Fighting the Whales

by R. M. Ballantyne

The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain. Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his mouth agape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water would rush down it and choke him. Shutting his throat then, as he does, the water is obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; it is also spouted up through his blow-holes, and this with such violence that many of the little creatures would be swept out along with it but for the hairy-ended whalebone which lets the sea-water out, but keeps the medusae in.

Well, let us return to our “cutting-in.” After the upper-jaw came the lower-jaw and throat, with the tongue. This last was an enormous mass of fat, about as large as an ox, and it weighed fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds. After this was got in, the rest of the work was simple. The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips, beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail. It was hoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and the men at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round until we got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to nearly as high as the mainyard-arm. This mass was nearly a foot thick, and it looked like fat pork. It was cut off close to the deck, and lowered into the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there attacked it with knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it away. Then another piece was hoisted on board in the same fashion, and so on we went till every bit of blubber was cut off; and I heard the captain remark to the mate when the work was done, that the fish was a good fat one, and he wouldn’t wonder if it turned out to be worth 300 pounds sterling.

Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose which I had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins, had often spoken of it on the voyage out. This was the arrival of great numbers of sea-birds.

Tom had often told me of the birds that always keep company with whalers; but I had forgotten all about it until I saw an enormous albatross come sailing majestically through the air towards us. This was the largest bird I ever saw, and no wonder, for it is the largest bird that flies. Soon after that, another arrived, and although we were more than a thousand miles from any shore, we were speedily scented out and surrounded by hosts of gonies, stinkards, haglets, gulls, pigeons, petrels, and other sea-birds, which commenced to feed on pieces of the whale’s carcass with the most savage gluttony. These birds were dreadfully greedy. They had stuffed themselves so full in the course of a short time, that they flew heavily and with great difficulty. No doubt they would have to take three or four days to digest that meal!

Sharks, too, came to get their share of what was going. But these savage monsters did not content themselves with what was thrown away; they were so bold as to come before our faces and take bites out of the whale’s body. Some of these sharks were eight and nine feet long, and when I saw them open their horrid jaws, armed with three rows of glistening white sharp teeth, I could well understand how easily they could bite off the leg of a man, as they often do when they get the chance. Sometimes they would come right up on the whale’s body with a wave, bite out great pieces of the flesh, turn over on their bellies, and roll off.

While I was looking over the side during the early part of that day, I saw a very large shark come rolling up in this way close to Tom Lokins’ legs. Tom made a cut at him with his blubber-spade, but the shark rolled off in time to escape the blow. And after all it would not have done him much damage, for it is not easy to frighten or take the life out of a shark.

“Hand me an iron and line, Bob,” said Tom, looking up at me. “I’ve got a spite agin that feller. He’s been up twice already. Ah! hand it down here, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line. There he comes, the big villain!”

The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tom sent the harpoon right down his throat.

“Hold on hard,” shouted Tom.

“Ay, ay,” replied several of the men as they held on to the line, their arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself. We quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauled it on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was very horrible, for there was no killing the brute. It threshed the deck with its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we had to keep a sharp look out lest it should catch hold of a leg. At last its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails taken out, yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck for some time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes after it was taken out and pierced with a knife.