[Illustration]
In the smoking-room on the way south on board we naturally talk much
about fishing, for half our fellow-passengers have been salmon-fishing
and there is much comparison of Bags and Rivers. Some have done better
than they expected, others growl at their bags, and the season, and at
the agent, whoever it was, that put them on to such a bad river. But all
are charmed with Norse scenery, and Norse people. We come in for some
questioning about bears. There is no invidious comparison between a bag
of bears and a creel of salmon; but we have to be careful about whales,
for it would be a little rough on the veteran salmon-fisher to cap his
best with a yarn on whales: after he has, at length and with the utmost
modesty, recounted the fight his fifty-pounder put up, and the hundred
yards it took out, it would scarcely be considerate to refer to some
fifty-ton or one-hundred-ton whale, and the miles of cable it had reeled
off in a twinkling. Of course everyone knows a whale is not a fish—still,
the slight similarity is such that whaling yarns are apt to be damping
when fishing stories are going; though the true Walton angler is happy
catching any size of fish; a six-ounce trout to me, in a Highland burn,
is almost as good as a whale. Notwithstanding this delicate tact on our
part, whaling was introduced one evening in the smoking-room, and the
writer was rather surprised to find that several men had very little idea
of the functions of whalebone or its place in the whale’s anatomy, so we
had to draw diagrams, such as these here reproduced, to describe shortly
the way whalebone works. This is a side view of the head of a finner
whale; it shows the outer edges of the whalebone plates that hang round
the sides of the upper jaw. The blades vary in thickness in different
whales; in the common Balænoptera Borealis, such as this, it measures
about a quarter of an inch thick and is about two feet at deepest. The
blade has hair on its inside edge. If the whale’s head were cut across
between the nose and eye, or corner of its mouth, the section would
be like this. These hairs intertwine and form a surface to the palate
like a well-worn cocoanut mat. The whale opens its mouth and takes in
possibly a ton of water thick with small shrimps, partially closes its
jaws and expels the water through the fibrous surface and out between the
blades. I suppose by raising the enormous soft plum-coloured tongue (D in
section) towards the hairy palate or mat of interwoven hairs at the edge
of each plate (CC in section) it prevents the shrimps going out with the
water, and the tongue works the shrimps down to its throat. I have not
calculated the food which I have seen come out of a whale’s stomach when
cut up, but I say, at a rough guess, forty to sixty gallons—three or four
barrels of very minute shrimps. I have only seen the remains of one of
the Right whale, Mysticetus, and those of the smaller, somewhat similar
whale, Balæna Australis. The Right or Greenland whale had very long bone,
up to eleven feet. To cover the whalebone, the lower lip is formed as
in this jotting. Scoresby maintains that when the Right whale’s mouth
is closed, the blades bend or fold back towards the throat. This seems
probable.
[Illustration: A Finner’s Head]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Right Whale’s Head]
You see from the difference between these whales’ points that the rorqual
is a more athletic beast than the Right whale.
[Illustration: RIGHT WHALES AND SPERM UP TO 60 FEET, FINNERS UP TO 110
FEET
1. Greenland Right whale, _Balæna Mysticetus_, up to 60 feet in length,
generally found near Arctic ice. The smaller whalebone whale of the
Atlantic and Southern oceans is somewhat similar in shape; it runs to
50 feet; shows tail as it dives; has no fin on back. It is called the
Nordcapper or _Biscayensis_ and _Australis_.
2. The Sperm or Cachalot, _Physeter Macrocephalus_. A toothed whale 50 to
60 feet; shows tail when it dives; sometimes breaches, i.e. leaps several
times in succession as it travels; blast low and projected forward.
3. Seihvale, _Balænoptera Borealis_, 40 to 50 feet; blast about 10 feet;
does not usually lift tail out of water before final dive; has fin on
back, is therefore a “finner.”
4. Fin whale, _Balænoptera Musculus_, up to 75 feet. The Blue whale,
_Balænoptera Sibbaldii_, is similar, with smaller fin on back; both make
blasts about 18 feet. The Blue whale in Southern seas has been killed up
to 110 feet.]
The sperm or cachalot whale’s head is very peculiar. It has teeth in
lower jaw and a small tongue. All the part forward of the dotted line
here, which represents the skull of the head, is a mass of fibrous oil.
When you cut through the skin you can bail it out with pitchers or pump
it out till it gets too cold, after which you do not know whether to lift
it in your hands or in a bucket. It is beautifully clear, no one knows
why it has this extraordinary spongy forepart to its head. This sperm oil
is chemically different from the oil of other whales; it is more of the
nature of a wax: the other whales are of a fatty nature. It makes the
finest lubricant for modern machinery.
[Illustration: Head of a Sperm, showing Skull]
The blow hole is on left side of this “case,” the blow pipe from lungs
going through it. And the jet of steam is thrown up two or three feet
and forward, so a sperm’s blast is easily distinguished from that of the
finner, which is bigger and straight up, say to twenty or thirty feet, or
possibly forty feet, in the case of a large Blue whale.
APPENDIX
OLD AND NEW WHALING
The Greenland whaling was practically given up in 1912, and the Southern
whaling for sperm and cachalot and the Southern Right whale, which in the
first half of the nineteenth century employed five hundred to six hundred
vessels, practically stopped forty years ago.
WHY THE OLD STYLES OF WHALING STOPPED
The growing scarcity and wariness of the Greenland Right whale and the
fall in the price of oil and whalebone gave the Balæna Mysticetus or
Greenland Right whale an indefinitely prolonged close season, and in the
Southern Seas the sperm and the Southern Right whale (Australis) fishing
almost entirely ceased, owing to increased working expenses, smaller
catches, and the fall in the price of oil.
“MODERN WHALING” IN NORTH ATLANTIC
In 1886 Captain Svend Foyn of Tonsberg, Norway, invented the plan of
capturing the powerful rorquals, commonly called Finners, that are very
numerous, but were too strong and too heavy to be killed in the old
style from row-boats, and which till his time had not been hunted. By
his process a small cannon on the bow of a small steamer could fire
a heavy harpoon, one and a half to two hundredweights, attached to a
four-and-a-half hawser. This steamer and line were sufficiently buoyant
and strong to play the whale and to haul its body up from the depths when
it sank dead. The Greenland whale and sperm both floated when they died.
Fortunes were made from the firmer whale hunting off the Norwegian coast.
COMMERCIAL ASPECT AND METHOD OF MODERN WHALING
Some of these companies work with shore factories, others with both shore
factories and large floating factories on board steamers of up to seven
thousand tons burden, and each company hunts the whales with, on an
average, three to four small steamers, which harpoon the whales within a
radius of eighty or ninety miles and tow them in to the shore factories,
or the floating factory which is at anchor in some sheltered bay. The
bodies are rapidly cut up at a fully equipped land station, and both the
blubber and carcass are entirely utilised. At a floating station the
bodies, as a rule, are cast adrift.
WHALE MEAT MEAL AND GUANO
Whale meat meal is made from fresh whale flesh; it is used for feeding
cattle. It contains 17½ per cent. proteid, and guano is made from the
remaining flesh and about one-third bone. The analysis of this gives 8·50
per cent. ammonia and 21 per cent. triboric phosphates. The whole of
the dried bones and meat may be made into one product—a rich guano with
10 to 12 per cent. ammonia and 17 to 24 per cent. phosphates. The best
whale meat is better to eat and tastes better than the best beef; it is
“lighter” and more appetising. The writer proposed to supply an immense
quantity to our military authorities, but the offer was not accepted.
WHALEBONE OR BALEEN
The baleen or whalebone of these finner whales is only worth about £30
per ton. It hardly pays to cure it and market it. The whalebone of
the Australis or Southern Right whale has fallen to £85 per ton; it
is occasionally caught. Its bones and that of the finner brought down
the price of the Greenland whalebone, which a few years ago was sold
at between £2000 and £3000 per ton, one good whale having a ton in its
mouth, which paid the expenses of the trip.
During the short season, 1st November till end of April, in a recent
year the catch in South Georgia by twenty-one steamers amounted to five
thousand whales, finner, hump-back and blue whales, which gave two
hundred thousand barrels of whale oil and eight thousand tons guano.
RETURNS FROM WHALING
Taking in the other islands of the Falkland Islands Dependencies in the
neighbourhood of Cape Horn, the catch in a recent year amounted to four
hundred and thirty thousand barrels of oil—eight thousand three hundred
and seventy-five tons guano, the gross value of which may be reckoned at
£1,360,000. Practically the whole of this goes to Norway.
For forty-eight years this Modern Whaling has been carried on in the
North Atlantic, and since 1904 the Modern Whaling which we advocated
in Edinburgh in 1895 has been prosecuted by Norwegians in the South
Atlantic from desolate barren British possessions, with the great results
mentioned above. There are vast areas of ocean teeming with these whales
where, so far, they have not been hunted, and still the general British
public stands aloof and takes no share in it. Whaling to-day, from the
Norwegian point of view, is an industry: three generations have been
brought up on it; but from the average British point of view it is still
a speculation.
AMBERGRIS
Ambergris is a biliary concretion generally found in the alimentary canal
of a feeble or diseased sperm whale. Sometimes it is found exteriorly
near the vent. It is also found floating or drifted ashore. It is of
great value, and is principally used as the basis or vehicle for perfumes.
Some years ago Norwegians found four hundred and twenty kilos in a sperm
on the Australian coast; this was valued at £27,000. This is much the
largest piece I have heard of.
It is a solid, fatty substance of a marbled grey-and-black appearance,
and generally contains the beaks of cuttle-fish, which form the principal
food of the cachalot or sperm whale. When fresh it has an intolerable
smell, but after exposure this goes, and leaves what some people call a
“peculiar sweet earthy odour.” It burns with a pale blue flame and melts
somewhat like sealing-wax.
THE WHALING INDUSTRY
The St Abb’s Whaling Limited, of which the writer was appointed chairman,
found whales at the Seychelles in great numbers in 1913, and we got
permission from the Government there to start an up-to-date whaling
station with licences for two whaling steamers, which we chartered and
had sent out to us from Norway.
Our capital was about £20,000, and our station and factory was nearly
completed, and we were catching numbers of sperm and some “finner”
whales, when war broke out. Our supply of coals was cut off; barrels
could not be obtained for oil; sacks could not be got for the whale guano
(which is made from bones and whale meat); and freight completely failed
us owing to the congestion caused by war material on the various lines.
We could neither get supplies nor send away our products to Durban and
other ports, except in some small consignments on our Diesel motor tank
whaler, the St Ebba, which finally we were obliged to run on sperm oil at
about £28 per ton!
We could not “stop down” owing to contracts; and the difficulty of
raising more capital under war conditions finally forced us to voluntary
liquidation.
This promising industry, therefore, had to be stopped in the meantime,
and it occurs to us that as one of the “Empire’s resources” the
Government could very easily put it into working order again, with
great profit and for the benefit of the Islands, Africa and the Old
Country. For we found immense numbers of sperm and finner whales round
the Seychelles, and even before getting into our stride we had secured
one hundred and forty whales and shipped home two thousand three hundred
barrels of oil, besides what was lost before the station factory was
completed and what we were obliged to use locally for our Diesel motor in
place of common solar oil. Six barrels of whale oil go to the ton.
With the experience before them of the vast revenues from whaling at
South Georgia and South Shetlands going almost entirely to Norway, our
Government has, we think, wisely restricted the granting of whaling
licences at the Seychelles to British concerns. Our company rented land
for our station, built the factories and has some years’ lease to run,
and the best season for fishing begins about 1st of May.
The vast whaling industry in the Falkland Island Dependencies—the South
Georgia and South Shetlands—was started as a result of the information
that Dr W. S. Bruce and the writer brought back from there in regard to
the immense number of finner whales we had seen there in our Antarctic
voyage of 1892-1893 to the Antarctic and Weddell Sea; and in one of the
first of the Norwegian companies, which is still successful to-day, the
writer took a considerable interest at its start. This company is to-day
paying a dividend of over 150 per cent. But for the war I consider the
Seychelles whaling should have paid handsomely now.
In regard to this great modern whaling industry in the sub-Antarctic
seas we may here say that, previously to the Norwegians starting it, Dr
Bruce and the writer held meetings in Edinburgh and urged the leading
business men, merchants and shipping people to take it up. We foretold
the fortunes that were to be made, but they did not rise. A little later
the Norwegian who we hoped to have as manager for the first whaling
station in South Georgia, Captain Larsen, succeeded in raising capital in
Argentina, and I am told began with a modest 70 per cent. profit in the
first year. Norwegian companies quickly followed his lead and utilised
our Empire’s resources for Norway!
FOOTNOTES
[1] Values of whales and their products constantly change. To-day finner
whales’ oil is becoming almost as valuable as sperm oil.
[2] A pram is a flat-bottomed boat, square stern and pointed saucer bow.
[3] A. Balænoptera Musculus; B. Balænoptera Sibbaldii; C. Balænoptera
Borealis; D. Balæna Biscayensis; E. Physeter Macrocephalus.
[4] Far the best whale to eat is the Seihvale Balænoptera Borealis.
[5] We picked up a dead whale two days later and we hope it was the whale
we lost.
[6] In the South Shetlands Captain Sorrensen, referred to previously,
killed ten whales in one day, one was ninety feet in length, and probably
weighed ninety tons.
[7] This snatch block hangs on a wire rope that passes over a sheaf and
leads down to the hold, where it is attached to an enormously strong
steel spiral spring. This makes a give-and-take action when hauling
up the dead whale from the depths to counteract the jar on line and
donkey-engine that comes from the rise and fall of the steamer on the sea.
[8] In these waters a small shrimp called a “krill” colours the water a
rusty red for miles.
[9] Later we learned that three S.S. of several thousand tons were hove
to during this hurricane. Bravo, St Ebba! sixty-nine tons, one hundred
and ten feet, and the safest boat in the world.
[10] Only a few of our men have done bottle-nose whaling, but that is the
same thing on a small scale.
[11] Ambergris. See Appendix.
[12] These carros are the cabs of Funchal, like four-poster beds,
brilliantly painted, with chintz hangings, and sledge runners instead of
wheels. Their progress is like that of a crab—neither fast nor certain.
[13] Don José and Don Luis Gongolez Herrero.
[14] Don Luis Herrero Velasquez.
[15] Seal oil is manufactured into olive oil in Paris and the patent
leather is made at Dundee.
[16] Not proved. The smaller 250 bore and higher velocity seemed to us
all to be most effective and stopping.
[17] I have learned since that five vessels came to grief in the year
1913. Of one trip (Stefansen’s) only one man has survived.
INDEX
A
Accounts, difficulties in the, 43
Aften-mad, 72
Alexandra Whaling Station, 63, 67
Allan, Miss Sheila, 108
Ambergris, 22, 159, 314
Ammunition, 40
Anatomy of a whale, 159
Anchor, accident to our, 46
Arctic and Antarctic compared, 187, 189
Arctic Fox, 278
Arctic grouse, 278
Ardnamurchan, 107
Azores, the, 165
B
Balæna, the, 51, 104
Balæna Mysticetus, 21, 312
Balænoptera Borealis, 69
Balænoptera musculus, 17
Balænoptera Sibbaldii, the, 17
Baleen or whalebone, 313
Balkan, Mrs, 31
Balta Sound, 14
Bear and cubs, 258
Bear-hunting, accidents in, 225
Bear yams, 216
Bearded seal, 269
Bears, stalking, 193;
dangers, 194, 196;
size and weight, 198;
stalking, 199, 200;
lassoing, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 224, 227, 241, 247
Belfast, 116
Birthday celebration, a, 105
Blowing up, 87
Blue seal, 269
Blue sharks, 162
Bottle-nose whale, 282
Bowhead or Right whale, 21
Bressay Light, 55
Britannia Club, the, 31
Bruce, Dr W. S., 179
Bull-fight on deck, 262
Bull versus bear, 285
C
Cabins, 28
Cachalot, 18
Cachés, 215
Calving bergs, 271
Caribou and whale, colours of the, 94
Carros, 166
Case or forehead, 160
Casperg, Captain, 89
Chanteys, 102
Christiania Fiord, 27
Clarence Island, 31
Clothes, darned and patched, 73
Cod liver oil, 208
Colla Firth, 18
Colours in Arctic regions, 192
Colours of the sea, 77
Colours of the whale, 93
Cormorants and gulls, 60
Cormorants, on cooking, 65
“Cruise of the Cachalot,” the, 22
Cubs, lassoing, 264
Customs officers, 58
Cutting up a whale, 159
Cuttlefish and whales, 254
D
Dangers of whaling, 89, 260
De Gisbert, F. A., 180
Dolphins, 127
Dreams, 227
Drimnin, 108
Dundee whalers, 21
E
Embryos of whale, 94
Engine troubles, 50, 148
Explosive bombs, 23
F
Factories, shore and floating, 313
Falkland Islands, 24, 314
Finners, 312
Flippers of seal, 240
Fogs, Arctic, 279
Fonix, the, 180, 181
Food of the whale, 254
Football, 219
Foyn, his wife and a whale, 232;
diplomatic steward, 233
Fuel, oil, 28
Fulmar petrels, 212
Funchal, 165
G
Gear for raising dead whale, 87
Geraniums, 165
Gisbert and the bear, 216
Graham’s Land, 23
Grampuses, 148
Greenland, 267
Greenland whales, 24
Greenland Right whale fishing, 21, 312
Guano, 24, 84, 313
Gun, the harpoon, 29
Gun and harpoon, old style, 231
Gun, loading the, 88
Guns, light versus heavy, 222
H
Haldane family, stories of the, 66
Haldane, R. C., 64
Haldane, the, 17
Hamilton, C. A., 180
Hansen and the bear, 217
Harp seals, 258, 275
Harpoons, 29, 312
Hawsers for big whales, 24
Head of whale, 90
Heavy seas, 122
Henriksen, 18, 19, 29, 32, 119
Henriksen, Harold, 29
Herring-hog or springer, 69
Hospitality, Norwegian, 34
Hydrangeas, 139
I
Ice colours, 201
Ice floes, 248
Icebergs, 187
Ivory gull, 182-212
J
Jackaranda, the, 165
Japanese whaling grounds, 18, 57
Jensen’s store, 33
K
Killer, A, 47
Knarberg, 39
L
_Lagopus hemilencurus_ or Arctic grouse, 278
Lancing a whale, 93
Larsen, Captain, 41, 316
Lasso practice, 250
Lassoing a bear, 210, 285
Leigh Smith, 215
Lerwick, 54, 55
Lifeboat, an extravagant, 51
Lighthouses, 106
Lochend, 18, 65
M
Mackerel, killing, 72
Madeira, flowers, 165;
tunny-fishing, 166;
sunrise, 168;
boats, 169
Magazine ship, 24
Magnus Andersen, 60
Mainmast, our, 41
Meals on a whaler, 71
Measurement of bears, 238
Meat meal, whale, 313
Mess-room and galley, 28, 49
Middag-mad, 71
Mishnish Hotel, the, 113
“Modern Whales,” 22, 24
Monaco, Prince of, 94
Motor versus steam-engine, 106
Motor whaler, a, 19
N
Narwhal-fishing, dangers of, 238
Narwhals, 204, 228, 229, 234, 237
Natural colours and surroundings, 200
New Bedford sailing ships, 21
Nordcapper, the, 26
Norse sporting guns, 121
Norwegian ladies, 30
Norwegian pilot-boats, 18
O
Oban, 110
Oil and coal, 117
Oil, value of, 83, 84
Oil, whale, 24
“Old man Henriksen,” 43
Orca gladiator, the, 47
P
Partings, 45
Pet bear, a, 257
Pilot-fish, 162
Pine trunk, a drifting, 220
Phosphorescent sea, a, 124
Photography, 245
Physeter Macrocephalus, 69
Plankton, 253
Pod or herd, 92
“Polar Research,” Bruce’s, 192
Ponta Delgada, arcade, 132;
boats, 133;
fish, 135;
Robert’s café, 136;
a wreck, 135;
hydrangeas, 139;
shops, 140;
the Atlantico, 140;
dress, 141;
whales, 142;
the sea, 143;
the Seven Cities, 151
Port and starboard bears, our, 265
Protective colouring, 192, 276
Pussy finger, 209
R
Ramna Stacks, the, 100
Red-tape entanglements, 60
Registration bothers, 60
Restrictions, 83
Richardson’s skua, 212
Right whale, 21
Robertson, Captain T., 25
Romance of the sea, 129
Rorquals, 19, 312
Runners, 119
Ryvingen Light, the, 47
S
Saga, Jansen’s, 34
St Ebba, the, 19, 27, 35, 38, 48, 97
St Abb’s Whaling Limited, 315
San Miguel, 130
Scoresby, 179
Sea legs, 157
Sea-sick crew, a, 48
Seal-hunting, 208
Sealers, 183
Seals, Arctic and Antarctic, 188
Seals, Vitulina, 191;
Phoca Barbata, 197;
Cystophora Cristata, 203;
blue, 269;
Barbata, 269;
harp, 275
Seven Cities, the, 151
Seychelles, the, 176, 315
She-cook, our, 206
Sharks, 159, 207, 208
Shetlands in pawn, the, 60
Shoppie, a, 125
Shore stations, 24
Sing-song, a, 99
Sorrensen, the brothers, 31
South Georgia, 31
South Shetlands, the, 31
Spanish National Polar Expedition, 180
Sperm or Cachalot whale, 22, 312
Spitzbergen ice, 287
Sports on the ice, 279
Spotted mackerel, 169
Spy, a, 113
Squalus Borealis, 207
Stalking and being stalked, 199
Starboard bear, the, 263
Strength of the bear, 245
Sumburgh Head, 55
Sunday observance, 125
Sven Foyn’s harpoons, 23, 312
Svendsen, 180
T
Tackle for whaling, 232
“Tail up,” 88
Tail of a whale, the, 87
Tanks, 28
Teeth of seals, 269
Tobermory, 108
Tongue of the whale, 254
Tonsberg, 19, 21, 27, 30, 33;
whaling industry, 233
Torp, Captain, death of, 89
Trammel net, a, 134
Trolle, Captain, 179
Trouble with captive bears, 248
Tunny, 164, 166
U
Ulstermen and Scots, 118
Union Jack, our, 110
Urmston, 110
V
Viking ship, 21
_Vulpes lagopus_, or Arctic fox, 278
W
Wading stockings, advantages of, 209
Weddel Sea, the, 23
Whale cooker, our, 161
Whale flesh, 83, 91
Whale’s food, 101
Whale gun, the, 69
Whale lines, 28, 33, 87
Whale products and their prices, 83
Whale steak, 72
Whalebone, 21, 24, 83
Whales, Balænoptera Sibbaldii, 17;
Balænoptera musculus, 17;
Balænoptera Vaga, 69;
Right whale, 18, 21, 58, 232, 254;
Cachalot, 18, 21;
Sperm, 18, 22, 155;
Finners, 19, 22, 69;
Balæna mysticetus, 21, 58;
Biscayensis, 25, 58, 69, 83;
Orca gladiator, 47;
blue, 69;
Seihvale, 69, 83;
_Ziphius novæ Zealandicæ_, 144;
narwhals, 204;
_Hyperoodon diodon_, 282
Whales and cuttle-fish, 158
Whales, habits of, 156
Whales, harpooning, 77, 81, 86, 92, 155, 157, 176
Whales, size of, 84
Whales and trout, 76
Whaling, old and modern, 21, 314
Winch, the, 28
Wives at sea, 111
Wounded seals, 260
Wreck, a, 136
Y
Yacht club, Tonsberg, 30
Yell Sound, 69
Yule, 108
Yusako, 32
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH