On Sunday, November the 8th, we sighted sperm whales, and though the weather was foggy and disagreeable, the boats were lowered; but, after being down all the forenoon, we returned at 1 o’clock, and ate dinner. At half past one we dropped boats again, when the waist-boat fastened to an immense whale, which ran very rapidly; but he soon began to spout thick blood, and we counted him as ours. On the appearance of blood, the bow-boat cut her line, and came aboard. The captain, observing that the whale continued on in his course, lowered away, and lanced him also; but still he would not turn up, although incessantly discharging blood from his spout-holes and the various lance-wounds in his body. Night approached, and still the whale kept going ahead. The rain was descending in torrents, whilst not the slightest vestige of a breeze rippled the surface of the water; so the boats, together with their locomotive attachment, were gradually widening their distance from the ship. Directly after nightfall, the captain returned with his boat, leaving directions for the others to keep up good lights in their boat-lanterns; so that we might very easily know their whereabouts. On arriving aboard, the bow-boat was dispatched with refreshments and a couple of bottles of New England rum, to revive those who had been sitting in their boats drenched to the skin; and, surely, if there ever was a moment when men needed an alcoholic stimulus to enable them to withstand exposure, it was on this occasion. Just after the bow-boat left, we lost sight of the light of the boat-lantern in the distance, and did not recover it again until midnight, when we discovered the boats coming toward us, with the dead body of the whale, as we believed, in tow; but were chagrined to find that they had cut from him, which, unavoidable as it was, was far from being pleasant, after the trouble and pains-taking he had caused us. They stated, that they were out of sight of the ship’s light; that the whale showed no more signs of exhaustion than at sunset; and, as the weather looked very threatening, there appeared to be no other recourse left them but to return: so, after a consultation, in which all hands were included, the line, not however without many regrets, was severed, and the monster allowed to go on his way, and die alone—his surviving more than a few hours being out of the question.
The bow-boat, after leaving the ship’s side, pulled in the direction where the boat-lights had last appeared; but it was not until after they had cut from the fish, that they found the other boats, whose men, from their fatiguing duty and benumbed members, were not just then particularly delighted at the idea of pulling ten or twelve miles back without refreshment: they therefore hailed the arrival of the bow-boat with acclamation. They hove up; and, after having satisfied their appetites, the bottle was passed around, and each indulged in a hearty swig: then, with renewed vigor, they bent to their oars, and regained the vessel.
This unfortunate result would not have occurred had we had the least breeze, to keep anywhere in the neighborhood of the boats; nor, had there been land anywhere within a reasonable distance, the mate, who in no wise lacks energy, would not have cut; but, under the circumstances, he acted with discrimination in withdrawing the boats whilst there was a chance of their doing so with safety. No doubt, had he remained attached to the whale, it would have been as difficult for us to find our boats the succeeding day as it was to find the carcass of the fish, which, despite our utmost endeavors—thoroughly going over the ground—we never afterwards saw.
How it was that this whale sustained life so long, whilst the vital current was swiftly escaping from his system, it is difficult to account for. He was lanced in the same place as other whales we had taken, and which expired in the course of several hours. It was done, too, by men who were no novices, either in handling the lance, or in combating the whale. Not a few shook their heads, mysteriously; and one, in a spirit of confidence, broadly stated to me, that the creature was not a whale, but Lucifer himself, who had assumed this form to puzzle mankind; and hence he accounted for the tenacity of life displayed. This opinion, of course, I could not subscribe to; but I found it futile to attempt to satisfy my superstitious shipmate that all might be produced by natural causes. My opinion being, that the whale was of such a prodigious size, (every man who was in the boats stating him to have been the largest of the cachelot species they had ever seen,) and his vitals were covered with so thick a coat of blubber, that the lances were of insufficient length to deal a mortal wound. This view of the matter, after many arguments, pro and con, was finally adopted, as being the most probable of any advanced.
After remaining on this ground a sufficient length of time to assure ourselves of the improbability of picking up the wounded whale, we proceeded to the northward, hoping to be more successful off the capes Chatham and Leuwin. Our passage up was unmarked with incident, except the capture of a large shark, and the picking up of a dead grampus of the variety known as the bottle-nose. The shark’s capture is worthy of mention merely for the method we adopted to kill him. He was struck and hauled in, and beat over the head with a heavy handspike. The forge being up, and a good fire burning in it, a bar of iron was heated, and run directly through his heart, with but little apparent effect; for he still continued to lash his flukes, and set his jaws upon a piece of pine board, to which he held fast. His head was then cut off, and his skin removed; yet every member of his body still retained the power of motion.
The grampus is a most beautiful fish—the handsomest in form of the many inhabitants of the deep that it has been my fortune to see. On account of their shyness, there is great difficulty in approaching these fish when alive, and consequently very few are taken: even in the whaling career, seldom does a seaman have an opportunity of examining one on deck. The one in our possession was about twenty-five feet long, and as much around the bilge. His skin was smooth, of a shining black color. His head gradually sloped, until it ended in a long pointed jaw, resembling that of the porpoise, but which, unlike that of most other fish in these waters, was not furnished with teeth. No mark, accounting for his death, was found upon the body: doubtless, he died from some disease peculiar to the species. The blubber was several inches thick, which on being tried out yielded three barrels of colorless, inodorous oil.
We remained off Cape Leuwin but a short time. Seeing a large lone sperm whale, we lowered away for him, in company with the boats of the barque Pamelia; but we did not succeed in capturing him. We then, accompanied by said barque, again steered for our old ground to the southward.
On Sunday, December 6th, just as we had arrived in our latitude for cruising, we sighted a large lone sperm whale, at 9¹⁄₂ o’clock in the morning; and by ten—the hour when well-behaved folks in civilized countries are wending their way to church—we were deep in the encounter. He occasioned us but little trouble: the first mate fastening to, and killing him before the other boats could reach the scene of action, though all pulled with a will. At the moment of darting the harpoon, the whale struck the boat with his head, knocking a small hole through her bows, and pitching the boatsteerer, who was standing up, over the prow of his boat upon the top of the whale’s elevated huge head; but the imperilled man, with a nimble spring, quickly regained his legitimate position in the boat, where he very probably felt much more comfortable than mounted on such a Pegasus. This was a noble fish, and yielded us over one hundred barrels of sperm oil, valued, at the time we left home, at about sixty dollars a barrel; making, in the aggregate, the snug sum of six thousand dollars. A very creditable day’s work: but, then, it has to be divided into so many shares, that those who undergo the peril and discomforts of making the capture come in for the smallest portion of the gain. The shipowners, sitting at ease in New Bedford, grasp thousands, whilst Jack and his coadjutors can reckon their proportion without very largely intruding on the scores. Thus it is throughout the world: he who does least, is paid best. Intellect overbalances mere physical exertion; and thus it ever will, and ever should do in the promotion of great enterprises.
On the 14th we again met whales, which were not seen until within the ship’s length of us. Our boats were lowered away in haste. A moment afterwards, those of the Pamelia, who was not more than a mile distant from us, were also in the water. Our bow-boat fastened ten minutes after striking the water, and in an incredibly short time the whale was dead, and ours. The remaining boats continued in pursuit of the school, and got near enough to enable the boatsteerers to dart, though at long distances, and without producing any other effect than a pricking of the prey, at which they raised up their huge bodies, and with their flukes thrashed the sea all around them into a boisterous foam. Finding it useless to continue the pursuit, the boats came aboard, and the ship’s head was put in the direction of the whales. We then proceeded to cut in. The Pamelia, meantime, ran down to us; when, with a disinterestedness uncommon to rival whalemen, our captain informed hers of the direction in which the whales had gone. Not being encumbered, as we were, with a whale in tow, she soon passed us. An hour afterwards we saw her lower away and capture a whale, which, as ours done for us, yielded in the neighborhood of one hundred barrels of oil: the whales of this ground all averaging about the same quantity. They are larger, in general, than I have seen them in lower latitudes, besides being always in better condition than when found in a warmer climate, and their blubber on the application of heat almost wholly dissolving into oil.
On the 19th we again saw the same school. At 5 o’clock in the afternoon the waist-boat fastened, was stoven by the whale’s flukes, and her crew obliged to swim for their lives, when they were picked up by the starboard-boat, and carried to the ship. The other boat then went on to the whale, and her boatsteerer darted at him half-a-dozen times in succession, but without effect. Night approaching, we were compelled to desist. Early the next morning we saw a large whale alone—lowered, and the waist-boat fastened. She continued attached for some time, when, her line being nearly run out, the larboard boat’s was bent on to it. By mistake, a line that had been exposed to the weather, had been put into the waist-boat, in lieu of her line that was carried off the day before. The mate, finding that his own line was fast running out, attached a drug to it—hoping that by its resistance in the water the whale would be to some extent forced to moderate his soundings. The old line, unable to endure the strain caused by the drug, parted; and away the whale went to windward eyes out, with a speed that, to the chagrin of all, defied pursuit. So, here was the third whale, this season, lost by the one boat. Oil reviewing this journal, it will be seen in the preceding pages, that a singular fatality has attended all the operations of this boat since we left home. When under the management of Mr. Edwards, (our former second officer, and as good a whaleman as ever stepped into the head of a whaleboat,) she was capsized. Under her present manager, she had her line taken by a whale, off Cape Chatham, where she was also capsized. In the Bight, the whale was only saved by the timely arrival of the bow-boat with its line. The large whale that went off spouting blood, was fastened to from her; the whale of yesterday, that capsized her; and that of to-day, that parted her line—go to make up a catalogue of misfortunes that the annals of whaling-voyages can scarcely equal. And all her disasters—capsizing, losing her whale, losing her line, and being stoven—arose, not from incapacity on the part of her officers, but from a combination of unforeseen circumstances, which it would have been in vain for the most experienced whaleman to guard against.