THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 253, 23 April 1910, Page 5

THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

By W.B.

HOW A WHALE IS KILLED. Those that go down to the sea in ships, see what the landsman only reads of in books, written with little or no personal knowledge. And of all seafaring life* the whaleman sees the most strenuous. For in the days of sails, he must be a sailor, intimate with every detail that pertains to his craft; for there is always something to do: mend sails, splice ropes, and patch chaffing gear, and if a boat is stove in, there is that to make good. Certainly, whaleships carried a carpenter; larger ships added a smith, who with the cooper were deckhands, and except in a gale, could refuse to go aloft and furl sails. But much was forgiven the sailor if he could pull a stout oar, and speedily learn .the gear of a boat and its handling. When the ship reached the whaling ground and even .before, a strict watch was kept from the "crow's nest," or as high, ;'in fine weather, as he could get, where all hands took their turn, spy glass at eye, to sweep the wide ocean expanses for. sudden broken water, denoting that a whale is on the move; For a whale must come to the surface to breathe every half hour or longer, according to the depth of his "soma" (dive); to expel the spent air from his lungs, and inhale a fresh supply before he dives again, [n expelling this spent air, directly he nears the surface, while yet a foot or so of water covers him, he blows the air through this layer of water, and so great i*s his power of air expulsion that it forces up a column of mingled air and water some 20 or 30 feet high. This is when the whaleman prefers to sight his "chase" (whale). It tells him the whale is feeding, and likely to remain some two hours, or till his boat can come up, before he moves on. Futher, the whaleman knows that the whale, to fully expand his lungs after the enormous pressure on his body, deep down where his food grows, must stay near the"surface and repeat the breath inhalation and expulsion every twenty minutes, two or three times, before be fills his lung chest to its utmost capacity, to supply his blood with oxygen when he dives again; and that then is his chance to locate him. When the watcher sees this column, he apparently goes off his chump and howls down a medley of noises, which only the experienced whaleman knows to mean: "Below there! There she blows! Dead ahead!" or in whatever direction he has '"risen" his chase. On deck men seem ravening fiends let loose fromsheol! But to those in the know, this is an orderly ritual: A ceremonial of thanksgiving, invented by Jack. For every crew, and every man of such crew, knows, and hastes to his post, and hardly has the boat touched the water, but those demons are over the rail; and the race of who shall "touch" first, sets five men with fourteen to sixteen feet oars, to bend their backs as or.e man, taking their "time" from the stroke (after oar), and, if the water be smooth, sand her along at a pace of between eight and ten miles an hour; leaving a wake straight as a stretched chalkline, and a foam band, white a3 a slipe of carded wool .unworn "from a distaf; and her stem shears the sea as with a scythe blade: while the man aloft signals the rowers in which direction the behemoth is seen! As they near the chase, if the water be smooth, the rowing slackens, the oars are cast over the side,, where they hang by a lanyard, and each man grasps a paddle, not to frighten the shy mighty mammal, whose eyes are' small, but his hearing so acute that no sound escapes him. When the boat approaches to within striking distance, I the oars are silently manned again, | and the rowers wait, every eye fixed upon the steersman for orders. No turning round to see what is done, every oar is intent on the pull two, back thrse, or vice versa, as the occa sion shall warrant. If, when the boat gets there, the whale has just sounded (dived), there is a spell of rest, and' much keen guessing where he will rise again, but as soon Y as he re-appears, the boat makes up to him: the bow oar is cast over the side by its rower, called the boatsteerer, or harpooner; who standing up, grasps his harpoon, and fitting his thigh into a notch of a thick plank fixed there for the purpose to steady, him, awaits the steersman's order:: "Now! Give it to him!" and that barbed spear enters the mountain of flesh with a"sish!" The instant the harpoon is thrown the steersman yells: "Back all!" And the harpooneriifts the "line" (three-inch rope) into a grove in the boat's nose, slips a lig'nt wooden pin above it, and stands clear of the "line"—wilich the startled animal in his pain and desire to escape, draws out of the boat with such speed, that the friction scorches the line, only a man throws buckets of water on it in the "tub," where it lays neatly and kinklessly coiled. Before the line is nearly run out, the whale has, maybe, tired, and eases off; if so, all hands haul in on the line to draw the boat close up to lance and kill him; if not, his rest will be brief, and the pain sets him off on another flight of escape; but the line is given a turn round a circular piece of wood; fixed ' aft, called •a* "logger head/" from whichnt is slacked off as occasions require, and the boat joins speed with that of the whale. This -requires constant attention, for should

the whale "sound," it must be cast off at once, and the line runs out leaving the boat, behind, until he tires again, when the haul in is repeated. But this is fine weather whaling. I have been in a boat which "fastened on" in a gale, and as the whale bolted a good sixteen miles an hour, the boat clove the seas till she ploughed a channel, whose sides stood up like two green transparent walls, while her bows seemed to tear through an ocean of wool, and had the boat suddenly stopped those two walls would have fallen inwards, and no one would have lived to tell the tale of that smother! Should the chase be a full-grown fat "bull," and long in tiring, he will make wide circuits, if, perchance he may find his tormentor, and if he-find him, one snap of his 12-foot jaw, and a crunch, and the battle is ended! If he soon tires, the overhaul on the line brings the boat to his side, and harpooner and steersman change places; and the latter —one of the mates — thrusts a 16-foot lance abaft his fins, the seat of his vitals; upon which he jerks out a violent "kick" with h'S tail, and the sea around is red with his life-blood. This is the dangerous part of the hunt, for if the boat be in reach, one slap of that great span of tail will shatter men and boat into match-wood! But it is when he dies, this, if left alone, shy, harmless sea wanderer, makes the humane upheave a great sob of pity; for he moans like a cow, and dies like a Titan. And as life and body part, he churns up the sea in a death "flurry"; then, a final thunderous smack, and behemoth is dead!