min­istry in its pur­pose to tax the colonies de­spite their protests. The Rev­olu­tion fol­lowed, and the whale­men of Nan­tuck­et and New Bed­ford stripped their ves­sels, sent down yards and all run­ning rig­ging, stowed the sails, tied their barks and brigs to the de­sert­ed wharves and went out of busi­ness. The trade thus rude­ly checked had for the year pre­ced­ing the out­break of the war han­dled 45,000 bar­rels of sperm oil, 8500 bar­rels of right-​whale oil, and 75,000 pounds of bone.

The en­forced idle­ness of the Rev­olu­tion­ary days was not eas­ily for­got­ten by the whale­men, and their dis­con­tent and com­plain­ings were great when the na­tion was again em­broiled in war with Great Britain in 1812. It can not be said that their at­ti­tude in the ear­ly days of that con­flict was pa­tri­ot­ic. They had suf­fered--both at the hands of France and Eng­land--wrongs which might well rouse their re­sent­ment. They had been con­tin­ual­ly im­pressed by Eng­land, and the war­ships of both na­tions had seized Amer­ican whalers for re­al or al­leged vi­ola­tions of the Or­ders in Coun­cil or the Os­tend Man­ifesto; but the whale­men were more ea­ger for peace, even with the in­ci­den­tal per­ils due to war in Eu­rope, than for war, with its en­forced idle­ness. When Congress or­dered the em­bar­go the whalers were at first ex­plic­it­ly freed from its op­er­ations; but this pro­vi­sion be­ing seized up­on to cov­er eva­sions of the em­bar­go, they were ul­ti­mate­ly in­clud­ed. When war was fi­nal­ly de­clared, the protests of the Nan­tuck­et peo­ple al­most reached the point of threat­en­ing se­ces­sion. A solemn memo­ri­al was first ad­dressed to Congress, re­lat­ing the ex­ceed­ing­ly ex­posed con­di­tion of the is­land and its fa­vorite call­ing to the per­ils of war, and beg­ging that the ac­tu­al dec­la­ra­tion of war might be avert­ed. When this had availed noth­ing, and the young na­tion had rushed in­to bat­tle with a courage that must seem to us now fool­hardy, the Nan­tuck­eters adopt­ed the doubt­ful ex­pe­di­ent of seek­ing spe­cial fa­vor from the en­emy. An ap­peal for im­mu­ni­ty from the or­di­nary acts of war was ad­dressed to the British Ad­mi­ral Cochrane, and a spe­cial en­voy was sent to the British naval of­fi­cer com­mand­ing the North Amer­ican sta­tion, to an­nounce the neu­tral­ity of the is­land and to beg im­mu­ni­ty from as­sault and pil­lage, and as­sur­ance that one ves­sel would be per­mit­ted to ply un­mo­lest­ed be­tween the is­land and the main­land. As a re­sult of these ne­go­ti­ations, Nan­tuck­et for­mal­ly de­clared her neu­tral­ity, and by town meet­ing vot­ed to ac­cede to the British de­mand that her peo­ple pay no tax­es for the sup­port of the Unit­ed States. In all es­sen­tial things the is­land ceased to be a part of the Unit­ed States, its peo­ple nei­ther ren­der­ing mil­itary ser­vice nor con­tribut­ing to the rev­enues. But their sub­mis­sion to the British de­mands did not save the whale-​trade, for re­peat­ed ef­forts to get the whalers de­clared neu­tral and ex­empt from cap­ture failed.

Half a cen­tu­ry of peace fol­lowed, dur­ing which the whal­ing in­dus­try rose to its high­est point; but was again on the wane when the Civ­il War let loose up­on the re­main­ing whale­men the Con­fed­er­ate cruis­ers, the “Shenan­doah” alone burn­ing thir­ty-​four of them. From this last stroke the in­dus­try, en­fee­bled by the less­ened de­mand for its chief prod­uct, and by the greater cost and length of voy­ages re­sult­ing from the grow­ing scarci­ty of whales, nev­er re­cov­ered. To-​day its old-​time ports are de­sert­ed by traf­fic. Stripped of all that had sal­able val­ue, its ships rot on mud-​banks or at molder­ing wharves. The New Eng­land boy, whose am­bi­tion half a cen­tu­ry ago was to ship on a whaler, with a boy's lay and a straight path to the quar­ter-​deck, now goes in­to a city of­fice, or makes for the West as a min­er or a rail­road man. The whale bids fair to be­come as ex­tinct as the do­do, and the whale­man is al­ready as rare as the buf­fa­lo.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “ROT AT MOLDER­ING WHARVES”]

With the ex­ten­sion of the fish­ing-​grounds to the Pa­cif­ic be­gan the re­al­ly great days of the whale fish­ery. Then, from such a port as Nan­tuck­et or New Bed­ford a ves­sel would set out, to be gone three years, car­ry­ing with her the dear­est hopes and am­bi­tions of all the in­hab­itants. Per­haps there would be no house with­out some spe­cial in­ter­est in her cruise. Trades­men of a dozen sorts sup­plied stores on shares. Am­bi­tious boys of the best fam­ilies sought places be­fore the mast, for there was then no high­er goal for youth­ful am­bi­tion than com­mand of a whaler. Not in­fre­quent­ly a cap­tain would go di­rect from the mar­riage al­tar to his ship, tak­ing a young bride off on a hon­ey­moon of three years at sea. Of course the home con­di­tions cre­at­ed by this al­most uni­ver­sal mas­cu­line em­ploy­ment were cu­ri­ous. The whal­ing towns were pop­ulat­ed by wom­en, chil­dren, and old men. The talk of the street was of big catch­es and the prices of oil and bone. The con­ver­sa­tion in the shad­ed par­lors, where sea-​shells, coral, and the tro­phies of Pa­cif­ic cruis­es were the chief or­na­ments, was of the dis­tant hus­bands and sons, the per­ils they braved, and when they might be ex­pect­ed home. The sol­id, square hous­es the whale­men built, stout­ly tim­bered as though them­selves ships, faced the ocean, and bore on their ridge-​pole a railed plat­form called the bridge, whence the watch­ers could look far out to sea, scan­ning the hori­zon for the ex­pect­ed ship. Lucky were they if she came in­to the har­bor with­out half-​mast­ed flag or oth­er sign of dis­as­ter. The prof­its of the call­ing in its best days were great. The best New Lon­don record is that of the “Pi­oneer,” made in an eigh­teen-​months' cruise in 1864-5. She brought back 1391 bar­rels of oil and 22,650 pounds of bone, all val­ued at $150,060. The “En­voy,” of New Bed­ford, af­ter be­ing con­demned as un­sea­wor­thy, was fit­ted out in 1847 at a cost of $8000, and sent out on a fi­nal cruise. She found oil and bone to the val­ue of $132,450; and reach­ing San Fran­cis­co in the flush times, was sold for $6000. As an off­set to these records, is the leg­end of the Nan­tuck­et cap­tain who ap­peared off the har­bor's mouth af­ter a cruise of three years. “What luck, cap'n?” asked the first to board. “Well, I got nary a bar­rel of oil and nary a pound of bone; but I had a _mighty good sail_.”

When the bar was crossed and the ship fair­ly in blue wa­ter, work be­gan. Rud­yard Kipling has a char­ac­ter­is­tic sto­ry, “How the Ship Found Her­self,” telling how each bolt and plate, each nut, screw-​thread, brace, and riv­et in one of those iron tanks we now call ships ad­justs it­self to its work on the first voy­age. On the whaler the crew had to find it­self, to read­just its re­la­tions, come to know its con­stituent parts, and learn the ways of its su­pe­ri­ors. Some­times a ship was manned by men who had grown up to­geth­er and who had served of­ten on the same craft; but as a rule the men of the fore­cas­tle were a rough and va­grant lot; ca­pa­ble sea­men, in­deed, but of the ad­ven­tur­ous and ir­re­spon­si­ble sort, for ser­vice be­fore the mast on a whaler was not ea­ger­ly sought by the men of the mer­chant ser­vice. For a time In­di­ans were plen­ty, and their fine physique and racial traits made them skill­ful har­poon­ers. As they be­came scarce, ne­groes be­gan to ap­pear among the whale­men, with now and then a Las­car, a South Sea Is­lander, Por­tuguese, and Hawai­ians. The alert New Eng­lan­ders, trained to the life of the sea, sel­dom lin­gered long in the fore­cas­tle, but quick­ly made their way to the posts of com­mand. There they were despots, for nowhere was the dis­ci­pline more se­vere than on whale­men. The rule was a word and a blow--and the word was com­mon­ly a curse. The ship was out for a five-​years' cruise, per­haps, and the cap­tain knew that the safe­ty of all de­pend­ed up­on un­ques­tion­ing obe­di­ence to his au­thor­ity. Once in a while even the cowed crew would re­volt, and in­fre­quent sto­ries of mutiny and mur­der ap­pear in the record of the whale trade. The whaler, like a man-​of-​war, car­ried a larg­er crew than was nec­es­sary for the work of nav­iga­tion, and it was nec­es­sary to de­vise work to keep the men em­ployed. As a re­sult, the ships were kept clean­er than any oth­ers in the mer­chant ser­vice, even though the work of try­ing out the blub­ber was nec­es­sar­ily pro­duc­tive of smoke, soot, and grease.

As a rule the voy­age to the Pa­cif­ic whal­ing wa­ters was round Cape Horn, though oc­ca­sion­al­ly a ves­sel made its way to the east­ward and round­ed the Cape of Good Hope. Al­most al­ways the world was cir­cum­nav­igat­ed be­fore re­turn. In ear­ly days the Pa­cif­ic whalers found their game in plen­ty along the coast of Chili; but in time they were forced to push fur­ther and fur­ther north un­til the Japan Sea and Bering Sea be­came the fa­vorite fish­ing places.

The whale was usu­al­ly first sight­ed by the look­out in the crow's nest. A warm-​blood­ed an­imal, breath­ing with lungs, and not with gills, like a fish, the whale is obliged to come to the sur­face of the wa­ter pe­ri­od­ical­ly to breathe. As he does so he ex­hales the air from his lungs through blow-​holes or spir­acles at the top of his head; and this warm, moist air, com­ing thus from his lungs in­to the cool air, con­dens­es, form­ing a jet of va­por look­ing like a foun­tain, though there is, in fact, no spout of wa­ter. “There she blows! B-​l-​o-​o-​o-​ws! Blo-​o-​ows!” cries the look­out at this spec­ta­cle. All is ac­tiv­ity at once on deck, the cap­tain call­ing to the look­out for the di­rec­tion and char­ac­ter of the “pod” or school. The sperm whale throws his spout for­ward at an an­gle, in­stead of per­pen­dic­ular­ly in­to the air, and hence is eas­ily dis­tin­guished from right whales at a dis­tance. The ship is then head­ed to­ward the game, com­ing to about a mile away. As the whale, un­less alarmed, sel­dom swims more than two and a half miles an hour, and usu­al­ly stays be­low on­ly about forty-​five min­utes at a time, there is lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in over­haul­ing him. Then the boats are launched, the cap­tain and a suf­fi­cient num­ber of men stay­ing with the ship.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “THERE SHE BLOWS”]

In ap­proach­ing the whale, ev­ery ef­fort is made to come up to him at the point of least dan­ger. This point is de­ter­mined part­ly by the lines of the whale's vi­sion, part­ly by his meth­ods of de­fense. The right whale can on­ly see dead ahead, and his one weapon is his tail, which gi­gan­tic fin, weigh­ing sev­er­al tons and mea­sur­ing some­times twen­ty feet across the tips of the flukes, he swings with ir­re­sistible force and all the agili­ty of a fencer at sword-​play. He, there­fore, is at­tacked from the side, well to­ward his jaws. The sperm whale, how­ev­er, is dan­ger­ous at both ends. His tail, though less elas­tic than that of the right whale, can deal a prodi­gious up-​and-​down blow, while his gi­gan­tic jaws, well gar­nished with sharp teeth, and ca­pa­cious gul­let, that read­ily could gulp down a man, are his chief ter­rors. His eyes, too, set oblique­ly, en­able him to com­mand the sea at all points save dead ahead, and it is ac­cord­ing­ly from this point that the fish­er­men ap­proach him. But how­ev­er stealthi­ly they move, the op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­ap­point­ment are many. Big as he is, the whale is not slug­gish. In an in­stant he may sink bod­ily from sight; or, throw­ing his flukes high in air, “sound,” to be seen no more; or, cast­ing him­self bod­ily on the boat, blot it out of ex­is­tence; or, tak­ing it in his jaws, car­ry it down with him. But sup­pos­ing the whale to be obliv­ious of its ap­proach, the boat comes as near as seems safe, and the har­poon­er, poised in the bow, his knee against the brack­et that stead­ies him, lets fly his weapon; and, hit or miss, fol­lows it up at once with a sec­ond bent on­to the same line. Some har­poon­ers were of such strength and skill that they could hurl their irons as far as four or five fath­oms. In one fa­mous case boats from an Amer­ican and British ship were in pur­suit of the same whale, the British boat on the in­side. It is the law of the fish­ery that the whale be­longs to the boat that first makes fast--and many a pret­ty quar­rel has grown out of this rule. So in this in­stance--see­ing the dan­ger that his ri­val might win the game--the Amer­ican har­poon­er, with a prodi­gious ef­fort, dart­ed his iron clear over the ri­val boat and deep in­to the mass of blub­ber.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “TAK­ING IT IN HIS JAWS”]

What a whale will do when struck no man can tell be­fore the event. The boat-​load of puff­ing, per­spir­ing men who have pulled at full speed up to the mon­ster may sud­den­ly find them­selves con­front­ed with a fu­ri­ous, vin­dic­tive, ag­gres­sive beast weigh­ing eighty tons, and bent on grind­ing their boat and them­selves to pow­der; or he may sim­ply turn tail and run. Some­times he sounds, go­ing down, down, down, un­til all the line in the boat is ex­haust­ed, and all that oth­er boats can bend on is gone too. Then the end is thrown over with a drag, and his reap­pear­ance await­ed. Some­times he dash­es off over the sur­face of the wa­ter at a speed of fif­teen knots an hour, tow­ing the boat, while the crew hope that their “Nan­tuck­et sleigh-​ride” will end be­fore they lose the ship for good. But once fast, the whale­men try to pull close along­side the mon­ster. Then the mate takes the long, keen lance and plunges it deep in­to the great shud­der­ing car­cass, “churn­ing” it up and down and seek­ing to pierce the heart or lungs. This is the mo­ment of dan­ger; for, driv­en mad with pain, the great beast rolls and thrash­es about con­vul­sive­ly. If the boat clings fast to his side, it is in dan­ger of be­ing crushed or en­gulfed at any mo­ment; if it re­treats, he may re­cov­er him­self and be off be­fore the death-​stroke can be de­liv­ered. In lat­er days the ex­plo­sive bomb, dis­charged from a dis­tance, has done away with this per­il; but in the palmy days of the whale fish­ery the men would rush in­to the cir­cle of sea lashed in­to foam by those mighty fins, get close to the whale, as the box­er gets un­der the guard of his foe, smite him with lance and ra­zor-​edged spade un­til his spouts ran red, and to his fury there should suc­ceed the calm of ap­proach­ing death. Then the boats, pulled off. The com­mand was “Pipes all”; and, placid­ly smok­ing in the pres­ence of that mighty death, the whalers await­ed their ship.

Sto­ries of “fight­ing whales” fill the chron­icles of our old whal­ing ports. There was the old bull sperm en­coun­tered by Cap­tain Huntling off the Riv­er De La Pla­ta, which is told us in a fas­ci­nat­ing old book, “The Nim­rod of the Sea.” The first boat that made fast to this tough old war­rior he speed­ily bit in two; and while her crew were swim­ming away from the wreck with all pos­si­ble speed, the whale thrashed away at the pieces un­til all were re­duced to small bits. Two oth­er boats mean­while made fast to the fu­ri­ous an­imal. Wheel­ing about in the foam, red­dened with his blood, he crushed them as a tiger would crunch its prey. All about him were men strug­gling in the wa­ter--twelve of them, the crews of the two de­mol­ished boats. Of the boats them­selves noth­ing was left big enough to float a man. The ship was miles away. Three of the sailors climbed on the back of their en­emy, cling­ing by the har­poons and ropes still fast to him, while the oth­ers swam away for dear life, think­ing on­ly of es­cap­ing that all-​en­gulf­ing jaw or the blows of that mur­der­ous tail. Now came an­oth­er boat from the ship, picked up the swim­mers, and cau­tious­ly res­cued those perched on the whale's back from their is­land of shud­der­ing flesh. The spir­it of the mon­ster was still un­daunt­ed. Though six har­poons were sunk in­to his body and he was drag­ging 300 fath­oms of line, he was still in fight­ing mood, crunch­ing oars, kegs, and bits of boat for more en­emies to de­mol­ish. All hands made for the ship, where Cap­tain Hunt­ing, quite as dogged and de­ter­mined as his ad­ver­sary, was prepar­ing to re­new the com­bat. Two spare boats were fit­ted for use, and again the whale­men start­ed af­ter their foe. He, for his part, re­mained on the bat­tle-​ground, amid the de­bris of his hunters' prop­er­ty, and await­ed at­tack. Nay, more; he churned the wa­ter with his mighty tail and moved for­ward to meet his en­emy, with ready jaw to grind them to bits. The cap­tain at the boat-​oar, or steer­ing-​oar, made a mighty ef­fort and es­caped the rush; then sent an ex­plo­sive bomb in­to the whale's vi­tals as he surged past. Struck un­to death, the great bull went in­to his flur­ry; but in dy­ing he rolled over the cap­tain's boat like an avalanche, de­stroy­ing it as com­plete­ly as he had the three oth­ers. So man won the bat­tle, but at a heavy cost. The whale­man who chron­icled this fight says sig­nif­icant­ly: “The cap­tain pro­ceed­ed to Buenos Ayres, as much to al­low his men, who were most­ly green, to run away, as for the pur­pose of re­fit­ting, as he knew they would be use­less there­after.” It was well rec­og­nized in the whal­ing ser­vice that men once thor­ough­ly “gal­lied,” or fright­ened, were sel­dom use­ful again; and, in­deed, most of the par­tic­ipants in this bat­tle did, as the cap­tain an­tic­ipat­ed, desert at the first port.

Cu­ri­ous­ly enough, there did not be­gin to be a lit­er­ature of whal­ing un­til the in­dus­try went in­to its deca­dence. The old-​time whalers, lead­ing lives of con­tin­ual ro­mance and ad­ven­ture, found their call­ing so com­mon­place that they not­ed ship­wrecks, mu­tinies, and dis­as­ter in the strug­gles of the whale bald­ly in their log­books, with­out at­tempt at graph­ic de­scrip­tion. It is true the piety of Nan­tuck­et did re­sult in in­cor­po­rat­ing the whale in the lo­cal hymn-​book, but with what doubt­ful lit­er­ary suc­cess these vers­es from the pen of Pe­leg Fol­ger--him­self a whale­man--will too painful­ly at­test:

Thou didst, O Lord, cre­ate the mighty whale, That won­drous mon­ster of a mighty length; Vast is his head and body, vast his tail, Be­yond con­cep­tion his un­mea­sured strength.

When the sur­face of the sea hath broke Aris­ing from the dark abyss be­low, His breath ap­pears a lofty stream of smoke, The cir­cling waves like glit­ter­ing banks of snow.

And though he fu­ri­ous­ly doth us as­sail, Thou dost pre­serve us from all dan­gers free; He cuts our boats in pieces with his tail, And spills us all at once in­to the sea.

Sto­ries of the whale fish­ery are plen­ti­ful, and of late years there has been some ef­fort made to gath­er these in­to a kind of pop­ular his­to­ry of the in­dus­try. The fol­low­ing in­ci­dents are gath­ered from a pam­phlet, pub­lished in the ear­ly days of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, by Thomas Nevins, a New Eng­land whaler:

"A re­mark­able in­stance of the pow­er which the whale pos­sess­es in its tail was ex­hib­it­ed with­in my own ob­ser­va­tion in the year 1807. On the 29th of May a whale was har­pooned by an of­fi­cer be­long­ing to the 'Res­olu­tion.' It de­scend­ed a con­sid­er­able depth, and on its reap­pear­ance evinced an un­com­mon de­gree of ir­ri­ta­tion. It made such a dis­play of its fins and tail that few of the crew were hardy enough to ap­proach it. The cap­tain, ob­serv­ing their timid­ity, called a boat and him­self struck a sec­ond har­poon. An­oth­er boat im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed, and un­for­tu­nate­ly ad­vanced too far. The tail was again reared in­to the air in a ter­rif­ic at­ti­tude. The im­pend­ing blow was ev­ident. The har­poon­er, who was di­rect­ly un­der­neath, leaped over­board, and the next mo­ment the threat­ened stroke was im­pressed on the cen­ter of the boat, which it buried in the wa­ter. Hap­pi­ly no one was in­jured. The har­poon­er who leaped over­board es­caped death by the act, the tail hav­ing struck the very spot on which he stood. The ef­fects of the blow were as­ton­ish­ing--the keel was bro­ken, the gun­wales and ev­ery plank ex­cept­ing two were cut through, and it was ev­ident that the boat would have been com­plete­ly di­vid­ed, had not the tail struck di­rect­ly up­on a coil of lines. The boat was ren­dered use­less.

"The Dutch ship 'Gort-​Moolen,' com­mand­ed by Cor­nelius Ger­ard Ouwekaas, with a car­go of sev­en fish, was an­chored in Green­land, in the year 1660. The cap­tain, per­ceiv­ing a whale ahead of his ship, beck­oned his at­ten­dants and threw him­self in­to a boat. He was the first to ap­proach the whale, and was for­tu­nate enough to har­poon it be­fore the ar­rival of the sec­ond boat, which was on the ad­vance. Jacques Vienkes, who had the di­rec­tion of it, joined his cap­tain im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter­ward, and pre­pared to make a sec­ond at­tack on the fish when it should re­mount to the sur­face. At the mo­ment of its as­cen­sion, the boat of Vienkes, hap­pen­ing, un­for­tu­nate­ly, to be per­pen­dic­ular­ly above it, was so sud­den­ly and forcibly lift­ed up by a stroke of the head of the whale that it was dashed to pieces be­fore the har­poon­er could dis­charge his weapon. Vienkes flew along with the pieces of the boat, and fell up­on the back of the an­imal. This in­trepid sea­man, who still re­tained his weapon in his grasp, har­pooned the whale on which he stood; and by means of the har­poon and the line, which he nev­er aban­doned, he stead­ied him­self firm­ly up­on the fish, notwith­stand­ing his haz­ardous sit­ua­tion, and re­gard­less of a con­sid­er­able wound that he re­ceived in his leg in his fall along with the frag­ments of the boat. All the ef­forts of the oth­er boats to ap­proach the whale and de­liv­er the har­poon­er were fu­tile. The cap­tain, not see­ing any oth­er method of sav­ing his un­for­tu­nate com­pan­ion, who was in some way en­tan­gled with the line, called him to cut it with his knife and be­take him­self to swim­ming. Vienkes, em­bar­rassed and dis­con­cert­ed as he was, tried in vain to fol­low this coun­cil. His knife was in the pock­et of his draw­ers, and be­ing un­able to sup­port him­self with one hand, he could not get it out. The whale, mean­while, con­tin­ued ad­vanc­ing along the sur­face of the wa­ter with great ra­pid­ity, but for­tu­nate­ly nev­er at­tempt­ed to dive. While his com­rades de­spaired of his life, the har­poon by which he held at length dis­en­gaged it­self from the body of the whale. Vienkes, be­ing thus lib­er­at­ed, did not fail to take ad­van­tage of this cir­cum­stance. He cast him­self in­to the sea, and by swim­ming en­deav­ored to re­gain the boats, which con­tin­ued the pur­suit of the whale. When his ship­mates per­ceived him strug­gling with the waves, they re­dou­bled their ex­er­tions. They reached him just as his strength was ex­haust­ed, and had the hap­pi­ness of res­cu­ing this ad­ven­tur­ous har­poon­er from his per­ilous sit­ua­tion.

"Cap­tain Lyons, of the 'Raith,' of Lei­th, while pros­ecut­ing the whale fish­ery on the Labrador coast, in the sea­son of 1802, dis­cov­ered a large whale at a short dis­tance from the ship. Four boats were dis­patched in pur­suit, and two of them suc­ceed­ed in ap­proach­ing it so close­ly to­geth­er that two har­poons were struck at the same mo­ment. The fish de­scend­ed a few fath­oms in the di­rec­tion of an­oth­er of the boats, which was on the ad­vance, rose ac­ci­den­tal­ly be­neath it, struck it with his head, and threw the boat, men, and ap­pa­ra­tus about fif­teen feet in the air. It was in­vert­ed by the stroke, and fell in­to the wa­ter with its keel up­ward. All the peo­ple were picked up alive by the fourth boat, which was just at hand, ex­cept­ing one man, who, hav­ing got en­tan­gled in the boat, fell be­neath it and was un­for­tu­nate­ly drowned. The fish was soon af­ter­ward killed.

"In 1822 two boats be­long­ing to the ship 'Baf­fin' went in pur­suit of a whale. John Carr was har­poon­er and com­man­der of them. The whale they pur­sued led them in­to a vast shoal of his own species. They were so nu­mer­ous that their blow­ing was in­ces­sant, and they be­lieved that they did not see few­er than a hun­dred. Fear­ful of alarm­ing them with­out strik­ing any, they re­mained a while mo­tion­less. At last one rose near Carr's boat, and he ap­proached and, fa­tal­ly for him­self, har­pooned it. When he struck, the fish was ap­proach­ing the boat; and, pass­ing very rapid­ly, jerked the line out of its place over the stern and threw it up­on the gun­wale. Its pres­sure in this un­fa­vor­able po­si­tion so ca­reened the boat that the side was pulled un­der wa­ter and it be­gan to fill. In this emer­gen­cy Carr, who was a brave, ac­tive man, seized the line, and en­deav­ored to re­lease the boat by restor­ing it to its place; but by some cir­cum­stance which was nev­er ac­count­ed for, a turn of the line flew over his arm, dragged him over­board in an in­stant, and drew him un­der the wa­ter, nev­er more to rise. So sud­den was the ac­ci­dent that on­ly one man, who was watch­ing him, saw what had hap­pened; so that when the boat right­ed, which it im­me­di­ate­ly did, though half full of wa­ter, the whole crew, on look­ing round, in­quired what had be­come of Carr. It is im­pos­si­ble to imag­ine a death more aw­ful­ly sud­den and un­ex­pect­ed. The in­vis­ible bul­let could not have ef­fect­ed more in­stan­ta­neous de­struc­tion. The ve­loc­ity of the whale at its first de­scent is from thir­teen to fif­teen feet per sec­ond. Now, as this un­for­tu­nate man was ad­just­ing the line at the wa­ter's very edge, where it must have been per­fect­ly tight, ow­ing to its ob­struc­tion in run­ning out of the boat, the in­ter­val be­tween the fas­ten­ing of the line about him and his dis­ap­pear­ance could not have ex­ceed­ed the third part of a sec­ond of time, for in one sec­ond on­ly he must have been dragged ten or twelve feet deep. In­deed, he had not time for the least ex­cla­ma­tion; and the per­son who saw his re­moval ob­served that it was so ex­ceed­ing quick that, though his eye was up­on him at the mo­ment, he could scarce­ly dis­tin­guish his fig­ure as he dis­ap­peared.

"As soon as the crew re­cov­ered from their con­ster­na­tion, they ap­plied them­selves to the need­ful at­ten­tion which the lines re­quired. A sec­ond har­poon was struck from the ac­com­pa­ny­ing boat, on the ris­ing of the whale to the sur­face, and some lances were ap­plied; but this melan­choly oc­cur­rence had cast such a damp on all present that they be­came timid and in­ac­tive in their sub­se­quent du­ties. The whale, when near­ly ex­haust­ed, was al­lowed to re­main some min­utes un­mo­lest­ed, till, hav­ing re­cov­ered some de­gree of en­er­gy, it made a vi­olent ef­fort and tore it­self away from the har­poons. The ex­er­tions of the crews thus proved fruit­less, and were at­tend­ed with se­ri­ous loss.

“A har­poon­er be­long­ing to the 'Hen­ri­et­ta,' of Whit­by, when en­gaged in lanc­ing a whale in­to which he had pre­vi­ous­ly struck a har­poon, in­cau­tious­ly cast a lit­tle line un­der his feet that he had just hauled in­to the boat, af­ter it had been drawn out by the fish. A painful stroke of his lance in­duced the whale to dart sud­den­ly down­ward. His line be­gan to run out from un­der his feet, and in an in­stant caught him by a turn round his body. He had but just time to cry out, 'Clear away the line! Oh, dear!' when he was al­most cut asun­der, dragged over­board, and nev­er seen af­ter­ward. The line was cut at that mo­ment, but with­out avail. The fish de­scend­ed to a con­sid­er­able depth and died, from whence it was drawn to the sur­face by the lines con­nect­ed with it and se­cured.”

Whal­ing has al­most ceased to have a place in the long list of our na­tion­al in­dus­tries. Its im­ple­ments and the relics of old-​time cruis­es fill nich­es in mu­se­ums as memo­ri­als of a prac­ti­cal­ly ex­tinct call­ing. Along the wharves of New Bed­ford and New Lon­don a few old brigs lie rot­ting, but so ef­fec­tive have been the rav­ages of time that scarce­ly any of the once great fleet sur­vive even in this in­valid con­di­tion. The whales have been driv­en far in­to the Arc­tic re­gions, whith­er a few whalers em­ploy­ing the mod­ern and un­sports­man­like de­vices of steam and ex­plo­sives, fol­low them for a scanty prof­it. But the glo­ry of the whale fish­ery is gone, leav­ing hard­ly a record be­hind it. In its time it em­ployed thou­sands of stout sailors; it fur­nished the navy with the ma­te­ri­al that made that branch of our armed ser­vice the pride and glo­ry of the na­tion. It ex­plored un­known seas and car­ried the flag to undis­cov­ered lands. Was not an Aus­tri­an ex­plor­ing ex­pe­di­tion, in­ter­rupt­ed as it was about to take pos­ses­sion of land in the Antarc­tic in the name of Aus­tria by en­coun­ter­ing an Amer­ican whaler, trim and trig, ly­ing placid­ly at an­chor in a har­bor where the Aus­tri­an thought no man had ev­er been? It built up towns in New Eng­land that half a cen­tu­ry of lethar­gy has been un­able to kill. And so if its brigs--and its men--now mold­er, if its records are scanty and its his­to­ry un­writ­ten, still Amer­icans must ev­er re­gard the whale fish­ery as one of the chief fac­tors in the build­ing of the na­tion--one of the most ad­mirable chap­ters in our na­tion­al sto­ry.