Farewell, Ponta Delgada, with your pretty streets perfumed with fir
planks and pineapples; farewell, San Miguel. How sweetly the delicate
tints of your capital—pale pink and blue—show in this early sunlight.
Your great clock on the white campanile marks six A.M. and the sunlight
glitters already on the blue tiles above the arches of the inner harbour.
That is the place for an artist who would paint in highest toned
water-colours—flowers, fruit, wine skins, white walls, and blue sea. I
will grant you all this, San Miguel, but there’s a grim side to your
island—cliffs and a lee-shore on a black night, and I seem to recall a
wreck and rockets, distress signals all a fraud, and then there are those
moonlike craters, your beauty spots. You and the Inferno, Saint Michael,
seem to be somewhat neighbourly. And your people we recall, how kind to
the stranger, a few of them, dark-haired girls in white dresses on green
balconies seemed pretty enough, but in the country how close they seem
to the soil, worn and aged, one good-looking among a thousand sad women,
one pretty child in thread-bare rags healthy, amongst so many who looked
pinched and hungry.
No, we do not drop tears at leaving you; but think hopefully of Madeira
and Funchal to the S.E., where we may meet white people of our own race,
and where I have seen whales; and perhaps we may have a day or two in the
boats, off shore twenty miles, in the heat and blue rollers, fishing for
tunny. A two-hundred-pounder, with the hard line cutting grooves in the
gunwale as it whizzes into the depths, is good hunting.
I pen this farewell to the island in my bunk, looking out at the port,
determined not to go on deck and see any more departures—that hurried one
in the night watches to save a wreck was quite satisfying, so “we” doze
and let the town and the island go by, and think of Madeira and the Cape
Verde, and hope that some day soon our little expedition will begin to
pay, and try to forget that so far we have only incurred expenses—five
shillings here and five pounds there—pilotage and telegrams, and a
thousand trifles that mount up alarmingly without one penny of return.
Thus musing somewhat sadly, and all the time listening to the beat of
our engines, I notice they suddenly go a little slow, and a tide of
depression that even the joy of leaving port will not quite raise, floods
my spirits. Yes, they are dead slow now—something wrong again!—and I
harden my heart and turn out and find we are heading back for the distant
island—more weeks of detention, I can see. But—what is this—everyone is
intently looking forward with craned necks!
Great Scott! There are whales—SPERM—as you live! At last—whales! One
little blast on the calm grey ocean a mile away, then another, eight or
nine. Nine times several hundred pounds sterling rolling round, each
about a mile apart. Are we really in our senses—are we really to strike
oil? Heaven be praised—it is not the engine—it is all right.
We’re after one.
Henriksen made a bee-line down to his cabin, got out powder and had the
harpoon-gun loaded and ready in two shakes.
* * * * *
It is difficult to write about the day now, we are tired, the work has
been great and our first whale worth, say, some hundred pounds, enough to
cover our outward-bound expenses; it seems hardly believable.
It is true we have only one of these sperm. We could, I believe, have
killed several, but for a completely new crew[10] at whaling; we thought
one would be enough for us. It is a bit awkward with one fish running a
line, to tackle a second that perhaps goes in the opposite direction,
and the flensing at sea for such a small crew is such a big work that we
simply stuck to the one.
We chased it for hours; there is no good in chasing one and then rushing
off to the next that appears; by a fluke you might strike across the
stranger’s course and get him on the rise, but the best plan is to study
the movements of the whale of your choice, and by judiciously following
it learn its movements so as to cut across its course and get in your
harpoon at the right time.
It is difficult to describe the intense excitement of chasing whales, and
the more so when your interest in it is even more than the hunting—when
you have shares to make profit on, for friends interested in the bag.
At about seven-thirty we saw the whales, and by nine we had been three
times almost within harpooning distance, say within forty yards, when
always the whale “tailed up,” and took his final dive. A whale comes to
the surface, blows and takes in breath, several times, just going below
surface between each blast. After it feels refreshed it goes below on
its business for a dive of, say, twenty minutes or half-an-hour, and may
appear any distance from the spot it went down at. In this last dive it
raises the after part of its body with a slow elevation, a sort of sad
farewell to the hunter. Certain whales, such as the sperm and narwhal,
and Right whales, lift the whole tail out, but others, such as the
finners we hunt off Shetland, only show the ridge in front of the tail;
and seldom show their tails or flukes until they are harpooned.
One thing that comforted us greatly was that we knew from this whale’s
movements that though he avoided our treading on his heels, as it were,
he was never scared or gallied by our engine or propeller’s beat.
It would take volumes to describe the different ways of each kind of
whale. The sperm whale usually feeds in something of a circle, so you
keep cruising round the inside of the circle.
For hours we chased, very seldom speaking, eating brown bread, and
drinking coffee, standing on deck, sticking to the neighbourhood of our
first acquaintance, balancing the prospects of our expedition’s failure
or success on the way this one whale took our approach. Sceptics had told
us the beat of our motor would frighten a whale more than the slower
revolving screw of the steam-whaler; we play our one card that it will
not, so to-day our anxiety can be understood.
[Illustration: CUTTING WITH A SPADE INTO THE CASE OR HEAD OF A CACHALOT
WHALE]
[Illustration: THE TAIL OF A SPERM OR CACHALOT WHALE SOUNDING]
There was too much at stake on this occasion for the writer to do the
harpooning, so Henriksen took the gun and harpoon. The actual firing and
hitting a whale any good pistol-shot can do. But manœuvring the vessel,
stalking the whale, as it were, needs a good deal of experience, and
it goes without saying one must have perfect sea-legs, indeed, that is
perhaps the greatest difficulty. It takes a great deal of experience
to be unconscious, when there is a roll on, of any effort to balance
oneself, which is, of course, absolutely essential for a successful shot.
[Illustration]
At last the grey, blunt-headed whale rose almost in front of us a little
to starboard, blew his blast and went under for a few yards and rose
again dead in front of our bow; higher and higher his back rose, then
_Bang!_—and we were fast and the line rattling out.
That was a grand boom! and a straight shot. A great surge followed as
the whale went down, and out went the five-inch rope—for but a short
distance, though it was a heavy rope, spun for far more powerful prey
than the sperm or cachalot, and we soon began to reel in, and the writer
with a long lance ended the valuable animal’s troubles.
I noticed, as the point of the lance went into the whale, that its
silky grey skin was marked here and there with series of circles,
something like Burmese writing magnified. I take these to be the marks
from the suckers on the tentacles of the great cuttle-fish on which
the sperm feeds, and here and there, over its great sides, were deeper
scrawls—light-brown-coloured lines on the greyish skin which may have
been made by the cuttle-fishes’ parrot-like beaks. Two of its companions
came alongside it while it was still alive, and tried to help it by
shouldering it away from us.
Had we only had a bay to tow these whales into we would have easily taken
more, but we did not quite know how the Portuguese would have welcomed us
had we towed their bodies back to Ponta Delgada after killing them, if
not exactly at their own doors, still within sight of their town.
The big grey backs with their blunt noses looked intensely interesting
when we first came amongst them—cruising about and puffing little forward
jets of spray almost without the least regard to our presence....
We have waited several months for the sight, and I am inclined to think
we feel repaid—that is, looking at the matter merely as hunting.
... Somehow I feel at a loss here how to describe the accumulation of
feelings at the end of the long waiting and planning. We feel we are
right on the high road to success, our engine worked perfectly, our
vessel was apparently calculated to a nicety to approach and kill whales,
and to keep the sea almost indefinitely.
Big finner whaling, such as I have described in a previous chapter, is
much more exciting than killing these sperm or cachalot, for which our
tackle is unnecessarily powerful. But after all, in the pursuit of any
kind of game, it is the hunting that counts as sport. The killing with
any modern weapon of precision is nothing, it is the getting there that
counts, and we have had many months both planning and hunting before we
got this, our first bull sperm; also it is of greater value than the
largest finner; and that must be our first consideration.
We found no ambergris[11] in this one. It disgorged several cuttle-fish
but they were not lost, for the sharks soon came round, and nothing comes
amiss to them.
[Illustration: “STARBOARD” TRYING TO GET OUT OF THE LASSO]
[Illustration: CUTTING UP SPERM BLUBBER
In the waist of the “St. Ebba.” The boilers are in the background.]
Ambergris is found sometimes in sperm’s intestine, sometimes thrown from
the whale into sea. It is used as the basis of scents. At present its
selling price is 100 shillings per ounce. A whaler a year ago secured
some from one whale, sold it for £20,000.
All afternoon we worked, cutting up the whale—first of all we made a cut
round its shoulder and fin, or hand—a whale has bones like those of a
hand inside the fibrous fin. In fact, the whale’s anatomy is similar to
that of a land animal, not like that of fish. The hip bone and thigh are
only floating rudimentary bones.
We cut a round hole through the blubber, round the fin or arm, shoved
a strop or loop of rope through from the under side of the blubber and
pulled that taut on to a sort of button of oak called a toggle on the
outside surface of skin. Then, with the winch’s hook and chain hooked on
to the strop, we pulled away, by steam power gradually raising a strip of
blubber about two feet in width and of about eight inches in depth off
the whale, as the body slowly revolved in the water, cutting it clear of
the flesh with the flensing blades from the dory or flat-bottomed boat.
From the illustration you may form an idea of how the blubber is “made
off.” The head and tail parts were treated separately. Finner whales on
a landing-stage on shore are stripped or flensed from end to end with
an instrument like a sabre on a long shaft, but if we have to strip or
flense one at sea, we shall have to do so in the same way as this sperm
whale.
We worked late and turned in, all very tired. The sharks that came round
us to feed on our whale were a new experience to most of our northern
sailors; they grew quite excited about them; some of them, instead of
sleeping, stayed on deck to kill sharks. To kill one single-handed seemed
to be the great ambition.
The first mate at breakfast to-day related how he harpooned his shark,
fifteen feet long, in the morning watch, dropped a running bowline round
its tail, and with a tackle got it on board by himself, and Henriksen,
his elder brother, quietly described a cross with his knife’s point on
our galley roof!
But it was quite true; and other men did so—a seaman-like piece of work.
The harpooning is easy as shelling peas, but to make fast the line to a
belaying pin and get a running bowline round the tail, and then hitch on
a tackle and purchase to that and heave the shark outward single-handed
needs sailorlike neatness and quickness rather than great strength.
We let the youngsters have their fill of shark-killing; when each has
killed or helped to kill one, the novelty will wear off, and they will
get accustomed to their company, and will not stop work to pay them more
than a passing attention with the flensing blades.
At early dawn we recommence at the whale; our crew have not yet quite
mastered the process, but they will do it. We have strong winches if few
men, fifteen is our complement, about sixty used to tackle the job in the
old style.
With practice and our captain’s ingenuity and determination we will get
_Case_, _Junk_, and all on board before midday meal. It is a thorough bit
of sailor’s work, every dodge of purchase block and pulley needed.
We have the junk now on board; it was a big hoist, and at the next port
of call we will get some extra thick wire back-stays to strengthen our
masts, and so heave the next head on board with greater ease.
It is a marvel this case or long forehead of spongelike spermaceti oil,
only covered with thin soft blubber skin.
The mass of fibrous tissue is even fuller of liquid oil than a bath
sponge could be full of water. Whilst it was still warm we pumped it out
with flexible steel pipes, but it condensed and choked the pipe. But when
it grew colder we could just handle it. I should think it produced about
two tons of liquid oil.
Now we have the long under jaw of white leather-like quality, with its
double row of ivory-white teeth, on board.
This is where our plan of campaign differs from the most recent whalers;
they either tow their prey ashore or into harbour alongside great
floating ship factories of several thousand tons, to be cut up and boiled
down. We cut it up at sea and take the blubber on board, melt or cook
it, and sail away.
[Illustration: HAULING SPERM WHALE’S FLIPPER AND BLUBBER ON BOARD THE
“ST. EBBA”]
Our deck is now like a marble quarry, with great white chunks of fat in
the moonlight, and dusky figures cutting these into blocks of about a
foot square to go into our two pots.
To-day steam was let into them at one hundred and sixty pounds’ pressure,
and the cooker has to watch two taps running from these, each now pouring
out beautifully fine sperm oil.
Our whale cooker is little more than a boy, but he is a bit of a chef
already, having studied whale-boiling in these very remote frost-bound
islands, the South Shetlands previously referred to.
He stands by the two pots on either side of our small ship amidships, one
to port, one to starboard; now and then he dips a bright tin ladle into
the oil that keeps running out into an open tank, and sniffs at it, and
pours it back lovingly, examining its colour, which is like pale sherry.
There is no smell actually about our cooking process, till the water
that is formed in the pots by the condensing steam has to be blown out
of the bottoms of the pots. Then the blue sea gets a yellow scum and the
atmosphere is pervaded far and near with the smell of beef-tea—the smell
alone would make an invalid get up and walk for miles to windward.
At night it comes into my port under the blanket and permeates my being;
we wish all whales at the bottom of the sea, but _toute passe_ and in a
minute or two the air is fresh again, and there is nothing left but a
greasy feeling.
Each pot holds about fifteen barrels. I think this whale’s blubber will
fill them several times and produce, say, seventy barrels, at five
barrels to the ton, and the ton at £30. This whale ought to be worth
moneys, so we see a fortune increasing by leaps and bounds, and we put
aside all thoughts of more delays and difficulties and losses.
It is sweltering hot on our lee side, the side on which we are flensing
the whale. Our men take to drink!—a pale pink tipple brewed in a large
margarine tin and ladled round; I think it must be one part red-currant
wine to five of water; I have tried it once or twice and always just
miss the taste.
Blue sharks have pretty colours, especially when they are freshly
caught, steel-grey and violet on their back, changing to green and
white underneath. The long emerald-green eye in the grey skin is most
effective—wicked-looking to a degree! Who has described the exquisite
colour of the shark’s pilot fish, with its upright stripes blue and
white, like the wings of a jay, and who can tell why they swim in front
of his nose—is it to give the shark a squint? And why do they sometimes
change (there are generally two of them) and take up positions on either
side of his dorsal fin, and move as the shark moves exactly, never
getting an inch from the position, and then, without rhyme or reason,
they will both swim away somewhere, and come back again?
I think the grimmest aspect of sharks is in a quiet moonlight night, when
above the calm water you see their dark fins quietly circling round you,
and sometimes there is a whitish gleam as one quietly puts its head up
above the moonlit water and quietly takes hold of a lump of whale fat,
and breaks the stillness by shaking it like a tiger!
Still another half-night at our whale—the deck full of moonlight and dark
shadows, great cubes of sperm white as marble, gleaming knife blades, the
light glinting on oily hands, arms and faces, greasy thumps as chunks of
blubber are heaved across the deck towards the cooking pots. Two dusky
figures stand on top of these, silhouetted against the blue sky and
stars. We work by moonlight, for dark nights we shall have an acetylene
flare. The spermaceti of the head we handle in buckets and bailers. It
seems a question whether to bail the clean, slippery oil with buckets or
grasp it with both hands. All hands work very hard, for every handful,
every chunk represents profit to them, and they joke all the time, with
never a swear word, as far as I can hear. The captain smokes and looks
on and smiles at some of their remarks. He keeps his eye on everything
without interfering unnecessarily. The mate, his young brother, and his
men want to show what they can do, though this line of business is new to
most of them.
The cooking pots worked all night, and in my watch below, half awake, I
dreamed of a hundred kitchens cooking beef-tea, then turned over with
a sense of great satisfaction at having seen our show well started—the
motor is going all right and we have proved we can approach whales as
well as with a steam-whaler—a great satisfaction—and have proved we can
flense a sperm at sea with such tackle as we have: and both the approach
and the flensing before we left home were said to be impossible.
It is true that our flensing took a long time. But in the case of Right
whales, Australis, if we are lucky enough to fall in with them, it will
pay at least to take their whalebone at sea if nothing else.
On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful masts to
use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more rapid flensing could be
made than we can manage with only fifteen all told, including engineers,
and a very small ship.
Our plan now is to try round about the Azores, if the weather is good,
for another whale or two, then to proceed to Madeira, about two days’
sail—I have seen several kinds of whales off its north coast—and then
hunt south and west of Africa, down to the Cape, and then to the Crozet
Islands for seals, or to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar, for sperm
and blue whales, and possibly thereafter to New Zealand. Some islands we
have information about south of New Zealand for Bone whales or Australis.
St Ebba got a few more whales in the latitudes of the Azores and Madeira,
but the weather got too rough, so she continued southwards.
Possibly the end of the last chapter was rather oily and whaley, and
smelt perhaps a little of filthy lucre. Perhaps I may be allowed,
therefore, a chapter on flowers and Madeira—a day or two on shore and
some tunny-fishing for a change from whale-hunting; though I must
say that no two whale-hunts are quite alike; each has its particular
thrilling interest, more especially the big finner hunting, for they are
ten times more powerful than sperm. But repeated description, without
depicting boats flying in the air and whales standing on their heads,
and so on, must become tiresome reading, so as I cannot, from a casual
habit of accuracy, invent thrilling incidents, let us to tunny. Tunny
are not half bad fun when you have one on, but the waiting out on the
blue rollers in a blaze of sun twenty miles from shore is trying, but
when one comes on and your coils of line are whizzing out into the blue
at a fearful rate, there is quite a lively time, almost anxious—for you
have to be careful not to get caught by hands or feet in the coils of
the line, which is pretty thick, just the thickness of this rather thick
fountain pen with which we continue these notes.