The day before we got into Cape Town I wrote a short letter home, and
enclosed my journal. We came to in Table Bay the next morning, with
the mass of Table Mountain looming to the eastward, and Devil’s Peak
and the Lion’s Head and Signal Hill enclosing the town. The crew had
liberty ashore, in relays, and the first boatload of liberty men were
off within an hour. I do not know how the men spent their precious
liberty.
We laid in a stock of fresh provisions, and got off our mail, and
found some mail for the ship, but there was nothing for me. The
captain attended to some other business, but I do not know what. He
did not ship a man to take the vacant place, and we had two vacant
places when we left in the afternoon of the second day, for a green
hand, a Portuguese named Silvia from Mr. Macy’s boat, turned up
missing. Mr. Tilton made a brief search for him, but did not find
him, and we could not wait. Most of the other men were rounded up
drunk, or just recovering from that happy state, and really not
responsible.
Mr. Snow, our fourth mate since the promotions after Mr. Wallet’s
defection, a nervous, irascible little man, became very much
enraged at one of the men from his own boat. The man’s name was
Silver—perhaps unfortunately resembling Silvia, the name of the man
who was missing. He was a green hand too, if a man is still green
after eight months at sea. Mr. Snow addressed a sarcastic remark to
Silver—or Silva—bearing upon that resemblance of names, and Silver,
as might have been expected, answered him in a surly manner, calling
him a fussy little busybody, or less agreeable words to the same
effect. Of {209} course it was no fault of Silver’s that his name
was like Silvia’s, or that Silvia was not to be found, but he would
not have answered Mr. Snow as he did if he had been feeling like
himself, or if he had been to sea long enough to know the unwisdom of
it.
Mr. Snow hesitated and sputtered and got red in the face, but said
nothing after all, and fumed off aft. The rest of the men rather
expected that Silver might be put in irons, but nothing came of the
matter then, except that Silver had the permanent ill-will of his
boatheader. That is not a state of affairs generally cultivated.
We stood around the Cape, keeping well out to sea to avoid the
current which sets to the southwest and west along the shore of the
African continent and for about a hundred and fifty miles from it,
more or less. The surface currents all through the Indian Ocean
are strong and tricky. Off Durban or Port Natal the current runs
southwesterly at very nearly three or four knots at this season, and
it was worth while not to get into it, especially for a ship like the
Clearchus, which could not be depended upon to sail faster than five
or six knots. By keeping a couple of hundred miles to the southward
we got into the easterly drift and the west wind, and we held that
course to about 35° east longitude, gradually turning to the north
for the Mozambique Channel.
The mastheads were kept manned all this time, but it was hardly
expected that we would sight any whales, and I suspect that there was
little desire to see any. The wind held generally strong from the
westward until we were on our way north. We sighted the southwest
coast of Madagascar, but it got no nearer than a low-lying purple
line, and we swung away to the northwest until we sunk it.
Madagascar is nearly a thousand miles long, and from three to five
hundred miles from the coast of Africa, the narrowest part of the
Mozambique Channel, opposite Mozambique, being about two hundred and
sixty miles broad. {210} We were therefore well out of sight of
land almost all the time that we cruised in those waters. Although
the wind was southerly—the southeast trades—and by all the rules we
should have run directly through the Channel and beat slowly back
again, we did not do so, but steered a zigzag course, wearing ship as
we approached either side of the Channel. The captain was so certain
of seeing whales there that he did not want to miss the first chance,
and that chance was as likely to come one way as another.
The chance came when we had been in the Channel four days and were
on the second leg of our zigzag. I was busy in the cabin, but I
heard the faint musical cry, “Ah—bl-o-ows!” I dropped everything,
and ran on deck. It was early, breakfast being just over. There they
were to the east of us, three beautiful plumes rising together,
shining in the sun, drifting for a moment, and dissolving gradually
into nothing. We manœuvred for position—if it is proper to speak of
anything as clumsy as the Clearchus as manœuvring—and waited for the
whales to sound. They took their time about it, at which I did not
wonder. It was very pleasant at the surface in the sun, and they lay
lazily at their length, spouting now and then. We got to windward of
them, and as near as the captain thought was safe—a gallied whale is
hard to get. Still they did not go down, and we lowered four boats;
all but Mr. Macy’s. The boats were put into the water carefully, so
as not to make a splash that the whales would hear, they cast off in
silence, and the men took to their paddles. I counted as a man, for I
was at what was getting to be my usual place in Mr. Brown’s boat.
We were next to Mr. Snow in the circle in which the boats were
spreading, and a little ahead of him. I did not look at Mr. Snow,
for my eyes were otherwise occupied. I was aware of him, however,
and knew that he was alternately looking briefly at the whales and
glaring {211} malevolently at the back of Silver, who rowed tub
oar. Silver, although he wielded his paddle industriously, was aware
of it too, and it made him nervous, so that he became awkward.
Mr. Snow had put in his time since leaving Cape Town largely in
gazing malevolently at Silver. He was a little thunder-cloud,
threatening always, but doing no damage, except to haze Silver—haze
meaning to punish by hard work, unnecessary usually, and as hard as
possible—whenever he had the chance. This attitude had resulted in
his becoming overbearing to the rest of his crew, and he was fast
getting to be the most unpopular officer on the ship. Silver was not
a little frightened, for he did not know what he might have said or
done to Mr. Snow. He had been in a condition of irresponsibility at
the time, and he could not remember. I had overheard him asking one
man after another what it was, but they were in no better case for
remembering, and could give him no comfort.
Silver now became so awkward with his paddle that he missed the water
altogether—caught a crab—and fell forward on his knees, striking the
oars and making a tremendous rattling and rumbling. We were not far
from the whales, and no respectable whale could avoid hearing that
noise of wood on wood, like beating a great tom-tom. They cocked up
their ears for an instant, but the oars were still rolling about,
Silver frantically grabbing at them, and the whales simultaneously
raised their flukes high, and went down. Mr. Baker, on the other side
of Mr. Snow, launched a string of curses at Mr. Snow’s boat for his
carelessness, for he had been on the point of signalling Starbuck to
stand up, he was so near his whale. Mr. Snow, in turn, cursed Silver
up and down. It was rather startling to hear such a flow of language
from such a man. Mr. Snow, just to see him in his usual state, made
you think of a Sunday-School teacher.
Mr. Brown looked up wearily. I knew him well enough to be sure that
he was thinking that cursing would not {212} get them anywhere. Mr.
Snow appeared to be of the same opinion, for he stopped his cursing
abruptly. We lay on our oars, which we had taken as soon as Silver
caught his crab, and waited for the whales.
We were near the middle of the arc, which was not very wide, not
above an eighth of a mile for the four boats, for the whales had been
bunched. We lay still, but the outer boats pulled hard to make the
arc wider. In about twenty minutes the whales came up, just beyond
the outermost boat to the westward. That happened to be Mr. Tilton’s.
Then came our own, then Mr. Snow’s, and Mr. Baker on the eastward
end. Mr. Tilton was an experienced whaleman, and he felt sure enough
that we should not get any of those whales, for he saw that they were
gallied just enough to be very wary, and not to lose track of the
boats for a second. There was a chance, however, and he took it, as
he was in duty bound to do. He could not get near enough to dart,
and the whales went under again, not deep, but swimming under water.
They came up at the opposite end of the line, and Mr. Baker thought
that he had a chance, but he did not have any better success than Mr.
Tilton. Then the whales rose again between us and Mr. Snow. We pulled
hard for them, but they easily got through to windward, lay there and
waited for us.
Those three whales seemed to enjoy the sport. They had us where they
wanted us, to leeward of them, and they gave us the hardest kind of
work for four hours. We were in the region of the southeast trades,
which drew in from the southward, and there was a combing sea, hard
to pull against. We all knew that the whales had all the best of it,
but they would bring to just out of reach, tantalizing us, egging us
on with the thought that this time we had them; but before any boat
had got near enough to dart, they would up flukes or settle out of
reach, only to come up again just near enough to tempt us afresh. I
have no doubt it was fun for the whales, but it was no {213} fun
for the men. My muscles and my hands were sore and aching when we
were signalled from the ship to give it up and come aboard. Mr. Baker
did not want to give it up even then. He was fighting mad—it did not
take very much to make Mr. Baker fighting mad, and the thought that
three common, ordinary whales could have fun with him was almost too
much. I think that he would have liked to make mince-meat of them.
Fortunately, the ship was well to leeward, and we sailed back. Those
three whales followed us back almost to the ship. They seemed to feel
hurt because we would not play any longer. I had, and I still have, a
great admiration for those whales. There was no malice in them, and
they had only been indulging in a game of tag. I was glad to think
that we had left them unhurt in their element, instead of drifting
carcasses to be stripped bare by birds and sharks.
We saw several whales on our way up the Channel, but they were wild,
and we got none of them. We did not even get fast, but had a good
many hours of heartbreaking pulling. Opposite Mozambique, about a
hundred miles offshore, more or less, the Prince got an iron into
one, but it drew, and the whale got away. I overheard Captain Nelson
talking to Mr. Baker, one day, about the wildness of the whales. He
seemed to think it evidence that they had been chased a good deal,
and to be inclined to abandon the Channel at once, and keep right
on to the northward to the Seychelles. Mr. Baker did not combat the
captain’s opinion openly, but he was so obviously disappointed and
so confident that we should do better on the return trip through
the Channel that the captain did not insist upon it. We had seen no
whalers.
I had been having my lessons—my hours with Mr. Brown—pretty
regularly, right along. When we had to chase, or had a whale
alongside, of course we had to give it up, but we had not been
interrupted by cutting-in and trying-out for about two months. I
had added the study {214} of geography to the curriculum. I wanted
to know more about the regions which we visited, and although there
was usually nothing to be seen but a vast expanse of ocean, I knew
that there was some land near, and the fact was a stimulus to the
acquisition of knowledge about it, whatever it was. There was not a
geography on the ship, but it was no loss worth mentioning. I got
what I could from the maps and charts we had, and Mr. Brown supplied
the rest, for he highly approved the broadening of the curriculum,
although it gave him more work. Already I could almost put my finger
on some islands which I had never heard of at school, and Mauritius
and Réunion were as definite as Nashawena and Cuttyhunk. I had seen
Bazaruta from a distance, although my geography authority at school—a
gentle, modest girl, who probably had very little more definite
ideas on the subject than I had—had never heard of such an island.
Almost every whaling captain knew it pretty well, for it was a place
to get wood. It was a different thing actually to see the low-lying
coast of Africa, south of Mozambique, or the bold shores north of
it, with a glimpse of the high table-land behind, from what it was
to read vaguely about them all, quietly seated at my desk in North
Street. I knew the general shape of Madagascar, and thought of it as
a good enough island of moderate size, with the Mozambique Channel
perhaps thirty miles wide. It came to me with somewhat of a shock to
find that the Channel was five times as wide as from New Bedford to
Nantucket, and that Madagascar was about as long as from New Bedford
to Chicago. Chicago was less important in 1872 than it is now, and it
was less than a year since Mrs. Kelly’s cow had kicked over the lamp,
the beacon that led to greatness.
On our beat south through the Channel, we had better luck. We had
many unsuccessful chases, but we got three whales ranging from sixty
to seventy barrels each. There {215} was no excitement in it; about
as much as there would have been in slaughtering three mild-eyed
cows. That was just what it was, simple slaughter. But we had our
excitement before we got out of the Channel.
It was as we were getting to the southern mouth of the Channel. I
remember that we were not far from Bazaruta Island, for Peter had
just been pointing out to me the place where it was. He said that he
could see it, but I could not. He looked away for a moment, and was
giving me some further information, when he saw the spout. At the
instant the cry came down from the masthead. It was a lone spout, the
spout of a lone whale, so far as we could see.
We lowered two boats for him, Mr. Brown’s and Mr. Macy’s. Largely
by good luck Mr. Macy got to the whale first, and Hall sunk his two
irons in him. It was a good strike, and the irons were sunk to the
hafts. The whale showed ugly right away. He went down a little, and
ran under water, taking out nearly two tubs of line. They had just
managed to snub the line somewhat, and were beginning their ride
after him, with the line still smoking around the loggerhead, when
suddenly he stopped, turned quickly, and came back at them. He came
at full speed, head out, his jaw hanging down at nearly a right
angle, meaning mischief with it. Mr. Macy saw it, of course, and so
did Hall. Hall tried to lay the boat around with the steering oar,
out of the course of the whale, but the great length of line hanging
over the bow was almost like an anchor. The men were heaving it in as
fast as they could. Macy ordered them to their oars, and with oars
and steering oar together Hall just managed to get them partly out
of the way of the whale. He turned half over, and struck the boat
a glancing blow with his jaw, however, stove a couple of planks,
and rolled her over. We saw her rise—she did not really leave the
water—and come down bottom side up. While she was coming down we
heard the crash of the splintering planks. {216}
Most of the men had jumped out just before the whale struck them, and
one or two had been thrown out, but we could not be sure, from where
we were, whether all were accounted for or not. We pulled hard for
them, and when we had come up Mr. Brown counted heads.
“Where ’s Macy?” he asked sharply.
Before anybody could answer Mr. Macy’s head popped up, beside the
overturned boat. The boat had come down over him, and he had dived
out. The men were grabbing oars and pieces of plank—anything that
would keep them afloat—and were swimming away from the wreck as fast
as they could. Mr. Brown saw that they all had something to hang on
to, and that another boat had been lowered from the ship, and was
coming up fast.
“You ’re all right,” he said. “Hold on, and I ’ll try to coax him
away.”
Macy laughed. “You ’re welcome to it,” he said.
The whale had been lying a short distance away, thrashing his flukes
about truculently, and moving from side to side. In the course of
his movements he caught sight of the wrecked boat, and it seemed
to excite his rage afresh. He at once came down for it, his jaw
down, and struck at it with his jaw; but he did but little damage,
only smashing another plank, as the boat rolled away. The men were
swimming away as fast as they could. The whale came to a short
distance from the wreck, turned, and again came down viciously.
He had not seen our boat, although it was in plain sight; at any
rate, he had taken no notice of it. Perhaps his mind was so occupied
with the immediate object of his wrath that it had no room for
anything else. Before he reached the wrecked boat, we struck, the
Prince darting both irons, one after the other, with great rapidity,
and with all his strength. They almost disappeared in his body, just
behind his side fin. This distracted his attention from the wreck
completely. He was clearly {217} astonished, and striking the water
two tremendous blows with his flukes, and drenching everybody in the
boat, he put away to windward at a great pace.
He went so fast, and made so much play with his flukes, that we could
not haul alongside. He seemed to be rolling a little as he swam, and
the play of the flukes covered the course the boat would have to
take. There was nothing to do but the best we could. We hauled up
with great difficulty just astern of the great flukes, and Mr. Brown
tried pitch-poling the boat spade into his small, to cut the fluke
tendons. This was a difficult matter, in a rolling, jumping boat,
and in three trials Mr. Brown succeeded only in wounding the flukes,
which served to increase the speed. We simply had to haul up close,
and we did it somehow, the Prince keeping us clear of the flukes by
great exertion at the steering oar. I do not see how he did it, and
I did not see at the time, for my back was toward him, and I was
putting my whole heart into heaving, to gain a few inches at a time.
I very nearly put the flesh of my hands into it, too. By the time
the flukes were astern of us, I felt as if all my fingers had been
stripped to the bone; as if they were in the same condition they were
in the day Jimmy and I got John Appleby’s boat aground on Fort Phœnix
shoal.
The line now broke the pin in the chocks, I suppose at a leap of the
boat and a heave on the steering oar, and jumped out of the chocks.
It brought up on the kicking-strap, pulling over the port bow at a
slight angle with the boat, which kept clear automatically. A few
inches of clear water showed between the boat and the body of the
running whale, whose speed had not slackened in the least. I remember
that the wave from the boat and that from the whale, meeting at such
close quarters, resulted in a nearly vertical sheet of water, which
came steadily over the side, making a nearly continuous cataract down
my back until I moved over. {218}
Mr. Brown looked around apprehensively; but seeing that the boat
was all right, and that the arrangement would give him an excellent
chance to lance, he ordered Kane to take the line and heave a little.
That would put him where he wanted to be. Kane, the bow oar, took the
line all right, but was unable to heave us any farther forward, and I
took hold. Together, we heaved the boat up before any of the others
could get hold. Once there, my only idea was to hold us there, close
to that whale. Before the Prince had a chance to take in the slack
of the line and hold around the loggerhead, out of the depths of my
ignorance and thoughtlessness, I did it. I might have known better
if I had stopped to think, but I might not, and there was no time to
stop and think. I took a couple of turns with the slack around the
thwart, and pulled the bight of the line through. It was a slipknot,
and could be released by a yank upon the line held in my hand.
We were now holding our position close to the irons—naturally
enough—and Mr. Brown seemed to be pleased. He was unaware of my
device. He lanced the whale again and again, but was unable to reach
the life. The whale was spouting thin blood, but did not seem to be
much distressed; not as much as we were, for the boat was taking
over the side a plentiful spray, and the bloody vapor of his spout
enveloped us. It was like an acid.
Suddenly he turned—so quickly that the boat ran plump into him,
and a little way upon his body, so close to the irons that I could
have reached them by leaning out a little. Mr. Brown seized his
opportunity, and drove his lance twice into the life.
“Slack your line, quick,” he said, “and stern all!”
Then he looked around, and saw my knot, of which I had been so proud.
I was yanking desperately at the line to release the knot, but it
would not come. I was not strong enough, it seemed.
Mr. Brown’s face expressed the most utter disgust. He said nothing,
but seized the hatchet to cut. {219}
It was not necessary, for Kane had seen my trouble, had sprung and
grabbed the line with me. We yanked together, and the knot came loose
with a noise like an explosion. Never in my life have I felt more
relief than I felt at that sound. We backed off instantly, and the
flukes came down on the water, just missing the boat. I did not mind
it, and was really not aware of it. I did not mind anything now that
that confounded knot was loose.
The whale was going into his flurry, but we got well clear of him. In
ten or fifteen minutes more he lay fin out. The ship was hull down to
leeward.
That evening, after we had towed the whale to the ship, and had
made it fast alongside, Mr. Brown found me and gave me a serious
overhauling. It was not long, and it was kindly, but I never forgot
it. The gist of it was that a whale line should NEVER _be made fast_.
{220}