She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

THE MATE

Mr. Brown had made another trip, and brought back the stove boat and its crew. That was a job for Peter. Mr. Baker had gone off dead to windward. It was almost hopeless to stand after him in the Clearchus, but we did so, making short tacks so that he might not lose us. He came back about dark, rather crestfallen, without his whale. After running ten or twelve miles, the whale had sounded out all his line. He waited more than an hour for the whale to come up, in the hope that he could, at least, get hold of the line again; but nothing had been seen of the whale. He must have run for miles under water.

CHAPTER XXIX

We reached the Keelings late in April, having taken no whales since leaving Desolation. Captain Nelson found that the Bartholomew Gosnold had left a few hours before we arrived. This was unfortunate. I have no doubt that the fact made the captain regret more than ever that he had stopped to lower for the blind whale. He had had a boat stove, Captain Coffin had been laid up, he had missed the Gosnold, and he did not get the whale. Still, probably he would do the same thing again under the same circumstances, and probably he ought to. I was especially sorry that we had missed the Gosnold, for she was going directly home and would have taken letters. It was some months since I had written home, and I had a large instalment of my journal ready to send; but I could send it from Batavia.

For the few days that we were at the Keelings we had exceptionally good weather, and we visited North Keeling Island, which is not often possible. The island is uninhabited except by birds and some other things, among which is a monstrous land crab which climbs trees and feeds on coconuts. Between the coconut palms and ironwood trees there is a dense forest covering the island, which is only about a mile long. We saw literally myriads of frigate-birds, boobies, terns, and other sea-birds, all of which nest there. I was especially interested in the frigate-birds and their nests. The birds would rise from their nests and sail in spirals to great heights, apparently very angry, inflating the red pouches on their necks as they rose. I was for seeing whether I could not find a few good eggs for my collection, but Peter dissuaded me. He thought that the birds would not take it well. As for my collection of eggs, I had not begun it yet, but I thought that frigate-birds’ eggs would be a good thing to begin with.

I still think so, and regret my failure to get an egg or two. No doubt, if I had got them, they would now be adorning the loft of my barn, where various collections of my son’s ornament the walls, in various stages of desiccation or decay. There are a collection of eggs, some of them rare; a collection of seaweeds and mosses, dried and mounted on cards, and lettered very beautifully; shells of crabs, likewise mounted on cards, among which are two or three shells of young horseshoe crabs about an inch or two long, very delicate and perfect; a collection of wild-flowers, dried, pressed, and mounted; a collection of lichens; and collections of various other kinds, which I forget at this moment. These collections represent different phases in my son’s development which he very promptly forgot as soon as they were past, but each of which was absorbing while it lasted. I do not look at them often, but I would not have them touched, and neither would Ann McKim.

I should have been glad to stay longer, but the voyage was neither for my health, which was disgustingly rugged, nor for my pleasure, and Captain Nelson sailed for Sunda Strait without consulting me. It is not a long stretch from the Keelings to the Strait, but we were delayed and turned aside by whales, of which we saved two, both of which lay fin out within an hour from lowering. They were fairly large, and made more than one hundred and fifty barrels, and raised our stock of sperm oil on board to about twelve hundred barrels.

We finished our trying-out late one afternoon, and kept off for Sunda Strait, making a beginning at our scrubbing of the ship. We were directly in the track of sailing vessels bound through the Strait to China and Japan, and very nearly in the track of steamers both ways. Sunda Strait is the narrow throat of the highway between the Indian Ocean and all the seas and ports to the east, and it is almost busy enough to need a traffic policeman.

That night was a very dark night; pitch-black, moonless and clouded over, so that there was not even the little light from the stars. The blackness of the night seemed thick, oppressive. I could not catch even a gleam from the water, and it is very rarely the case that you cannot see the water now and then, even on a dark night. It seems much lighter at sea than it does on shore. Everybody aft had turned in, and there was no light showing from the stern ports, for I looked over the stern to see. I could not bring myself to turn in, for I was half afraid, to tell the whole truth, although I do not know what I was afraid of. The thick blackness of the night seemed ominous.