The petrel, or Mother Carey’s chicken, is a pretty bird, smaller than the swallow, and quick as lightning in its movements; although so small, it is found in company with the larger birds unmolested.
At sea not only do we see marine birds, but often, when near any point or headland, we are visited by land birds, who, blown off from the land, pursue their bewildered flight until exhausted, or, meeting a vessel, they alight upon it to refresh their wearied forms. At first they fly around and around the ship, as if fearful of molestation, when, overcome by fatigue, they forget their natural dread of mankind, and alight in the boats, or on deck, unable to move farther. Their wants are supplied by the sailors, and fresh water, of which they appear most in need, given them. After a stoppage of twelve or twenty-four hours they renew their flight, always in the direction of land.
After doubling the Cape of Good Hope, which we effected without experiencing extraordinarily heavy weather, we spent several weeks in beating up towards Port Dauphin, in the Island of Madagascar, off which is a noted locality for the sperm whale fishery. Finding that we made but little headway, we kept away for the off-shore, St. Paul’s ground, and after a fine run found ourselves among the right whales. Here we saw several vessels—the Pioneer and Catharine, of New Bedford, and the Monmouth, of Cold Springs. These vessels had been absent from the United States twelve months each, and had aboard from one hundred to five hundred barrels of oil. The Monmouth reported having lost a boat and a boat’s crew, a few weeks previous, at the Island of St. Paul’s. The boat was headed by her second mate, who had remained fast to a whale until drawn into the breakers, which left not a vestige of the boat or crew in their pitiless destruction.
On this ground, after numerous lowerings away and coming aboard—after seeing whales almost daily, although we found it impossible to get within gun-shot of them, they appearing shy and not at home—one Sunday afternoon the mate and fourth mate lowered away, the other boats being retained aboard the ship. No sooner were we down than, encouraged by the regular movements of the fish, we were convinced we should make a capture, and therefore the chase was conducted with an eagerness not displayed in our former lowerings away. No sooner had we touched the water in the larboard boat, than the mate, after glancing at the spout, gave us orders to shove the boat clear of the ship; then “Out with your oars, my hearties;” and to make us the more eager, he offered us a dollar apiece should we make a capture. As we neared the whale, sinking his voice to a whisper, he urged us to greater exertions, by continually speaking of the whale. “There she lays, my boys; an old soaker, with a back as broad as the deck of our ship. Pull, lads, pull with a will! Give way! every man, fore and aft. Do pull! The boat scarcely moves. Now one more try. She is only two seas off. What do you say now. Put the boat right on top of her. Pull hard, do pull!” Now we draw nearer and nearer, and his enthusiasm is at a boiling heat for fear that we will yet lose the whale; and determined to give vent to his excitement, he offers all his clothes, all his tobacco, and all his money, if we will only get the boat alongside the fish, which by this time is done. Just as the mate heaves his hat over in despair, the boat glides against the monster’s unwieldy carcass at a portion of his body which secures us from the sweep of his immense flukes, and the boatsteerer springs to his feet, and, with nervous arm, drives his harpoon to the socket in the yielding blubber. The mate now loses his excited manner, and, throwing the boat from the whale to escape the mighty effort he makes for our destruction, again becomes the cool and steady whaleman; but our work is not yet done. No sooner is the fish struck, than off he goes, like a charger with the bit in his teeth, perfectly unmanageable, and for an hour we dash through the water at locomotive speed, until the whale exhausts himself with the violence of the effort. Now comes the order to haul line, and the boat is gradually drawn into the whale’s neighborhood, when a bomb lance is discharged, and, fortunately, is lodged on the line of the vertebra, disabling his whaleship from farther flight. They were cognizant of our operations aboard the ship, where the mastheadsman sung out, “There he gives it to him,” the moment we fastened; and immediately after, “The larboard boat’s fast.” The two boats on the cranes were lowered away, manned, and pulled for the scene of action. They arrived in about fifteen minutes after the whale was struck. The waist boat was the second fast. The fish was bleeding at every pore, hand-lances having been darted into him. He attempted to descend, but his debility from loss of blood prevented him going but a few feet below the surface; he lay and rolled, opening wide his huge jaws, displaying his flabby tongue, lashing the water with his gigantic flukes, and bellowing like a whole bevy of mad bulls, from the intense pain he suffered in dying. The other boats, on coming up, fastened, and soon the bloody discharge from his spout holes became thicker, until it had obtained the consistency of tar, when the suffering brute, moderating its bellowing to gasps and sobs, slowly described a circle, throwing its head toward the sun, and after a brief but terrific struggle, rolled fin out, without life or motion. We then cut a hole through the flukes and towed him in triumph to the ship.
I will now, before going farther, describe the demeanor of a boat’s crew when fast to a whale. In the first place the officer goes close enough to the whale to give the boatsteerer a good opportunity to strike him. As soon as the irons leave his hand the head of the boat is thrown from the whale, to avoid the sweep of his tremendous tail, which he invariably exercises the moment he is struck. The officer and boatsteerer now exchange positions, the boatsteerer assuming the management of the boat, whilst the officer takes his position in the bows, and, by the assistance of the bow oarsman, clears away a lance, preparatory to striking the fatal blow. The whale, on being struck, either sounds, or rushes with great rapidity over the surface of the water. In either case the line runs out with marvellous rapidity, and water is continually poured upon it to prevent the wood from igniting by friction. Shortly afterwards, if the whale has moderated his speed, the line is manned by all the crew of the boat, with the exception of the boatsteerer and after-oarsman, who are busily occupied coiling it away in the stern sheets of the boat, so as to prevent its entangling, if again run out by the whale, and the boat is hauled close to him, so as to give the officer an opportunity to lance and despatch him. If he shows a good chance, this is the work of but a few minutes, and the monster is turned up with little or no trouble; but it often happens that hours intervene, before you have an opportunity to kill the whale, and oftentimes are obliged to cut, from the near approach of nightfall. But to return to our whale. We got him alongside, and made him fast by a strong chain, encircling his flukes, passed through the hawse-hole, and secured to the bitts on the forecastle; then a hole was cut close to the whale’s eye, the tackles attached, the cutting fall taken to the windlass, and with a merry song we bowsed his jacket in, stripping the blubber from the carcass, and allowing the latter, with the flukes, to go adrift. Next the head was hove in and lashed on the quarter-deck, then several men with axes split the bone from the jaw, to which it was attached by an adhesive substance known as the gum; it was then scraped, in preparation for the home market, and, after scraping, stowed away in the hold, where no moisture could reach it. The appearance of this bone in the jaw, before separation, is beautiful; its regular arrangement, and long, fringe-like edging, giving it the appearance of an artificial grotto. After disposing of the head and heaving in all the blubber, this, as fast as stripped, is deposited between decks in the main hold—which apartment is designated as the “blubber-room.” The try works being started, two men go into the blubber-room, and, with sharp spades and knives, cut off the lean from the blubber, and divide the fat into pieces about six inches wide by eighteen in length, suitable for the mincing-machine. They then, with pikes, pitch it into a tub placed on deck for its reception, whence it is carried to the machine, where it is minced into pieces half an inch in thickness, and consigned to the pot. After all the oil is separated from it, the scraps are taken from the pot and the oil poured into a copper cooler, whence it runs into a cool try pot, and thence is bailed into casks, which are rolled on to the quarter-deck, where it is allowed to cool preparatory to stowing below in the hold. Meantime the pots are again filled up, and the scraps from the preceding pot are used in heating the works—these scraps forming an excellent and remarkably economical fuel; for if the whale did not furnish material for rendering its own oil, the fuel which would have to be substituted would be a costly item. From the embers, united with fresh water, an excellent lye is made, which is useful in extracting grease from clothes, washing the paint work and so forth. The oil is usually allowed to stand for twenty-four hours before stowing below, and when ready a trap is removed, which is cut through the deck, a tub lashed under it between decks, and a hose with a cock attached; a cask is now rolled on to this trap, the bung extracted, a vent pipe introduced, and soon the whole produce of the fish is in the hold, never to be removed, except in case of leakage, during the remainder of the voyage. This whale made us ninety barrels of oil. After capturing him, we remained on this ground for several weeks, without farther success in increasing our cargo; in two instances the boatsteerer missing whales, and in a third striking one with the irons, causing him to spout blood; but most of the chief mate’s line being run out, he bent to his that belonging to the bow boat. On its passage from the tub, it brought with it a formidable array of harpoons and lances, with which it had become entangled. “Foul line,” was sung out, the line severed, and the whale allowed to go adrift. We saw him for some time afterward, and bending to our oars, we pulled to windward with a will, in pursuit of him, but to no purpose. Whilst chasing him to windward, the bomb-lance gun, in the mate’s boat, went off without leave, and pierced a hole through the head of the boat, so disabling her, that she had to return aboard; as we all did at noon. Afterward the whale came close to the ship, and, peaking his flukes, gave us a view of our line, wound in a thousand contortions around his small and tail. We again lowered for him, but without success.
On the 12th of November, a merchant barque ran across our stern, which, on speaking, we discovered to be the Eliza Carrew, of Boston. So far, all was very well; but on crossing our stern, she luffed up under our lee, and, our sails taking the wind from hers, she became unmanageable. The next moment she was aboard of us, crushing the lee boats to pieces, carrying away cranes and davits, snapping off the spanker-boom, and carrying away the entire larboard mizzen rigging. After a short interval she got clear from us, when we found that she had not escaped scot free. We saw that her maintopsail yard was snapped off outside the head ear-ring, her foreyard carried away in the slings, and about twenty feet of her bow rail, on the starboard side, stoven to atoms. After the two vessels had swung clear from each other, the third mate and his boatsteerer jumped into the bow boat, which had broken down and lay floating alongside, for the purpose of saving the craft. Almost as soon as they got into her, she became detached from the ship, drifted astern, and capsized; so that we were obliged to lower away our only whole boat, that on the starboard quarter, to rescue the two adventurers, who were taking it very coolly, seated on the bottom of the wreck. In a short time we had them aboard the ship; but in the operation, the bow of the starboard boat came in contact with the stoven one, and had a hole knocked into it. So here we were on a whaling-ground, in the height of the season, with plenty of whales around us, without a single whole boat on the cranes; and were it not that we had spare boats, the damage would have been irreparable; as on this side the Good Hope, whale-boats cannot be procured at any port nearer than Hobartown, and this, involving a long run, loss of time, and port expenses, to compass it, would have caused a total forfeiture of the whole season’s work. The broken boat was hoisted aboard, and then the Carrew ran close to and spoke us, asking if all was right with our vessel and men. Our captain answered quickly and curtly, and in an undertone desired him to take his departure, for, should he repeat his manœuver, he would give him occasion to regret it. During the whole of this time, and for weeks subsequent to the accident, we were under the impression, as she had shown no colors, that she was a Johnny Crapeau, and sailed under the tri-color; but we learned afterward that she was a Boston ship. Different reasons were assigned by different individuals as to the cause of the unseamanlike conduct in managing the Carrew; some stating that they distinctly heard her captain ask ours for a porpoise iron, and supposed that he came close to us in order to have it handed aboard without the bother of lowering a boat; whilst others, less charitable, stated that she was loaded with liquor from the Mauritius: that the captain had broken bulk, and imbibed so much that it had set his wits wool-gathering. As to the first reason assigned, having heard nothing regarding the iron, I can give no opinion; as to the second, not having data sufficient to draw so sweeping a charge from, I will not advance so gross an accusation, but allow the matter to rest: the public, of course, having heard from the master of the Carrew his version of the matter, as we saw by the papers that he had reported the collision on his arriving at port. On the whole, both vessels were extremely fortunate in escaping with so little injury; as two vessels seldom come into contact, even in port, where they are in smooth water, without the result being much more disastrous than in our case.
It is said that misfortunes seldom come singly; and, indeed, in the experience of a lifetime, circumstances seem to justify the correctness of the adage. So it was in our case. A short time previous to our last misfortune, the larboard watch was sent aloft to double reef the foretopsail. It was about half an hour after eight bells, in the first watch at night—the watch below had turned in, but were not as yet sleeping—when, directly after the watch had manned the foretopsail yard, the men in the forecastle were startled by the fall of a heavy body on deck, directly over their heads. A rush was made for the ladder, and on getting on deck, a youngster, who belonged to New Bedford, was found prostrate, without sense or motion. By the orders of the first officer, who thought him dead, he was immediately carried into the cabin. The watch on the yard were instructed to lay down from aloft. On carrying the sufferer into the cabin, it was found that his heart beat; he was bled, and in the course of a few hours he regained consciousness, and continued gradually to mend, until, after the lapse of a few weeks, he was perfectly recovered, without, apparently, any serious effect from his fall, except the increase of an already craving appetite, and corresponding augmentation in length and breadth of person. His fall may be attributed to a superabundance of heavy clothing, beside a coarse, heavy pair of boots, united making him clumsy and unwieldy aloft. Although, from his account, it would appear that, at the time of the accident, he was very nearly, or quite, asleep, as he retained no remembrance of their having occasion to reef the topsail, and no recollection of having been on the yard, or any other circumstance connected with his fall, the only reason that we can assign for the slight injuries he sustained, is the supposition that in his descent his fall was broken by his striking against the foretop, the mainstay, and a barricade of spars that were lashed forward. I think you will agree with me that he required some easing down, when I state that he fell from the weather yard-arm, close by the bunt, at least forty-five feet from deck. A few weeks after this we had another specimen of lofty tumbling whilst we were gammoning with the barque Pioneer, of New Bedford. The watch had gone aloft to furl the foretopsail, and had so far progressed as to be ready to pass the yard-arm gaskets. Jose, a Portuguese, was at the end of the starboard yard-arm coiling the outside gasket, preparatory to encircling the sail with it, when his feet slipped from the horse; keeping firm hold of the gasket, which reached about half way to the water, he slid to its extreme end. The weather was light, and the ship pretty steady. He remained suspended for a moment, when, watching for the weather roll, he let go, descended into the water, rose, and struck out like a good fellow. The second mate ran on to the house, caught up a boat’s fall, made a bowling in the end of it, and hove it to him; he slipped it over his head and under his arms, and was soon hauled aboard, without other damage than a good wetting, of which he made very little account.
Having recorded several instances of a serious character, I shall take occasion to speak of the numerous practical jokes that are enacted aboard ship. The monotony of the life at sea renders a hearty laugh somewhat of a relief, and assists in passing away the time; and this end is desirable on the whaling-ground on account of the many hours of inactivity. At night, in the vicinity of a place of known resort for the fish, sail is shortened, and all hands, except one boat’s crew and its boatsteerer, go below; the officers remaining all day on deck, and standing no watch at night. In a four-boat ship, the night is divided into four watches. The night watch, therefore, is so short as to be anything but onerous; hence the early part of the night is devoted to singing, yarning, &c. But I set out with the intention of telling a joke, and as I have digressed a little I hope the reader will pardon me. One fine Sunday morning Kedge Anchor expressed a desire to have his hair cut. Here was an opening—and a conspiracy was immediately formed against his cranial adornment. One went to work and cut his hair. When finished, a dozen voices exclaimed against the barbarian who had put so outre a cut on his poor head; others recommended a little more off behind. The victim acquiesced, and submitted to the operation. A second, third, fourth, and fifth, lent their aid in denuding his skull, and by the time the last had finished he was a picture for a painter. The poor fellow had not a hair on his head more than a quarter of an inch in length, and, as his forehead was receding, his appearance can be better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, that for weeks after the shearing his appearance was greeted with hearty laughter; and, as with him laughter was contagious, he always joined in the shout. For a long time he did not discover that he was the butt, but when he did discover his loss he was rather pleased than otherwise at the singularity of his appearance. This is but one of the many tricks of this kind that I have witnessed. I remember seeing a green hand sent to tell the steward to overhaul the captain’s chronometer box for a swab to clean up the forecastle. Another sent to the masthead to ask the man stationed there the time of day, or to see if the sun had risen. Another to the officer of the deck to advise him to secure the barometer, or to tell him that the masts were working. And I remember one poor fellow, who prided himself much on his agility, giving us a specimen of the movements of the kangaroo, sweating and exerting himself for a whole afternoon, delighting us, as he supposed, with his farcical antics, until he discovered on his back a large paper figure in imitation of himself. He said not a word at the time, and sat down totally abashed; but ere long a paper Punch figured on the back of the supposed instigator.
CHAPTER III.
Finding but little could be done amongst the whales on this ground, early in December we resumed sea watches, and steered a course for the coast of New Holland, intending to cruise off its southwesternmost point for sperm whales. On the fifth of the same month, whilst pursuing our course to the eastward, we sighted the Island of Amsterdam, in 40° South latitude, 77° East longitude. At daylight the ensuing morning, we lowered away three boats, each member of their respective crews provided with fishing-tackle, for the capture of much smaller members of the finny tribe than our usual game. Before arriving at the island, we saw, and gave chase to an otter, but he eluded our pursuit. This was the first animal of the kind I had ever seen; it absorbed my attention, whilst in sight, to the exclusion of all other novelties. His face, in expression, reminded me of that of a pug dog, in which opinion all my companions united. I also saw here the first of those peculiarities, viz. penguins, or waugans, as they are called by seamen—their hoarse cry and long immersion in water excited my wonder and attention. Here also were the osprey, sea hen, albatross, monimoke, right and sperm whale birds, and numerous minor specimens of the family, flying in and out of their eyries in the cliff, carrying food to their young, and occasionally disputing for the possession of the finny prey, which they capture with much dexterity. Sometimes they wheeled in circles around our boat, apparently viewing us as intruders on their domain.