ABOUT WHALES
We now bore away south—all hands anxious to see whales. One morning
the captain called us aft and addressed us as follows:
“I want to tell you about the prizes. Every man who sights a whale
that is captured gets a prize. If the whale makes fifty barrels or
less, a flannel shirt; if over fifty barrels, five dollars. These
are the prizes given away during the voyage. Then at the end of the
voyage the owner will give two gold watches—and good gold watches,
too—one to the man who raises the largest sperm whale during the
voyage, and the other to the man who raises the largest bowhead,
that is the whales that stow down the greatest amount of oil. Keep
your eyes open.”
The name I went by was “Fancy Chest”, and it stuck to me to the end
of the voyage. As we walked away, Kreelman said:
“Well, Fancy Chest, what do you think of it?”
“Fine.”
“Not so fine as you think. The flannel shirt isn’t good for much,
and you can’t spend the five dollars at any of the few places where
we stop, for they don’t know that kind of money. I went on a voyage
once and got a so-called gold watch when we got home. It was
pinchbeck. I had to shake it to make it go, and I shook it so hard
it made my arm ache.”
This was discouraging, and I was pretty well disillusioned. It was
to be my fortune during the voyage to draw a watch, but I must
withhold the story about it till the end of the book.
Kreelman continued, changing the subject, “It’s about time to have
fresh meat. I’m about tired of hard bread and lobscouse.”
“Do they keep it on board?”
“Fancy Chest, you are still a greenie. Look in the sea and see what
you see.”
We had seen porpoises before, but never so many as there were now.
They were dancing all about the vessel, as if bent on a frolic. One
of the boat-steerers went forward and rigged a platform just over
the bow. Then he took his stand on it, with harpoon in hand. Two or
three of the graceful creatures came up as if to encourage advances,
and then disappeared beneath the surface. They were not near enough
for the boat-steerer’s purpose. Then a daring fellow leaped up as if
to defy the harpooner, only to fall a prey to his iron. Soon another
porpoise was captured. I looked at the pretty creatures lying on the
deck—each about five feet in length—with some pity, which gave way
to the pleasant thought of the approaching repast.
As I went by the galley the cook said, “You’ll get something at
dinner to make you feel good.” And we did. The meat was boiled with
“doughboys” or dumplings, and nice it tasted, too. This change in
diet cheered us all, and that afternoon there was more contentment
than I had seen any day since we sailed.
I had now learned to box the compass, and I knew the ropes. There
used to be an impression that the duties of a whaleman were light.
This is far from the truth. The labor was incessant. There was no
limit to the hours, and the work was often carried on in the night
watches. Contrary to the general impression, the whaler was cleaner
and more trim than the merchantman. And now a few words about
whales, as we were soon to have our first chase.
Whales have lungs and warm blood, and their bodies do not differ
much from those of a cow or a horse. There are several kinds, but in
the good old whaling day only two kinds were of real value—the sperm
whales or cachalots and the whales which yielded bone. The largest
cachalot ever captured was nearly ninety feet long and nearly forty
feet in circumference, and weighed about ninety tons! Think of it!
One hundred and eighty thousand pounds! Now, if we say that thirteen
men weigh a ton, a whale of this kind will weigh more than the
entire population of a village of over eleven hundred inhabitants.
It is also said that a large sperm whale weighs a good deal more
than a hundred oxen, and has the strength of several hundred horses.
The head is blunt and flat, and the skull sometimes measures more
than twenty feet in length. The eye is near the angle of the jaw; it
has no lashes, and is about as large as the eye of a colt. The
creature can see ahead or to either side, but the eyes are separated
by the immense head, so that each eye seems to work on its own
account; and this is thought to be the reason why sperm whales act
so queerly at times. The most curious organ is the ear. It is just
behind the eye and is so small that a pencil can hardly be inserted
in it.
The lower jaw, which contains the teeth, is far smaller than the
upper jaw, but it was regarded in whaling days of considerable
value, for the posterior part called the “jawbone” and the teeth,
which weighed about a pound and a half each, furnished the material
out of which sailors made so many curious articles.
The sperm whale has no nose, but a substitute in a spouthole on top
of the head.
The interior of the mouth is white, and the tongue is small and the
throat large.
The head is, in size, about one third of the body, and in it is what
is called the “case” containing spermaceti, formerly used in the
manufacture of candles. It is dipped out with buckets, and sometimes
fifteen barrels are taken from a single head. What is this great oil
case for? Some think that the animal draws upon it for nourishment
during periods of food scarcity, just as bears store upon their
bodies great quantities of fat to draw on later. The whales are
covered with what is called blubber, which keeps them warm in cold
water and relieves the pressure when they “sound,” that is, go down
to great depths.
The flippers, one on each side of the body, are not like the fins of
a fish, but are the limbs of land mammals, covered with blubber to
form paddles, and are supplied with bones, blood vessels and nerves.
The tail of the whale divides into two flukes, the distance across
which is fifteen feet. This great weapon is used for a number of
purposes—for motion, as a weapon when pursued by enemies, for play,
called lobtailing, whereby he throws his tail high in the air and
then, lowering it, smites the sea with terrific force, and for
peaking, which is the tossing of the entire flukes with a part of
the body in the air before plunging below.
When the whale so plunges below he is said to “sound,” and, as he
breathes like any other animal, he must take in for his dive a great
supply of air; otherwise he would drown. This great creature can
hold his breath for a long time, and, when he comes up, the air in
his lungs is heated, and, hence, as it is expelled into the cooler
air, it condenses and forms a vapor. This is what one sees when the
whale spouts. If this vapor touches the human skin, it stings. Now
the spout of the sperm whale is rather a poor one. It doesn’t go
straight up, but goes forward for a short distance. The blowings are
repeated sixty or seventy times at a rising, and then the whale goes
down again, and remains below for fifteen to forty-five minutes, and
occasionally for an hour or more.
Now what does the cachalot do when he is under water? It is believed
that he goes to a great depth in search of cuttlefish or squid. Some
of these dead cuttlefish thrown up on the shore are known to be
forty to fifty feet in length, and, while some say that live
cuttlefish of great size have been seen on the surface of the ocean,
the statement may well be doubted. But it is known that fierce
battles take place under water between them and the whales; and it
is a fact that dead whales have been found floating with their
bodies badly cut and bruised. But the cachalot is generally the
victor. The cuttlefish is not the only food. It is a fact that
pieces of sharks have been found in the stomachs of sperm whales.
The most curious thing about the sperm whale is that in rare cases
it produces ambergris, often worth its weight in gold; and this, it
is said, is due to the cuttlefish. This material is solid, is
generally ash-colored, is lighter than water and is fragrant when
heated. It is a growth in the intestines of the sperm whale,
produced, it is thought, by indigestion caused by the whale not
being able to assimilate beaks and other pieces of cuttlefish so
often found in the ambergris. Ambergris is generally found in
cutting up the whale. Its chief use is in manufacturing perfume. It
is not the perfume itself, but the substance which prevents
evaporation.
The sperm whale is a great wanderer. He keeps away from the cold
water of the extremities of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but
travels all over the rest of the watery world. How do we know all
this? Because the whale himself has told us. Harpoons had stamped in
them the names of the ship’s owner and sometimes the name of the
ship. Often a whale with the harpoon in him would make his escape,
when the line parted, and afterwards be captured six or seven
thousand miles away from the place of encounter with the harpoon
still in his body.
Some of the antics of the sperm whale are striking. He will rise in
the water and turn to look around him. Again he will raise his head
above the surface and remain for some time in that position, bobbing
up and down amid the waves. Then, suddenly turning, he will raise
his flukes in the air and beat them upon the water with great
violence. The sound caused thereby may be heard for many miles.
This, as I have said, is called lobtailing. Then he will spring from
the water so as to show a large part of his great frame. This is
called breaching.
The female or cow cachalot is only about a third of the size of the
male or bull. The mother goes far out to sea with her baby calf,
apparently fearing no enemy, and her affection for the little
creature is very strong; so whalemen would kill the calf first, for
they knew that the mother would not forsake her offspring. The cow
is said to show affection for the bull, for when the bull is killed
the cow will stay by, only to be captured herself.
How do whales sleep? It is generally thought that it is when they
are floating on the surface, either during the day or night. Both
whalers and merchantmen are known to have run on to whales with a
result similar to that occasioned by striking a rock or reef. If the
whales had been awake they would doubtless have avoided the vessels.
A famous case of collision was that of the _Union_, Captain Gardner,
which sailed from Nantucket in 1807. At ten o’clock at night, when
running at seven knots, she struck a whale with such force as to
smash in the timbers on the starboard bow. The pumps were started,
but the water gained rapidly and in a couple of hours the vessel
began to sink. Three boats left the ship, one of which was
abandoned, and the men were divided equally in the other two. There
was a heavy sea, and the Azores were over six hundred miles away.
They rigged sails which were carried away by the gale, and the two
boats were finally lashed together and for a time allowed to drift.
They had little water, and the men were put on scant rations. When
suffering intensely from thirst and hunger Flores was sighted.
Captain Gardner and his men made six hundred miles in seven days and
eight nights. This young master was only twenty-four years of age.
He followed the sea for many years. In one of his voyages his
encounter with a sperm whale resulted in a badly bruised body and a
mutilated hand. This injured member is shown in the photograph of
the old gentleman in the rooms of the Old Dartmouth Historical
Society in New Bedford.
Now a few words about the whales which yield whalebone or baleen. It
used to be said that the whale which yielded excellent bone and a
generous quantity of oil was called the “right whale” to capture,
and hence the name. Later its larger relative was found in the
Arctic regions and called the bowhead, because of the structure of
the fore part of the head, which is shaped like a half-circle. The
whalebone of the bowhead is much larger than that of the right
whale, and in former days was more valuable. The slabs are in the
upper jaw, and in a bowhead are often a dozen feet or more in
length. When the mouth is closed these slabs slant back and lie
between the two jaws. When the mouth opens they hang almost
perpendicularly along the sides of the mouth, presenting the
appearance of a screen, which, as the inner side of each slab is
furnished with bristles or hairs, serves as a sieve. A bowhead once
captured had two hundred and eighty-six slabs of bone on one side of
the mouth and two hundred and eighty-nine on the other. The lower
lip supports and holds in place the lower edge of the sieve, while
the upper lip is drawn up. The right whales subsist on crustaceans,
called “brit,” which are taken in great quantities through the mouth
and are strained out by means of the bristles on the inner side of
the whalebone. The water flows out and the “brit” is caught by the
sieve. The brit is yellow and so abundant in some latitudes as to
give the appearance of extensive fields of golden grain. The right
whales are said to eat fish, if “brit” is not obtainable. The
rushing of a right whale through a field of “brit” has been compared
to a snowplow passing through a drift. He leaves behind him a trail
of blue water, spouts with great force and is difficult to capture.
Here we should note that the whalebone whales cannot see ahead of
them.
While the bowheads are very heavy, they are not more than sixty-five
feet in length. The tail is about twenty-five feet broad and six
feet deep. One of these whales, taken in 1855 in the Okhotsk Sea by
the ship _Adeline_ of New Bedford, yielded two hundred and fifty
barrels of oil, and another taken in 1861 by the _General Pike_ of
the same port produced two hundred and seventy-four barrels. The
whalebone whales carry their nostrils on the summit of the head.
There are two spout holes; they are f-shaped, close together,
and are located about eighteen feet from the end of the head. As
they are nearer the lungs than in the case of the sperm whale, the
vapor shoots up straight, spreading as it rises. These whales are
encased in a layer of blubber which is from a foot to two feet in
thickness. It is softer, more oily and also more sticky than that of
the sperm whale. The tongue is thick and soft, is glued to the floor
of the mouth, and generally contains about six barrels of oil,
although it is said that the tongue of a very large bowhead has been
known to yield twenty-five barrels. Such a tongue is equal to the
weight of ten oxen. The flesh of the animal is coarse, firm and red
in color. The flukes are very powerful. Hence the maxim, “Beware of
a sperm whale’s jaw and a right whale’s flukes.” While the sperm
whale is a great traveler, the right whale never crosses the
equator.
The female right whale is much larger than the female sperm, and at
the breeding time she frequents shallow waters. Her affection for
her young is very strong. It is said that she will clasp the calf
with a fin very much as a human mother holds her child. The young of
the bowhead mother is seldom seen, and it is thought that she keeps
it under the ice until it is weaned.
The bowhead’s method of feeding is like that of its relative, the
right whale. The crustaceans in the North Atlantic and Arctic,
called “slicks”, give the water the appearance of oily streaks. They
are produced by different kinds of jellyfish and range in size from
a pea to six inches or more in diameter. When the bowhead is
feeding, the spread of the lips is about thirty feet, and the method
of feeding is the same as that of the right whale.
Now what happened as the result of the pursuit of all these
creatures, well called the leviathans of the deep? Let any boy or
girl take the map and see where the whalemen cruised and captured
whales. Not content with Baffin’s Bay, Hudson’s Bay, the waters
along the coast of Greenland and in the North Atlantic, around the
Azores, Madeira, the coast of Africa, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha,
the Falkland Islands, the Cape of Good Hope and the Rio de la Plata,
the venturesome whalemen sought the Indian Ocean and more
particularly the great stretches of the Pacific and the Arctic
Oceans. Now let the boy or girl look carefully at the map of the
Pacific Ocean and see the multitude of islands in that great stretch
of water. It is said that more than four hundred islands were
discovered in the Pacific by American whalemen; and, when one sees
the names of Nantucket, Howland, Gardner and Starbuck, he need not
be told that the names were given by either Nantucket or New Bedford
whalemen.