Chapter XI: Whaling Adventures

It was by no means unusual or an isolated incident for the harpooner as he stood there in the bows of the boat to be killed by the cachalot’s tail sweeping through the air and cutting the boat off clean to the water’s edge. One day about the beginning of the nineteenth century the British whaler _Perseverance_ was off the Brazilian coast and her captain was out in one of the boats, and the cachalot had just been attacked, when the animal knocked the captain with his flukes out of the boat lifeless, killing at the same time one of the crew. The whale escaped, but, judging by the harpoons afterwards found in it, was destroyed by a boat from an American whaler.

On another occasion, at the end of August 1831, after the British whaler _Tuscan_ in the North Pacific had sighted sperm whales, when the master and second mate had lowered their boats, there was left on board the chief mate in charge of the ship. This officer’s name was Young. Presently, whilst attacking a large whale, the second mate’s boat was so smashed by the whale that the other boat had to receive both crews and harpoon-line. Young, who had been watching the proceedings, now lowered his boat and came to assist. It was well known among whaling men that after a cachalot had been attacked, some other mammal in the same school would come to his fellow-creature’s assistance, either by getting the line in his mouth and severing it, or by instituting a counter-attack.

Now in the present incident, whilst the cachalot was approaching his end, spouting blood and becoming more feeble, another of his breed came along and commenced to strike the boats with his flukes to aid his dying comrade. The fresh cachalot therefore now lashed his tail across both boats and swept Young out of his, throwing him a distance of forty yards, killing him instantaneously, besides doing injury to the boat itself. But the harpooned whale was killed, and the interfering cachalot went off with many lance wounds in him.

The sperm whale is notoriously gregarious, but when a lone cachalot is found, he is always an aged bull. A school of whales consists of from twenty to fifty and comprises cows, their young, and at least one bull of the largest size who acts as escort. A pod consists of young males. A body of whales is formed by two or more schools cruising in company, and are often seen making a passage towards a definite locality. Bennett, already quoted, to whom I am greatly indebted for much information obtained at first hand, says that when pierced by the harpoon the sperm whale will tow the boat at over fifteen miles an hour, but until struck the mammal will not average more than ten miles when pursued. The same authority mentions observing one cachalot which continued below the surface for fifty-five minutes. When whales are attacked, it is the females which render assistance to each other, but the males prefer to retreat from their injured comrades. There is not the slightest doubt that when a cachalot has been harpooned, other whales even miles away show their consciousness of the fact, make off or come down to assist, possibly informed by the transference of sound through the plunging antics of the angered whale. Sperm whales have been occasionally washed up on to British coasts, and during the recent war, when some of us were on anti-submarine patrol off the Atlantic coast of Ireland, there were not a few occasions when a whale was reported as a German U-boat.

Sea travellers, especially in the old sailing-ships’ days, have told strange tales, but there is a true and curious incident which occurred to a whaler named the _Foxhound_ in the southern ocean about the year 1817, one day when most of the crew were below at dinner. One hand on deck heard a loud splashing and raised the alarm. Another went up into the rigging and saw something projecting from the ship’s side: and this turned out to be the beak of a swordfish broken off, which after having penetrated right through the copper sheathing and solid timbers protruded for most of a foot within the hold. That portion on the outside was afterwards sawn off and a lead plate nailed over it. A few months later, when the _Foxhound_ reached Sydney, it was found impossible to withdraw this portion of the swordfish, and there it remained until the ship reached England, when it had to be cut out.

Narrow escapes to individuals in such a vocation as whaling were inevitable: but it would be difficult for anyone to have a much nearer approach to death than that of the officer in charge of a boat engaged in killing a certain loose cachalot. The latter flung its flukes so close to the officer’s head as to knock his hat off without doing further damage. Another whale actually bit in two the thick pole of a harpoon which had been fixed into the body of a companion. Nor was this an isolated occasion, for on another date when a cachalot had freed his mate by biting off the harpoon line, it became itself entangled in the line so that it could not escape but was killed by the lance without having been harpooned. All the same, the creature put up a magnificent fight, and one blow from his flukes nearly broke off the stem and hurled the crew into the sea. On yet another day, a whale after smashing the boat with his flukes gave the crew an unpleasant time whilst keeping his jaw immediately over their heads for some very long moments. And this jaw extended fourteen and a half feet, or over half the length of the boat; for they measured it on deck later, when the whale had given them three more hours of hunting before it was killed.

It was characteristic of some sperm whales that they preferred rather to attack with their jaws than their tail, and would rush open-mouthed against the boat in an endeavour to crush it with their teeth, for this purpose turning and swimming on the back. There have been boats’ crews so alarmed by this that they have leapt into the water and remained there until the danger had passed. Just ninety years ago a fighting whale turned round to attack the boats, injured them, and chased them right back to the ship, where it remained for some time in spite of the lances which were hurled at it.

Many people who read the wonderful voyage of Captain Slocum round the world alone will remember the occasion when his vessel was invaded by undesirable natives and he managed to frighten them away by scattering tacks along the deck, which were trodden on by the bare-footed people with instantaneous effect. But this was a device that Slocum must have learnt from old lore; for there was a whaler named the _Syren_ one day off the Pellew Islands, and the boats were chasing a whale, when the natives came aboard in their craft so threateningly as to drive the remainder of the crew aloft. Now one of these men then remembered that a packet of tin-tacks had been left in the top for some purpose, and he now proceeded to strew them about the deck. The immediate result was that the natives became terrified from the soles of their feet upwards, and screamingly dived into the sea.

I believe that the first time an Englishman ever saw the American flag flying was aboard a whaler, and that was a vessel named the _Bedford_, which came into English waters via the Downs one February day with 487 butts of whale oil. A contemporary periodical alluded to her as “American built and manned wholly by American seamen. She wears the rebel colours and belongs to Nantucket.” A few days later there arrived in English waters the whaler _Industry_. But one of the most famous whaling ships ever built is the _James Arnold_, launched in New Bedford as far back as 1852. Indeed she is one of the most remarkable craft ever built, and she is a connecting link with the days of romance and the present mechanical age. For between the month of May 1853 and the month of October 1894 this fine old vessel made a dozen long whaling voyages--sometimes a cruise lasting for over four years--and during this entire period of over forty years’ work brought home to her owners as much oil and whalebone as sold for 876,425 dollars; or, reckoning five dollars to the pound, she netted £175,285. Now in the year 1894 the price of oil dropped to 56 cents a gallon, so in the following March her owners sold her for £1,000. She was then fitted out at New Bedford and sailed to Chili, where she commenced a second career. Ever since she has been under the Chilian flag she has made whaling voyages each year, with a brief interlude as a merchantman, and is still engaged catching whales in the old-fashioned manner with harpoon and lance. Her catch has averaged twelve hundred barrels, and in twenty-six whaling years sailing out of Valparaiso she has made for her new owners about £70,000. Thus, up to date, the _James Arnold_ has produced the magnificent sum of £245,285 from whaling alone. This, I think, is a record which must take some beating.

The neighbourhood of New Bedford has by long tradition been the home of whaling ships and whaling skippers. Therefore, as long as they lasted, the _James Arnold_ had a New Bedford captain even after passing under the Chilian flag. But now this fine race of whaling masters has died out, so the old ship is navigated by a Chilian skipper, yet the actual whaling operations of killing are carried out by sailors educated in the art by New Bedford men. Constructed of oak and copper fastened, this three-masted ship, with her old-time band of white running round the hull and the black, square ports, keeps up the continuity of an industry that has seen revolutionary changes in ships and methods. Her gross tonnage is a little more than 345, length 115 ft., beam 27.6 ft., depth 17.6 ft., and in spite of all these seventy-odd years of wandering over the waters of the globe she is still tight and staunch, and the oldest whaling ship in the world that is actively engaged in the business.

The _James Arnold_ was built by the brothers Jethro and Zachariah Hillman, and there used to be a saying that a Hillman ship never leaked. Well, these same New Bedford builders in the year 1841 launched the whaling barque _Charles W. Morgan_, and she exists to this day, though not actively. At the moment of writing she is receiving that honour and preservation which she richly deserves. Just as the _Victory_ in England has recently been transformed into a kind of Nelson shrine commemorative of the last of the three-deckers, so the American nation are treating the _Charles W. Morgan_. Last autumn, after the hurricane which wrecked the whaler _Wanderer_ on the Cuttyhunk rocks, the _Charles W. Morgan_ was left as the last American whaler afloat, although she had not engaged in that industry since 1906.

Like the _James Arnold_, this _Charles W. Morgan_ is square sterned in accordance with the contemporary design, copper fastened and copper sheathed. In the latter part of her career she used to sail for many years from San Francisco to the North Pacific and Japanese whaling grounds. But it was the competition of the modern steam whalers which proved too keen for her, and she came back to the Atlantic. For most of twenty years she lay secured to a wharf at Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford, yet was occasionally taken to sea on behalf of the moving-picture business. But thanks to the enormous interest concerning old ships which is now being shown by America, the _Charles W. Morgan_ was acquired in 1924 and a concrete crib was built for her to be floated into for the last time from the sea, and thus remain as an interesting and perfect example of what a real whaling ship looked like; for in a very short time otherwise, who will be alive to speak authentically? So it was decided to refit her according to the original sail plan; for she began her career as a full-rigged ship but in 1867 was cut down to a barque. Certain of the parts salved from the wrecked _Wanderer_ were used in refitting the _Charles W. Morgan_, and thus it will now be possible for posterity to consider in actuality three of the most famous sailing ships of a glorious age restored to their correct rig: the _Victory_ at Portsmouth, the _Cutty Sark_ at Falmouth, and the _Charles W. Morgan_ near New Bedford. In these three vessels we perceive the romance of the sea handed down for others to enjoy and be inspired. And if only we possessed an old East Indiaman to make up the quartette, we might rest assured that the glamour of an ancient glory would never be forgotten.

The _James Arnold_ and the _Bartholomew Gosnold_ discovered a new whaling ground off New Zealand, and for several years worked it until the secret came out. This _James Arnold_ has led a charmed life, for there are some ships which always seem to cheat disaster, just as in the Great War certain vessels blundered over and over again through minefields and submarine zones without the slightest incident. When the American Civil War broke out, the _James Arnold_ was sent into the Atlantic, and although the rebel cruisers in 1862 and the following year destroyed twenty or thirty whaling ships, the _James Arnold_ was never captured. It is a commentary on the change in the affairs of whaling that when this vessel was built, there were over six hundred whaling ships and barques and over sixty brigs and schooners engaged as whalers. But in the year that she passed under the Chilian flag these numbers had dropped to forty-seven ships and barques and twenty-five schooners. By the year 1923 there were not more than a dozen of the old-fashioned sort under sail and employing the time-honoured methods.

The loss of the _Wanderer_ was on this wise. That fine old barque, which was the last American-owned whaler to sail on a whaling cruise, was lying with all stores on board at the State Pier, New Bedford, on Monday, August 25, 1924, and at 9 a.m. the tug hauled her into the channel and she was headed south to Mischaum Point at the entrance to Buzzards Bay. Here she anchored whilst her captain went back on the tug to collect the rest of his crew. The glass was falling slowly but surely. Now that evening it came on to blow hard from the N.E., and throughout Tuesday there was the worst storm known for about seventy years, so that it reached hurricane force, destroying on land trees and buildings, whilst wrecking a number of boats.

_Wanderer_ parted her heaviest cable, and then dragged her second anchor as the wind had gone round to the N.W. She was carried across to the island of Cuttyhunk and piled up on the rocks, and thus another historic ship came to an untimely end. I have had the privilege of seeing some unique photographs, which were courteously sent to me by Dr. J. Richard Taylor, of Fairhaven. It happened that as the _Wanderer_ was leaving on her last journey, Dr. Taylor was about in his motor cruiser, and the first picture showed the _Wanderer_ leaving the State Pier at 9 a.m. with a tug secured to the barque’s starboard side. Another picture showed the tug towing the whaler past Fort Rodman, and she was shown again at 10.50 a.m. just before anchoring off Mischaum Point. These most interesting wreck pictures portray her as she appeared when the gale had left her on the rocks of Cuttyhunk Island. This island, by the way, has a stone tower memorial which is of great historical interest to all who think about the sea. The name of Bartholomew Gosnold we mentioned just now as being commemorated in a whaler. But the original Gosnold carries us right back to the time when Queen Elizabeth was recently dead.

For it was on Lady Day, 1602, that Captain Bartholomew Gosnold in command of the ships _Concord_ and _Dartmouth_ sailed from Falmouth, crossed the Atlantic from England to North America and coasted along the east and south shore of Cape Cod, and landed at what is now called Cuttyhunk Island on May 24th. Here he built a house and “a little fort,” but giving up the settlement sailed for England on June 17th, reaching Exmouth on July 23rd. Gosnold thus formed the first English settlement in New England, and his is now the name of the township in which Cuttyhunk lies. Thus, by a chain of incidents, the spot which the _Wanderer_ finally chose as her resting-place, after roaming over the seven seas, now has become doubly historic in the realm of maritime events.