Chapter XX: A Deep-Sea Sperm Whale Hunt

Every time I see a sperm whale shot with a bomb harpoon from the bows of a steamship, I have more respect for the old-time hunters who kill the huge brutes with a hand harpoon and lance. The vitality of a sperm is enormous, and even when several bombs have exploded in its body the animal will often fight for hours before it spouts blood and dies.

When Captain Olsen secured the sixty-foot sperm, the skeleton of which was sent to the Museum, he got fast with one iron but did not kill the whale. After some time the vessel was near enough for a second shot, and Olsen fired a harpoon which was bent slightly upward at the point. The heavy iron, instead of penetrating the blubber, rebounded, and when it was drawn back by the winch was found to be actually bent double, the point of the bomb being within a few inches of the opposite end. It required three harpoons, each weighing one hundred and ten pounds, to finish the whale.

Yet with a magnificent courage which is only half appreciated by a landsman, the fearless New Bedford whalers attack these colossal animals with merely a slender hand lance. Is it to be wondered at that our New England ancestors in such a training school made a history of which every American may well be proud?

A female sperm whale at Aikawa, Japan. The head of the female is much
more pointed than that of the male.
]

Although deep-sea whaling is practically ended, year after year two or three ships drop away from the New Bedford wharves bound for the Hatteras grounds for sperm whales. The cruises are short—only six or seven months—and the whales are killed, cut in, and tried out at sea in the old-time way. But even this lacks much of the glamour and romance of the old days, when sons of New Bedford’s best families manned the boats, for now the crews are usually “Brava” negroes from the Kay Verde Islands, and the only white men in the ship’s company are the Captain and perhaps one or two of the Mates.

The excitement of the hunt is still there, however, and it takes the same nerve and the same cool head to fasten to and lance a sperm, as it did fifty years ago. I have had no personal experience in this kind of whaling, and therefore it does not fall within the scope of this book, but by way of contrast I have quoted a few extracts from the “Diary of a Whaling Cruise” by Victor Slocum, Harpooner.[14]

Footnote 14:

_Forest and Stream_, Vol. 67, 1907, pp. 928, 930, 968.

When a whale is cut in at sea the carcass is made fast to the lee side of the ship, and a skeleton platform of heavy planks is rigged to project beyond the whale, just above the surface. The mates take their places there and, with long “whale spades,” make incisions through the blubber, which is stripped off in long blanket pieces by means of a block and tackle suspended from the mast. When the blubber is all in, the head is cut away and hauled on board, where the case is bailed, then the chains are slacked and the great carcass sinks into the green depths below to furnish food for thousands of hungry sharks.

Mr. Slocum tells of a sperm whale hunt in the following words:

At 4 A. M. all hands started to cut in, and just as we got through
heaving, it was whales again—just after dinner. I was glad of that,
and so was everybody else, for the work and exposure was beginning to
pull on us, and a full stomach is none too good to go down in a boat
with. The whales were close by, and a large school of them, too. There
was just a breath of air stirring, so up went the sail and we paddled
as noiselessly as aborigines upon our quarry.

There seemed to be whales everywhere, as far as the eye could reach,
and all tame—just rolling and snorting in the water they lay in; once
in a while one would jump like a trout and make a splash like a
waterfall, just to amuse himself.

At last we got close to one that suited us, and the boats went on head
and head; there was not wind enough to manage with the sail, and
dipping with the paddle was undesirable for it might result in a
scare, so we lay perfectly still, right in his course, and on he came.

A posterior view of the Museum’s sperm whale. Longitudinal cuts have
been made through the blubber revealing the flesh beneath.
]

The harpooner stood up with his darting gun and iron, and just as the
great snout passed under our boat, he plunged it vertically right into
the middle of the back. There was the report of the gun, a heaving of
the boat clear of the water, a sensation like that of passing through
a waterspout, and the dull explosion of the shell all in the space of
the next second—then the leviathan stretched out dead. The bomb had
killed him instantly, and it was well for us that it did, for in the
case of an ordinary iron being used, we would have been stove to
pieces.

As we backed away, up came the black snout of another whale, and then
two or three more. They did not seem to know that there was any
mischief, and they rolled on top of the dead one as though nothing had
happened. What an opportunity to get another one! If there had been a
chance to mark our “fish” without getting stove by the others, and
cutting loose as we did in a former case, we could have killed another
and another; but that was impossible, so a “waif” was set for the
second boat, and on they came under oars. And how the bully boys
rowed, for the cry had gone up that we were stove, and they pulled to
save our lives.

Cutting in a sperm whale at sea by the old-time method.
]

As they got close, we urged them with our cheers and cries to go in
and show what they were good for. Straight ahead they shot onto the
“bunch,” and just as they almost touched one that they had picked out,
there was the curve of an iron through the air; the next minute they
were going like the wind with the whale’s flukes just clearing the
stern, throwing spray in every direction.

The second mate, as cool as a cucumber and with a happy smile on his
face, stood in the bow crouched down to keep as dry as possible, and
with his bomb gun under his arm was yelling, “Haul in on the line!”
There was no slacking our speed for him, with half a chance to get in
a shot!

By night two whales were being worked on. That day’s excitement and
sport was worth a hundred dollars to me, for the whole thing was truly
marvelous and it fully compensates for all the discomfort and
privation that I have felt....

The cutting in and trying out of the blubber is a prosy job, and nasty
is no name for it. All hands strip down to a shirt, a pair of overalls
rolled up to the knees, showing bare shins and sockless feet in large
brogans, and in we go—grease from head to foot—day and night until the
whale is all cut safely on board. If we tarried, bad weather would no
doubt deprive us of our spoil.

It gives you a funny sensation at first to get into a deckful of
blubber, with the slimy stuff around your exposed cuticle, and oil
squashing out of your shoes at every step. But I am getting used to
that now, and I feel like a veteran.... The try-works are run day and
night, while there is blubber to feed them, and the refuse scrap is
all the fuel they need, so it is very economical. They consist of two
large caldrons mounted in brick work, near the center of the ship, and
the whole structure is about six feet high. In the dark, with the
flame roaring out of the short chimneys and torches stuck on poles
about the deck to give light, we must form an interesting spectacle.
The men, moving about the deck under the peculiar illumination, look
like conspirators in a comic opera.