Seven Legs Across the Seas: A Printer's Impressions of Many Lands

by Samuel Murray

Americans and Norwegians engaged early in the whaling business in the North Atlantic Ocean, and up to a few years ago American whaling ships made frequent visits to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans in quest of the oil-producing leviathan. But it is to the Norwegian that credit must be given for building up the whaling industry in the Indian Ocean, thereby putting in circulation a large sum of money each season that, until recent years, had been overlooked.

From 600 to 800 of these monsters of the deep are harpooned and rendered into oil in the Durban factories in a season—from June to November, inclusive—the cool season in that part of the world. Thirty tons is the average weight of whales killed in the Indian Ocean. Those on exhibition in museums give one some idea of the size of a whale, yet the cured specimen is a poor substitute for one which had been "spouting" an hour before.

Whaling boats are little larger than a big tug-boat. The whaler is equipped with one mast, and twenty feet above the deck a long barrel is secured to this, in which one of the crew is stationed when hunting the great monster of the sea. The barrel is called the "crow's nest," and from here the "lookout" scans the ocean in every direction for the "spouting" mammoth. On the bow of the boat a cannon is secured, out of which a harpoon is shot into the whale. The harpoon looks like a small boat anchor. The length of the harpoon bar is four feet, and at one end are four hooks ten inches long. The hooks are attached to the bar by a spring, and, before being used, are bent down to the bar, and kept in this position by strong cord. Over the end of the bar fits a spear-pointed cap a foot long, and in this cap has been placed a dynamite bomb. Whales are shot within thirty yards of the boat—sometimes twenty feet. The cannon can be adjusted to any angle. When the spear-pointed cap enters the whale, the bomb explodes, snapping in two the cord with which the four hooks were tied to the bar, when the hooks spring outward—like an open umbrella—inside the whale.

The vital spot aimed at is the lungs. If the aim proves true, the large mammal falls a victim to the ugly weapon, and dies instantly. If the harpoon goes wide, the whale heads for the bottom. A long, strong rope is secured to one end of the harpoon bar, and the whale is given liberal latitude for his deluded effort to escape. Soon the rope slackens, when the whaler knows the "spouter" is coming to the surface to breathe. In the meantime, another harpoon has been placed in the cannon, and when the whale appears this one is shot into the crippled monster, putting an end to his fight for life. It sometimes occurs, however, that the whale breaks the rope fastened to the eye of the harpoon, when he escapes, carrying the treacherous weapon in his ponderous frame.

When dead, the great "catch" is drawn to the side of the boat by the rope secured to the harpoon. His tail flippers, which are from 10 to 12 feet long, are cut off, to allow of convenient handling of the cumbersome carcass. A chain is then put around his delimbed tail, the winches revolve, and, when his tail has been drawn up close to the bow of the boat, a start is made for the wharf, leaving behind a wake of red sea, discolored by the blood running out of his mouth and from the rent in his body where the harpoon entered.

At the wharf, the boat chain is loosened and the harpoon rope cut. A chain from the shore is next wound round his tail, a signal given the engineer to start the machinery, and the great cetacean is slowly drawn up a slipway out of the water. When drawn to the head of the slipway, the body continues moving on to a wide flat car, the railway track on which the car rests being sunk to a depth level with the top of the slipway. One flat car is not long enough to afford room for the huge wanderer of the deep, and a portion is drawn on to a second car. An engine backs down, is coupled to the "whale train," and a start made for the factory. The harpoon remains in the whale until the body is cut to pieces.

At the factory, the whale is drawn off the car on to the "dissecting" platform by another chain secured to the tail. Men, with long-handled knives, then make deep cuts—one in its back and another in the underpart—from the point of the jaw to the tail, and another deep cut the full length of the carcass. The spaces between these incisions are three feet at the underpart and from five to six feet on the back. This part of the process is called "flencing." At the point of the jaw a piece of flesh is cut until it is released from the bone, and a small hole is cut out of the released part. A kafir, bare-headed and bare-footed, brings a chain, and the hook of it is put through the hole made in the released end of flesh at the whale's jaw. A signal being given a man at the winches to start, the piece of released hide begins to peel from the jaw, then down to the shoulder, and further still. When the winches stop, a slab of hide 40 to 50 feet long, six feet wide, and six inches thick—from the point of the jaw to the whale's tail—is stretched out on the platform inside up. The skin from the back and sides of the whale peels off almost as smoothly as does the skin of a banana from that fruit. The skin at the underpart, however, does not peel so freely, requiring cutting of the flesh by the flencer in a similar way to that of severing threads when ripping a seam in a garment. The underpart of the hide is but three inches thick. These slabs or strips of flesh, of which six or seven are procured from a whale, is the blubber, and from the blubber comes the best grade of oil.

Kafirs, with long-handled knives, cut chunks—about 18 inches long and 12 inches wide—from the slabs, which are thrown into a hopper in which are revolving knives, these cutting the flesh into small pieces, which drop into elevator buckets, later emptying into boiling tanks located on a floor above. In these vats the oil is boiled out of the blubber.

The whalebone, located in the enormous mouth, is yet to be removed. The flesh to which the bone grows is cut with long, strong knives around the inside of the jaw. A point of the flesh is released, a chain hooked to it, the winches again start revolving, and the whalebone begins peeling off the inside of the mouth as freely as did the blubber off the back. Half of the whalebone still remains in the mouth, and this is removed in the same manner as the first half.

A great blood-red hulk is all that now remains of the whale. A chain is again wound about and secured to the tail of the carcass, the winches, for the last time, revolve, when the colossal frame is moved up an incline to a floor above the platform on which it was skinned. Then kafirs, with axes, begin cutting the hulk to pieces, which are thrown into rendering vats. Different parts of the body are thrown into different tanks, as certain portions of the flesh produce a better grade of oil than other parts. The only portion not boiled is the bone in the mouth. The blood is the only particle not utilized, and it would add proportionately to the whale's value were it shed on shore instead of in the sea. The flesh, after the oil has been boiled out, is sold to farmers for fertilizing purposes. Thirty to thirty-five men take part in disposing of a whale at the factory, and from four to five hours' time is required to get the carcass into the rendering vats.