This ground is the point to which we endeavored to beat up three years ago, with the intention of whaling, before visiting New Holland. It bears a good reputation as to the presence of whales; but the fish are noted for their fighting on being struck, so that it is no easy matter to make a capture, after once striking. Whether we should have been any the more successful had we visited and cruised on this ground in the earlier portion of our voyage, deponent, from his ignorance, saith not.
I omitted to mention that on account of the extension of the term of our voyage, meat had been purchased in Mauritius; also, ten barrels and a half of colonial beef (of a very inferior quality) packed in Melbourne, and thirteen barrels of American pork purchased from the ship Robert Patton, of Boston: which, together with what we already had aboard, was deemed amply sufficient for our consumption on the short cruise off Madagascar, and during our passage home.
The time of our leaving for home was now set to be New Year’s Day, 1859. This period, so long and devoutly prayed for, we were assured would not under any circumstances be again postponed, and we hoped that it would not; for we had been out very long, and all were thoroughly convinced that longer cruising for whales would be entirely useless. To be plain; all wanted to get home. The whole ship’s company, too, felt and expressed the opinion, that the voyage was unlucky, and they wished to begin a new one, under better auspices. Our continual ill fortune in not seeing whales, and having our boats stoven, had so deeply engendered this feeling that a general lukewarmness prevailed, which could only be dissipated by a notice from the masthead that sperm whales were about, when indeed all would again become as eager as we were at the commencement of the voyage.
There were now, of the thirty who sailed from home in the vessel, but twenty-one remaining; yet even this is a much larger proportion of the original crew than is usually carried home from a voyage of such length as ours. The cabin had lost one of its members; the steerage was intact—the same boatsteerers remaining as when we first set sail; and of the foremast hands ten, besides the cook, remained: making twenty one in all. We had now been so long together, that the withdrawal of one of our number would produce a feeling like that caused by the separation from a member of one’s own family; and it was not without much regret that we thought on having parted with the two of our original crew in Port Louis.
We continued off the Island of Madagascar up to November 27th, without aught to mar, or rather improve, the general and almost uninterrupted bad weather—thunder and lightning storms following each other with scarce any intermission. During this time we occasionally saw a whale-ship, and, if the weather permitted, failed not to while away a part of this dreary period in gammoning. One day, whilst so engaged, we learned that the chief mate of the ship Martha, of Fairhaven, had lost his life in much the same manner as did the seaman belonging to the Brewster. The mate was not seen to leave the boat, neither was any other of the boat’s crew injured; but it appears that the boat had been rashly carried into a perilous and unwarrantable situation by the mate, and, in the bustle attendant to extricating the boat under such circumstances, it is supposed that whilst the others were busy in trimming boat and attending to the line, the whale, by a sweep of the flukes, struck the officer so suddenly and so severely as to put it out of his power to give an alarm, whereby to attract their attention. Undoubtedly his death was instantaneous; but little exertion on the part of the whale would be required to supply a sufficiency of force to crush vitality from the frame of the strongest or proudest of the human race.
This accident is attributed to carelessness, and, from my own observation, I should say that at least two-thirds of the fatal accidents that occur to whalemen, in pursuit of their prey, result from gross carelessness or recklessness on the part of the boat-header. Some years ago it was unusual to hear of a fatal accident to those engaged in the pursuit of the whale. At that time the fish were plenty, and boatheaders, as a class, were cool, sagacious, and experienced men, who had been accustomed to and occupied in the whaling business for years. These men would not risk their boat and crew to almost certain destruction to strike a whale, or to be the first boat fast, or to get a fatal lance before another boat arrived; but, working carefully and securely, they bided the time until a fit opportunity presented itself, and then, guided by their long experience, applied the lance expeditiously and fatally. This race of whalemen has, however, been supplanted by another of younger men, who were brought into the field by the prolific grounds of the Arctic Ocean and Ochotsk Sea, inhabited as they were by myriads of bowhead whales that had never been chased or interfered with by whalemen; consequently, they had not learned from the past to use all the expedients furnished them by nature to avoid and combat against the wiles and stratagems of men. Hence, little else was necessary to capture the bowhead but to have a boat and crew, pull alongside the fish, dart the irons into him, and, ere the bewildered creature had recovered from his astonishment, drive in the lance and kill him; but now that the bowhead has grown more wary, and to take him is a work of difficulty and danger, ships do not make such remunerative voyages in their pursuit as formerly; therefore their owners, instead of directing their vessels only to the Arctic and Ochotsk, began again to turn their attention to the, for a few years, comparatively neglected grounds of the Indian Ocean; but they do not venture without many misgivings as to the probable success of their vessels. A few ships are fitted out, they sail, and in the course of a few years return with excellent cargoes—the whales, having enjoyed somewhat of a respite, again resorted to their former haunts. All is now hurry and bustle in New Bedford and the other whaling ports. These voyages act as an incentive to further operations—mechanics are incited, by liberal offers, to extreme exertion; and in a short time the vessels are ready for sea. The north-west whalemen have also heard of these voyages; they apply for berths, and the owner, or agent, in making inquiry as to their qualifications, learns that he or they got so many whales during the last voyage. In the absence of information, the shipper, supposing that if the applicant can strike and kill one description of whale, he will have no trouble in capturing the others, engages him at a good price, which he commands on the strength of his reputation. The ship sails; but when the north-wester gets into the Indian Ocean, he finds many ships, but few whales, and those few requiring different manipulation on his part, if he wishes to capture them, than those with which he is better acquainted. He strives to become familiar with their habits, but, unfortunately, the whales being chased daily, and almost hourly, by some one or another of the various vessels that occupy every nook and corner of the ocean where there is any likelihood of seeing fish, afford him but few opportunities of adding to his stock of experience; so that it is not until near the close of the voyage that he becomes au fait in the discharge of his duties. By this time the golden opportunity has passed, and, but a few months remaining, he strives to make up by rashness what he lacks in skill, exposing himself and crew in situations against which his better judgment, in cooler moments, would revolt; but this is a losing game, as his crew, who, with equal opportunities and equal intelligence, well know when a whale is approached in the proper manner, and, following the precept that self-preservation is the first law of nature, hesitate to pull anywhere and everywhere, without satisfying themselves that they are right, which they would not if they had full confidence in their officer. Hence, the want of a perfect understanding between the boatheader and crew is another prolific source of accidents. To sum up, every day increases the difficulties and dangers presented to those whose calling is the pursuit of the whale: the fish are either becoming much less numerous, or else they are retreating to the frozen North or South, where the climate forbids man’s encroaching. They are also becoming more wary, and it is only by the most careful management that a boat can approach so as to strike them; they taking the alarm at the least variation in the motions of the waves, and the slightest noise being sufficient to alarm them. Formerly, if we are to believe tradition, such was not the case; and certainly the following anecdote, which, I engage, will be told for many years to come by men who will attest to its perfect reliability, will, to some minds—though I must confess they will be of small caliber if they give credence to it—go to substantiate such a premise, to wit:
It formerly was the practice to provide each boat from a whale-ship with a number of bricks. On lowering for, and approaching within a respectable distance of the whale, the boatsteerer was directed to heave one of these bricks at him. If he took no notice of the insult, he was pronounced perfectly safe and tractable, the boat was then laid on and the irons darted; but if, on the contrary, he used his flukes or fins, and made the white water fly, the boat was pointed for the ship; the fishermen being perfectly satisfied with the display of his belligerent powers without a nearer approach, and very well contented to await a more safe and favorable opportunity of increasing their store of oil.
On the 27th of November we gammoned the ship Plover, of New Bedford; her mate and his boat’s crew being on board our ship, and our captain and a boat’s crew aboard of her. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, our masthead’s man sung out for sperm whales. After a short observation our mate lowered away, and in less than ten minutes fastened. Immediately the Plover’s mate and our second mate dropped their boats, and several boats from the Plover pulled for the scene of operations. After some little difficulty, a second boat fastened. Our mate, going on to lance the whale, had his boat crushed to pieces, the whale having turned towards him suddenly and grasped the boat in his jaw, making it a wreck in a moment; the crew were pitched head over heels into the water, whilst the boat, being so much damaged, as to be useless, floated away without being taken notice of. The crew were soon picked up, and in other boats were trying to revenge their sense of injury on the whale. The third mate of the Plover now essayed to lance the whale, but with no better success, his boat being stove in the same manner. Our second mate next tried and succeeded; the other boats, having encircled the whale, diverted his attention, and we turned him up. The whales on the Madagascar ground are notorious for their belligerent propensities, and I have been assured by old habitues of the vicinity, that if a boat-header escapes once in three times from having his boat stove, more or less, he is either an admirable manager, or a wonderfully lucky fellow.
The Plover is but five months from home, and her crew had previously done no whaling—she having taken no oil; therefore it was amusing to watch the woebegone and rueful countenances with which the boats’ crews obeyed the order of their officers to pull up to the whale, whilst, on the contrary, when ordered to pull in the opposite direction, their faces would brighten up with an expression of heartfelt relief; and then to look at our own fellows, inured to all the vicissitudes of this adventurous pursuit, taking everything as coolly as if engaged in the most ordinary occupation; making sport of hardships and a jest of danger; eager as the most insatiate sportsman to be in at the death; assisting their boat-sheader to the utmost, anticipating his orders, and acting out all his requirements; so that boat, officer, and crew, seemed to be a nicely constructed machine, working by a secret spring actuating the muscles of each of its occupants with the self-same power. Even when their boat was stoven they had a jest to crack at the greenhorns. Poor fellows, they were much more entitled to our commiseration than derision; we have been through the mill, and have seen and suffered, whilst they, unless circumstances should very much favor them, are doomed to a three years’ stay in the Indian Ocean, where, if “forthcoming events cast their shadows before,” they are fated to discover that their one stoven boat is but a foretaste of what they will experience in that line before their time is up.
Before we saw the whale we observed a ship some five miles to windward, with her boats down, and another about the same distance to windward of her, manœuvering as if for whales. We subsequently ascertained that, between noon and the time we struck, five vessels had attempted to capture this whale. All these vessels being in a direct line with our own ship, the whale following a straight course and going to windward, they gave up the chase as useless. We only succeeded by dropping our boat when he was a short distance to leeward, and at a time when the sun’s rays favored a near approach to him. He was a noble fellow, and well worthy the trouble we had with him.