A Sack of Shakings
NEW AND RECENT FICTION
Crown 8vo, 6s.
WILLOWDENE WILL
By HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE
CINDERS
By HELEN MATHERS
THE MASTER PASSION
By BESSIE HATTON
THE TAPU OF BANDERAH
By LOUIS BECKE and WALTER JEFFERY
A HONEYMOON IN SPACE
By GEORGE GRIFFITH
’TWIXT DEVIL AND DEEP SEA
By Mrs. C. N. WILLIAMSON
THE STRANGE WOOING OF MARY BOWLER
By RICHARD MARSH
THE INVADERS
By LOUIS TRACY
SENTENCE OF THE COURT
By HEADON HILL
A VARSITY MAN
By INGLIS ALLEN
AMONG THE RED WOODS
By BRET HARTE
WITH THE BLACK FLAG
By WILLIAM WESTALL
A PATCHED-UP AFFAIR
By FLORENCE WARDEN
Second Edition
THE CONSCIENCE OF CORALIE
By F. FRANKFORT MOORE
JOAN BROTHERHOOD
By BERNARD CAPES
THE BRAND OF THE BROAD ARROW
By MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
THE WHITE BATTALIONS
By F. M. WHITE
GOD’S LAD
By PAUL CUSHING
Fourth Edition
NELL GWYN
By F. FRANKFORT MOORE
THE PLUNDER SHIP
By HEADON HILL
Second Edition
THE WOMAN OF DEATH
By GUY BOOTHBY
THE SPELL OF THE SNOW
By G. GUISE MITFORD
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
A Sack of Shakings
By
Frank T. Bullen, F.R.G.S.
Author of
“The Cruise of the Cachalot,” “With Christ at Sea,”
“The Men of the Merchant Service,” etc.
London
C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.
Henrietta Street
1901
Preface
Most of the Essays brought together in the present volume have been
published in the _Spectator_, and are here reproduced by the kind
permission of the proprietors of that journal, for which I offer them
my hearty thanks. It may perhaps not be out of place to mention, for
the benefit of any who may wish to know why these Articles have been
published in book form, that the action has been taken in deference
to the wishes of a very large number of friends who, having read the
sketches in the _Spectator_, desired to have them collected in a
permanent and handy shape.
Contents
PAGE
THE ORPHAN 1
A PORPOISE MYTH 21
CATS ON BOARD SHIP 28
THE OLD EAST INDIAMAN 38
THE FLOOR OF THE SEA 45
SHAKESPEARE AND THE SEA 52
THE SKIPPER OF THE “AMULET” 60
AMONG THE ENCHANTED ISLES 71
SOCIABLE FISH 79
ALLIGATORS AND MAHOGANY 101
COUNTRY LIFE ON BOARD SHIP 110
“THE WAY OF A SHIP” 169
SEA ETIQUETTE 184
WAVES 191
A BATTLESHIP OF TO-DAY 199
NAT’S MONKEY 206
BIG GAME AT SEA 218
A SEA CHANGE 230
LAST VOYAGE OF THE “SARAH JANE” 242
SEA-SUPERSTITIONS 254
OCEAN WINDS 260
THE SEA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 268
THE POLITY OF A BATTLESHIP 276
THE PRIVACY OF THE SEA 284
THE VOICES OF THE SEA 292
THE CALLING OF CAPTAIN RAMIREZ 302
MARATHON OF THE SEALS 313
OCEAN CURRENTS 319
THE UNDYING ROMANCE OF THE SEA 327
SAILORS’ PETS 334
THE SURVIVORS 341
BENEATH THE SURFACE 351
BY WAY OF AMENDS 361
THE MYSTERY OF THE “SOLANDER” 371
OUR AMPHIBIOUS ARMY 381
A Sack of Shakings
THE ORPHAN
Shining serenely as some immeasurable mirror beneath the smiling
face of heaven, the solitary ocean lay in unrippled silence. It was
in those placid latitudes south of the line in the Pacific, where
weeks, aye months, often pass without the marginless blue level being
ruffled by any wandering keel. Here, in almost perfect security from
molestation by man, the innumerable denizens of the deep pursue their
never-ending warfare, doubtless enjoying to the full the brimming cup
of life, without a weary moment, and with no dreary anticipations of
an unwanted old age.
Now it fell on a day that the calm surface of that bright sea was
broken by the sudden upheaval of a compact troop of sperm whales from
the inscrutable depths wherein they had been roaming and recruiting
their gigantic energies upon the abundant molluscs, hideous of mien
and insatiable of maw, that, like creations of a diseased mind,
lurked far below the sunshine. The school consisted of seven cows and
one mighty bull, who was unique in appearance, for instead of being
in colour the unrelieved sepia common to his kind he was curiously
mottled with creamy white, making the immense oblong cube of his
head look like a weather-worn monolith of Siena marble. Easeful
as any Arabian khalif, he lolled supine upon the glittering folds
of his couch, the welcoming wavelets caressing his vast form with
gentlest touch, and murmuring softly as by their united efforts they
rocked him in rhythm with their melodic lullaby. Around him glided
his faithful harem--gentle timid creatures, no one of them a third
of their lord’s huge bulk, but still majestic in their proportions,
being each some forty-five feet in length by thirty in girth.
Unquestionably the monarch of the flood, their great chief accepted
in complacent dignity their unremitting attentions, nor did their
playful gambols stir him in the least from his attitude of complete
repose.
But while the busy seven were thus disporting themselves in happy
security there suddenly appeared among them a delightful companion
in the shape of a newly-born calf, elegantly dappled like his sire,
the first-born son of the youngest mother in the group. It is
not the habit of the cachalot to show that intense self-effacing
devotion to its young which is evinced by other mammals, especially
whales of the mysticetæ. Nevertheless, as the expectation of this
latest addition to the family had been the reason of their visit
to these quiet latitudes, his coming made a pleasant little ripple
of satisfaction vibrate throughout the group. Even the apparently
impenetrable stolidity of the head of the school was aroused into
some faint tokens of interest in the new-comer, who clung leech-like
to his mother’s side, vigorously draining the enormous convexity
of her bosom of its bounteous flood of milk. So well did he thrive,
that at the end of a week the youngster was able to hold his own
with the school in a race, and competent also to remain under water
quite as long as his mother. Then the stately leader signified to his
dependants that the time was now at hand when they must change their
pleasant quarters. Food was less plentiful than it had been, which
was but natural, remembering the ravages necessarily made by such a
company of monsters. Moreover, a life of continual ease and slothful
luxury such as of late had been theirs was not only favourable to the
growth of a hampering investiture of parasites--barnacles, limpets,
and weed--all over their bodies, but it completely unfitted them for
the stern struggle awaiting them, when in their periodical progress
round the world they should arrive on the borders of the fierce
Antarctic Zone. And besides all these, had they forgotten that they
were liable to meet with man! A sympathetic shudder ran through every
member of the school at that dreaded name, under the influence of
which they all drew closer around their chief, sweeping their broad
flukes restlessly from side to side and breathing inaudibly.
The outcome of the conference, decided, as human meetings of the kind
are apt to be, by the commanding influence of one master will, was
that on the next day they would depart for the south by easy stages
through the teeming “off-shore” waters of South America. All through
that quiet night the mighty creatures lay almost motionless on the
surface, each the opaque centre of a halo of dazzling emerald light,
an occasional drowsy spout from their capacious lungs sliding through
the primeval stillness like the sigh of some weary Titan. When at
last the steel-blue dome above, with its myriad diamond spangles,
began to throb and glow with tremulous waves of lovely vari-coloured
light flowing before the conquering squadrons of the sun, the
whole troop, in open order about their guide, turned their heads
steadfastly to the south-west, steering an absolutely undeviating
course for their destination by their innate sense of direction
alone. Up sprang the flaming sun, a vast globe of fervent fire that
even at the horizon’s edge seemed to glow with meridian strength. And
right in the centre of his blazing disc appeared three tiny lines,
recognisable even at that distance by the human eye as the masts of
a ship whose hull was as yet below the apparent meeting-place of sea
and sky. This apparition lay fairly in the path of the advancing
whales, who, unhappily for them, possessed but feeble vision, and
that only at its best straight behind them. So on they went in
leisurely fashion, occasionally pausing for a dignified descent in
search of food, followed by an equally stately reappearance and
resumption of their journey. Nearer and nearer they drew to the fatal
area wherein they would become visible to the keen-eyed watchers at
the mast-head of that lonely ship, still in perfect ignorance of any
possible danger being at hand. Suddenly that mysterious sense owned
by them, which is more than hearing, gave warning of approaching
peril. All lay still, though quivering through every sinew of their
huge bodies with the apprehension of unknown enemies, their heads
half raised from the sparkling sea-surface and their fins and flukes
testing the vibrations of the mobile element like the diaphragm of a
phonograph. Even the youngling clung to his mother’s side as if glued
thereto under the influence of a terror that, while it effectually
stilled his sportiveness, gave him no hint of what was coming. At the
instance of the Head all sank silently and stone-like without any
of those preliminary tail-flourishings and arching of the back that
always distinguish the unworried whale from one that has received
alarming news in the curious manner already spoken of. They remained
below so long and went to so great a depth, that all except the huge
leader were quite exhausted when they returned again to the necessary
air, not only from privation of breath, but from the incalculable
pressure of the superincumbent sea. So for a brief space they lay
almost motionless, the valves of their spiracles deeply depressed as
they drew in great volumes of revivifying breath, and their great
frames limply yielding to the heave of the gliding swell. They had
scarcely recovered their normal energy when into their midst rushed
the destroyers, bringing with them the realisation of all those
paralysing fears. First to be attacked was the noble bull, and
once the first bewildering shock and smart had passed he gallantly
maintained the reputation of his giant race. Every device that
sagacity could conceive or fearlessness execute was tried by him,
until the troubled ocean around the combatants was all a-boil, and
its so recently unsullied surface was littered with tangled wreaths
of blood-streaked foam. Whether from affection or for protection
is uncertain, but the rest of the family did not attempt to flee.
All seven of the cows kept close to their lord, often appearing as
if they would shield him with their own bodies from the invisible
death-darts that continually pierced him to the very seat of his vast
vitality. And this attachment proved their own destruction, for their
assailants, hovering around them with the easy mobility of birds,
slew them at their leisure, not even needing to hamper themselves
by harpooning another individual. Instead, they wielded their long
lances upon the unresisting females, leaving the ocean monarch to his
imminent death. So successful were these tactics that before an hour
had flown, while yet the violet tint of departing night lingered on
the western edge of the sea, the last one of those mighty mammals
had groaned out the dregs of her life. Flushed with conquest and
breathless from their great exertions, the victors lolled restfully
back in their boats, while all around them upon the incarnadined
waters the massy bodies of their prey lay gently swaying to the
slumberous roll of the silent swell.
Meanwhile, throughout that stark battle, what of the youngling’s
fate? By almost a miracle, he had passed without scathe. What manner
of dread convulsion of Nature was in progress he could not know--he
was blind and deaf and almost lifeless with terror. With all that
wide ocean around him he knew not whither to flee from this day of
wrath. Of all those who had been to him so brief a space ago the
living embodiment of invincible might, not one remained to help or
shield him, none but were involved in this cataclysm of blood. His
kindred were cut off from him, he was overlooked by his enemies, and
when he came to himself he was alone. A sudden frantic impulse seized
him, and under its influence he fled, fled as the bee flies, but
without the homing instinct to guide him, southward through the calm
blue silences of that sleeping ocean. On, on, he fled untiring, until
behind him the emerald sheen of his passage through the now starlit
waters broadened into a wide blaze of softest light. Before him lay
the dark, its profound depths just manifested by the occasional
transient gleam of a palpitating medusa or the swift flight of a
terrified shark. When compelled to break the glassy surface for
breath there was a sudden splash, and amid the deep sigh from his
labouring lungs came the musical fall of the sparkling spray. When
morning dawned again on his long objectless flight, unfailing
instinct warned him of his approach to shallower waters, and with
slackening speed he went on, through the tender diffused sunlight of
those dreamy depths, until he came to an enormous submarine forest,
where the trees were fantastic abutments of living coral, the leaves
and fronds of dull-hued fucus or algæ, the blossoms of orchid-like
sea-anemones or zoophytes, and the birds were darting, gliding fish,
whose myriad splendid tints blazed like illuminated jewels.
Here, surely, he might be at peace and find some solace for his
loneliness, some suitable food to replace that which he had hitherto
always found awaiting him, and now would find nevermore. Moving
gently through the interminably intricate avenues of this submarine
world of stillness and beauty, his small lower jaw hanging down as
usual, he found abundant store of sapid molluscs that glided down
his gaping gullet with a pleasant tickling, and were soon followed
by a soothing sense of hunger satisfied. When he rose to spout he
was in the midst of a weltering turmoil of broken water, where the
majestic swell fretted and roared in wrath around the hindering
peaks of a great reef--a group of islands in the making. Here, at
any rate, he was safe, for no land was in sight whence might come
a band of his hereditary foes, while into that network of jagged
rocks no vessel would ever dare to venture. After a few days of
placid enjoyment of this secure existence he began to feel courage
and independence, although still pining for the companionship
of his kind. Thus he might have gone on for long, but that an
adventure befell him which raised him at once to his rightful
position among the sea-folk. During his rambles through the mazes
and glades of this subaqueous paradise he had once or twice noticed
between two stupendous columns of coral a black space where the
water was apparently of fathomless depth. Curiosity, one of the
strongest influences actuating the animate creation, impelled him to
investigate this chasm, but something, he knew not what, probably
inherited caution, had hitherto held him back. At last, having met
with no creature nearly his own size, and grown bold by reason of
plenteous food, he became venturesome, and made for that gloomy
abyss, bent upon searching its recesses thoroughly. Boldly he swept
between the immense bastions that guarded it, and with a swift upward
thrust of his broad horizontal tail went headlong down, down, down.
Presently he saw amidst the outer darkness a web of palely gleaming
lines incessantly changing their patterns and extending over an area
of a thousand square yards. They centred upon a dull ghastly glare
that was motionless, formless, indescribable. In its midst there
was a blackness deeper, if possible, than that of the surrounding
pit. Suddenly all that writhing entanglement wrapped him round, each
clutching snare fastening upon him with innumerable gnawing mouths
as if to devour him all over at once. With a new and even pleasant
sensation thrilling along his spine the young leviathan hurled
himself forward at that midmost gap, his powerful jaws clashing and
his whole lithe frame upstrung with nervous energy. Right through the
glutinous musky mass of that unthinkable chimæra he hewed his way,
heeding not in the least the wrenching, sucking coils winding about
him, and covering every inch of his body. Absolute silence reigned
as the great fight went on. Its inequality was curiously abnormal.
For while the vast amorphous bulk of the mollusc completely dwarfed
the comparatively puny size of the young cachalot, there was on the
side of the latter all the innate superiority of the vertebrate
carnivorous mammal with warrior instincts transmitted unimpaired
through a thousand generations of ocean royalty. Gradually the
grip of those clinging tentacles relaxed as he felt the succulent
gelatinousness divide, and with a bound he ascended from that
befouled abysmal gloom into the light and loveliness of the upper
air. Behind him trailed sundry long fragments, _disjecta membra_ of
his late antagonist, and upon these, after filling his lungs again
and again with the keen pure air of heaven, he feasted grandly.
But in spite of the new inspiring sense of conscious might and
ability to do even as his forefathers had done, his loneliness
was heavy upon him. For, like all mammals, the cachalot loves the
fellowship of his kin during the days of his strength; and only when
advancing age renders him unable to hold his own against jealous
rivals, or makes him a laggard in the united chase, does he forsake
the school and wander solitary and morose about the infinite solitude
of his limitless abode. And so, surrounded by the abundant evidences
of his prowess, the young giant meditated, while a hungry host of
sharks, like jackals at the lion’s kill, came prowling up out of the
surrounding silence, and with shrill cries of delight the hovering
bird-folk gathered in myriads to take tithe of his enormous spoil.
Unheeding the accumulating multitudes, who gave _him_ ample room
and verge enough, and full of flesh, he lay almost motionless, when
suddenly that subtle sense which, attuned to the faintest vibrations
of the mobile sea, kept him warned, informed him that some more than
ordinary commotion was in progress not many miles away. Instantly
every sinew set taut, every nerve tingled with receptivity, while,
quivering like some fucus frond in a tide rip, his broad tail swayed
silently to and fro, but so easily as not to stir his body from
its attitude of intense expectation. A gannet swept over him close
down, startling him so that with one fierce lunge of his flukes he
sprang forward twenty yards; but recovering himself he paused again,
though the impetus still bore him noiselessly ahead, the soothing
wash of the waves eddying gently around his blunt bow. Shortly
after, to his unbounded joy, a noble company of his own folk hove
in sight, two score of them in goodliest array. They glided around
him in graceful curves, wonderingly saluting him by touching his
small body with fin, nose, and tail, and puzzled beyond measure as
to how so young a fellow-citizen came to be inhabiting these vast
wastes alone. His tale was soon told, for the whale-people waste no
interchange of ideas, and the company solemnly received him into
their midst as a comrade who had well earned the right to be one of
their band by providing for them so great a feast. Swiftly the spoil
of that gigantic mollusc was rescued from the marauding sharks,
and devoured; and thorough was the subsequent search among those
deep-lying darknesses for any other monsters of the same breed that
might lie brooding in their depths. None were to be found, although
for two days and nights the questing leviathans pursued their keen
investigations. When there remained no longer a cave unfathomed or
a maze unexplored, the leader of the school, a huge black bull of
unrivalled fame, gave the signal for departure, and away they went in
double columns, line ahead, due south, their splendid chief about
a cable’s length in advance. The happy youngster, no longer astray
from his kind, gambolled about the school in unrestrained delight
at the rising tide of life that surged tumultuously through his
vigorous frame. Ah; it was so good to be alive, glorious to speed,
with body bending bow-wise, and broad fan-like flukes spurning the
brilliant waves behind him, ecstasy to exert all the power he felt
in one mad upward rush until out into the sunlight high through the
warm air he sprang, a living embodiment of irresistible force, and
fell with a joyous crash back into the welcoming bosom of his native
deep. The sedate patriarch of the school looked on these youthful
freaks indulgently, until, fired by the sight of his young follower’s
energy, he too put forth all his incredible strength, launching his
hundred tons or so of solid weight clear of the embracing sea, and
returning to it again with a shock as of some Polyphemus-hurled
mountain.
Thus our orphan grew and waxed great. Together, without mishap of
any kind, these lords of the flood skirted the southern slopes of
the globe. In serene security they ranged the stormy seas from
Kerguelen to Cape Horn, from the Falklands to Table Bay. Up through
the scent-laden straits between Madagascar and Mozambique, loitering
along the burning shores of Zanzibar and Pemba, dallying with the
eddies around the lonely Seychelles and idling away the pleasant
north-east monsoon in the Arabian Sea. By the Bab-el-Mandeb they
entered the Red Sea, their majestic array scaring the nomad fishermen
at their lonely labour along the reef-besprinkled margins thereof,
remote from the straight-ruled track down its centre along which the
unwearied slaves of the West, the great steamships, steadily thrust
their undeviating way. Here, in richest abundance, they found their
favourite food, cuttlefish of many kinds, although none so large as
those haunting the middle depths of the outer ocean. And threading
the deep channels between the reefs great shoals of delicately
flavoured fish, beguiled by the pearly whitenesses of those gaping
throats, rushed fearlessly down them to oblivion. So quiet were
these haunts, so free from even the remotest chance of interference
by man, their only enemy, that they remained for many months, even
penetrating well up the Gulf of Akaba, that sea of sleep whose waters
even now retain the same primitive seclusion they enjoyed when their
shores were the cradle of mankind.
But now a time was fast approaching when our hero must needs meet
his compeers in battle, if haply he might justify his claim to be
a leader in his turn. For such is the custom of the cachalot. The
young bulls each seek to form a harem among the younger cows of the
school, and having done so, they break off from the main band and
pursue their own independent way. This crisis in the career of the
orphan had been imminent for some time, but now, in these untroubled
seas, it could no longer be delayed. Already several preliminary
skirmishes had taken place with no definite results, and at last,
one morning when the sea was like oil for smoothness, and blazing
like burnished gold under the fervent glare of the sun, two out
of the four young bulls attacked the orphan at once. All around
lay the expectant brides ready to welcome the conqueror, while in
solitary state the mighty leader held aloof, doubtless meditating on
the coming time when a mightier than he should arise and drive him
from his proud position into lifelong exile. Straight for our hero’s
massive head came his rivals, charging along the foaming surface like
bluff-bowed torpedo rams. But as they converged upon him he also
charged to meet them, settling slightly at the same time. Whether by
accident or design I know not, but certainly the consequence of this
move was that instead of their striking him they met one another over
his back, the shock of their impact throwing their great heads out
of the sea with a dull boom that might have been heard for a mile.
Swiftly and gracefully the orphan turned head over flukes, rising on
his back and clutching the nearest of his opponents by his pendulous
under-jaw. The fury of that assault was so great that the attacked
one’s jaw was wrenched sideways, until it remained at right angles
to his body, leaving him for the rest of his life sorely hampered
in even the getting of food, but utterly incapable of ever again
giving battle to one of his own species. Then rushing towards the
other aggressor the victorious warrior inverted his body in the sea,
and brandishing his lethal flukes smote so doughtily upon his foe
that the noise of those tremendous blows reverberated for leagues
over the calm sea, while around the combatants the troubled waters
were lashed into ridges and islets of snowy foam. Very soon was the
battle over. Disheartened, sick, and exhausted, the disabled rival
essayed to escape, settling stone-like until he lay like some sunken
wreck on the boulder-bestrewn sea-bed a hundred fathoms down. Slowly,
but full of triumph, the conqueror returned to the waiting school
and, selecting six of the submissive cows, led them away without any
attempt at hindrance on the part of the other two young bulls who had
not joined in the fray.
In stately march the new family travelled southward out of the Red
Sea, along the Somali Coast, past the frowning cliffs of Sokotra,
and crossing the Arabian Sea, skirted at their ease the pleasant
Malabar littoral. Unerring instinct guided them across the Indian
Ocean and through the Sunda Straits, until amid the intricacies of
Celebes they ended their journey for a season. Here, with richest
food in overflowing abundance, among undisturbed reef-beds swept by
constantly changing currents, where they might chafe their irritated
skins clean from the many parasites they had accumulated during
their long Red Sea sojourn, they remained for several seasons. Then,
suddenly, as calamities usually come, they were attacked by a whaler
as they were calmly coasting along Timor. But never till their dying
day did those whale-fishers forget that fight. True, they secured
two half-grown cows, but at what a cost to themselves! For the young
leader, now in the full flush of vigorous life, seemed not only to
have inherited the fighting instincts of his ancestors, but also to
possess a fund of wily ferocity that made him a truly terrible foe.
No sooner did he feel the first keen thrust of the harpoon than,
instead of expending his strength for naught by a series of aimless
flounderings, he rolled his huge bulk swiftly towards his aggressors,
who were busily engaged in clearing their boat of the hampering sail,
and perforce helpless for a time. Right down upon them came the
writhing mass of living flesh, overwhelming them as completely as
if they had suddenly fallen under Niagara. From out of that roaring
vortex only two of the six men forming the boat’s crew emerged alive,
poor fragments of humanity tossing like chips upon the tormented sea.
Then changing his tactics, the triumphant cachalot glided stealthily
about just beneath the surface, feeling with his sensitive flukes for
anything still remaining afloat upon which to wreak his newly aroused
thirst for vengeance. As often as he touched a floating portion of
the shattered boat, up flew his mighty flukes in a moment, and, with
a reflex blow that would have stove in the side of a ship, he smote
it into still smaller splinters. This attention to his first set of
enemies saved the other boats from destruction, for they, using all
expedition, managed to despatch the two cows they had harpooned,
and when they returned to the scene of disaster, the bull, unable
to find anything more to destroy, had departed with the remnant of
his family, and they saw him no more. Gloomily they traversed the
battle-field until they found the two exhausted survivors just feebly
clinging to a couple of oars, and with them mournfully regained their
ship.
Meanwhile the triumphant bull was slowly making his way eastward,
sorely irritated by the galling harpoon which was buried deep
in his shoulders, and wondering what the hundreds of fathoms of
trailing rope behind him could be. At last coming to a well-known
reef he managed to get the line entangled around some of its coral
pillars, and a strenuous effort on his part tore out the barbed
weapon, leaving in its place a ragged rent in his blubber four feet
long. Such a trifle as that, a mere superficial scratch, gave him
little trouble, and with the wonderful recuperative power possessed
by all the sea-folk the ugly tear was completely healed in a few
days. Henceforth he was to be reckoned among the most dangerous of
all enemies to any of mankind daring to attack him, for he knew his
power. This the whalemen found to their cost. Within the next few
years his fame had spread from Cape Cod to Chelyushkin, and wherever
two whaleships met for a spell of “gamming,” his prowess was sure to
be an absorbing topic of conversation. In fact, he became the terror
of the tortuous passages of Malaysia, and though often attacked
always managed to make good his escape, as well as to leave behind
him some direful testimony to his ferocious cunning. At last he
fell in with a ship off Palawan, whose crew were justly reputed to
be the smartest whale-fishers from “Down East.” Two of her boats
attacked him one lovely evening just before sunset, but the iron
drew. Immediately he felt the wound he dived perpendicularly, but
describing a complete vertical circle beneath the boat he rose again,
striking her almost amidships with the front of his head. This, of
course, hurled the crew everywhere, besides shattering the boat. But
reversing himself again on the instant, he brandished those awful
flukes in the air, bringing them down upon the helpless men and
crushing three of them into dead pieces. Apparently satisfied, he
disappeared in the gathering darkness.
When the extent of the disaster became known on board the ship, the
skipper was speechless with rage and grief, for the mate who had been
killed was his brother, and very dear to him. And he swore that if
it cost him a season’s work and the loss of his ship, he would slay
that man-killing whale. From that day he cruised about those narrow
seas offering large rewards to any of his men who should first sight
his enemy again. Several weeks went by, during which not a solitary
spout was seen, until one morning in Banda Strait the skipper himself
“raised” a whale close in to the western verge of the island.
Instantly all hands were alert, hoping against hope that this might
prove to be their long-sought foe at last. Soon the welcome news came
from aloft that it _was_ a sperm whale, and an hour later two boats
left the ship, the foremost of them commanded by the skipper. With
him he took four small barrels tightly bunged, and an extra supply of
bomb-lances, in the use of which he was an acknowledged expert. As
they drew near the unconscious leviathan they scarcely dared breathe,
and, their oars carefully peaked, they propelled the boats by paddles
as silently as the gliding approach of a shark. Hurrah! fast; first
iron. “Starn all, men! it’s him, d--n him, ’n I’ll slaughter him ’r
he shall me.” Backward flew the boat, not a second too soon, for
with that superhuman cunning expected of him, the terrible monster
had spun round and was rushing straight for them. The men pulled for
dear life, the steersman swinging the boat round as if she were on
a pivot, while the skipper pitched over the first of his barrels.
Out flashed the sinewy flukes, and before that tremendous blow the
buoyant barrico spun through the air like a football. The skipper’s
eyes flashed with delight at the success of his stratagem, and over
went another decoy. This seemed to puzzle the whale, but it did not
hinder him, and he seemed to keep instinctively heading towards the
boat, thus exposing only his invulnerable head. The skipper, however,
had no idea of rashly risking himself, so heaving over his remaining
barrel he kept well clear of the furious animal’s rushes, knowing
well that the waiting game was the best. All through that bright
day the great battle raged. Many were the hair-breadth escapes of
the men, but the skipper never lost his cool, calculating attitude.
Finally the now exhausted leviathan “sounded” in reality, remaining
down for half-an-hour. When he reappeared, he was so sluggish in
his movements that the exultant skipper shouted, “Naow, boys, in on
him! he’s our whale.” Forward darted the beautiful craft under the
practised sweep of the six oars, and as soon as she was within range
the skipper fired his first bomb. It reached the whale, but, buried
in the flesh, its explosion was not disabling. Still it did not spur
the huge creature into activity, for at last his strength had failed
him. Another rush in and another bomb, this time taking effect just
abaft the starboard fin. There was a momentary accession of energy
as the frightful wound caused by the bursting iron tube among the
monster’s viscera set all his masses of muscle a-quiver. But this
spurt was short-lived. And as a third bomb was fired a torrent of
blood foamed from the whale’s distended spiracle, a few fierce
convulsions distorted his enormous frame, and that puissant ocean
monarch passed peacefully into the passiveness of death.
When they got the great carcass alongside, they found embedded in the
blubber no fewer than fourteen harpoons, besides sundry fragments
of exploded bombs, each bearing mute but eloquent testimony to the
warlike career of the vanquished Titan who began his career as an
orphan.
A PORPOISE MYTH
Far away to the horizon on three sides of us stretched the sea, its
wavelets all sparkling in the sun-glade, and dancing under the touch
of the sedate trade-wind. Above hung a pale-blue dome quivering with
heat and light from the sun, that, halfway up his road to the zenith,
seemed to be in the act of breaking his globular limit and flooding
space with flame. Ah! it was indeed pleasant to lie on that little
patch of pure sand, firm and smooth as a boarded floor, with the
rocks fringed by greenery of many kinds overshadowing us, and the
ocean murmuring at our feet.
The place was a little promontory on the eastern shore of Hapai, in
the Friendly Islands, and my companion, who lay on the sand near
me, was by birth a chief, a splendid figure of a man, with a grave,
intellectual face, and deep, solemn voice that refused to allow the
mangled English in which he spoke to seem laughable. I knew him to
be the senior deacon of the local chapel, a devotionalist of the
most rigid kind, yet by common consent a righteous man, well-beloved
by all who knew him. He was my “flem” or friend, who, of his own
initiative, kept me supplied with all such luxuries as the village
afforded, and so great was my admiration for him as a man that it was
with no ordinary delight I succeeded in persuading him to accompany
me on a holiday ramble. He had led me through forest paths beset by a
thousand wonders of beauty in vegetation and insect life, showing me
as we went how the untilled ground produced on every hand abundance
of delicious food for man, up over hills from whence glimpses of
land and sea scape incessantly flashed upon the sight till my eyes
grew weary of enjoying, over skirting reefs just creaming with the
indolent wash of the sea, every square yard of which held matter for
a life’s study, but all beautiful beyond superlatives. And at last,
weary with wondering no less than with the journey, we had reached
this sheltered nook and laid down to rest, lulled into dreamy peace
by the murmurs of the Pacific rippling beneath us.
For some time we lay silent in great content. Every thought, every
feeling, as far as I was concerned, was just merged in complete
satisfaction of all the senses, although at times I glanced at my
grave companion, wondering dreamily if he too, though accustomed to
these delights all his life long, could feel that deep enjoyment
of them that I, a wanderer from the bleak and unsettled North,
was saturated with. But while this and kindred ideas lazily ebbed
and flowed through my satisfied brain, the bright expanse of sea
immediately beneath us suddenly started into life. A school of
porpoises, numbering several hundreds, broke the surface, new
risen from unknown depths, and began their merry gambols as if the
superabundant life animating them must find a vent. They formed into
three divisions, marched in undulating yet evenly spaced lines,
amalgamated, separated, reformed. At one moment all clustered in
one central mass, making the placid sea boil; the next, as if by a
pivotal explosion, they were rushing at headlong speed in radiating
lines towards a circumference. As if at preconcerted signal, they
reached it and disappeared. Perfect quiet ensued for perhaps two
minutes. Then, in solemn measure, solitary individuals, scattered
over a vast area, rose into the air ten, fifteen, twenty feet, turned
and fell, but, at our distance from them, in perfect silence. This
pretty play continued for some time, the leaps growing gradually less
vigorous until they ceased altogether, and we saw the whole company
massing themselves in close order far out to sea. A few minutes, for
breathing space I suppose, and then in one magnificent charge, every
individual leaping twenty feet at each bound, they came thundering
shoreward. It was an inspiring sight, that host of lithe black bodies
in maddest rush along the sea-surface, lashing it into dazzling foam,
and sending across to our ears a deep melodious roar like the voice
of many waters. Within a hundred yards of the shore they disappeared
abruptly, as if an invisible line had there been drawn, and presently
we saw them leisurely departing eastward, as though, playtime over,
they had now resumed the normal flow of everyday duties.
While I lay quietly wondering over the amazing display I had just
witnessed, I was almost startled to hear my companion speak, for he
seldom did so unless spoken to first. (I translate.) “The great game
of the sea-pigs that we have just seen brings back to my memory
an old story which is still told among our people, but one which
we are trying hard to forget with all the others, because they are
of the evil days, and stir up in our children those feelings that
we have fought so long to bury beyond resurrection. This story,
however, is harmless enough, although I should neither tell it to,
or listen to it from, one of mine own people. Long ago when we
worshipped the old cruel gods, and my ancestors were chief priests
of that worship, holding all the people under their rule in utter
terror and subjection, our chief, yes, our only, business besides
religion was war. Our women were slaves who were only born for our
service, and it is not easy now to understand what our feelings then
were toward the sex to whom we are now so tender. Our only talk was
of the service of the gods and of war, which indeed was generally
undertaken for some religious reason, more often than not to provide
human victims for sacrifice. In one of these constantly recurring
wars the men of Tonga-tabu--of course each group of these islands was
then independent of the others--made a grand raid upon Hapai. They
were helped by some strangers, who had been washed ashore from some
other islands to the northward, to build bigger and better war-canoes
than had ever before been seen, for our people were never famous for
canoe-building. They kept their plans so secret that when at daybreak
one morning the news ran round Hapai that a whole fleet of war-canoes
were nearing the shore, our people were like a school of flying-fish
into the midst of which some dolphin has suddenly burst. One of my
ancestors, called ‘The Bone-Breaker’ from his great strength and
courage, met the invaders with a mere handful of his followers and
delayed their landing for hours until he and all his warriors were
killed. By this time fresh bands were continually arriving, so that
the warriors from Tonga must needs fight every inch of their way
through the islands. And as they destroyed band after band their
war-hunger became greater, their rage rose, and they determined to
leave none of us living except such as they kept for sacrifice on
their altars at home. Day after day the slaughter went on, ever more
feeble grew the defence, until warriors who had never refused the
battle hid themselves like the pêca in holes of the rocks. Behind
us, about two miles inland, there is a high hill with a flat top
and steep sides. To this as a shelter fled all the unmarried girls
of our people, fearing to be carried away as slaves to Tonga, but
never dreaming of being slain if their hiding-place was found. Here
they remained unseen for seven days, until, ravenous with hunger,
they were forced to leave their hiding-place and come down. But they
hoped that, although no tidings had reached them from outside, their
enemies had departed. Four hundred of them reached the plain over
which we passed just now, weak with fasting, with no man to lead
them, trembling at every rustling branch in the forest around. All
appeared as it does to-day, the islands seemed slumbering in serene
peace, although they knew that every spot where their people had
lived was now defiled by the recent dead.
“While they paused, huddling together irresolutely, there suddenly
burst upon their ears a tempest of exultant yells, and from
both sides of the hill they had lately left the whole force of
Tongans rushed after them. They fled as flies the booby before
the frigate-bird, and with as little hope of escape. Before them
spread this same bright sea smiling up at them as if in welcome.
You know how our people love the sea, love to cradle ourselves on
its caressing waves from the day when, newly born, our mothers lay
us in its refreshing waters, until even its life-giving touch can
no longer reanimate our withered bodies. So who can wonder that the
maidens fled to it for refuge. Over this shining sand they rushed,
plunging in ranks from yonder reef-edge into the quiet blue beyond.
Hard behind them came the hunters, sure of their prey. They reached
the reef and stared with utter dread and amazement upon the pretty
play of a great school of porpoises that, in just such graceful
evolutions as we have now seen, manifested their full enjoyment of
life. Terror seized upon those blood-lusting Tongans, their muscles
shrank and their weapons fell. Had there been one hundred Hapaian
warriors left alive they might have destroyed the whole Tongan host,
for it was become as a band of lost and terrified children dreading
at every step to meet the vengeance of the gods. But there were none
to hinder them, so they fled in safety to their own shores, never to
invade Hapai again. And when, after many years, the few survivors
of that week of death had repeopled Hapai, the story of the four
hundred maidens befriended by the sea-gods in their time of need was
the most frequently told among us. And to this day is the porpoise
‘taboo,’ although we know now that this legend, as well as all the
others which have been so carefully preserved among us, is only the
imagination of our forefathers’ hearts. Yet I often wish that we knew
some of them were true.”
CATS ON BOARD SHIP
Many stories are current about the peculiar aptitude possessed by
sailors of taming all sorts of wild creatures that chance to come
under their care, most of them having a much firmer basis of fact
than sea-yarns are usually given credit for. But of all the pets
made by Jack none ever attains so intimate an acquaintance with him,
so firm a hold upon his affections, as the cat, about whom so many
libellous things are said ashore. All things considered, a ship’s
forecastle is about the last place in the world that one would
expect to find favoured by a cat for its permanent abiding place.
Subject as it is at all times to sudden invasion by an encroaching
wave, always at the extremes of stuffiness or draughtiness, never
by any chance cheered by the glow of a fire, or boasting even an
apology for a hearthrug,--warmth-loving, luxurious pussy cannot
hope to find any of those comforts that her long acquaintance with
civilisation has certainly given her an innate hankering after. No
cat’s-meat man purveying regular rations of savoury horse-flesh, so
much beloved by even the daintiest aristocrats of the cat family,
ever gladdens her ears with the dulcet cry of “Meeeet, cassmeet,”
nor, saddest lack of all, is there ever to be found a saucer of milk
for her delicate cleanly lapping. And yet, strange as it may appear,
despite the superior attractions offered by the friendly steward at
the after-end of the ship, irresponsive to the blandishments of the
captain and officers, I have many times been shipmate with cats who
remained steadily faithful to the fo’c’s’le throughout the length
of an East Indian or Colonial voyage. They could hardly be said
to have any preferences for individual members of the crew, being
content with the universal attention paid them by all, although as
a rule they found a snug berth in some man’s bunk which they came
to look upon as theirs by prescriptive right, their shelter in time
of storm, and their refuge, when in harbour the scanty floor place
of the fo’c’s’le afforded no safe promenade for anything bearing
a tail. Only once or twice in all my experience have I seen any
cruelty offered to a cat on board ship, and then the miscreant who
thus offended against the unwritten law had but a sorry time of it
thereafter.