The Cruise of the Cachalot · Part 14

The Kanakas shipped at Honolulu were distributed among the boats, two to each, being already trained whalemen, and a fine lot of fellows they were. My two--Samuela and Polly--were not very big men, but sturdy, nimble as cats, as much at home in the water as on deck, and simply bubbling over with fun and good-humour. From my earliest sea-going, I have always had a strong liking for natives of tropical countries, finding them affectionate and amenable to kindness. Why, I think, white men do not get on with darkies well, as a rule, is, that they seldom make an appeal to the MAN, in them. It is very degrading to find one's self looked down upon as a sort of animal without reason or feelings; and if you degrade a man, you deprive him of any incentive to make himself useful, except the brute one you may feel bound to apply yourself. My experience has been limited to Africans (of sorts), Kanakas, natives of Hindostan, Malagasy, and Chinese; but with all these I have found a little COMARADERIE answer excellently. True, they are lazy; but what inducement have they to work? The complicated needs of our civilized existence compel US to work, or be run over by the unresting machine; but I take leave to doubt whether any of us with a primitive environment would not be as lazy as any Kanaka that ever dozed under a banana tree through daylight hours. Why, then, make an exalted virtue of the necessity which drives us, and objurgate the poor black man because he prefers present ease to a doubtful prospective retirement on a competency? Australian blackfellows and Malays are said to be impervious to kind treatment by a great number of witnesses, the former appearing incapable of gratitude, and the latter unable to resist the frequent temptation to kill somebody. Not knowing anything personally of either of these races, I can say nothing for or against them.

All the coloured individuals that I have had to do with have amply repaid any little kindness shown them with fidelity and affection, but especially has this been the case with Kanakas, The soft and melodious language spoken by them is easy to acquire, and is so pleasant to speak that it is well worth learning, to say nothing of the convenience to yourself, although the Kanaka speedily picks up the mutilated jargon which does duty for English on board ship.

What I specially longed for now was a harpooner, or even two, so that I might have my boat to myself, the captain taking his own boat with a settled harpooner. Samuela, the biggest of my two Kanakas, very earnestly informed me that he was no end of a "number one" whale slaughterer; but I judged it best to see how things went before asking to have him promoted. My chance, and his, came very promptly; so nicely arranged, too, that I could not have wished for anything better. The skipper had got a fine, healthy boil on one knee-cap, and another on his wrist, so that he was, as you may say, HORS DE COMBAT. While he was impatiently waiting to get about once more, sperm whales were raised. Although nearly frantic with annoyance, he was compelled to leave the direction of things to Mr. Cruce, who was quite puffed up with the importance of his opportunity.

Such a nice little school of cow-whales, a lovely breeze, clear sky, warm weather--I felt as gay as a lark at the prospect. As we were reaching to windward, with all boats ready for lowering, the skipper called me aft and said, "Naow, Mr. Bullen, I cain't lower, because of this condemned leg'n arm of mine; but how'r yew goin' ter manage 'thout a harpooneer?" I suggested that if he would allow me to try Samuela, who was suffering for a chance to distinguish himself, we would "come out on top." "All right," he said; "but let the other boats get fast first, 'n doan be in too much of a hurry to tie yerself up till ya see what's doin'. If everythin's goin' bizness-fashion', 'n yew git a chance, sail right in; yew got ter begin some time. But ef thet Kanaka looks skeered goin' on, take the iron frum him ter onct." I promised, and the interview ended.

When I told Samuela, of his chance, he was beside himself with joy. As to his being scared, the idea was manifestly absurd. He was as pleased with the prospect as it was possible for a man to be, and hardly able to contain himself for impatience to be off. I almost envied him his exuberant delight, for a sense of responsibility began to weigh upon me with somewhat depressing effect.

We gained a good weather-gage, rounded to, and lowered four boats. Getting away in good style, we had barely got the sails up, when something gallied the school. We saw or heard nothing to account for it, but undoubtedly the "fish" were off at top speed dead to windward, so that our sails were of no use. We had them in with as little delay as possible, and lay to our oars for all we were worth, being fresh and strong, as well as anxious to get amongst them. But I fancy all our efforts would have availed us little had it not been for the experience of Mr. Cruce, whose eager eye detected the fact that the fish were running on a great curve, and shaped our course to cut them off along a chord of the arc.

Two and a half hours of energetic work was required of us before we got on terms with the fleeing monsters; but at last, to our great joy, they broke water from sounding right among us. It was a considerable surprise, but we were all ready, and before they had spouted twice, three boats were fast, only myself keeping out, in accordance with my instructions. Samuela was almost distraught with rage and grief at the condition of things. I quite pitied him, although I was anything but pleased myself. However, when I ranged up alongside the mate's fish, to render what assistance was needed, he shouted to me, "We's all right; go'n git fas', if yew kin." That was enough, and away we flew after a retreating spout to leeward. Before we got there, though, there was an upheaval in the water just ahead, and up came a back like a keelless ship bottom up. Out came the head belonging to it, and a spout like an explosion burst forth, denoting the presence of an enormous bull-cachalot. Close by his side was a cow of about one-third his size, the favoured sultana of his harem, I suppose. Prudence whispered, "Go for the cow;" ambition hissed, "All or none--the bull, the bull." Fortunately emergencies of this kind leave one but a second or two to decide, as a rule; in this case, as it happened, I was spared even that mental conflict, for as we ran up between the two vast creatures, Samuela, never even looking at the cow, hurled his harpoon, with all the energy that he had been bursting with so long, at the mighty bull. I watched its flight--saw it enter the black mass and disappear to the shaft, and almost immediately came the second iron, within a foot of the first, burying itself in the same solid fashion.

"Starn--starn all!" I shouted; and we backed slowly away, considerably hampered by the persistent attentions of the cow, who hung round us closely. The temptation to lance her was certainly great, but I remembered the fate that had overtaken the skipper on the first occasion we struck whales, and did not meddle with her ladyship. Our prey was not apparently disposed to kick up much fuss at first, so, anxious to settle matters, I changed ends with Samuela, and pulled in on the whale. A good, steady lance-thrust--the first I had ever delivered--was obtained, sending a thrill of triumph through my whole body. The recipient, thoroughly roused by this, started off at a great lick, accompanied, somewhat to my surprise, by the cow. Thenceforward for another hour, in spite of all our efforts, we could not get within striking distance, mainly because of the close attention of the cow, which stuck to her lord like a calf to its mother. I was getting so impatient of this hindrance, that it was all I could do to restrain myself from lancing the cow, though I felt convinced that, if I did, I should spoil a good job. Suddenly I caught sight of the ship right ahead. We were still flying along, so that in a short time we were comparatively close to her. My heart beat high and I burned to distinguish myself under the friendly and appreciative eye of the skipper.

None of the other boats were in sight, from our level at least, so that I had a reasonable hope of being able to finish my game, with all the glory thereunto attaching, unshared by any other of my fellow-officers. As we ran quite closely past the ship, calling on the crew to haul up for all they were worth, we managed actually to squeeze past the cow, and I got in a really deadly blow. The point of the lance entered just between the fin and the eye, but higher up, missing the broad plate of the shoulder-blade, and sinking its whole four feet over the hitches right down into the animal's vitals. Then, for the first time, he threw up his flukes, thrashing them from side to side almost round to his head, and raising such a turmoil that we were half full of water in a moment. But Samuela was so quick at the steer-oar, so lithe and forceful, and withal appeared so to anticipate every move of mine, that there seemed hardly any danger.

After a few moments of this tremendous exertion, our victim settled down, leaving the water deeply stained with his gushing blood. With him disappeared his constant companion, the faithful cow, who had never left his side a minute since we first got fast. Down, down they went, until my line began to look very low, and I was compelled to make signals to the ship for more. We had hardly elevated the oars, when down dropped the last boat with four men in her, arriving by my side in a few minutes with two fresh tubs of tow-line. We took them on board, and the boat returned again. By the time the slack came we had about four hundred and fifty fathoms out--a goodly heap to pile up loose in our stern-sheets. I felt sure, however, that we should have but little more trouble with our fish; in fact, I was half afraid that he would die before getting to the surface, in which case he might sink and be lost. We hauled steadily away, the line not coming in very easily, until I judged there was only about another hundred fathoms out. Our amazement may be imagined, when suddenly we were compelled to sleek away again, the sudden weight on the line suggesting that the fish was again sounding. If ever a young hand was perplexed, it was I. Never before had I heard of such unseemly behaviour, nor was my anxiety lessened when I saw, a short distance away, the huge body of my prize at the surface spouting blood. At the same time, I was paying out line at a good rate, as if I had a fast fish on which was sounding briskly.

The skipper had been watching me very closely from his seat on the taffrail, and had kept the ship within easy distance. Now, suspecting something out of the common, he sent the boat again to my assistance, in charge of the cooper. When that worthy arrived, he said, "Th' ol' man reckens yew've got snarled erp'ith thet ar' loose keow, 'n y'r irons hev draw'd from th' other. I'm gwine ter wait on him,' n get him 'longside 'soon's he's out'er his flurry. Ole man sez yew'd best wait on what's fast t' yer an' nev' mine th' other." Away he went, reaching my prize just as the last feeble spout exhaled, leaving the dregs of that great flood of life trickling lazily down from the widely expanded spiracle. To drive a harpoon into the carcass, and run the line on board, was the simplest of jobs, for, as the captain had foreseen, my irons were drawn clean. I had no leisure to take any notice of them now, though, for whatever was on my line was coming up hand-over-fist.

With a bound it reached the surface--the identical cow so long attendant upon the dead whale. Having been so long below for such a small whale, she was quite exhausted, and before she had recovered we had got alongside of her and lanced her, so thoroughly that she died without a struggle. The ship was so close that we had her alongside in a wonderfully short time, and with scarcely any trouble.

When I reached the deck, the skipper called me, and said several things that made me feel about six inches taller. He was, as may be thought, exceedingly pleased, saying that only once in his long career had he seen a similar case; for I forgot to mention that the line was entangled around the cow's down-hanging jaw, as if she had actually tried to bite in two the rope that held her consort, and only succeeded in sharing his fate. I would not like to say that whales do not try to thus sever a line, but, their teeth being several inches apart, conical, and fitting into sockets in the upper jaw instead of meeting the opposed surfaces of other teeth, the accomplishment of such a feat must, I think, be impossible.

The ship being now as good as anchored by the vast mass of flesh hanging to her, there was a tremendous task awaiting us to get the other fish alongside. Of course they were all to windward; they nearly always are, unless the ship is persistently "turned to windward" while the fishing is going on. Whalers believe that they always work up into the wind while fast, and, when dead, it is certain that they drift at a pretty good rate right in the "wind's eye." This is accounted for by the play of the body, which naturally lies head to wind; and the wash of the flukes, which, acting somewhat like the "sculling" of an oar at the stern of a boat, propel the carcass in the direction it is pointing, Consequently we had a cruel amount of towing to do before we got the three cows alongside. Many a time we blessed ourselves that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to tow with boats, a sperm whale is about the worst. Owing to the great square mass of the head, they can hardly be towed head-on at all, the practice being to cut off the tips of the flukes, and tow them tail first. But even then it is slavery. To dip your oar about three times in the same hole from whence you withdrew it, to tug at it with all your might, apparently making as much progress as though you were fast to a dock-wall, and to continue this fun for four or five hours at a stretch, is to wonder indeed whether you have not mistaken your vocation.

However, "it's dogged as does it," so by dint of sheer sticking to the oar, we eventually succeeded in getting all our prizes alongside before eight bells that evening, securing them around us by hawsers to the cows, but giving the big bull the post of honour alongside on the best fluke-chain.

We were a busy company for a fortnight thence, until the last of the oil was run below--two hundred and fifty barrels, or twenty-five tuns, of the valuable fluid having rewarded our exertions. During these operations we had drifted night and day, apparently without anybody taking the slightest account of the direction we were taking; when, therefore, on the day after clearing up the last traces of our fishing, the cry of "Land ho!" came ringing down from the crow's-nest, no one was surprised, although the part of the Pacific in which we were cruising has but few patches of TERRA FIRMA scattered about over its immense area when compared with the crowded archipelagoes lying farther south and east.

We could not see the reported land from the deck for two hours after it was first seen from aloft, although the odd spectacle of a scattered group of cocoa-nut trees apparently growing out of the sea was for some time presented to us before the island itself came into view. It was Christmas Island, where the indefatigable Captain Cook landed on December 24, 1777, for the purpose of making accurate observations of an eclipse of the sun. He it was who gave to this lonely atoll the name it has ever since borne, with characteristic modesty giving his own great name to a tiny patch of coral which almost blocks the entrance to the central lagoon. Here we lay "off and on" for a couple of days, while foraging parties went ashore, returning at intervals with abundance of turtle and sea-fowls' eggs. But any detailed account of their proceedings must be ruthlessly curtailed, owing to the scanty limits of space remaining.

CHAPTER XIX. EDGING SOUTHWARD

The line whaling grounds embrace an exceedingly extensive area, over the whole of which sperm whales may be found, generally of medium size. No means of estimating the probable plenty or scarcity of them in any given part of the grounds exist, so that falling in with them is purely a matter of coincidence. To me it seems a conclusive proof of the enormous numbers of sperm whales frequenting certain large breadths of ocean, that they should be so often fallen in with, remembering what a little spot is represented by a day's cruise, and that the signs which denote almost infallibly the vicinity of right whales are entirely absent in the case of the cachalot. In the narrow waters of the Greenland seas, with quite a small number of vessels seeking, it is hardly possible for a whale of any size to escape being seen; but in the open ocean a goodly fleet may cruise over a space of a hundred thousand square miles without meeting any of the whales that may yet be there in large numbers. So that when one hears talk of the extinction of the cachalot, it is well to bear in mind that such a thing would take a long series of years to effect, even were the whaling business waxing instead of waning, While, however, South Sea whaling is conducted on such old-world methods as still obtain; while steam, with all the power it gives of rapidly dealing with a catch, is not made use of, the art and mystery of the whale-fisher must continually decrease. No such valuable lubricant has ever been found as sperm oil; but the cost of its production, added to the precarious nature of the supply, so handicaps it in the competition with substitutes that it has been practically eliminated from the English markets, except in such greatly adulterated forms as to render it a lie to speak of the mixture as sperm oil at all.

Except to a few whose minds to them are kingdoms, and others who can hardly be said to have any minds at all, the long monotony of unsuccessful seeking for whales is very wearying. The ceaseless motion of the vessel rocking at the centre of a circular space of blue, with a perfectly symmetrical dome of azure enclosing her above, unflecked by a single cloud, becomes at last almost unbearable from its changeless sameness of environment. Were it not for the trivial round and common task of everyday ship duty, some of the crew must become idiotic, or, in sheer rage at the want of interest in their lives, commit mutiny.

Such a weary time was ours for full four weeks after sighting Christmas Island. The fine haul we had obtained just previous to that day seemed to have exhausted our luck for the time being, for never a spout did we see. And it was with no ordinary delight that we hailed the advent of an immense school of black-fish, the first we had run across for a long time. Determined to have a big catch, if possible, we lowered all five boats, as it was a beautifully calm day, and the ship might almost safely have been left to look after herself. After what we had recently been accustomed to, the game seemed trifling to get up much excitement over; but still, for a good day's sport, commend me to a few lively black-fish.

In less than ten minutes we were in the thick of the crowd, with harpoons flying right and left. Such a scene of wild confusion and uproarious merriment ensued as I never saw before in my life. The skipper, true to his traditions, got fast to four, all running different ways at once, and making the calm sea boil again with their frantic gyrations. Each of the other boats got hold of three; but, the mate getting too near me, our fish got so inextricably tangled up that it was hopeless to try and distinguish between each other's prizes. However, when we got the lances to work among them, the hubbub calmed down greatly, and the big bodies one by one ceased their gambols, floating supine.

So far, all had been gay; but the unlucky second mate must needs go and do a thing that spoiled a day's fun entirely. The line runs through a deep groove in the boat's stem, over a brass roller so fitted that when the line is running out it remains fixed, but when hauling in it revolves freely, assisting the work a great deal. The second mate had three fish fast, like the rest of us--the first one on the end of the main line, the other two on "short warps," or pieces of whale-line some eight or ten fathoms long fastened to harpoons, with the other ends running on the main line by means of bowlines round it. By some mistake or other he had allowed the two lines to be hauled together through the groove in his boat's stem, and before the error was noticed two fish spurted off in opposite directions, ripping the boat in two halves lengthways, like a Dutchman splitting a salt herring.

Away went the fish with the whole of the line, nobody being able to get at it to cut; and, but for the presence of mind shown by the crew in striking out and away from the tangle, a most ghastly misfortune, involving the loss of several lives, must have occurred. As it was, the loss was considerable, almost outweighing the gain on the day's fishing, besides the inconvenience of having a boat useless on a whaling grounds.

The accident was the fruit of gross carelessness, and should never have occurred; but then, strange to say, disasters to whale-boats are nearly always due to want of care, the percentage of unavoidable casualties being very small as compared with those like the one just related. When the highly dangerous nature of the work is remembered, this statement may seem somewhat overdrawn; but it has been so frequently corroborated by others, whose experience far outweighs my own, that I do not hesitate to make it with the fullest confidence in its truth.

Happily no lives were lost on this occasion, for it would have indeed been grievous to have seen our shipmates sacrificed to the MANES of a mere black-fish, after successfully encountering so many mighty whales. The episode gave us a great deal of unnecessary work getting the two halves of the boat saved, in addition to securing our fish, so that by the time we got the twelve remaining carcasses hove on deck we were all quite fagged out. But under the new regime we were sure of a good rest, so that did not trouble us; it rather made the lounge on deck in the balmy evening air and the well-filled pipe of peace doubly sweet.

Our next day's work completed the skinning of the haul we had made, the last of the carcasses going overboard with a thunderous splash at four in the afternoon. The assemblage of sharks round the ship on this occasion was incredible for its number and the great size of the creatures. Certainly no mariners see so many or such huge sharks as whalemen; but, in spite of all our previous experience, this day touched high-water mark. Many of these fish were of a size undreamed of by the ordinary seafarer, some of them full thirty feet in length, more like whales than sharks. Most of them were striped diagonally with bands of yellow, contrasting curiously with the dingy grey of their normal colour. From this marking is derived their popular name--"tiger sharks," not, as might be supposed, from their ferocity. That attribute cannot properly be applied to the SQUALUS at all, which is one of the most timid fish afloat, and whose ill name, as far as regards blood-thirstiness, is quite undeserved. Rapacious the shark certainly is; but what sea-fish is not? He is not at all particular as to his diet; but what sea-fish is? With such a great bulk of body, such enormous vitality and vigour to support, he must needs be ever eating; and since he is not constructed on swift enough lines to enable him to prey upon living fish, like most of his neighbours, he is perforce compelled to play the humble but useful part of a sea-scavenger.

He eats man, as he eats anything else eatable because in the water man is easily caught, and not from natural depravity or an acquired taste begetting a decided preference for human flesh. All natives of shores infested by sharks despise him and his alleged man-eating propensities, knowing that a very feeble splashing will suffice to frighten him away even if ever so hungry. Demerara River literally swarms with sharks, yet I have often seen a negro, clad only in a beaming smile, slip into its muddy waters, and, after a few sharp blows with his open hand upon the surface, calmly swim down to the bottom, clear a ship's anchor, or do whatever job was required, coming up again as leisurely as if in a swimming-bath. A similar disregard of the dangerous attributes awarded by popular consent to the shark may be witnessed everywhere among the people who know him best. The cruelties perpetrated upon sharks by seamen generally are the result of ignorance and superstition combined, the most infernal forces known to humanity. What would be said at home of such an act, if it could be witnessed among us, as the disembowelling of a tiger, say, and then letting him run in that horrible condition somewhere remote from the possibility of retaliating upon his torturers? Yet that is hardly comparable with a similar atrocity performed upon a shark, because he will live hours to the tiger's minutes in such a condition.

I once caught a shark nine feet long, which we hauled on board and killed by cutting off its head and tail. It died very speedily--for a shark--all muscular motion ceasing in less than fifteen minutes. It was my intention to prepare that useless and unornamental article so dear to sailors--a walking-stick made of a shark's backbone. But when I came to cut out the vertebra, I noticed a large scar, extending from one side to the other, right across the centre of the back. Beneath it the backbone was thickened to treble its normal size, and perfectly rigid; in fact, it had become a mass of solid bone. At some time or other this shark had been harpooned so severely that, in wrenching himself free, he must have nearly torn his body in two halves, severing the spinal column completely. Yet such a wound as that had been healed by natural process, the bone knit together again with many times the strength it had before--minus, of course, its flexibility--and I can testify from the experience of securing him that he could not possibly have been more vigorous than he was.

A favourite practice used to be--I trust it is so no longer--to catch a shark, and, after driving a sharpened stake down through his upper jaw and out underneath the lower one, so that its upper portion pointed diagonally forward, to let him go again. The consequence of this cruelty would be that the fish was unable to open his mouth, or go in any direction without immediately coming to the surface. How long he might linger in such torture, one can only guess; but unless his fellows, finding him thus helpless, came along and kindly devoured him, no doubt he would exist in extreme agony for a very long time.