Contrary to the usual habits of the Greenland whale, this individual, instead of occasionally seeking the depths of ocean for its protection, especially on receiving a fresh and painful wound, remained mainly at the surface. Its natural energies, but yet little acted on by the exhausting influence of the pressure of water, were consequently very little impaired; for the superficial wounds of harpoons produce no immediate effect upon life.
Hence, the operation of lancing was yet to be effected, before there could be any chance of subduing the still existing dangerous vigour. My Father, as was his wont, proceeded next to this venturous undertaking. Again he plants his boat in parallelism of position with that of his gigantic game. Full of ardour and confidence in their leader, his boat’s crew are ready for any effort or adventure which the daring or activity of man may accomplish. The proper moment for the attack is waited for, and, when seen, instantly improved. The boat, as a thing of life, springs, at his signal, towards the side of the whale. The Commander’s long lance—six feet in the iron, and four feet in the handle—is darted, at arm’s length, into the writhing carcass, up to the very socket; and, before the fling of fins or tail can reach, he has recovered a safe distance. The effect of the wound in the vitals is speedily seen. The previous white steamy vapour ejected from the lungs has become tinged with red; and nature’s powers, as experience indicates, must soon decay. Convulsive action in the monster, as stimulated by this inward stab, being at length suspended, the favourable moment is again improved. Another lance,—darted in as quickly as the stroke of the tiger’s paw,—penetrates, for the second time, the vast viscera of the whale; whilst the active agents of the attack escape, as before, unscathed. The deadly thrust is quickly repeated; and, as the capability of exerting instant violence is diminished, the deeply stricken lance is worked actively up and down whilst still within, so that every movement effects an additional wound, and the work of death is the more speedily and mercifully promoted. Thick jets of blood now issue from the blow-holes, and the sea, through the wide space of disturbed waters, is tinged by the overflowing streams; whilst boats, oars, and men, are thickly sprinkled with the sanguinous dye. Lanced, now, on both sides at once, with these formidable instruments of destruction, the dangerous energies of this vast animal become soon overpowered, and it now yields itself passively to its inevitable fate. One effort alone remains. The instinctive impulse or spasm of expiring vitality,—like the brilliant gleam or coruscation of the expiring taper, is expended in a series of tremendous death-throes. The writhing body of the giant captive is now thrown into strangely powerful action; fins and tail play with terrific violence, tossing up huge waves, and dashing the sea, for a considerable circle round, into foam. The prudent fishermen push off to a safe distance, and, looking on with the solemnised impression of a spectacle at once wonderful and sublime, leave the convulsions of expiring nature to expend themselves. The vital energies are exhausted; the huge carcass, so recently perilous in the energies of life, rolls, by the gravitating tendency of its formation, on one side, and slowly the helpless fin rises to the surface of the water, and inherent power of motion ceases for ever! Three hearty cheers from all hands engaged in the capture, with the waving and “striking” of the “jacks” displayed in the boats from which harpoons had been struck, announce to the ship the happy issue of the conflict; from whence, in turn, similar exulting cheers are heard loudly responding.[J]
We have remarked, in a foregoing chapter, on the economy in Providence, by which the fiercest quadrupeds, under human tact and intelligence, become subdued and tractable. Here, again, we are led to reflect on the economy manifest in respect to the hugest of the animal creation, whether on earth or in the ocean, whereby all become subject to man, either for advantageous employment, as to their living energies, or for purposes of utility as to the produce of their dead carcasses.
The capture of the whale by man, when their relative proportions, as to physical power and mass, are considered, is a result truly wonderful. An animal of a thousand times the bulk of man, with a corresponding superiority in strength, inhabiting an element in which man cannot exist, and diving to depths where no other creature can follow, with the capabilities, too, of abiding there for an hour together, is attacked by man on its own ground, not only in the tranquil Pacific, but in the boisterous north-western seas; not only in the open seas of the tropics, but amid ice-bound regions around the pole; and in each region is constrained to yield its life to his attacks, and its carcass a tribute to his marvellous enterprise.
Why this result, with such disproportionate physical powers in conflict, should not only take place, but prevalently follow the attack, is satisfactorily explained on the simple principle of the Divine enactment. It was the appointment of the Creator that it should be so. And this, besides what we have already quoted from the sacred records of creation, we have again, by the inspired Psalmist and elsewhere, declared. Hence, as to the fact of the dominion of man over the inferior creation, Divinely yielded, we have the authority of this adoring appeal of God’s inspired servant:—“What is man, that thou art mindful of him!” “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”—Psalm viii. 6-8. No doubt this striking psalm has direct reference to the world’s Great and Divine Redeemer; but what herein is true of the “Son of Man,” is also, in respect to the consideration of the Almighty for man and his appointed dominion, true of men as a species. And so it follows, that the monsters of the deep, as well as the wild beasts of the earth, yield to this law of creation, that man should have the dominant power!
The whale, thus adventurously subdued, proved a large one of its kind, and a very valuable prize. Its special dimensions and produce, though not noted, may be very proximately gathered from the record (always made in the whaler’s journals) which we have of the length of the largest of the laminæ of whalebone, viz. 11 feet 9 inches. According to the general averages, as given in the “Account of the Arctic Regions,” (vol. i. pp. 449-478,) this specimen would be about 56 feet in length, and must have yielded about 20 tuns of oil, with about 22 cwt. of whalebone. The value of the capture (oil being very low in price at the time) was about 500l.; but the same capture, in the years 1801, 1813, or 1817, when prices were high, would have been worth no less than 1000l. to 1100l.
Section VII.—Remarkable Enterprise.—The nearest Approach to the North Pole.
The adventurous attempt to reach the North Pole, like that of the “North-west Passage,” may be considered as an enterprise peculiarly British. Of six voyages expressly undertaken for this object, up to the time, and inclusive of, Captain Buchan’s, in 1818, there was no advance beyond the 81st parallel. The highest latitude reached was by Captain Phipps, in 1773, who advanced to 80° 48′. Captain Buchan’s farthest was about 80° 34′. And up to the present day we have no account which can be fully relied upon of any ship, discovery ship or whaler, having approached within forty geographical miles of the high northern latitude reached by my Father in the year 1806.
The Honourable Daines Barrington, indeed, in his discussion of the question of the “Probability of Reaching the North Pole,” adduces a great variety of instances of the advance of whalers to far higher positions of northern latitude; but for the reasons stated in the “Account of the Arctic Regions,” (vol. i. p. 42,) I consider the authorities from which Mr. Barrington derived his information as not satisfactory. As to the defectiveness in authority of mere recollections, or even of the notes of ordinary observers, in respect of adventures of this kind, I have a curious example in the “Account of a Voyage to Spitzbergen,” by a Greenland Surgeon, who sailed in the Resolution professionally, on the very voyage on which my Father made his greatest advance northward. The author, in respect to this advance, thus states from his journal:—“May 28. Latitude by observation 81° 50′. Sea almost clear of ice, with a great swell; weather serene. Had our object been the making of discoveries, there was not apparently anything to have prevented us from going a good way farther to the north; at least we did not perceive any large fields of ice in that direction.”