Captain W. T. Walker, of New Bedford, is called the counting-house hero of the American Whale Fishery. He purchased in 1848 an old whaleship called the “Envoy” that was about to be broken up, and when ready for sea this ship stood the owner $8,000. He could get no insurance; nevertheless he “took a chance,” and after a three years’ voyage he returned and had netted for himself the extraordinary sum of $138,450, or 1,630 per cent. The largest profit, however, was made by the “Pioneer” of New London, in 1865, the value of her cargo being $151,060. For a short voyage Frederick Fish, who has been mentioned before, holds the record for his ship the “Montreal,” which brought back a cargo worth over $36,000 after a voyage occupying only two months and fifteen days.
There were many unprofitable voyages, and many were the ships that came home with barrels filled with salt water instead of oil for ballast. Some vessels, as whalemen say, didn’t have enough oil to grease their irons.
METHODS OF CAPTURE AND “TRYING OUT”
“Whales has feelin’s as well as anybody. They don’t like to be stuck in the gizzards an’ hauled alongside, an’ cut in, an’ tried out in those here boilers no more’n I do!”
Barzy Macks’s Biology.
When the lookout at the masthead shouts out “Thar she blows,” or “There she whitewaters,” the whaleboats are gotten out and rowed towards the whale, while signals from the ship show from time to time the whereabouts of the whales and directions for their pursuit. The first man to “raise oil”—an expression which means the first to see a whale—usually received a plug of tobacco or some other prize, and this made the lookouts more keen.
In “Moby Dick” Melville says that the crew pulls to the refrain “A Dead Whale or a Stove Boat,” which became such well-known by-words among whalemen that when Mr. W. W. Crapo last year presented to New Bedford “The Whaleman” statue, they were inscribed upon it. When rowing in a rough sea the captain cautioned the men to trim the boat and not to “shift their tobacco.”
As they approach the whale the bow oarsman, who is the harpooner, stands up at a signal from the captain of the boat, who is steering, and yells out to “give it to him.” The next order is probably to “stern all” in order to avoid the whale. The boat is probably now fast, and either the whale will sound and run out the line at a terrific rate or else he may race away dragging the boat after him, which whalemen call “A Nantucket Sleigh-Ride.” This kind of sleigh-ride was often at railroad speed and was perhaps one of the most exhilarating and exciting experiences in the line of sport. An empty boat would certainly capsize, but a whaleboat had six trained, strong, athletic men sitting on her thwarts, whose skill enabled them to sway their bodies to the motions of the boat so that she would keep an even keel, even though her speed might plough small valleys over the huge swells and across the broad troughs of an angry Pacific, and great billows of foam piled up at her bow while the water rushed past the stern like a mad whirlpool. The greatest care must be taken not to allow the line to get snarled up or to let a turn catch an arm or leg, for it would result in almost immediate death to the person thus entangled. Conan Doyle, who once took a trip on a whaler, tells of a man who was caught by the line and hauled overboard so suddenly that he was hardly seen to disappear. One of the men in the boat grabbed a knife to cut the line, whereupon another seaman shouted out, “Hold your hand, the whale’ll be a good present for the widow!”
