As soon as the trying-out was finished, we stood off to the
southeast, or a little southerly of that. The trades here were
blowing strong from the east, and that was as close as the Clearchus
would sail. After a day of this, we came about on the other tack. We
could none of us understand why, unless some of the officers did,
but the large school of whales had disappeared almost directly to
windward, and Captain Nelson may have been trying to see where they
had gone. There was a fairly rapid drift of the surface water, also
from the east, as would be expected. Although I knew practically
nothing about it, I had formed the theory that whales generally
travelled against the warmer ocean currents. I had not carried my
theory so far as to account for their doing so, but I supposed it had
to do with the food supply. That seems reasonable now, for it is at
the bottom of all migrations; not comfort, nor pleasure, but food,
and the ease of getting it.
We did not see that school again, but early in the morning of the
second day, being then in longitude 162° W., latitude 8° S., by the
captain’s—and my own—observations, we came upon three islands. They
were very small islands, roughly about a mile long and half a mile
wide, each a sort of crescent, and forming, as I now think, parts of
the rim of a crater but recently elevated above the surface. They
were not shown on any of our charts, and could not have been exposed
to the sun and winds and waves for many years, for they were almost
utterly bare; perhaps a hundred feet high at the highest point, and
showing nothing but rock and dried mud and ooze from the bed of the
sea. We did not land on them, but at only one place could I make
out with my glass a spot of {334} green, and that was only about a
couple of feet square. Possibly some bird had dropped a seed there,
or a coconut had drifted ashore, or the seeds of beach grass in a
mass of drifting seaweed. Beaches had begun to form, especially on
the windward side.
The captain having satisfied himself about the waters, we began
cruising for whales in earnest, for we had seen a couple of pods
earlier in the day. We had almost sunk the islands below the horizon
before we raised another spout. While we were in this neighborhood
a day rarely passed without our seeing any. There were two spouts
this time. We worked the ship to windward of them, and lowered three
boats, leaving Mr. Tilton and Captain Coffin aboard the ship. Before
we reached them, the whales sounded, without having seen us, and we
waited, tossing on the seas, for them to rise.
When we had waited for nearly an hour, they suddenly spouted near Mr.
Baker and Mr. Macy, at the other end of the line from us. We had not
seen them rise. All three boats started for them. We had a long way
to go, and it was hard pulling, for the sea was heavy. The ship was
well to windward, and the whales had spread out. None of us could see
what was going on ahead of us, but we were putting our last ounce of
strength into pulling—at least, I was—when Mr. Brown told us to take
it easy, for they had sounded again. I was glad that they had shown
so much sense.
Those whales kept up that sort of thing for five risings, always
working to windward slowly, and the ship working to windward ahead of
us. It got to be nearly sunset, and the ship showed a little white
flag at her peak, recalling us. We did not know it, however, as we
were keeping head to the sea, and the ship was behind our backs. Mr.
Brown knew it. At that moment one of the whales rounded out directly
astern, and head on. As it was a good chance, Mr. Brown ignored the
signal, heaving on the steering oar, and laying the boat around.
{335}
“Now,” he said, “a dozen good strokes, boys.”
We gave him a dozen, and then a dozen more. He nodded to the Prince,
who took in his oar swiftly and silently, and stood up. The black
head of the whale shot by, and Mr. Brown threw all his weight on the
oar, bringing the boat’s head around.
“Give it to him!” he cried. “Stern all!”
The Prince had darted; he threw his second iron just as we bumped
terrifically into the body of the whale. Then we backed off as the
flukes went into the air, came down on the surface thunderously, and
swept from side to side. Again his flukes went up, and the whale
sounded. He sounded at great speed and the line whistled out of the
tub. I confess that I was afraid of it as the coils writhed past my
hands and pounded a tattoo on my oar. One tub was out. There had been
no time for Mr. Brown and the Prince to change places, and a “drug”
was being bent on to the end of the line in the second tub, as fast
as the men could work. It was no sooner fast than it was whisked out
of their hands and overboard.
Mr. Brown smiled slowly. “Well,” he said, “that was soon settled.
Looks as if the joke was on us. Guess we ’d better have let him
alone.”
The whale had gone off with two irons, two tubs of line, and a drug.
The chance was that we should never see any of them again, for it
was almost too dark to see anything, and it would be pitch-black in
half an hour. We turned and pulled easily toward the ship, which was
showing a light, two miles to windward. The boat lanterns were set
before we had gone far.
We had made perhaps half the distance to the ship when we heard, out
of the darkness ahead, shouts and commands and a commotion in the
water that was more than the wash of the sea. Mr. Brown peered ahead.
He could not make out much. “Stand up, Tony,” he said, “and see what
you make it. By the sounds it ’s Mr. Baker, and he ’s fast.” {336}
The Prince stood up. Those black men have a strange faculty of seeing
in the dark. He reported that it was Mr. Baker fast to a whale, and
he thought it was our whale.
By this time we were almost up with the commotion. Mr. Brown headed
us over that way, and we pulled harder. As soon as we were within
hail he called out, asking if the whale had irons in him. I could not
see what the state of affairs was, for I had to keep my eyes astern;
but I judged from the sounds that Mr. Baker was close alongside, and
was lancing, or just about to. The answer was that the whale had
irons in him.
“Those irons are mine,” Mr. Brown shouted, “and I want to kill him!”
I was surprised, for I did not see then, and I do not see now, why it
should be any pleasure to a man like Mr. Brown to pump a lance up and
down in the in’ards of a whale. If it had been Mr. Baker I could have
understood it.
Between grunts and curses Mr. Baker replied that it was too late, for
he had just attended to that matter, and we had better go astern a
little, as the whale was going into his flurry.
Mr. Brown said nothing—there was nothing to say—and the whale
proceeded to turn fin out without any flurry at all.
Mr. Baker then set his lights to signal the ship, and she bore down
upon us. It was a long, hard job getting that whale alongside in
the pitch darkness and the heavy sea, and it was not done and the
men on board until very late in the evening. Even then it was not
done, we found. Lying hove to, as we were, the ship forging ahead a
little, with a very heavy sea running, she would bring up, at every
roll, with a tremendous jerk on the fluke chain. At last the chain
parted—shackle pin snapped—and the carcass began to drift away. It
was Mr. Macy’s watch, and he sprang quickly into the quarter boat,
bent the line {337} to an iron, and struck as the body drifted
beneath him. He checked it with the line, and managed to get another
iron in, fast to a second line, before it had drifted out of reach.
Then the lines were paid out to their whole length, and the spring of
the lines held the carcass until sunrise. In the morning we had all
our work to do over again, but we got the blubber hove aboard before
sunset. The whale made sixty-five barrels.
While we were trying-out that whale we raised another pod or small
school. It was early in the afternoon. The wind had gone down
somewhat, but was still strong, and the whales were basking lazily
on the surface, laying flukes and fins. That sounds as if they were
a flock of hens, curiously occupied. They were pretty near, although
not close aboard, and it was too much for the captain, for these
were large whales. Captain Nelson was getting more excited as the
ship got more nearly filled up, and as he saw the abundance of large
whales. It seemed to give him a physical pain to realize that here
was a fortune at his hand, and he could not take it away. He could be
depended upon to come to the same place the next voyage, but somebody
else might get there first. In this case he called away every man
that could be spared, and lowered two boats.
We got none of those whales. We took every precaution to avoid
scaring them, even to the prohibition of talking as we ran down
under sail. There was plenty of sea to drown any noise that we might
have made, but we were a silent company. In spite of all our care,
however, we could not get nearer than a quarter of a mile. At about
that distance the nearest rounded out flukes, and went under; and
the others followed slowly and solemnly, without fuss, merely going
under the surface and swimming. We rounded to, not knowing whether
they had gone deep, or where they might come up again; but there they
were, almost immediately, spouting lazily, half a mile away, {338}
basking on the surface, and keeping exact run of the boats. We kept
up that game of hide-and-seek all the afternoon. We could not get
near them, whatever we did, although they did not run away. Toward
sunset we pulled back to the ship, rather crestfallen, and left that
pod of seventy-barrel whales to go to bed in peace or to indulge in
dissipation, as they pleased. There were enough whales there to fill
us up entirely and one or two over. Five or six such whales would
have filled us up, and more.
We finished our trying-out without seeing any more whales, but
before the cleaning-up was more than begun, we raised a lone spout.
We lowered three boats for him, but mine was not among them, and I
watched the proceedings through my glass. They caught up with him
about a mile from the ship. Perhaps it is more exact to say that he
caught them there, for he attacked the first boat as soon as he got
a sight of it, driving at it at once with his mouth open. It was Mr.
Baker’s boat, and Starbuck had no chance to do anything, for the
whale went a little under, a short distance from the boat, came up
under it, belly up, and like lightning, and caught it fairly forward
of amidships. He came up so hard that he carried it into the air, bow
first, and the men all fell out. Then he gave it a little shake, as a
terrier shakes a rat, but he did not close hard, although he sprung
all the planks. The boat then slipped out of his jaws and into the
water, where it lay for a few moments, leaking like a sieve.
The whale nosed about among the debris, butting the boat from side
to side, cutting with his flukes at every floating thing that
touched them, mast, sail, oars, tubs, and water-kegs. Mr. Tilton
came up while he was so engaged, and Azevedo put two irons into him;
whereupon he turned upon Mr. Tilton’s boat, and before they could do
anything toward making their escape, he served it as he had served
Mr. Baker’s, but stove it completely.
There were now two boats’ crews swimming about in {339} the sea,
and making away, as fast as they could, from the neighborhood of the
stove boats. I tried to count heads, and although I could not be
certain, because of their continual bobbing out of sight behind seas,
I thought that they were all there. The truculent whale was having
a good time, cutting about amid the floating wreckage, knocking
the parts of the boats out of the way with his head, and instantly
slamming anything that he felt with his flukes. In this process he
succeeded in getting himself thoroughly entangled in the line, so
that he appeared almost as if he were enclosed in a net. Mr. Brown’s
boat was then called away to help, and I could not follow the fight
closely, but was to get into it instead.
Meanwhile Mr. Macy had been trying to get into it. It was inviting
disaster to go in and put an iron into the whale, but Mr. Macy would
have done it if he could. He simply could not do it, the whale
thrashed about so. At last, in his ragings, the whale saw Mr. Macy’s
boat just beyond the circle of wreckage, and made for it. By skilful
use of the steering oar Mr. Macy avoided his rush, and Hall, the
boatsteerer, seizing the whaling gun, fired a bomb into him as he
passed just beyond darting distance. That was twice repeated before
we came up, without noticeable effect upon the whale, and Mr. Macy
had all he could do to keep the boat out of those jaws, for the whale
had taken the offensive, and was doing well. I had this part of the
story from George Hall, himself, after we got back to the ship.
We had been taking down an empty cask, with one of our canvas flags,
such as we used on our drugs, stuck in the bung-hole. When we got as
near as we could, we left this cask floating, and retired a little,
putting the cask between us and the whale. The light cask, as large
as a hogshead, floating high, soon drew the attention of the whale,
which left Mr. Macy, and went for it. The antics of the cask under
the repeated buttings of the whale were {340} comical. It was
nearly as light, in comparison with the strength of the whale, as a
football. When he struck it with his nose it gave out a resounding
_Ping-g!_ and leaped into the air. This exasperated him further. He
could see nothing, think of nothing, but that resounding cask. He
chased it, and butted it again. Again the loud, deep _Ping-g!_ He
butted it again and again; chased it and knocked it from side to
side, made frantic by its elastic resistance. Our whole crew went
into spasms of laughter, regardless of the fact that we had something
else to do than to laugh at the antics of a crazy whale, and that, at
any instant, he might transfer his attention to us. The loaded boat
would not act as the cask did.
We edged cautiously toward the whale, Mr. Brown keeping out of
his range of vision, and Mr. Macy creeping up on his other side.
Mr. Macy fired another bomb into him before the Prince could dart
or lance. He was prepared to do either, but at the report of Mr.
Macy’s gun, Mr. Brown told him to use our gun. The whale had given
a little convulsive shiver on receiving the bomb, but there was no
other result, although the bomb must have exploded in his in’ards
somewhere, as must the other three that Hall had sent into him. The
Prince fired twice, and Mr. Macy once more, which exhausted his stock
of bombs; but the whale did not relax his attentions to the cask,
which seemed to exert a peculiar fascination. All this time he was
butting it, and it was responding with a _Ping-g!_ and a leap into
the air.
Suddenly he caught sight of the ship, which had borne down upon us,
and was pretty near. He left the cask, headed for her, and went
under. We could do nothing but watch. After butting the ship, the
whale must have come up on the other side of her, for the men on deck
ran over to that side. A few seconds later I heard the reports of
whaling guns—they are not to be mistaken—and then more, and Mr. Brown
and Mr. Macy proceeded quietly to {341} gathering in the swimming
crews, who had been in the water about an hour. We did not take the
stove boats and their gear on that trip, but pulled at once to the
ship.
On getting to her we found the whale dead alongside, right in
position, and the men getting the fluke chain ready. He had had
eleven bombs exploded in him; but what finished him was the thorough
lancing by Captain Coffin, who had got out on the wales, held on by
the main chains, leaned out and pumped his lance up and down in his
life. The bombs must have done their work after a fashion, for before
he was lanced the whale had vomited up a great number of pieces of
cuttle fish. Among the pieces of squid were the remnants of a shark
of good size. All the fragments had not disappeared when we got there.
Poor Peter, wet as he was, and the sailmaker had to go at once into
the hold to see what damage had been done. They were down there three
hours, but could find no damage, and the ship was not leaking more
than she did before, which was but a few strokes a day, and just
enough to keep her sweet—if a whaler can be called sweet. The whale
must have struck square upon the keel, not with full force. Meanwhile
we pulled back again, got the stove boats and their gear, and pulled
to the ship. More work for Peter. But that whale tried out over
ninety barrels.
That was the last fighting whale that we met. We were very nearly
filled up, but Captain Nelson could not seem to let well enough
alone. We kept on taking whales, easily taken and of a good size,
until the ship would not have held another bucket of oil anywhere.
Even the try-pots were full, and the cooling-tank, and the spare pots
on deck, and every receptacle that he could think of. He went so far
as to get some of our water-casks on deck, empty out the water, and
fill them with oil, saying that there were plenty of places where we
could get water on the way home. He was going home by Cape Horn. I
only wonder {342} that he did not fill the copper dippers and the
tin cans with oil. No doubt he would have done so if they had held
enough to make any appreciable difference. We had over twenty-six
hundred barrels of oil on board, and twenty-four hundred was all we
were supposed to hold.
He went back to take a last look at the islands, and make more
careful observations. It did not take long, only a few hours, for
it happened that they were in sight at our last trying-out. In all
our cruising in that neighborhood we had never been far from them,
often within thirty miles or so, their barren heights in plain sight
on a fairly dear day. I never saw a figure of greater dejection and
melancholy than Captain Nelson when we came in sight of the leeward
side. There was a school of large whales, perhaps twenty-five or
thirty of them basking on the surface. They were very tame, so tame
that we nearly ran into two of them before they would move out of the
course of the ship. They seemed to know that we were a full ship,
and that we could not take any more if we wanted to. Captain Nelson
almost groaned aloud.
We bore away to the southward, intending to make Tahiti, to get more
water-casks, and a fresh supply of water. Tahiti lies about southeast
from our point of departure, but we were obliged to start to the
south to take advantage of the trades. Peter was busy in making new
boats out of the remains of the two which had been stove two or three
weeks before. He did not hurry at his work, for he was pretty tired,
as we all were. The rest of us did nothing to speak of, merely such
patching of rigging as was necessary.
{343}