The solitary finner we hunted disappeared, and we hunted for hours
towards heavy purple clouds in the S.W., and the sea seemed deserted as
before, till towards six o’clock we saw a blow, and soon after saw the
crow’s nest of a whaler above the horizon; she appeared to be working to
and fro as if hunting a whale.
In half-an-hour we were amongst great large whales! and began the most
spectacular whale-hunt we have ever seen. For two and a half days we
had hunted blank, lifeless ocean, then, without rhyme or reason, it was
brimming with life! An indigo bank of cloud there was for background, a
complete vivid rainbow against that—beneath it the swelling seas, dark
green with purple lights and white foam, with here and there whales’
white blasts catching the western sun from a score or fifty enormous
finners. In every direction were dolphins with yellow and white stripes,
and porpoises spurting water up like cannon shots as they dived; overhead
were petrels and dark skuas. The whales’ plum-coloured backs caught the
western light and reflected the sky on their upper surface in tints
of lavender as they rose, glittering and powerful, in green and white
foaming water, thousands of pounds sterling, and millions of horse-power,
in groups of three or four surging along beside each other, east and
west, sending up mighty jets of steam, to be carried away in the wind.
As we went in chase of a group of these we saw the other whaler was fast
to a whale, over which she apparently had no control.
[Illustration: TOWING A WHALE
The top plate shows a fluke, that is, one half of a whale’s tail,
fastened by a chain to the bows. This is cut away to prevent resistance
to the water. Note the gun and harpoon on the bows.
The middle plate shows two 5½″ lines attached to a whale.
The bottom plate shows the double-barrelled winch and line and grooved
wheel on which the hard wood brake acts.]
The whales were feeding, but travelling so fast that we could not come up
with them, so we cut across their course, and dozens of times we thought
we were going to get our chance. Then other bigger whales crossed, and
we gave up the first lot and went plunging after the others, throwing
up grand showers of foam over our bows and oilskins. But cold and wet
you do not think of, with seventy or eighty tons charging in front of
you and the chance of getting in the harpoon any moment. For several
hours we chased in this wonderful piece of sea, so brimful of life, but
the whales dodged about at a most unusual rate; possibly their rapidity
of motion was caused by the host of dolphins and porpoises that leapt
alongside them and crossed their course; and for all these hours we could
occasionally descry our neighbour through the rain showers and failing
light, still in tow of her prey. Not till about nine o’clock did she fire
a second gun and we hoped she had got in another harpoon to finish her
prolonged fight.
Often we were close to a whale but not in such a position as to be able
to swing the gun towards it. For some time a huge fellow surged close
alongside within one or two feet of our starboard beam and never touched
us. I think they must have a sense by which they can judge their distance
from a vessel’s or boat’s side or ice: one can hardly believe they judge
the distance by the eye alone.
At about ten o’clock our real chance came—we crashed down from a high sea
almost on top of a whale as it rose unexpectedly, but it was too close,
we could not depress the gun enough to get the foresight on, but the next
rise, the moment after its blast we were high in air and let drive as we
came down and were fast and sure.
I do not know how to describe the grand rush of a huge whale or that
fractional pause of uncertainty after the boom and smoke and flame and
the whirl of great rope. It is heart-stopping, almost solemn. You watch
the seething black boil where the whale has gone down, with small flecks
of scarlet in it, and the great cable fading down into the depths, and
the gun-wads smoking on the water. Then off goes the cable to right or
left! Sixty to seventy miles an hour, cutting the water into foam, and we
swing into the course of the whale. Before going fairly in tow on this
occasion, an unusual thing happened. The whale’s huge head, immediately
after it sounded, suddenly shot up twenty yards in front of our bows,
twenty feet in the air, and went as quickly down. We were glad it had
not touched us, or we would have had quick work to get into our boat, and
our little steamer would have made a deep-sea sounding.
About three hundred and sixty fathoms ran out before we saw further
sign; running over the two ringing barrels of our strong steam winch,
five times round each barrel with the brake such as you see on a railway
engine wheel hard down and burning; then foam appeared a quarter of a
mile in front, and our whale’s flippers, then the mighty flukes of its
enormous tail, slowly threshing the sea into white. To right and left
it travelled, towing us ahead whilst our engine reversed at eight knots
but not for long. We managed to wind up some line and got the gun loaded
again, thinking it might take another harpoon to stop it, for lancing
from the small boat in such a heavy sea would have been too dangerous,
even if possible.
It was a short fight. At ten-thirty we harpooned it; at eleven-thirty
we had it alongside; a weight and line thrown over its tail; took out a
heavy chain which was shackled round above the tail and hauled by the
steam winch to our port bow beside the anchor davit, then with the huge
body with its lovely white corded underside above water surging alongside
we steamed ahead. It seemed to be about seventy feet and would probably
weigh about seventy tons, and it made us lie well over to port. To float
it a little higher out of the water, we drove a pointed tube with holes
in its side through the white kid skin, and blew in air and steam. We
began our day’s hunting at three A.M. and wound up and started home at
eleven-twenty P.M. We have to go, without waiting for another whale, for
we fear the station hands may be standing idle and we have ninety miles
to cover at not much more than six miles an hour, for the dead whale
alongside stops our speed.
No two whale hunts are alike; one trip you come home with a “clean
ship” and empty bunkers, the next you get two or even three whales in a
couple of days and come home at once and give all hands, Shetlanders and
Norsemen on shore, work for night and day.[6] Here we consider three in
a day for one steamer a big catch.
Another Government regulation restricts our number of steamers and we are
allowed to have only two, so that often it happens, owing to our only
having two steamers and both of them being out hunting, our station hands
stand idle, but the restrictions put on this new industry by official
“experts” at home and in our colonies, who have only recently learned
that this whaling exists, make too tearful a subject to insist on here.
During a summer season, our Shetland station, with only two steamers, may
catch from seventy to one hundred. There are any number of whales, but
they are becoming every year more wary. Needless to say that a whale, if
it is frightened, cannot be approached. The whole of the whale’s body
is used. The best of the meat is sent to Copenhagen, bought by Danish
butchers at the stations for 18s. a barrel, sold at Copenhagen as a
delicacy at £9 a barrel. It is very good to eat—between beef and veal,
but rather better than either. The Japanese pay 25 cents a pound for it,
but we use it for fertilising fields. The oil extracted from the blubber,
meat and bone, sells now at about £4 a barrel; six barrels equal,
roughly, a ton (2240 lb.). But the value of whale oil is increasing owing
to the invention of a “hardening” process by which the oil is turned into
white tasteless edible fat excellent for cooking purposes.
The Right Atlantic whale (Biscayensis), of which we get one or two in the
year, is worth £300 to £400, owing to its having good whalebone. What
we usually catch, “seihvale,” and “finners,” have only a little bone in
their jaws, worth about £30 per ton. The Greenland Right whale that used
to be fished had sometimes a ton of it, which a few years ago was worth
from £2000 to £3000. The prices fluctuate considerably. When this modern
whaling began oil went down £10 a ton; now, even though the production is
enormously increased, its value is £24 per ton, and will rise in a year
or two very much.
In the north the largest whale we have killed was seventy-five feet in
length. But in the south, in the Antarctic regions, we have fired into
whales well over one hundred feet in length, and have heard from reliable
observers of whales killed and measured up to one hundred and twenty feet.
To get the full value out of a whale it must be taken to a station on
shore or to a floating factory. After the blubber is removed thirty per
cent. more oil is obtained from the carcass by cooking the meat and bone
in huge tanks. This meat oil is twenty per cent. less in value than the
blubber oil.
The residue of bone and meat is ground into guano, which fetches about £7
per ton. This meat oil and guano together give an addition of more than
fifty per cent. to the value of the blubber alone. This guano is much
used in America for exhausted cotton soils, and I have been told that it
is beginning to be used for rubber estates.
Before writing more about the cruise of the St Ebba, I may be allowed
to insert here another chapter of notes on modern whaling made on board
another whaler in these same seas—that is, to the north, east and west of
the Shetlands.