Читать книгу The Boy Whaleman - George Fox Tucker - Страница 5

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We now bore away south—all hands anxious to see whales. One morning the captain called us aft and addressed us as follows:

“I want to tell you about the prizes. Every man who sights a whale that is captured gets a prize. If the whale makes fifty barrels or less, a flannel shirt; if over fifty barrels, five dollars. These are the prizes given away during the voyage. Then at the end of the voyage the owner will give two gold watches—and good gold watches, too—one to the man who raises the largest sperm whale during the voyage, and the other to the man who raises the largest bowhead, that is the whales that stow down the greatest amount of oil. Keep your eyes open.”

The name I went by was “Fancy Chest”, and it stuck to me to the end of the voyage. As we walked away, Kreelman said:

“Well, Fancy Chest, what do you think of it?”

“Fine.”

“Not so fine as you think. The flannel shirt isn’t good for much, and you can’t spend the five dollars at any of the few places where we stop, for they don’t know that kind of money. I went on a voyage once and got a so-called gold watch when we got home. It was pinchbeck. I had to shake it to make it go, and I shook it so hard it made my arm ache.”

This was discouraging, and I was pretty well disillusioned. It was to be my fortune during the voyage to draw a watch, but I must withhold the story about it till the end of the book.

Kreelman continued, changing the subject, “It’s about time to have fresh meat. I’m about tired of hard bread and lobscouse.”

“Do they keep it on board?”

“Fancy Chest, you are still a greenie. Look in the sea and see what you see.”

We had seen porpoises before, but never so many as there were now. They were dancing all about the vessel, as if bent on a frolic. One of the boat-steerers went forward and rigged a platform just over the bow. Then he took his stand on it, with harpoon in hand. Two or three of the graceful creatures came up as if to encourage advances, and then disappeared beneath the surface. They were not near enough for the boat-steerer’s purpose. Then a daring fellow leaped up as if to defy the harpooner, only to fall a prey to his iron. Soon another porpoise was captured. I looked at the pretty creatures lying on the deck—each about five feet in length—with some pity, which gave way to the pleasant thought of the approaching repast.

As I went by the galley the cook said, “You’ll get something at dinner to make you feel good.” And we did. The meat was boiled with “doughboys” or dumplings, and nice it tasted, too. This change in diet cheered us all, and that afternoon there was more contentment than I had seen any day since we sailed.

I had now learned to box the compass, and I knew the ropes. There used to be an impression that the duties of a whaleman were light. This is far from the truth. The labor was incessant. There was no limit to the hours, and the work was often carried on in the night watches. Contrary to the general impression, the whaler was cleaner and more trim than the merchantman. And now a few words about whales, as we were soon to have our first chase.

Whales have lungs and warm blood, and their bodies do not differ much from those of a cow or a horse. There are several kinds, but in the good old whaling day only two kinds were of real value—the sperm whales or cachalots and the whales which yielded bone. The largest cachalot ever captured was nearly ninety feet long and nearly forty feet in circumference, and weighed about ninety tons! Think of it! One hundred and eighty thousand pounds! Now, if we say that thirteen men weigh a ton, a whale of this kind will weigh more than the entire population of a village of over eleven hundred inhabitants. It is also said that a large sperm whale weighs a good deal more than a hundred oxen, and has the strength of several hundred horses. The head is blunt and flat, and the skull sometimes measures more than twenty feet in length. The eye is near the angle of the jaw; it has no lashes, and is about as large as the eye of a colt. The creature can see ahead or to either side, but the eyes are separated by the immense head, so that each eye seems to work on its own account; and this is thought to be the reason why sperm whales act so queerly at times. The most curious organ is the ear. It is just behind the eye and is so small that a pencil can hardly be inserted in it.

The lower jaw, which contains the teeth, is far smaller than the upper jaw, but it was regarded in whaling days of considerable value, for the posterior part called the “jawbone” and the teeth, which weighed about a pound and a half each, furnished the material out of which sailors made so many curious articles.

The sperm whale has no nose, but a substitute in a spouthole on top of the head.

The interior of the mouth is white, and the tongue is small and the throat large.

The head is, in size, about one third of the body, and in it is what is called the “case” containing spermaceti, formerly used in the manufacture of candles. It is dipped out with buckets, and sometimes fifteen barrels are taken from a single head. What is this great oil case for? Some think that the animal draws upon it for nourishment during periods of food scarcity, just as bears store upon their bodies great quantities of fat to draw on later. The whales are covered with what is called blubber, which keeps them warm in cold water and relieves the pressure when they “sound,” that is, go down to great depths.

The flippers, one on each side of the body, are not like the fins of a fish, but are the limbs of land mammals, covered with blubber to form paddles, and are supplied with bones, blood vessels and nerves.

The tail of the whale divides into two flukes, the distance across which is fifteen feet. This great weapon is used for a number of purposes—for motion, as a weapon when pursued by enemies, for play, called lobtailing, whereby he throws his tail high in the air and then, lowering it, smites the sea with terrific force, and for peaking, which is the tossing of the entire flukes with a part of the body in the air before plunging below.

When the whale so plunges below he is said to “sound,” and, as he breathes like any other animal, he must take in for his dive a great supply of air; otherwise he would drown. This great creature can hold his breath for a long time, and, when he comes up, the air in his lungs is heated, and, hence, as it is expelled into the cooler air, it condenses and forms a vapor. This is what one sees when the whale spouts. If this vapor touches the human skin, it stings. Now the spout of the sperm whale is rather a poor one. It doesn’t go straight up, but goes forward for a short distance. The blowings are repeated sixty or seventy times at a rising, and then the whale goes down again, and remains below for fifteen to forty-five minutes, and occasionally for an hour or more.

Now what does the cachalot do when he is under water? It is believed that he goes to a great depth in search of cuttlefish or squid. Some of these dead cuttlefish thrown up on the shore are known to be forty to fifty feet in length, and, while some say that live cuttlefish of great size have been seen on the surface of the ocean, the statement may well be doubted. But it is known that fierce battles take place under water between them and the whales; and it is a fact that dead whales have been found floating with their bodies badly cut and bruised. But the cachalot is generally the victor. The cuttlefish is not the only food. It is a fact that pieces of sharks have been found in the stomachs of sperm whales.

The most curious thing about the sperm whale is that in rare cases it produces ambergris, often worth its weight in gold; and this, it is said, is due to the cuttlefish. This material is solid, is generally ash-colored, is lighter than water and is fragrant when heated. It is a growth in the intestines of the sperm whale, produced, it is thought, by indigestion caused by the whale not being able to assimilate beaks and other pieces of cuttlefish so often found in the ambergris. Ambergris is generally found in cutting up the whale. Its chief use is in manufacturing perfume. It is not the perfume itself, but the substance which prevents evaporation.

The sperm whale is a great wanderer. He keeps away from the cold water of the extremities of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but travels all over the rest of the watery world. How do we know all this? Because the whale himself has told us. Harpoons had stamped in them the names of the ship’s owner and sometimes the name of the ship. Often a whale with the harpoon in him would make his escape, when the line parted, and afterwards be captured six or seven thousand miles away from the place of encounter with the harpoon still in his body.

Some of the antics of the sperm whale are striking. He will rise in the water and turn to look around him. Again he will raise his head above the surface and remain for some time in that position, bobbing up and down amid the waves. Then, suddenly turning, he will raise his flukes in the air and beat them upon the water with great violence. The sound caused thereby may be heard for many miles. This, as I have said, is called lobtailing. Then he will spring from the water so as to show a large part of his great frame. This is called breaching.

The female or cow cachalot is only about a third of the size of the male or bull. The mother goes far out to sea with her baby calf, apparently fearing no enemy, and her affection for the little creature is very strong; so whalemen would kill the calf first, for they knew that the mother would not forsake her offspring. The cow is said to show affection for the bull, for when the bull is killed the cow will stay by, only to be captured herself.

How do whales sleep? It is generally thought that it is when they are floating on the surface, either during the day or night. Both whalers and merchantmen are known to have run on to whales with a result similar to that occasioned by striking a rock or reef. If the whales had been awake they would doubtless have avoided the vessels. A famous case of collision was that of the Union, Captain Gardner, which sailed from Nantucket in 1807. At ten o’clock at night, when running at seven knots, she struck a whale with such force as to smash in the timbers on the starboard bow. The pumps were started, but the water gained rapidly and in a couple of hours the vessel began to sink. Three boats left the ship, one of which was abandoned, and the men were divided equally in the other two. There was a heavy sea, and the Azores were over six hundred miles away. They rigged sails which were carried away by the gale, and the two boats were finally lashed together and for a time allowed to drift. They had little water, and the men were put on scant rations. When suffering intensely from thirst and hunger Flores was sighted. Captain Gardner and his men made six hundred miles in seven days and eight nights. This young master was only twenty-four years of age. He followed the sea for many years. In one of his voyages his encounter with a sperm whale resulted in a badly bruised body and a mutilated hand. This injured member is shown in the photograph of the old gentleman in the rooms of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society in New Bedford.

Now a few words about the whales which yield whalebone or baleen. It used to be said that the whale which yielded excellent bone and a generous quantity of oil was called the “right whale” to capture, and hence the name. Later its larger relative was found in the Arctic regions and called the bowhead, because of the structure of the fore part of the head, which is shaped like a half-circle. The whalebone of the bowhead is much larger than that of the right whale, and in former days was more valuable. The slabs are in the upper jaw, and in a bowhead are often a dozen feet or more in length. When the mouth is closed these slabs slant back and lie between the two jaws. When the mouth opens they hang almost perpendicularly along the sides of the mouth, presenting the appearance of a screen, which, as the inner side of each slab is furnished with bristles or hairs, serves as a sieve. A bowhead once captured had two hundred and eighty-six slabs of bone on one side of the mouth and two hundred and eighty-nine on the other. The lower lip supports and holds in place the lower edge of the sieve, while the upper lip is drawn up. The right whales subsist on crustaceans, called “brit,” which are taken in great quantities through the mouth and are strained out by means of the bristles on the inner side of the whalebone. The water flows out and the “brit” is caught by the sieve. The brit is yellow and so abundant in some latitudes as to give the appearance of extensive fields of golden grain. The right whales are said to eat fish, if “brit” is not obtainable. The rushing of a right whale through a field of “brit” has been compared to a snowplow passing through a drift. He leaves behind him a trail of blue water, spouts with great force and is difficult to capture. Here we should note that the whalebone whales cannot see ahead of them.

While the bowheads are very heavy, they are not more than sixty-five feet in length. The tail is about twenty-five feet broad and six feet deep. One of these whales, taken in 1855 in the Okhotsk Sea by the ship Adeline of New Bedford, yielded two hundred and fifty barrels of oil, and another taken in 1861 by the General Pike of the same port produced two hundred and seventy-four barrels. The whalebone whales carry their nostrils on the summit of the head. There are two spout holes; they are f-shaped, close together, and are located about eighteen feet from the end of the head. As they are nearer the lungs than in the case of the sperm whale, the vapor shoots up straight, spreading as it rises. These whales are encased in a layer of blubber which is from a foot to two feet in thickness. It is softer, more oily and also more sticky than that of the sperm whale. The tongue is thick and soft, is glued to the floor of the mouth, and generally contains about six barrels of oil, although it is said that the tongue of a very large bowhead has been known to yield twenty-five barrels. Such a tongue is equal to the weight of ten oxen. The flesh of the animal is coarse, firm and red in color. The flukes are very powerful. Hence the maxim, “Beware of a sperm whale’s jaw and a right whale’s flukes.” While the sperm whale is a great traveler, the right whale never crosses the equator.

The female right whale is much larger than the female sperm, and at the breeding time she frequents shallow waters. Her affection for her young is very strong. It is said that she will clasp the calf with a fin very much as a human mother holds her child. The young of the bowhead mother is seldom seen, and it is thought that she keeps it under the ice until it is weaned.

The bowhead’s method of feeding is like that of its relative, the right whale. The crustaceans in the North Atlantic and Arctic, called “slicks”, give the water the appearance of oily streaks. They are produced by different kinds of jellyfish and range in size from a pea to six inches or more in diameter. When the bowhead is feeding, the spread of the lips is about thirty feet, and the method of feeding is the same as that of the right whale.

Now what happened as the result of the pursuit of all these creatures, well called the leviathans of the deep? Let any boy or girl take the map and see where the whalemen cruised and captured whales. Not content with Baffin’s Bay, Hudson’s Bay, the waters along the coast of Greenland and in the North Atlantic, around the Azores, Madeira, the coast of Africa, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands, the Cape of Good Hope and the Rio de la Plata, the venturesome whalemen sought the Indian Ocean and more particularly the great stretches of the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans. Now let the boy or girl look carefully at the map of the Pacific Ocean and see the multitude of islands in that great stretch of water. It is said that more than four hundred islands were discovered in the Pacific by American whalemen; and, when one sees the names of Nantucket, Howland, Gardner and Starbuck, he need not be told that the names were given by either Nantucket or New Bedford whalemen.