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Title: Whalers and whaling
Author: E. Keble Chatterton
Release date: June 28, 2026 [eBook #78974]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Philip Allan & Co. Ltd., 1930
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHALERS AND WHALING ***
_16. WHALERS AND WHALING_
_The Nautilus Library_
_THE NAUTILUS LIBRARY_
1. MYSTERIES OF THE SEA _by_ +J. G. Lockhart+
2. SEAMEN ALL _by_ +E. Keble Chatterton+
3. PERIL OF THE SEA _by_ +J. G. Lockhart+
4. SEA WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN _by_ +E. Hamilton Currey+
5. SEA VENTURERS OF BRITAIN _by_ “+Taffrail+”
6. THE CRUISE OF THE “ALERTE” _by_ +E. F. Knight+
7. THE STORY OF H.M.S. “VICTORY” _by_ +Professor Geoffrey Callender+
8. STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE SEA _by_ +J. G. Lockhart+
9. SMUGGLING DAYS AND SMUGGLING WAYS _by_ +H. N. Shore+
10. SEA ESCAPES AND ADVENTURES _by_ “+Taffrail+”
11. THE BUCCANEERS _by_ +A. H. Cooper-Prichard+
12. THE LOSS OF THE “TITANIC” _by_ +Lawrence Beesley+
13. GREAT STORMS _by_ +L. G. Carr Laughton+ _and_ +V. Heddon+
14. A GREAT SEA MYSTERY _by_ +J. G. Lockhart+
15. THE DIARY OF A RUM-RUNNER _by_ +Alastair Moray+
16. WHALERS AND WHALING _by_ +E. Keble Chatterton+
WHALERS AND WHALING
_by_
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON
[Illustration: Nautilus]
_London_
PHILIP ALLAN & CO. LTD.
_Quality House, Great Russell Street, W.C.1_
_First Edition_ _1925_
_Second Edition_ (_Nautilus Library_) _1930_
_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED, LONDON AND WOKING
PREFACE
I have endeavoured in this volume to present as vivid a picture of
whaling ships, and the lives of those serving in them, as I can obtain
from contemporary accounts, with the object of showing to the reader,
whilst still one sailing-ship whaler survives, what were the adventures
and enterprise of an industry which forms one of the most romantic
sections of maritime history.
This is the story of ships and men whose business took them out not
on a few weeks’ trip, but on long cruises often lasting for several
years north, south, east and west, up to the Arctic, down to the
Antarctic, and round the world. Whaling is at once an ancient and a
modern profession of the sea, which has called forth some of those high
qualities of courage and seamanlike skill which have been exhibited by
Britons and Americans, Dutchmen, Norwegians and others in different
generations and varying vessels.
I have laid particular stress on the hard experiences and mode of life
which these seamen have been compelled to undertake, and have tried to
show the brilliant successes as well as the great depressions through
which the occupation has had to pass. Finally, in the chapters which
deal in detail with that very recent but highly prosperous steam
whaling, the reader will be able to see an amazing revival which links
the Norsemen of a thousand years ago with their descendants to-day.
It is hoped that this record may help to encourage still further that
deep sea call which has sounded throughout the ages, and has become
clearer still during the last ten years. So many letters continue to
reach me from readers all over the world that it has become impossible
to answer them save a few: but with the passing of the last days of
sail it is a joy to know that a new and fresh enthusiasm for the sea
and its ships has grown up so lustily.
I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Scoresby, Bennett, Weddell and
other authorities of the past; to Mr. Robert McNab’s _The Old Whaling
Days_; and to the interesting Interdepartmental Report published by
H.M. Stationery Office dealing with the Dependencies of the Falklands.
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE 5
I. INTRODUCTION 9
II. THE NORTHERN QUEST 23
III. WHALING ENTERPRISE 31
IV. FLUCTUATING FORTUNES 41
V. IN THE DAVIS STRAITS 52
VI. THE OLD WHALE-SHIPS 62
VII. “THERE SHE BLOWS!” 72
VIII. WHALERS AND SEALERS 83
IX. ABOARD AN AMERICAN WHALER 99
X. CREWS AND CAPTAINS 115
XI. WHALING ADVENTURES 122
XII. THE PERSONAL ELEMENT 132
XIII. THE WAY THEY HAD IN THE WHALERS 139
XIV. IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS 150
XV. WAR AND THE WHALERS 159
XVI. THE THIRTY-TWO SHIPS 173
XVII. FINDING THE NEW WHALING GROUNDS 181
XVIII. THE SOURCE OF WEALTH 191
XIX. PROBLEMS AND PRACTICE 201
XX. MODERN WHALERS AND THEIR METHODS 215
XXI. THE PRESENT WHALING INDUSTRY 226
XXII. COLONIAL CONTROL 244
WHALERS AND WHALING
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The story of whaling is really linked up with that of exploration,
especially of the northern regions, from the very first. Greenland
had been discovered by the Norse in the ninth century, and during the
following century two colonies had been founded there, but later on
there ensued a long interval. However, towards the end of the sixteenth
century there was a wonderful burst of commercial ambition in Northern
Europe and a desire to find both new markets as well as new resources.
The solution lay in discovering fresh territories and unknown sea
routes. Merchants banded themselves together into small companies,
fitted out ships and placed their goods aboard.
Now the Dutch were fired with similar motives to the English. During
long years of herring fishing they had both become wealthy and built up
a fine race of seamen, to say nothing of a splendid fleet of ships. The
desire was to reach China and tap Chinese wealth; but instead of going
all the way down the Bay of Biscay and round the Cape of Good Hope or
the Horn, it was desired to find a route north about. For this reason
we find the Dutch fitting out a squadron of four ships which were
despatched with William Barentsz, a distinguished Dutch navigator, as
pilot, starting off in 1594 to seek for the North-East Passage. This
voyage was fruitless and the ships returned home. Another expedition
under the same pilotage was attempted, and this also failed. But in
1596 by the munificence of Amsterdam a third expedition was sent out,
consisting of two ships, and during this voyage Barentsz discovered
Spitzbergen, doubled the north-east cape of Nova Zembla (which had
already been discovered by the English navigator Willoughby), but
unfortunately one of the two ships became embayed in the drifting ice,
and this was Barentsz’s vessel.
It became necessary to leave her, and the crew built a hut ashore,
where they suffered much cold, many hardships, and the unwelcome
attention of Polar bears. Barentsz died in those winter quarters at
Nova Zembla during 1597, and it was not until 1871 that a Norwegian
explorer came upon these winter quarters and discovered part of
Barentsz’s journal. There arrived in Amsterdam, however, by way of
Lapland, some of his crew. Now the value of these expeditions lay in
the news which was brought back concerning, among other things, the
whales which were to be found in those northern regions, and this
information was presently to be made use of by Barentsz’s countrymen.
But in the year 1630 one of the English syndicates, the Russia Company,
sent out from London three ships to go whaling off the coast of
Greenland. One of these ships was the _Salutation_, and when she had
reached her destination, she sent her boat ashore with eight men to get
venison, having provided them with a couple of dogs, a firelock, lances
and a tinder-box. The _Salutation_ brought up off the shore, but next
day the weather came on thick, the wind blew hard from the north, and
the ship was compelled to clear out to sea. Left behind, these eight
men found themselves in a difficult situation, but they were able to
shoot their deer. They came across a rough house which had been built
by Dutch whalers who fished off here and had been used to protect
the coopers whilst employed making casks for oil. A number of old
unserviceable ships’ boats which other whalers had left behind on the
shore were used as firewood. By means of their harpoon the crew were
able to kill walrus, and they could roast the meat. As the weeks sped
by and the cold increased, and their clothes became tattered, they made
needles out of whalebone, made thread out of rope-yarn and thus sewed
their rags together. For a lamp they found a piece of lead, put in some
rope yarn as wick, filled the lead utensil with whale oil left behind
by the coopers, and thus were able to have a light and make themselves
fairly comfortable.
When the food began to run low, they limited themselves to one flesh
meal a day, but on Wednesdays and Fridays ate of such scraps of whale
fat as had been thrown aside by the previous whalers after the oil had
been pressed out. Finally this also ran short and they killed a bear
and ate that for three weeks. But after months of this kind of life
there arrived off the coast a Hull whaler. And the latter, realizing
that in the previous year eight men had been left behind, sent a boat
ashore to inquire. To their mutual joy the Hull whalers and the eight
men met, but the latter presented a strange, uncouth sight, black with
soot and smoke, and their clothes in tatters. Presently the rescuers
took them aboard, and thus the men reached England, where the Russia
Company made awards to them for the distress endured during those long
nights and days.
During that seventeenth century the Greenland Company of Holland took
great pains to continue their peaceful penetration in that northern
region, and even left there seven volunteer sailors in order to get
definite data concerning the weather and keep a careful journal of
their observations. This was in August 1633, and the whaling fleet then
went back to Holland, and the journal was kept faithfully until the
following April, when it ended on the last day. For when some Dutch
whalers arrived in Greenland in June they found each of the seven men
lying in his own locker dead, since they had perished of scurvy and
cold: so whilst the whaling fleet fired a volley from their guns the
men were buried on Midsummer Day. In that same year 1633 the fleet
which had landed these seven men in Greenland landed seven other
sailors to winter at Spitzbergen. The latter happily survived and were
brought home in the year following.
But seven other volunteers now took their place and kept a journal of
their observations as long as possible, and these men recorded the fact
that there were plenty of whales about. But when once more the whaling
fleet came out from Holland in 1635 they found all the seven men dead,
some of them having apparently died in agony, for their knees were
drawn up to their chin. This seems to have been the last occasion when
the Dutch left winter observers behind, but the information obtained
was to add to the slender knowledge then possessed. It was in 1646 that
a dramatic surprise awaited a Dutch whaling ship that had been sent off
to the Spitzbergen district under John Cornelius.
Leaving the Texel in May, the ship was near Spitzbergen a month later,
but owing to the presence of ice was prevented from anchoring. On
putting out to sea two whales were sighted in the offing, so Cornelius
sent his boat with a good crew after the mammals. But whilst the boat
was rowing up and down, awaiting an opportunity to attack one of
the big creatures, they discovered a large ice shoal floating some
distance away, and something thereon which they supposed to be bears.
The harpooner, however, insisted that these were no bears and persuaded
the rest to row alongside. There was a certain amount of reluctance and
argument, but, behold, when the boat approached it was found that there
was no bear but a man waving a signal of distress!
Thereupon everyone pulled as hard as he could, and finally, to their
utter amazement they discovered four living men and one dead. By the
former’s language they realized that here were four Englishmen, so they
took them into the boat and rowed them back to the ship. The condition
of these men was pitiable, for they had eaten nothing for a long time
except a leather belt, which they had divided up amongst themselves.
The whaler’s surgeon took charge of these four who had suffered so
terribly from cold and hunger, and in spite of his best endeavours,
three of them died within a week, but the fourth was brought back
safely to Delft and so got a passage home. It was from him that the
story was learned, how his vessel had been wrecked on that ice shoal
with a crew of forty-two. Seventeen of them with the captain had
started off in the ship’s boat to make the land, and it was then to
return for the rest: but nothing was ever heard of her, and as a gale
of wind sprang up soon after she had started, the boat unquestionably
foundered before reaching land. The remaining twenty-four on the ice
lived on the provisions as long as they lasted, some of the two dozen
separating on to different ice shoals in the hope that at least one
might drift ashore and so preserve life. But not one of these other
parties was ever seen again, although Cornelius sent his boat to cruise
in search of them. It was indeed a real miracle that even one man had
been picked up: and it would be difficult to imagine any surprise of
the sea more enthralling than when this poor sailor was seen waving
to the whaleboat. But still the whale-ships continued to come north
to these waters, and if we cannot trace every voyage, at least we
know that the rewards were sufficiently tempting and the knowledge
sufficiently reasonable to make the risks worth while.
Modern whaling is just sixty years old, for its period is carefully
marked by the introduction of the harpoon-gun, which was made
successfully in the year 1865. The effect of this was to revolutionize
the industry, which has had a most varied and a most romantic life.
Originally the harpoon, as used for capturing whales and large fish,
was just a flat piece of iron, triangular in shape, with sharp barbs.
This was attached to a wooden handle, and to the latter was made fast
the long rope. But the toggle-iron came as an improvement with its
pointed shaft and pivoted crosspiece, so that after the shaft had
pierced well into the fibrous tissue below the blubber, the crosspiece,
at the pulling of the rope, instead of lying up and down the shaft was
set at right angles and thus prevented the shaft from being withdrawn.
The harpoon-gun, whether fired from the shoulder or from a swivel-gun
mounted on a pivot, enabled the harpoon or toggle-iron with line
attached to be aimed with accuracy and to strike with such force that
the rorquals or finbacks, which had previously been left untouched,
could now be hunted. For in that order of mammals which we call
cetacea, the larger members of the family are the whale, and these
are subdivided into the whalebone whales and the toothed whales. The
whalebone whales, again, are further divided into the right whales, the
finbacks or rorquals, the humpback, the grey whale of the Pacific,
and that rare pigmy whale whose whalebone is so valuable. The right
whale has no dorsal fin, and its cervical vertebræ are fused into a
solid mass. The Greenland right whale, with its great head and arched
mouth, made itself well known in the Arctic, being about 50 ft. long. A
smaller species, known as the southern right whale, became known in the
waters of the southern seas.
The toothed whale class have no whalebone but they have teeth, whereas
the whalebone genus has not. Now in the toothed whale class are
included such species as the cachalot, the bottlenose, the grampus and
the narwhal. The cachalot, or sperm whale, with its great head itself
measuring about one-third of its total length, is sometimes as much
as 60 ft. long, and has over a score of teeth on its lower jaw. It
is a characteristic of this cachalot that he can remain under water
for twenty minutes at a time. The sperm whale goes about in schools,
does not frequent either Polar region, but is commonest in tropical
and sub-tropical seas. And just because it was hunted with great zest
during the earlier part of the nineteenth century it naturally became
scarce. The late Frank T. Bullen in his sea classic _The Cruise of
the Cachalot_ has left for us a most entertaining description of the
methods employed during the old sailing-ship days for hunting this
mammal. The impelling motive which sent those old-time whalers to sea
after the cachalot was the great commercial reward; for the sperm oil
from the blubber, and the spermaceti contained in a cavity of the great
head, are valuable as an ingredient of ointments and in the making of
candles. The use of gas and electric lighting, however, during the
nineteenth century somewhat modified this use. Sperm oil, none the
less, is a well-known lubricant in great demand. Ambergris was yet
a third of the important entities found in the cachalot, and this,
after extraction from the whale’s intestine, was found of great value
as a basis for the manufacture of perfumery. The teeth, too, make
valuable ivory. Thus, in a word, the hunting of the cachalot was a most
important industry.
At the beginning of the twentieth century whaling seemed to be drawing
to its close by reason of the cachalot’s scarcity. But in the year
1904 the discovery of a new whaling ground in sub-Antarctic seas gave
such a fresh impetus that the industry reached a success hitherto
unprecedented. The rorquals have declined alarmingly in numbers, and
it was because of this that at the present time the industry in those
waters depends almost exclusively on the blue whale, which is the
largest animal known, measuring up to 100 ft. There are still a certain
number of sperm whales being caught off the South African coasts.
It is, however, to be noted that the zeal with which the industry was
carried on in the north led to the reduction in the number of whales,
so that no other animals of this class returned to the areas which had
once been so plentiful. The Greenland whaling, for instance, has for
that reason long since become extinct, yet at one time it was very
famous. Spitzbergen, where the whale was once found in great numbers,
has been similarly deserted. But at the date of writing it is quite
possible that the ancient whaling occupation, which has trained some
of the finest of the world’s seamen under sail, may receive a still
further development: for by an arrangement between the British Colonial
Office and the Government of the Falkland Islands an expedition has
been organized for a most detailed study of the whaling problem, and
that historic ship _Discovery_, which Scott used for polar work,
was specially selected, and then in the spring of 1925 fitted out
at Portsmouth. The results of this new expedition, with a mass of
scientific facts, may quite conceivably give an entirely new life to
whaling hitherto undreamed of.
Certainly English ships had been engaged in this important occupation
of whale-hunting ever since the end of the sixteenth century. The
port of Hull was especially noted for this trade right away down till
about 1868, when, owing to the scarcity of the mammals, the industry
died a natural death. The very last whaling voyage from that port was
made by the _Truelove_, which had been built in Philadelphia 104 years
previously. This vessel was one of the most remarkable craft that ever
sailed the seas, and it would be difficult to find many ships in all
maritime history which so ably justified the builders. Seventy-two was
the number of whaling voyages which the _Truelove_ made, and 500 were
the whales which she captured. And besides all this activity she put
in a good deal of time in such voyages as the Oporto wine trade, and
even as a “Letter of Marque.” During the American War of Independence
she was captured by the British and that was how she came to be owned
in Hull and in 1784 began her career from the Humber as a whaler. It
was in 1806 that at the age of forty-two she made her first trip to the
Davis Straits, and went off there again in 1831. Her last voyage as
a whaler was in 1868, but five years later she visited Philadelphia,
where she was given a hearty welcome and returned across the Atlantic
to be broken up.
In these days of steam it is a little difficult to realize how
important was this whaling industry when those old ships with their
somewhat heavy lines went lumbering along to the northern waters.
Whitby, Scarborough and London used to send whalers to the Arctic,
and in the year 1821 no fewer than sixty-one whalers sailed out of
Hull, thirty-two for that area between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and
twenty-nine for the Davis Straits. But it was the English colonists
in America who first got the whaling fishery on a systematic basis,
when they began the sperm whaling about the end of the seventeenth
century owing to the proximity of Greenland and other prolific
breeding grounds. The result of this was to build up a whole chapter
of history and romance which will ever be regarded as one of the most
interesting in the whole maritime development of Northern America. It
is only comparatively recently that the great American people in their
literature, their pictures, and even in their cinematograph films have
awakened to the wonderful importance of that old whaling period, which
did so much towards attracting easterners to the sea and shipbuilding.
Formerly England was chiefly content to import from American colonists
such products of this whaling fishery as she required. But then arrived
the War of Independence, and it became necessary for the old country to
obtain those commodities direct which hitherto she had largely left to
her colonies to supply. Thus it was that even from the year 1775 ships
were sent out from British ports to engage in the sperm whale fishery.
They were only ten in number, and owned chiefly by the firm of Messrs.
Enderby. But in the following year this trade was encouraged by a
Government bounty ranging from £100 to £500, and the number of whaling
ships went on progressively increasing until the year 1791.
In one of Edmund Burke’s speeches of the year 1775 on the subject
of conciliation with America he addressed the House of Commons on
the matter of the New England fisheries, and I cannot resist quoting
here his remarks, for they shed a most illuminating light on what was
the British attitude at the period. With reference to the remark
concerning the Falklands, we must remember that these islands had been
discovered in the sixteenth century, but at first were regarded as not
worth having; in fact, two years before Burke’s speech was delivered
Britain temporarily occupied West Falkland but abandoned it, and
eventually the growth of the Falklands’ importance was attained owing
to the increase of the whale fishery. It was by the irony of fate that
off this territory was to be fought in 1914 the only decisive naval
battle of the Great War.
“As to the wealth which the Colonies have drawn from the sea by their
fisheries,” Burke told the House, “you had all that matter fully opened
at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they
seemed even to excite your envy. And yet the spirit by which that
enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, in my opinion,
to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the
world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner
in which the people of New England have of late carried on the Whale
Fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice and
behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson’s
Bay and Davis’s Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the
Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region
of polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes and engaged under the
frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote
and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a
stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry.
Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the
accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them
draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run
the longitude [i.e. steer due south] and pursue their gigantic game
along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries.
No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance
of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm
sagacity of English enterprise ever carried this most perilous mode of
hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent
people, a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle and not
yet hardened into the bone of manhood.”
But so inexperienced were British seamen in sperm fishing that for
some years it was necessary to appoint an American commanding officer
and harpooner to each ship until competent officers could be trained.
At this period whaling was carried on principally off Greenland and
Ireland, off the Western Islands of the Azores, the coast of Africa,
Brazil and the Falklands. It was not till 1788 that the Enderby whaler
_Emilia_ rounded Cape Horn and was the first to inaugurate sperm whale
fishery in the Pacific. It was a brief but successful voyage, and thus
she was a pioneer in that ocean for future profit. For the cachalot
grounds were gradually discovered, and to such an extent that in 1819
the British whaler _Syren_ first revealed that unexplored and valuable
tract off the Japanese coast. So prolific with the sperm whale was this
locality that even after its yield had been considerably diminished by
frequent whaling, it was possible to obtain 40,000 barrels of oil there
by the fleets in the early nineteenth century.
The next spheres of whalers to be hunted were in the Indian Ocean. The
industry went on prospering, and there were few seas in the world that
did not see either British or American whalers cruising. It was these
or none other: for the other nations were now making but feeble efforts
to engage in this work. But by about the time Queen Victoria came to
the throne whaling in the South Seas had already passed its prime.
Money was scarce in those days and the return from the heavy investment
of capital in South Sea whalers was both slow and already risky, so
that not more than thirty or forty whaling ships were cruising the
warmer waters by the year 1840. An additional reason for this lay
in the fact that the colony of New South Wales was now engaged in
obtaining the sperm oil from its fishery at a much less cost of time
and capital, and able to export it into England.
Leaving out the great changes which have taken place in the value of
money during the last eighty years, it is worth while noticing some of
the details of cost. To fit out a whaler in London for the southern
seas--“South-Seaman” was the name they were wont to give her--used to
require anything from £8,000 to £12,000. She was seldom away less than
two and a half years, but this was not infrequently exceeded. And if
the result, as latterly had become the case, were unsuccessful, all
that capital had been tied up uselessly. On the other hand, a whaler
might come back from the South Seas to London with 250 tuns of sperm
oil which would realize £80 a tun: £24,000 in return for the capital
expended, but with the ship still afloat and some of her stores
remaining.
An average cargo in the prosperous times amounted to 160 tuns of
oil, and the largest cargo which an early nineteenth-century British
whaler ever brought into the country was 330 tuns. This was in the
_Rochester_, Captain Smith, the year being 1830; but the largest sperm
oil cargo ever taken into the United States up to that date in one
whaler was 4,050 barrels, or more than 500 tuns. The British whaler
_Tuscan_ was away from 1833 to 1836, and during those three years
sighted sperm whales on 90 different days. She was able to kill and
secure to the ship no fewer than 78 of them, and arrived home with
1,953 barrels, or 244 tuns of oil, which was a remarkably good cargo.
But if we select the period from 1820 till 1832 we find that the amount
of sperm oil brought into Britain by British whalers rose from 2,264
tuns to 5,576 tuns.
We have to remember that the use of lamps and machinery was increasing
during those early nineteenth-century days, and this gave a greater
demand for the sperm oil. One author writing on this subject in the
year 1840 remarked: “The very general adoption of gas for the purpose
of illumination, and which might reasonably be expected to lessen the
demand for oil, has not had that effect--on the contrary, it would
appear that the increased light of the shops and streets rather induces
persons to add to their domestic illumination in a proportionate
degree.”
During those early years of the nineteenth century the American whalers
numbered a fleet of about 350, many of which were engaged exclusively
in hunting the sperm whale. Such an American ship was owned by a
syndicate of small capitalists which included the master and officers.
In Britain the custom rather was for one merchant to own several of
these craft. The size of whalers at that time varied from 250 to 400
tons burthen. The “South-Seaman” and the Greenlander had to go out
light and return with their cargoes already consisting of the produce
separated from the non-lucrative parts of the whale. It was a series of
long voyages, and unlimited time was essential both for the searching
of indefinite areas and for the extraction of the oil when the capture
had been made.
CHAPTER II
THE NORTHERN QUEST
The desire to find both the North-East and the North-West Passages has
at various times and in all sorts of ships attracted the sailors of
Northern Europe towards the Arctic Seas, but with long lulls. Thus,
after the times of Hudson and Fotherby there ensued an interval until
the zeal for Polar discovery was kindled in the reign of George III.
Papers were read before the Royal Society, and eventually two vessels
of the Royal Navy, _Racehorse_ and _Carcass_, were despatched, the
young Horatio Nelson serving in the latter. Hitherto all these northern
expeditions had been fitted out by merchants with a desire to find
either a passage and trade route for their goods, or areas suitable
for capturing whales. But this Georgian enterprise was the first
effort which had the pursuit of science as its sole object. Starting
out in 1773, it was away only from May to September, but the resultant
information was hardly such as to enthuse the desire for discovery, and
those northern regions again fell into oblivion until there came into
notice a man named Scoresby.
William Scoresby was born in 1789 at Whitby, that historic port which
at one time harboured a fleet of whalers, and also those famous Geordie
brigs which used to fetch the coal from Newcastle to London. Cook, the
great explorer, was apprenticed to one of these Whitby colliers over
forty years before Scoresby saw the light, and from this Yorkshire
haven some of the finest English sailors set forth in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. Now Scoresby’s career is a most
interesting one, for he was a product of a severe school of seamanship;
he was made to rough it on board from an early age, he became one of
the greatest whaling captains in history, a distinguished explorer,
and was given that unique distinction of being elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society, publishing some valuable matter dealing with the
practical side of whaling and the scientific study of the Arctic
regions.
He was only eleven when he made his first Greenland voyage, he was but
seventeen when he made the nearest approach to the North Pole that had
ever been fully authenticated, being at that time mate of his father’s
Greenland whaler. It was the information which Scoresby and others of
this industry accumulated that provided the necessary data for the
great explorers of the nineteenth century: we can never be too grateful
to those pioneer whalers who risked their lives and ships among the
ice in uncharted seas. Sailing, towing, boring, warping, they opened
up a track with the object of pursuing the whale: but each voyage
brought back more and more intelligence concerning winds and tides
and ice-barriers. Scoresby used to land at Spitzbergen and elsewhere,
climbing summits, making observations, studying the bird life and
doing many things quite outside the sphere of mere whaling. After he
became of age he continued to make these Greenland voyages annually,
but the most important of his discoveries were made in the year 1822
when he sailed in the 321-ton ship _Baffin_, with a crew of fifty. He
left Liverpool on March 27th bent on whaling, but never an opportunity
was missed of adding to scientific knowledge, and after passing the
eightieth degree a month later, he reached the main northern ice. The
first whale was caught on May 6th, but soon his ship became involved
in the floating ice and only with difficulty was she extricated.
Now these waters had been fished for many generations and were
therefore becoming unproductive, so the only satisfactory results were
to be obtained on the eastern shores of Greenland. Along here Scoresby
penetrated to parts that had never been explored, and after naming
these bays and forelands and peninsulas, he went further east in search
of his whales. It was during one of these attempts that a harpooner had
just got his weapon into the whale when the latter started off with
such speed that the line was jerked out of its lead and the boat nearly
swamped. The harpooner, a real expert, tried to catch hold of the line
and replace it in its proper position, when he got caught by a sudden
turn, dragged overboard and drowned.
Several more whales were taken, and after further exploration, being
surrounded by icebergs, Scoresby altered course, and on August 15th
had the good luck to sight and strike five whales, of which three were
taken. This completed his cargo and the _Baffin_ returned home after a
voyage that was successful both financially and scientifically. And to
that knowledge which Scoresby brought home, other venturers added in
subsequent years. But Scoresby was just one of a long line of seamen
who had been attracted by the magnetic north. The opening up of the
waters in these high latitudes, even if there was neither a north-east
nor a north-west passage for the English merchants’ goods, set going
a new industry whose profits had not even been suspected. It had been
really a lucky find whilst searching for a route to India north-about.
The news spread, and thus there had come English, Dutch, French and
Spanish ships by the early seventeenth century, with the inevitable
jealousies too. Each nationality tried to elbow the others out of
these valuable waters, and occasionally there was an actual encounter.
It would be difficult to support the claim of the seventeenth-century
English whalers as “lords of the northern seas,” and we can well
understand how much foreign nations resented this exclusive claim.
The Dutch Whaling Company even sent out seven stout, well-armed ships,
and in 1618 there came a crisis when an English whaler was captured
and sailed off to Amsterdam. However, the Dutch Government deemed it
prudent to restore this vessel, her cargo and crew: but those who had
made the capture were also rewarded. And finally, since there was
room for all, since there were just as big whales in those northern
seas as ever came out, it was decided to divide up the areas in the
neighbourhood of Spitzbergen among the various national whaling
fleets, in order that the industry might flourish peaceably. The Dutch
especially found in this activity a great source of wealth, and it is
largely due to their diligence and resource that whaling progressed.
Some of their methods and actual words (for example “flensing”) are in
use to this day. This applies especially to the operations employed in
getting the oil from the whale after capture.
English and Scottish fishermen of all kinds have, especially since the
sixteenth century, learnt much of their art from the Dutch: even their
very vessels for years were unquestionably influenced by the fishermen
the other side of the North Sea. Let us, then, not forget the debt we
owe to Holland in regard to our present subject. The difficulty was as
follows. Having arrived in Spitzbergen waters, those ships were of such
small tonnage that after harpooning two or three big whales, the vessel
was full up. Therefore the Dutch evolved the practice of extracting the
oil and bones, in fact concentrating all the valuable products into
such a space that not three but numerous whales could be used. It was
for this purpose that they installed ashore boilers and tanks, coolers
and all necessary apparatus of a factory. The whales had only to be
killed, brought ashore, and then the produce was compressed out of them.
Here the dead mammals were “flensed,” that is to say, cleared of
blubber and bone. Here, in these isolated latitudes, collected during
the summer months quite a village population from Holland. Here were
furnaces and stores and everyone hard at work, and the bay full of
whaling ships. Such, indeed, was the activity that in 1697 there were
no fewer than one hundred and eighty-eight of these vessels, having on
board the extracts of nearly two thousand whales. But as has happened
over and over again in the history of whaling, all this excessive
fishing had the result of frightening the mammals so that the latter
forsook the neighbourhood and migrated from Spitzbergen to near that
great bank of ice in the Greenland Sea. It was this which caused
Spitzbergen to lose its flourishing existence. To bring the captured
whales two thousand miles across such an ocean was impracticable: so,
as the whale would not come to the furnaces, the furnaces had to be
brought across to Greenland together with all the rest of the plant.
Thus, as we have seen in Scoresby’s voyaging, the vessels had to skirt
the frozen icefields--and even anchor to this barrier--in order to
capture the elusive mammoth of the sea.
So it was that by the end of the seventeenth century Spitzbergen, which
had been discovered by Barentsz only a hundred years previously, had
become practically denuded of whales. But in addition to the other
nations mentioned, the Russians also showed an interest in this means
of wealth. It was in the year 1743 that, in spite of this diminished
condition which had been reached, a vessel was sent out from Archangel
whaling to Spitzbergen with a crew of fourteen hands, and had got
within a couple of miles of the eastern side when suddenly their ship
became surrounded by ice. The position became critical, and then four
of them resolved to make for the shore leaping from one ice floe to
the other. On land they found a ruined hut that had once been used by
former whalers, and next day they were about to inform their shipmates
when to their horror it was seen that the ship had disappeared. A heavy
gale had dispersed ship and ice floes. Nor was she ever seen again.
Now these four men, left to their own resources, lived on that island
for the next six years and three months. They had neither clock nor
watch, nor navigational instrument, but they made a cross-staff and
were able to take an altitude of the sun when it was visible. They
succeeded in keeping such good reckoning of time that after all those
months they were not more than four days out. On that craggy island,
where there was not so much as a tiny tree, nor a blade of grass, three
of the four men lived and survived. They had a gun and shot wild deer
until their ammunition gave out. They then made themselves pikes out
of some pieces of iron which they found, and thus killed an aggressive
Polar bear whose flesh fed them, whose skin clothed them, from whose
entrails the string was made to complete a bow which had been fashioned
from a bit of wreckage that came ashore. Thus armed, they were able to
fill their pantry with reindeer meat. One of the men did not die till
the end of six years, and the three survivors then became despondent
and wondered how long it would be before they would be eaten up by the
bears.
But then a marvellous thing happened on August 15, 1749; for to their
utter amazement a ship was seen to seaward. These three men now set
to work, lighted fires on the hills, hoisted a flag-staff with a
reindeer’s skin as flag, and thus attracted the ship, which came to
anchor. Now the arrival of this vessel was miraculous, for she had
encountered head winds, been unable to make her destination, and
therefore altered course to East Spitzbergen just opposite to where
these men happened to be. Then, after placing on board her reindeer
fat, hides, fox skins, their bow, arrows, spears and lances made with
their own hands, they were brought back to Archangel after having been
long since given up for lost.
It so happened, when this vessel came in, that the wife of one of these
three survivors was standing by the water. Suddenly she recognized her
long-bewailed spouse, and unable to wait till the ship was secured to
the pier, the woman threw herself forward to embrace him, fell into the
water, and was saved only with difficulty.
Who was the very first ever to catch a whale in northern waters it
would be impossible to say. The Vikings, who colonized Greenland and
afterwards withdrew, certainly hunted these mammals. In the early
part of the eighteenth century the Esquimaux used to go whaling in
their canoes, whose frames were made of wood or whalebone, covered
over with the skin of seals except for a hole large enough to receive
the steersman. Thus decked, these little craft used to go out with
primitive harpoons pointed with teeth of walrus. To the barb was
attached a thong, at the extremity of which was a bladder which served
as a buoy. All that the hunter had to do was to get up to the whale,
hurl this simple harpoon into him and then leave the whale to tear
about in his agony till he bled to death. The bladder-buoy indicated
his position, and the creature was then towed ashore to be stripped,
and thus there were food and light for another long winter’s season.
CHAPTER III
WHALING ENTERPRISE
The effect of over exertion in the Spitzbergen area had been to break
up that sectional monopoly arranged between nations. The whale had gone
elsewhere, the hunting was now of the free-for-all kind, and the scene
had shifted to Greenland.
This free trade naturally caused a greater number of ships to be fitted
out than before, both in Holland and England. In the latter country
there had been formed “The Company of Merchants of London trading to
Greenland” with a subscribed capital of £40,000, which was presently
increased. But within less than a decade every penny was lost owing
to bad management and lack of supervision. The eighteenth century
was hardly a period of high ideals, and morality was at a pretty low
ebb. Honour and trustworthiness were conspicuous enough by their
absence. What then could you expect? If you sent men in such an age
to the desolate regions of Greenland, at a fixed salary, without any
interest in the business, and simply ordered them to get whales, how
can you wonder if these men, far away from the vigilance of their
owners, preferred to come ashore, hunt the deer and make themselves
as comfortable as they could without chief consideration for the
shareholders? They were sure of a certain pay whether they got a
thousand whales or none. Thus it was that financial disaster came to
the company, and by the irony of fate the last ship, after having made
the really excellent catch of eleven whales, got wrecked.
But this unfortunate company’s failure was of national importance,
seeing that other countries were becoming rich by the industry. You
will remember that this was a period of reckless finance. The wealth
of the country was beginning to increase, thanks to overseas trade and
the growth of the Mercantile Marine, principally in respect of the
Honourable East India Company. But in those days investment was not
easy, and it was difficult to get interest for one’s savings. Then came
the South Sea Scheme in 1720, and the resulting “Bubble,” when sane
men seemed suddenly to go mad, all save Walpole. The South Sea Company
was dealt with leniently in the end, it was not even dissolved, and
carried on a legitimate business. Turning its attention now to whaling,
it placed a great deal of its capital in this enterprise; for the
Government was encouraging, and exempted from all tax the produce of
the country’s whaling.
In the year 1725 the South Sea Company built a dozen fine large
whalers, and gave them a thoroughly good equipment with all the
necessary cordage, casks and gear. In the spring this squadron set
forth and returned with only twenty-five whales, which hardly paid
the cost of equipment. In 1730 twenty-two ships were sent out, but
they returned with only a dozen whales, so that the loss this year
was £9,000; and eventually after eight years the company had to give
up whaling altogether. It was a sad blow to British enterprise, and
the more so since it concerned the sea. The very existence of the
nation during the next critical hundred years was to depend on ships
and crews; whatever could be done by way of encouragement must be
attempted, but who was likely to invest his money where so much had
already been lost?
In 1732 the Government again tried to help, by offering a bounty of
twenty shillings a ton to every ship engaged in the whaling trade
exceeding two hundred tons. This caused several private individuals to
come forward, but the success was not great. In 1749 the dying industry
was still further helped by increasing the bounty to forty shillings,
and this made the undertaking worth while, so that three years later
there were forty whalers sailing out, and their number even rose to
eighty-two after still another three years had passed. That which was
at the back of the Government was the value of whaling as a nursery for
seamen, of whom the country possessed a comparatively small number. If
crews could be trained in merchant ships, there was always at hand a
large crowd which could be impressed for the ships of war.
But this bounty system, like all such arrangements, was an artificial
stimulant; and it was very costly. Thus, when about £600,000 had
been expended by 1769, it was thought that whaling was now able to
support itself; so eight years later the bounty was reduced to thirty
shillings. The effect of this was to show that the industry was not
yet sufficiently strong to exist unsustained, for the number of ships
dropped to about a third, and the forty shillings had to be granted
as before. But by this time, as we have already seen in a previous
chapter, the War of Independence had made a great difference, and
British whalers were about to use the southern seas to great advantage.
So well did whaling now prosper that in 1787 the bounty was able to be
reduced to thirty shillings, and eight years later to twenty shillings,
but still the industry went on increasing.
Thanks to American tuition at first, British sailormen now relearned
the art which their forefathers had excelled in. Continental politics
wiped out Holland as a rival in fishing and whaling for twenty years,
and this period was too long to allow of the old habits and the old
Dutch whaling crews to return. The future, therefore, in respect
of whaling lay between British and American ships until the firm
establishment of steam vessels. And that which may be called the golden
age of whaling followed during the next fifty or sixty years. We shall
now be able, with this outline clear before us, to consider the whalers
in far greater detail.
The building and fitting out of whaling fleets was no small matter,
and it is a matter for deep regret that with the extermination of
the Greenland right whale these fleets gradually diminished, and
with them disappeared in time those fine builders of strong wooden
ships. These artists of the adze must not be forgotten, for on them
and the designers depended the very safety of the ships. These early
nineteenth-century whalers no longer carried on their work in bays and
on the outer rim of the icefields. Starting out early in the season,
they would penetrate into the heart of the Arctic, and had to be able
to withstand the crushing and collision by the ice pressure. Every
whaler was of the nature of a discovery ship, specially strengthened
externally by iron plates at the bows and hardwood sheathing, with
stanchions and cross-bars inside the hull so as not to locate but
spread the ice pressure over the whole construction.
Dundee became at last the final British whaling port as long as it was
possible. Even after the Greenland industry fell on evil days, stout
wooden whaling vessels were built at this port, and as late as the
period 1893 to 1911 right whaling was still undertaken by an average
of seven or eight vessels from here. By the year 1912 there was only
a single whaler sailing out of here, and I believe that to-day Dundee
commissions not even her. When Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expedition
of 1900-4 was being got ready he had for this venture built the
_Discovery_ at Dundee, practically on the lines of a whaler. And for
this purpose some of the veteran shipwrights came back to their old
work in order to construct this special type of ship. No riveter of
steel plates could have done the job.
On Derby Day, June 1910, I was on board Scott’s last ship, the _Terra
Nova_, and watched her start half an hour later from the Thames for
his final expedition to the Antarctic. This auxiliary steamship was
a genuine whaler, barque rigged, of 399 registered tons, built at
Dundee in 1884 of wood by A. Stephen & Sons. That great whaling expert
Scoresby used to recommend 350 tons as the most desirable size for a
whaling ship on the grounds that its hold would normally be filled
with whale produce, and it could carry the requisite crew and boats:
but that it was usually difficult to fill a vessel of greater tonnage,
and thus there would be empty, unearning space for the proprietor. The
Dutch held the opinion that the ideal whaler should measure 112 ft.
long, 29 ft. beam, and 12 ft. depth, carrying seven boats and about
fifty men. The _Terra Nova_, which is representative of the finest
achievement of the whaler after auxiliary steam had been introduced
into these ships, measured 187 ft. long, 31.4 ft. beam, 19 ft. depth.
The engines were placed right aft, the funnel abaft the mainmast, and
the bows were specially strengthened. The modern steel-built steam
whaler measures from 98 to 115 ft. in length over all, 18 to 22 ft.
in beam, with moulded depth 11 to 12 ft. 9 in. But we shall deal with
these in a special chapter.
Most noticeable, of course, in these old-time wooden whalers was the
crow’s-nest placed high up on the main topmast or t’gallant-mast. It
was made of canvas or light wood, from which a careful look-out was
maintained for the whales. Here, too, the captain when farthest north
would sometimes remain with spy-glass and speaking trumpet, conning the
ship as in a temperature many degrees below freezing-point he watched
the surrounding ice through which his vessel must needs thread her
way. The Greenland whalers usually left their home port so as to make
a departure from the Shetland Isles about the first week in April and
arrive within the Polar Seas before the end of that month.
Scoresby’s Land is still shown marked in modern maps of Greenland, and
it was customary at one time for the whalers to spend a few weeks along
this coast in what was known by the crews as the Seal-fishers’ Bight.
They would go farther north among the icefields a little later. But in
the early nineteenth century it was the practice to sail straight away
north without delay. Let us follow with them and see their methods,
which are so different from modern whaling but resembled the custom of
the South Seamen already noted.
Having once reached the Greenland icy seas, the seven boats were kept
ready for immediate launching, and aloft a constant watch was kept for
ice and whales. These boats, whose design can be traced right back to
those early Viking craft, and is largely copied in the oared “whalers”
of the Navy to-day, were 25 to 28 ft. long, and about 5-1/2 ft. in
beam. Sometimes in rowing off to the unsuspecting whale a circuitous
route was taken, and strict silence was maintained to prevent the
mammal becoming alarmed. We mentioned on a previous page the importance
of the harpoon-gun which was made in the year 1865. But even by 1830 a
gun of sorts was in use, though not generally employed. When the first
boat had got the harpoon fastened into the whale and the line was about
to be run off entirely, the boat would signal to one of the other boats
by holding up one, two or three oars to indicate the need of more line.
The handling of the line once fast was the work of an expert, like the
playing of a fish by a skilled angler. It had to be veered in such a
manner that the bows of the boat were not pulled below the level of the
water. And the turns round that bollard had to be done smartly without
any bungling. The way the line went whirling round the bollard was
likely to surprise a novice, and the friction was so severe that water
had constantly to be poured over it to prevent it catching fire. So,
also, the boat that was signalled to come along for his line to be bent
had to be equally smart: for if it was not in time, then the first boat
having come to the end, might be compelled to cut, and thus lose not
merely the whale but harpoon and lines too.
The activity with which the city fireman to-day tumbles out and rushes
to his fire-engine on the ringing of the bell was rivalled only in
the old whaler days when the look-out from aloft had sighted a whale.
The watch on deck would rouse those below by stamping with their feet
and shouting “A fall! A fall!” This word was taken from the Dutch
“val” meaning a whale. And out the men would tumble in their sleeping
garments, with no time to dress, in spite of the atmosphere being well
below zero. To a fresh hand this first experience was alarming, and he
imagined that the ship was foundering.
These early nineteenth-century British whalers were self-contained
without a shore station; and having caught the whale, his tail was
pierced after death with two holes through which ropes were passed,
and then the mammal was towed to the ship. He was secured alongside
and then the flensing began. There is a Dutch word “spek,” which means
blubber or fat. And the leading hands in this flensing operation were
known as “speak koning” or blubber kings. Another important personage
was the “speksioneer,” who directed the cutting. To each seaman the
captain would go round with a dram of grog, giving a double allowance
to the blubber kings and speksioneers. Under the direction of the last
named the harpooners set to work with their blubber spades and great
knives to make long parallel cuts, and the two kings on deck stowed
the pieces in the hold, the carcase being turned round as convenient
by blocks and the windlass. Of course as long as the station at
Spitzbergen lasted all the oil was extracted ashore: but when the whale
migrated to Greenland it was customary to take the blubber back to the
home port.
The dangers to the Greenland whalers were increased by the fact that
the cetaceans were mostly found on the very borders of the ice-barrier,
and in the heyday of prosperity the wonderful sight of a hundred
vessels has been seen along this ice-margin. Multiply this by the
number of the boats, and you can picture what a sight it was in those
latitudes with several hundred craft strung in a continuous line,
making it almost impossible for any whale to escape: for he was hemmed
in from diving below the ice and he was surrounded by boats as soon as
he showed himself in the clear water. The height of the sport was when
the ice was not solid but broken up into numerous small islands: for
then the men would have to leap on to the frozen surface, run along
with harpoon and lance, and attack in the opening wherever the whale
came up to breathe. In such chases anything might happen before the
whale was killed, possibly with the loss of a man or two. And then
would come the difficult and arduous task of cutting the creature up
small enough to be dragged across the ice to the ship.
But besides the Greenland whaling there was also the region of the
Davis Straits which began to be hunted by the Dutch at the beginning
of the eighteenth century and by the British ships somewhat later. The
Davis Straits whaling was found very remunerative, but it was found
also very dangerous, for many fine vessels got wrecked. In the year
1814 the British whaler _Royalist_ was here lost with all hands, and
three years later a similar disaster overtook the _London_. Icebergs,
of course, were the great peril here.
Possibly no section of the Mercantile Marine ever ran so many
continuous hazards as the whalers of the North. Quite apart from the
usual perils of the sea were the special risks arising from boat-work,
and the dangers to the ship itself in uncharted seas with bergs and
ice of all kinds. Add to this the incessant bad weather with bitter
cold, and you can appreciate that only tough, hard-case seamen were
likely to make a second voyage. But those who persisted, after the
manner of Scoresby, amassed such Arctic knowledge as would have filled
a whole shelf full of books. Perhaps these men could hardly realize
it at the time, but they were building up a national seamanhood whose
descendants were to form the backbone of our steamship companies and
trawler fleets. As to the value of these to a country we can wish for
no better evidence than those long eventful years of the Great War,
when troops and material were moved all over the seven seas, when
thousands of mines were swept up and enemy submarines chased and sunk.
It takes generations to build up a race of seafarers, but when once the
tradition has been set going, when once it has become the thing for the
son to follow in his father’s steps aboard a vessel, you have one of
the most valuable national possessions imaginable. And in those ports
there grow up a number of yards, with slips and docks, building better
and better types of ships as the years go by. The whaling industry was
certainly responsible for a great deal of good to Britain, quite apart
from the amount of money obtained from the whale produce. And on the
Atlantic coast of America, is it not true that the home ports of the
whalers have always been those of the finest seamen in the country?
Certainly it was the English colonists and their zeal for the Greenland
fisheries which were responsible in that country at the first.
CHAPTER IV
FLUCTUATING FORTUNES
In certain parts of the east and north-east coasts of Britain one still
comes across old buildings, such as in King’s Lynn, which remind us of
their intimate connection with the Greenland whaling occupation of more
than a century ago. Leaving in April, the ships would as a rule start
back not later than August. But, just as the whale had migrated west
from Spitzbergen after being mercilessly hunted, so that area between
Spitzbergen and Greenland which the crews called the Greenland Sea had
begun to show signs of thinning by the second decade of the nineteenth
century.
And since the Davis Straits area was found to yield a more ample
return, it was to this neighbourhood that the centre of interest now
shifted gradually. This necessitated longer and therefore more costly
voyages, and certainly far more dangerous. But the results were so good
as to outweigh these drawbacks. Up to about 1820 three-fifths of the
northern whalers were still using the Greenland Sea, and two-fifths
were trying the Davis Straits. But ten years later there were not more
than four ships fishing in the former, and thus we come to a fresh
development in our subject. And here at last Government exploration
was to do something for the fisherman. Strictly speaking, of course,
the whale is not a fish: but by time-honoured custom generations of
sailors, statesmen and others have spoken of the whale-_fisheries_, and
with this proviso it is permissible so to refer to the matter.
In 1818 Ross’s naval expedition went north through the Davis Straits
and explored Baffin’s Bay. With him went Parry, who was to make further
Arctic voyages in the next and some subsequent years. So far as the
whalers were concerned one important result from these Government
expeditions was to make known a number of admirable localities which
had previously been scarcely frequented. The first man to have
discovered this bay, or rather sea, was William Baffin, who after going
whaling in 1613-1614 off Spitzbergen, joined Captain Bylot in 1615
aboard the _Discovery_ to look for the North-West Passage by Davis
Straits. This passage was never discovered until in our own time when
the 70-ton _Gjoa_ set out from Christiania in 1903 and after three and
a half years navigated safely that which had frustrated three centuries
of seamen, and then arrived at San Francisco.
But if Baffin failed in his primary purpose he discovered and charted
what we now call Baffin’s Bay. His observations were discredited during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but were verified by Ross
in 1818, and actually used by the Franklin expedition. It is a huge
area over eight hundred miles long and about a third of that wide; and
thanks to the information confirmed by Ross and Parry there was now
available a whaling ground just at a time when it began to be needed
most. So the whalers soon began sailing from the east and north-east
coasts of Britain, usually in March, and crossed the Atlantic to the
Davis Straits, and then till the beginning of May hunted the whale off
the north coast of Labrador or by the mouth of the Cumberland Sound.
This was known as the south-west fishery. They would next cross to
the eastern side of Davis Straits and fish along the western side of
Greenland: this being done, they moved further up in July to Lancaster
Sound and even to Barrow’s Strait, which is right in the Arctic regions
in lat. 74° N. On their way down Baffin’s Bay they used to fish the
western shore, especially at such places as Pond’s Inlet and Home Bay.
Three or four whales made quite a fair average catch in one season, but
as many as nine were sometimes caught by one ship.
If a ship had been unlucky she might remain in Baffin’s Bay as late as
October looking for whales. The expression used by the crews when a
vessel had captured none was to say she was “clean.” Now one of these
ships from Peterhead was clean on the last day of September, having
been out all those months, but by October 27th she had caught five
whales and got back to Peterhead with an average cargo. But the toll of
losses in those lonely seas naturally mounted up. In the year following
Ross’s voyage there were lost up there ten whalers out of sixty-three.
In 1821 eleven out of seventy-nine, and in the following year seven out
of sixty whalers never came back. These disasters were brought about
principally owing to having been crushed by the ice or squeezed out of
the water on to the ice whilst trying to get across to Lancaster Sound.
Owing to the necessary doubling of the strength in building these
northern whalers; owing also to their equipment of boats and cordage
and casks and implements, the capital needed was greater than that
for sending a merchantman to sea. On the other hand, no cargo was
required to be taken out, no capital needed for purchasing homeward
freights, for it was there in the sea for the asking. And in good
seasons the reward was well worth the money expended. Moreover, if
these staunch-built vessels could possibly avoid accidents, they were
good for an exceptionally lengthy service. The initial cost of a
350-ton whaler varied in different decades. In 1813 the 354-ton _Esk_
of Whitby, including the sum of £1,700 expended on her outfit for her
first voyage, cost £14,000. Ten years later £10,000 would have covered
the entire outlay, and by 1830 such a ship could have been provided for
£8,000. Half the amount went to pay for the hull and spars: the balance
being for sails, rigging, casks, line, and fishing gear. The sum of
£1,700 just mentioned covered the provisioning, insurance, advance
money to the seamen; but prices varied at different ports, Leith being
cheaper than Aberdeen and Hull being the most expensive of all.
The master and harpooner received no pay but were wisely given a
certain sum for every whale struck and for every tun of oil extracted.
The seamen, in addition to their wages, were allowed a bonus if the
voyage were prosperous. About the year 1830 quite one-third of British
whaling belonged to Hull, and thirty-three whaling ships sailed out
from the Humber that year to the Davis Straits. These averaged about
330 tons: but in this season, which was a very bad one, eight of the
thirty-three came home “clean,” that is to say, without having killed
a whale, and six never came home at all, having been lost in the ice.
Thus fourteen of the fleet failed to earn a penny dividend. The return
on the owners’ capital fluctuated in ninety years according to the
market price of the oil: which was £18 a tun in 1742, £60 in 1813, but
£24 in 1830. There was, therefore, always something of the gambling
element in the whaler industry. It was only by an average number of
seasons, and with fair luck in regard to sighting whales and avoiding
ice, that such ships could ever be expected to pay their way.
On the other hand, a whaler might be fortunate beyond all expectation,
as the Peterhead _Resolution_, which in 1814 made (including bounty)
about £11,000. Again, the personal practical knowledge and the skill
of a good skipper had a lot to do with success. Scoresby’s father
in twenty-eight seasons brought home oil and bone to the value of
£150,000 from the North. During the eighteenth century London had been
the principal whaling port, but by 1830 there were only a couple of
ships which used to leave the Thames for the northern whaling seas.
Decentralization was going on and other ports, almost exclusively
on the North Sea, were usurping this trade. The reason is not hard
to find, for the two biggest ports of London and Liverpool were now
concerned more with the vessels carrying cargoes to and from the
Indies or America. Presently the China clippers and the Australian
packets, and, later, the newly built ocean steamships, were to occupy
the attention of these two ports. Thus in the year 1818 there were
eight English whaling ports--Hull, London, Whitby, Newcastle being the
principal--with Berwick, Grimsby, Liverpool, and Lynn all about equal,
but Hull being far and away the leading centre. By 1830, however, when
London owned only a couple of whalers, Liverpool had none and Lynn had
none, nor had Grimsby any; Hull having thirty-three out of the total of
forty-one. But in Scotland matters were different, and in 1818 Aberdeen
was the chief whaling port, with Leith second, Dundee third, and
Peterhead fourth. By 1830 Peterhead owned thirteen whalers, Aberdeen
ten, Dundee nine, Leith seven: the other Scotch ports sending ships to
this fishery being Burntisland (Firth of Forth), Greenock, Kirkcaldy,
and Montrose.
Where the fortunes by whaling depended so entirely on the movements
of the mammal, to say nothing of the sea’s own perils, it was natural
enough that not merely local but national enterprise should have varied
from epoch to epoch. As I have shown in another volume, the migration
of the herring into the North Sea was responsible for bringing that
wealth to Holland which enabled her to rise to the importance of a
great sea power. In like manner the whale has played pranks in the
careers of communities and individuals. And, without boring the reader
too much, we may illustrate this by a few facts from history. Many
people in our own time have often asked the question what is the
practical good of all those Arctic and Antarctic expeditions which we
have recently seen go forth. Apart from their exhibition of gallantry
and endurance, what is likely to evolve for the good of the human race?
The answer is that a large mass of scientific data has been brought
home, which may be of untold value at any future stage in the world’s
development. Exactly in what respect these facts can be applied cannot
always be immediately apparent. But the demand for whale oil in modern
social life, such as in soap-making, glycerine for explosives, and the
manufacture of margarine, is likely to increase rather than otherwise.
Now these expeditions have thrown light on the habits and the homes of
the whales from which these essential products come, and the sending
forth by the British Government of a further research expedition in
1925 is evidence of the economic belief in the whale’s possibilities.
The information which Ross and Parry were able to bring from Baffin’s
Bay largely revolutionized the industry, and there is no reason why
the possession of the largest and best whaling steam fleet in the
future may not be of the highest value to a country in need merely of
those three articles alone, quite apart from the other products which
are available. And in these days of many inventions who can limit the
possibilities or foresee the value of this old-time pursuit? Who can
say whither the whale will wander? Where has he not wandered in the
past?
We know from Hakluyt that already by the ninth century the Norwegians
were hunting this animal off their coast. In the twelfth century
whaling was being carried on in the North Sea off the east coast of
Scotland, for Malcolm IV granted to Dunfermline Abbey one-tenth of all
the whales and “marine monsters” which might be taken in the Firths of
Forth and Tay: and in the following century Alexander II allowed half
the blubber of these whales for providing the altar candles in that
abbey. We know, too, that as early as 1575 the Basques used to hunt
whales in the Bay of Biscay, and afterwards went north even to Iceland,
Greenland and Newfoundland, so that within twenty-five years it was no
strange sight to find fifty or sixty Biscayan and Icelandish whalers at
work in northern waters.
From 1598 Hull sent regularly for some years whalers to Iceland and the
North Cape, and, after Hudson had rediscovered it, to Spitzbergen in
the seventeenth century. It was from 1610 that the English syndicate
known eventually as the “Russia Company” began. Two discovery ships,
the _Marie Margaret_ of 160 tons and the _Elizabeth_ of 60 tons, were
both lost, but a Hull ship managed to bring home the cargo. At that
time, you see, whaling was like finding a gold mine. It was untapped
wealth; the mammals had not been scared, and the rewards were immense.
So, also, in 1594 an English whaling expedition had been sent from the
west country to Cape Breton. There are references among the Pepysian
manuscripts during the seventeenth century, too, in regard to English
whalers proceeding for this purpose to Greenland seas.
But we see vessels being sent out from Bayonne, St. Jean de Luz, St.
Sebastian, Bremen, Hamburg and Amsterdam--in the latter case, of
course, by way of the Zuyder Zee and the Texel. The importance of
whaling to Holland rivalled that of the herring, especially during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many people have failed
to realize how for generations this helped to build up that country’s
wealth. If ever a nation raised itself by the sea it was the Low
Countries, and the three main sources were--the herring fishery off
their very coasts, the whale in northern waters, and the spice trade
in the Dutch East Indies. Let us consider the whaling. In 1671 they
sent no fewer than 155 vessels to Greenland which brought to Holland
630 whales’ produce. During the years of 1672-4, until the signing of
the Peace of London, they were so busy with naval operations that the
whaling men could not be spared from the fighting fleet: but in 1675
there were 148 Dutch whalers at work, and that brief rest to the whale
was rewarded by the ships bringing back the produce of 881 mammals. In
some seasons they killed as many as 1,600 and even 2,000.
Now, unfortunately, the English had in the meantime allowed their
rivals to go on helping themselves to these riches, and practically
retired from the industry. This is just one of those intermissions
which have characterized the occupation throughout its history. We
alluded in a previous chapter to the sudden interest in the first
quarter of the eighteenth century by the South Sea Company after the
“Bubble” had burst. How this came about is as follows. It was Henry
Elking who drew up a report for the Court of Directors of that company
in the year 1722. At this time the Dutch were in practical possession
of that trade which the English had at one time so enthusiastically
pursued. Other nationalities were a bad second, but our forefathers had
lost heart. Elking felt very deeply on the matter and submitted his
opinions to the Company plainly and with restraint.
“It will be found upon Examination,” he wrote, “a very great Mistake,
that the English cannot manage this Trade, which the Hollanders,
Hamburgers, Bremers, French and Spaniards, all carry on to Advantage,
and by which means they are made rich, even out of our Pockets, who sit
still and buy those Goods of them for our ready money.” Elking worked
up the feelings of jealousy that all this wealth should be passing to
our late enemies and sea-rivals. He contended, even, that whaling was
more advantageous to the Dutch than were their East Indies, seeing that
whaling took no money out of the country to purchase imports in the
East, but brought home wealth without paying. It was the Dutch, let us
remember, who had as recently as 1719 been the first to send whalers
into the Davis Straits, and only two years later there were 355 foreign
ships at work on these plentiful grounds. Why should the English be
so despondent and unenterprising when the Dutch and other seamen were
enriching themselves?
Elking made out a strong case, claiming that English-built ships if
more costly were stronger and lasted longer. In Holland living and
labour were cheaper than with us, and so vessels could be built more
inexpensively. But, on the other hand, the Dutch whalers had to import
many of their skippers, harpooners, steersmen for the boats, and even
seamen from such localities as Jutland, Holstein, Scotland, Norway,
Bremen and Friesland. These were taken on for the season and then
returned to their homes. Numbers of Englishmen had also served in these
Dutch whalers, and were quite as expert as their employers. This lull
which had been going on in English whaling enterprise since the last
quarter of the seventeenth century was most unfortunate for England.
What was the kind of craft to employ? Elking considered that the most
suitable whalers were flyboats, cats or hagboats; “and should be very
strong built, and doubled at the Bow, to resist the Shocks of the
Ice.” The size varied from 200 to 500 tons, the former carrying four
boats and twenty men and boys, while the latter had seven boats with
a crew of fifty men and boys. The complement of a 300-ton whaler at
that time with six “shallops” as they used to call the boats, consisted
of one chief harpooner who was the whaling expert in command of the
whole expedition; one master of the ship, five other harpooners,
six boat-steersmen, six “managers of the Lines,” one surgeon, one
boatswain, one carpenter, two coopers, sixteen “common sailors” and two
or three boys: total, forty-two or forty-three to the ship.
These ships were worked in three watches, except that when a whale was
sighted all hands were called. When the ship reached the ice-barrier
she was anchored to the ice by a great “nose-hook.” The word “cachalot”
was introduced by the French fishermen, the English whalers employing
the word “pot-fish” or spermaceti fish. But though there was some
sort of whaling industry off the east coast of Scotland in the early
seventeenth century, and a hundred years later it extended north from
the Orkneys, yet it had become unprosperous and languished as in
England. But the revival of British whaling dates from 1725, when the
South Sea Company, convinced by Elking’s arguments, sent their dozen
ships which they had caused to be built specially on the Thames for
this northern trade. They were each of about 300 tons, and at Deptford
a wet dock was reserved for them, where also the boiling houses were
erected for extracting the oil.
The unhappy result of this South Sea Company’s northern whaling
adventure we have already observed. But the fact remains that the Dutch
and foreign monopoly was from now seriously contested. There were
periods of depression and despondency again, but the bounty offered by
the Government saved the industry from dying a natural death. Thus if
we take the year 1788 we find that, in spite of everything, British
whaling had been so resuscitated that 255 vessels of under 300 tons
were now sailing north from London, Hull, Liverpool, Whitby, Newcastle,
Yarmouth, Sunderland, Lynn, Leith, Ipswich, Dunbar, Aberdeen, Bo’ness,
Glasgow, Montrose, Dundee, Whitehaven, Stockton, Greenock, Scarborough,
Grangemouth, Queensferry, and even from Exeter.
A great recovery had been made and this list of ports shows how
universal was the interest now taken. The founding of the Dundee Whale
Fishing Company at this time was to give that town a special importance
which was to last for several generations. For it was the introduction
of steam into the Dundee whalers during the year 1858 which was to
alter the whole future of whaling. At the close of the eighteenth
century the manufacture of jute had been introduced to British
industrialists, though it was a long time before it became popular.
About the year 1850, after being introduced to Dundee for less than
twenty years, jute manufacturing in that town became extensive, and it
was the large consumption of whale oil required in the jute fabrication
which gave to Dundee the leading position in that trade. Thus it was
that the building of whaling ships so long survived at this Scotch port.
CHAPTER V
IN THE DAVIS STRAITS
The Government bounty to encourage British whaling ceased in 1824;
the wealth which was coming in exceeded that of the Dutch even in the
latter’s most prosperous year, and there seemed every likelihood of
the pursuit becoming most satisfactory. The produce in 1814 obtained
from Greenland and Davis Straits had amounted to over £700,000, but
this was an exceptionally good year. In 1829 the figure had dropped to
about half that, but the price of oil had also fallen. In addition,
about £50,000 must be added for the revenue from that newer South Seas
fishing.
It was in that year there occurred an incident in the Davis Straits
which well illustrates the keenness and even the jealousies among the
whalemen. The date was August 23, 1829, and five or six boats of the
Peterhead whaling ship _Traveller_ were at work in the straits when
one of the boats harpooned a whale. Away darted the monster, so that
the _Traveller’s_ boat was quickly coming to the end of her line. The
“foregoer” or “foreganger” had been hove over by the harpooner, a turn
had been taken round the “billet head” or bollard, and the usual signal
indicating to the rest of the fleet that a whale had been struck was
made, and the jack hoisted. That line was revolving round the bollard
at such a rate that smoke was issuing with the friction.
Of the boats in the vicinity, that of the whaler _Princess of Wales_
from Aberdeen came alongside the _Traveller’s_ boat in friendly
fashion, as was the custom among whalers, and bent her line to the line
of the _Traveller’s_ boat. Eventually the whale diminished his fury
and was approached, but now a boat from the barque _Thomas_, owned by
the Dundee Union Whale Fishing Company, came up and also harpooned
the animal, which at once made off with such rapidity that one of the
men in the _Traveller’s_ boat was thrown under the thwart. The going
was terrific, for this boat encountered in its course an ice floe and
several of the men had to leap out and guide the craft past lest it
should be smashed to pieces: in fact, the pace was so fast that some
of the hands were left behind on the ice. A third turn had to be taken
round the bollard, but still the whale rushed on.
It was about this time that a second harpoon from the _Traveller’s_
boat got home, making three in all, and finally the whale was
killed. But then came a squabble, for the men in the _Traveller’s_
boat naturally claimed the catch as theirs, but the _Thomas’s_ boat
violently opposed this and demanded the prize for themselves. In fact
they were so determined and threatening that the _Traveller’s_ men had
to withdraw and watch the other people tow it away. But the matter did
not end there, and the case came on for trial in Edinburgh during the
following March, when Joseph Hutchinson and other Peterhead merchants,
owners of the _Traveller_, brought an action against the Dundee Union
Whale Fishing Company. There was never much doubt as to the result, and
the _Traveller’s_ owners were awarded the sum of £600, which was the
agreed value of the whale.
The year 1830 stands out as one of the most disastrous years which ever
happened to British whaling. After the Greenland Sea had been mostly
fished clean, the grounds used by the whalers had been shifted chiefly
to the entrance of Davis Straits. This was known as the South-West
fishery. But in course of time this, too, had become fished out and
the whales had departed for more distant corners of the Arctic. The
information brought home by Ross and Parry that whales had been seen
in large numbers further up Baffin’s Bay, and on the north-west side,
naturally soon attracted the ships to those remote latitudes. At the
same time a much greater degree of risk was undertaken by reason of the
ice, for at the beginning of the season the ice comes floating down
from the north.
The whalemen’s custom was to take their ships up the eastern side of
Baffin’s Bay past the rocky promontory marked as the Devil’s Thumb,
and across that mighty Melville Bay where the snow and ice perpetually
cover the lofty shore. It was into this bay that the south-west wind
blew the loosened fragments of the barrier ice, which, unable to find
an outlet from this lee shore, created a tremendous danger to shipping.
In this year 1830, then, the whalers had left their British ports by
the end of March, but owing to head winds did not reach the entrance to
Davis Straits till the end of April. The sea this year was beautifully
open as they made their way up the eastern side of Baffin’s Bay,
sighting very few whales.
Above Disko Island the ice delayed them a week, but at last the fleet
of fifty sail reached the opening of Melville Bay on June 10th, about
a month earlier than usual. From now on there follows a series of
incidents so thrilling and amazing that imagination could hardly invent
happenings more astounding: the record is more like a chapter out of
a boy’s adventure story. For the south-west wind had crowded Melville
Bay with ice floes so that whichever way those whalers looked it was an
alarming sight. What was to be done? The hope was to find an opening
to the westward and thus gain the intended fishing ground; and, as a
fact, an opening was discovered. Whaler captains, like all fishermen,
were in keen competition the one against the other, and every ship knew
that the first to get through this ice to the open water stood the
best chance of reaching the whales first. Thus it was that the _St.
Andrew_ of Aberdeen wriggled her way through, and she was followed by
twenty-two more. The rest of the fleet were coming along, too, but now
the ice closed and made an impenetrable bulkhead between the first
twenty-three and the rear, which tried independently but ineffectually
to get through.
With the _St. Andrew_ were the _Baffin_ and _Rattler_ of Leith, the
_Eliza Swan_ of Montrose, the _Achilles_ of Dundee, and the French
whaler _Ville de Dieppe_. On June 19th there sprang up a fresh S.S.W.
gale which piled the masses of ice against them. The sight of these
six vessels with their heavy-built hulls and great yards against the
white ice hemming them in, unable to proceed further, was impressive
as a picture but indicative of future destruction. However, the little
squadron had taken what shelter they could under the lee of a large
floe and in water that barely floated them. They had also hauled
themselves so close in single line ahead, bow to stern, that it was
possible to walk along the six decks continuously.
And then on the night of June 24th the sky became black, the gale
worked up to its full anger, and the ice began pressing against the
ships terribly. In order to relieve this pressure, hands were set
sawing the ice so as to form a wet dock, but soon came a great floe
which nothing could withstand. Lifting up the _Eliza Swan_, the floe
hurled her against the _St. Andrew’s_ bow with such force as almost
to wrench the former’s mizzen mast out in the ship: and then the floe
passed from under, damaging both stem and keel. It next struck the
_St. Andrew_ amidships, snapping about twenty of her timbers, and then
passing along the line dashed against the _Baffin_, _Achilles_, _Ville
de Dieppe_ and _Rattler_ with such energy that within fifteen minutes
these four strongly built, specially fortified whalers designed for
Arctic work were for the most part converted into mere fragments of
wood.
With the grinding of the merciless ice and the crunching of stout
timbers; the shouts of the deep-throated men; the snapping of thick
masts; the crashing of yards; the howling of that bitter gale over the
icy white expanse, there was enough going on to unnerve most people.
Suddenly made homeless, many of these seafarers were but lightly clad
and just able to leap on to the frozen surface. The _Ville de Dieppe_,
partly filled with water, was the least unfortunate, for she touched
bottom, remained upright during the next fortnight, and from her were
salved stores and provisions. Some were also taken from the _Baffin_,
and boats were hauled on the ice to form some sort of shelter.
We mentioned just now the _Princess of Wales_, belonging to Aberdeen.
This whaler, together with the _Resolution_ of Peterhead, the _Laurel_
of Hull, and the _Letitia_, also of Aberdeen, had been able to get
further to the north-west, and cut out for themselves a wet dock in
the ice. They were lying side by side and imagined themselves quite
safe, but this gale drove the floes against them, piercing the hulls of
_Resolution_ and _Letitia_, filling them with the sea. The _Laurel_ was
lying between them and was so compressed as almost to be raised out of
the water: but for a while she remained, and quickly provisions and
stores were placed aboard her from the two wrecked whalers. On the 2nd
of July, however, the gale seemed to be worse than ever, and within ten
minutes the _Laurel_ and also the _Hope_ of Peterhead were destroyed.
But we have not yet completed the list.
Other whalers of the twenty-three had penetrated in their eagerness
further north, even as far as lat. 76°. Among these were two ships,
the _Spencer_ and _Lee_, of which the latter escaped with only
shattered timbers, whilst the former had filled and become a complete
wreck. The Whitby _William and Ann_ was crushed to pieces quickly,
the _Dordon_ of Hull was raised up by the ice into safety, and the
_Old Middleton_ of Aberdeen was wrecked. So also of those which had
remained south of the ice barrier, many encountered disaster, but thus
far not one officer or man out of the whole fleet had been lost. Some
had narrow escapes in reaching the ice, some even found themselves
in the water before they could get time to snatch a few clothes. And
then on that glacial surface a thousand seafarers set to work making
themselves as comfortable as they could with bits of sail as tents.
Anyone who has ever been associated with shipwrecked sailors knows
how adaptable they are to sudden changes of circumstances: how they
will even joke and magnify any element of happiness that remains.
Nor were these whaler-men any different. They had been accustomed to
cold and the rigours of northern fishing, some of them for twenty or
thirty years. Tough, hard-case, plucky, ignorant of most things except
their seamanship and their whaling; rough, chafing against discipline,
easily tempted by a drop of alcohol, they were a strange crowd to be
responsible for, on that ice, beyond the immediate control of their
officers.
Some of these sailors rejoiced that for once they were independent
beings, free from having to obey. Others treated the affair as a
holiday: but certain of them got hold of the salved wine and spirits
and became drunk. What with this newly sprung canvas village, the
roisterous alcoholic shouts of the British, the singing and dancing of
the French, no wonder that the wags named it Baffin’s Fair. There were
really two villages, in fact, that of the wrecked ships which had got
north of the barrier, and that of the vessels which had foundered to
the south. Between the two there was such regularity in communication
that the southerners used to call it the “north mail.” Possibly there
was more to drink in that southern section.
But presently the deaths began to happen: some through exposure and
cold and fatigue, but some through too much alcohol, tumbling into the
holes of the ice intoxicated. On the whole, however, the discipline
was not bad. The third week of July passed, the _St. Andrew_ with the
_Eliza Swan_ and other ships at the northern end tried to get away to
the westward, and their crews towed the ships through gaps. But some of
these vessels were so unlucky as to be driven still further north even
above lat. 76° 2′ and the men employed their time catching a few whales
and dragging them through the holes. It was not till September 10th
that they succeeded in making open water: though others had got clear
a week or two sooner. The most depressing sight was when a certain
Greenock ship was thoroughly ice-surrounded and she watched other
vessels one by one move away out of their icy fastness. The captain
died and the mate began to despair of ever getting the ship clear till
the following year. The latter thereupon took one of the boats with a
dozen men and left the ship to look for some of the Danish settlements.
But, after the mate had gone, the ice began to move, and after a
few hours’ sawing, the ship found herself in fairly clear water. The
position now was this. There were on board not merely the ship’s
own crew, but those of the wrecked _Princess of Wales_ and of the
_Letitia_. But the last of the officers had gone away in the boat,
taking with him the charts and log-glasses; yet still the crew decided
to carry on. For about a week this vessel, whose name was _John_, was
navigated cautiously, anchoring every night. But then the crew became
emboldened, and one night the watch on deck sighted a line of breakers,
but he came to the conclusion that it had been caused only by a stream
of ice: so no alteration in course was made. The next thing was that
the _John_ was ashore, and although built of teak she was a total wreck
by the morning. Fortunately there were sighted the _Eliza Swan_ and the
_Duncombe_ of Hull, who picked up the crew and brought them safely home.
The net result of this season’s disaster to the whaling fleet in the
Davis Straits was the loss of twenty fine ships belonging to Hull,
Aberdeen, Leith, Dundee, Peterhead, Whitby, Montrose, Greenock and
Dieppe. The news reached Peterhead and Hull in October by returning
ships lucky enough to have survived. Throughout these fishing towns the
effect was pathetic. Financially the loss of these nineteen British
whalers, and the cost of repairing twelve which were damaged, the
details as to wages, stores and so on, amounted to over £142,600, quite
apart from the failure to bring home that produce which they were
sent to fetch. Thus the total loss this season was close on £300,000.
And having regard to the value of money a hundred years ago, these
figures are extremely significant. Whaling had begun to be a prosperous
concern, the bounties had been discontinued, the Baffin’s Bay area
had seemed to hold out excellent prospects. But such a universal
disaster as this to nine of the principal ports was such that many were
disinclined to risk their savings in such ventures again. The industry
fell on bad times, the shock had been too heavy, and by the year 1849
there were only fourteen British whalers at work. But it was the United
States of America which especially kept the occupation going, for in
this last-mentioned year that country possessed 596 whaling ships of
190,000 tons manned by 18,000 sailors. Having regard to the English
pioneer work in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the vast
sums of money which had been expended, the enormous bounties, and the
years of persistent effort, the condition to which British whaling had
descended was thoroughly disheartening. Gradually the northern grounds
became deserted, and attention was turned more and more to those
southern seas about which Burke in the previous century had spoken with
such eloquence. The last voyage to Arctic seas had by no means been
made, but various efforts were taken to find the whale in areas of the
world less forbidding than those which had brought such disaster and
financial loss.
But even outside the Arctic regions British whaling was to be spasmodic
rather than regular both as to area and continuity. It was Captain Cook
who in 1775 first reported whales in the southern seas, and then the
American and British whalers began their profitable voyages thither.
But in the year 1833 there sailed from London the 300-ton whaler
_Tuscan_ for a three-year whaling voyage round the world, and in her
was allowed to travel as passenger a surgeon named F. D. Bennett, who
was a Fellow both of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the Royal
Geographical Society. This scientist went in order to study the anatomy
and habits of the southern whales and the mode of conducting the
sperm-whale fishery--a subject which up till then had not been touched
in our literature. He has described the South Sea whaling ship and the
life on board so well that we may first look at the vessel through his
eyes.
CHAPTER VI
THE OLD WHALE-SHIPS
“In external appearance,” says Bennett, “the South-Seaman is
principally distinguished from the ordinary merchant-ship by the number
and form of her boats; by the presence of some short spars, affixed to
one of her sides, to protect the hull when the blubber is being removed
from the whale to the deck; and, when cruising, by her lofty spars
being down, her sail shortened, and her mastheads manned. Interiorly,
one side of the deck, at the waist of the ship, has a platform, or
covering of planks, to receive the more bulky parts of the whale,
taken on board: an extent of 10 ft. of the corresponding bulwark being
adapted for temporary removal, to facilitate that object. To the head
of the mainmast are attached pulleys (‘cutting-blocks and falls’)
which communicate with the windlass, and which are employed to raise
the blubber, during the flinching of a whale. But the most conspicuous
and peculiar object on the deck is the edifice called the ‘try-works,’
and used for boiling the oil. This is a square building, 10 ft. in
length by 5 ft. in height, extending across the deck, a short distance
behind the foremast, and constructed of firmly cemented bricks, and
strengthened with iron. Its summit is flat, and excavated for chimneys,
as well as for the reception of two iron cauldrons, or ‘try-pots,’
beneath each of which there are corresponding furnaces. The entire
fabric is based upon a cistern of water; and an additional sheathing
yet further protects the deck from the effects of intense heat. Each
boiler, or ‘try-pot,’ is large enough to contain 136 gallons of oil,
and communicates, by a spout, with a large copper cooler, placed on the
corresponding side of the works. This building, which is erected on the
deck previous to the ship leaving her port, is retained only until the
cargo is complete, or whaling relinquished, when the whole is broken
up.”
Of course she went to sea with plenty of casks, some of which for
convenience in stowage were in packs ready to be put together as
required. Others were filled with fresh water and served as ballast.
Four iron tanks, usually fixed between decks, could also carry oil. In
a South-Seaman the total number of officers and men was about thirty
and consisted of master, surgeon, mates, boat-steerers or harpooners,
boatswain, carpenter, cooper (for constructing the barrels), armourer
and steward. The boat-steerers were petty officers, holding rank
between the mates and the able seamen: their duties being to steer
the respective boats, look after the equipment and harpoon the
whale. In most cases captain and crew depended for their pay on the
profits of the voyage, or received as wages a share of the cargo’s
value when the latter reached London. A South-Seaman’s crew sailing
out of that port received among themselves a third or a fourth of
the cargo’s realization; the residue being divided up among the
owners and for the cost of the voyage. The captain received from an
eleventh to a fifteenth share, whilst an able seaman usually got a
one-hundred-and-sixtieth.
Fully provisioned for three years with everything of the best, there
were very keen competition and much secrecy. But if two whalers
happened to sight each other on a cruising ground each scrutinized
the other to ascertain whether he had recently captured whales. The
practised eye could tell by glancing up at the cutting-falls; and if
there remained any bits of a whale’s skin in the strands, it was known
well enough that whales were not far away. Considerable latitude and
discretion were allowed by owners to the masters as to where they
should go. Obviously, as every captain was financially interested, it
was to his benefit that he should voyage where the chances were best.
Thus, some ships would go round the Horn to the South American coast,
thence westward along the neighbourhood of the Equator towards Japan,
thence back across the Pacific to work the Mexican and Californian
seas. Others would prefer sailing round the Cape of Good Hope to Indian
waters, whilst some small American whalers confined themselves to the
North Atlantic, especially off the African coast, the Western Isles,
and Equator, with great success.
It is customary to see in an old whaler’s log-book or journal the entry
of the day’s work preceded by the figure of a whale’s head if a sperm
whale were sighted that day. If, however, whales had been captured, you
find as many flukes sketched erect as there had been mammals caught. In
the case of a whale found dead, and taken, the fluke in the book was
shown reversed. This was the British custom. In American journals the
capture of a whale was shown by a sketch of the mammal in the left-hand
column. If there were also a sketch of a ship in that margin, it
denoted that a vessel had been sighted that day. Thus, there was a kind
of primitive visual method of logging events.
As to the gear of the British whaling ships, their boats were
necessarily of very great importance. Double-ended, steered not by
a rudder but by an oar on the port side secured by a grommet, the
steering oar was very long and needed a thoroughly experienced man.
These boats were from 27 to 30 ft. long and 4 or 5 ft. broad, of not
more than 1/2 in. planking. The double-ended design was not merely
for weatherly qualities but so that the boat could be rowed as easily
stern first as bow first. Speed, handiness and buoyancy were the
main features aimed at. The reason for these qualities will best be
appreciated from actual incidents.
Thus, while cruising, the whale-ship _Tuscan_ one day sighted on her
voyage out in the Atlantic a school of small whales. Boats were lowered
away as quickly as possible in pursuit, and three whales were soon
harpooned. One of these mammals escaped by the harpoon drawing, a
second sank immediately after death, the third, however, was captured,
brought back to the ship and taken on deck. It measured only 16 ft. and
produced about thirty gallons of oil. That was a comparatively easy
catch. But on another occasion the same ship sighted quite a number
of cachalots moving so rapidly to windward that the oared boats were
unable to get near them. On a third occasion a couple of whales were
harpooned in the midst of a school, but one of the boats whose harpoon
had penetrated the mammal was, whilst securing the victim, so severely
lashed by the flukes of another whale that the officer and harpooner
were both thrown into the sea. Fortunately the rest of the crew had
the presence of mind to cut the rope, and the harpooned whale was
allowed to escape in order to rescue the two shipmates. But the boat
was too badly damaged to be of further service. The second whale, after
being harpooned, “sounded” to the depth of a tub and a half of line,
then rose fiercely to the surface of the sea and went off, towing the
boat in a wild, mad fury to windward. Before long two other boats had
succeeded in getting their harpoons into the beast, but the whale still
continued its pace alive, and could not be killed by nightfall: so, in
spite of all their efforts, the boats had to cut their lines and return
to the ship unrewarded.
Often it was merely the handiness and good oarsmanship which saved the
men from disaster. On one occasion four of the boats were launched
after sighting a school of sperm whales, and three boats made their
captures satisfactorily. But the fourth cachalot was of the dangerous
fighting type and as mad as a Spanish bull. This young male had been
pierced by a couple of harpoons, but was in no mood to start flight as
desired. Instead, he attacked his attackers and rushed his head towards
the boat. By clever steering and hard rowing this onslaught was evaded,
but the whale next tried to crush the boat with his jaws, turning on
his back. The reception of a lance wound negatived this effort by
causing him to close his mouth. But the monster was still determined
and struck the boat with such a blow that it was nearly overturned, and
then he drove his jaw clean through the boat’s planking. Of course the
water came rushing in, and only by lashing the oars across the gunwale
could the half-immersed crew remain. The harpoon line was quickly cut
and the monster was allowed to escape. Scarcely visible in the waves,
the men were eventually picked up by the other boats and taken aboard
the ship, which came bearing down to them.
Yes: whaling, especially when there was any sea running, was always
more or less risky, and there was no telling what might happen, any
more than the toreador knows what his animal is about to perform. There
was the instance when three boats had each harpooned a whale, while
the fourth had got his weapon into an adult bull whale. The latter
now went tearing along towing the fourth boat, but the line crossed
that of another whale already made fast, and so drew the second boat
towards the bull, which struck it a blow with his flukes. This capsized
the boat, keel uppermost, so that the crew were swimming about or
supporting themselves with the oars. Thereupon the men in the boat
which had been engaging the bull had to cut the harpoon line and rescue
their friends.
Fortunately the capsized boat was undamaged and soon righted and
emptied. There followed another exciting chase after the bull, which
was so strenuous and fast that the boats soon got out of sight from
the ship. Finally, by the greatest exertion the oarsmen overtook the
bull, managed to secure the line which was trailing astern from the
whale, made fast to this, got right up to the bull and finally captured
him. It had been a long and thrilling day which did not end till ten
that night, when all the cachalots were brought back to the ship and
afforded 116 barrels of oil. Sometimes these incidents resulted in
fatal termination to men’s lives: but in any case it was only the fine
boatmanship and cool heads which enabled them to win through.
Besides the steering, there were five other oars, fifteen feet in
length and named respectively harpooner, bow, midship, tub and after
oar. The row-locks were muffled with mats, and in order to secure the
oars across the gunwales when the boat was shattered and sinking,
lifelines were attached to the sides, the steering oar being lashed in
the centre. In the bow was a small platform, sunk below the level of
the gunwale, named the “box,” with a thigh-board to receive the lower
extremities of the harpooner as he stood to hurl his harpoon or his
lance. At either end of the boat mats were spread to afford a firmer
footing to steersman and harpooner, the former also having a small
platform. Axes and knives were placed ready for use to cut the line
whenever necessary.
In the bows were placed a couple of harpoons and a couple of lances,
with reserves in other parts of the boat. The line had to be coiled
carefully in tubs which were placed on the floor between the seats.
This line led through a deep groove lined with lead, at the stem. Aft
it led to a stout pillar or bollard called a “loggerhead,” which was
used to take the strain when the line had been secured to the whale.
Woe betide any man if that line got foul whilst it was running out at
such furious pace! In each boat were provided a mast and sail, kegs of
fresh water, drogues of wood sometimes fastened to the harpoon line so
as to hinder the whale’s progress; and whifts of small coloured flags
in order to buoy the dead whale so that it could easily be sighted.
There is an old chantey[1] which used to be sung by the British
whalers who were engaged in the Greenland industry, which relates the
operations of the whaler and the work of the boats in several verses.
Two of them run as follows:
We struck that whale, the line paid out,
But she gave a flourish with her tail;
The boat capsized and four men were drowned,
And we never caught that whale, brave boys,
And we never caught that whale.
“To lose the boat,” our captain said,
“It grieves my heart full sore;
But oh! to lose four gallant men,
It grieves me ten times more, brave boys,
It grieves me ten times more.”
[1] Reproduced in _Roll and Go_, by J. C. Colcord. Boston, 1924.
Mr. Arthur C. Watson, who recently published in the American monthly
_Yachting_ some interesting extracts from the journal of Captain
Ephraim Harding of the whaling ship _Arab_, gives the following entry
under the date of Thursday, June 15, 1843. It should be mentioned
that the island of Johannah was at the northern end of the Mozambique
Channel.
“At 4 p.m. sent the boat in. Saw the _Sally Ann_ of New Bedford and
the _Bengal_ lying there. Captain Borden, of the _Sally Ann_, after
leaving here some days previous on a cruise for whales, fell in with
them to windward of this island. He lowered his boats in pursuit, and
after chasing them for several hours, came up with them. In the act of
striking the whale, he received a blow on his legs from the whale’s
flukes, which broke them both. His right leg was broken in two places
below the knee, and the upper bone of his left leg was broken. He
immediately left the whales and came on board the ship, crowded on
all sail for this place, where he arrived in fifteen hours after the
accident. He immediately had assistance from an English doctor who was
on board a vessel here. He is now getting along well.”
The British South-Seamen whaling ships usually carried four boats
suspended over the sides of the vessel, their keels resting upon iron
cranes. These boats were stationed on the quarter, or waist, or bow of
the ship, and were commanded by the master and the three mates. When
the boats were launched, the captain of the boat took his place aft
with the steering oar, whilst the harpooner rowed the foremost oar: but
when the assault on the whale commenced, these two officers usually
exchanged stations. The whaling boats were capable of carrying twelve
people, so that they could always go to the rescue of a second boat
and then continue after the whale. Few sports or occupations connected
with the sea could afford more thrilling, wholesome excitement than was
found in these nice-lined craft. Manned with a sturdy, tough, hard-case
crew full of the experience of many a chase, it was a real man’s life
for those who were happy roving and roaming all over the oceans. No
one but a real sailorman could have endured it otherwise. Bennett,
the ship’s surgeon, wrote of the oared whale-boat with enthusiasm and
referred to her as “swift and handsome,” “buoyant and graceful in her
movements, she leaps from billow to billow, and appears rather to dance
over the sea than to plough its bosom with her keel.”
But besides the fine seamen and the good boat, the harpoon line had
to be of the best possible cordage that could be manufactured. Tarred
hemp was selected, two-inch, three-stranded and extremely strong, the
complement for each boat being 220 fathoms, so that when the whale got
away with the harpoon in him there might be as much as a quarter of a
mile of line rushing through the sea and then the boat at the end of
that. Coiled with great care in two tubs in one long continuous line,
each end was kept exposed so that one end was ready to be attached to
the harpoon, while the other with a spliced loop could be connected
with the line of a second boat, should the entire length need to be
increased. And every additional fathom of course meant further drag
through the water for the whale to pull.
The harpoon was three feet long, arrow-shaped, made of the finest
wrought iron and fixed to a heavy pole, five feet long. A dexterous
throw would plant this weapon up to its socket into the mammal and
would hold so tenaciously that when the whale was finally dead and the
harpoon withdrawn it would sometimes be found to have been twisted
throughout. The lance was kept keenly sharpened for destroying the
harpooned whale, and was secured to the boat by a seven-fathom line
and stick. The skill lay in quickly darting and withdrawing it from
the whale, sometimes killing the creature by a single wound at a vital
spot. The instrument used for separating the blubber from the whale and
cutting it into suitable portions was called a spade, being made of a
triangular steel plate and very sharp.
So much, then, for the ships, their boats and equipment. Let us now get
a close insight into the technique which had to be employed before the
whale could be captured.
CHAPTER VII
“THERE SHE BLOWS!”
With a careful look-out being maintained from the masthead, the ship
was at all times ready to lower boats and begin. But there were signs
which indicated that the whales could not be far away. Such items as
floating pieces of cuttle-fish, or oily tracks left by the recent
passage of cetaceans, caused the look-out man to be doubly watchful.
But such obvious phenomena as a whale spouting summoned every man to
eager activity. “There she blows!” would go up the cry, “there again!”
And then within a couple of minutes would be the boats properly manned
and pulling to windward. If the whales were to leeward, then the boat
would also hoist sail to run down. The whale-ship herself remained
directing operations from her masthead by an arranged code of signals.
And now watch the harpooner. Standing in the bow of the boat, he waited
until he was in a favourable position to strike. The first harpoon was
followed by the second immediately afterwards. At first the whale in
his painful shock would take violent plunges, throwing his dangerous
flukes high in the air, lashing the sea till it obscured the men and
threatened to overwhelm them.
After that the animal would begin tearing along the surface of the
water at a great pace, towing the boat after him, oars “apeak”--that is
to say, resting at an acute angle with the gunwale, ready for use. The
line secured to the loggerhead, the boat, down by the stern as the bow
rose over the sea, went crashing, leaping, thudding over the waves and
throwing the spray to port and starboard. There was never anything like
that till the coming of the fast motor-boat days. A stern wave, high
above the gunwale’s level, threatened every moment to rush down into
the little craft. Harpooner and steersman now changed places, and the
lance was ready to give the knock-out blow as soon as the boat could be
hauled up close enough to the whale.
But then the whale would get the notion to “sound,” or dive straight
down deeply, only to reappear: whereupon the boat approached and the
lance attack went on until the creature was surrounded by a crimson
sea. And then through sheer feebleness he seemed to be dying, until,
in a final flurry, he started off again towing the boat at an exciting
speed, lashing the waves with his tail, steering all over the sea.
But then death would come, and the great, inert mass would lie like
a billowed rock at the mercy of his captors. Sometimes these boats
would rush into action with sail still set and not lower away until
the harpoon had got deep into the whale. But there was a whaleman’s
expression “to be gallied,” meaning to be alarmed; sometimes the school
of whales became so “gallied” that they would all make off, or dive for
a time, not showing themselves till a long way ahead and in a totally
different direction--after the manner of tactics which enemy submarines
sometimes employed during the war.
A female cachalot or a young male usually took out not more than a tub
and a half of line, though an adult was known to sound so deeply that
he needed three continuous lines. Sometimes, though not frequently, the
whale was killed immediately by the harpoon, or by a single lance-blow.
There was a certain amount of luck in finding the sperm whale, as
in any other pursuit. The American whaling ship _Arab_, which left
Fairhaven in the fall of 1842, had been at sea about a year, sailed
20,000 miles, crossing the North and South Atlantic and the Indian
Ocean, and during the whole of that voyaging had never once seen so
much as the spout of a sperm whale, only to find the latter in plenty
off the coast of Arabia, in one day killing as many as nine, and on
another seven. “There she breaches!” would go the glad cry, “there she
blows!” But then for several ensuing months sperm whales would not be
seen again, and the ship would be compelled to sail to another part of
the globe, only to find that a large number of other whaling vessels
were already cruising in that area.
During those voyages dogged by weeks and months of ill-luck, everyone
on board from the skipper downwards was feeling in a state of
perpetual irritation as one whaling ground after another was tried
unsuccessfully. The Azores, the Crozets, Tristan da Cunha, Madagascar,
Ceylon and other equally distant localities would be visited with
heart-breaking failure. Sometimes whales would be sighted at dusk but
missed at daylight. Then there would be days of bad weather, the ship
labouring heavily, injuring those useful boats badly. Captain Harding
of the _Arab_ mentioned in his journal that on July 22nd the gale had
been blowing continuously for twenty-five days.
The result of this kind of seafaring was that the men deserted often at
the very first opportunity, and for that reason stringent precautions
were taken to prevent them getting ashore. The ship would therefore
usually avoid inhabited islands, but on some lonely atoll the men would
be allowed shore leave for their health’s sake. If the ship did visit
now and again some island where the natives cultivated and prospered,
as likely as not small-pox would be found raging, and the whaler, still
short of drinking water, would be compelled to proceed elsewhere. On
this occasion the more daring seamen would remain till a native canoe
came out trading alongside, then wait for the great opportunity, get
out through the open porthole, hide at the bottom of the boat and so be
ferried ashore. But those less lucky than himself might have to serve
three monotonous years, and even then end the voyage with little reward.
The discipline of a merchant ship and that of a whaler in the
eighteen-forties were two quite different things. In the former it was
strict: in the latter it was slack. But on getting clear of the port,
watches and boats’ crews were chosen for the voyage until the new
hands arrived at some Pacific harbour to replace those who had run. In
the boats the water breakers were always kept filled, and there were
biscuits. Every day whilst cruising the whaler’s boats were examined
to see that everything was ready--harpoons and lances as sharp as
razors, the lines in the tubs free from kinks and as supple as silk.
The look-out man would be aloft at the royal masthead. “There she
blows!” would be answered by the captain below bellowing, “Where away?”
“Two points on the lee bow, sir,” would answer the man. Up into the
rigging armed with his spy-glass would spring the skipper. “Keep her
off a couple of points,” he would order as every man began to forget
the weeks of monotony in that sudden excitement. Presently officers
and their boats’ crews would be away as soon as the ship got up to the
school of sperm whales that were swimming unsuspiciously along. The
main topsail would have been backed just before lowering the boats, and
in order not to scare the whales away, everything was done as quietly
as possible.
But, just before getting up to the school, the steersmen would find the
cachalots had sounded, so there was nothing for it but to wait twenty
minutes till the mammals breached again: but then away went the boats
whilst the pursued, with a “Choo’o, choo’o, choo’o,” went spouting
from their blow-holes close ahead, and the harpooner was just about to
do his work. It was a tense moment, but when pulling towards a whale
no oarsman was allowed to look round. Eyes in the boat! Otherwise he
was given a tap on the head from the officer in charge that made the
oarsman see a whole constellation of stars. When the boat had got so
near to the whale that it was touching, the expression used was that
it was “wood and black skin.” And if the harpooner should fail to
avail himself of the opportunity he would be “broken” as soon as he
got back to the ship; for sometimes men, like whales, became gallied
either from nervousness or excitement. Moreover there was a difference
in technique, which had to be appreciated. The harpooner might have
only recently joined the ship, although anything but a novice in his
art. Perhaps he had been accustomed only to hunting the right whale and
not the sperm. In the former case a long dart was used, and the manner
of approach was towards the fore shoulder: then, after fastening the
harpoon into the whale, the boat was quickly backed out of the way of
the beast’s flukes or there was speedy disaster.
The harpooner’s attack on a right whale was made from a distance of
from a couple to ten yards. But the sperm whale would be “fastened”
by running the boat to the corner of the flukes alongside, and then
attacking at from four to six yards. It was always a remarkable
fact that as soon as one whale had been struck all the rest of the
school were aware of it, and then the surrounding water became as if
an earthquake had disturbed it, and the whole gallied school were
rushing off to windward. Frantic with anger was the boat’s officer as
he exhorted, threatened, encouraged the crew to row after the whale
that had been missed by the unskilful harpooner. Perhaps for an hour
that boat would be pulled to windward till human strength could toil
no more, and then it would be turned round to go down wind towards the
hove-to ship, now almost hull down.
On one occasion a cachalot had as many as seven English harpoons in him
and attached three entire boats’ lines, or about three-quarters of a
mile of cordage, together with one line-tub and numerous drogues. But
in spite of all this dragging him back, the whale succeeded in getting
right away solely by superior speed. Two days intervened, and then
this same whale was sighted again by a totally different whaler, who
managed to kill him. Later on, those two ships met in port, and the
victor returned to the original attacker those seven harpoons and lines
left in the whale. Usually if the harpooner were able to fasten solid
into one whale all the other boats would be able to fasten each on to
another whale: for it was an observed fact that when one whale had been
made fast, the school would remain and give the other craft also a
chance. Blackfish were especially lively creatures and wont to breach
out of the water right over a boat, but if no whales were about these
were captured, as they yielded several barrels of oil which fetched a
good price.
Three years was by no means an excessive time for a whaler to be
away from her home port, and Captain J. D. Whidden mentions in his
_Old Sailing Ship Days_ that during the year 1848 he signed on at
Tahiti aboard the whaling ship _George_, which had already been out
forty-seven months, and had encountered such ill-luck that she had
taken only about 1,200 barrels of oil. It is hardly surprising that
during such a lengthy period most of her crew had at various times
deserted, so that only four of her original ship’s company now remained
in her. She took only one more whale, became so short of provisions
that she had to speak another whaler after rounding the Horn, and beg a
few stores, and there was not a bit of tobacco in the _George_ for over
a month. One such voyage as this usually cured a man of further desire
to go whaling.
After the cachalot was dead it usually floated, but sometimes it could
be kept from sinking only with great difficulty. On certain occasions,
also, after the carcase had been secured to the ship’s side, it became
necessary to chop away the iron chain supporting the body: for in the
case of a big whale which suddenly began to sink, this was the only
way to prevent serious damage to the vessel. But normally, after the
boats had got the cachalot alongside and secured parallel to the ship,
the work commenced of removing the blubber and other valuable parts. A
staging was erected over the vessel’s side where the officers operated
after the bulwarks had been removed. The rest of the crew, having
overhauled the cutting-falls attached to the masthead, proceeded to man
the windlass.
The ship was now hove-to, and presently the sea would become red with
blood, and a school of sharks for the next few hours would voraciously
devour the pieces of fat which got adrift, but never touching the
flesh of the whale itself. The work of removing the blubber was called
“cutting in,” and the first operation was to use the spade on the lard
between the eye and the pectoral fin. A large hook was then passed
through and connected to the tackles, one hand lowering himself down
for the purpose on to the dead whale, being careful not to let the
sharks get a chance at him. The windlass then began to revolve, and
assisted by spades, the blubber was separated from the carcase, and
then stowed in the ship’s hold. The blubber after being cut into slips
was then placed in the boilers in order to extract the spermaceti and
the sperm-oil, the refuse being utilized as the fuel for the furnace
in boiling, giving a clear, fierce flame. This boiling process was
technically known among whaling men as “trying out,” and on a dark
night following the day’s hunting, the sea would witness the strange
sight of a vessel exuding clouds of smoke, and flames bursting out
illuminating ship and rigging, whilst the vessel still went sailing
along and weird, stained figures with strange implements worked away
near the fires. At a date long before ever a steamer’s funnel was
seen on the southern ocean, a British man-of-war once came across a
British whaling ship thus engaged, and became alarmed at this flaming
picture. Coming up so as to speak the whaler, the naval vessel hailed
and inquired what the crew were doing. The latter’s master replied
laconically, “Trying.” “Trying?” repeated the man-of-war’s captain.
“Trying? Trying what? To set your ship on fire?”
All the same there was danger during this boiling if a sea or shower of
rain caused the oil, already highly heated, to reach the fires below.
But if all went well, the oil was eventually placed in the cooler
adjoining the try-works, transferred to casks and stowed in the hold.
Three days was the average time for “cutting in,” “trying out” and
getting into casks the clear oil of the biggest species of whale.
Every service has its own particular adherents and experts, but there
was a divided opinion amongst sailormen concerning these ships. The
clipper seaman was accustomed to the steady routine of a well-run
vessel; and unless he were a deserter, or for some reason was without
a ship, he was not attracted by the whaler with its long spells of
comparative idleness, its strenuous spells of disagreeable work, and
its long voyages of several years. On the other hand, the master of
the whaling ship was not anxious to take the clipper sailor. Provided
the whaler had its experienced mates, its skilled harpooners too, it
was preferable to train a raw crew than sign on a lot of disgruntled
hard-case fellows who would cause trouble during those long, monotonous
days away from land.
But the sea always has called men to leave the land, and to some
there was an especial appeal to adventure which only a voyage in
these whalers held out: for it combined the love of fighting with
travel right round the world long before steam navigation came into
the sphere of possibility. There were two well-known mottoes which
the inexperienced soon learnt to know. “A dead whale or a stove boat”
warned him that though the whale was an ugly, clumsy, stupid brute
of some seventy tons displacement, yet he was sometimes nearly four
times longer than the length of the whaling boat; so that the vicious
fifteen-foot-wide cachalot’s tail and the twenty-foot jaw of the right
whale were remembered in the advice, “Beware of a sperm’s jaw and a
right whale’s flukes.”
There is on record the incident of three boats having been destroyed
by one blow of the whale’s tail. But a sperm’s great lower jaw with
its twin rows of glistening teeth has snapped off the forward end of
a boat with two of its men with terrifying suddenness. In the year
1819 the American whaling ship _Essex_ of Nantucket had an experience
such as shows the sperm’s strength in an amazing manner. Owen Chase
was the name of the _Essex’s_ mate and he had been left on board in
charge of the ship whilst the master and second mate were out after a
whale. Chase was heading the _Essex_ down towards them when he saw the
sperm lying on the surface and apparently considering the ship. It then
settled just below the surface, as whales do when making an attack. The
cachalot now headed for the _Essex_, so Chase ordered the helm up to
avoid the brute. Unfortunately the ship had too little way on just then
to get out of the attack that was coming; for the sperm struck the ship
on the bow with such a collision as nearly threw all hands on their
faces, the impact being like the striking of the hull against a rock.
This animal had now become the attacker instead of the intended victim,
and after passing right below the ship’s hull, scraping the keel, came
to the surface and exhibited his anger by thrashing the water with his
tail and snapping his jaws. But he had done the necessary damage, and
now the _Essex_ began to sink. Chase started the pump, signalled the
boats to return, and even as he was getting provisions ready for the
boats, along came the whale again at about six knots, flinging the surf
in all directions, thrashing about with his terrible tail, and again
struck the ship on the windward side just below the cathead, so leaving
the bows completely stove in. Thus avenged of man’s insults, the whale
made off to leeward, and was never seen again. But the unfortunate
_Essex_ was utterly done for and soon foundered. The crew then
underwent an appalling experience for ninety days in the boats, so that
some of them died by starvation and the rest kept themselves alive only
by eating their flesh and the flesh of one other who died after the
casting of lots: a dreadful situation that none the less has occurred
more than once in the days of the sailing ship. The mate’s boat was
subsequently picked up by the British brig _India_ of London; and the
captain’s boat a few days later by another whaler named the _Dauphin_.
CHAPTER VIII
WHALERS AND SEALERS
Right away south of the line which joins Fremantle and the Cape of Good
Hope, in fact, so near to the Antarctic continent as to be in latitude
50° S., there lies one of the most lonely and desolate islands in the
world, mountainous, glaciated, wind-swept. Totally uninhabited, it
possesses any number of deeply indented bays and coves, and it is one
of those few spots on the map where depots have been placed in case
some shipwrecked mariners should have the misfortune to find themselves
cast away here.
Its name is Kerguelen or Desolation Island--whichever you like to
call it. The former reminds one of its French discoverer, Kerguelen
Trémarec, who found it in 1772: but the other name is more suggestive
of the place’s true character. During the years that followed it
was visited by whalers and sealers, but otherwise no ship had any
attraction to call there. Still, in 1893 the French Government
established an unwatched depot at Hillsborough Bay in a cave at
the foot of a cliff, a black cairn against some grey rocks having
been erected to indicate the position. The entrance to the cave has
been closed by stones, and above it is the inscription: “Vivres et
Vêtements.” Thus the modern adventurer would be able there to find
boxes of preserved beef, barrels containing clothes and blankets,
biscuits, and boxes of matches. But now that the days of the sailing
ships are past, and steamships are able to keep to the trade routes,
it is very unlikely that this distress depot will be required.
But this story begins just a hundred years ago and we shall see it
through the eyes of John Nunn, an Ipswich seaman who was born in 1803.
Nunn was a typical British sailor of the early nineteenth century,
brought up to the sea, longing to know something of the world beyond
the limits of the British Isles, and destined to have a whole chapter
of adventures before he should die. His father was an east-coast
smack-owner, but after helping him for a time, John served for a while
aboard one of those Revenue cutters which were employed on the look-out
for smugglers. Sometimes there were quite exciting chases, and even an
exchange of shots: but before long John found this semi-naval service
too restricted for his liking and wanted to go foreign.
So it happened that he signed on aboard the 400-ton sailing ship _Royal
Sovereign_ in the year 1825. This vessel was about to leave the Thames
to look for seals on Kerguelen Island, but ever since Captain R. Rhodes
of the whaler _Hillsborough_ had visited the place in 1799 there had
been vessels going out there, after the whales and seals. Rhodes had
busied himself surveying many of the harbours on the lee (or east) side
whilst his crew were away sealing and whaling; for the right whale used
to frequent these bays and fjords in large numbers. One has to remember
all these many inlets in order to appreciate the somewhat unusual
method adopted by the early nineteenth-century pioneers who came
here. The nature of the coast made it too risky a business for these
unwieldy, unhandy ships to go smelling close to the land, so they used
to take out from England half a dozen of the usual whaling boats, but
also they carried in frame a 40-ton cutter. Having arrived at Kerguelen
the big ship would moor herself in some safe and sheltered bay, the
frames of the 40-tonner would be taken ashore, the pieces reassembled,
the craft rigged like a contemporary cutter yacht, and then the crew
would go cruising right round the island, in and out of the bays,
skirting the pinnacles, landing, capturing and flensing the seals, and
then boiling down the blubber. The whaleboats would also be employed
hunting the whales quite close in.
Thus each of these voyages to Kerguelen was in the nature of an
expedition, since the ship would settle herself in her bay for two or
three years and be partly unrigged whilst the small craft went about
their business. And when the time came that the vessel had all the
oil on board, the 40-tonner would be hauled well above high water,
entrenched in a roughly made dry dock, and there she would remain until
the expedition returned for another spell. In this way, of course,
there were several of these deserted cutters left on the island at
various dates. They were not called cutters but “shallops,” that old
word which had come into seamen’s vocabulary from the Dutch and was
often used to indicate smaller fore-and-aft-rigged vessels.
Now several years before the _Royal Sovereign_ set forth there had
reached Kerguelen a ship called the _Frances_ from London, and she
had taken with her in frame her shallop; and there was another vessel
named the _Favourite_ which arrived with her shallop about the same
time as the _Royal Sovereign_. After the departure of these two ships,
the shallops had both been hauled up the beach in a bight at the south
side named Greenland Bay--name enough to suggest that a British whaling
vessel had once been here.
In August 1825 the _Royal Sovereign_ anchored herself in Greenland Bay,
and then proceeded to fit out these two shallops, which for convenience
we shall speak of by the name of their mother ships. In nine days both
the _Frances_ and the _Favourite_ were caulked and paid ready for sea,
each being launched by digging them out of their dry dock, and then by
bousing them down and hauling them along the beach they reached the
water. They were then towed alongside the _Royal Sovereign_, where the
masts were stepped and the little craft rigged. After the sails had
been bent, some of the _Royal Sovereign’s_ crew transferred to them,
and next morning, towing the whaleboats astern, they started off for
Royal Sound to the N.N.E., and the latter went ashore to slaughter the
seals and sea-elephants.
Here the opportunity was taken of bringing off from the beach great
stones as ballast, the seal blubber being brought off also in rafts,
but each shallop had also a dinghy. Finally, when the seals in this
neighbourhood had been killed, the _Frances_ sailed back to put the
produce aboard the _Royal Sovereign_. The _Frances_ next proceeded
along the windward or western shore of Kerguelen, the crew consisting
of James Lawrence of Rotherhithe (one of the _Royal Sovereign’s_
mates); John Nunn, and John Richardson and James Stilliman, both of
Burnham, Essex. There were plenty of suitable small harbours on that
west coast where the _Frances_ could anchor for the dark hours, and
one night whilst in Young William Harbour, when it was so still that
there was not so much as a ripple on the water, the crew were suddenly
alarmed by a fin-whale which rose alongside the shallop. His tail
came in contact with the _Frances’s_ hull, shook her violently, and
then disappeared. Perhaps there never were any people in the world so
superstitious as the old-fashioned seamen until the introduction of
steam navigation knocked many of these primitive ideas to bits. But,
any way, the shallop’s crew thought this whale incident was most
ominous, and later on Nunn dreamed that the shallop was wrecked. Gloomy
people? Well, no doubt the desolation of the island had got on their
nerves.
It was at the beginning of November this year that the _Frances_,
after visiting the northern end of the island, got caught in a heavy
snowstorm and fog. And then, whilst trying to beat out of a bay of
Saddle Island, which is separated by a narrow strait from the main
island at the north-west corner, the _Frances_ missed stays: for these
old-fashioned cutters with their indifferent sail plan and baggy canvas
and bluff hulls were anything but handy, and before the shallop could
be persuaded to come round she was hard on the rocks of this ironbound
coast. She quickly started leaking, but the crew managed to get ashore
with a few things, and then she sank in seven fathoms. The position was
not a cheerful one, for as they looked up at the rugged, precipitous
scenery there was nothing to suggest the least comfort in that bitter
climate. However, they wandered about and presently discovered a cave,
which they entered with their scant provisions and secured the entrance
against the cold blasts by means of the _Frances’s_ jib. Here they
settled down as best they could, but walking further along they came to
a bay where there was another shallop named the _Loon_ which had been
previously left by a whaler or sealer.
This roused hopes, and it was just possible that the _Favourite_ and
her whaleboats might one day come along here in the course of their
duties. They could hardly dare to hope that this might be the case,
but everything possible should be done. They accordingly chalked a
sentence on the bows of the _Loon_ in case anyone should come along.
“Look in the cabin,” were the warning words, and then inside the
shallop were left a description and the direction of the cave. In
the meantime a good look-out was being kept for the shallop to come
along, but the weather was bad and often thick. Day after day sped by,
until a whole fortnight had elapsed, and the provisions were running
desperately short; when one day these men heard voices on the beach,
and next there came running along some of their old messmates. For the
crew of the _Favourite_, commanded by the _Royal Sovereign’s_ third
mate, had landed in the bight at the strait, seen the chalked notice,
and then begun to search for the cave. It was sheer good luck, for the
_Favourite_ had not intended calling in there: but she had been caught
in a squall by Saddle Island and lost her main boom. She therefore had
run into the strait to take the _Loon’s_ mast for the purpose, the crew
had then seen the chalked marks, and so the others were found.
After the new boom had been finished, the _Favourite_ with the
survivors on board proceeded south to Greenland Bay, where they came
alongside the _Royal Sovereign_. Now in the careers of most men this
wreck and those hardships which followed would remain the outstanding
experience of a lifetime. But there are some people who seem born
for adventure and cannot avoid exciting events. The _Favourite_ was
now sent on another cruise, and the old shipwrecked crew of the
_Frances_ went in her, except for Richardson. Sailing off again to the
north-west, they continued their work and went still further round
the island to the north-east corner, where they were compelled to
lie weather-bound in a bay called Christmas Harbour for eleven days.
They put to sea, but had to run back. Again they started, but had to
shelter in Africa Bay. They were without a dinghy, and it was always
a difficulty to get the craft hauled near enough to the shore for
fetching fresh water. But at last they sailed round the north-west
corner once more and found themselves anchored by Saddle Island, which
had been so unlucky for them in the past.
And now an extraordinary thing happened. It was the day after
Christmas, the _Favourite_ was still at anchor, but she suddenly sprang
a leak. Possibly the cause was that she had been so badly knocked about
by the seas, and originally so hurriedly put together, that she was in
no sense of the word staunch. But any way she went down and left these
men for the second time in that neighbourhood without a home. They
hung on for a time, and since there was no dinghy they unshipped the
boom, the cabin steps, the main and fore hatches; and with these they
made a raft and reached the beach. Everything on the island was now as
miserable-looking as it could be. The sea was bitterly cold, and the
land was covered with snow: they therefore took up their abode in the
_Loon_, which was still there. The food ran out at once, but they lived
on the seals which they killed.
The outlook, however, was not a pleasant thought. Seeing that both
shallops from Greenland Bay had now been lost, it was extremely
unlikely that the _Royal Sovereign’s_ captain would be able to send
anyone to find them. Moreover the surf was so bad in the neighbourhood
of Saddle Island that the boats would not be able to land. To this
dismal consideration had to be added the stern fact that there was now
nothing to eat: for after eight days not even a penguin was obtainable.
They managed, however, to find the 12-foot dinghy which the _Favourite_
had on a previous occasion left at the island, and in her the men now
transferred themselves to the main island. Here there awaited them a
severe tussle. Weak through lack of food, they set out to look for
seals which they could kill with their clubs; and having with the
utmost difficulty crossed a high ridge or mountain they were just able
to descend to a beach where they found and killed sea-elephants. These
animals would afford both food and blubber for fuel: but the weather
was so bitterly cold that the men’s hands were benumbed from the
animals’ blood freezing over them a complete covering of ice.
With great toil these weary, hungry men hauled themselves over that
mountain and got back to the _Loon_ with their food, but were too weary
that day to cook it, so they fell asleep till morning. Six more weeks
passed and they considered themselves lucky to have the shelter of this
shallop, but they could not think of remaining here for ever, so they
decided to try raising the _Favourite_, and thoughts of making for the
Cape of Good Hope in her even crossed their minds. Seamen are always
more or less versatile, but in those days, when their heads were not
crammed with mechanical knowledge and their brains were slow to reason
but their courage had not been affected by faring in ships of mammoth
tonnage, such sailors were accustomed to voyaging in quite small
craft, and thought little of it, as we shall see before the end of the
chapter. It is since the days of steam that we have got into our heads
the erroneous idea that the ocean is suitable only for big ships: but
the recent voyages of quite small fore-and-afters are bringing us back
to a right knowledge and correct judgment.
So these men set to work on the _Favourite_ which had treated them so
badly. They began by removing the ballast at low tide, and then they
secured four casks to her, some pieces of timber, and the 12-ft. dinghy
with the idea of floating her off as the tide rose. But unfortunately
the _Favourite_ had sunk too deeply in the sand and there was not
a sufficient rise of tide, and it was soon evident that the task
was hopeless. They therefore contented themselves with turning a
whale-lance which they possessed into a saw, and thus managed to cut
away the mast close to the deck. Then, having unrigged her, they towed
all the gear and spars to the shore.
And since the _Favourite_ was impracticable, they determined to start
away in the _Loon_. This was a long job; she needed repairing and
caulking and her seams had to be stopped. But the crew set to work
with a will, some oakum for caulking was made out of the shallop’s
hempen cable, pitch was obtained close to a volcanic burning mountain,
the mast was stepped by using the bowsprit as improvised sheers, the
rigging was set up, and at last with great difficulty she was floated
off, to their unmitigated joy. Aboard her were those much-prized
tools, lances, seal clubs (rather like a policeman’s baton), knives,
spears. The dinghy was secured astern, and at last with a northerly
wind blowing the _Loon_ sailed away to the southward past that burning
mountain and its hot springs, past the ice-covered scenery, anchoring
at night in different bays. And all this time they wondered and thought
about the _Royal Sovereign_. Would she still be waiting for them in
Greenland Bay? Would it still be possible to reach her before she
started back for England? The thought seemed too wonderful to realize,
and so the little _Loon_ continued on her way to the southern end of
the island.
At last the shallop rounded the promontory and entered Greenland
Bay. Gone! The bight was empty: there was not a sign of the _Royal
Sovereign_. It was a grievous disappointment, yet it was really
inevitable. The next thing now was to settle on a site and make
themselves as comfortable as the circumstances allowed. For if they
were destined to live on Desolation Island they would still need
shelter and food. It was therefore resolved to build a hut near
Shoalwater Bay at the south-east corner of the island. Thither they
sailed in the shallop with their goods, such as they possessed, and
what they could find on the beach of Greenland Bay. That done, they
took the _Loon_ back to Greenland Bay, unrigged her and hauled her well
up the beach.
A minor expedition now began, partly by land and partly by sea. For the
dinghy was hauled over a neck of land into the Royal Sound and then
launched again: the intention being by this amphibious journey to avoid
the open water outside. It was whilst this boat was crossing the sound
that a school of whales came in, giving the men a rare fright. One
whale passed right under the boat, lifted her out on his back and then
allowed her once more to float. Adventure after adventure! These men
had never been fated for a humdrum life in England! And now they rowed
as fast as they could, but the whale chased after them, and dived below
the boat as before. Nunn believed that the reason was found in the
white under-water of the boat’s hull, which resembled the underneath
part of a whale.
After these excitements the boat reached the opposite shore in safety.
Here they landed, turned the boat up with its keel to windward, used
her as a temporary hut and slept. It was hard going after that, and the
distance was long: but at last they got the boat and themselves to Long
Point at the south-east corner of Kerguelen, where they set to work
and made a proper hut out of turf blocks. On the whole, considering
what they had come through, this habitation was not so bad, and the
blubber lamp burned inside cheerfully. There were any number of the
black-fish whales in the neighbourhood, and the little community might
have been worse off. But always at the back of their minds was the
possibility--even the hope--that before long some ship for whales or
seals would come to Desolation Island. They were keeping always a good
look-out where the hut was erected, but it was some distance round the
corner, in a bay called Shallop Harbour, that a vessel approaching from
the north-east was likely first to call.
It would be a terrible tragedy if she were to visit Kerguelen without
the men knowing. And so this possibility was avoided by the following
precaution. It was now August 1827, and two long years had passed since
the _Royal Sovereign_ had arrived there. Surely a vessel might come any
time now: so they made a board, took it overland to Shallop Harbour
and stuck it up in such a manner that no ship entering there could
fail to notice and read the inscription which was cut out. That latter
directed the observer to “Hope Cottage,” as they had named their turf
hut by Long Point. It was forty-eight miles over rough ground and snow,
but after four days and nights on the journey the men got to Shallop
Harbour, erected the sign and came back to the hut.
And so at last there came a dramatic incident, for one day an object
was observed seaward. “Look!” cried one of the survivors from the hut.
“Did you see that great albatross? Over that rock there!” The other
man looked. “Why, bless me,” he answered. “That’s no albatross: it’s
the peak of a cutter’s sail.” Thereupon with keen enthusiasm they ran
down to the beach and signalled in case they had not been seen: but the
cutter hoisted her Union Jack to show they had been observed, hove-to
and sent her boat ashore. The meeting need only be imagined, but there
was no time to waste as there was a nasty surf and the cutter was
anxious to get under way at once. The lonely men were not long in going
aboard, and as the cutter proceeded round the east side of the island
there was an exchange of yarns.
To begin with, she was found to be the _Lively_, belonging to
one of Messrs. Enderby’s whaling ships named the _Sprightly_, a
schooner-rigged vessel which had recently arrived out from England
and was now lying at Howe Foreland. Her shallop _Lively_ on entering
Shallop Harbour had noticed that board with its message, and then,
after returning to the _Sprightly_, the captain had given them
permission to search the coastline with telescopes and find the
missing men. And as the _Lively_ came round the corner, every glass
was scanning the beach until these living objects were seen signalling
and answered by the Jack. It was thus that after two and a quarter
years the _Royal Sovereign’s_ men got back to better food and better
accommodation. But it was to be no picnic for them even now. Having
been taken into the _Sprightly_, the latter’s captain now split up
his men into two parties, so that in each division there should be
available the help and knowledge of the _Favourite’s_ late crew. The
_Sprightly_ had three five- or six-oared whaleboats, and these were
sent to various bays to bring back seals and sea-elephants.
Now the right whales were wont also to visit Kerguelen’s bays and
natural harbours. And it happened that one day whilst in Whale Bay, on
the east side, a man aboard the _Lively_ suddenly cried out: “There
she spouts!” and pointed seaward. Every man on deck saw it at once--a
fine 90-barrel whale. Instantly all was excitement, as the men thought
of the fine addition the animal would make to their wages. A boat was
immediately lowered and gave chase with a fine enthusiasm. Frantically
the men pulled at their oars, and soon the boat was up to the whale.
The harpooner was unfortunately somewhat inexperienced, and though
he hurled the harpoon and struck the cetacean, it made fast in the
shoulder, which was too far for’ard. The correct technique was to
approach the whale by its tail and come along the animal’s starboard
side. Then as the boat got quite close, the harpooner, his legs against
the thigh-boards in those two semicircular openings of the bows, would
warn the boat’s crew to be ready. Immediately after he would endeavour
to strike the whale “between wind and water” just abaft his fore fin.
“Give way, lads,” would come the exhortation, and then the order “Shear
off,” at the very moment when he cast the harpoon. “’Stern--_hard_!”
would be the final instruction, and the men would start with their
oars backing the boat for all they were worth, just as the whale began
smacking things about with his tail.
In the present instance the whale speeded up like the wind itself, the
line fairly leapt out of the oval tub between the after thwart and
the one just ahead. Through those chocks at the bows--iron-made to
prevent fire arising through friction--the line ran racing out from its
neat coils, the “line manager” (as he was called) supervising it at
the tubs, and all ready in the boat was the mop with a bucket to keep
wetting the line and prevent it catching on fire. Somewhere handy were
the blue lights ready in case night overcame the boat and she wished
to signal to the _Lively_. The pace was thrilling and the incident had
happened so suddenly. Jumping, banging, smashing against the waves,
cleaving the water with her fine bows and casting the spray on either
side, the boat went madly on as the 10-knot whale in its progress
spooned up a mass of sea foam which came roaring, swishing, curling,
hissing over his nose and sped by the boat’s gunwales all snow-white
and bubbly.
But now the whale was like a wild horse with the bit between its
teeth, and mischief guided him to head straight for some rocks and a
cluster of barely covered pinnacles, which seemed certain to puncture
the boat, until at the last moment he altered course and made a tack
right out to sea. Speed? The animal never slowed up an instant, minutes
flew past, the miles added up and the whaler men began to get a little
anxious. How long could this be continued? How long could the whale
keep this effort going? Would they ever see the _Lively_ again? For she
had long since vanished out of sight. So they all got their weight on
to the line and endeavoured with their full strength to haul the boat
up to the whale that they might get the lances into the brute. But it
was an utterly futile effort at that pace. If you have ever tried from
a motor-boat to haul in the dinghy whilst travelling quickly, you will
know how impossible was their task.
But now the crisis had been reached, three hours had passed, they had
travelled at least thirty miles from the land and night had come on.
It was dreadfully disappointing, but prudence insisted that they had
gone far enough in that lonely ocean and they might never get back to
windward. If a gale sprang up they would have a very small chance, and
some of them in the boat had experienced their full share of exciting
adventures. Thus, with deep reluctance they had to cut the line, the
boat gradually lost its way, but the whale with the harpoon still in
his shoulder went tearing off, raising a mountain of foam at his “bows”
just as before.
Three hours of glorious life! There was nothing now remaining but to
pull back towards the shore, and it was as likely as not that the
_Lively_ would be missed. But finally they burned a blue light, and
to their great relief they were answered by the shallop, which came
running down the moonlight and picked them up after as fine a bit of
hunting as could ever be wished. For some months longer the _Sprightly_
and _Lively_ continued to work around Kerguelen, and then the former’s
captain decided to visit the Crozet Islands--not in the schooner,
but in the shallop. This uninhabited group had been discovered only
fifty-six years previously, and the skipper was anxious to get any
seals that might be there. It was quite an undertaking to let that
shallop make such an ocean voyage, but leaving most of his men behind,
he set off in the _Lively_ to the north-west.
This group is another of those lonely localities where there are now
provision depots in case a vessel gets wrecked. Actually in December
1906 the Norwegian whaling ship _Catherine_ was wrecked on these very
islands; yet the crew managed to find the depot, but it had been
almost demolished by the gales, and the food was practically unfit for
consumption; however, they managed to find plenty of seals and penguins.
The _Lively_ returned safely to Kerguelen, and then at last both she
and the schooner _Sprightly_, having concluded their work, weighed
anchor and both of them sailed away across the South Indian Ocean to
Table Bay, a distance of 2,095 miles. There they remained only four
days, but Nunn and his fellow-adventurers, late of the _Favourite_,
were treated with some distinction. And then, passing up the West
African coast, they at length came out of the Atlantic into the English
Channel. Both ships reached the Downs safely, but after this long
voyage the little _Lively_ almost at the very end of her journey from
the other side of the globe got caught in bad weather. She had rounded
to and was close-reefing her mainsail when along came a heavy sea which
washed a couple of men over the side, drowning one, but the other was
saved. After this distressing incident as a finale, the two craft came
up the Thames and the expedition ended.
That island, which was the scene of so many adventures, had been
discovered, as we have mentioned, by de Kerguelen Trémarec. This Breton
noble had sailed from Lorient in 1771, and then, passing by way of
Mauritius, reached his destination in the following February, yet the
vile weather and the perpetual fogs made his sojourn off the lonely
island quite short, and he returned home. But in the spring of 1773
he started off again and landed at what he had named “South France”
in December of the same year. Although this was the local midsummer
he found the weather so bitter with gales and fogs, and the island
so desolate and barren, that he changed the name now to the “Land of
Desolation,” declaring that he would rather live in Iceland than down
there, and came home. However, posterity has shown its sympathy with
this disappointed explorer by calling it Kerguelen Island. He was not
the last Frenchman to visit there, for some of his own countrymen in
our own time sailed out there in a ketch, after calling at Brixham,
with the idea of engaging in whaling: but the expedition was destined
to end disastrously.
CHAPTER IX
ABOARD AN AMERICAN WHALER
Among the most important harbours in America from which the whalers of
the nineteenth century used to set forth must be mentioned New Bedford,
Nantucket, Fairhaven, Newport, especially. These names have become so
welded to whaling history that it is difficult to think of these ports
without conjuring up a mental vision of an old-fashioned ship with her
white-painted ribbon on a black hull cruising along the lonely ocean
under short sail ready to launch one of those conspicuous boats as soon
as the eager scanning look-out hailed the deck.
At these places there grew up whole families of whaling people
whose life interest was wrapped up in this subject, who married and
intermarried those who built or sailed or part-owned the ships. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century there were eight or nine thousand
people living at Nantucket all practically dependent on the whaling
industry. Herman Melville wrote of Nantucket as “more lonely than the
Eddystone Lighthouse,” and amusingly suggested that the people here
“are so shut up, belted about, every way enclosed, surrounded, and
made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and
tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of
turtles.” “What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach,
should take to the sea for a livelihood!”
And it is Melville who has enabled us to reconstruct for ourselves
those little mosaics, which, pieced together in their right places,
give us a true picture of what a Nantucket whaler looked like! “She
was a ship of the old school,” he says, “rather small if anything,
with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and
weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old
hull’s complexion was darkened.... Her venerable bows looked bearded.
Her masts--cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original
ones were lost overboard in a gale--her masts stood stiffly up like
the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were
worn and wrinkled.... She was a thing of trophies.... All round, her
unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with
the long, sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to
fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to.”
And the pride of service was never more eloquently expressed than in
Captain Peleg’s remark in connection with the merchant service as
opposed to his own. “Marchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo
to me. Dost see that leg?--I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if
ever thou talkest of the Marchant Service to me again. Marchant Service
indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in
those marchant ships!” Could anything be more discriminating?
So we think of these veteran vessels as owned by well-to-do, retired
Quaker skippers of the most strict narrow-mindedness, yet possessed
of such a knowledge of ocean life as could hardly be surpassed by
any other seafarers in the world. Those lengthy voyages and their
Puritanical personality, and those long hours alone brooding and
entering up their journals, created a special type of humanity--strong,
independent, fanatically conservative, dominant, of an enclosed
kind of piety, yet most wonderfully wide-awake to the main chance
of remunerative whaling and a hard business bargain. The life of
such a part-owner could be divided into several well bulk-headed
chapters, each ending up one separate section of a full career. Cabin
boy, boatman, harpooner, mate, captain, ship-owner, sexagenarian,
retirement, capitalist. These nine would make chapter headings for the
biography of any of these whaler skippers. But right till the end they
were the keenest superintendents and the sternest critics of ships and
men. Taskmasters? Melville sums one of these old men up in a single
sentence. “They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a
curious story, that when he sailed the old _Categut_ whaleman, his crew
upon arriving home were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore
exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he
was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used to
swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate
quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them.”
But if the largest owner of an American whaler were a retired skipper,
the other shareholders would consist of widows, fatherless children
and chancery wards, each owning “about the value of a timber head, or
a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket
invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours
in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.”
Whilst lying in her home port the whaler used to have a kind of wigwam
erected on deck abaft the mainmast, made of bone taken out of jaws
of the right whale. This tent was the last thing to be stowed before
heaving up the anchor; it was symbolical of the packing away of shore
authority. But when the vessel was about to leave Nantucket for her
three or four years’ voyage, and the last rigger had been sent ashore,
she was hauled out from the wharf and the skipper would tell the chief
mate to muster all the hands--“blast ’em”--whilst the pilot was busy
taking the ship out, his position being forward. Some profane chantey
would be presently heard reaching the shore as that mixed crew got
active to their work of walking round the capstan. The old man aft
would be stamping about in a rage, hating audibly with his Quaker
“thous” and “thees,” hurling at them insults and exerting his authority
from the very first.
Then at last the pilot would drop over the side into his little
sailing-boat, the last tie with the land would be separated and it
would be a long time before any of the crew ever was allowed to
use his legs on solid earth. We in these days of quick passages in
steamships with wireless conversation going on all day and all night
hardly realize the utter isolation of a four-year whaling voyage under
a tyrannous martinet for skipper. If any man had the least feelings
of sentiment, if the comfort of a home port and the heart-strings of
affection meant anything at all to him, the beginning of these long
trips was something unforgettable. We find this home-sickness, this
desperate deep-burning loneliness coming out even in the skippers’
journals, which would never be soiled by a glance from any of their
crews: but it is there right enough. The womenfolk would be there on
the wharf, tear-eyed, anxious, but hopeful that after a few years
the ship would come back full of a fortune. At last a shout from a
deep-throated retired captain, a warning to the harpooners not to
“stave the boats needlessly ... white cedar plank is raised full
three per cent. within the year. Don’t forget your prayers, either,
Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don’t waste the spare staves. Oh! the
sail-needles are in the green locker! Don’t whale it too much a’
Lord’s Day, men; but don’t miss a fair chance either, that’s rejecting
Heaven’s good gifts.” And with this last expression of his crowded,
mingled thoughts, the principal proprietor would have watched his old
ship gradually get smaller as she made her way to the open sea.
That night the long roll of the Atlantic would begin its game with
the ship, the blocks would whine and creak, the rigging would take up
its strains, the canvas would belly to the fresh breeze and the mast
heads swing backwards and forwards across the sky of stars as the
watch below was clewing up its harbour memories till they could be let
loose again after many months. Strangers began to size each other up,
enmities and friendships began to be formed: but both would be broken
and reconstituted long before the first man had deserted at the first
opportunity.
As a general rule you will always find that islanders take to the sea
in some sort of way: for ships and seafaring can never be allowed
out of their minds for long. It used to be the custom for British
Greenland whalers on the outward voyage to call at the Shetlands and
fill up with the rest of their crew, and on the return trip leave them
where they found them. In the Nantucket whalers it was frequently
the habit to call at the Azores, outward bound, and ship quite a
few natives. American whale-ships had been calling there for years,
so you would find in a Nantucket ship North Americans, Portuguese,
coal-black niggers, Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Manxmen, Maltese, natives from
the Pacific Islands, Spaniards, and Britons, too. The ship might be
American but the crew were international--or without a nation. If half
the failures in this world are caused by men not knowing what they want
and not being able to identify it when they see it, then you might say
that the fo’c’sle of a whaler was full of failures. The ship attracted
men from all parts of the world as sensitively as the magnet affects
the compass needle. Some of these hands were just drifting about the
globe without any aim other than to remain alive. A ship was synonymous
with a home: a whaling voyage was a sort of guarantee that for three
or four years any way there would be grub, somewhere to sleep, and
possibly a tolerable amount of money to draw at the end.
Bullen’s description of a New Bedford whaler bears out Melville
and the rest. “Truculent-looking men accompanied us to our several
boarding-houses, paid our debts for us, finally bringing us by boat to
a ship lying out in the bay. As we passed under her stern, I read the
name _Cachalot_, of New Bedford: but as soon as we ranged alongside,
I realized that I was booked for the sailor’s horror--a cruise in a
whaler. Badly as I wanted to get to sea, I had not bargained for this,
and would have run some risks to get ashore again; but they took no
chances, so we were all soon aboard.... A more perfect contrast to
the trim-built English clipper-ships that I had been accustomed to I
could hardly imagine. She was one of a class characterized by sailors
as built by the mile, and cut off in lengths as you want ’em, bow
and stern almost alike, masts standing straight as broomsticks, and
bowsprit soaring upwards at an angle of about forty-five degrees. She
was old-fashioned in her rig as in her hull.... I was rudely roused
from my meditations by the harsh voice of one of the officers, who
shouted, ‘Naow then, git below an’ stow yer dunnage, ’n look lively
up agin.’... Tumbling down the steep ladder, I entered the gloomy den
which was to be for so long my home, finding it fairly packed with my
shipmates. A motley crowd they were. I had been used in English ships
to considerable variety of nationality; but here were gathered, not
only the representatives of five or six nations, but ’long-shoremen of
all kinds, half of whom had hardly ever set eyes on a ship before! The
whole space was undivided by partition, but I saw at once that black
men and white had separated themselves, the blacks taking the port side
and the whites the starboard.”
You can imagine this motley crew on the first night out. The
greenhorns, prostrate with seasickness, were wondering why they had
been such fools as to come aboard for an adventure of this sort.
The officers, often enough bullying and sometimes of Portuguese
nationality, were trying to get the ship into full working order,
yet half the crew were just waking up to the fact that this was no
home after all. But after a few days Portuguese and nigger, American
and Briton, would settle down to the life and to the salt junk, hard
biscuit and hot drinks sweetened with molasses. Only one thing aboard
the ship was really satisfying: and that was the long sleep after the
trick at the helm. Steering? This was a strange mechanism in the old
ships, for the wheel was fixed to the tiller and the whole affair was
moved athwart the ship, so that it needed no ordinary sailorman to
control her.
But if she was aged and her fo’c’sle was foul, yet on deck she was
kept spotlessly clean. Flush-decked, she was of about 350 tons, with
the try-works measuring about ten feet by eight erected in the waist.
Right aft were the galley and skylight by the taffrail, the wooden
cranes for the boats being of course along the bulwarks. These boats
were each fitted with a centreboard, a mast and two spritsails in
addition to the oars and other gear, so that by the time her men had
launched and got into her she was already well loaded. Having slipped
across the Atlantic and reached the sperm grounds, there were plenty
of eyes looking out so as to earn that bounty of extra ’baccy which
went to the first man who should report a whale. Plenty of false alarms
came from the greenhorns, and it was usually the veteran who won the
prize. And then the comparative comfort of passage-making gave way to
frantic energy--hunting the whale in the boats for hours, then towing
him alongside, slinging him securely, flensing him, and keeping the
try-works going all through the night, and finally cleaning ship once
more.
Out of a crew of say thirty-seven, twenty-four would be ordinary
seamen. Fresh water except for drinking was forbidden. After all
what was the sea for besides floating ships? But it is hope and
the expectation of the future which keep men going as it did in
those ships. The shares of profits, or as these shares were known,
“lays,” had been reckoned in accordance with each man’s duties
and usefulness. One two-hundredth share of oil at 200 dollars a
tun meant £4 a barrel, but a greenhorn might be allotted only one
two-hundred-and-seventy-fifth share of the clear net profits. This was
just better than nothing and referred to as “a long lay.” But from that
would have to be deducted the charge for that assortment of fairly good
but high-priced clothes which the captain issued from the ship’s slop
chest; in addition to the tobacco, matches and soap, also bought from
the ship at extortionate terms.
Thus the whaler’s life was likely to appeal only to three classes of
men: those who had been compelled to leave the land to avoid gaol or
starvation, those who thought they were going to see the world and
gain adventures, and those who were determined to work their way up
till they owned a whaling ship of their own. It was only the latter
who ever stuck to the occupation for voyage after voyage. No one who
sympathizes with humanity can wish that those conditions should ever
return. Better education has raised the standard of living aboard all
kinds of ships: the difference between then and now is really much more
than merely half a century.
You remember Melville’s account of how the Nantucket _Pequod_ whaler
met the British whaler _Samuel Enderby_ at sea and hailed her with
“Ship ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?” and Ahab ordered his boat to
be manned and lowered with him in it to the water, and rowed alongside
the London vessel. Ahab had lost a leg, so how was he to clamber up the
English ship’s side? It was then that the English skipper took in the
situation. “I see, I see!” he shouted. Then to his men, “’Vast heaving
there! Jump, boys, and swing over the cutting-tackle.” The _Samuel
Enderby_ had only recently been cutting up a whale and the great
tackles were still aloft and the massive blubber-hook still attached to
the end. So this hook was lowered to Ahab, who slid his solitary thigh
into the curve and was swung on board and exchanged yarns with the
London skipper.
Melville speaks enthusiastically about that name Enderby, which will
be found mentioned in our present volume more than once. He speaks of
this London ship as named “after the late Samuel Enderby, merchant
of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of Enderby &
Sons; a house which, in my poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not far
behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of
real historical interest.” Ever since that memorable year 1775, when
this firm fitted out the first English ships that ever went hunting
the sperm whale regularly, it had sent ship after ship into southern
waters; though ever since 1726 the Coffins and Maceys had been sending
their whalers from North America into the Atlantic. When the Enderby
ship _Amelia_ rounded the Horn and was the first of all vessels ever
to harpoon whales in the Pacific and came home with a full cargo, she
was but setting the fashion which was soon to be followed by British
and American whalers. It was this same pioneering firm, too, which in
1819 sent out that exploration ship, the _Syren_, and made known the
Japanese whaling grounds. Her skipper, however, was Captain Coffin of
Nantucket. Melville refers to the _Samuel Enderby_ as a fast-sailing
ship, an hospitable ship. “Fore and aft, I say, the _Samuel Enderby_
was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack
fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band.”
But the first American ship, says Mr. R. McNab in his interesting
monograph on New Zealand whaling, to take up bay whaling in the South
Island of New Zealand was the _Erie_, which sailed from Newport, Rhode
Island, bound for the South Pacific in April 1832, and got back to
Newport again in June 1835 with 200 barrels of sperm and 1,800 of
black oil. During the next few years, American whalers continued to
frequent these waters, and the trade became considerable, for the early
American whalers brought home such favourable news of their success. By
these ships letters from New England were taken to the South Atlantic
and New Zealand. So by 1836 such whalers as the _Samuel Robertson_,
_Favourite_, _Mary Mitchell_, _Jasper_, _Erie_, _Vermont_ and others
sailed across from New Bedford, Fairhaven, Nantucket, Poughkeepsie and
other ports.
In the _Mary Mitchell’s_ journal of 1836, still in possession of the
Nantucket Historical Society, we are able to see into the mind of her
skipper day by day. Can we not almost see for ourselves the character
of this Captain Samuel Joy as he entered up his book after reaching
safely Cloudy Bay, on the north-east shoulder of South Island? The date
is Friday, April 22nd, and the punctuation is typical of this sailor
type:
“Heavy S.E. gale bad Sea steered down past Cape Campbell looking for
the harbor. At 5 saw it bearing N.W. steered for it and at 6 happily
came to an Anchor. thus after much toil fatigue and Labour we are
happily Arrived at our port it now only remains for us to be thankful
to God for his preservation and safe Guidance of us thro these dark
times--I shall ever esteem it as a merciful interposition in my favor
that thro divine Providence I have been enabled to conduct this ship
thro this Passage on a Coast without any person on board acquainted
with it any more than myself and to the Lord be the Praise Amen Latter
strong S.E. wind. Employed Clearing Ship Ther 58 Bar. 30.30.”
Two days later arrived the _Jasper_ and _Erie_. The _Mary Mitchell_
having been moored, yards and topmasts were sent down, and boats were
sent out whaling. Lugsails were now made for the boats and the hands
kept busy. But we can see that there are always two aspects to ship
life: one is as it appears from the angle of the mates and men, the
other is as viewed through the anxious captain’s eyes. Everyone who has
had command of a vessel knows this well enough: the others are apt to
forget this fact. Thus under April 30th Captain Joy writes: “The Second
mate is no officer the fourth Mate is worse I can express my opinion
of the others hereafter.” Then apparently there was some friction with
some of the English whalers, for twenty boats had come into a bay.
“Commences with fine weather,” Joy writes under Saturday, May 7th, “at
4 boats returned at 6 heavy S.E. gale sent on shore 22 cedar boards
Latter went out myself with 4 boats saw nothing wind blew up from S
E heavy came into the Neck landed about 20 boats there and the most
Blackguard language used from 5 english boats there Sparing no person
at all in Short I hope I shall ever keep clear of English Ships again
as they have no Authority.”
Joy was his name but sorrow was his experience, for these daily
entries are full of woes and disappointments. Thus Friday, May 27th,
was another disheartening day: “fore part fresh S E wind at 4 boats
returned 1 calf got today Latter part much fine rain went out with 4
boats the 4 mate a lame hand one of our steersman stopped to Save his
oar and did not strike the whale O dear.” And even the next day when
his boats captured a whale and a calf he could but exert himself to
write: “We now have hope I live in hope Latter part fine weather went
out with 4 boats--Sick.”
However, Joy must have withdrawn his animosity towards the British
whalers, for on June 2nd he was able to make a satisfactory bargain:
“fine weather at 5 boats returned I got an anchor from an English ship
for 40 lbs tobacco and a steering oar Latter fine weather went out
with 4 boats and the Captain Got a large whale wafted and anchored
him.” Other ships arrived from New England, but apparently Joy was not
anxious for the society of his fellow humans. Whales were again killed,
and then comes this delightful little summary of what happened on June
20th: “fore part cloudy began to boil at 5 boats returned got a Whale
anchored him outside at 7 broke the cook’s head for getting rum from
the Shore contrary to law Latter part strong N W wind went out with 4
boats the others boiling.”
It is the simple unforced sincerity of this whaling captain which
makes his journal so readable in spite of his quaint confusion of
thoughts and absence of stops or commas. Joy was not an exception but a
product of his time and environment when these wooden whalers contained
hard-case seamen and peppery skippers. To criticize the crews is not
to free the captains from blame: but discipline had to be maintained,
even after a fashion, in these as in any other ships. Joy went on
quarrelling with other whaler-masters as we learn from the sentence,
“this day I formally noted the different masters that I would not agree
in case my boats were stove that I would give up my claim to any Whale
obliged to cut from in consequence of being stove.”
Anyone with a little imagination and the knowledge of the ways of
men can see how the deadly monotony of the life in such a distant
place with Maoris to consort with was bound to make the crews dismal,
disgruntled, and disgusted with life generally. There is an expression
unofficially used to-day in the Royal Navy which describes exactly
the condition into which these whaler men had descended through
sheer boredom and mental weariness. Some who read these pages will
recognize the phrase “b----y minded.” It is not pretty, but it is
truthful. And the first thing that a man in that condition does is to
break out of the ship, go ashore and get drunk as soon as opportunity
presents itself. Joy’s men were thus disposed whilst the ship lay in
semi-commission and the boats hunted for the whales. “John Wood left
ship without leave got drunk I floged him and put him in irons Latter
raining let the prisoner out of irons on promise of amendment” runs
the laconic statement. And a few days later: “I cannot well leave the
Ship in charge of the 4th mate he can do nothing in the boat and has
been Sick and dozey 1/2 the time we have been here.” But finally this
mate who also had “a difference with some of the crew requested his
discharge” and went off: “a good riddance,” Joy wrote.
Boats went on being stove, arguments continued between captains, but
in August Joy began to refit his ship, topmasts were sent up, and on
September 1st he was so pleased with life that he could write: “I feel
better to-day.” Presently topsails were bent, the fine weather began to
break up, wood and water were fetched from the shore and preparations
made for putting to sea. Boats were painted, harpoon lines coiled, the
anchors hove in and stowed, and on September 27th, in company with
two other New England whalers, the _Mary Mitchell_ got under way. The
season there had ended.
Although British, French and American whaling ships were using these
New Zealand waters at that time to the number of forty, one-half of
these were American, the average size being of 333 tons, but New
Bedford and Fairhaven were the principal ports sending ships. In the
year 1832 whaler-ships of 350 tons from New Bedford, Nantucket and New
London were working to the following “lay” or scale of remuneration:
The captain received one-fifteenth, Chief Mate one-twenty-fifth,
Second Mate one-forty-fifth, Third Mate one-fiftieth, boat-steerers
one-hundredth each, ordinary seamen one-hundred-and-seventy-fifth each,
in the South New Zealand whaling; additional help was also obtained
from the shore, where a few men who had deserted from some previous
whaler could usually get a temporary job and bring along a few Maoris
with them.
In one entry Captain Joy wrote that “the Second Mate had his boat
robbed in his absence of a bottle of rum, it being customary to carry
it here so that in case of a hard drag to give it to the boats crew
but they will carry no more from this ship as I will turn it all
into the sea first.” The practice was to take a bottle in each boat
and give each man a drink after a heavy whale had been brought in.
But, unfortunately, there was a rum shop ashore whither the crews
were enticed from their duty and came aboard their ship insolent and
incapable, with the result that someone’s head got smashed, but it was
not always the captain who came off best in the mutual rupture. It was
the old story. As Conrad wrote twenty years before he died, “ships and
men both rot in ports.”
By the year 1839 the number of American whalers on the New Zealand
coast reached the unprecedented number of thirty-seven, whereas five
years previously there had been but one. Nothing could be more eloquent
of the migration of whales than the change of grounds which these
ships from across the world had been compelled to make. Still, as the
reader will find in the course of our inquiry, the fleets have been
obliged in different generations to do this over and over again. But,
as showing the intimate connection that has always existed between
whaling and exploration, it may not be out of place to mention that all
this American development of Southern Pacific whaling culminated in the
natural desire to explore and survey the seas still further south.
And so it all culminated in an American naval officer, Charles Wilkes,
taking out from Hampton Roads an expedition in 1838 consisting of
six vessels which were reduced to four. The Antarctic continent was
discovered, and Wilkes Land shown on the modern maps remains as a
further reminder that this industry of hunting leviathans is capable
not merely of bringing into existence large fleets and employing
considerable numbers of men, but of sowing the seeds for future
international complications if ever those extreme southern areas,
through the advent of aerial navigation or scientific discovery, become
of first-rate importance in the development of the world and its
commerce.
CHAPTER X
CREWS AND CAPTAINS
In the last chapter we have been able to see from Captain Joy’s journal
something of the anxieties of an American whaler’s skipper in the South
Seas. There is an old American whaling chantey which contains the
following among its verses, and hints at the way the crew considered
their duties aboard these ships:
They send you to New Bedford, that famous whaling port,
And give you to some land-sharks to board and fit you out.
In the boarding house full of the usual thieves and liars the future
whaling crews were to listen to all sorts of yarns concerning the
famous ships of the day. Men were embroidering incidents, and
interested parties were telling of the fortunes to be made whaling:
They tell you of the clipper-ships a-going in and out,
And say you’ll take five hundred sperm before you’re six months out.
It’s now we’re out to sea, my boys, the wind comes on to blow;
One half the watch is sick on deck, the other half below.
And then of course comes a reference to the captain as in so many
chanteys:
The Skipper’s on the quarter-deck a-squinting at the sails,
When up aloft the lookout sights a school of whales.
“Now clear away the boats, my boys, and after him we’ll travel,
But if you get too near his fluke, he’ll kick you to the devil.”[1]
[1] Given in J. C. Colcord’s _Roll and Go_.
There is no question that the whalers had their own chanteys, just like
the other merchant sailormen. There were, for instance, “The Boston
Come-All-Ye,” “There She Blows,” “Blow Ye Winds” (from which the above
extracts are taken), “Coast of Peru,” “Rolling Down to Old Maui” and “A
Dead Whale Or A Stove Boat.” As to the latter, Melville shows that in
the eighteen-forties this was still the custom in the whaling service.
Many readers will remember the following passage out of _Moby Dick_:
“‘What do ye when ye see a whale, men?’
“‘Sing out for him!’ was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of
clubbed voices.
“‘Good!’ cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the
hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically
thrown them.
“‘And what do ye next, men?’
“‘Lower away, and after them.’
“‘And what tune is it ye pull to, men?’
“‘A dead whale or a stove boat.’”
But we are able to get a little knowledge of the life aboard a British
South Sea whaler from no less an authority than the journal of Captain
John Balleny in the season 1830-9, when he was working the New Zealand
waters whilst commanding Messrs. Enderby’s whaling and sealing schooner
_Eliza Scott_. Unfortunately the records of British whaling are far
less complete than in the case of the American ships. Therefore every
scrap of information that can be found is of the utmost value to us. So
let us see how matters appeared to this English skipper.
From the first we cannot but admire his sensible treatment of his crew.
They needed shore leave and he granted it. “December 9th. This day is
fine. Gave the men 4 muskets and let them go into the woods to shoot
and stretch their legs. Having no means of obtaing [_sic_] fresh
provisions but by the hook and gun Capt Freeman [of the _Sabrina_] and
myself have generally endeavoured to provide for part of the crew, and
I think a run on shore will do the men good, in point of fact the whole
crew seem so disappointed in not being able to run as they expected
that they are in a state little short of downright mutiny. Therefore I
have allowed them to go and ramble in the woods but have always refused
the boats unless with an officer.”
But none the less Captain Balleny was always anxious lest his men
would desert at the first opportunity. “In the afternoon saw a whale
boat sailing up the harbour for which I was extremely sorry as it will
afford an opportunity for the men to run.” And sure enough two days
later, when Balleny awoke and went on deck he found that five of his
men had stolen a boat and made off. “This is a serious loss but as the
rest of the crew seem perfectly content and willing to try their luck I
still do not despair, indeed the remaining crew seem glad these people
have gone and they all say they will now be comfortable. Two of these
men were certainly two of the greatest blackguards I ever had on board
a ship and I had a great deal of trouble with them on the passage out;
more mutinous rascals could not be, & they have, I think, seduced two
of the others from their duty. As for the 3rd. he had been much in
Sydney and perhaps was the ringleader of the whole. I deplore now more
than ever my long passage out, as I might perchance have saved them
altho’ I am aware it was their intention to run when they shipped, but
I could not carry sail on the schooner and on unstowing the vessel
here I found a sufficient reason.” For the lowest tier of casks ought
to have been filled with water ballast, but were now found “perfectly
empty and it becomes no longer a matter of wonder the ship would not
bear her canvass, but a matter of wonder she got here at all.”
On Christmas Day Captain Balleny dined aboard another vessel, and the
latter’s mates were allowed to dine aboard the _Eliza Scott_. “I told
Mr. Moore, my chief mate, that I laid no embargo on his grog drinking
on this day only to remember and keep within bounds of moderation. At
10 I returned on board and the only one sober was my 2nd. mate Mr.
McNab. About 2 o’clock it blew so hard that both vessels drove & had
to let go the 2nd. anchor. The mate still that stupid that I could not
get him out of his bed.” And on Boxing Day the much-worried skipper
writes, whilst it was still raining heavily and blowing a gale of wind:
“The mate appears not to have gotten the better of his intemperance
and has been exceeding impertinent so much so that I am inclined to
turn him forward. This is not the first time or act of intemperance and
impudence. It is now become almost time to put an end to it. From his
conduct I am more than ever convinced he was accessory to the departure
of the men and boat & is, I think, endeavourg to sow the seeds of
dissension amongst the people.”
But things were no happier aboard the other ship, for on the fourth
day of January, Balleny saw signals of distress flying, so “went on
board & found 3 men had deserted.” But fortunately we have also the
_Eliza Scott’s_ log, presumably kept by the Chief Mate, and we see the
other side of the case. First with regard to the men: he writes under
date of that same December 11th, “The Cooper in a most Mutinous Manner
declared he had not sufficient to eat and with respect to Grog he said
he considered it as much his as mine and that everyone in the ship had
a right to an equal share.” And on the next day, “This Morng Smith
the Yarmouth fisherman as he calls himself brought up the Bread Barge
so heaped up as to run the risk of scattering the Contents and on my
simply requesting him to be careful he was exceedingly Insolent and
when he went forward the Carpenter exclaimed in loud voice that he was
saucy and Independant and did not care a damn. It appears to me that
the whole Crew are in a state of Mutiny or at least are endeavouring to
make a Disturbance....” But the Chief Mate’s own account of that drink
incident of Boxing Day is as brief as it is personal: “Strong Gales, at
daylight let go the Second Anchor--Employed variously about the Rigging
&c. N.B. at 3 the Captn struck the Mate before all hands on the Quarter
deck for nothing.”
Thus, what with troublesome mates and drunken crews and the
ever-present possibility of losing several hands by desertion as long
as the ship was at anchor, every whaling or sealing skipper had a merry
old time. But friction was caused between shipmasters in consequence
of the deserters joining up in another whaler. McNab instances the
following letter which was sent by Captain Francis Neil, of the
American whaler _Navy_, to Captain Bateman, of the British whaler
_Cheviot_, who had been compelled to find some of his crew enticed away
and had retaliated by seizing some of the _Navy’s_ boats. The letter at
least shows that the American had a keen sense of justice, or rather of
retribution.
“_Ship ‘Navy,’ Oct. 7, 1836._
+Manna.+[1]
“+Dear Sir+,
“I received your letter of the 6th instant, and as you request my
opinion in writing, tending the loss you sustained by part of your
crew deserting you and joining a shore party employed by ---- of
Sydney, I am well aware that your men were taken from Cloudy Bay in
the barque and to my certain knowledge distressed your ship much.
It is my opinion had not these men been enticed from your vessel
you would have had double the quantity of oil you now have, your
crew being much reduced; but as Captain ---- told me there was ‘no
law in New Zealand’ I commend you for having taken the boat as part
payment for the injury sustained.
“I remains dear Sir
“Yours
“+Francis Neil+.”
[1] The name of an island.
Off the New Zealand coast the whaling was done principally by vessels
from the United Kingdom and America, but others came from Sydney and
Hobart Town. It was because the whale had been hunted from the trade
routes that vessels from London and New Bedford had been forced to
come so far south, and this in turn suggested the industry to the two
colonial towns mentioned, which enjoyed the advantage of being much
nearer to these new whaling grounds. This meant, obviously, that the
Australian whalers could spend a much longer period of their cruise
in the actual localities where the cetacean was found: and a quicker
return was made for the capital expended.
But the decadence which had set in with regard to English whaling and
whaler skill prevented the Americans from having a serious rival down
south during the period of the eighteen-thirties. In the year 1838
the merchants and shipowners whose vessels were not doing too well in
the waters of Greenland and the Davis Straits petitioned the Treasury
Lords that an investigation be made in the conditions of the South
Pacific whaling trade; for they alleged that for a considerable time
whalebone had reached London which pretended to have been British
caught yet was American or foreign. But, owing to it having a British
certificate, it came into England without paying the duty of £94 a
ton. It was suggested that British ships were meeting American whalers
on the high seas, buying the whalebone, incorporating it in their own
cargo and thus arriving with it in a port of the United Kingdom. And
this complaint embraced the ships from Sydney and Hobart Town. There is
undisputable evidence that American ships did actually sell whalebone
to English ships, for such trafficking is recorded in at least one
American whaler’s log.
But all these jealousies and disputes between individuals and between
the whalers of both nations were almost inevitable. The whale belonged
definitely to no particular sea and to no particular nation or ship.
The initiative was entirely to the cetacean, and wherever he chose to
wander, thither the fleets had to follow irrespective of what flag they
wore. Skippers naturally tried their best to keep secret the locality
of their pet grounds: but just as to-day the trawlermen cannot preserve
for long the secrecy of their newly found areas, so it was with the
whalers. After a season or two there would be a squadron of ships where
there had been one: and in the year following would come an entire
fleet to pick up the wealth from the sea.
CHAPTER XI
WHALING ADVENTURES
It was by no means unusual or an isolated incident for the harpooner as
he stood there in the bows of the boat to be killed by the cachalot’s
tail sweeping through the air and cutting the boat off clean to the
water’s edge. One day about the beginning of the nineteenth century
the British whaler _Perseverance_ was off the Brazilian coast and her
captain was out in one of the boats, and the cachalot had just been
attacked, when the animal knocked the captain with his flukes out of
the boat lifeless, killing at the same time one of the crew. The whale
escaped, but, judging by the harpoons afterwards found in it, was
destroyed by a boat from an American whaler.
On another occasion, at the end of August 1831, after the British
whaler _Tuscan_ in the North Pacific had sighted sperm whales, when the
master and second mate had lowered their boats, there was left on board
the chief mate in charge of the ship. This officer’s name was Young.
Presently, whilst attacking a large whale, the second mate’s boat was
so smashed by the whale that the other boat had to receive both crews
and harpoon-line. Young, who had been watching the proceedings, now
lowered his boat and came to assist. It was well known among whaling
men that after a cachalot had been attacked, some other mammal in the
same school would come to his fellow-creature’s assistance, either by
getting the line in his mouth and severing it, or by instituting a
counter-attack.
Now in the present incident, whilst the cachalot was approaching his
end, spouting blood and becoming more feeble, another of his breed came
along and commenced to strike the boats with his flukes to aid his
dying comrade. The fresh cachalot therefore now lashed his tail across
both boats and swept Young out of his, throwing him a distance of
forty yards, killing him instantaneously, besides doing injury to the
boat itself. But the harpooned whale was killed, and the interfering
cachalot went off with many lance wounds in him.
The sperm whale is notoriously gregarious, but when a lone cachalot
is found, he is always an aged bull. A school of whales consists of
from twenty to fifty and comprises cows, their young, and at least one
bull of the largest size who acts as escort. A pod consists of young
males. A body of whales is formed by two or more schools cruising
in company, and are often seen making a passage towards a definite
locality. Bennett, already quoted, to whom I am greatly indebted for
much information obtained at first hand, says that when pierced by
the harpoon the sperm whale will tow the boat at over fifteen miles
an hour, but until struck the mammal will not average more than ten
miles when pursued. The same authority mentions observing one cachalot
which continued below the surface for fifty-five minutes. When whales
are attacked, it is the females which render assistance to each other,
but the males prefer to retreat from their injured comrades. There is
not the slightest doubt that when a cachalot has been harpooned, other
whales even miles away show their consciousness of the fact, make off
or come down to assist, possibly informed by the transference of sound
through the plunging antics of the angered whale. Sperm whales have
been occasionally washed up on to British coasts, and during the recent
war, when some of us were on anti-submarine patrol off the Atlantic
coast of Ireland, there were not a few occasions when a whale was
reported as a German U-boat.
Sea travellers, especially in the old sailing-ships’ days, have told
strange tales, but there is a true and curious incident which occurred
to a whaler named the _Foxhound_ in the southern ocean about the year
1817, one day when most of the crew were below at dinner. One hand
on deck heard a loud splashing and raised the alarm. Another went up
into the rigging and saw something projecting from the ship’s side:
and this turned out to be the beak of a swordfish broken off, which
after having penetrated right through the copper sheathing and solid
timbers protruded for most of a foot within the hold. That portion on
the outside was afterwards sawn off and a lead plate nailed over it.
A few months later, when the _Foxhound_ reached Sydney, it was found
impossible to withdraw this portion of the swordfish, and there it
remained until the ship reached England, when it had to be cut out.
Narrow escapes to individuals in such a vocation as whaling were
inevitable: but it would be difficult for anyone to have a much nearer
approach to death than that of the officer in charge of a boat engaged
in killing a certain loose cachalot. The latter flung its flukes so
close to the officer’s head as to knock his hat off without doing
further damage. Another whale actually bit in two the thick pole of a
harpoon which had been fixed into the body of a companion. Nor was this
an isolated occasion, for on another date when a cachalot had freed his
mate by biting off the harpoon line, it became itself entangled in the
line so that it could not escape but was killed by the lance without
having been harpooned. All the same, the creature put up a magnificent
fight, and one blow from his flukes nearly broke off the stem and
hurled the crew into the sea. On yet another day, a whale after
smashing the boat with his flukes gave the crew an unpleasant time
whilst keeping his jaw immediately over their heads for some very long
moments. And this jaw extended fourteen and a half feet, or over half
the length of the boat; for they measured it on deck later, when the
whale had given them three more hours of hunting before it was killed.
It was characteristic of some sperm whales that they preferred rather
to attack with their jaws than their tail, and would rush open-mouthed
against the boat in an endeavour to crush it with their teeth, for this
purpose turning and swimming on the back. There have been boats’ crews
so alarmed by this that they have leapt into the water and remained
there until the danger had passed. Just ninety years ago a fighting
whale turned round to attack the boats, injured them, and chased them
right back to the ship, where it remained for some time in spite of the
lances which were hurled at it.
Many people who read the wonderful voyage of Captain Slocum round the
world alone will remember the occasion when his vessel was invaded by
undesirable natives and he managed to frighten them away by scattering
tacks along the deck, which were trodden on by the bare-footed people
with instantaneous effect. But this was a device that Slocum must have
learnt from old lore; for there was a whaler named the _Syren_ one day
off the Pellew Islands, and the boats were chasing a whale, when the
natives came aboard in their craft so threateningly as to drive the
remainder of the crew aloft. Now one of these men then remembered that
a packet of tin-tacks had been left in the top for some purpose, and he
now proceeded to strew them about the deck. The immediate result was
that the natives became terrified from the soles of their feet upwards,
and screamingly dived into the sea.
I believe that the first time an Englishman ever saw the American flag
flying was aboard a whaler, and that was a vessel named the _Bedford_,
which came into English waters via the Downs one February day with
487 butts of whale oil. A contemporary periodical alluded to her as
“American built and manned wholly by American seamen. She wears the
rebel colours and belongs to Nantucket.” A few days later there arrived
in English waters the whaler _Industry_. But one of the most famous
whaling ships ever built is the _James Arnold_, launched in New Bedford
as far back as 1852. Indeed she is one of the most remarkable craft
ever built, and she is a connecting link with the days of romance and
the present mechanical age. For between the month of May 1853 and the
month of October 1894 this fine old vessel made a dozen long whaling
voyages--sometimes a cruise lasting for over four years--and during
this entire period of over forty years’ work brought home to her owners
as much oil and whalebone as sold for 876,425 dollars; or, reckoning
five dollars to the pound, she netted £175,285. Now in the year 1894
the price of oil dropped to 56 cents a gallon, so in the following
March her owners sold her for £1,000. She was then fitted out at New
Bedford and sailed to Chili, where she commenced a second career. Ever
since she has been under the Chilian flag she has made whaling voyages
each year, with a brief interlude as a merchantman, and is still
engaged catching whales in the old-fashioned manner with harpoon and
lance. Her catch has averaged twelve hundred barrels, and in twenty-six
whaling years sailing out of Valparaiso she has made for her new owners
about £70,000. Thus, up to date, the _James Arnold_ has produced the
magnificent sum of £245,285 from whaling alone. This, I think, is a
record which must take some beating.
The neighbourhood of New Bedford has by long tradition been the home of
whaling ships and whaling skippers. Therefore, as long as they lasted,
the _James Arnold_ had a New Bedford captain even after passing under
the Chilian flag. But now this fine race of whaling masters has died
out, so the old ship is navigated by a Chilian skipper, yet the actual
whaling operations of killing are carried out by sailors educated in
the art by New Bedford men. Constructed of oak and copper fastened,
this three-masted ship, with her old-time band of white running round
the hull and the black, square ports, keeps up the continuity of an
industry that has seen revolutionary changes in ships and methods. Her
gross tonnage is a little more than 345, length 115 ft., beam 27.6
ft., depth 17.6 ft., and in spite of all these seventy-odd years of
wandering over the waters of the globe she is still tight and staunch,
and the oldest whaling ship in the world that is actively engaged in
the business.
The _James Arnold_ was built by the brothers Jethro and Zachariah
Hillman, and there used to be a saying that a Hillman ship never
leaked. Well, these same New Bedford builders in the year 1841
launched the whaling barque _Charles W. Morgan_, and she exists
to this day, though not actively. At the moment of writing she is
receiving that honour and preservation which she richly deserves.
Just as the _Victory_ in England has recently been transformed into a
kind of Nelson shrine commemorative of the last of the three-deckers,
so the American nation are treating the _Charles W. Morgan_. Last
autumn, after the hurricane which wrecked the whaler _Wanderer_ on the
Cuttyhunk rocks, the _Charles W. Morgan_ was left as the last American
whaler afloat, although she had not engaged in that industry since 1906.
Like the _James Arnold_, this _Charles W. Morgan_ is square sterned in
accordance with the contemporary design, copper fastened and copper
sheathed. In the latter part of her career she used to sail for many
years from San Francisco to the North Pacific and Japanese whaling
grounds. But it was the competition of the modern steam whalers
which proved too keen for her, and she came back to the Atlantic.
For most of twenty years she lay secured to a wharf at Fairhaven,
opposite New Bedford, yet was occasionally taken to sea on behalf
of the moving-picture business. But thanks to the enormous interest
concerning old ships which is now being shown by America, the _Charles
W. Morgan_ was acquired in 1924 and a concrete crib was built for her
to be floated into for the last time from the sea, and thus remain as
an interesting and perfect example of what a real whaling ship looked
like; for in a very short time otherwise, who will be alive to speak
authentically? So it was decided to refit her according to the original
sail plan; for she began her career as a full-rigged ship but in 1867
was cut down to a barque. Certain of the parts salved from the wrecked
_Wanderer_ were used in refitting the _Charles W. Morgan_, and thus
it will now be possible for posterity to consider in actuality three
of the most famous sailing ships of a glorious age restored to their
correct rig: the _Victory_ at Portsmouth, the _Cutty Sark_ at Falmouth,
and the _Charles W. Morgan_ near New Bedford. In these three vessels we
perceive the romance of the sea handed down for others to enjoy and be
inspired. And if only we possessed an old East Indiaman to make up the
quartette, we might rest assured that the glamour of an ancient glory
would never be forgotten.
The _James Arnold_ and the _Bartholomew Gosnold_ discovered a new
whaling ground off New Zealand, and for several years worked it until
the secret came out. This _James Arnold_ has led a charmed life, for
there are some ships which always seem to cheat disaster, just as in
the Great War certain vessels blundered over and over again through
minefields and submarine zones without the slightest incident. When
the American Civil War broke out, the _James Arnold_ was sent into the
Atlantic, and although the rebel cruisers in 1862 and the following
year destroyed twenty or thirty whaling ships, the _James Arnold_ was
never captured. It is a commentary on the change in the affairs of
whaling that when this vessel was built, there were over six hundred
whaling ships and barques and over sixty brigs and schooners engaged as
whalers. But in the year that she passed under the Chilian flag these
numbers had dropped to forty-seven ships and barques and twenty-five
schooners. By the year 1923 there were not more than a dozen of the
old-fashioned sort under sail and employing the time-honoured methods.
The loss of the _Wanderer_ was on this wise. That fine old barque,
which was the last American-owned whaler to sail on a whaling cruise,
was lying with all stores on board at the State Pier, New Bedford, on
Monday, August 25, 1924, and at 9 a.m. the tug hauled her into the
channel and she was headed south to Mischaum Point at the entrance to
Buzzards Bay. Here she anchored whilst her captain went back on the
tug to collect the rest of his crew. The glass was falling slowly but
surely. Now that evening it came on to blow hard from the N.E., and
throughout Tuesday there was the worst storm known for about seventy
years, so that it reached hurricane force, destroying on land trees
and buildings, whilst wrecking a number of boats.
_Wanderer_ parted her heaviest cable, and then dragged her second
anchor as the wind had gone round to the N.W. She was carried across
to the island of Cuttyhunk and piled up on the rocks, and thus another
historic ship came to an untimely end. I have had the privilege of
seeing some unique photographs, which were courteously sent to me by
Dr. J. Richard Taylor, of Fairhaven. It happened that as the _Wanderer_
was leaving on her last journey, Dr. Taylor was about in his motor
cruiser, and the first picture showed the _Wanderer_ leaving the
State Pier at 9 a.m. with a tug secured to the barque’s starboard
side. Another picture showed the tug towing the whaler past Fort
Rodman, and she was shown again at 10.50 a.m. just before anchoring
off Mischaum Point. These most interesting wreck pictures portray her
as she appeared when the gale had left her on the rocks of Cuttyhunk
Island. This island, by the way, has a stone tower memorial which is of
great historical interest to all who think about the sea. The name of
Bartholomew Gosnold we mentioned just now as being commemorated in a
whaler. But the original Gosnold carries us right back to the time when
Queen Elizabeth was recently dead.
For it was on Lady Day, 1602, that Captain Bartholomew Gosnold in
command of the ships _Concord_ and _Dartmouth_ sailed from Falmouth,
crossed the Atlantic from England to North America and coasted along
the east and south shore of Cape Cod, and landed at what is now called
Cuttyhunk Island on May 24th. Here he built a house and “a little
fort,” but giving up the settlement sailed for England on June 17th,
reaching Exmouth on July 23rd. Gosnold thus formed the first English
settlement in New England, and his is now the name of the township in
which Cuttyhunk lies. Thus, by a chain of incidents, the spot which the
_Wanderer_ finally chose as her resting-place, after roaming over the
seven seas, now has become doubly historic in the realm of maritime
events.
CHAPTER XII
THE PERSONAL ELEMENT
It used to be the custom--certainly among the whalers of the Greenland
and Davis Straits--after the whale had been brought alongside the
ship for the harpooners, before getting to work on the animal’s
dissection, to arm their feet with spurs. This was in order to prevent
their slipping, and Scoresby relates a curious accident which he once
witnessed in this connection.
Attending on these men were usually a couple of boats with one or
two boys, who would be ready to pass along the harpooners’ knives,
blubber-spades and so on. Boat-hooks would naturally be used for
holding on to the dead animal. Now whilst these harpooners were busy
flensing, and one of these men was standing on the whale’s jaw-bone,
a lad in the boat clumsily and accidentally, whilst keeping the craft
alongside, thrust the point of his boat-hook through the ring of the
harpooner’s spur and simultaneously hooked on to the jaw-bone. The
harpooner presently found himself in the water and held by the foot. He
managed to catch hold of the boat’s gunwale, but by this time the point
had been reached when the blubber and whalebone had been extracted and
the carcase was just being let go. And the position now was that the
unfortunate expert was fastened to this sinking carcase.
It seemed only a question of a few seconds before carcase would pull
man below the surface of the sea, and he was just about to let go the
gunwale when some of his shipmates threw a rope round his body. With
all that weight suspended from him, the harpooner was in great agony,
but what he feared most was that he might be dragged below: so in spite
of his pain he shouted to his pals to haul away at the rope, and this
was the actual means of saving him, for eventually the carcase was
hooked with a grapnel and the man was freed. But he had been quite as
near to death as it is possible for any human to approach.
These harpooners at work separating the blubber fat worked under the
direction of the specksioneer, or head fat-cutter, the expert of
experts on the subject of whales. But if in the seventeenth-century
Dutch whalers the specksioneer (or more correctly the “specksynder”)
was in supreme control of a whaler, and the captain was a mere sailing
master, just as in the sixteenth century expeditions were under the
leadership of a landsman, the British Greenland whaling ships of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were under the command of seafaring
captains and the specksioneer was merely a senior harpooner and not
in supreme command. It is interesting as showing that the handling
and navigation of the ship were considered of greater importance than
expert knowledge of the whales themselves. But it is also a fact that
in the course of years the sailing master had amassed all the available
information about whales, their cruising grounds, and their habits, and
the methods of hunting them. In the American early nineteenth-century
whalers the specksioneer was of greater authority than in contemporary
British ships and sometimes took charge of the deck. For this reason,
as support to his authority, the specksioneer lived apart from the
crew. In the modern steam whalers, dealt with towards the end of this
volume, we find that the twentieth-century practice is rather to
give back to the harpooner, or gunner, that supremacy of place which
he occupied three hundred years ago. Divided authority always has its
drawbacks, and so long as the sailing master is responsible for his
ship and the harpooner cares only for getting the maximum of whales it
is conceivable that there will be a clashing of wills sooner or later.
On the grounds of discipline and unity of purpose there is everything
to be said for the principle of captain and specksioneer being one and
the same person.
For the purpose of overcoming the jealousies and arguments, the
disputes and violent quarrels on the whaling grounds it became
necessary for the Dutch during the seventeenth century to impose on
their ships drastic regulations, which had to be subscribed to by every
captain, specksioneer and officer. In the British Arctic whalers the
official Government regulations were not necessary, for the custom of
the industry was usually respected, although litigation did sometimes
arise, of which an instance has been given in another chapter. But
there were two plain and simple traditions which in actual practice had
the value of laws. Firstly, there was the question of a whale which
had been harpooned or fastened. This was the most fruitful source
of animosity: for harpoons from two or more boats, all of different
ships, might penetrate the whale, especially in the case of a long
and difficult hunt. The first boat would naturally claim the whale
as his, and the last boat of all, who finally had brought about the
animal’s death, might insist that the prize was his. In order to avoid
such disputes the British custom of the sea was that a whale which had
been fastened, or in any way was in possession of a boat, belonged to
that boat which maintains connection or possession, no matter whether
the whale were dead or alive. Secondly, a whale that was loose and
unfastened, dead or alive, was fair game for all; but there were
occasions when this last-mentioned custom presented difficulties.
Supposing, for example, that a ship’s boat had been hunting a certain
whale all day, harpooned him, been towed for many miles by him, and
then with the oncoming of night and owing to the distance from the
ship, it had become necessary to cut the line. What then? Next day, or
perhaps weeks later, some other ship might find that whale many miles
away but with the harpoon still in him, and the name of the ship on
that harpoon. Perhaps the whale might be harpooned again and chased for
a long while and then killed. Whose was that whale? Did it belong to
the ship whose harpoon had been identified? Or did the spoil go to the
final vessel?
The following is an instance which occurred in the Greenland fishery.
Several whalers were beating to windward along the edge of the ice, the
vessels being under easy sail, for it was blowing a gale accompanied
by snow. But when the wind and snow eased up and the ships made
towards the ice, two vessels, distant from each other about a mile,
both sighted a dead whale within some loose ice. Now, since this
whale was not “fastened” she was fair game for either ship, and there
ensued a keen race as to which should reach the animal first. But the
two vessels were most evenly matched, and there was no such thing as
superiority in their sailing ability. So keen was the contest that each
captain had hopes of harpooning without lowering boats, and in the bows
of both ships was standing an officer ready to let drive his harpoon so
soon as the whale was reached.
Now it must have been apparent that two evenly matched sailing ships
both heading for the same small object in a big sea would converge and
collide. This indeed happened when within a few yards of the whale,
and actually the shock was so violent that bow struck bow with such
force that the two craft rebounded. Harpoons were hurled at the whale
but fell short. And then a keen seaman who was second mate of the lee
ship dived overboard into those bitterly cold waters, swam off to the
whale, seized its fin and announced to the world that the prize was
his. It was a plucky if somewhat foolish act: for he found himself
unable to climb up and had to remain shivering in that Arctic water.
Somehow in the excitement and joy that the other vessel had been
outwitted, this second mate’s captain neglected to worry about his
officer’s unpleasant predicament hanging on to the dead whale. Instead
of at once lowering a boat, the skipper was more concerned with mooring
his whaler to a suitable piece of ice.
But in the meantime ship number two had tacked and the master of her
had lowered a boat, got into it and rowed off to the solitary mariner
still hanging on to the dead whale. So he called to the mate, whose
shivering hand was still on the fin. “Well? You’ve got a fine fish
there,” said the skipper. “Yes,” agreed the unhappy mate. “But don’t
you find it very cold?” asked the captain, beholding the livid lips.
“Yes, I do,” answered the mate. “And I’m almost starved: I wish you’d
let me come into your boat until ours arrives.” “Certainly,” approved
the charitable but wide-awake skipper. The boat was rowed alongside the
whale, and, in fact, the man was assisted on board the boat with the
greatest enthusiasm.
But immediately afterwards the clever old skipper struck a harpoon
into the carcase of the whale, hoisted his flag and claimed it as
his prize; for it was now loose and was anyone’s property until this
moment. There was no question as to the right of the new owner, nor
was it even disputed. But skipper number one was wild with anger when
he realized the trick which had been played. There remained nothing
to be done except to see several hundred golden sovereigns’ worth of
whale going aboard his rival ship, and then he turned round and cursed
his over-gallant mate for having been such a fool as to let go of that
fin. There are, indeed, times when one is praised less for bravery
than for astuteness. But I presume that mate would in future leave
daring enterprise to others who thought nothing of the encouragement by
gratitude.
Whaling could not be learnt in a few weeks or even a season: and
especially was this true of the Greenland industry, where the
conditions of ice and weather were difficult problems. Experience,
judgment, perseverance, seamanship, good navigational ability and that
indescribable special fisherman-sense which is able to know where the
fish are: these were the qualities which went to make the successful
whaler captain. Seamanship was perhaps more important than at first
consideration you might imagine. When there was such similarity of
build in these more or less standardized ships, there was not a great
deal of difference in the respective speeds: therefore the personal
element came into the matter. After the fleet had penetrated up the
Davis Straits, for example, and been prevented from advancing owing to
the obstructing ice, there might one day show itself a narrow opening
just big enough for a skilful skipper to work his ship through. If he
could do this before the sea was ready for the general advance, then he
would have the pick of the sea, he would get whales and possibly fill
up his holds before the other ships could sail through. Taking whaling
as a whole, success depended far more on the captain’s character and
skill, and next on his harpooners, than on the ship herself. The first
thing requisite was whaling knowledge: but when the captain had
brought his ship to the right area, the rest depended on the look-outs
and the harpooners.
Seamen are singularly child-like: and whaler crews were of this
sort, too. If they began to lose confidence in the “old man” or in
the harpooner’s skill, they would lose all heart in the cruise,
become discouraged, lack spirit, and consequently would allow golden
opportunities to pass by. Thus, bad officers would ruin any whaling
vessel, and she would come home, if not “clean,” at any rate with an
indifferent cargo. On the other hand, nothing succeeds like success,
and nothing gave the men greater confidence than the capture of several
whales by clever harpooning. It satisfied them that the harpooner knew
his business and was worthy of their assistance, it encouraged them as
they reflected on the monetary reward which was accumulating; and it
assured them that should the animal’s tail one day give them a stove
boat, it would be just one of those inevitable accidents of their
calling. If one of the boat’s crew had the misfortune to get his foot
foul of the harpoon line after the whale had been struck, then it was
just a case of “his own b----y fault” that for the rest of his life he
would not have a complete pair of feet.
But had this happened in a boat whose harpooner was “gallied,” nervous
or inexperienced, then that crew would have been ruined for the rest of
the voyage, the incident would be discussed in the fo’c’sle, and even
the best of the other boats’ crews would become infected with just that
spirit which prevents success. Thus it was the personal element which
mattered most in whaling.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WAY THEY HAD IN THE WHALERS
Just as in this first quarter of the twentieth century we are at pains
to get together every possible detail of the dying sailing ship--there
are but four canvas-driven ocean-goers at the time of writing that
still fly the Red Ensign--before the last of a fine race disappears
from existence; so with the passing of the sailing whaler and the
establishment of the steam “catcher” it is meet that we should set down
all those items which illustrate the life and methods of the old-time
vessels. And in this chapter we shall not confine ourselves to the
routine of the northern whalers.
The crude harpoon-gun which was in existence at the beginning of
the nineteenth century had been improved by a gunsmith at Hull,
though between 1772 and the next twenty years the Society of Arts
had by giving premiums to whaler-men and others tried to encourage
improvements both in the gun and the harpoon itself. But the Hull
evolution had produced a weapon with an inch-and-seven-eighths bore,
the gun being about two feet long, of wrought iron and working on a
swivel. A special arrangement was devised to lessen its liability to
miss fire. The shank of the harpoon was double, ending in a knob which
fitted the bore of the gun. This gun could fire its harpoon about forty
yards, but owing to the difficulty in working this gun it was never in
universal use and the old-fashioned method of hurling the hand harpoon
continued to be employed even long after Svend Foyn introduced his new
gun and system.
The whaling gear was overhauled and fitted on the voyage out to the
whaling grounds. The four fathoms of 2-1/4-inch hemp of the “foregoer”
or “foreganger” was now spliced to the harpoon’s shank, every harpoon
being stamped with the name of the ship and the master, so that there
could be no question as to which ship had a right to any particular
cetacean, for there was a good deal of jealousy and argument bound to
arise when more than one ship’s boats had fastened to the same whale.
Great care was taken of the harpoon’s point, and after it had been
sharpened and cleaned it was protected by a bit of oiled paper or
canvas.
The complete outfit for each of the boats consisted of a couple of
harpoons, at least a dozen lances, five to seven oars, a “jack” or flag
on a pole as a signal that the whale had been harpooned; a tail-knife
for making holes in the animal’s tail through which the towing rope
could be passed after he was killed; a rest in which the stock of the
ready-to-use harpoon was supported at the bow; an axe for cutting the
line, a bucket for bailing or for wetting the line; a snatch-block,
grapnel, boat-hooks, mallet, swab, grommets and one or two other items.
It was in the bigger (six-oared) boats that the harpoon-gun was ever
carried, and these craft also were fitted with a winch for hauling in
the lines after the whale had been fastened. In these whaling boats you
never saw a rudder: steering was always done by means of a long oar.
Why was this? The answer is that speed was of the utmost importance,
and everyone well knows that as soon as you put your helm over in a
boat, the rudder acts as a drag. Many an inexperienced coxswain in a
modern eight-oared racing craft has learnt this to his cost.
And this long steering oar was convenient for getting the boat round
when the rowers were at rest. But generally for quickly sculling the
boat out of a narrow gat where the ice would not allow of oars; for
quick manœuvring, and for approaching the whale without making that
noise inseparable from several blades being dipped--this stern oar was
essential. Each whaling ship split up its crew into as many divisions
as she carried boats: but when the ship was making a passage the crew
were divided into two watches in the usual manner.
The whaling service had its standard of efficiency, and in its own
way it was unique. In regard to boatmanship, quite apart from general
seamanship, this standard has seldom been equalled. Thus if the vessel
were already cruising in an area where whales could be expected, the
boats were always ready for immediate use, hanging from their davits
or cranes, complete with all stores, and within one minute of the
order being given after the sighting of the whale, at least two boats
properly manned could be in the water. Every sailor to-day would admit
that this showed first-class organization and discipline up to a point.
In the crow’s nest, whilst cruising about the whale area, was one of
the officers, or even sometimes the captain himself with his telescope
sweeping the sea. If the fish sighted were large, then two boats were
sent: if there were more than one whale, then more than two boats were
ordered away; and when every boat had been sent off the ship was said
to have “a loose fall.”
Such was the zeal for efficiency that when cruising in fine weather
and whales were expected at any hour, a boat might be already in the
water towing astern. Greenhorns in these boats with little experience
in rowing were sure of many cursings and several impressive blows on
the head from the officer in charge: for smooth, steady rowing without
catching “crabs” was essential. “There were two greenies in each boat,”
mentions the late Frank T. Bullen, from whose classic, _The Cruise of
the Cachalot_, we have quoted more than once, “they being so arranged
that whenever one of them ‘caught a crab,’ which of course was about
every other stroke, his failure made little difference to the boat’s
progress. They learned very fast under the terrible imprecations and
storms of blows from the iron-fisted and iron-hearted officers.”
Elsewhere in these pages I have spoken of the whale as elusive: this
adjective exactly fits him. Scoresby says “that a whale seldom abides
longer on the surface of the water than two minutes, that it generally
remains from five to ten or fifteen minutes under water, that in this
interval it sometimes moves through the space of half a mile or more,
and that the fisher has very rarely any certain intimation of the place
in which it will appear.” Still, an experienced harpooner considered
himself successful if his whale reappeared within a couple of hundred
yards. But just as in the case of the modern submarine, so the whale
under way, submerged just below the surface, leaves an eddy in his
progress. The hand-harpoon was effective at a range of not more than
ten yards: the old-fashioned harpoon-gun at about thirty yards. The
head was impenetrable, so it was never aimed at.
Bullen’s service aboard a whaler was from 1875 onwards, and he has
left behind invaluable information concerning the life aboard one of
those New Bedford vessels. But Herman Melville in his _Moby Dick_
based his yarn on his whaling voyage aboard the _Acushnet_ in the
eighteen-forties: and his vivid description of the lowering of these
boats is too precious not to be quoted.
“‘There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!’
“‘Where-away?’
“‘On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them.’
“Instantly all was commotion.
“The sperm whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and
reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from
other tribes of his genus.
“‘There go flukes!’ was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared.
“‘Quick, steward!’ cried Ahab. ‘Time! time!’
“Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the
exact minute to Ahab. The ship was now kept away from the wind, and
she went gently rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales
had gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them
again directly in advance of our bows.... One of the men selected for
ship-keepers--that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time
relieved the Indian at the mainmast head. The sailors at the fore and
mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the
cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats
swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the
rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the
long line of man-of-war’s men about to throw themselves on board an
enemy’s ship....
“‘All ready there, Fedallah?’
“‘Ready,’ was the half-hissed reply.
“‘Lower away, then: d’ye hear?’ shouting across the deck. ‘Lower away
there, I say.’
“... The men sprang over the rail: the sheaves whirled round in the
blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while,
with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the
sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship’s side into the tossed
boats below.
“Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship’s lee, when a fourth
keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern,
and showed the five strangers rowing; Ahab, who standing erect in the
stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask to spread themselves
widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water.
“And then the exhortations of the officer to urge the crew to row
towards the whale, which had now come into sight again, blowing right
ahead:
“‘Pull, pull, my fine hearts alive; pull, my children; pull, my little
ones,’ drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew.... ‘Why
don’t you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those
chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help
us--never mind from where--the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull:
never mind the brimstone--devils are good fellows enough. So, so;
there you are now; that’s the stroke for a thousand pounds; that’s the
stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my
heroes! Three cheers, men--all hearts alive! Easy, easy; don’t be in a
hurry--don’t be in a hurry. Why don’t you snap your oars, you rascals?
Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then; softly, softly. That’s
it--that’s it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil
fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep. Stop snoring,
ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, can’t ye? pull, won’t ye?
Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes don’t ye pull? pull and
break something! pull, and start your eyes out! Here!’ whipping out
the sharp knife from his girdle; ‘every mother’s son of ye draw his
knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That’s it--that’s
it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start
her--start her, my silver spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!’”
Yes: there was something personal, very human, inspiring and thrilling
in those fine boat hunts which used to go on from these old ships
during the longest voyages which were ever made by men. Melville refers
to the life aboard the Nantucket whalers with their sharing-out system
of remuneration, their common luck, their common vigilance as tending
in some cases “to beget a less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen
generally; yet, never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family
these whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together; for
all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are
seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed, many
are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper parading his
quarter-deck with an exalted grandeur not surpassed in any military
navy; nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if he wore the
imperial purple, and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth.”
Scoresby says that during the capture of a whale, the line would with
its friction sometimes cut a groove in the bollard about an inch deep
and therefore they used to put a plate of brass, or iron, or lignum
vitæ where the line passed over the stem, otherwise in one season’s
successful whaling the boat would be cut right through to the water’s
edge. A really experienced harpooner was always careful not to have too
many turns round that bollard. Sometimes it was a great temptation so
to do, when the whale was apparently never going to cease his progress.
The harpooner naturally desired to retard the animal and to increase
the drag by not slackening up the line: but too many turns sometimes
meant that the line would get entangled, it could not be eased off
when an obstacle of ice came across the boat’s path. Then suddenly the
boat would be drawn beneath the ice, or smashed to small pieces of
wood--unless an axe was able to be applied in time.
Not even the greatest expert could ever say how long a period would
elapse between the harpooning of the whale and the final capture.
Scoresby says that the average time was not exceeding an hour, but he
himself remembered the occasion when it took twenty-eight minutes; and
another when after sixteen hours the whale actually escaped from its
line. But, apart from the ice, the worst enemy of the Arctic whalers
was that succession of thick fogs which were to be expected in June
and July. Not merely did they endanger the ships, but they interfered
seriously with the actual whaling operations. Even if the animal were
fastened, the boat would be towed immediately away from the ship’s
sight and the boatmen lose all sense of direction and distance. The
ship’s bell or horn could signal for a certain distance: but if the
boat were beyond the hearing of a gun, then both shipmaster and boat’s
officer had every reason to become anxious. A gale frequently follows
in the wake of a fog: but up there hunger was always waiting to follow
the biting cold. Death from either or both was always threatening.
The persistency of some whales is well illustrated by an incident which
happened to a boat in June of 1812 when the Whitby whaler _Resolution_
had reached her northern hunting-ground. The boat had fastened the
whale when close to the edge of a small ice-floe, and then a second
boat came along with her lines and bent on to those of the first. The
whale was towing so furiously that it seemed likely to pull the boat’s
bows under. Two or three men went aft but the stern was still well
out of the water, and the harpooner was enveloped in the smoke of the
line’s friction round the bollard so that he was invisible. Finally the
bow of the boat was pulled below the sea, but the crew leapt overboard
and succeeded in getting on the ice.
The whale was still visible, and now there occurred the strange
phenomenon of the ships themselves working their way through the tricky
ice channels and going off in a general chase: for the animal already
was anyone’s property who was able to capture it. The boats in the
neighbourhood also chased and within an hour three harpoons were fixed,
but the whale now making his way below a large floe, drew all the lines
out of the second boat that was fast: and since the latter’s officer
could get no further assistance, he secured his line to a hummock, but
the line broke. There still remained two boats fast, and they were both
dragged, in this mad advance, against a floe and one of the harpoons
drew out. That left one boat still being towed, but with six or eight
lines out.
There followed a species of excitement which made a sensitive nature
almost delirious: for the whale next went blundering through great
blocks of ice with the boat astern, and occasionally the stout line
would get hung up, then with a twang suddenly slip clear, and with the
speed of a bird the boat would rush forward over ice, into the water
again, and then the onrush would continue. Finally the sportive mammal
was seen towing only the sunken boat and any amount of line, but the
drag of nearly four miles of ropes and immersed craft must have been
something tremendous. Thanks to a good breeze, the ship was able to
chase under all sail, and after nine miles from the spot, the vessel
came up and sent a couple of spare boats off. But one of the harpooners
unskilfully allowed the whale to see the boat approaching, and after
resting awhile it made off in alarm. However, the boats were placed at
suitable points, the whale rose and was promptly harpooned three times
more in addition to being lanced vigorously, so that finally it was
killed after a magnificent display of pluck and persistence. Altogether
this animal had taken out six miles of line and sunk one boat.
It is this side of whaling--the virile drama between men of the sea and
the leviathan of the deep--that gives the work a thrill which is absent
in most other occupations. Rapid thinking, quick judgment, active
limbs; dexterous management of harpoon, of lines, and of boat itself
were essential. It was a battle of wits as well as of courage, with
such items as fog and ice to make the contest more varied; and the big
monetary reward always being dangled ahead of the men in the boat. In
other kinds of fishing there are dangers of varying degree, but chiefly
in respect of weather alone. In whale-catching the excitement, the
risks, the cool nerve required in the days of sail can be compared only
with big-game hunting on land. In describing his first whale, Bullen
mentions the horror with which he realized, after having harpooned the
whale, that “down went the nose of the boat almost under the water,
while at the mate’s order everybody scrambled aft into the elevated
stern sheets. The line sang quite a tune as it was grudgingly allowed
to surge round the loggerhead, filling one with admiration at the
strength shown by such a small rope. This sort of thing went on for
about twenty minutes, in which time we quite emptied the large tub and
began on the small one.... Mr. Cruce, the second mate, had got a whale
and was doing his best to kill it; but he was severely handicapped by
his crew, or rather had been, for two of them were now temporarily
incapable of either good or harm. They had gone quite ‘batchy’ with
fright, requiring a not too gentle application of the tiller to their
heads in order to keep them quiet. The remedy, if rough, was effectual,
for the ‘subsequent proceedings interested them no more.’”
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS
By the year 1849 British whaling had reached a very low level, ship
after ship having given up, and only fourteen vessels under that flag
being so employed. But then Charles Enderby, a British merchant, a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and the greatest authority in the country
on the southern whaling industry, made a big effort to remedy this.
Enderby’s family name is, like other pioneers in the whaling
enterprise, connected with exploration, and perpetuated by that
Antarctic, desolate district known as Enderby Land, which was visited
in 1831 by Captain Biscoe in one of the ships owned by Enderby’s
firm. It was this same Biscoe, by the way, who visited in 1832 the
west coast of Graham Land, which to-day is such an important whaling
neighbourhood. Now in the years from 1839 to 1843 Sir James Clark Ross
(nephew of Sir John Ross who explored Baffin’s Bay) was in command of
that _Erebus_ and _Terror_ expedition into the Antarctic Seas, and in
1847 he published his _Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern
and Antarctic Seas_.
It was in the same year this volume appeared that Charles Enderby
published his pamphlet, which caused a great deal of interest in
England. Ross had made a lengthy stay at the Auckland Islands in 1840
and reported that “in the whole range of the vast Southern Ocean no
spot could be found combining so completely the essential requisites
for a fixed whaling station.” Enderby seized on this idea, and formed
a corporation called the Southern Whale Fishery Company. The object
was partly commercial, and partly patriotic. For the British whaling
industry was moribund. Between 1838 and 1845 the produce of the
American whale fishery had, on the contrary, averaged 37,459 tuns,
but during 1845 it had risen to 43,064 tuns or the equivalent of
£1,420,447, whereas in that year the entire British whaling whether
in the north or in the South Seas did not amount to more than 5,564
tuns, or £249,181: and there was the further point that those eighteen
thousand seamen in American vessels were a very fine national asset.
Enderby’s attitude was, therefore, this: If we can only believe Ross
we can revive the southern whaling industry, we can cease depending on
America for our whale produce, and at the same time we shall be raising
up a fine seamanhood, which is very much to be desired on patriotic
grounds.
The arguments, therefore, were almost identical with those of Elking in
regard to the Dutch a hundred and twenty-five years previously. Just
as then Holland possessed almost the monopoly, so now it was in the
hands of America. Such arguments as these not infrequently succeed in
obtaining support, and because Britain owned but fourteen whalers, and
the good feeling which to-day exists between the two countries was then
largely that of suspicion and jealousy, Enderby’s proposition was well
received by statesmen, the peerage, the Royal Navy, and by the leading
merchants of the City of London. His plan was to have a whaling station
formed at those uninhabited Auckland Islands which lie a hundred and
eighty miles south of New Zealand, and had been discovered only as
recently as 1806. A small fleet of whalers should be built and sailed
out, Enderby’s plan being to create a settlement at that out-of-the-way
spot. Obviously it would be impossible for the whaling fleet to bring
back the produce, but the intention was that these ships should operate
solely in those southern waters, land their oil at Auckland Islands,
refit, and then go off on a further cruise. For transportation of the
produce from here they would rely on those sailing ships visiting
Australia and New Zealand, which would be glad of the oil freight to
take back to England.
The British Government became more than interested, gave their full
approval, and in fact granted in 1849 a Royal Charter of Incorporation
to the company which Enderby formed, the capital being fixed at
£100,000. This national undertaking, which was to prevent the nation’s
dependence on America for its whale produce, and to employ so many
seamen, somehow appealed very strongly to the early Victorians. A big
public dinner was given to Enderby in April of that year, presided over
by Rear-Admiral J. W. D. Dundas, C.B., M.P., attended by Government
Ministers, merchants of the City of London, ship-owners and so on.
The usual laudatory speeches were made, and Enderby was spoken of as
about to make what was really a voyage of discovery. “Whoever had paid
attention to the commerce of this country,” said Mr. Labouchere in his
speech, “could not but regret that so important a branch of trade as
the Southern Whale Fisheries should have been suffered by this country
to decline, and to be almost entirely transferred to the United States
of America.”
It showed Enderby’s own belief in the scheme that he elected to go out
with that expedition personally, and he was sure that if the British
Whaling Industry was to be re-established, this was the means of doing
it. The old-fashioned method of a vessel going on a three-and-a-half
years’ cruise and carrying her accumulated cargo about with her seemed
to Enderby disadvantageous. So the Southern Whale Fishery Company
was given a good send-off, the Government had made a grant of these
Auckland Islands to Enderby and his two brothers, he himself being made
Lieutenant-Governor. Two ships, the _Samuel Enderby_ of 395 registered
tons, and the _Fancy_ of 321 tons, set forth from England in August
1849, Charles Enderby himself being in one of them, and reached the
Auckland Islands in December. In the former was a crew of picked men,
but in the other ships no such precaution was taken. The _Brisk_ of 265
tons sailed soon after these two, and among the fleet eventually got
out there were the _Sir Edward Parry_, _Sir James Ross_, _The Earl of
Hardwicke_, _Lord Nelson_ and _Lord Duncan_.
But in spite of all that enthusiasm of the public dinner, in spite of
all that had been prophesied, this scheme turned out a failure and
the whaling was eventually abandoned, not without a certain amount
of bad feeling and recrimination between Enderby and the Court of
Directors, who eventually sent out a couple of representatives to
supersede Enderby. There were mutual charges of mismanagement, the
company exhausted the whole of its capital and the Aucklands station
was abandoned after twenty months’ occupation. Port Ross had been this
pioneer’s headquarters, and he had taken out thirty-seven men and
eighteen women, and set to work to cultivate the ground, make roads and
erect dwellings. But we need not stop to inquire as to which party was
responsible for the failure of the plan: it is sufficient to emphasize
that it never succeeded either as a settlement or as a fishery.
A certain amount of cruising was done, and sperm whales were sighted;
but only a few were ever taken by the ships. Enderby complained that in
this respect the loss was owing to the company’s mismanagement on two
counts. Firstly, the whalers had been built in such a way that they
could carry not more than 115 tuns of oil, whereas they ought to have
been able to contain 185 tuns. Secondly, the company had paid £8,200
each for ships which could have been built and equipped in America for
£5,000 each. But thirdly, the whole success of the whaling enterprise
depended on the personnel. By 1847 there were practically no men in
England expert in hunting the “common” whale, since this occupation had
been long abandoned.
But in North America plenty of these men would have been available,
and have made all the difference between success and failure; for
a bad “headsman” in a boat would always spoil the morale of fresh,
green hands, and in the end ruin all prospects of the voyage. The
directors of the company, Enderby complained, had sent out only four
of these experts, who were not enough for the boats of one vessel,
let alone eight. The chief ability of a whaling master--his supreme
recommendation--should be his capacity for killing whales. This duty
demanded both courage and activity, and such endowments were to be
found usually only in men of the age of twenty to twenty-eight. These
men could always obtain high wages, and a good young captain with
a reputation had never any difficulty in picking the best officers
and crew: consequently, where every whaling voyage was a separate
adventure, it paid to obtain only the finest whaling masters. And it
was just because these did not at that time exist in Britain that the
Company should have gone to America for them, where they could have
been found in abundance without the slightest difficulty. There was
another matter that caused trouble in this Auckland settlement. Drink,
that curse of so many otherwise happy ships, became one of the problems
with which Enderby had to wrestle until he was compelled to destroy
all spirits except those kept for medicinal purposes. American whalers,
with a few exceptions, were run on temperance principles.
Thus this Auckland whaling venture turned out hopelessly, and its
failure was due chiefly to the plain fact of the British lack of expert
leaders in this highly specialized work. There was this in common
between the northern and the southern whaling: the amount of physical
risk though different in kind was similar in degree. The true whales
in the north were not usually combative, but there was always the
great risk of ice and heavy weather. The sperm whaling in the southern
seas was bereft of ice danger until right down in the approach to the
Antarctic: but the cachalot is a bolder, more mischievous, fighting
animal, threatening that destruction to boats and ships which we have
already noticed. In the attempts to make whaling flourish, British
effort in the warmer seas, such as the Pacific for example, has never
rivalled all those generations of effort which were made in the Arctic
areas. But to-day whatever future whaling may seem to possess rests on
that Antarctic part of the world which we shall discuss in due place.
It is characteristic of some sperm whales that they prefer to use
their dangerous jaws, when attacked, rather than employ their tail.
The mammal turns on his back, keeping its jaw suspended ominously over
the boat. Sometimes this used to put such fear into a boat’s crew that
they would all take a leap into the water and remain there till the
danger passed. In 1836 an American whaler in the South Seas had one of
her boats in this manner nipped right in two, but fortunately none of
the crew on this occasion was injured. Incidentally it may be mentioned
that during the early part of the nineteenth century there had come a
change in the building of the carvel whaling boats, the wood being
sawn out of straight-grained oak, and then bent by steam or boiling
water, being thus rendered more elastic than when sawn. At the same
time they were stronger and lighter. This practice had been for a long
time employed for the clinker-built boats, but not for the carvel, and
its introduction was made by Thomas Brodrick, a Whitby shipbuilder.
The whalers in the Greenland Sea or Baffin’s Bay well realized that
their greatest enemy was not the whale but the ice. In the warm
southern seas every boat-launching might lead to a fatal risk. Thus,
for example, in the year 1835 the whaler _Pusie Hall’s_ boats, four
in number, were out after a whale which chased them back to the ship,
killed one of the boat’s hands, bit one of the officers, and for quite
a time resisted all the lances hurled at it from the bows of the ship.
One particularly notorious fighting whale was an individual who used
to cruise off the New Zealand coast, and was easily recognized by his
white hump. He was well known to the crews and went by the name of “New
Zealand Tom.” Another celebrated fighter used to inhabit the Straits of
Timor, and he was at last killed only after he had nipped off with his
jaws a boat’s bows.
During the year 1836 the South Sea whaler _Arabella_ was cruising off
the Society Islands when the whale, after being harpooned, turned
suddenly round, hit the boat with his head, broke it in two and then
swam through it. In such circumstances as these the experience, the
coolness and skill of the man in charge of the boat meant all that
Enderby insisted. One nipped boat, one incident of raw hands being left
to swim about looking up at those threatening jaws, was quite enough to
make the crew nervous for the rest of the ship’s voyage. But a good man
with knowledge and courage, vigorous and determined, could make light
of these incidents and inspire his men to further efforts.
In the throwing of the harpoon lay the great skill, but if through
nervousness or lack of experience the line became entangled, the boat
might be drawn below the water almost instantaneously: and there are
instances on record where boats mysteriously and rapidly disappeared
from what was surmised to be this cause. A smart man of course was on
the look-out for such an occurrence, and some officers always used to
have an axe ready in the hand while the line was running out: for a
quick, sharp blow and the immediate severance of the line were the only
things which could save lives and boat.
Yes: a novice in charge was too dangerous. Perhaps the ideal was a man
of about twenty-six years of age, who had been brought up in whalers
since he was a lad. He had been out in boats under experts, he had
learned all the tricks which an angry whale could play, and he was
young enough to enjoy fighting yet old enough to know how. We all
understand how dangerous in a small sailing craft is a raw landsman,
who has not yet learned the importance of ropes running clear through
blocks and fairleads: most accidents come through that neglect. It was
the same with the harpoon line. The third mate of the whaler _Melantho_
lost his life through the harpoon line suddenly getting out of the
fairlead and carrying him right out of the boat; and notwithstanding
that the line was forthwith cut, allowing the whale to escape, before
the mate could be picked up he had been grabbed by a shark and had
disappeared.
Or, again, take the case of the whaler _Seringapatam_ in the Straits
of Timor. A whale had been fastened, but the creature came so close
that one of his flukes actually grazed on the chest the boy who was
pulling the after oar. Owing to the collision against the whale some
coils of harpoon line were thrown over the shoulders also of the man at
the tub-oar, and whilst the whale hurried on, the unfortunate fellow
was pulled overboard. His body was at length rescued, but found to be
lifeless, entangled in the line. His shipmates could do nothing for him.
Accidents such as these were the risks which might happen to any boat,
on any occasion: and they tended to ruin the enterprise for the whole
three years that remained. This, in turn, meant a loss of dividends,
and a reluctance on the part of the owners to finance any more whaling
cruises. Thus, the prizes went to the survivals of the fittest and
most experienced young men who had been able to avoid such dispiriting
disasters.
CHAPTER XV
WAR AND THE WHALERS
If we had come across a northern whaler in the early Victorian days,
we should have found she was a full-rigged ship of not more than 450
tons; and if we had come across her at sea with her maintopsails backed
and her courses clewed up and a number of birds swooping around her, we
should know even from a distance that she was just cutting up the whale
which had been recently caught. And as you came nearer you would have
heard the men at the capstan heaving away to an old whaling chantey:
’Tis well nigh sixty years ago,
On March the twentieth day,
When we set sail from Yarmouth Roads,
And bore due North away.
And, after a few narrative verses concerning the whaling operations,
there would come the final cheery words:
Singing “Aye, lads, give way, lads,”
We’re bound to the north countree,
Where icebergs grow and whales do blow,
And sunsets you never see.
Dreadful doggerel it all seems to the modern sailor, with his extra
master’s ticket and scientific knowledge: but those were the days of
simple ships and plain seamen. So you would hear the song end abruptly
as that long strip of blubber was hauled up from the whale’s carcase
alongside. The “blanket-piece” they used to call it. And then you
would be able to watch those busy men on the whale’s back working away
with their spades and cutting another piece. That was before the days
of steam affected these vessels. But even those Arctic whalers of
about 1870 were still fully rigged, their engines were of very small
horse-power, and just useful for getting the ship out of some awkward
surrounding ice. Otherwise they were sailing ships and practically did
all their passages under canvas. They went out with coal in their oil
tanks, which were cleaned out on reaching the grounds and then filled
with the whale produce. But their fuel consumption was very small.
As one examines the lines of such a vessel, one notices that this
three-master has not a straight stem, but a moderately rounded forefoot
with a straight keel and a very short counter. Her sides were about as
solid as one of Nelson’s wooden walls, and her bows were protected with
sheets of iron to resist the ice. The total complement was about fifty,
the men being berthed forward and the officers aft. The single funnel
was immediately abaft the mainmast, and as you walked along the raised
poop deck you would have noted the engine-room skylight, sometimes
a light flying bridge, then the companion-way to the saloon and the
officers’ cabins leading out of it. The steering wheel was right aft,
there was a pump wheel just behind the mainmast; while forward there
were the capstan and fo’c’sle hatch, and then came the big hold for
the whale produce. In lieu of a figure-head you would notice that she
carried a carved harpoon.
The Norwegian whalers of this period were small and built of their
native fir with a few sheets of iron sheathing, hoping to avoid being
seriously caught in the ice. The Norwegian steam-whalers were both
ancient and slow; but there were also some ketch-rigged craft of about
40 tons with a crew which varied from nine to seventeen. This smaller
type sometimes used her squaresail for driving the ship astern, if she
got caught in the ice and saw an opening clear astern.
But during the American Civil War there came an additional peril to
those whalers which used to sail from the western coast through the
Bering Straits into the Arctic. And the destruction of whaling ships
by those Confederate cruisers _Shenandoah_, _Alabama_ and _Florida_
was one of the biggest shocks that ever came to the industry. “The
whaling industry of New England,” says Mr. Arthur C. Watson, “saw
the handwriting on the wall during the Civil War. Petroleum had
been discovered, and the ship merchants and captains knew what the
consequences were to be. They realized that the decline in their
business was permanent, and that, as the years came on, more and more
of their craft would be forced out of the running. It was merely a
coincidence that the war and the mineral oil discovery should be
contemporary events, but the war had a part of its own to play in the
decay of the industry--a dramatic part, in fact, which made the port
of New Bedford shudder for its future far more than did the news about
petroleum.”
When the _Shenandoah_ in June 1865 came up the Bering Straits she
was rewarded for her trouble by capturing and burning five whaling
vessels. But on the next day she captured at anchor quite a fleet of
whalers, with the exception of the _Favorite_, commanded by Captain
Young, who resisted the Confederate’s officer coming on board not
merely with words, but with a display of guns and fire-arms. But the
_Favorite’s_ crew got frightened and deserted, so that after removing
the ship’s ammunition they took to the boats and left Captain Young by
himself. The latter, when the _Shenandoah’s_ next boat came off, had
no alternative but to surrender when he found there was nothing for his
guns to fire, and on being taken prisoner he was put in irons. On that
day nine whaling ships were lost to their enemy.
But during that same month the _Shenandoah_ made numerous other attacks
on whaling fleets, burned thirty-four fine ships, and employed four
others for taking the captured whaling crews back to the shore. These
losses to this section of seafaring were such that ship-owners were
pretty well ruined. Nor were these by any means all. Everyone knows
the daring story of the _Alabama_, how she was built by Messrs. Laird
of Birkenhead as a wooden barquentine-rigged screw steamer of 1,040
tons under her yard designation as “No. 290,” and that on July 29,
1862, under the pretence of doing her trial trip she slipped down the
Mersey out to sea and made for the Azores, where she was met by two
other vessels which brought her armament. But many readers will have
forgotten the blows she struck at the American whaling ships.
Her commanding officer was Captain Raphael Semmes, and she at once
began to show what she could do. “I resolved to strike a blow at the
enemy’s whale-fishery, off the Azores,” he wrote. “There is a curious
and beautiful problem--that of Providence feeding the whale--connected
with this fishery.... It is because of that problem that the Azores are
a whaling station. The food which attracts the whale to these islands
is not produced in their vicinity, but is carried thither by the
currents--the currents of the ocean performing the same functions for
the finny tribe that the atmosphere does for the plants. The fishes of
the sea, in their kingdom beneath the waters, have thus their highways
and byways, as well as the animals upon the land, and are always to be
found congregated where their great food-bearers, the currents, make
the deposits.”
The American whalers had been fond of this ground and found it
profitable, the season usually ending about the beginning of October,
when the first gales began to blow and the whales migrated to other
feeding grounds. But here was the _Alabama_ off here by the beginning
of September, so she had several weeks in which she could hope for
success. It was that old area, of course, where English ships in the
sixteenth century used to lie in wait for the richly laden carracks
making for Spain and Portugal. And so on the night of September 4
we find the _Alabama_ hove-to off Fayal under her topsails, and the
next day the light easterly weather with a cloudy sky came as ideal
conditions for the cruiser to begin.
She had not long to wait, for a ship was sighted lying to, and then the
cruiser made sail, hoisted United States colours and ran down to within
a few hundred yards of her. The strange ship also hoisted United States
colours and revealed herself a whaler. She had that very day harpooned
a whale, and a big one at that. She had just got the animal alongside
and the yard tackles in the usual way were hoisting him partially out
of the water to be flensed, when the _Alabama_ sprang a ripe surprise
by now hoisting true Confederate colours.
The name of the whaler was the _Ocmulgee_, of Edgartown, Massachusetts,
whose master Semmes described as “a genuine specimen of the Yankee
whaling skipper; long and lean, and as elastic, apparently, as the
whalebone he dealt in. Nothing could exceed the blank stare of
astonishment that sat on his face, as the change of flags took place
on board the _Alabama_. He had been engaged, up to the last moment,
with his men, securing the rich spoil alongside. The whale was a fine
‘sperm,’ and was a ‘big strike,’ and had already been denuded of
much of its blubber when we got alongside. He naturally concluded, he
said, when he saw the United States colours at our peak, that we were
one of the new gunboats sent out by Mr. Welles to protect the whale
fishery. It was indeed remarkable that no protection should have been
given to these men by their Government. Unlike the ships of commerce,
the whalers are obliged to congregate within small well-known spaces
of ocean, and remain there for weeks at a time, whilst the whaling
season lasts. It was the most obvious thing in the world that these
vessels, thus clustered together, should attract the attention of the
Confederate cruisers and be struck at.”
For at that time there were not more than half a dozen important
whaling stations in the world, and as already mentioned, the
_Shenandoah_ was able in the North Pacific to repeat the successes of
the _Alabama_ in the Atlantic. During the Great War it became necessary
latterly to send armed craft to protect the British fishing fleets in
the North Sea, but, as Semmes says, “the whalers, like the commerce
of the United States generally, were abandoned to their fate.” It
thus became perfectly easy to strike a blow at American whaling with
such force that it never recovered. It has been estimated that these
cruisers did damage to the extent of £310,000, including £100,000 worth
of oil lost. In addition to that sum must be reckoned the loss of
twenty-three fine New Bedford whaling ships which were intentionally
sunk at the entrances to Confederate harbours in order to block them
up. Thus the unfortunate owners and fishermen seemed to have been dealt
blows right and left. Who could expect that with such circumstances
whaling could ever become again what it once was?
But to return to the _Alabama_: there were taken out of the _Ocmulgee_
not merely the thirty-seven unhappy people but meat and stores, by
which time night had come on. It was too late to think of burning her,
for the flames against the nocturnal sky would only scare the other
whalers somewhere in the vicinity. “I had now become too old a hunter
to commit such an indiscretion,” remarked Semmes humorously. “With a
little management and caution, I might hope to uncover the birds no
faster than I could bag them. And so, hoisting a light at the peak of
the prize, I permitted her to remain anchored to the whale, and we lay
by her until the next morning, when we burned her; the smoke of the
conflagration being, no doubt, mistaken by vessels at a distance for
that of some passing steamer.”
Later on, after capturing a Boston schooner, the _Alabama_ chased a
whaling brig, which by her number of boats and other characteristics
showed her occupation unmistakably. But she was eventually allowed to
go, for she proved herself a genuine Portuguese; and this was the only
foreign whaler that the _Alabama_ came across, for the whaling monopoly
was so thoroughly in American hands by this date. But in that same
afternoon Semmes gave chase to a vessel in the north-west and came up
to her about sunset. She was flying American colours and her master
unsuspectingly presumed the steamer had been sent to act as escort. The
American vessel was found to be the New Bedford whaler _Ocean Rover_,
and already she had been cruising about the world, true to her name,
for three years and four months, and had sent home one or two cargoes
of oil, but was now going back there with eleven hundred barrels after
her long voyaging, having determined to visit the Azores grounds in
order to fill up what empty casks remained. But the _Ocean Rover_
was now to end her last voyage of all. Semmes had her hove-to until
morning about four miles from the land, and the whaler’s captain asked
permission to land in his own boats. Semmes suggested that this was
rather a long distance to pull, to which the Yankee skipper replied,
“Oh! That’s nothing. We whalers sometimes chase a whale, on the broad
sea, until our ships are hull-down, and think nothing of it.”
So, the sea being smooth, the six whaleboats were allowed alongside
the _Ocean Rover_, and for two hours the men worked hard transferring
provisions, personal effects and whaling gear as well as the ship’s cat
and parrot. The whaler’s skipper declined Semmes’s suggestion that the
boats were too heavily laden to be safe. “No,” insisted the whaler,
“they’re as buoyant as ducks, and we shan’t ship a drop of water.” And
he was right, for they got to the Flores shore all right.
By morning the _Alabama_ had captured the _Alert_ of New London, whose
stores were extremely welcome as she was only sixteen days out of her
home port. And now after burning the schooner _Starlight_, the _Ocean
Rover_ and _Alert_, the _Alabama_ drew close to a large schooner which
had to have a blank cartridge fired before she would heave-to. She was
boarded and found to be the whaler _Weathergauge_ of Provincetown,
Massachusetts, six weeks out. Semmes said that American sailing ships
were notable for the whiteness of their canvas, which was made out of
American cotton, so the cut of the sails and the taper of the spars
usually showed the nationality: but on one occasion the _Alabama_ had a
good chase all for nothing, the vessel being a Dane although she seemed
a real Yankee.
After the _Weathergauge_ whaler had landed her crew in the ship’s
boats, she was burned, and presently steering off to the north-west
the _Alabama_ tried fresh ground, and sighted the New Bedford whaler
_Altamaha_, five months out. She had not had much whaling luck and
was comparatively “clean.” She was now burned, but owing to absence
of oil did not burn so furiously. It was now the middle of September,
and on the night after the capture of _Altamaha_ there was an exciting
chase. About half-past eleven a large sailing ship passed to windward,
and visible in the bright moonlight. Both ships were close-hauled on
the starboard tack, the strange vessel being about three points on the
_Alabama’s_ weather bow, and evidently realized that the _Alabama_ was
now pursuing, for the stranger set both her royals and flying jib. This
suited the Confederate perfectly, as her best sailing was when she
was on a wind, and few ships could beat her under that condition. The
stranger had got a good start, but the _Alabama_ was footing so quickly
that within a couple of hours she was on the other’s weather quarter,
having both fore-reached and got to windward of the stranger. When the
range came down to a mile, Semmes had a blank fired to cause the fleer
to heave-to. But the latter now bore away a little, eased her sheets
and began getting out her stuns’l booms preparatory to setting more
canvas.
The _Alabama_ therefore eased sheets also, and was so well handled that
before the pursued could get her foretopmast stuns’l set, she was at
point-blank range. Semmes fired a second blank and then the stranger
hauled up her courses and steered up into the wind. Was she a neutral
or a prize, after all? Semmes sent his boarding officer to her with
instructions that if she were the latter he was to hoist a light as
soon as he got aboard her. Followed a brief lull as the oars quickly
rowed the boat away from the cruiser. But now up went a light to the
stranger’s peak, and so the two vessels remained near to each other
till morning. She was found to be yet another whaler, the _Benjamin
Tucker_, eight months out of New Bedford, with 340 barrels of oil.
After her crew had been taken off and some of her stores salved, such
as tobacco, she was set on fire.
And so matters went on, for the next vessel to be caught was the
whaling schooner _Courser_ of Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a young
man as skipper. The difficulty now was exactly that which confronted
the German raiders during the Great War: in fact, Semmes’ tactics
are so similar to those of such ships as the _Moewe_ and _Seeadler_
that one can only suppose that German naval officers must have paid
considerable study to the Confederate _Alabama’s_ operations. When the
auxiliary sailing ship _Seeadler_ in the South Atlantic had sunk so
many vessels away from land she found all those survivors a nuisance:
for they had to be fed and they took up a great deal of space. Von
Luckner, her commanding officer, got over this difficulty by capturing
one more ship and sending the other crews away in her with strict
orders to make for the nearest South American port. Semmes now ran
back towards the Azores, anxious to get rid of all this crowd, which
was seriously inconveniencing the ship, for he had the crews of three
vessels. Towing eight whaleboats he approached Flores and sent seventy
shipless seamen in the oared craft to the land, and as they pulled
away from the cruiser it seemed as if a regatta were being held in the
Atlantic. After they had gone, and just before the _Courser_ was set on
fire, Semmes used her as a target, and gave his men practice in gunnery.
Resuming now her north-west course, which had been interrupted, the
_Alabama_ with a fine south-west wind sighted, chased and overcame
a large ship which turned out to be the whaler _Virginia_, twenty
days out from New Bedford. After three and a half hours the contest
was over. Semmes says the master of the ship was greatly surprised
at the _Alabama’s_ speed. Fortunately there still exists in America
the statement of Captain Shadrach R. Tilton, then in command of this
whaling ship, and Mr. Arthur C. Watson, who has had access to it, says
that Tilton told of Semmes with his heavy black moustache waxed by a
servant every morning and of how the Confederate’s captain always wore
white kid gloves. These little touches of personal pride exactly agree
with Semmes’s somewhat bombastic tone of writing, very much after the
manner of certain German naval officers who published their experiences
of the Great War.
Tilton stated that “the pirate ship overtook us in latitude 39° 10′;
longitude 34° 20′. She first showed British colors, but when a quarter
of a mile from the _Virginia_ she set Confederate colors and sent an
armed boat’s crew aboard. I was informed the vessel was a prize to the
_Alabama_, and ordered to take my papers and go aboard the steamer.
The pirates then stripped the ship of all valuable articles, and at 4
p.m. set fire to her. I went on the quarterdeck of the _Alabama_ with
my son, when they sent us into the lee waist with the crew. All were
ironed except two boys, the cook, and the steward. I asked if I was
to be ironed, and the reply was that the vessel’s purser had been in
irons aboard the United States vessel, and his head shaved. He proposed
to retaliate. We were put in the lee waist with an old mattress and a
few blankets upon which to lie. The steamer’s guns were run out, the
side and the ports could not be shut. So when the sea was rough and
the vessel rolled, the water washed the decks and we were wet all the
time. Often we would wake at night with a sea pouring over us. Our food
consisted of beef, pork, rice, ham, tea, coffee, and bread. Only one
of our irons was taken off at a time. We were always under guard. On
October 3rd we fell in with the schooner _Emily Farnham_, to which we
were transferred, after signing a parole.”
Semmes as a matter of fact had the torch applied to _Virginia_ rather
late in the afternoon, so the wreck was still visible whilst she burned
after nightfall. But a still more exciting chase was to take place the
next day when it was blowing hard. The look-out man at _Alabama’s_
masthead reported a barque in sight. The latter saw that the cruiser
wore round and thereupon made off at once under all sail. Running down
before the wind, _Alabama_ held on to t’gallant sails although the
masts whipped as if they would go over the side; and it was the same
with the other ship. There was a nasty sea running, but the cruiser
leaped along so quickly that within three hours the barque was within
range. The cruiser was employing that ancient and perfectly legal ruse
of flying false colours, but Semmes does not explain whether he lowered
these English colours down before opening fire, as he unquestionably
should.
After _Alabama_ fired, the barque hoisted her flag and clewed up her
t’gallant sails, hauled up her courses and waited. The former took in
his t’gallants, furled his courses and reefed his topsails. It was
blowing so hard now and the sea was so bad that Semmes even hesitated
to lower his boats: but it was evident that presently the wind would be
of gale force, and unless the barque were captured at once she would
be able to escape in the darkness and tempest of the night. Therefore
he ordered two of his best boats to be lowered, whilst the cruiser
lay hove-to but to windward of the prize, so that the boats could row
down to leeward. The _Alabama_ would then run down to leeward so that
the boats could again have a favourable chance. This, of course, is
the recognised manœuvre approved by every expert in seamanship, and it
was accomplished successfully. The boats with their human loads of
prisoners went rushing down the sea valleys and over the crests, came
under the lee of _Alabama_, who threw them a rope, and so the captors
and captives got aboard. The ship had been set on fire before shoving
off and was found to be the whaler _Elisha Dunbar_, twenty-four days
out from New Bedford.
But the wind and sea prevented Semmes from sailing this crew back to
the Azores, where quite a Yankee population was now being congregated.
Under close-reefed topsails the _Alabama_ remained for several days,
and the wind coming north she drifted some distance south. It may be
mentioned here that Captain Gifford of the _Elisha Dunbar_ afterwards
stated quite definitely that the _Alabama_ had “fired a gun under our
stern, with the St. George’s cross flying at the time. Our colours were
set, when she displayed the Confederate flag ... there were sixty-five
barrels of sperm oil on deck.”
The break-up of the weather had put an end to the whaling season rather
sooner than would ordinarily have been the case, so Semmes resolved to
change his cruising ground and make towards the Newfoundland Banks.
After capturing other merchant ships he came up with the New Bedford
whaler _Levi Starbuck_, bound on a thirty months’ voyage to the
Pacific, and she, too, was captured and then burnt. In like manner,
too, the Confederate cruiser _Florida_ in 1864 was operating in the
Atlantic, and among others she sank the New Bedford whaler _Golconda_.
For the latter it was particularly hard lines as she had been away
from home for most of five years, she was just ending her cruise, and
had even thrown overboard the previous day her “try-works” used for
boiling the last whale down, and there was no intention now but to sail
home as quickly as possible with the oil cargo. It was just as the
whaler was passing through the Gulf Stream that she was caught by the
Confederate, whose officer came aboard, took a few barrels of sperm
oil, set her on fire in the cabin, at the main hatchway and forecastle,
and left her to burn. The unfortunate crew were subsequently put aboard
a schooner.
Thus in this Civil War those American whalers which had built up such
an interesting section of history, and brought so much wealth into
North America, received a terrible setback. We may well sympathize
with owners and skippers and crew, for it was the breaking of a fine
tradition which will ever be remembered. But all over the world whaling
was, with the advent of steam and the diminishing of the sperm whale,
now to undergo a change from those days when long voyages of several
years were the rule, and the ship was the floating peregrinating
factory and open boats were the whale-catchers. Those ancient methods
have gone never to return.
CHAPTER XVI
THE THIRTY-TWO SHIPS
That great disaster in the Arctic during the year 1830, when nineteen
British whaling ships and one French were lost, and over a thousand men
temporarily lived on the ice, was destined to be repeated but on an
even greater scale by the calamity which overtook the American whaling
fleet in the year 1871. In the former case the scene was Baffin’s
Bay: in the latter it was further to the westward. I believe that
never in the history of the industry has a loss so wholesale and so
financially deplorable taken place. Whaling-ship owners could scarcely
have received a more terrible shock than the news which eventually
reached them. It is the old story of that enemy ice making sport of
wooden ships. The one satisfactory aspect--and that an amazing one--is
that not a single life was lost. But instead of nineteen vessels being
wrecked, we have to chronicle thirty-two.[1]
[1] For information in this chapter I have to acknowledge Mr. Arthur
C. Watson’s interesting article in _Yachting_ for May 1925. Mr. Watson
has had available the journals and log books of American whaling ship
masters.
The Bering Strait, separating Asia from America, is of course the most
northerly part of the Pacific, narrow, shallow and bordered by bare,
rocky shores, and from November to May generally impassable owing to
the fog and ice: but otherwise it gives access to the Arctic in the
remaining months. The right of Canadian fishermen to hunt seals in this
strait used to be the cause of much irritation for many years between
the Governments of the United States, Canada and Great Britain, until
the award by the arbitrators was made in 1893. Through this sea in the
summer of 1871 thirty-nine whaling ships and barques were able to sail
into the Arctic Ocean, their intended destination being Cape Barrow, at
the extreme northern end of Alaska, where it was known that the whales
were plentiful. Thus we have to observe that the mammal in the course
of his migration had gone still further west. Theoretically there
seemed every chance of a fine catch for the fleet.
Luckily, too, movements of the Bering Strait ice packs gave a
comparatively easy passage to these ships, whose captains in their
combined knowledge and judgment of this part of the world were
unequalled. The late spring had been passed whaling in this strait,
and so soon as the ice permitted, the fleet was able to work north,
past Cape Lisburne in June and then to anchor at the other side of that
great bight by Icy Cape, which will be found marked in the modern maps
less than a hundred and fifty miles short of Cape Barrow.
Early in August some of the fleet were able, by the receding of the
ice, to get further ahead and either anchor or secure to the ice. Then
after another wait, the ships were able to sail in a six-mile-wide
channel between the shore and the ice until once more they reached
the barrier, and made fast as before. The idea was to keep going as
soon as the lane was clear, so as to reach Cape Barrow at the earliest
date: but it was the ice which determined the rate of progress and
the annoying stoppages. However, in the period of waiting, boats
were launched and whales struck, and the oil extracted. There was no
idleness that could have been overcome. Towing the whales back to the
ship secured to the ice, cutting them sometimes till midnight, the
days were full of activity. And then by August 11th the ice surrounded
some of the ships so that many of the boats were unable to work, and
others had to be hauled over the frozen surface in order to regain
their vessels. Efforts were made by setting all sail to get ships clear
of this frozen obstruction, yet it was no good.
But then on August 14th, when the ice loosened, ships did succeed in
reaching clear water and coming to anchor in a narrow belt between ice
and shore, yet extending no further north than Cape Belcher, which
effectually stopped further progress. It was hoped that this delay was
only temporary, and in the meanwhile the boats were out chasing the
whales keenly. If only a north-easter would come, this accumulation
of pack ice, with its power of danger, would soon be driven away: the
fleet would be able to work to its destination. Here in this confined
lane were thirty fine ships, with about a hundred and fifty boats
working till nine at night: a wonderful sight of seafarers.
But now that treacherous ice, instead of clearing, came driving down so
near to the fleet that the ships were compelled to go close in to the
beach. Some ships had to shift in a hurry, slipping their cables. The
lane had been reduced to half a mile now: only at the southern end was
it clear of ice. And yet it was a fine picture to see that long line of
vessels riding there and their crews still at it dragging their boats
across the ice, working arduously, bringing back the blubber by the
same rough route. The continuance of the ice setting in from the west,
however, was giving cause for anxiety. Boats not engaged in whaling
were sent along the coast reconnoitring, and then on August 25th strong
north-east winds began.
Any but intrepid mariners would have taken advantage of this new
condition and gone south, for now a lane was opened several miles
wide, and the ships could have still escaped the fate that was coming
to them. The local Esquimaux prophesied that this clearing would not
last long, that the ice would soon close around once more; and strongly
advised the whaling captains to go back whilst the opportunity lasted.
But these masters of craft were too plucky to be scared, too intent on
the numerous whales now being struck to heed this precaution. They had
come in order to fill their holds with the precious cargo, and if they
went home now they would not have completed their job. However, that
delay, that enthusiasm, were fatal. On August 29th the proof of the
Esquimaux’s sagacity began to manifest itself, for the wind came round
to west-nor’-west and blew freshly.
Picture this long line of vessels anchored to the south-west of Cape
Belcher, still busy boiling out the oil from their whales whilst that
merciless ice like the approach of doom began crowding in always from
the west. Watch some of the ships hang on till it was necessary to
get under way and secure under the lee of a large floe. But on the
following day the wind had backed to south-east, it was blowing hard
and snowing. Thirty vessels in sight with their spars all frosted,
every ship hemmed in between land and ice, yet most of them still
boiling away at their oil as if the danger were not worth considering.
But on the second day of September the disaster began its toll by
numbers. First the _Roman_ was crushed by the ice and abandoned, and
then the brig _Comet_.
Strong westerly winds were blowing and a thick snow-storm was making
matters no more pleasant, but unless that north-easter returned there
was no prospect of the other ships being saved: already they were
uncomfortably close to the shore. But still the boats went out in the
narrow lane that existed, and still the whaling operations went on. It
became necessary now to kedge the ships clear of the ice and anchor in
only three fathoms of water, on a lee shore, with every prospect of
being driven on to the beach. In a short time one vessel was seen with
her masts cut away, forced into the shallows by the oncoming ice, and a
complete wreck.
What was to be done? Universal loss was merely a matter now of time.
All the captains realized that the only chance lay in getting news of
the situation through to the south where those of the fleet, seven in
number, which had not advanced so far north remained in clear water.
How was this to be done? On September 9th at four in the morning
several boats from imprisoned ships were sent in order to sound and
find a channel so as to get the brig _Kohola_ out and reach those seven
southern ships. If the latter had left, what would be the fate of the
rest? But, unfortunately, the water was found too shallow. It now
looked as if the entire northern fleet would have to remain hemmed in
for the winter, for the new ice was making. On August 11th preparations
were undertaken to leave the ships, and some boats with provisions were
sent to deposit them at Icy Cape to the southward, the distance between
this headland and Cape Belcher being a matter of about fifty-odd miles.
If the ships had to be abandoned, these supplies would be essential.
So it came to pass that on the following day the captains of this
northern fleet held a council and came to the conclusion that
abandonment was inevitable. There were only two alternatives: that
irresistible ice would presently either crush every ship or drive
them ashore. But to remain in the Arctic with provisions inadequate
to last till next spring was a gloomy thought, and the chance of that
north-easter returning was now one in a million. Anyone who has had to
abandon his ship knows that terrible pang, which is indescribable in
its bitterness. I can think of nothing more sad and sorrowful than a
fine hardy set of captains being driven to the decision of deserting
their stout ships by the inevitable cruelty of circumstance. It was man
versus nature, with the former’s weakness exemplified in its nakedness.
To leave a shattered wreck is one thing: but in cold blood, after
mature consideration, to do so whilst the ship is still intact is the
greatest grief which can ever be the lot of a shipmaster.
Orders were given for every vessel to fly the ensign union down, and
for the crews to make ready and leave. On September 13th the whole
fleet had its boats in the water with provisions trying to find a clear
lane: nor was it known that the southern ships were in any clear sea.
To get the fleet out had been found impossible owing to banks carrying
but five feet of water. So far only two ships had met their fate, but
by the 14th the ice was surrounding the remaining thirty with closer
grip, so that there was no room now for the vessels to swing clear,
and the rudders hit the ice. Moreover the barometer was falling very
surely. Now in these thirty whalers were officers, crew and the wives
as well as children of the captains. They were more than ships: they
were the only homes of many, and some of these people had been born
and brought up in these craft. Thus to have to leave the vessels was
something deeply personal and sentimental.
The sorrowful exodus began on this fourteenth day of the month, the
wind being now south-west and the boats, steering along the land
towards Icy Cape, managed to get through southwards so that by the
afternoon of the 15th they began to approach the _Daniel Webster_, the
_Progress_ and the other five of the seven ships which luckily were
still clear of the ice. Here in these vessels the entire number of
survivors was received on board. Mothers and girls and boys; captains
and mates and hardy seamen with bedding and stores loading the boats to
the gunwales had come over those perishing waters, which fortunately
had remained calm. A halt had been made at night, after starting on the
morning of the 14th, and having rowed and sailed till darkness overcame
them, this population of twelve hundred people in that numerous
flotilla landed for the night at Icy Cape. Here a tent was erected for
the women and children: the men warmed themselves around great fires.
On the 15th there were still several miles before reaching the seven
ships; it was no longer a lane sheltered by ice, but the unrestricted
Arctic Ocean; it came on to blow, and although several reefs were
tucked in the sail, every boat was so low down in the water that it was
a toss-up as to whether even now the little craft with their cargoes
would win through. And having arrived near the ships which were lying
at anchor, even these heavy vessels were pitching so monstrously
in the nasty sea that it was a ticklish business getting alongside
and hoisting up the passengers out of the lively boats. The _Daniel
Webster_ and the _Progress_ were still anchored, but others were under
way. Still, every man, woman and child was got aboard safely, and the
boats were then cast adrift and smashed themselves to pieces against
the ice-pack to leeward.
Thirty-two ships lost, and everyone saved! How was it done? The answer
is, pluck and good seamanship. Those whaling men possessed both, and
one of the surest tests of the latter is the bringing a boat alongside
a big vessel in a jumpy seaway. There they came, some under oars, some
under dipping lug, others rigged with jib and spritsail; in each case
with the steersman controlling her standing with his oar at the stern
as if going after a whale. Yes, the organization and handling of that
open-boat flotilla is something to be remembered.
CHAPTER XVII
FINDING THE NEW WHALING GROUNDS
As in the Arctic, so in the Antarctic and approaches, the story of
whaling is intimately connected with that of discovery. But we must
apply ourselves now to one special section of southern whaling which
is officially known as the Falkland Islands and Dependencies. These
comprise, besides the Falklands themselves, the following five areas:
South Georgia; the South Shetland Islands; Graham Land with adjacent
islands; the South Orkney Islands; and the South Sandwich Islands.
And in focusing our attention here we are studying the region where
the whaling industry of to-day has settled down and seems likely to
continue for the future. It is a part of the ocean which still remains
to be surveyed efficiently, whose geographical nomenclature reads
like one long catalogue of bygone explorers and their ships. From the
Weddell Sea northwards to South Georgia we are in latitudes which
have been rendered historical by a long line of gallant, enduring
adventurers after whales or scientific knowledge. Weddell Sea, James
Ross Island, Port Charcot, Nordenskjold Land, Mikkelsen Harbour,
Whaler’s Bay, Frenchman Hill, Biscoe Islands, Erebus and Terror Bay,
Dundee Island, Parry Strait, Admiralty Bay, Belgica Strait--you can
trace the nationalities and minds of the plucky pioneers who have been
there from time to time.
By most people the island of South Georgia was totally unheard of until
Sir Ernest Shackleton brought it into prominence, firstly by that
marvellous eight-hundred-mile voyage in a 20-ft. whaling boat from
Elephant Island, after the loss of _Endurance_--an achievement which I
always regard as one of the finest small-craft passages in the history
of the world; and secondly, by his return to South Georgia, after the
war, to be buried there. But as we glance at the nomenclature along the
South Georgia coastline, with its Queen Maud’s Bay, Coaling Harbour,
Right Whale Bay, Markham Point, Prince Olaf Harbour, Leith Harbour,
Stromness Harbour, Larsen Point, Nansen Rocks, St. Andrew’s Bay,
King Edward Cove, Moraine Fjord--we need no telling that British and
Scandinavian sailors have been there already.
Some of these European names will leap into further prominence
presently as we go through our narrative, but let us see how it comes
that the whole present and future of the whaling industry should
concentrate on to this neighbourhood. How did it happen like this,
and from when? Well, after the introduction of steam into whalers
that industry carried on amid the Arctic mists and gales continued to
decline until it remained in a long-protracted passing-away condition.
But, thanks to the Antarctic explorers of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, there was such evidential information about whales that a
fresh spirit of optimism broke forth and, notwithstanding some serious
disappointments, justified itself. Thus, we are beginning to derive
commercial benefits from those daring voyages of the past. Now what
were these expeditions?
We may content ourselves with some of the principal ones. We know
definitely that Captain Cook took possession of South Georgia, which
he named, in 1775, and afterwards discovered the Sandwich group.
It was Cook who was the first to report the presence of whales off
South Georgia. Captain James Colnet in 1793-4 confirmed this report,
especially in regard to black whales. In fact, during the next 125
years whales were certainly seen in nearly 300 places south of
latitude 50°, so that Cook’s information was more than reliable. But
the South Shetlands, that group of islands stretching right away
south of latitude 60° towards the Antarctic Circle, were not named or
discovered till just over a century ago, when Captain William Smith
landed from the _Williams_ of Blyth in 1819 on King George Island and
took possession on behalf of Britain. Here, about 400 miles south-east
of Cape Horn, the ground is for ever frozen and barren, but at one
spot--Deception Island--there is a landlocked harbour and a whaling
station; for off these islands the modern steam whalers carry on their
work with great activity. Smith had reported the presence of whales.
Graham Land, that mountainous area of thick snow and ice, with few
landings but one good harbour, was discovered and taken possession
of by H.M.S. _Andromache_ in January 1820. The Russian captain von
Bellinghausen charted the south side of South Georgia in 1819 and came
across British whalers there. The South Orkneys, which lie about a
couple of hundred miles east of the South Shetlands, were discovered
by Captain George Powell of the _Dove_ and charted in 1821-2, and a
certain amount of whaling has taken place off here. The inhospitable,
volcanic, icebound South Sandwich Islands discovered by Cook in 1775
are not used by whalers.
These, then, are the five British dependencies of the Falklands.
Powell, Weddell and others charted the South Shetlands, Weddell also
charted the South Orkneys; and Captain John Biscoe, one of Enderby’s
whaling captains, in 1832 discovered and sketched the west side of
Graham Land. But this first knowledge was added to by British sealers,
by d’Urville, in 1838, by Wilkes of the United States Navy, and then
came that fine expedition of _Erebus_ and _Terror_ under Captain James
Clark Ross, R.N., in the early ’forties, who specially referred to the
presence of whales in the Erebus and Terror Gulf, about which we shall
have more to say later. This expedition, though sent out by the British
Government primarily for magnetic surveys, had a most important result
fifty years afterwards.
Weddell’s voyage in the years 1822-4 through the Antarctic Sea was
remarkable not merely because he penetrated further south than any
previous navigator had succeeded in achieving, but because his craft
were both quite small. “Our adventure,” wrote Weddell, “was for
procuring Fur-seal skins, and our vessels were the brig _Jane_, of
Leith, of 160 tons, and the cutter _Beaufoy_, of London, of 65 tons,
both fitted out in the ordinary way, and provisioned for two years.
The former, with a crew of twenty-two officers and men, was under my
own command; the latter, with a crew of thirteen, was commanded by Mr.
Matthew Brisbane.”
The _Beaufoy_, built like one of the Revenue cutters or yachts with the
usual contemporary rig of mainsail, topsail, jib, staysail, and that
“spread yard” carried athwart ship ready for setting a squaresail when
the wind was aft, was one of the smallest vessels which ever got as
near the South Pole as lat. 74° 15′. Those thirteen hands aboard her
certainly were out on no picnic. Leaving the Downs on September 17,
1822, they took their departure from Portland Bill, and after calling
at Madeira, and at the Cape Verdes, they were off the east end of the
South Orkneys by January 12th.
Seal-skins were obtained; whales were sighted both dead and alive--the
former off the South Orkneys, the latter well to the southward of lat.
70° in what we now call the Weddell Sea, but Weddell in his chart
names “The Sea of George the Fourth.” Thus on February 17th he sighted
“many hump and finned black whales,” and still going south he writes:
“In the evening we had many whales about the ship.” On his chart in
the position lat. 74° 15′, on the 20th, which was his furthest south,
Weddell wrote “many whales in sight.” Then going north, his crews
having suffered much from cold, fogs and wet during all those weeks
in the south, Weddell visited South Georgia. After Cook had been here
in the late eighteenth century, several ship-owners sent out vessels
and captured sea-elephants for their oil, and fur seals for their
skins. At least 20,000 tons of sea-elephant oil were brought from South
Georgia to London during the fifty years following Cook’s call there,
together with a number of seal-skins; “but formerly,” says Weddell,
“the furriers in England had not the method of dressing them, on which
account they were of so little value, as to be almost neglected. At the
same time, however, the Americans were carrying from Georgia cargoes of
these skins to China, where they frequently obtained a price of from
5 to 6 dollars a-piece.” South Georgia altogether during that time
yielded to British and other visitors 1,200,000 skins.
Weddell, by the way, tells an interesting story about a certain
American captain J. Barnard, whose sealing vessel in the year 1814
had called at the uninhabited New Island, one of the Falklands which
had not become British until the year 1771. Barnard, whilst on the
south side of the island after the fur seals, suddenly came across
about thirty British subjects, consisting of the crew and several
passengers of a wrecked English ship. Barnard was good enough to take
them on board and treat them hospitably. Now, at that time England and
America were in a state of war, and, although Barnard had promised to
land these people at some Brazilian port, the rescued began to have
suspicions as to the captain’s sincerity.
However, all was apparently going well, and the increased company
were split up into hunting parties and sent out to obtain supplies.
Captain Barnard with four of his men was on such an excursion when the
ungrateful and suspicious rescued British, I regret to say, defied
the Americans who were on board, and cut the cable, making off with
the ship to Rio de Janeiro, and thence to North America. Barnard had
never for a moment imagined that such a scheme was on foot, and when
he returned to the anchorage at New Island he was amazed to find his
vessel gone. And then, as Barnard explained to Weddell, he began
to realize that the motive for this theft was the fear of becoming
prisoners of war in America, in spite of his promise already given.
The position now was that Barnard was left with his four men, a dog and
a boat on a lonely island at a remote corner of the world. What was to
be done? The ship had not even left him a few supplies. However, he
remembered that he had planted a few potatoes and in the course of the
second season these became serviceable. Moreover the dog caught a wild
pig, the skins of the seals were used for clothes and the eggs of the
albatross were additional food. To withstand the cold wintry blasts
of the Falklands, a house was built of stones. Once a captain, always
a captain: once accustomed to handling men and preserving discipline,
Barnard was not likely to drop the habit even on this island. But
in course of time his four men wearied of this control, waited their
opportunity, and then made off with the boat, leaving the unfortunate
skipper, now utterly alone, to himself. However, he spent his solitary
days making seal clothes and collecting food for the next winter, twice
daily climbing a hill to look out for the possible approach of some
ship. But twice every day he returned to that rough stone house with
the same disappointment.
And then, after some months, who should come to the island but those
four deserting seamen with their boat, having been unable to manage
for themselves. But even now they were still recalcitrant, and one of
them even went so far as to plan Barnard’s death, though the plot was
discovered in time. And to teach the men that discipline and punishment
were still very real things even under these exceptional conditions,
Barnard gave the man a few provisions and then landed him on another
small island in solitary confinement. It was a bold step for one
officer to defy four mutinous men: but the daring was justified. At
the end of three weeks this defiant seaman had become so changed that
his conduct, from the time when Barnard fetched him off, commenced
to be exemplary. There was no further trouble with any of them, and
so, for two years, the party continued to live, using the boat to
search the other islands for provisions, until at last in December
1815 there called here an English whaler on her way to the Pacific
and thus rescued this little party. It is yet another instance of the
adaptability of the sailor to whatever state his fortunes may drive him.
Weddell also confirmed William Smith’s report of sperm whales being
off the South Shetlands. On one occasion the former even lowered boats
and set out in pursuit; but Weddell believed that the whale became
“gallied” through having seen the copper sheathing of his vessel, and
so went off out of sight. Smith’s discovery of these South Shetlands,
which ever since the year 1905 have become such an important whaling
station, happened as follows during the year 1819, when he was taking
the brig _William_ from Monte Video to Valparaiso, and it was purely
chance that brought this discovery about. For, on his way in order to
round the Horn, he had stood S.S.E., and at six o’clock one evening,
when in lat. 62° 30′ S., long. 60° W., actually sighted land to the
south-east, afterwards landing and finding seals. Weddell, who also
landed on the South Shetlands the year after, had killed as many as a
couple of thousand sea-elephants and many more seals there.
The cutter _Beaufoy_ made a second voyage on a sealing expedition, in
spite of her having already been south for those two years. Leaving
the Downs in August 1824, she coasted down Patagonia, called at the
Falklands and went to Tierra del Fuego, arriving back in the Downs
after eighteen months.
Now the net result of these early explorations was to attract attention
to an unknown part of the world, and long years afterwards whales
were to be discovered. But as not all explorers were themselves
whaling experts there has been some confusion in the statements as
to their species, whether sperm whale or rorquals. It is supposed by
modern critics that those whales which have ever been seen off the
South Shetlands consisted almost entirely of two classes: the blue
whale and the hump-backed whale. Ross reported that he had seen in
Antarctic water the right whale, but as the result of various Antarctic
expeditions, scientific authorities now believe that this explorer
may have been mistaken; and that what he saw could only have been fin
whales.
But it was not till Emile G. Racovitza, the eminent zoologist of the
_Belgica_ expedition of 1897-9, applied his efforts that the first
methodical scientific study of Antarctic whales was made during the
cruise of that vessel. Racovitza was afterwards able to systematize
all the reports which had been made on the subject of whales being
recorded at different dates and in various Antarctic localities; from
which it is now possible to see that these cetaceans have been noted in
great numbers in the waters especially of the Ross Sea, South Georgia,
South Shetlands and adjacent areas. All this knowledge, so valuable
commercially, and of such utility to the convenience of the public, has
come only as the result of many expeditions, long voyages and great
risks to ships and men.
Historically, the first cetacean which the old sailing ships pursued
was the right whale, which has no dorsal fin. In the Atlantic there was
the Greenland whale, the nordkaper and the southern right whale. These
were remarkable for the size of their whalebone, and at a time when
whales were hunted chiefly for the sake of their bone, these became
known as the “right” or “true” whale. Moreover, in those days, their
harpooning methods prevented the men from attacking the “finners” or
rorquals. But then the industry of capturing the sperm whale came in
and the chase after right whales became less important. So, also, there
came a change in the second part of the nineteenth century arising
through Svend Foyn’s invention of the explosive harpoon fired from a
ship’s gun. He began this new form operating off the north of Norway,
but it enabled the fin whale, so long neglected, now to be hunted. Thus
it was that Norway inaugurated an entirely new era in whaling, since,
broadly speaking, the “finners” are the only cetaceans found in that
country’s waters.
What was more, it opened up an entirely new avenue to knowledge; for,
until then, no mammal was scientifically so little understood as the
great family of the whale. And the reason for this deficiency was quite
simple. Without specimens to study, how could the research student
set to work? Whaling ships brought home the produce: not the mammal
itself. And only on remote occasions have whales stranded around our
coasts. But the Svend Foyn method revolutionized all this: or, rather,
part of his plan was a return to that old practice which we have seen
existed at Spitzbergen in the early days. The reader will remember that
factories were established ashore, the whales towed to the beach and
hauled up to be flensed.
Well, this was to be the new Norwegian way in the ’sixties. Land
factories were instituted, the “finner” killed by the explosive harpoon
was hauled up and dealt with from the land and not from the ship.
Thus it was, then, that an opportunity was afforded both to whalers
and scientists to examine the shape of the body and the contents of
the stomach: in other words, there followed from this a large amount
of biological knowledge concerning the cetacean. We know now that the
“finner” whether in northern or southern waters is practically the same
in form. To the invention of that gun, then, was due the starting of
the Norwegian fin-whaling industry: and owing to the inauguration of
the latter was it possible to get a greater understanding of whales
generally.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SOURCE OF WEALTH
In the early days when the approaches to the Antarctic began to be used
after the first conviction that it was worth while sailing so far, the
British and Americans went either after the seals or to look for the
right whale. When the rowing-boats were launched in the South Atlantic
they left the fin whales strictly alone. The sperm, like the right
whale, usually remained some time on the surface and allowed the rowed
boat to approach, but the finner is awash only for a time, and sinks
after being killed.
When first that squadron of a dozen British sailing-ship whalers
went south in the early eighteenth century, they were complete and
self-contained to roam all over the world, extract the produce and
boil it down into oil. During the first half of the nineteenth century
some five or six hundred whalers were thus engaged in the southern
hemisphere hunting the cachalot and right whales. But then, owing to
the scarcity of this species, and to the fall in the price of oil and
the increased working expenses, the number of vessels in this work
became fewer and fewer. They were usually of between 200 and 300 tons
register, but sometimes even up to 450 tons. Built of wood, with no
engines to require fuel, they could keep the seas as long as food and
drinking-water were available.
The right whale as found in Arctic waters had by the eighth decade
of the nineteenth century become so scarce in the Arctic that the
industry up there had practically ceased to be profitable. Therefore
one of a trio of whaling brothers named Gray conceived the idea of
sending their Peterhead whalers down to the Antarctic in order to find
better luck. This hope was based on the account given by Sir James
Ross, already alluded to, concerning his voyage of discovery in 1842.
We are speaking now entirely of the right whale, and the succession
of events which will presently lead up to the southern fin whale
industry is something of a romance. Fortified with Ross’s information,
an attempt was made in 1891 to form a company for this southern
enterprise, but the necessary capital was not obtained.
However, there followed a Mr. R. Kinnes of Dundee, who decided to
equip four vessels with the same object, well believing that the right
whales were in the Antarctic and that a fortune was awaiting anyone
with a little courage and imagination. It was, of course, a somewhat
similar scheme, though in a different part of the southern hemisphere,
to that which had been attempted by Enderby. Kinnes selected four
ships: the _Balæna_, _Active_, _Diana_ and the _Polar Star_. They were
all barque-rigged with auxiliary steam and propeller. Of this little
squadron the largest was the _Balæna_, being of 260 tons register,
length 141 ft., draught 16-1/2 ft., her engines being of only 65
horse-power. Originally she had been the _Mjolnar_, and built in
Drammen as far back as 1872. The _Active_ was twenty years older, 117
ft. long, draught 18 ft., with engines of 40 horse-power. Built at
Peterhead, she was a barque which had done much good service in the
olden days. The barque _Diana_ had also been built in Drammen, and her
details were, length 135 ft., draught 16 ft., engine 40 horse-power.
The _Polar Star_, another barque, 105 ft. long, was both old and small,
with an engine of low horse-power; in fact, all four were rather a
relic of the golden age of sail than modern exploring vessels.
But in September 1892 the squadron started out from Dundee, that port
famous for so much which concerns whalers and whaling. The ships and
men had both been in the Arctic many a time. The rigging was extra
strong, with the old-fashioned, reliable dead-eyes and lanyards. The
thickness of the planking, timbers and lining was in the case of the
_Balæna_ as much as 32 in. There was nothing yacht-like; everything
for strength and endurance. By the middle of December they had got
into high latitudes and were steering between the South Orkneys and
South Shetlands, when great fin whales were seen: but, of course, this
species was no concern of the expedition. Seals were taken, and at one
time it was thought that the mammal which was sighted spouting was a
right whale, but he turned out to be another “finner.”
The Antarctic continent was reached by Christmas, the whale lines were
carefully coiled down in the boats ready for those great black whales
which Ross had written about. The short-barrelled guns, rather like
the weapon you take in a gun-punt, were ready, too; for here was the
area that Ross had alluded to as so full of hope. There were three of
the four Dundee ships in Erebus and Terror Gulf: but where were the
right whales? Was there really a fortune waiting for the asking? Each
right whale of the big kind has about a ton of bone in his mouth; and
whalebone was worth £2,500 when the ships left Dundee. Supposing each
vessel caught only four: that would mean £40,000 to take back home,
so every available man was on the keen look-out for right whales. The
_Polar Star_, the slowest of the four, had lagged behind, and on the
morning after Christmas, whilst the three were at the edge of the
pack-ice in lat. 64° 30′ S., long. 55° 28′ W., beating about in the
open water, looking for those illusive right whales to show themselves,
a strange sail was suddenly sighted. But it was not the _Polar Star_:
this was the _Jason_, in which Captain C. A. Larsen, a Norwegian,
had arrived. His name is to be noted, for he is perhaps the greatest
pioneer of modern South Seas whaling. He, too, had come out for right
whales, and for seals, and in the season of 1893-4 he came here a
second time with the _Jason_, _Hertha_ and the _Castor_.
Captain Larsen had been whaling ever since the year 1884 when he hunted
the bottlenose whale in the Arctic. His knowledge and experience thus
link the old days with the new, and recently he affirmed that he has
found in southern whales various kinds of harpoons which have been
sticking in the animals for a considerable period. In one case he
discovered a lance which must have been in the cetacean for ten or
twenty years. Now on hearing of the intended Dundee expedition, the
Norwegians had sent Captain Larsen out for a similar object. The two
expeditions thus met on Boxing Day in that region of white ice, the
_Jason_ having already captured five hundred seals but not having
sighted a right whale.
Whatever else they were, these two British and Norwegian expeditions
represented the greatest body of expert whaling knowledge, and from
them must be reckoned the commencement of two distinct enterprises:
modern Antarctic exploration, which was presently to attract such men
as Bruce, Scott, Nordenskjold, Charcot, Shackleton and others; and the
present great whaling industry which the Norwegians have established
by licence from the British Government. And it may be stated without
further delay that this Dr. W. S. Bruce was actually with this first
Dundee expedition that we are considering, being aboard the _Balæna_.
With him was also Mr. W. G. Burn Murdoch, an artist, from whose
charming narrative I have derived much information for this present
chapter.
It is interesting to note how the old Dutch whaling expressions still
survived aboard the _Balæna_. The “specksioneer” was always ready
for his especial job; every man was prepared to turn out of his bunk
as soon as that time-honoured whaler’s cry “A fall! A fall!” should
go resounding through the ship, and boats’ crews would rush in wild
excitement into their places. The grampus, that prey among whales which
will kill even a finner, was seen by the Dundee expedition, but never
a right whale; and early in the new year the harpoon lines were taken
out of the boats, and the craft were used exclusively for sealing. The
_Polar Star_ turned up at last, having left Dundee two days later and
proceeded south-about through the English Channel, whilst the other
three had sailed round the north of Scotland. But it was the middle of
January by the time she had joined up with these others.
The squadron’s instructions had been to seek whales where Ross had
found them, and strict obedience was paid to these admonitions. It must
be borne in mind that no Antarctic scientific expedition had been down
there since Ross’s of 1843, other than some surveys and international
circumpolar observations in 1873-4 and 1882 respectively. Therefore
for this Dundee venture data were both meagre and fifty years old.
During that period Polar discovery had been confined to the Arctic,
but the South Polar approaches had been extraordinarily neglected. The
_Active_ during the latter part of January did have quite a good day’s
excitement. The right whale did not turn up, but the harpooner in one
of her boats let drive at a great “finner”--a blue whale. The latter
soon began using up the three lines in the boat, then a second boat
made fast with three more lines, and next a third boat fired another
harpoon into the whale. Presently the ends of all the lines were put
aboard the _Active_, the boats made fast to the ship’s stern, and the
whale went towing the whole lot until after fourteen hours’ excitement
the ship’s engines were reversed, the lines broke and the whale went
off.
Sport? Yes. But when the four skippers got together and talked matters
over, the sad fact had to be faced that as a whaling enterprise this
expedition had failed: not a single right whale had been captured,
or even sighted. There was nothing for it now but to devote their
energies to sealing. This they did, with the result that some twenty
thousand seal-skins and full cargoes of seal blubber were taken back to
Scotland. The _Jason_ was the ship which Nansen had used, as mentioned
in his _First Crossing of Greenland_. She was a three-masted barque
with auxiliary steam-engines, and she was to come back in the next
season with _Hertha_ and _Castor_. It was the first of these three
vessels which discovered King Oscar Land, and the other two sailed
along the west side of Graham Land. Captain Larsen’s efforts, though
primarily commercial, resulted in adding to the sum of scientific
knowledge. _Balæna_ discovered some mountainous land S.W. of Erebus and
Terror Gulf, and Larsen traced it still further later in that year.
But the whales? Well, the Dundee expedition, which got back safely in
May 1893, had seen three kinds: the finners, which Larsen called “blue
whales”; others resembling the Pacific humpback; and the bottlenose
whale, in addition to many grampus. Both the British and Norwegian
expeditions had set forth owing to Ross’s encouraging statements,
though each of these enterprises failed to confirm his supposition.
In Larsen’s second voyage of 1893-4 a whale which seemed to be like a
right whale was chased but not captured.
That which had been made clearly manifest in these whaler voyages was
the fact that there were any number of finner whales in the Antarctic.
Now there came to Edinburgh an agent of Mr. Svend Foyn to interview Mr.
Burn Murdoch and Dr. W. S. Bruce, who had travelled in the _Balæna_,
the latter in the capacity of naturalist. It was suggested that the
Norwegian type of whaling (already mentioned) should be employed, but
this method was unknown in England, and was rejected before Larsen
went on his second voyage. But from 1898 to 1910 there were several
Antarctic expeditions of a purely scientific character which must be
mentioned in turn. In 1897-9 was the _Belgica_ expedition, which was
the first of these Antarctic enterprises to be organized on modern
lines. The _Belgica_ was the first vessel, too, to spend a winter in
the Antarctic, and valuable knowledge as to scientific and biological
subjects was obtained.
And now there came increased interest in the South Polar regions owing
to the enthusiasm of scientists. The immediate results were Captain
Scott’s British expedition of 1901 and Professor von Drygalski’s
expedition of the same year. But our immediate subject of whaling
attracts us more especially towards the Swedish expedition of 1901-3
owing to the personality of the sailing master. For this undertaking
was led by Dr. Nils Otto Gustaf Nordenskjold (nephew of Baron
Nordenskjold, the Arctic explorer), and the name of the vessel was the
_Antarctica_, in command of which Captain C. A. Larsen was to go. No
better officer among the Scandinavians could have been chosen. Now,
fortunately--as it turned out--the _Antarctica_ got crushed by the ice
in the Erebus and Terror Gulf during the month of February 1903, whilst
going to the relief of Nordenskjold’s land party. After hazardous
adventures the crew were rescued by the Argentine sloop-of-war
_Uruguay_ in the following November. The immediate result of this was
that Larsen was received as an Antarctic hero in Buenos Ayres, his
scheme for southern whaling on those Norwegian lines was believed in,
the Argentine citizens financed him and there was formed the company
known as the Cia Argentina de Pesca, with a view to carrying on whaling
operations at South Georgia.
This was the commencement of that great southern whaling industry,
which has in twenty years yielded considerable wealth. The company
began its operations in 1904, a lease being granted by His Majesty’s
Government two years later. This station is on the east side of the
island at Grytviken, the terms being 500 acres at an annual rent of
£250 for a term of 21 years. Three years later 30 acres at Jason
Harbour were leased to the same company for 18 years at a rent of £100;
and between the years 1908 and 1911 seven other leases on that island,
also for whaling stations, were granted to four Norwegian and three
British companies, making a total whaling fleet of twenty-one vessels,
each lease allowing the employment of one floating factory.
Thus we have here, in the foundation of these considerable industrial
activities on that remote island where Shackleton was eventually to be
buried, a direct connection with the failure of Arctic whaling, and
those scientific and whale-seeking expeditions to the Antarctic. In the
end, as a result of much perseverance, immense financial reward has
come. Larsen tried unavailingly to obtain the necessary capital in his
own country, but the undertaking might have been started twelve years
sooner by British capital after that interview in Edinburgh following
the return of the Dundee squadron.
Of this first, and Argentine, company Larsen was made manager. He
crossed to Norway, fitted out at Sandefjord a modern steam whaler,
and two small sailing vessels to be used as transports, arriving at
the east side of South Georgia in December 1904. In King Edward’s
Cove, as it is now known, he established a whaling factory on the very
site which had been used by the early nineteenth-century sealers for
boiling their blubber. Nothing succeeds like success, and the result
of this new development was that more companies were formed, further
leases were granted, and the largest whaling business in the world
is now centred in the Dependencies of the Falklands. Thus also even
at Deception Island a licence was granted for twenty-one years in
1912 to a Norwegian company: in fact, up to date eight Norwegian, one
Chilian and one British companies have been given licences in the area
of the South Shetlands and Graham Land. The season here is a short
one, lasting from November to March. In the South Orkneys whales are
plentiful, but there is a lack of safe harbours, and it is usually safe
for the floating factories to remain in the roadstead only for twelve
weeks. Four Norwegian companies were granted licences here in the
season of 1914-15, but only one was actually worked. Operations were,
however, resumed in 1922-3, when 325 whales were caught. The first
attempt here had been made in 1907-8, but the ice drove the expedition
to the South Shetlands. In the season of 1914-15 a solid sheet of ice
surrounded the South Orkneys for a hundred miles to the north and made
them unapproachable till after the middle of January. At the South
Sandwich Islands there was whaling in the 1911-12 season, but on
these territories some of the volcanoes are still active, the constant
emission of poisonous fumes makes it difficult to land, and no shore
station has been established.
Were there, after all, right whales in these southern areas? The answer
may be made from the statistics which have been issued for the period
covering the years 1909-18, during which many thousands of blue and fin
whales were caught, but only 396 right whales and 115 sperm whales.
These figures are for South Georgia, South Shetlands, South Orkneys and
South Sandwich. Some idea may be obtained of the wealth which Larsen’s
pioneering brought about, for the value of the oil, baleen and guano
in the South Georgian area alone has risen from £251,077 in 1909-10
to £1,100,000 in the 1917-18 season. But according to the very latest
Government report there were caught in these Dependencies during the
1922-3 season close on 10,000 whales to the value of £3,056,860. These
figures are so remarkable, that it is scarcely necessary to comment
on them beyond observing that the possibilities of these valuable
British possessions seem not to have been as fully realized as one
might expect. When, however, the _Discovery_ returns home from her
investigations, doubtless further interest will be taken by British and
other investors.
CHAPTER XIX
PROBLEMS AND PRACTICE
Now that we have been able to see the intimate connection between
those early Antarctic explorers and the culmination of a large and
flourishing southern whaling industry, we are in a better position to
appreciate the situation in further detail.
It is with this subject, as it certainly was with the discovery,
hundreds of years ago, of the route to India via the Cape of Good
Hope; in regard to all Arctic and Antarctic exploration; and, indeed,
concerning some of the greatest wonders in modern applied science. The
progress was gradual rather than sudden: it was the steady advance,
rather than the flying visit. A scientist makes certain facts clear,
and from these data united with others there is eventually rendered
practicable wireless telephony. So it was in regard to whaling. Without
all those previous experiences learned in Arctic whaling, and without
that geographical knowledge and those observations of whales obtained
by various Antarctic expeditions, the sudden rise of the modern
industry in the Falkland Dependencies would not have been justified.
Roald Amundsen, the first man ever to reach the South Pole, remarked
that “it is not too much to say of Captain Larsen that of all those
who have visited the Antarctic regions in the search of whales, he
has unquestionably brought home the best and most abundant scientific
results.” But Larsen was indebted to a long line of shipbuilders, to
many generations of Dutch, British, American, Norwegian and other
harpooners. Without all those years of Arctic whaling knowledge, how
would it have been possible to set going on right principles this
industry in the British Dependencies? To take a small point: that
little squadron of _Balæna_ and her three sisters, which brought home
the news that the southern seas were abounding in finners, had in 1892
only just returned from working the Arctic seas in the late summer of
that year. They were merely typical whalers of small size, built and
sheathed according to accumulated knowledge, tested by years of hard
experience. The result was that they were able to leave in that same
September for the Antarctic. The whole history of northern whaling
is bound up with that of the south, just as all Polar exploration
and observation are inseparably connected with the evolution of this
important industry.
If it is the whaler whose ship-model has repeatedly been used for
transporting the scientist, then the latter has come back with more
systematized information by which to aid the adventurous merchant. I
am stressing this point of mutual assistance, since too often we are
tempted to be influenced only by the final achievement and forget
all the weary steps which had preceded it. “The recent Antarctic
Expeditions,” wrote Dr. Jean Charcot of the _Pourquois Pas?_ expedition
of 1908-10, speaking in reference to this southern commercial whaling
activity, “from de Gerlache’s down to that of the _Français_, have
certainly done much for this revival of industry in the Antarctic and
sub-Antarctic regions, and I personally claim to have done my small
part, though I should have liked to see my fellow-countrymen, severely
tested as they have often been in the cod-fisheries, attempting to take
advantage of it.”
And, again, Charcot wrote: “It was three years ago that the chase
of the balænoptera began in our exploration zone; and in the South
Shetlands since our visit, one Chilian and two Norwegian companies
have set up at Deception, while another has taken as its headquarters
Admiralty Bay in George I Land. As far as these whalers are concerned,
it has been a pleasure to me to note how useful the _Français_
Expedition has been to them in supplementing the discoveries of the
_Belgica_; for we were able, of ourselves, to supply them with the
only existing chart of the north-west coast of the Palmer Archipelago,
and another of the Bismarck estuary, to guide them to a good anchorage
at Port Lockroy and a shelter at Wandel Island, to say nothing of our
notes on the numbers and species of balænoptera, on the movements of
the ice-floes, on the winds. etc.”
For it was during his first expedition of 1903-5 in the _Français_ that
Dr. Charcot had carried out extensive exploration on the west coast
of Graham Land, and discovered that good harbour of Port Lockroy in
Wiencke Island, and moderate shelter at Port Charcot in Booth-Wandel
Island. The second of the scientist’s expeditions was that of 1908-10
in the _Pourquois Pas?_ which covered a wider range and brought about
important discoveries. Thus, for example, we cannot yet tell how
valuable commercially it may be that he measured and accurately placed,
during this second voyage, Adelaide Island; that he proved Alexander
Land to be an island, and that Charcot Land, right as far south as
lat. 70°, was discovered. But of the greatest immediate value was the
hydrographic work which he carried out from the South Shetlands and
among the isles at the western side of Graham Land. How valuable such
efforts are industrially may be at once understood when we realize
that recently this hydrographic information was lacking to the whaling
ships. Thus in the year 1918 the Norwegian s.s. _Solstreif_ a vessel
of 3,409 registered tons, employed as a whaling factory in the South
Shetlands and by Graham Land, got ashore on a rock near Cape Melville,
and another steamer named the _Ornen_ was nearly on these selfsame
rocks. The s.s. _Telefon_, ten years previously, got on the rocks by
the south-west entrance to Admiralty Bay, and became a total wreck.
On the other hand there was found by whalers in 1918, at the west side
of Pendulum Cove, a document conveniently left behind by Dr. Charcot,
headed “Notice to Navigators,” containing such useful information as in
the following extracts: “I think I ought to warn all navigators who may
go to Wandel with the intention of staying at Port Charcot that a ship
is far from being in safety there during the north-east winds, which
are by far the most prevalent and the most violent in this region....
A chain stretched across the entrance of the bay and securely fastened
at both ends, may protect to a certain extent the ship from the ice
blocks, but hawsers, even of steel wire, are soon cut.”
Such information as this begins that body of Sailing Directions which,
by the experience of some hundreds of years and many voyagings, have
been compiled for other parts of the world, enabling shipping of all
sorts to proceed on their lawful occasions. Charcot and others risked
their ships, and the lives of their crews, to get that essential
information which will go on being added to till some day it is
complete. There is a passage in his _Voyage of the “Why Not?”_ which
illustrates how those early whalers of 1909, whom he frequently met
down south, used to rely on his help.
“Lastly,” he writes on December 18th, “the whale men are very anxious
to know whether there cannot be found in the bays of Joinville Island
some good anchorages, at which they could carry on their work. It
comes within the scope of our duties to discover this for ourselves and
to try to bring the information back to them.” And in another place he
remarks: “The whalers ... are upset, for hunting is bad this season....
A naturalist would find interesting microscopic study in the subject
of whale-food--the infinitely small denizens of the water--which must
count for much in explaining the routes the whales follow; and science
once again would hereby render eminent services to commerce.”
The present hydrographical position is that there still remains a very
large amount of work to be done before the surveys of the whaling
areas are anything like complete and safe for navigation. And where
the working season is annually not more than five or six months, it
follows that some years must elapse before satisfactory charts will be
available. But this matter, so far as the Falklands Dependencies are
concerned, is thoroughly in hand. For, even when we were in the midst
of a great war, and during that most critical of all years, 1917, when
German submarines had reduced our Mercantile Marine to such seriously
low figures, the British Government was commencing an inquiry into the
preservation of the whaling industry concerned with these Dependencies.
The result was that a special interdepartmental committee was set
going, which recommended, _inter alia_, that the food of whales should
be carefully investigated as well as the migration of the sperm whale
to southern waters. Investigations were also to be made in regard
to the breeding-grounds, and it was pointed out that a complete
hydrographical survey was necessary both for navigation generally, and
for the local interests of the whaling industry. It was as a result of
the committee’s findings that Scott’s old ship the _Discovery_--herself
built on the lines of the old Dundee whalers--was fitted out at
Portsmouth in the early summer of 1925 and despatched to the seas of
which we have been speaking, there to act as a research vessel.
But in the meantime we have to bear in remembrance that it was owing to
those British pioneers, mentioned elsewhere, that these localities are
ours. Already in the season of 1908-9, when Charcot was down there and
three whaling companies were working on Deception Island with floating
steamers as factories, and the smaller specially built steamers going
out to catch the whales, there were two hundred Norwegian inhabitants
of that island. The season lasts from the end of November to the end
of February, when the companies separate; some to hunt off the Chilian
coast, others in the Magellan Straits, others in the waters of the
Cape of Good Hope. In regard to the South-West African whaling, where
the humpback, fin and blue whales are captured annually, Saldanha Bay
is largely used, as well as Durban, for eastern whaling. In the year
1912 only 131 whales were caught off that part of Africa, but they
have since been captured in much greater numbers; and even in 1916 the
figures were considerably over eight hundred.
The numbers of right whales and sperm whales caught in the waters of
the Dependencies are so few compared with the thousands of the blue,
fin and humpback, that we can neglect them. The humpback may be in
danger of extermination, but it is of little commercial value, and
the other two are plentiful. The practical method by which the men
can recognize the different kinds at a distance is as follows. These
three belong to the rorqual class, the humpback being known by the
protuberance on his back and by the fact that he spouts very low. The
fin whale is of medium value, has a very large dorsal fin, and spouts
very high with a single, straight jet. The blue whale, on the other
hand, which is more valuable than the other two, has a moderate-sized
dorsal fin and spouts with a double jet ending in a plume.
For the sake of clarity and continuity we have concentrated on one
particular branch of development. Let us now go back a little way.
The whole possibility of this modern Dependencies’ whaling has been
based on those new methods inaugurated in the eighteen-sixties by that
Norwegian expert Svend Foyn, who had been impressed, whilst voyaging
to the Arctic for seals, by the large numbers of finners. Why not
hunt this species? After three years he got over the difficulties
and introduced his special explosive harpoon, and by doing away with
the old method of using the boat, eliminated the risk to crews. It
was now the year 1865, the time when the gallant old sailing ship in
the clippers and others was making her last flutter: for steam was
beginning to conquer navigation.
Svend Foyn, substituting the steamer for the sailing ship’s rowed boat,
made it possible for the harpoon-gun to be brought quite close to the
finner. (It is true that way back in 1731 a portable harpoon-gun had
been invented, but this was found very dangerous, although others
followed.) Moreover, since a dead finner sinks and its weight is much
greater than the buoyancy of the rowed whaleboat, it was no good
thinking of hunting this species unless the size of the craft were
increased. Thus, in a sentence, the conditions demanded that a steamer
with a harpoon-gun in the bows be employed. With many improvements
this method is that of modern whaling. When the animal is hit, the
two shanks of the harpoon open out and explode a small bomb. The
body of the dead whale is then hauled back by means of the ship’s
steam windlass, inflated to prevent its sinking, and then towed to
the floating factory or shore, the steam whaler, or “catcher” as the
modern term is, sometimes being seen with as many as half a dozen dead
cetaceans.
As a result of his new methods, Svend Foyn of Tonsberg died a very
wealthy man, and the acknowledged expert of all the Norwegian whalers.
But it was only through his plucky perseverance and originality that
the problem of killing the supposedly invulnerable finner had been made
practicable. What was more, it was thus through him that a new industry
was to arise in Norway. Now, then, let us watch the sequence of events.
In June 1893 those four Dundee whalers, after their unsuccessful
voyage, had arrived back in Dundee. There happened to be living a Mr.
H. H. Bull, who was also inspired by the Antarctic whaling proposition,
but had failed to interest Australian capitalists in the scheme. Bull
therefore left Melbourne, travelled to Norway and got in touch with
Foyn, then over eighty years old. The latter listened and approved, and
even placed at Bull’s disposal a whaler, built at Drammen as far back
as the year 1871. This vessel was similar to the Dundee _Balæna_, and
now, changing her name from _Cap Nor_ to _Antarctic_, under the command
of Captain L. Kristensen, with Mr. Bull on board, set off in September
1893, reached Melbourne the following January, left it in the following
September, got within the Antarctic Circle, sighted Cape Adare for the
first time it had been seen since Ross’s voyage, visited Possession
Island, but after being as far south as lat. 74°, it was decided to
return. For commercially this voyage had been a failure, and not a
“right” whale had been seen.
And so the intimate relationship between whaling and discovery,
between the genuine whaling ships and the exploration vessels built
on the lines of whalers, went on. The whaling expert was indebted to
the explorer, and the explorer to the whaler. Two more instances of
these in regard to personnel may here be cited. Let us mention, for
instance, the name of C. B. Borchgrevink, a Norwegian by birth, but
a British colonial land-surveyor by experience. So keen was he to go
with Kristensen and Bull that he signed on as ordinary seaman in the
_Antarctic_. After his return in 1895, Borchgrevink unsuccessfully
tried to get up a trading expedition to Victoria Land, but three years
later persuaded Sir George Newnes to fit out the _Pollux_, another
Norwegian whaler similar to _Balæna_, yet with new and more powerful
engines. The name _Pollux_ was changed to _Southern Cross_; there went
as captain Bernhard Jensen, who had been Borchgrevink’s shipmate as
second mate of that whaler _Antarctic_, Jensen having for many years
been in command of an Arctic whaler. The _Southern Cross_ left the
Thames in August of 1898, and proceeded via Hobart to the Antarctic;
but the value which accrued from this expedition was interesting rather
from a pioneering point of view than scientifically.
So also Dr. W. S. Bruce, who had originally gone out in _Balæna_, took
part in the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition of 1894-7 to the Arctic,
and then led the Scottish National Antarctic expedition of 1902-4. It
is one of the most remarkable facts about men who have served in the
Arctic and Antarctic that they are to be found longing to repeat the
experience. Bruce had yearned to go out again to the Weddell Sea, and
now another Norwegian whaler, the _Hekla_, was bought, rebuilt and
named the _Scotia_. As captain of her there went Thomas Robertson of
Dundee, who had been captain of the _Active_--one of those four Dundee
whalers which had met Captain Larsen on that other expedition in the
south.
The _Scotia_ was a three-masted barque, with auxiliary steam, of about
400 tons, measuring 140 ft. long and drawing about 15 ft. Her best
speed under steam was eight knots. She was immensely strong, with 9 ft.
of solid timber at the stem, and even amidships her thinnest part was
never less than 2 ft. thick. She was further protected by green-heart
sheathing, this wood being chosen for its ability to resist the
grinding by the ice. She started out from the Clyde in November 1902,
called at the Falklands, and in February sighted the South Orkneys. The
furthest south was attained in lat. 74° 1′ S., long. 22° W., and the
ship got back to the Clyde in May 1904. The achievements of Dr. Bruce’s
expedition included many important deep-sea soundings and dredgings,
investigations as to both temperature and salinity in the Weddell Sea,
the discovery of Coats Land for 150 miles; the wintering at the South
Orkneys, important hydrographical survey work, and the establishment
of a meteorological station on Laurie Island. Many whales were seen
just before entering the Antarctic Circle; and between Buenos Ayres and
the Falklands also sperm whales. In the comparatively high latitude of
56° 55′ S., and long. 10° W., many humpbacked whales were sighted “but
never any of the bowhead or right whale, which carries the gold-mine
in its mouth.” Many whales were seen by this ship also off the South
Shetlands.
Finally, it may be mentioned that Amundsen, on that expedition which
culminated in discovering the South Pole, reported that he saw from
the _Fram_ both finners and blue whales. Shackleton, whose penultimate
expedition left England in 1914, just as the Great War was beginning,
and was wrecked by the ice, escaped to Elephant Island (one of the
South Shetlands), and then undertook that wonderful boat journey to
South Georgia. During this ill-fated expedition there were sighted
both finners and blue whales, but it is to be noted that two sperm
whales were seen in lat. 69° 59′ S., long. 17° 36′ W. Very few whales
were found in the Falklands area, but eight bottlenose whales were seen
in lat. 67° 47′ S., long. 52° 18′ W.
To sum up, then, the present position of whaling has shifted from the
Arctic to the Antarctic in regard to the chief sphere of activity.
The spirit which has actuated both explorers and fishers has been of
necessity one of determination to endure cold and discomforts, together
with a tremendous sympathy with seafaring. Great physical strength, the
ability to bear severe Polar cold and being cramped up in comparatively
small ships; that quiet, unemotional determination of the northerner
to succeed in spite of all obstacles: it is these qualities which have
always been possessed especially by the Scotsman and the Scandinavian.
Thus it is that in the history of whaling and Antarctic voyagings we
find such North European names as Ross, Weddell, Bruce, Foyn, Larsen,
Kristensen, Borchgrevink, Nordenskjold and others.
In the times when the Greenland and Spitsbergen whaling industry was at
its height, Britain possessed a valuable and wonderful national asset
in that numerous and highly skilled floating population of hardy crews.
In their prime, after they had become sufficiently expert, no nation
had more able whaling men or better whaling ships. Then the pride of
the occupation passed to the United States, and now it belongs almost
exclusively to the Norwegians. Britain has never possessed many whaling
crews accustomed to the use of the explosive harpoon. It is to men of
only a certain primitive hardy temperament that this occupation of
spending a large part of the year in the cold and bitter weather can
possibly appeal. A few Shetlanders from Scotland have tried it, but
even they do not long remain attracted.
At first sight it seems utterly illogical that whilst the Dependencies’
whaling stations are in British territory, most of the personnel of the
ships and the capital is Norwegian. There are thirteen Norse companies
to three British and one Argentine. Before the war most of the whaling
gear was manufactured in Norway, though since then some of it, such as
the whaling lines and the foregoers--that strong, pliable portion of
the line immediately attached to the harpoon--have been successfully
made in Great Britain. The crews of the British transports are British,
but the harpooners, the men on the shore stations and in floating
factories, the crews and gunners in the whale-catchers, are practically
all Norwegians. Had that Dundee squadron of 1892-3, when it went south,
been equipped with modern guns and gear for dealing with finners
instead of the old-fashioned apparatus for the bowhead whales which
they never saw, it is possible that all this sudden wealth of South
Georgia and vicinity might have come to Great Britain. The rise of the
industry has been amazing and it is still becoming more profitable,
and there can surely be few occupations which have in twenty years so
handsomely rewarded investors.
On the other hand it cannot be ignored that the question of temperament
and difference in national character is likely to prevent the British
seaman, accustomed to serve all his life in tramps and liners,
from banishing himself to endure cold in a desolate corner of the
globe. Still, if we have lost the whaling industry, we have in the
steam-trawler and steam-drifter fleets both men and ships far superior
to those of any generation. It is only from these that recruits for a
new British whaling industry are likely to be obtained. But I cannot
conceive that under present circumstances the men are likely to be
lured so far away when even the trawlers which fish in Icelandish
waters can see their homes and families frequently. And yet a fleet of
modern steam whale-catchers, with their trained gunners, is certainly
something of which to be proud nationally, and likely to be of great
use at the outbreak of war.
A gunner is paid well in these whale-catchers. Leaving Norway at the
beginning of September and arriving back home in the following June,
he earns the equivalent of about £700, if based on South Georgia, but
wages are higher at South Shetlands owing to the longer duration of
light and therefore longer working hours. But it must not be forgotten
that in these catchers the work continues day and night, without any
fixed hours, and with very little time off. The gunner is naturally a
man of great skill and long training, worth his wages and bonus. But
the seamen and engineers must also be willing and picked men of special
training; for next to the importance of harpooning a whale is the
ability to sight him. The look-out man in the crow’s-nest must be able
both to see and to discern: so, too, the steersman must be no ordinary
quartermaster but specially accomplished to act promptly in accordance
with the gunner’s instructions. As to the engineer, he, too, requires
some training, especially in the need of fuel economy: for these
whale-catchers burn about six tons of coal a day, and the cost of coal
in South Georgia reaches as much as £14 a ton.
There is also this other difference to be remembered. In the olden days
there was a big whaling community at Hull, Peterhead, Dundee and other
ports. The ships belonged there, the crews’ homes were there also.
Nowadays these are fishing communities, and it would take a long time
to build up a whaling community in Britain, from which men would go to
the Dependencies every year in the whale-catchers. But in Norway it is
different, for there are whaling communities in Tonsberg, Sandefjord
and Larvik: and all those Norwegian whaling companies operating in
the Falklands Dependencies belong either to these three ports or to
Christiania or Hangesund. There can be no possible doubt that the
British seaman of the fisherman type would be the best kind of whaler
for this class of work: and the readiness with which British fishermen,
who had never even fired a shot-gun previously, became during the
war thoroughly good gunners, is proof enough that if they could hit
submarines at long range they could certainly strike whales at close
range.
But there are all sorts of difficulties: of temperament--yes: of
working with foreigners: of working under aliens; problems, also,
in regard to sailors’ and firemen’s unions. But where the pay is so
attractive and the season from leaving home to getting back is not
more than ten months, it is conceivable that some day British crews in
British whale-catchers under British gunners may be hunting the whale
with as much enthusiasm and skill as in those days when the fleets used
to go from the Thames and east-coast ports. We have the men and we have
the ships. There remain only the will and the determination.
CHAPTER XX
MODERN WHALERS AND THEIR METHODS
The days when the three-masted barque or ship roamed round the
world pursuing the whale from ocean to ocean are as definitely past
and gone as are the types of whalers and their methods. To-day the
vessels are steel-built and steam-driven, and they are spoken of as
“whale-catchers.” So, too, the explosive harpoon has done away with the
need of boat-work and hand-harpoons.
Unquestionably much of the romance, such as we used to read of in the
nineteenth-century novels, has disappeared also. That is inevitable,
for the twentieth century is an age of strenuous action rather than
of sentiment. It is carry on or get out: beauty and imagination, or
the method of doing things, cannot demand the same attention as the
achievement itself. The merchant who at heart really loves the sight
of a sailing-ship cannot afford to send his goods overseas except in a
mechanically propelled vessel, however much his sense of beauty prompts
and tempts him. In the same way whaling efficiency has little or no use
for any except those splendid small steamers, with their harpoon-gun at
the bows and well-organized factories at the shore base, on which the
ship depends for her coal and stores, and the company relies for the
preparation of the whale produce.
Before the Great War the standardized steam whale-catcher measured
anything from 98 ft. to 115 ft. over all, with 18 to 22 ft. beam and
moulded depth of 11 ft. to 12 ft. 9 in. She was flush-decked, cut
away at bow and stern for reasons of extreme handiness, with a speed
of 11 to 12 knots; whereas in the old sailing days they were slow,
and varied from 150 to about 450 tons. To-day the whale-catcher has
evolved into a vessel of from 150 to 180 tons, of a type that shows
a kind of amalgamation of the steam trawler and the ocean-going tug.
For extreme handiness and exceptional seaworthiness combined, these
little steamers are unrivalled. And when you consider that they have
to steam from Northern Europe, down the North Sea and Atlantic, cross
the Equator, wrestle with those heavy gales and the treacherous ice
near the Antarctic Circle, chasing the cetacean past unsurveyed coasts,
and entering harbours barely safe from wind and ice, surely as much is
asked of a ship as ever a man could have the heart.
If we select an average post-war type we may take a whale-catcher of
105 ft. long, 20 ft. beam and 12 ft. depth, fitted with three-cylinder
engines, having a boiler pressure of 200 lb. to the square inch. The
average speed is up to 15 knots: but inasmuch as this is inferior to
the speed at which a whale can travel, the cetacean is hunted only when
feeding. To give greater engine power than this would be too costly in
regard to that very expensive item of coal in South Georgia; and would
mean a bigger ship. Neither is desirable. The engines are placed aft,
where the ship draws 12 ft., the draught forward being about 9 ft. And
in order to make her more handy still, each vessel is fitted with a
centre rudder. Abaft the foremast is a powerful winch, which is most
essential in these craft. It may be mentioned here that the whale being
moderately sensitive to sound, motor-boats are useless for this work.
They were tried, but made too much noise.
The catcher has a fine, healthy sheer forward, with a nice flare. The
rounded forefoot is rather that of a sailing yacht than a steamship,
but everything about her suggests strength and wholesomeness. At the
same time these are really pretty eye-pleasing craft. Mounted right
forward is the muzzle-loading harpoon-gun, on a swivel; and so nicely
balanced that when loaded with charge and harpoon it can be raised
and trained readily. The bore is 3 in., the gun being 45 in. long. On
the extreme end of the foredeck, below the gun, is a pair of stout
rollers over which the harpoon lines are run. The harpoon itself is
of the finest tempered Swedish steel, 6 ft. in length and of over a
hundredweight. This harpoon, unlike the old-fashioned type, has four
prongs, which spring out to an angle of forty-five degrees when the
line tightens after the harpoon has struck inside the whale’s body.
Now at the point of the modern harpoon is a conical bomb over a foot
long and filled with gunpowder. A time fuse fires this bomb three
seconds after the harpoon has left the muzzle of the gun. Attached to
the harpoon come sixty fathoms of the finest Italian hemp, which every
seafarer admires for its handiness and disinclination to kink even
with the wet. This foregoer is of about 4-in. stuff, and lies ready
coiled on a platform close to the gun. When the gunner gets his chance
one shot should finish the whale, but it may happen that two or three
harpoons are necessary. This foregoer--or “foreganger” as the old term
used to be--is secured to the harpoon’s shank by means of a ring,
whilst the other end of the rope is spliced to a 5-in. whale line of
120 fathoms; but of course this may be lengthened by bending on other
lines.
At the top of the foremast is the crow’s-nest, which is entered by
climbing the rigging; this steel mast being of a more substantial
kind than is customary in tugs and trawlers. The look-out man having
indicated the whale, or a school of whales, everything on the part
of the steersman and engine department is done so that speed and
manœuvring will enable the gunner to hit the whale just as the latter
is rising after his submersion. On the other hand, the whale may not
oblige by emerging just ahead: he may be on the ship’s beam, or even
astern. It is for this reason that the extreme handiness was given to
the ship’s design, so that she can swing round quickly and find her
target in the position required. The usual range is only 25 yds., and
the gun’s charge is about 14 oz. of powder.
If the whale has been rightly struck in a vulnerable part, he should
die immediately, and will begin to sink. That powerful steam winch,
placed between bridge and foremast, now comes into use. So soon as the
sinking whale has caused the line to hang straight down it is passed
to the snatch-blocks which are above the shrouds of the foremast,
and so the line comes to the winch. As the winch revolves, the ship
and whale are mutually drawn, but there is now a risk that with the
rolling of heavy whale and heavy steel ship in the Antarctic swell
the line may suddenly part. In order to prevent such an occurrence,
there is a special arrangement of powerful volute springs (called an
“accumulator”) which is fitted in the bottom of the ship along the
keelson from the collision bulkhead forward right away to the stokehold
aft.
These steel springs are in double rows and connected by flexible wire
ropes to those two snatch-blocks, one of which is on either side of
the mast. Thus, now that the securing tackle has been led to the
accumulator by way of those masthead blocks, any sudden jerk on the
rope is borne by the spiral springs. In other words, the rise and
fall are compensated for. But there are occasions when the whale has
not been shot dead, and then enters the skill of the gunner, who has
to display the ability of the angler. The steam winch has to be moved
very carefully, as an angler winds in his reel; and the engine-room
staff below must see that the propeller goes ahead or astern in quick
obedience to the telegraph: for this is the most critical time of the
proceedings.
The whale being now dead, and the winch having hauled him to the
surface of the sea, a chain is passed round the cetacean’s tail and
made fast to the towing bits, the foregoer is taken from the harpoon,
and the whale is ready to be towed alongside the ship tail foremost.
But, in order to prevent the carcase from sinking, a hole is pierced
in it and a hollow harpoon or tube is inserted. Through this tube
the whale is pumped full of air, this air pipe leading down to a
steam-driven compressor in the engine-room. It is rather like inflating
an enormous Rugby football. Afterwards the air tube is withdrawn and
the harpoon shanks unscrewed, the heads being recovered later on.
The whaler may now return to her base, perhaps with several whales
towing alongside: sometimes with as many as ten. These craft have a
very strenuous life during that short season and rest only on Sundays.
Having coaled and provisioned, they spend the remainder of the time at
work, the crew being in watches as in any other ship: but the moment
a whale is sighted every deck hand rushes up, so that in practice the
hands can rarely obtain four consecutive hours of sleep, and more
frequently they never take their clothes off for twenty-four whole
hours. The first real rest for captain and crew comes only after
several whales are being towed back and it is impossible to go after
any more for the present. Then, and not till then, is it possible
for human nature to catch up with delayed sleep. On the other hand,
what with their monthly wage and big bonus, and being away from Norway
only from September to June, the men stick it out as something quite
worth while. Whale-meat is eaten by the men with relish, and has been
compared with the best veal; but it does not keep and must be cut from
the cetacean as soon as he is killed.
These little whale-catchers are kept beautifully clean and comfortably
fitted up; and I wonder sometimes that those who care to do their
yachting with steam power do not build one of this type instead of
some rather useless vessels that one sees round the coast. For these
catchers are both good-looking and able to go anywhere in any weather;
but you cannot say all this of most steam yachts. A heavy sea is
preferred by the catcher whilst hunting, for the whale’s body shows
itself more conspicuously and thus affords a better target. But up and
down the lonely coast of South Georgia and islands of that cold sea,
skirting the rocks and keeping a smart eye lifting all the time for the
spouting vapour which will indicate the distant whale, hour after hour,
watch after watch may pass before any luck comes along. For the animal
has the sense to be wary, after the loss of so many relatives. Close
on ten thousand whales captured yearly in the waters of the Falklands
Dependencies cannot be ignored if we think of the future, although
it has not yet been proved that whaling in these waters will become
exhausted as has been the case in other parts of the globe.
Again and again the whale escapes before the gunner can get a fair
opportunity, but at last the animal may be sighted sailing along
unsuspectingly. It is then for the catcher to be manœuvred cautiously
and adroitly so as to work into the required position. And now goes
the harpoon-gun! The blue whale has been hit, the foam is being cast
up all around him, and he disappears with remarkable suddenness, but
a prisoner all the same. Out goes the line more quickly than rushing
thought, the windlass is about to haul it in again, but suddenly the
tension ends: the harpoon has broken off, and the whale has been
lost--dead, but sinking to the bottom until three days shall have
passed. These animals love to haunt the vicinity of ice-masses:
and in a season when the bergs are few, the hunting may be poor. A
whale’s period of gestation is about a year, and the persistence with
which these southern whales are now being hunted gives no time for
the stock to be increased. And it has been found that, having become
knowledgeable, they now alter their former cruising areas and take
different routes through other straits and round other islands.
In spite of the cold and hard gales, the climate in the seas of
the Falklands Dependencies is very healthy, but the lack of fresh
provisions is regrettable. At South Georgia, where there are shore
factories for dealing with the whales, there is a population of 1,337
human beings, of whom all are males, except for three: and at least
1,000 of the community are natives of Norway and Sweden. Here, too,
are the workshops and stores, special transport ships bringing to the
island provisions, stores and coal, and taking back the oil which has
been extracted from the whales that the fleet of catchers bring. For
these modern hunters are not fitted with reducing plant and merely tow
the carcases to be handed over either to the floating factory or to the
shore station. At South Georgia, for example, the reducing is carried
on chiefly at shore stations: but at the South Shetlands there is only
one site in Deception Harbour, so floating factories become essential.
The floating factories consist of the hulls of old steamers and
sailing-ships; or, more recently, they are converted steamships fitted
up with all the latest plant. These vessels are moored in convenient,
sheltered harbours, the carcases being brought alongside. There is on
board extensive deck machinery, with great derricks capable of lifting
50-ton weights. Forward is the blubber factory, with the flensing deck
erected above the main deck. In these up-to-date floating factories
elevators, driven by independent steam-engines, are employed for
feeding the blubber to the blubber vats, the latter being placed on
each side of the ship. In the holds are the oil-tanks, fitted up in
much the same way as in an oil-carrying ship, but before the whale oil
finally gets down there it has to pass through clearing, skimming and
refuse tanks.
At the after end of the ship is the flesh and bone factory. Here an
additional wooden deck has been built up, the whale flesh passing
direct into the boilers through openings on deck. The whale being
brought alongside this floating factory, it is secured at the fore end
of the latter, and the flensers then proceed to strip off the blubber,
which is lifted on board by the derricks to the flensing deck in strips
about 50 ft. in length, 4 ft. wide, and over 1 ft. in thickness. After
the blubber has been stripped from one side, the carcase is turned over
by special winches, so that the other side can be dealt with.
The blubber is on this flensing deck cut into short lengths and passed
down the shoots, where it is sliced by revolving hack knives; and
thence it is taken up by the elevators and dropped into other shoots,
and so into the blubber vats, into which steam is turned for several
hours whilst the oil is being extracted. Steam is then shut off,
and for about half an hour the whole mass is stirred. More steaming
follows, and then the contents are allowed to settle, the water is
drawn off from the bottom, the oil is strained and tapped, and finally
reaches the cargo tanks below.
When the blubber has been stripped off the whale, the carcase is
removed to the after part of the ship, where the head and tail are cut
off, as well as the sides, backbone and other portions likely to yield
oil. Steam-driven saws cut the pieces into convenient size and the oil
is extracted in the boilers by steam. These floating factories, of
course, vary in size, but an average one can deal with as many as nine
blue whales a day of the big kind, or sixteen of the smaller types. All
this shows how systematized the operation has now become in comparison
with the flensing carried on during those days when the sailing whaler
was self-contained and independent of a base. There can be no sort of
doubt that the modern method is far more efficient on the principle of
subdivision of labour. The catchers are free to confine their attention
to hunting and killing: the factories are ready to do the rest when
once the whale has been towed alongside. Thus, in a season, one of
these factory ships may deal with as many as six hundred whales.
Bluntly stated, it would seem as if by this wholesale process of
meticulous organization and ingenious machinery the entire operation
was impossible of romance. And yet I can see that this is not so. We
can leave out that long voyage to the Antarctic and back where these
factory steamships lie cut off from the rest of the world for months.
But is there not something more than interesting in the arrangements
which make such a vessel independent for a long while? She is not
merely a factory, but a depot ship to the catchers, and able to meet
any contingency, repair their hulls, engines and auxiliaries, in
addition to being able to do the same for her own mass of machinery.
She carries a complete engineering shop with lathes and drilling
machines, a blacksmith’s shop with its forges, and a carpenter’s shop
also.
A hundred and fifty men have to be accommodated, and fed for eight
months straight on end. This vessel has to pass through the tropics
to a region of great cold: so there are problems of ventilation and
heating: nor are these the only ones. Coal and water? Well, the
bunkers, tanks, ’tween decks, and indeed every available space must be
filled up with fuel on setting forth, for this coal has to cover the
following items: the factory ship’s long voyage out, the running of
the numerous auxiliaries for several months as if she were some works
ashore, the supplying of bunker fuel to the whale-catchers, which each
consume six tons a day, and on the top of all this there must be enough
coal left for the factory steamer herself to get back home.
As to the matter of water, this is a real difficulty; for a floating
factory consumes about eighty tons a day. On the other hand her
distillers and evaporators produce, if needs be, a hundred tons of
water daily. But this, again, means the expenditure of much valuable
coal. For this purpose the ship carries a number of specially
constructed boats suitable for conveying water. These boats are towed
by motor-boat to the shore, the water is collected from the melting
snow and ice, taken back to the ship and transferred by pumps to the
vessel’s fresh-water tanks. This sounds delightfully simple and easy:
but those whose job it is to go water-searching on an icebound island
amidst glaciers and frozen hummocks will tell you that it is both
arduous and even exciting. It is therefore perhaps more accurate to
say that modern whaling methods have a romance of their own, different
in kind from that of the old three-masted ships and barques with
their own crew who did the flensing; yet, when we come down to plain
thinking, is it not the case that distance of time is the real cause of
any activity seeming romantic? We speak to-day almost with reverence
of life in the old East Indiamen, and even in the clipper ships. It
is only because they have gone that we so regard them. Contemporary
seamen thought otherwise. And in another hundred years it may be that
some people will read into Antarctic steam whalers a great deal of
attraction that those of our own time cannot perceive. Well, why not?
Can you admire the outside of a beautiful Gothic cathedral if you stand
with your nose close alongside a flying buttress?
CHAPTER XXI
THE PRESENT WHALING INDUSTRY
The average annual number of whales caught in the Dependencies in the
years immediately preceding the Great War was 8,314: but this has now
risen to 9,915. Many things, such as the varying directions of currents
carrying the whales’ food elsewhere, are responsible for changing the
localities of the cetacean; and therefore it is no fair assumption to
argue in a bad season that at last the whale is being exterminated
owing to excessive fishing. But where 304,002 barrels of oil were got
from the former before the war, 611,372 barrels are now being obtained
from the annual catch. In other words, each whale now yields over 61
barrels instead of less than 37 barrels: and the value has gone up to
considerably more than three times what it used to be.
Well, for this we have largely to thank the Government restrictions,
which not only limit the number of licences, but ever since the year
1921 have compelled the economical utilization of the carcase. The
former practice was simply to remove the most valuable portions of
the whale, leaving the carcase to rot on the beach. All this has
been altered so that waste does not exist. The improved factory
methods, mentioned in the last chapter, have further facilitated this
innovation. In the olden days ships that used Greenland waters and the
Davis Straits used to make more money from the bone than from the oil.
For instance, in the year 1860 there were captured by British vessels
eight whales off Greenland and seventy-six up the Davis Straits. Total
eighty-four whales, whose produce fetched only £70,828, whale oil being
then £1 12s. 6d. per cwt., but the bone realizing £20 10s. 0d. per cwt.
To-day there is very little demand for whalebone, since many cheap
and serviceable substitutes have been invented. The whale is hunted
principally for its oil, and then only in a by-product sense for the
fertilizing guano and meal made out of the meat and bones after the oil
has been extracted.
If we take a fairly representative span of years such as from 1860 to
1888, that is to say, when steam was beginning to come in as auxiliary
to the sailing whalers, we are in a fair position to compare the
results with present-day whaling. And the figures show at once (even
after allowing for the changed value of money) that the discovery of
the Antarctic grounds has made those Victorian times seem ridiculous.
Between those two first-mentioned dates of the nineteenth century
there were several years when the Greenland region yielded not one
single whale, and the highest figure for any season during that period
was only thirty-five. During those same twenty-eight years the Davis
Straits never afforded less than ten whales a season but never more
than 208. The most remunerative year was 1861, when a total revenue of
£112,305 was obtained. From the year 1875, with certain fluctuations,
that whole northern fishing decreased both in whale numbers and in
actual value, so that, when we come to the year 1886, from the two
areas combined only thirty-four whales were taken, and only £34,652
obtained: but this notwithstanding that the price of whalebone had
risen from £18 (in the year 1861) to £82 10s. 0d. per cwt. in 1886.
In the last-mentioned year, when whale oil was fetching only a guinea
per cwt., it hardly paid the cost of getting it, and it was only the
whalebone which made it worth while to undertake these northern voyages.
We can therefore scarcely wonder that the industry gradually faded
away. But if some of those astute old whaling skippers and hardened
harpooners could come back to-day and learn that a fleet of fifty-five
steam catchers had killed in one Antarctic season 9,915 whales and made
£3,056,860 for their owners we should find some interesting comments.
I hate to bore the reader with statistics, but this is the only way of
proving the tremendous change of prosperity which has come about so
recently and so quickly. Since the year 1853 British vessels ceased
to hunt the sperm whale: in other words, confined themselves to the
search for whalebone. And then flexible steel for umbrellas and women’s
corsets was introduced, so that there was but little demand for the
whalebone after the ’eighties.
But in the year 1880 that experienced whaler Captain D. Gray in the
_Eclipse_ of Peterhead began hunting that toothed whale species known
as the bottlenose. And, what was more, he killed thirty-two of this
cetacean in those seas between Labrador and Nova Zembla which had been
fished for centuries. Addressing himself to this particular kind, he
found that the bluenose existed in large numbers; and in 1882 Scotch
whalers killed 463, of which Gray alone killed 203. The year following
the British and the Norwegian whaling ships chased the bluenose with
such success that the market became glutted. But the incident is worth
noting as showing that there were still just as good whales in the sea
as ever came out.
That year 1882 was certainly memorable in the annals of our subject,
and the _Eclipse_ had a short but highly prosperous season: for she
caught her first whale as early as April 27th, but by June 29th she
had done so well that every available space in the ship was full of
blubber. She had even to throw into the sea all her coal--except just
so much as would get her home--in order to find room for her cargo.
The result was that she was back in Peterhead by July 5th, with a full
ship: that is to say, with 230 tons of oil valued at £60 a ton, or
£13,800 for a voyage of only a few weeks. It is perfectly true that
for a long time whalers had occasionally taken a bottlenose, and the
_Chieftain_ of Kirkcaldy had killed twenty-eight off the Frobisher
Strait; but it was not until the year 1877 that the _Jan Mayen_ of
Peterhead, having missed getting seals, captured ten bottlenose whales.
After that date the smaller whaling ships began hunting them every
season, and the larger ones commenced hunting the bottlenose between
seasons: that is, after the end of the seal fishery and before the
start of the whaling proper, coming down to the north-east Scottish
coast for that purpose.
The relation between the seal and whale fisheries in the north is
interesting. Ever since the last quarter of the eighteenth century
sealing had been going on off Newfoundland, but it was not till the
year 1876 that whalers from Dundee began to engage in this occupation,
off there. The right whale had been for such a long time regarded as
the only produce worth hunting that attention at first was not paid
to anything else in the northern waters. Neither seals nor the white
whales were considered worthy of attention. But those British whalers
which went up to the Arctic from about 1882 found the whales were
getting so scarce that they were only too pleased to fill up with seals
as well, if the chance presented itself.
The following brief résumé will show just how the northern, as
distinct from the South Seas whaling, fared from the year 1814, and we
can see at once how extreme was the change from good fortune to bad in
a very few years. Thus the number of whales killed in the waters of
Greenland and the Davis Straits by British ships during the years 1814
to 1823 was 12,907: from 1824 to 1833 it dropped to 9,532, and in 1834
to 1843 it fell remarkably to 1,221. There follows now a serious slump:
for whereas in 1857 Peterhead still sent out thirty-four whalers, she
possessed not one in the year 1893, the pride of place having passed
entirely to Dundee. In the year 1882 there went to the Davis Straits
for whales nine Dundee ships, which came back with seventy-eight
whales, whose oil and bones yielded a sum of £58,876, oil being at that
time £33 a ton, but the value of the whalebone was as much as £1,150
a ton, so rare had it become. The position by 1883 was this: both the
Greenland whaling and the Greenland sealing were getting worse and
worse, though off Newfoundland it was good. It was bad also in the
Davis Straits, and only six vessels went there from Dundee, whilst
one from Peterhead got up to the Cumberland Gulf. One of these seven
vessels was the whaler _Thetis_, and she came home with the loss of
both her carpenter and bo’sun; for whilst they were fast to a whale the
boat was carried under by the fouling of the line. In this same year
only seven vessels went to Greenland waters and they came back with
only nineteen right whales. But whalebone was scarcer than even in the
year previous, and had now gone up to £2,000 a ton. And it was just
this rise which encouraged the ships and made it worth their while to
keep on trying for a time, especially as already the bottlenose, which
had been overfished, was beginning to get wary and scarce.
Two new Peterhead whalers were actually added to the fleet in 1883,
and in the following year several steamers were added to the fleet
of Dundee, so that by 1885 the latter had the largest collection of
sixteen whaling ships, but there was a big fleet working out of Norway
chasing the bottlenose whales. However, the down-grade was still
continuing, and if we take the period of 1893 to 1902 British ships
caught only 172 whales off Greenland and in the Davis Straits. In the
year 1903 Dundee’s fleet had diminished to five whalers, of which one
got wrecked. Thus it was that Arctic whaling had now come down to four
vessels and they were only partially successful, and in 1905, although
there were six whalers at work up the Davis Straits, which were now
the only possible resort, yet this season was so notorious that only a
couple of medium-sized whales and one small one were killed up there.
The _Eclipse_, one of the most lucky of whalers, came home “clean”;
that historic _Diana_, which had once been to the Antarctic, came home
“clean”; the _Windward_, another famous ship, came home “clean”; the
_Balæna_, which had also once been to the Antarctic, came home now
from the Arctic with one whale; and the _Morning_ arrived with one
whale. In each of these cases only fifteen cwt. of bone were obtained,
and the _Active_, that other ship which had once been in that Dundee
Antarctic whaling squadron, now came home from the north with one
small whale that yielded but three cwt. of bone. The _Morning_, by
the way, was another historic vessel. Up till the year 1902 she was a
Norwegian whaler and known as the _Morgen_, but she was purchased by
the Royal Geographical Society and sent out to the Antarctic, where she
discovered a new island, reached Scott’s ship _Discovery_ and came home
in the year 1904, and went back to her career as a whaler.
But this disastrous Arctic season of only three whales had been
aggravated by the long prevalence of easterly winds, which had made
the ice so dense that for the first time since 1878 the whalers were
unable to get through into Melville Bay, and thus could not reach
their favourite grounds near Lancaster Sound. The season of 1906 was
unusual in that for the first time since 1899 whales were killed in
East Greenland waters, that great expert, Captain Robertson (who had
brought the _Scotia_ back from the Antarctic to the Clyde in the summer
of 1904), having captured four small ones which yielded forty cwt. of
bone. But altogether in 1906 seven whalers had been up to the Arctic,
of which three came home “clean,” and the total catch of the other four
from East Greenland, the Davis Straits, and Hudson Straits consisted
solely of eight white whales besides a number of seals, walruses, bears
and foxes. But oil was now £23 a tun, and whalebone had soared up to
£2,500 a ton.
However, at this point Arctic whaling practically fades out of history
and the scene of activity shifts to South Georgia and other islands in
the Antarctic approaches. Nothing is more significant of the manner
in which the Arctic has been fished out than the difference between
capturing over a thousand right whales annually at the beginning of
the nineteenth century and obtaining only eight white whales in 1906,
although in the latter case steam had come in to aid the ships. Since
that time the best use to which these stout vessels have been put has
been either as exploration craft for Antarctic expeditions or for
service with the Hudson Bay Company. It is sad to think that this fine
type of wooden ship with her auxiliary steam power must be relegated to
the golden age of sailing ships, but now that the steam whale-catcher
and the explosive harpoon have so completely altered the industry
it is no use wasting time in vain regrets: we have to face the new
conditions and make the best of them.
When Svend Foyn commenced the fin-whale industry with his explosive
harpoon and shore factories in the ’sixties, he operated off the coast
of Finmarken, that most northerly and most poorly populated part of
Norway. Only the coast became permanently inhabited, the settlers
having been attracted by the fisheries. The fin whale was practically
the only kind of whale found in those parts and Varanger Fjord was
the first station to be the scene of the new methods which Foyn
inaugurated in 1865. But gradually these steamships began to exhaust
the whale supply, and the work moved westward. But in that same year
1886 just mentioned the peak of his success was reached; one station
after another had closed down, the numbers of blue whale, fin whale,
sei whale and humpback (all of them rorquals) became fewer and fewer
so that at last the entire whaling fleet, which by 1886 numbered
thirty-four ships, was obtaining from the whole Finmark Sea only half
the number of whales which in the ’sixties Svend Foyn had been getting
from Varanger Fjord alone.
As to the sperm whale, which at one time was so much hunted by American
and British ships, this species is still found in considerable numbers
and in various localities: but it is indisputable that the sperm is far
less abundant than formerly. The southern right whale has become not
exterminated, but much scarcer than he was formerly in the South Seas.
The Greenland whale was numerous at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, but a hundred years later Davis Straits, as we have seen,
became his home, and now he has practically ceased to be hunted there.
So, too, we have seen the American whalers chase him through the
Bering Straits into the Arctic, but the industry in this part has now
practically ended. The Japanese hunt the Pacific grey whale off the
south-east of Korea, but the rorqual fishery off Newfoundland which
began in 1897 has gradually got worse and worse, and yet at one time
it used to capture an average of 400 whales a year. It is interesting
to note that off the south-west coast of Africa all the whales caught
were thought to be really those making a passage from the southern
ice-barrier towards the waters of the French Congo. But now it is found
that fifty per cent. consist of blue whales, and only ten per cent. of
humpbacks.
The blue whale is the largest animal in the world, and may measure
anything up to a hundred feet in length. He was generally supposed to
remain in cold waters, and like the fin whale is hunted in preference
to the humpback; because whereas the humpback will yield only twenty
to sixty barrels of oil, the fin whale will produce a hundred barrels,
but the blue whale is good for 250. Our knowledge of whaling habits is,
however, still anything but complete, because in the past our ancestors
were too reckless in killing the whale that brought them fortune to
study its mode of life. But thanks to modern study and those factories,
it is possible now to form deductions which were not practicable in
the days of the hand harpoon. For when the whale is hauled ashore,
instead of being brought alongside the floating factory, he is pulled
up the slip to the flensing platform and can be examined like the human
body on the operating table. On the shore are the open boilers for
extracting the oil from the blubber. The pressure boilers deal with the
carcase after it has been flensed, and after the oil has been run off
the dried residue is put into bags as a most wholesome and nutritious
meal for cattle-feeding. At the land station in South Georgia of one
company where the manager earns about £2,000 or £3,000 a year, he has
under him a whole army of foremen, mechanics, blacksmiths, stewards,
cooks, storekeepers, cookers for the open boilers, cookers for the
pressure boilers, workmen, flensers, carcase dividers, meat and blubber
cutters--all additional to the crews.
But in a floating factory the staff consists of three mates, boatswain,
steward, cooks, seamen, firemen, cookers, flensers, carcase dividers
and engineers. The personnel of a whale-catcher consists of gunner,
mate, steward, four seamen, two engineers and a couple of firemen. All
that can be done both ashore and afloat in regard to organization is
there. Rather it is in respect of further detailed knowledge concerning
the whale himself that the industry stands most in need. But the waters
of the globe cover many thousands of miles: so it will take time before
complete information arrives. And whilst we know, for example, that
the humpback and fin whales are generally met with in schools, whereas
the blue whale cruises alone; that the humpback usually goes north
about May, returning to South Georgia about October; and that the
South Shetlands fin whale moves in February with the current from the
south-west to the north-east: yet there is much else besides this that
we wish to know, and can obtain only by much observation and long study.
Thus we desire to settle definitely the question whether the southern
whale does go to the extreme north from the extreme south. There is a
strong probability that he does, for similar barnacles and parasites
have been found on northern and southern whales. Certainly the humpback
whale has been observed to pass the Equator from south to north, and
from the whalebone there seems to be no difference between the fin
whales of the north and south. On the other hand, nothing is less
satisfactory than to draw conclusions from an incomplete set of
premises. At present there is no sure knowledge of fin whales or blue
whales migrating from south to north or north to south. In order to
obtain reliable information on this subject metal cylinders have in
recent years been fired into the whales from rifles with a view to
marking the animals: yet so far none of them has been recovered. But
of the fact that whales do migrate we have definite, though limited,
information from the harpoons discovered in certain whales. Off the
east coast of Africa a whale has been found, still with the harpoon in
him, several hundred miles away from the position where he was first
attacked.
Ross’s erroneous statement as to the right whale being seen in the
south has been responsible for the failure of those expeditions of
Enderby’s Aucklands scheme, of the Dundee whalers, and also of Bull’s
adventure with Kristensen; for Racovitza, the great zoologist, and
other experts believe that what Ross saw were fin whales. Furthermore,
the expeditions of Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen have confirmed the
fact that the Ross Sea and the pack-ice outside its mouth are visited
by many species of rorquals, such as are to-day captured between South
Georgia and Graham Land. Whilst there is still a certain amount of
whaling being carried on off Alaska, Africa, Brazil and Japan, yet
fuller knowledge of the distribution and migration of the whale, the
collection of statistics and so on, would conceivably open up new
grounds.
With the exception of the humpback, the whales in the Dependencies
are just as numerous as ever, though varying with the amount of ice
each season. And when we consider the vast size of the Antarctic and
sub-Antarctic Seas it would seem hardly likely that the whale will be
exterminated there for a considerable period. South Georgia and the
South Shetlands are but tiny dots in a sea far bigger than that old
area between Greenland and Spitzbergen. The whale can go on breeding
and multiplying over such extensive grounds that Captain Larsen, for
one, believes there is no need for anxiety in regard to the future.
And he is a supporter from actual observation of the belief that
the humpback and the bottlenose do cross the Equator. But there are
hundreds of thousands of whales whose habitation is along the edge
of the Antarctic ice and land. In the Ross Sea, as all explorers for
nearly the last hundred years have testified, whales exist not in
dozens but in immense quantities. Two quotations will be sufficient
to substantiate this. The first is a statement by the biologist in
Shackleton’s volume _The Heart of the Antarctic_: the second is
contained in Amundsen’s book, already noted.
“This bay, which we afterwards referred to by the appropriate name of
the Bay of Whales, was teeming with all the familiar kinds of Antarctic
life. Hundreds of whales--killers, finners, and humpbacks--were rising
and blowing all round.”
“The name ‘Bay of Whales’ was given by Shackleton, and is well chosen.
From the time when the sea ice breaks up, this big gap in the Barrier
is a favourite haunt of whales, which were very often seen playing
about for hours at a time in flocks of some fifty strong.”
So it would seem that about this southern whaling there is something
likely to be more permanent than has been the case in the north.
Everything, therefore, that can be learned through scientific inquiry
as to currents and so on will help commerce: yet whether they will
eventually induce the British sailor to forsake his North Sea fishing
for the Antarctic is quite another matter. But if there are whales
to be got, we must leave them to the Norwegians so long as supply
and demand exist, and yet somehow I cannot conceive that British
Dependencies will be neglected by our own countrymen for ever.
It should be mentioned that at the end of the season those factory
steamers, having finished flensing, and having filled up their tanks
with the whale oil, steam back to Europe. The “catchers,” however,
return no further north than Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, where they
pass the winter, refit and eventually start out again to go south
for the following season; the factory steamers, of course, returning
with fresh coal and supplies from Europe. During the Great War half a
dozen of the latter were torpedoed and one mined; for some of these
vessels were employed to carry oil fuel to France and Britain from the
United States. In return for this assistance, the British Government
has not forgotten to deal favourably with the Norwegian whalers in the
Dependencies.
Every one of those whale-catchers is really a pioneer: for these
handy little steam craft poke their bows, during the course of their
hunting, into all sorts of strange bays and bights and corners,
totally unsurveyed, where the factory ships could not venture. Without
instruments, but feeling their way in with the lead, these Norse seamen
are really repeating history: it is the old Viking idea expressed in
action at the other end of the world. No one to-day has such coastal
knowledge of these our Falkland Dependencies. Commerce and science
being interdependent, a complete hydrographical survey of these parts
must soon come: but that which is most pressing is the knowledge of
real harbours and sheltered anchorages where the catchers can anchor
and the factories can be carried on as they normally are, from 6 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Off the islands of the South Sandwich group blue, bottlenose,
humpback, fin and even sperm-whales have been sighted by Captain
Larsen; but this group has not been surveyed since the year 1819, and
it is obviously desirable in such a tempestuous locality that at least
one reliable harbour should be known where ships may rely on finding
safety. But South Georgia, South Orkneys, South Shetlands and Graham
Land all need to be laid out adequately on the chart with proper
sailing directions. Dr. Bruce has suggested the use of aircraft in the
summer for settling the existence of islands hinted at by previous
explorers but never yet established. When the surveys have been done,
it will be possible for the whale-catchers to extend their operations
into the waters around the Sandwich group. But until then, how can you
expect that vessels in that perpetual weather of hard winds and fog
will risk themselves?
Sealing voyages to South Georgia during the eighteenth century,
and British whaling trips thither from 1819, were no mere isolated
instances: rather they foreshadow what is possible down south. For in
the two seasons of 1820-1 and 1821-2, the fur-seal industry was such
that ninety-one vessels came to these islands. But after that date
the seals had been so wantonly slaughtered that they were practically
extinct. Would it not be possible some day to resuscitate the fur-seal
fishery? Perhaps the time will come when by a combination of protective
laws in regard to the seals, and commercial enterprise in regard to the
ships and men, this old industry may be revived like the whaling.
When Captain Cook came to South Georgia and rediscovered it in 1775
he approached it from the north-west. For first of all he sighted an
island of ice, but at noon was not sure whether it were ice or land,
but anyway it bore east by south, distant thirty-nine miles. But
eventually he saw that it was land, but “in a manner wholly covered
with snow. We were confirmed by finding soundings at 175 fathoms,
and a muddy bottom.” He first came in view of Wallis Island, which
lies just off the north-west corner, and “as we advanced to the north
we perceived another isle lying” between that other island and the
mainland. This is marked on the present-day charts as Bird Island,
Cook having noticed so many of these creatures occupying it. The two
headlands Cape North and Cape Buller were both named by him and appear
still in the modern charts.
But Cook’s description of the interior of South Georgia is hardly
encouraging. “The inner parts of the country were savage and horrible,”
he wrote. “The only vegetation we met with was a coarse, strong-bladed
grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant like moss, which
sprang from the rocks. Seals were numerous, and several flocks of large
penguins were seen. The oceanic birds were albatrosses, common gulls,
terns, shags, divers, etc. The land birds were a few small larks. No
quadruped was seen.” He mentioned that the island “seems to abound with
bays and harbours, the N.E. coast especially, but the vast quantity of
ice must render them inaccessible for the greater part of the year, or
at least it must be dangerous lying in them, on account of the breaking
up of the ice cliffs.” Weddell, who reached South Georgia nearly fifty
years later, was getting rather nervous as to his crew being stricken
with scurvy, and hoped that the island would yield some green-stuff.
There was precious little, but it was better than nothing for men who
had been without fresh vegetables for so long. “Our crews,” he wrote,
“here fed plenteously on greens which, although bitter, are very
salutary, being an excellent anti-scorbutic. With regard to meat we
were supplied with young albatrosses, that is to say, about a year
old: the flesh of these is sweet, but not sufficiently firm to be
compared with that of the domestic fowl” ... “almost the only natural
production of the soil is a strong-bladed grass, the length of which is
in general about two feet. It grows in tufts, on mounds three or four
feet from the ground.”
Thus Weddell in 1823 confirmed what Cook saw in 1775, but neither could
have foreseen what a gold-mine those watery regions were to become in
the twentieth century nor how busy many of those north-east bays were
to show themselves with steam craft and smoke and oil. Cook named that
bold bight, which is just below where to-day the Southern Whaling and
Sealing Company have their station, Possession Bay, and took possession
of the entire group of islands on behalf of Britain.
Apart from the violent weather, one of the worst drawbacks of the
Falklands and its Dependencies is that ancient enemy of all seafarers,
the fog. On October 26, 1921, there left Sandefjord the 8,000-ton
factory ship _Guvernoren_, bound out for the Dependencies for the
season in the usual manner. Originally she had been a Bibby liner, but
had been converted for her special work. At Monte Video she picked up
three whale-catchers which she was to escort south. But about eleven
o’clock one pitch-dark night, when about twenty miles short of Port
Stanley, the _Guvernoren_ had the bad luck to run ashore in a thick
fog. There were ninety-six men aboard her, and they naturally became
a little anxious as to their predicament, but the ship’s boats were
lowered and every man succeeded in getting away from her and put aboard
the catchers. And then to those somewhat nerve-tried, jumpy men there
came quite a dramatic happening. Some of the crew were rowing back
for others which remained to be fetched off the big steamer, but on
the return trip there suddenly came out of that fog a terrifying sound
as of a man crying out for help. So the boats turned this way and
that, trying in the thick atmosphere to find some desperate shipmate
struggling in the water. It was both startling and saddening, for it
was going to be no easy task if he were to be located in that fog.
However, sorrow soon turned to amusement, for the cries were not of men
but of seals: so all was well.
The whale-catchers were able to get fairly near to the wreck, but
there was a very high sea running, and it was a lucky achievement to
have saved everyone. Throughout the night these catchers stood by,
and next morning, after the _Guvernoren_ had settled down on to the
rocks, some of the men went back and pluckily climbed on board to salve
some of their clothes. The catchers then made for Port Stanley--that
port always to be famous for its connection with the Battle of the
Falklands--whence a crowd of shipwrecked mariners embarked for
Liverpool in the _Orcoma_ liner.
Once a liner in the Pacific off Santa Maria was caught in a dense fog,
and since the coast was dangerous, the captain stopped his engine and
waited for the atmosphere to clear. But at six in the morning there
was a strange sound coming up from the sea and suddenly the ship
trembled. Everybody wondered what had happened, for the tremor was too
gentle for an earthquake, and it was accompanied by bumping, as if the
steamship was hitting soft ground. But the anxiety did not last long
in this case: for that noise was unquestionably a whale blowing, and
now there rose out of the sea a great cetacean a good 100 ft. long,
and came floating alongside just as if it were one of those capsized
sailing vessels one used to see after enemy submarines had been busy
in certain waters.
But aboard the liner the mammal caused a sensation, for he now dived,
and as he collided with the steel ship the tremors began again. Once
more he floated alongside, and then the barnacles and shellfish
which had been scraped off by contact with the steamer’s bilge keels
came rushing up to the surface. Evidently the whale was enjoying
himself, for now he proceeded to the other side of the ship, and began
scratching himself once more. The passengers pelted him with potatoes
and coal, but the great animal took no notice whatever until he
swallowed a piece of the latter, and then, sending up a drenching spout
of water, passed majestically on his way.
CHAPTER XXII
COLONIAL CONTROL
When Captain Cook described these islands as “a country doomed by
nature never once to feel the warmth of the sun’s rays, but to lie
buried in everlasting snow and ice,” and went on to suggest that this
“coast which, when discovered and explored, would have answered no end
whatever, or have been of the least value, either to navigation or to
geography or, indeed, to any other science,” he could scarcely have
foreseen that more than three millions sterling would in the twentieth
century annually be derived from this neighbourhood.
At South Georgia, with its mass of high snow-covered mountains, its
valleys of glaciers, but its coastal area in the summer free from
snow, there is a Resident Magistrate; but at the other Dependencies a
representative of the British Colonial Government accompanies one of
the expeditions. In the case of South Georgia the Resident Magistrate
is located at Grytviken Harbour, King Edward’s Cove, on the east side
of the island. In fact, all the whaling stations are on that side,
beginning from Allardyce Harbour at the north down to New Fortune
Bay about half-way down the coast, some thirty-five miles to the
south-east. The numerous bays and natural harbours lend themselves
there most conveniently to the use of the headquarters for the various
companies who have leased the sites.
The Government of the Falklands has allowed five shore stations at
South Georgia, each site of 500 acres being taken up for a period of
twenty-one years at a rent annually of £250; but there are also five
unoccupied sites on that east coast for which rent is still paid. The
leases include the right to use two whale-catchers without further
licence. With the South Shetlands fleet there go a Magistrate and a
whaling officer, leaving in November and coming back with it in April.
South Georgia is the only portion of these Dependencies which is
habitable all the year round, for the harbours elsewhere are ice-bound
for seven months out of the twelve; so the flensing and boiling down
are done in the floating factories, which can steam off before the ice
sets in. Besides South Georgia there are shore stations at Deception
Island and at the South Orkneys, the personnel for running them
arriving and returning with the whaling fleets.
Thus we have one of the most interesting nomadic communities in the
world and one intimately connected with the sea. It was decided in
1912 that the number of licences issued in any one year for the South
Shetlands with Graham Land should not exceed ten, and not more than
seven for either the South Orkneys or the South Sandwich Islands.
Since October 1914 no further licences or whaling leases other than
in South Georgia can be issued, but renewals of existing licences are
permissible. It is to the credit of the British Colonial Office that
all the revenue derived from these Dependencies is, as far as possible,
devoted to the further development of their resources. For the sake of
practical politics the South Sandwich Islands have not yet entered into
this consideration. But it is possible that when surveys have taken
place and a safe harbour assured, we may find matters going ahead, yet
owing to the poisonous fumes it is doubtful if there will ever be a
land station.
During the war there was an increased demand for oil, but all over the
world, except off South Georgia, the whale was being hunted far less.
It therefore became advisable to allow the temporary employment of a
greater number of catchers down here. Legislation wisely limits the
extent to which whaling may take place, and minimizes the amount of
waste. Under the former decision we have the restriction of the number
of licences, but there is no direct regulating of the number of whales
to be caught. One may mention in passing the financial side of these
Dependencies, which is not without interest. If we take the latest
figures--that is for the year 1923--we find that the Government revenue
derived from them in that period amounted to £160,221, the local
expenditure being only £7,436. But at the end of that year there was a
surplus of £315,795 assets over liabilities, of which £300,302 became
earmarked for the Research Fund. It is thus that the research vessel
_Discovery_ was able to set forth from Portsmouth in the summer of 1925
on these investigations about which so much is expected in the future.
Formerly the catch consisted chiefly of humpback whales, though
latterly it is the blue, and also the fin whale, which have
predominated. But a greater incentive has been offered towards
capturing the two last; for the bonus to the gunner, additional to his
monthly pay, works out in the following number of kroner:--for that
somewhat rare right whale, 200; for the less rare sperm whale, 100; for
the blue whale, 80; for the fin whale, 50; for the humpback, 30 kroner.
The reason for this becomes obvious when we state that a blue whale
usually yields from 70 to 80 barrels of oil, a right whale 60 to 70, a
sperm whale 60, a fin whale from 35 to 50, but a humpback from 25 to
35 only. We spoke some time back of New Island, one of the Falkland
group. Here in the year 1908 the British firm of Messrs. Salvesen & Co.
of Leith established a whaling factory which continued until 1916, when
it was dismantled and removed to South Georgia, which is now the only
one of the Dependencies where whaling can be carried on in both summer
and winter.
In the old sailing-ship days one of the customs was to attack a
whale calf, well knowing that the mother whale would not desert its
young; and thus the elder and more valuable whale would fall to the
hunter. This cruel and wasteful method is strictly forbidden in the
Dependencies. Neither a calf nor a female whale accompanied by a calf
may be killed. Apart from sentimental reasons this is sound policy
unless it be desired to endeavour to exterminate the species. And
as further illustrative of the broad, sensible lines of the whaling
legislation in these parts it is worth noting that the lessees are
required to keep an accurate record of meteorological observations and
to maintain a stock of coal and provisions which are to be supplied at
cost price to any ship requiring them. We know that both Shackleton and
Charcot availed themselves of this privilege.
In reckoning the amount of oil we count six barrels to the ton, and
it is worth while to consider now the relation which the whale to-day
bears to commerce. Before the war whale oil was used for burning, for
lubrication, for soap-making and currying leather. It then found itself
in great demand in the manufacture of glycerine for munition-making,
and also for the different fabrication of margarine. Sperm oil is
used for such delicate machinery as sewing-machines and watches. The
demand for whalebone is not what it once was, but in the thirteenth
century it was used among other purposes for the plumes on helmets.
From the meat and bones are obtained whale-meat meal, largely used in
feeding cattle; whale guano, which is rich in phosphates; and there is
produced from the bones alone what is called bone meal, also rich in
these phosphates. But the entire carcase may be turned into guano after
extracting the blubber for oil. Ambergris is used in order to make
perfumes more lasting.
During the war whale oil was so invaluable to the British Government
that one of the greatest authorities has remarked that without it
we should have been able to produce the required amount of neither
food nor munitions. It seems strange to think that a number of whales
cruising innocently in the neighbourhood of the Antarctic can have the
slightest effect on a war being fought many thousand miles away in
Europe: but it shows the interrelation of affairs and mutual dependence
in our modern civilization. Glycerine we all remember to have been
difficult to obtain during the latter stages of the war even by medical
men. Before hostilities it was just a by-product in the manufacture
of soap: but after the demand for explosives became so tremendous
soap-making became a by-product of the glycerine industry. The British
Government during the war made special arrangements with three English
firms for utilizing the whole of the whale oil imported.
Modern sub-Antarctic whaling is very different from the old Greenland
industry, quite apart from the change from sail to steam. It is
different, too, from that fine, romantic period when American whaling
ships under sail used to hunt the cetacean in every tropical sea of
the world. The latter vessels were of lighter build and greater speed
than those which had to be so strong and heavy in order to resist the
ice pressure. Those American ships were not intended for ice work, and
their working costs were not great. They could build cheaply along the
New England coast where there was plenty of timber near to the sea.
But about the year 1846 American whaling with its fleet of 735 ships
reached its high-water mark, and the ebb set in with such certainty
that from 1877-86 an average of only 159 such craft was annually
employed. So also by the year 1886 the best type of Norwegian whaler
was a vessel of only eighty tons and of thirty horse-power. Fitted with
the Svend Foyn harpoon-gun these comparatively cheap vessels had been
able to kill for their oil and bone most of a thousand blue whales,
humpbacks and other rorquals, and then tow them into the fjords of
Finmark.
But in the Antarctic the conditions are all so serious that no one
can embark on this undertaking except in a big way. Everything seems
multiplied by comparison with the circumstances of the nineteenth
century. Thus, before the whaler can reach his cruising ground a far
longer distance must be covered, with a greater cost in fuel. The
vessels need fewer hands, but they cost more to build and to run.
Moreover the value of the individual Antarctic whale is inferior to
the Greenland species. Greater activity, at a greater distance, more
detailed organization but far more initial capital are the conditions
which have in this twentieth century become essential. Not for a
century have the Greenland whales been hunted in those Arctic waters
between East Greenland, Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen Islands, where the
cetacean was once numerous and in convenient proximity to the fleets
of the north. And alongside our optimism in regard to the Antarctic
we must place the plain observed fact that when a species of whale
has by over-fishing been wiped out of any area, he does not go back to
that region even long years after the fleets have given up using those
waters. Of this we may quote two historical instances. For centuries
the whale was hunted in the Bay of Biscay, right up till the sixteenth
century, when it was about to be exterminated, had not the Greenland
whaling grounds been discovered. To this day the Biscayan whale has
never recovered its former numerical preponderance. Similarly, the
Finmark rorqual was hunted to extermination so that the industry came
to a full stop after a few intensive years. If, then, the whales
should be exterminated for a period in the waters of the Falklands
Dependencies, it is improbable that even after a respite they would
return. Thus the whole commercial value of these distant parts would
vanish as soon as the whaling stations ceased to have any financial
reason for existence. Indeed, there are those who believe that by the
time the twentieth century has run out, there will be no more whales to
hunt: they will become as past and banished as the prehistoric animals
are to us to-day.
This is the extreme pessimistic view, but it has to be borne in mind
so long as our scientific knowledge is incomplete, especially in
regard to the whale’s migrations. This of course arouses the question
of protective measures to control the hunting: and these, again, are
capable of crippling the industry as a dividend-earner. For instance,
it might be found theoretically advisable to prohibit occasionally all
whaling for several years in order to allow the stock of cetaceans to
increase. But what company could afford to let its plant and shipping
remain in harbour idle and deteriorating during those years? How would
it be possible to keep together those skilled gunners and flensers
until such time as their services were again required?
These are some of the problems which have to be faced sooner or later,
and we cannot possibly ignore them too long.
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The first reprint at a popular price of Mr. Keble Chatterton’s
famous book on the romantic business of Whaling.
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