A JAPANESE WHALE HUNT
After spending a delightful month at Oshima, where three fine whale
skeletons were secured, I returned to Shimonoseki to send them to New
York, and then traveled northward to Aikawa, three hundred miles from
Tokyo. Aikawa is a typical little fishing village, situated at the end
of a beautiful bay which sometimes harbors as many as fourteen whale
ships from the four neighboring stations.
In the early spring finbacks and an occasional blue whale are taken
there, but in June and July sei and sperm whales arrive in great
numbers. The sei whale (the _iwashi kujira_, or sardine whale of the
Japanese) is an exceedingly interesting species which, to the scientific
world, had been unknown in the Pacific Ocean until my visit, although it
had formed the basis of the Japanese summer fishery for twelve or
fifteen years. My first hunt for sei whales resulted in a very exciting
experience and one which in modern whaling is comparatively rare.
A series of violent storms which kept the ships inside had been raging
along the coast, but at last the clouds began to break one evening and
gather into great fleecy mountains of white, now and then drifting away
enough to show the moon behind. The bad weather had apparently ended and
at ten o’clock I went aboard the _Hogei Maru No. 5_ as the guest of
Captain Y. E. Andersen.
[Illustration:
The whaling station at Aikawa, North Japan. “Aikawa is a typical
little fishing village, situated at the end of a beautiful bay which
sometimes harbors as many as fourteen whale ships from the four
neighboring stations.”
]
A streak of brilliant sunshine playing across my face from the skylight
awakened me at five o’clock in the morning. The ship was rolling along
in a moderate swell, but the patch of sky which shone through the open
square above my head was as blue as the waters of a tropic sea. Captain
Andersen was still asleep, and I had just decided to dress and go on
deck when the cabin boy ran hurriedly down the companionway and called
“_Kujira_” (whale). In five minutes we were both on deck, and upon
reaching the bridge I said to the man at the wheel, “_Kore wa nani desu
ka?_” (What kind is it?)
[Illustration:
A sei whale on the slip at Aikawa. This species is allied to the
finback but is smaller.
]
He replied in Japanese: “I don’t know yet; sperm, I think.”
[Illustration:
The spout of a sei whale. The column of vapor shoots straight upward
and is lower and less dense than that of the finback.
]
I was tremendously excited at this for I wished above all things to get
at close quarters with a school of sperm whales, which, off this coast,
often numbers several hundred individuals. I strained my eyes through a
powerful field glass, sweeping the sea ahead to catch sight of a spout
which would tell the story. Suddenly it came, about a mile ahead, and we
both exclaimed, “_Iwashi kujira!_” (Sardine whale!) for the column of
vapor shooting straight upward and drifting slowly off on the wind was
strikingly different from the puff-like blow of the sperm.
We were running at full speed toward the animal, which was spouting
every ten or fifteen seconds. Andersen was forward superintending the
loading of the gun and inspecting the harpoon rope which lay coiled on
the heavy iron pan at the bow.
[Illustration:
“He ... would sometimes swim just under the surface with only the tip
of the dorsal fin exposed.”
]
“He’s a good whale,” the Gunner called out to me, and by that he meant
that we would soon get a shot because the animal was spouting so
frequently. He was never down longer than five minutes, and would
sometimes swim just under the surface with only the tip of the dorsal
fin exposed. At other times his course could be followed by patches of
smooth, green water which spread out in a broad trail behind him.
The gun had hardly been loaded before we were close to the whale, with
the engines at dead slow, waiting for him to come up. I had taken out
one of the lenses of my camera but decided that the light was not yet
strong enough for the use of the single combination since the shutter
would have to be operated at a high speed. Sitting down upon a tool box
near the rail, I began hurriedly to replace the back lens and was just
screwing it into position when “who-o-o” came the spout, not five
fathoms from the stern of the ship.
We all jumped as though a bomb had been exploded beside us and I nearly
dropped the camera in my excitement. Somehow I managed to get the lens
readjusted without accident, and stood ready with my arm around a rope
just behind the gun platform. Before the ship swung about the whale had
spouted two or three times and gone down. We hardly breathed while
waiting and my nerves were so on edge that I almost released the shutter
of the camera when the silence was broken by the voice of the Bo’s’n
from the “top” singing out, “He’s coming, he’s coming!”
“I can’t see him!” shouted the Gunner.
“There, there, on the port bow!” came the answer from aloft.
With a rush the great animal burst to the surface, and I caught a
glimpse of the spout in the mirror of my camera as it shot up in a white
cloud, glittering in the sunlight.
“Will he shoot?” I thought. “No, no, it is too far,” and I pressed the
button of the camera as the broad back came into view.
Almost with the sound of the shutter, and before I had lifted my eyes
from the focusing hood, I was deafened by the roar of the gun and
enveloped in a great cloud of white smoke. It was impossible to see, but
the line could be heard singing over the roller at the bow and, as the
smoke blew away, I caught sight of the high back-fin of the whale
cutting the water like a knife.
[Illustration:
“I pressed the button of the camera as the broad back came into view.”
]
“Bur-r-r, whip!” went the heavy rope and in a few seconds a hundred
fathoms had gone out. Never had I seen a whale run as that one did. The
Engineer at the winch was just visible through the haze of smoke which
streamed from the brake, and the smell of powder and burning wood hung
thick in the air.
[Illustration:
The sei whale. From a drawing by J. Henry Blake under the direction of
the author.
]
Suddenly with a swish, up from the hold, fast to the rope, came a wad of
brown fishing net that had become entangled in the coil below. I jumped
to one side just in time to miss it as it swept by and to see it pass
safely over the roller at the bow. It was a narrow escape, for if it had
jammed, the line would surely have snapped and the whale been lost.
[Illustration:
“The winch was then started and the whale drawn slowly toward the
ship.”
]
The burst of speed was soon ended and the whale sounded for ten minutes,
giving us all a chance to breathe and wonder what had happened. When the
animal came up again, far ahead, the spout was high and full, with no
trace of blood, so we knew that he would need a second harpoon to finish
him. I was delighted, for I had long wished for a chance to get a roll
of motion-picture film showing the killing of a whale, and now the
conditions were ideal—good light, little wind, and no sea.
I ran below to get the cinematograph and tripod and set it on the bridge
while the gun was being loaded. The winch was then started and the whale
drawn slowly toward the ship. He persisted in keeping in the sunlight,
which drew a path of glittering, dancing points of light, beautiful to
see but fatal to pictures. I shouted to Captain Andersen, asking him to
wait a bit and let the whale go down, hoping it would rise in the other
direction. He did so and the animal swung around, coming up just as I
wished, so that the sun was almost behind us. It was now near enough to
begin work and I kept the crank of the machine steadily revolving
whenever it rose to spout. The whale was drawn in close under the bow
and for several minutes lay straining and heaving, trying to free
himself from the biting iron.
“Stand by! I’m going to shoot now,” sang out the Gunner, and in a moment
he was hidden from sight in a thick black cloud.
The beautiful gray body was lying quietly at the surface when the smoke
drifted away, but in a few seconds the whale righted himself with a
convulsive heave. The poor animal was not yet dead, though the harpoon
had gone entirely through him. Captain Andersen called for one of the
long slender lances which were triced up to the ship’s rigging, and
after a few more turns of the winch had brought the whale right under
the bows, he began jabbing the steel into its side, throwing his whole
weight on the lance. The whale was pretty “sick” and did not last long,
and before the roll of motion-picture film had been exhausted it sank
straight down, the last feeble blow leaving a train of round white
bubbles on the surface.
[Illustration:
A sei whale at Aikawa, Japan. This species is about forty-eight feet
long and is allied to the finback and blue whales.
]
Andersen and I went below for breakfast and by the time we were on deck
again the whale had been inflated and was floating easily beside the
ship. When we had reached the bridge the Gunner said:
“I don’t want to go in yet with this one; we’ll cruise about until
twelve o’clock and see if we can’t find another. I am going up in the
top and then we’ll be sure not to miss any.”
I stretched out upon a seat on the port side of the bridge and lazily
watched the water boil and foam ver the dead whale as we steamed along
at full speed. Captain Andersen was singing softly to himself,
apparently perfectly happy in his lofty seat. So we went about for two
hours and I was almost asleep when Andersen called down:
“There’s a whale dead ahead. He spouted six times.”
[Illustration:
“‘There’s a whale dead ahead. He spouted six times.’”
]
[Illustration:
“The click of the camera and the crash of the gun sounding at almost
the same instant.” The harpoon, rope, wads, smoke, sparks and the
back of the whale are shown in the photograph.
]
I was wide awake at that and had the camera open and ready for pictures
by the time we were near enough to see the animal—a sei whale—blow. He
was spouting constantly and this argued well, for we were sure to get a
shot if he continued to stay at the surface. The Bo’s’n made a flag
ready so that the carcass alongside could be let go and marked.
Apparently this was not going to be necessary, for there was plenty of
food and the whale was lazily wallowing about, rolling first on one side
and then on the other, sometimes throwing his fin in the air and
playfully slapping the water, sending it upward in geyser-like jets.
“Half speed!” shouted the Gunner; then, “Slow!” and “Dead slow!”
The little vessel slipped silently along, the propellers hardly moving
and the nerves of every man on board as tense as the strings of a
violin. In four seconds the whale was up, not ten fathoms away on the
port bow, the click of the camera and the crash of the gun sounding at
almost the same instant. The harpoon struck the animal in the side, just
back of the fin, and he went down without a struggle, for the bursting
bomb had torn its way into the great heart.
By eleven o’clock it was alongside and slowly filling with air while the
ship was churning her way toward the station. Andersen went below for a
couple of hours’ sleep in the afternoon, and I dozed on the bridge in
the sunshine. We were just off Kinka-San at half-past six, and by seven
were blowing the whistle at the entrance to the bay.
Three other ships, the _San Hogei_, _Ne Taihei_, and _Akebono_, were
already inside but had no whales. Later Captain Olsen, of the _Rekkusu
Maru_, brought in a sei whale, but this was the only other ship that had
killed during the day. About eleven o’clock, just as I came from the
station house after developing the plates, and started to go out to the
ship, the _Fukushima_ and _Airondo Maru_ stole quietly into the bay and
dropped anchor. They, too, had been unsuccessful, and, we learned later,
had not even seen a whale.
Before we turned in for the night Captain Andersen said to me:
[Illustration:
“We were just off Kinka-san at half-past six, and by seven were
blowing the whistle at the entrance to the bay.”
]
“We’ll go sou’-sou’ west tomorrow; that’s a whale cruise. But I’m afraid
there is going to be a big sea on, for the wind has shifted and we
always get heavy weather when it’s blowing offshore.”
The news was not very encouraging, for although I have spent many days
on whaling ships I have never learned to appreciate perfectly the charm
of the deep when the little cork-like vessels are tossing and throwing
themselves about as though possessed of an evil spirit. Each time, I
make a solemn vow that if ever I am fortunate enough once more to get on
solid ground my days of whaling will be ended.