At noon of April 20th we saw the Abrolhas’ Islands, and a reef in their vicinity known as the Turtle Dove, which, from observation, we found considerably out of the position laid down on the chart for it. Immediately on closing with the land we lowered away two boats—one of which went fishing, the other prospecting; at dark both returned, the fishing boat with several barrels of snappers, jew-fish, and gropers; the prospecting party landed on Long Island, and found it a long, narrow strip of coral reef covered with broken shells and fragments of coral cast up by the surf. A few mangroves and stunted bushes comprised the vegetation. Large numbers of birds were present, and on some portions of the island were extensive deposits of guano, though so mixed with coral and fractured portions of shells as to be unfit for the purposes of the agriculturist.
On the following day we again went in, and, carrying the boat across a narrow part of the island, we launched her again in the so-called bay, and proceeded to make soundings, by which we ascertained the feasibility of anchoring here. We also visited Middle Island, where a small mound and a head-board gave notice of the interment of a poor remnant of mortality. The board bore the inscription, “Thomas Williams, deceased April, 1851;” purporting to have been placed there by the captain of a schooner. From a person who knew something of the history of the vicinity, I learned that the deceased had been an American seaman, a colored man, who had left an American whale-ship in Freemantle, years previous; there he had married, joined the schooner and set out as one of a whaling party to the Abrolhas’; but before he had reached the scene of operations, he had fought his last battle, and been conquered by death.
On Middle Island there is a rough house erected, which has remained for many years; as also the ruins of a try works—memorials of a whaling party. The tenement is built of stone, the roof of mahogany, and, no doubt, was formerly quite a substantial building; but the north-westers that howl through the islands have made sad havoc with its fair proportions, and it is no longer tenantable.
At night we braced forward and stood out to the open ocean. On the 29th we gammoned the clipper barque Sunlight, of New Bedford, a beautiful craft, twenty-one months from home, with eight hundred and fifty barrels of oil. Her captain, a namesake of the iron-handed protector of England, was described by his crew as being a fiend incarnate—cursing, beating, and abusing every one under his command; giving them scarcely enough to eat. Poor fellows, they were glad to get hard bread, which we, touched by their relation, gave to them: this they secreted on their persons to carry aboard and make a meal of. The account of their sufferings from this monster almost exceeded belief; but as it was the same story from all grades of the members of the ship’s company, and was afterwards corroborated by the crew of another vessel, we were forced to yield credence to the tale.
On May 1st, a few minutes prior to sunset, we saw boats and a ship whaling. On nearing the scene of operations we found it to be the ship Abigail, of New Bedford, which proved to be unsuccessful. The succeeding day we again saw her boats whaling. We lowered away our own, but to no purpose. They, however, made an acquisition in the shape of an eighty barrel whale.
On the 6th we gammoned the ship Congress; she brought from home a budget of letters for us, but had delivered them over to the James Allen, in October last, supposing that the latter would see us first—they are now lost to us entirely. The Congress, it will be remembered, returned to the States since we have been on this coast, full of oil; and in the sixteen months, during which she has been from home this voyage, she has taken sixteen hundred barrels of oil, or nearly double what we have taken in three years. She is commanded by the person who acted as her mate during the last voyage.
On the 9th we saw a barque to leeward, manœuvring for whales, and evidently desirous, from her signals, of attracting our observation. On running down to her we found that she had a whale alongside, and that she was the John A. Robb, of Fair Haven, captain Baker, the same who was cast away in the barque Henry H. Crapo; her whale was a sulphur-bottom, and, as these are seldom captured, much curiosity was manifested to get a sight at him. The head was shaped like an inverted scoop; the fins and flukes resembled much those of the right whale. It has on its ridge a very small fin or hump, which serves to distinguish it from the fin-back; its jaws are furnished with black bone, but so short as to render it of little value as an article of commerce. In color its body is of a light grey, and is much longer, in proportion to its bulk, than any other fish I have seen. The blubber was about four inches thick, corrugated and arranged on the belly in great folds or rolls; it was literally covered by wounds made by the remora or sucking-fish. The whole length was eighty feet, and its yield fifty barrels—the oil commanding the same price as that of the right whale.
It is seldom this variety of the whale is disturbed by the whaleman, its extreme shyness rendering it almost an impossibility to strike it. In this instance it was shot from the ship by a bomb-lance, which, by a great chance, caused a fatal wound, disabling the fish so that he was an easy capture.
The high price of whalebone at home renders the ships on this ground, which have a large supply of it, anxious to get theirs to market ere there is a depression in price, and we being the only ship anticipating a speedy return, we are continually having it offered to us as freight. Amongst these ships is the Richard Mitchell, which narrowly escaped being driven ashore at Bunbury a few weeks ago. She had landed her captain to bargain for provisions, whilst the vessel was standing off and on, when a heavy southerly gale sprang up and stripped her of every inch of canvas. By great exertions they bent new sails, but it was not until after seventy-two hours beating that she was enabled to get an offing that secured her safety.
From this time up to July 4th we saw little and done less, with the single exception of lowering away for a sperm whale on June the 6th, but seeing nothing of him after we had dropped our boats. On the 4th, whilst in company with the Europa, making for the Abrolhas’ Islands, we sighted sperm whales, lowered, struck, and killed one. Previous to striking we had hoisted our ensign, which was imitated by the Europa. This signal was a bond of copartnership between the two ships during the day’s operations, each being entitled to half the proceeds of the day’s capture. The Europa did not fasten, but chased the whales to windward, in which pursuit we lost sight of her; meantime we tried out our whale and stowed it between decks, so that we would have but little trouble in giving her her half of it when we met. After some days we fell in with her, when her captain, with a generosity unusual with his profession, declined taking any part of it, assigning as a reason our long-continued bad luck; saying, that after having taken but one whale in six months, it would be too bad to deprive us of half of that.