In the morning we look at our guns in the harpoon factory. The gun or cannon for the bow weighs about two tons. It is already in position; the bollard on which it pivots is part of the iron structure of the bows and goes right down to our forefoot. Its harpoons weigh one and a half hundredweight: we shall take twenty-five of these, and forty smaller harpoons for sperm or cachalot or Right whale. On either side of the bows there is a smaller gun pivoting on a bollard to fire these harpoons. These two small guns and our twenty-five big harpoons and forty of the smaller size we find arranged in order at the works—a charming sight to us. Harold Henriksen, the builder of our ship, takes us to these works, where his brother Ludwig and his father make the harpoons and guns that are now sent all over the world. The father is very greatly respected in Tonsberg; he is called the “Old Man Henriksen,” to distinguish him from the younger member of his family. I have already mentioned him as being co-partner with the famous Svend Foyn, the inventor of the new big harpoon for finner whales.
He has made many inventions for marine work on all kinds of ships, for which he has received many medals, and only lately he received a decoration from the hands of his king, which is shown in the portrait given by him to the writer, a rare and highly appreciated gift.
He is seventy-eight years old and sails his own cutter single-handed. I wish there were space here to tell of his experiences whilst working with Svend Foyn developing the big harpoon. He takes us round the works, where forty years of fire and iron have made their mark; remains of failures are there; of burnt building and scrapped metal, but, besides, there are these fascinating stacks of modern harpoons and piles of their shell points to be used for great hunting in all seas.
The “Old Man” chuckles as we wander from forge to forge and out amongst the geraniums in the yard as he tells me how the first harpoon they tried went over the walls of the works and landed through the umbrella of an old lady in the street, and stood upright between the cobblestones. You may believe they practised out of town after that! Though old—seventy-eight years to-day—he is enthusiastic about our new plan of whaling. He has formed a yacht club; everyone yachts at Tonsberg. It is on a small island of little plots of grass between boulders and small fir-trees. We were invited there to-day for the celebration of his birthday. There were ladies in pretty summer dresses in groups, cakes, teas, fruit and pleasing drinks, coffee and cigars, and wasps by the thousands. Norwegian ladies cultivate coolness, and merely brush these away as they hand us cakes and wine; and they would be greatly offended if a man were to attempt to hand tea cakes. For the carpet knight there is no show. I wish he could be exterminated at home. Do the gods not laugh when they see our menkind in frock coats or shooting kit handing tea and cakes to females?
These pretty groups of summer-clad figures amongst lichen-covered rocks and rowans, fir-trees, oaks and honey-suckle were all reflected in the still water. As the sun sank low and a mosquito or two began to sing, fairy lamps were lit amongst the trees, and softly shone on groups of men and women in light raiment in leafy bowers. The light from the yellow and red lamps contrasted with the last blue of day. There was warm air and moths, cards and smokes, and then came music, and a perfect ballroom floor and blue eyes and light feet—a kindly welcome to the stranger in Gamle Norge.
In the dark before dawn, with lighted Japanese lanterns, ladies and men threaded their way over the flat rocks to motor launches and bade good-bye to the hosts. I shall not soon forget the long walk home across our island, the low mist, the warm, dark night, and wringing wet fields.
There is one place in Tonsberg of which I must make a note before I come back to our shipbuilding. It is the Britannia. Anyone who wishes to learn all there is to know about modern whaling must get an introduction to that cosy, old-world club. It is a low-roofed wooden house, with low-roofed rooms; one big room adjoins a kitchen, in which broad, kindly Mrs Balkan, wife of my friend the engineer on the whaler Haldane, sits behind a long counter and rules supreme. You leave the shipyard and drop in there for middag-mad, or shelter if it rains. It seemed to rain very often in August. The “old man” Henriksen’s portrait and one of the great Svend Foyn are, of course, in evidence, and Svend Foyn’s whaling successors come there for middag-mad or aften-mad, and some of them drink, I dare say, a silent skaal of gratitude to the memory of Svend Foyn, who gave them the lead to success, to become small landholders, each with his home, farm, and family.
Burly fellows are his successors, the pick of Norse sailor captains. One is just home from the South Shetlands. I saw these desolate, unhabitated, snow-clad islands many years ago, and saw there finner whales, thousands of them! and knew they must some day be hunted, but I did not calculate to a penny that there would be over a million pounds sterling invested in whaling stations there to-day; in one bay alone in Clarence Island, and that round these islands in 1911, twenty-two whalers would bag 3500 whales. So whaling here is an assured industry. In Britain the few who hear about it call it a speculation.
Another ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered, fair-haired captain comes from South Georgia and tells me of my friend there, Sorrensen, the bigger of two big brothers, both great harpooneers—they are both quite wealthy men now. They whaled with us from our Shetland station a few years ago, and between hunts we talked of a whaling station we were going to start in South Georgia; two or three years at this station has set them up for life.
Most of the men who come into the Britannia have been over all the world; half-a-life’s experience of any of them would fill a book. But of them all I think I’d sooner have my friend Henriksen’s experiences. Young as he is, he has perhaps had more experience in whaling than any of them. He was whaling for the Japanese when they opened fire on the Russian fleet. At least he had been—he stopped when the guns began to fire, and took his little whaling steamer behind an island, and he and another Norsk whaling skipper climbed to the top of it and viewed the fight from shelter. I believe they were almost the only Europeans besides the Russians who saw that spectacle. Henriksen has a red lacquered cup—a present from the Mikado in recognition of his services for supplying food in shape of whale to Yusako during the war. In time of peace there they eat the whole whale, paying several dollars a kilo for best whale blubber and as much or little less for the meat.