River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-07-10
WHALE HUNTING
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

TIE was a Norwegian, but his sea
English was as good as the kings.
lie was big and muscular, with rare
combination of weight and witness.
His face and eyes were stern enough
when he shouted orders from the
bridge, but, when playing the host in
his cabin. as merry as a Santa Claus
without the whiskers. His skin was
tanned by the salt spray and burned by
the sun of every degree of latitude
where ships have ever been. He had
caught whales in every sea, from the
Persian gulf to Baffin's bay; and few
years ago he abandoned the old way
of New Bedford and all romance-the
three-year-long, round the world
cruise in a sailing yessel-to try the
adaptation of steam to whaling. For
the big brick oven on the deck to boil
the blubber (Which all remember who
know The Cruise of the Cachalot) he
substituted a permanent factory for
refining the oil, located on the north
ern shore of Newfoundland. From this
he steamed out to the whaling grounds
each morning and back at night, rare
w without prize. For the old method
Of throwing harpoon by hand from
small boat he substituted harpoon
gun from the bow of his whaler; and
with these improvements conducted
business that will soon make the few
surviving New Bedford sailing whalers
as obsolete as wooden plows.
| lay in his spare bunk, across the
narrow cabin from his own, and
dropped to sleep as he finished tale,
strangely like Kipling's "Three Seal
ers," of a fight between rival crews for
a dead whale in the Okhotsk sea. Only
a minute later, it seemed, I bumped
my head against the top of the bunk
to the quick awakening of an excited
Norwegian craft cry from the top of
the companionway. The captain leaped
from his bunk. He waited not for
shoes nor for other clothes than those
he selpt in, but bounded up the steps,
shouting orders as he ran. While /
dressed I could feel the quick stopping,
the short advances and retreats of the
engines, and / knew we were stalking
game When I reached the deck the
captain had one hand on the gun.
swinging it about on it's pivot. With
the other he was making signals to the
engineer to stop, to go toward little,
or to go back. Following his eyes, I
caught sight of our game. 1t looked
like a huge, cigar-shaped piece of
smooth, shiny slate-colored India rub
Der, rising at regular intervals so that
four or five feet of his diameter and 40
feet of his length showed like mound
ov, tho cp7onfb xyafar with o1 70
rising and dipping he was gliding
smoothly forward, without apparent
exertion, but with tremendous speed,
and in perfectly straight line. We
were approaching him from behind at
an angle, SO that his course and ours
were the sides of V.
The captain on the raised platform
in the bow, following with the mouth
of his cannon the course of the whale,
was the personiication of alertness.
The crew were grouped behind him as
eager and expectant as if they had |
never caught whale before. One of
them touched me on the shoulder and |
pointed silently a mile away, where |
dozen other whales were spOuting fine |
columns of vapor. When I turnc4 |
again to our whale he had risen once
more, and we were within 30 feet of |
him. Every person on the ship was in |
a state of tiptoe alertness. Suddenly
came the crash of the gun. saw hid
eous red zigzag cash on the broad side
of the whale; l heard the rumbIing
roar of the time bomb at the point of
the harpoon exploding in the whales
vitals. On deck there was a convulsive
pandemonium. The captain, in the de-
lirium of the hunter at the death of his
quarry was shrieking shrill staccato
orders. The crew were leaping to their
posts. Suddenly / felt the bow of the |
vessel give a jerk beneath me, then
tremhle moment, and slowly dip.
The whale had gone straight down
ward. The rope attached to the har-
poon shot over the bow so fast that the !
eve could not follow; where it touched |
the wood curling column of smoke |
arose. The windlass spun round like |
a boys top. 1t hummed and buzzed |
with the noise of flying locomotive |
Coil after coil of rope leaped into moth
ingness like a magician's flower pots. |
Gradually the windlass ceased to spin. |
The whale had touched bottom. The |
captain signaled to back the ship, lest |
he should come up afoul of the propel- |
Ter. The rope foated slack on the |
water. There was a minute or two of |
silent. expectant suspe nse. Then, right |
IN front of the bow, so close Icould have |
poled my finger against the fiabby |
blubber, up rose the giant nose--up, up, |
up till he lowered full Is feet above |
the rail! l jumped back in genuine |