HONOLULU AND OFF TO THE ARCTIC
We were due in the Arctic Ocean the last of June, and were to touch
first at Honolulu, where most of us expected letters from home. It
was not our fortune to take a right whale during the voyage, as we
were to cruise partly for sperm whales, but chiefly for the right
whale’s great brother, the bowhead, to be found in the Northern
Pacific and the Arctic Oceans. We were privileged, however, to see a
right whale feed. One day we passed through a great stretch of
“brit.” The sea presented the appearance of an extensive field of
grain. I was at the masthead. Another lookout declared, “Plenty of
brit. Likely to see a right whale any time. If you do, no use to try
and take him. Never take a righter when he’s feedin’. One thing, he
won’t stop, and another thing, he goes too fast for you to follow
him.”
In half an hour this very man called out, “B-l-o-w-s, b-l-o-w-s,
b-l-o-w-s.”
“Sperm or righter,” shouted the captain.
“Righter,” was the answer.
There was no excitement below, indeed nothing to show that a boat
was to be lowered. To me the sight was new and interesting. The
spout was straight and erect and far more beautiful than that of the
sperm. The whale seemed to be bound directly for us and, as we were
going in opposite directions, it was not long before he passed at
close quarters. The rushing of the great creature with open mouth
through his pasture of brit reminded me of a snowplough passing
through a drift. He left behind him a trail of blue water and
spouted with great force. I did not have to be told again that the
right whale was difficult to capture when feeding.
We cruised slowly towards Honolulu, taking a couple of small whales
on the way, and, when we arrived, we had four hundred barrels of
sperm oil stowed down.
I was of the opinion that some of the men might desert, if they had
shore leave. I felt that the temptation would be very strong for
Ohoo, for he would be near his home and he did not regard the cold
weather in the Arctic with favor.
The entrance of the harbor is through a narrow opening in the coral
reef, and the place where we dropped anchor was at a convenient
distance from the shore. A boat’s crew was selected, the captain
held the steering oar, and Lakeum was in the bow. Strange to say,
Ohoo was one of the other four, and I rejoiced in the fact that I
also was of the number. An hour’s leave was granted. The air was
balmy, and the town had rather an American appearance. But
delightful as it was to get back once more to civilization, I kept
thinking of my mother and my home, and I soon strolled back to the
landing. Lakeum, too, had returned, and we were alone. I don’t know
how he happened to divine my thoughts, but he did.
“Bleechly,” he said, “you think Ohoo won’t come back, but he will.
I’d trust that Kanaka anywhere. His people live up in the town
somewhere. They are of the poorer class. Despite persuasion of
family or friends, Ohoo will show up in a few minutes.”
Soon he resumed:
“This place is almost as fine and beautiful as Tahiti, and many a
whaler has touched here. In the early days both men and women would
swim six or seven miles out to the incoming vessels. Things could be
bought here cheap then, but the more civilized people become, the
dearer everything is. The captain is bargaining for beef and pork,
and it will be brought out in a native boat, a kind of lighter, this
afternoon.”
Again he ceased talking, looked thoughtful and sad, and then
resumed:
“You are thinking of home, Bleechly,—your mother, no doubt. When you
get your letter, I hope you’ll find that all is well. There are many
beautiful sayings like ‘A man’s best friend is his mother’ and
‘There is no place like home.’ But what shall we say of a man who
has no mother and no home but a whaler?”
He stopped abruptly and there was something in his face which led me
to think that he didn’t want the question answered, and certainly it
was plain that he did not propose to answer it himself.
Ohoo appeared and broke forth, “Oh! Me so happy—my home, my home!—Me
find my folk—no dead, all live! Look at sea. Me swim in him all
round when me a boy. All my home.”
Strange that Ohoo should touch with such joy on the subject which
Lakeum had just dismissed with such a mournful air. I felt that the
mate’s eyes were gathering dew and I fixed my gaze on the _Seabird_
at her anchorage. The rest of the crew came back, the captain last.
In his hand were just a few letters. Recalling Lakeum’s words, I
thought how true it was that the only home of most of our men was
the dirty and dingy forecastle, and that they were to receive no
remembrances from the land they had left.
Captain Gamans was generally more inclined to be austere than
sentimental. However, there was a touch of tenderness in what he
said when he handed me a couple of letters.
“Lucky you are, boy, to get them. Lucky that you had a home to come
from and lucky you’ll be if you get back to it. I’ve no fault to
find with you so far; and, if you keep on, you may get a captain’s
berth, and I hope you will. But if I had my life over, I would stop
with the first voyage and go to work on shore, even if I couldn’t
get anything to do but shoveling dirt.”
Pointing to a vessel anchored near by, the captain continued,
“There’s a lot of disaster and misfortune in whaling. I’ve just
learned about that ship. Almost no oil, crew deserted, big drafts.
That’s what they call a broken voyage! Lucky are we with our
ambergris.”
We had now been gone nearly a year from New Bedford, and the
prevailing thought with me was that some sorrow might have visited
my distant home. I opened my mother’s letter with trembling hands;
and it was a mother’s letter, just such a one as a mother writes to
her son. All were well, there had been no sickness, she had
remembered me in her prayers, she had all confidence in the
correctness of my habits, she hoped that I was in excellent health,
home was not home without me, it seemed many years since my
departure, and only my return would restore her happiness.
I opened my father’s letter without foreboding, for my mother had
told me that all was well. It was a father’s letter, just such a
letter as a father writes to his son. He hoped that I was diligent
and dutiful as a sailor, that my habits were correct, that I was in
good health and that I would have little from the slop chest, as
they had given me an outfit which cost a good deal of money. He
declared that, if people saved when they were young, they would keep
on saving during life, that he wanted me so to conduct myself that
there would be something coming to me at the end of the voyage, and,
if there was, that he wouldn’t claim it, although I was a minor, but
would allow me to deposit it in the savings bank in my own name.
After receiving our recruits in the afternoon, we weighed anchor and
set sail for the north. The old whaling habit of cruising slowly and
shortening sail at night was now abandoned. We crowded on sail and
made for the Arctic with all possible speed. As we approached the
Aleutian Islands, the weather grew colder, and the men began to look
to the slop chest. I noticed that Ohoo called for the warmest
outfit, and the poor fellow needed it.
And now a few words about bowheads. It wasn’t until 1843 that
whalemen began to know anything about these whales. Indeed, before
that time, they were ignorant that the right whale had this great
brother. Their haunts were in the North Pacific and in the Arctic
Sea. In the year named, a whaler for the first time visited the
Okhotsk Sea and found and captured bowheads. Soon after they were
discovered and taken off Alaska on what was called the Kodiak
ground; and in 1847 a whaler named the _Superior_ entered Bering
Strait. It was learned that, during the severe winter weather, these
whales largely visited these two grounds in the North Pacific and
then in June and July, as the lower Arctic became more or less free
from ice, passed through Bering Strait for their summer sojourn. As
more and more whalers visited the North Atlantic and the Arctic, the
bowheads became more shy and went farther north. The whalers which
pursued them were thus drawn into places where there was great
danger from ice; and eleven years from the time of our story came
the great disaster which even now bears the name of “Whalers Crushed
by Ice.”
When we reached Bering Strait there was no longer any night. It is
often said that it was at midnight when the first bowhead was taken
in the Arctic. How can this be when, at the time we call midnight,
it was daylight?
Several of the crew declared that we should now hear the singing
whales, and I was anxious for an explanation. I could hardly believe
what they told me when they said that bowheads communicate with one
another by emitting sounds resembling singing. This is thought to be
a signal, when passing through Bering Strait, to notify other whales
that they are bound north and that the Strait is clear of ice. There
is another explanation of this musical exercise. When a bowhead is
struck, other bowheads in the neighborhood are frightened or
“gallied”, and the singing is thought to be a signal of danger. I
noticed that the cry was something like the hoo-oo-oo of the hoot
owl, although longer drawn out and more of a humming sound than a
hoot.
I had read about the “killers” and of their fierce attacks upon
right whales and bowheads, and assumed, as these battles were rarely
witnessed, that I might sail the seas for a life time without ever
beholding one. And yet the spectacle was presented soon after we
passed the Strait. The “killer,” also called the orca or thresher,
is a small whale with a complete set of teeth on both jaws. He isn’t
worth anything, and hence is never pursued by man. His favorite
victim is the bowhead and what he is after is the bowhead’s tongue.
Now it is to be noted that the tongue of a large bowhead is said to
weigh as much as a good many oxen. These killers are as cunning and
intelligent as they are cruel. Sometimes a pack of them will engage
in the attack on a whale, but frequently only three. In our case we
saw ahead of us a great splashing of water and an object that would
leap up into the air and disappear, and then reappear and repeat the
performance. When we got nearer we saw that a fight was going on
between a huge bowhead and three killers. The object we had seen was
a killer which again and again sprang into the air and descended on
the whale’s back with the design apparently of tiring him out. Then
we noticed that two creatures had fastened their teeth to the
whale’s lips with the purpose of forcing his mouth open. There are
few things in the world so powerful as the flukes of a bowhead. The
old saying was to beware of a sperm whale’s jaw and a right whale’s
or bowhead’s flukes. This unfortunate leviathan was pounding the sea
with his great flukes, but not to the injury of his assailants, for
they were well out of the way. The flukes were now less active. Soon
they ceased to operate; the exhausted bowhead opened his mouth, and
the ravenous trio proceeded to feast upon his tongue.
We were now near the whale and, just as a boat was lowered, Kreelman
said to me, “That poor fellow is about gone, and it’ll be an easy
job to kill him. See the shape of him; he ain’t so long as a sperm,
but he’s bigger round and plumper, has thicker and richer blubber
and makes more oil, even if it don’t bring so much. But let me tell
you this, Fancy Chest, them killers don’t fool much with sperm
whales. A sailor told me once of a sight he see. He said two killers
and a swordfish tackled a big bull sperm. The killers come on in
front and went for the bull’s jaw, and the swordfish come up from
below to go for the bull with his sword. He said the bull grabbed
one of them killers and made mince meat of him and the other left.
One prick of the sword was all the whale needed. He rushed ahead a
little and then brought them flukes of his down with tremendous
force, and there wasn’t no part of the swordfish left. Better let a
sperm whale alone.”
When the boat reached the bowhead, he was nearly dead, and it was an
easy matter to despatch him and tow him to the ship. The cutting-in
and trying-out were nearly the same as in the case of the sperm
whale. The only difference was in handling the head. The great
strips of bone were cut out, hoisted on deck, carefully cleaned and
stowed away. When the carcass was set adrift, there were no ravenous
sharks or noisy birds to be seen; and I thought how much more
fitting it would have been, if the great creature had met death in a
battle with man rather than fall an ignoble prey to the assaults of
what are called the “wolves of the sea.”
Epicures prefer fish just out of the water. I wonder what they would
say of meat just out of the water. There is nothing to show that the
meat of sperm whales was ever served to the men, but that of the
bowhead was a common article of food. Of this I was ignorant until
Kreelman told me and he added, “We’ll have somethin’ for supper
that’ll make your mouth water. Generally the cabin gets the best,
the steerage next and the forecastle the scrapings. But the poor old
bowhead has so much meat that all will be treated alike.”
I had a chat with my old friend, the cook. He told me that the best
cuts come from alongside the backbone or the afterpart of the whale,
that the flesh looks more like beef liver smeared with blood than
any other kind of meat, and that the usual method of cooking the
flesh is in meat balls, although stews and steaks are very good. The
cook went to the place where the chunks were suspended under the
boathouse and came back with one.
“Now watch me, Fancy Chest,” he said.
The cook put the meat through a sausage machine, spiced it with
sage, savory and pepper, mixed in a little chopped pork, then made
it up into balls and fried it. Most of us of the forecastle had
never tasted bowhead meat before, but we were loud in our praise of
the meat balls. The flavor was rather peculiar, and one of the men,
who had seen a good deal of the world, said that they tasted to him
a little like venison.
“Me don’t know nothin’ ’bout Benny’s son,” observed Ohoo. “But me no
care no more ’bout lobscouse and hard bread; me eat blawhead all
time.”
I have described a right whale feeding on brit. More than once it
was our fortune to see a big bowhead devour his dinner. The food in
the North Atlantic and Arctic is called “slicks”, which 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. Turning on his side, he will take a course
fifteen feet wide and a quarter of a mile long, scooping just under
the surface where the slicks are most abundant. The water passes
through the whalebone and packs the slicks upon the hair sieve. The
bowhead raises the lower jaw and, still keeping the lips apart,
forces the tongue into the cavity of the sieve, expelling the water
through the spaces between the bone. Then the bowhead closes his
lips to enjoy his meal.