The lands of silence

by Sir Clements R. Markham

In 1782 Scoresby joined the Speedwell cutter, taking stores to Gibraltar, but he had the ill-fortune to be captured and became a prisoner of war in Spain. He fled from San Lucar, and his final escape appears to have been due to the sympathy of some Spanish girls for the handsome young Englishman. They fed him and concealed him, until at last he got on board a cartel, and returned home. After his return he married and was two or three years at home. In 1785 he entered the whaling trade on board the Henrietta, Captain Crispin Bean, and devoted himself to the work. After his fifth voyage he was made speksioneer and second mate, when the whaler was laid up. When Captain Bean retired, he recommended Scoresby to succeed him, and in 1792 he became Captain of the Henrietta and afterwards of the Resolution of Whitby, 290 tons.

We may here glance for a moment at the ordinary mode of procedure in the taking of a whale. Directly one is viewed from the crow’s-nest the look-out man gives notice, and instantly a boat is lowered and another follows. The harpooneer pulls the bow, the line manager the stroke oar. The whale is dull of hearing but quick of sight. He seldom remains more than two minutes on the surface, and is generally 10 to 15 minutes below, moving half a mile or more. The knowledge and skill needed to harpoon him during his short stay on the surface will be understood. There is often danger when the fish is struck, from the violent movement of fins and tail.

The moment a wounded whale goes down the flag is shown from the boat, and there is a cry on deck, “A fall! a fall!” In an instant all hands are on deck, boats lowered, and many of the crew go away half dressed. When struck a whale goes down to a great depth. Sometimes a whale gets under the ice and will run all the line out in ten minutes, when it is probably lost. One or two turns of the line are taken round the bollard, but the line flies out at such a pace that smoke rises and it has to be kept wetted. If the line runs foul the boat is drawn under water.

The struck whale goes down into the depths at a rate of ten miles an hour, and keeps under water for half an hour or more. The longest recorded time is 56 minutes. When, after a dive to 700 or 800 fathoms, the great beast returns to the surface, he is again harpooned and plied with lances, blood rises from the blow holes, he turns on his side and expires.

All the boats in a line then tow the carcase to the ship, and it is cleared of lines and placed alongside with the tail abreast the fore chains and the head at the ship’s stern. The process of flensing follows, the blubber being 2 or 3 feet thick. The band between the fins and head is called the kent. The kent purchase is passed from the kent to the head of the mainmast, and the fall taken to the windlass. The upper surface of the carcase is then raised one-fifth out of the water, with the belly up. The harpooneers then go down with “spurs” (iron spikes strapped to the foot) to prevent slipping, and boys in boats are in attendance with knives. The speksioneer directs the operations. The blubber is divided into oblong pieces or strips by blubber spades and knives. Spek tackles[109] are fixed to each strip and flay it off, being worked with winches. The spek tackle consists of two single blocks, one fast to guys between the fore and main mast, the other fast to the blubber by a strop. The blubber pieces, half a ton to a ton in weight, are received on deck by the boat-steerers and line-managers, the former dividing it into smaller pieces with strand knives, the latter passing it between decks with pick haaks down the main hatchway. It is received by two men called kings, who pack it in the flens gut. As soon as the strips are off, the whale is turned on its side by the kent purchase taken to the windlass. The whalebone is thus exposed, and is taken off on one side by bone handspikes and bone knives and spades, with the help of the spek tackle. It is split into junks on deck with bone wedges, and stowed away. Then there is another kenting. When the flensing is finished the carcase generally sinks. If it floats it is attacked by thousands of gulls and fulmars. The flensing of 20 to 30 tons of blubber can be completed in three or four hours, the average time. It is an extremely difficult operation, however, when the sea is rough.

Some casks have been cleared out of the hold, and the space is called the flens gut. When it is full of blubber comes the operation of making off[110]. This is the freeing of blubber from all extraneous matter, cutting it into small pieces, and stowing it in the casks. The skee-man directs these operations. The spek trough is an oblong box over the place where the casks are to be filled. The surface of the lid forms a table, on which pieces of the whale’s tail are placed as chopping blocks. A canvas tube, called a eull, is then led down to the hold. The kings then throw the blubber out of the flens gut. It is received by the krengers, who remove all the muscular parts called kreng. The harpooneers then slice off the skin, and the boat-steerers divide the blubber into blocks 4 inches in diameter. The line managers receive it in the hold by the eull, and put it in the casks through the bung-holes. Their cries were “let lob” when they wanted the blubber to come down, and “rip the eull” when it was to be stopped. In the early days of the fishery the making off was always done on shore. The jaw-bones, 25 feet long, were brought home to make posts and arches for gateways: still to be seen in the country round Hull and even further afield.

It will be seen that the catching of a whale was not the mere harpooning with the attendant danger and excitement, but that it entailed a long and very hard day’s work, with incessant labour and the exercise of much skill and intelligence. It was a splendid nursery for our seamen, combined with the dangers of ice navigation and the constant need for a bright look-out.

In 1806 Captain Scoresby had his son with him on board the Resolution as Chief Officer. Both were good sailors and navigators and unrivalled as whaling officers. The son had the advantage of a better education, and was devoted to scientific research. Both were unostentatiously religious, as all our great Arctic heroes have been.

In 1806, the Scoresbys determined to see how far north it was possible to go, entering the ice in 76° N. on the 28th of April. Captain Scoresby found the ice to be of extraordinary width and compactness. He pressed into a pack which, to ordinary apprehension, was impenetrable. There was a strong ice blink along the northern horizon which, to all minds on board but one, precluded hope. But Scoresby, narrowly scanning this ice blink from the crow’s-nest, discerned a blueish grey streak below the ice blink, and closely skirting the horizon. He knew this to be an indication of open water beyond the pack. The watchful veteran detected another sign. He perceived occasionally a very slight motion of the water between the lumps of ice near the ship. He knew that this could only arise from a distant swell, which must proceed from an open sea either to the north or to the south. The distance he had penetrated into the ice and the unmixed ice blink to the south, convinced him that it did not come from that quarter. With this conviction came the resolution to push on through the formidable body of consolidated ice before him. Every effort was made. It was then that Scoresby invented the practice of sallying, which consisted in the whole crew running across from one side of the ship to the other in order to make her roll, and so break up the ice close round her. Then boats were lowered quickly from the bowsprit to break up the ice ahead. When a lane of water was formed, there was tracking and towing. All this hard work and perseverance was finally rewarded, and at length an open sea was reached, bounded in the north by the solid polar pack. On the 24th May the latitude was found to be 81° 30′ in 19° E. Though the ice was fixed and solid to the north, there was an open sea, with a water sky, from E.N.E. to S.E. This is the furthest north ever reached by a sailing ship on the Spitsbergen meridians[111].

With the distinction of this highest latitude Captain Scoresby returned with a full ship. After four more years of full ships, he resigned the command of the Resolution to his son in 1810. The elder Scoresby lived on until 1829 as a respected citizen of Whitby and saw his son’s successful career not only as a whaling captain, but also as a universally esteemed man of science.