We had good weather to the River Plate. Our northeasterly wind continued until we were two days out of Rio, then pulled around into the southwest, and came stronger. There are not many days of calms and variable winds in this part of the ocean, and gales at this season are rare. We were making a course almost due south, and were several hundred miles from the coast. When we arrived off the Plate, early in November, we reduced sail, and cruised to and fro, keeping a sharp lookout for whales.
We had seen no birds at all on the Western grounds, and but few on our way down; but here I saw my first albatross, before we had got any whales. The breeze was light, but there was quite a heavy swell rolling from the southwest, and the ship, under easy sail, was barely moving through the water. I happened to have—or to be taking—a brief rest from my duties, as I was very apt to do. Probably I had been sent on some errand, and, boylike, I was performing it by standing at the rail near the windlass, looking out over the heaving sea, and dreaming my dreams, when I saw, far ahead of us, a white speck on the water. The white speck would rise slowly, as the great rollers advanced, until it was on the top of one of them; then, with the passage of the swell, it would fall as slowly, until it was hidden in the valley. I had the old glass hung about my neck in case we should raise a spout. All the officers used to laugh at me for carrying that jangling load of junk, but I did not care for their laughter, and I was glad that I had it then, for I could not have gone after it.
I looked through the glass, and after searching over a vast expanse of sea and sky—it is no small trick to hold a glass steady on a vessel that is heaving as the Clearchus was, but I had got the hang of letting my feet move with the ship and keeping my body steady—after a long search, I say, I found my white speck, and saw that it was some sort of a great white bird, sitting high in the water, like a gull. It may have been sleeping, but it was not when I caught sight of it through the glass. Its head was up, and it was looking about alertly, and at last it caught sight of the ship. The ship was not near to it, however, and it continued to stare right at me for a long time, until I grew embarrassed, and put the glass down. It sounds absurd enough, but you just try looking at a distant boat or a duck or a gull, through a glass, and if you do not have the same impulse I will eat it—if it is the right kind of a duck. When the glass was down, my embarrassment vanished, and I put it to my eyes again. The bird was still watching me, looking away now and then, and getting more nervous; but it waited until I had a distinct view of its shape and plumage, its bill, with a hook at the end, and its staring eyes, before taking flight. Then, with a last glance toward the ship, it spread long, narrow wings, held them out, seemed to rise on its feet, and began a sort of run over the surface of the water. When it had run a hundred feet or more in this way, and was going at great speed, it managed to take the air. Albatrosses do not take the air easily, and the men said that they are not able to rise from calm water, but depend on the lift of the waves. As it rose it seemed enormous, and I was reminded of the first great blue herons I ever saw. I was on a visit to my grandmother, in Newburyport, and as we were going over Chain Bridge we saw four of the great birds standing in the edge of the marsh. They saw us too; and when we stopped to get a better view, they rose. I remember they seemed as big as houses, as they flew off across the river, trailing their long legs. That albatross, seen through my glass, seemed as big as a house. Probably he had a spread of wing half as large again as that of a great blue heron.
As I stood, with the glass at my eyes, watching the albatross rise and sail away, the surface of the sea for a great distance was in the field of the glass. My attention was caught by a commotion—a sort of heaving of the surface—on the side of one of the rollers, three or four miles away. At almost the same instant a glistening black body shot out, rode high in the water for a moment, and then sank without a splash until only two small islands were visible. I yelled at the top of my lungs, and as if my yell had been a signal, a vigorous spout arose from the whale’s spiracle, plumed off to leeward, and the melodious cry of the Admiral came down to me.
The whale was undisturbed, and lay there like a huge log, taking his time about having his spoutings out. He was off the lee bow, and we kept on for perhaps ten minutes, to get more to windward of him. Then we lowered two boats. The boats had not gone far when the whale raised his flukes lazily, and went down again; and the boats went on to the points which their officers thought advantageous for the whale’s rising, took down their sails, unshipped their masts, and waited.
They had been loafing there about a quarter of an hour when, suddenly, without warning of any kind, the body of a whale shot clear of the water, between the boats, and fell back with a tremendous splash. This was too much for the nerves of one of the green hands, who let loose a yell. The whale had no difficulty in hearing that yell. We heard it on the ship. The whale, which was not the one they had been waiting for, but another, lobtailed twice, and made off between the boats, to windward, before the crews could get their oars in the water. The whale was evidently “gallied,” and was swimming head out. Although the boats took up the chase at once, and we hastily lowered another boat to head him off, if possible, that boat was too late, and he passed a quarter of a mile ahead of the ship. The first two boats, seeing that they were rowing a losing race, returned to their stations, to wait until the first whale rose; but the boat we had lowered, which was the fifth mate’s boat, continued the chase for five miles. It got no nearer in the five miles of hard rowing, and then gave it up, and returned.
Meanwhile the two boats were back again, watching the water for a sign of the reappearance of the first whale. The hour was almost up, and I glanced aloft at the Admiral’s station at the foremasthead. The Admiral was not there, for he rowed bow oar in Mr. Snow’s boat—the fifth mate’s—but another man was manipulating the signal flag. I had learned a little of their system of signalling, and I saw that he was telling them that their whale had risen far to leeward. I looked and could just make out the spout, about a couple of miles to leeward of the boats. The whale seemed to be reconnoitering. He swam slowly in a circle, always keeping his distance from the boats and from the ship, and working to windward.
“Clean gallied,” said a voice behind me. “Damn that man! They may as well come aboard.”
That seemed to be Captain Nelson’s opinion, for the boats were soon called back. It was a disgusted lot of men that came over the side. I had no difficulty in spotting the man who had yelled, and thereby, as they all maintained, had lost them a perfectly good whale. It was Kane, in Mr. Brown’s boat. He looked sheepish and ashamed, and said not a word. Kane afterward became one of our best men.
We were not always to have that kind of luck. A week later we raised whales again. Mr. Baker and Mr. Brown lowered at once, and after about half an hour, when more whales had come to the surface, Mr. Tilton and Mr. Wallet. Mr. Baker struck almost immediately. His whale was rather a small one which happened to rise just ahead of the boat, and Macy got both irons fast. The whale then started to run under water, coming to the surface now and then to spout. He ran so hard that it was impossible to pull up for lancing, and they were unable even to hold all they had, and had to give him line. He was heading for Montevideo, and passed out of sight with Mr. Baker in the bow, holding a useless lance, and swearing volubly, I have no doubt; and with Macy holding hard at the steering oar, and the boat throwing a small cataract of spray from either side.