Omaha daily bee., 1903-01-11
Sturdy Men Who Eight the Great Sea Kings

'Dunno-dunno. Think, though some
times, that l just will take one more cruise
and get the smell of sparm into my Old
nose
He confesses to seventy BIRTHDAYS.
Like the old, are the new. One doesn't
see the crews of whalers rolling" through
the streets, with the exception of an occa-
slonal Portugee darby, who swings his
1.-the, tall body along like an old-time
sailor with sheath knife dangling at his
hip.
Most of them are young men in wears. and
most OF them are impressivelv old in cx-
perience. There is Captain Nicholas Vierra,
master of Canton, the oldest whaling bark
in the business. He seems to be little past
30. But with his last cruise he had com.
pleted a course of 80 years of whaling.
Captain Vierra views the seeker for T. les
OF whaling adventure with mild wonder.
Adventures? In whaling?" asked he
after his arrival with his last big catch Of
oil and bone. "Why, folk in New Bedford
get hurt and killed every day ashore with
cars and things. Now I've been whaling
thlrty years and | never saw a man killed
excepting only once and then he didn't need
10 be. The boat made fast to a whale and he
capslzed 1t. All the men just made a few
strokes and climbed up on the whales
back, and waited there till the other boat
came and took them off. This one fellow
slid off too soon and was drowned before
he reached the boat, because he couldn't
swim.
Though I've been whaling thirty years"
continued the captain, 81 never saw a fight
ing whale till this last voyage, when a sperm
whale struck one OF the boats with his nuke
and broke the boat steerer's arm. Whales
aren't fierce as a general thing, and they
aren't very shy. To be sure, one mustn't
run at them so that the boat is in range
with their eyes. But generally there is no
trouble in bringing the boat close along
side OF them. Most of them. big and little.
AXE the iron as quietly as if they were
cows. When they are struck all they want
to do is to get away.
"Of course the whaIer must look out for
fukes and, in the case of sperm whales
for their jaws. You take an ordinary whale
and you want to remember that his fuke is
as big as that barn door. And our boats
are made Of light scantling-half-inch stuff.
We have 'em light so that we can easily
patch them together again when they get
broken by a fish"
The majority Of the whalers, once off the
ship, hasten to put on the best of clothes
and the day after arrival one may rub
shoulders with natty young men in creased
trousers and patent leather shoes and
stylish hats, and never dream that a month
or two before they went smoking through
the South Atlantic in a narrow, fimsy boat
behind a whale who was in a mighty hurry
to go somewhere far away.
The Portuguese, white and black, mostly
white, are the whaling men of New Bed
ford today. The owners like them. They
consider them more reliable than the Amer
lean in point of sticking to the ship, and
equally good as whalers.
"Well, when a fuke like that comes down
en- such a boat there isn't much left. But
the men don't get hurt often. When they
see it coming they know that the only
thing to do is to spill themselves out of
the opposite side and swim for 1t.
when a boat is smashed the men grab
for the oars and put them c~rossways over
what is left Of the boat. Then they are
safe until they are picked up"
D you find that men ever lose their
nerve after their boats are smashed or