On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful masts to use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more rapid flensing could be made than we can manage with only fifteen all told, including engineers, and a very small ship.
Our plan now is to try round about the Azores, if the weather is good, for another whale or two, then to proceed to Madeira, about two days’ sail—I have seen several kinds of whales off its north coast—and then hunt south and west of Africa, down to the Cape, and then to the Crozet Islands for seals, or to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar, for sperm and blue whales, and possibly thereafter to New Zealand. Some islands we have information about south of New Zealand for Bone whales or Australis.
St Ebba got a few more whales in the latitudes of the Azores and Madeira, but the weather got too rough, so she continued southwards.
Possibly the end of the last chapter was rather oily and whaley, and smelt perhaps a little of filthy lucre. Perhaps I may be allowed, therefore, a chapter on flowers and Madeira—a day or two on shore and some tunny-fishing for a change from whale-hunting; though I must say that no two whale-hunts are quite alike; each has its particular thrilling interest, more especially the big finner hunting, for they are ten times more powerful than sperm. But repeated description, without depicting boats flying in the air and whales standing on their heads, and so on, must become tiresome reading, so as I cannot, from a casual habit of accuracy, invent thrilling incidents, let us to tunny. Tunny are not half bad fun when you have one on, but the waiting out on the blue rollers in a blaze of sun twenty miles from shore is trying, but when one comes on and your coils of line are whizzing out into the blue at a fearful rate, there is quite a lively time, almost anxious—for you have to be careful not to get caught by hands or feet in the coils of the line, which is pretty thick, just the thickness of this rather thick fountain pen with which we continue these notes.
CHAPTER XXI
The St Ebba killed a few more whales in the seas between the Azores and Madeira, but they were of no great value—seihvale and small sperm—and the weather became tempestuous, so she proceeded southwards. The island of Madeira is thirty-five miles long and six thousand feet high. It was very hot on the south side amongst the sugar-cane crops and vineyards. But on the north side, with wind off the sea, high up in the mountains and riding through oak woods, bracken and heath and roaring burns, it was delightful, and probably more healthy than the slack air and life you have down at Funchal.
Funchal, the capital, is much the same as Ponta Delgada in the Azores, a white town with red-tiled houses and green blinds round a blue bay. But it is merely an open road-stead and has not nearly such a picturesque inner harbour as Ponta Delgada. It is a very quiet town; the only sound is the twittering canaries, and the occasional Hush of the Atlantic surge on the boulders.
There is quite a large contingent of British residents who have gone in for gardening strongly at their quintas. So that Funchal, in almost every month of the year, presents some astonishing flowery spectacular effect.
Geraniums are the least sensational. They pour over the walls of the lanes everywhere. I noticed one evening a high white wall in shade lit up with pink from the reflected scarlet of geraniums that hung over the opposite wall.