We stood away that night, going under very easy sail. We were in no
hurry, and did not want to get far away, but Captain Nelson had a
prejudice against whaling in too much company. I was out at daybreak,
eager and excited, and stayed out all day when my duties did not call
me below. Much of the time I spent in the maintop, which I attained
for the first time, my heart in my mouth as I crawled slowly and
carefully up and out on the futtock shrouds. Nothing would have
induced me to go through the lubber-hole. I had with me my battered
old glass—a load of junk, but it was better than nothing—and I
squatted there and watched for those drifting white plumes until my
eyes ached and watered. Peter laughed at me once when I came down,
but I went up again.
We sighted no whales that first day, although we expected to see
them, and kept a sharp lookout; but the next day, having laid a
course almost due south, and being then in about the latitude of
Frying Pan Shoals, we raised some. I was in the maintop again,
looking through my glass at the wrong place, of course. I should
have done better without the glass. At the mastheads we had two
Kanakas, one called the Admiral, I never could learn why. He had the
most wonderful way of crying “Bl-o-ows!” that I ever heard. The cry
began on a very high and piercing falsetto, sank a little in pitch,
quavered and trilled for a long time, then went up again like a
bugle, and ended as clear as a bell. I wonder that it did not scare
all the whales within four miles, but the whales seemed to like it.
As I sat with my eyes glued to the glass I heard the Admiral’s cry
begin. It startled me, for I had never {54} heard it before, and I
almost dropped the glass. I got it through my head what it was long
before the Admiral had finished.
“Oh, where?” I cried. “Where are they?”
The Admiral paid no attention to me, of course, and the other Kanaka
in his hoops took up the cry in the usual melodious fashion. Then
I saw the white plumes for which I had been looking for a day and
a half. They were directly to leeward, and about three miles off.
I found them with the glass, and I remember that I was perfectly
entranced with watching them. I could not see the bodies of the
whales at that distance, and not much more than the hump shows above
water, anyway, when the whales are undisturbed; but the spouts arose,
at intervals, in a leisurely sort of way, much like the occasional
spurt of steam from the stack of a locomotive at rest at a station.
The spout of the sperm whale does not go straight up, but forward
at an angle. And as the spouts rose, they went more slowly yet, and
they spread out and drifted slowly for a moment, perfect plumes, and
vanished.
It seemed to be a small pod of whales, I could not tell just how
many, for no sooner did one come to the surface and blow, than
another, having had his spoutings out, would up flukes and go down.
No one could miss seeing that, the great flukes high in air just
before the whale sounded, and the cry from the masthead of “There go
flukes!” seemed wholly unnecessary.
At that time I did not know very much about the habits of whales,
or about anything else, for that matter, connected with the life
I thought I had elected. Whales—sperm whales, for I always mean
sperm whales when I say simply whales—when undisturbed pursue their
regular round of activities in an extraordinarily orderly manner.
They go below the surface to feed. Nobody knows how deep they go,
but they go deep enough to {55} find the squid on which they feed.
Sounding whales frequently take half a mile of whale line almost
straight down, sometimes more; and they often come up straight at
the boat. There is no means of knowing whether they go habitually
deeper than that, but the pressure upon their huge bodies at that
depth is something enormous, and the changes of pressure in coming
up at the rate they sometimes—often—do come up are very rapid.
Deep-sea fish, pulled from that depth, are apt to be turned nearly
inside out, because of their inability to regulate the pressure in
their air-bladders quickly enough. I never knew what mechanism the
whale uses, if he has any, to guard against the consequences of such
rapid pressure changes, but he certainly does not use the air-bladder
method. It makes very little difference what method he uses, or
whether he has any other than his great strength, it works very well,
and in a way perfectly satisfactory to the whale.
Having sounded by the simple method of throwing his flukes in the
air, and pointing his body straight down, he stays down for a time
which is constant for the individual whale, so far as anybody has
been able to observe, and surprisingly uniform for whales in general,
taking into account age, size, and sex. The time is undoubtedly
determined by the reserves of oxygenated blood he has been able to
accumulate in some way or other—entirely obscure to me—to enable him
to close his spiracles and hold his breath for an hour or more. For a
full-grown bull whale will stay down for an hour or an hour and ten
minutes, and when he comes up he breathes perhaps seventy times at
intervals of about eleven seconds. When he has taken the usual number
of breaths, which is known as “having his spoutings out,” he ups
flukes and goes down again. A female will stay down from thirty to
forty minutes, and young whales perhaps twenty to thirty, depending
upon their age and strength. {56}
Whales are not always feeding, of course, and when not so engaged,
and when they are feeling lively, they may amuse themselves with
play, much as other animals do. The play of a sportive whale is not
of a kind that I ever cared to join in. They sometimes come up from
the depths at great speed, and throw their bodies clean out of the
water. This is called “breaching.” Breaching may not be the play of
a whale that is particularly sportive, but due to an effort to clear
the body of barnacles and crabs and such-like. And they sometimes
raise their flukes high in air, and bring them down on the surface
again, or “lobtail,” the blow upon the surface of the water making a
noise like a great gun that can be heard for a great distance.
They have other things which they do with their flukes, which seem
to be endowed with a special sense of touch, like the fingers of a
blind person. Indeed, as I think I have said, the sight of whales is
very poor. The eyes of a whale are so placed in his head that there
are considerable angles in front and behind throughout which he could
see nothing if he had the best of eyes; but it is more than that. His
eyes do not seem to be of the best.
I have never chanced to see any explanation of this which seemed
reasonable, but one occurred to me after I had learned to swim, which
I did a few years later. It is not possible for me to see outlines
clearly under water, and I suppose that the same thing is true of any
normal person. The reason is that the curvature of the surface of the
eye is adapted to use in air. Water is, of course, more dense than
air, optically as well as in other ways, and to see well in water the
eye surfaces would have to be much more curved. In other words, the
eye would have to be very near-sighted in air to have normal sight
under water. It is of some importance to the whale to have normal
sight under water, although there again is the difficulty of nearly
total absence of light {57} at great depths. But I should expect to
find the whale very near-sighted, and perhaps with an eye somewhat
similar to that of nocturnal animals. I do not know whether anybody
has ever observed that. I never have. It is somewhat difficult to
make such observations.
I have interrupted my narrative to say something about the habits of
whales, for I hope that has made it evident how hard it was for a
greenhorn like me to tell the number of whales in the pod from the
number of spouts that I could identify at any one time. In fact,
there were times when all had disappeared; but I stayed there,
crouched on my hunkers just forward of the lubber-hole, with my back
against the mast, and I watched those drifting plumes of vapor, and I
was much excited and quite happy.
The boats had been lowered, the harpooners overhauling their irons
as the boats were dropped into the water. I watched the four boats
tossing in the sea astern of us while their crews were stepping
the masts and setting the sails. Mr. Baker’s boat got her sail set
first, and stood away for the whales; then Mr. Brown, the third mate,
who seemed to have his crew well in hand. Mr. Brown was a silent,
uncommunicative man, but he knew his duties, and something more. Then
came Mr. Tilton’s boat, only a couple of seconds behind the third
mate. Mr. Tilton was fourth mate. Last of all came Mr. Wallet, fully
a minute behind the others. I am afraid I snickered at that, but it
was just what I had expected and hoped for. I hardly know why I had
taken such a dislike to Mr. Wallet so early in the voyage, for he had
not been unpleasant to me in any way. It must have been because I
thought him a poor stick.
It was a pretty sight. The weather was perfect, a moderate westerly
breeze, and bright sunshine sparkling on the water, with the four
boats driving ahead before the wind and spreading out fanwise as they
went, and the {58} occasional feathery spouts in the distance. The
boats looked like toy boats upon a painted ocean with tiny streaks of
cotton wool foam at their bows. I was not very high above them, but
the whole picture was spread out before my eyes. It would have been
much better at the masthead. I looked aloft as I thought of that,
with some vague idea of trying to get up there, and I saw the Admiral
busy with a flag. It was a sort of dirt-colored banner, and he seemed
to be trying experiments with it, hoisting it full up, then trying it
at half-mast, then stretching it out at one side or at the other, or
taking it in completely. He was signalling to the boats the position
of the whales, which he could see very well, while the men in the
boats could see them only occasionally or not at all. When the boats
got near enough the Admiral put his flag away.
Meanwhile the ship was keeping off after the boats. They had been
bracing the yards around slowly, for there were few men left on her
besides the idlers, of whom I was one. Nobody saw me—nobody thought
of me, very possibly—and I stayed crouched in the maintop and watched
the boats. It did not occur to me that my duty lay on deck. Captain
Nelson told me of it afterward. At the time the masthead man was the
only man who caught sight of me. I caught him grinning at me several
times, and wondered what he was grinning about.
The boats, by this time, had got very near the place where I had last
seen the spouts, but there were none to be seen now, and all boats
except Mr. Wallet’s had taken in their sails, and lay rocking and
waiting for the whales to come up. Mr. Wallet was still a long way
behind, for even the wind seemed to help all the others more than it
did him. I had my glass to my eyes, and I saw a gentle commotion in
the water beyond Mr. Brown’s boat, then another beyond Mr. Baker’s,
and almost instantly two spouts arose, very close to the boats, and
the men took to their oars with a will. As the whales had just come
up, {59} and had had no chance to breathe more than once or twice,
to say nothing of having their spoutings out, they could not go
down again, or if they did, they could stay down but a few minutes.
This was just the condition the men had been waiting for, and they
took full advantage of it. I could see Macy, the boatsteerer in Mr.
Baker’s boat,—the boatsteerer rows the bow oar,—take in his oar,
face about toward the bow, and stand up. He fitted his thigh into
the thigh-hole in the cleat, took the first harpoon from the crotch,
and poised it in his two hands, leaning far forward. The chance that
he was waiting for came in a few seconds, and he darted the harpoon
with all his strength; instantly seized the second harpoon from the
crotch, and threw that as the first one struck.
I had hardly been able to see the whale, as there was but little of
him out of water, and that little only an indistinguishable dark
mound; but immediately upon feeling the irons in him, he raised his
flukes high in air, and brought them down upon the surface with
a tremendous crash. They missed the boat, for the men had been
backing water with all their might, but the miss was by a small
margin, and the boat and the men in it were deluged with water.
Then the boatsteerer made his way aft, and took the steering oar,
and Mr. Baker went forward and selected his lance. He had no chance
to use it while they were in sight, however, for the whale set off
for the horizon at great speed, “head out,” the efforts of the
powerful flukes making his whole body undulate, so that his head
was alternately entirely buried in the sea, and almost completely
exposed, the narrow under-jaw serving as a cutwater. The last I
saw of that boat, Macy, the boatsteerer, stood at the steering
oar, keeping the boat straight behind the fleeing whale, while he
tried to snub the whale line completely by taking more turns around
the loggerhead. A thin wreath of blue smoke was rising from the
loggerhead, and one of the men was throwing {60} water by the hatful
upon it. The boat was throwing a sheet of water on each side of her
bow, almost like a stream from a fire hose.
All this hardly took longer than it takes to tell it. Meanwhile Mr.
Brown’s boat had pulled hard for the second whale, a longer pull
than Mr. Baker’s. They had got almost within darting distance when
Macy struck his whale, and every man in Mr. Brown’s boat heard the
thundering crash of the flukes on the water.
Wright, the boatsteerer, was already taking in his oar when Mr.
Brown gave him the word, for he knew what to expect. It is not
strange that I was in the dark as to the reasons for their actions,
but very naturally I thought it all right, although it did not seem
possible to dart the heavy harpoon that distance. Of course I could
not hear what Mr. Brown said, but Peter told me later, and explained
the actions of the whales according to his own notions—which may be
right enough. At all events, they are the notions generally held by
whalemen.
Wright took in his oar hurriedly—too hurriedly—scrambled to his place
in the bow, and grabbed a harpoon; but the whale had been losing no
time either, and the boat had gained but a few feet on him when he
started. He was going under without throwing his flukes into the air,
and he gathered speed very quickly. Wright threw the harpoon with
all the force left in him after his hard pull, but it was a good
twenty-five foot dart to the whale, which was going as fast as the
boat, and Wright had not the strength. The harpoon fell short and
nicked the whale’s flukes on an up stroke, serving only to increase
his speed instantly, and he disappeared.
I looked around, and could see no whales. There was Mr. Baker’s boat
well on its way to the Azores, with white water some distance ahead
of it, marking the action of their whale’s flukes as he ran. All the
others had vanished, and the boats lay still on the surface of the
{61} sea in attitudes of dejection, the men seeming to be looking
longingly after the fleeing whales. In a few minutes I heard a cry
from the masthead, and saw what the men were looking for. There,
miles away, was a lone spout, and then another, and a third; and they
seemed hurried. The whales had been swimming under water. We should
not get near those whales again, and the boats pulled slowly to the
ship.
What had happened, according to Peter, was this: Whales have some
mysterious way of communicating with each other, although there
may be miles of water between them. Peter did not undertake to say
what the means of communication was. It may have been the blow of
the flukes on the water when the whale was struck with the harpoon,
although whales lobtail frequently without causing alarm in their
companions. Whatever the means, old whalemen maintain that, when
a whale is struck, it communicates that fact, in some way, to the
others; and they become “gallied”—frightened—and make off at once. I
had seen them do so, and how could I doubt it? Of course Peter did
not tell me about it at that time. He and his boat, and all the men
in it, were out of sight.
I stirred myself when the boats were alongside, giving myself a
shake, I remember, and waking from the trance I had been in. I do not
know how I got down, but I must have thrown my legs over the edge of
the crosstrees and found the ratlines on the futtock shrouds with my
feet like any old hand, for I was concerned only with reaching the
deck as soon as possible.
Mr. Brown’s crew were just coming over the side as my feet struck the
deck. I rushed at Aziel Wright, the boatsteerer, and shot a fusillade
of questions at him, for I was worried about Mr. Baker’s boat and
Peter. The boat and her crew seemed to me to be as good as lost, well
out of sight beyond the rim of the sea, and going strong. Wright paid
no attention to me until the boat was up to the davits and the wooden
brackets swung out under her keel. {62}
When the boat was up and secure, Wright turned to me. He was a tall,
lanky man, and he could not have been over thirty, although he seemed
older. He had a little hacking cough, and seemed chronically tired;
but he was pleasant, and already a good friend of mine.
“What is it, Tim?” he asked. “Mr. Baker’s boat? Oh, they ’re all
right. We ’re running down after them now. We may sight them any time
now, or it may be dark before we find them.”
“But,” I objected, “the whale was going faster than the ship. He ’d
take them—”
Wright laughed. “True enough. There ’s no telling where he ’d take
them if he kept it up, for he was making a good ten knots, and the
ship is n’t making more ’n five or six. But he can’t keep it up a
great while—twenty mile or so. We ’ll sight them, it ’s likely, in a
few hours.”
“And will the whale fight when—”
“When he stops running?” Wright finished for me. “Can’t say, but
’t is n’t likely, for he ’ll be tired. But you never can tell what a
whale ’ll do.”
I was not wholly satisfied. “If we don’t see them before dark, how
will we find them?”
“Flares,” said Wright briefly. Then, seeing that I was mystified, he
proceeded to explain. I suppose he thought that he made the matter as
clear as daylight. “They ’ll burn flares now and then, and we ’ll see
one of ’em, maybe more, and we ’ll run down and pick her up.”
I nodded, and thanked him. There was nothing else that I knew enough
to ask him, although I was still unsatisfied, and I ran below to
get it all down in my journal. At the time I made mere notes, in a
fragmentary way, while my impressions were fresh. I wrote up the
notes later. I have that journal by me now. As I look over the
scrawled and stained pages, and read the disjointed sentences, the
whole thing comes back before me as if it had happened yesterday. I
sent the journal home from time to {63} time, as I had planned to
do, as long as I had opportunities, and managed to carry home the
part covering the last part of my cruise. My father and my mother
preserved my old journal as if it were a precious thing. I found it
nearly thirty years later with my father’s most valuable papers.
{64}