The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-04

can easily patch them together again
when they get broken by a fish.
well, when a fluke like that comes
down on 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 it,
when a boat is smashed the men
grab for the oars and put them cross
wise over. what is left of the boat.
Then they are safe until they are
picked up
do you find that men ever lose their
nerve after their boats are smashed or
they have some other wild experience
with big whale?"
why, as to that" said Capt Vierra,
pondering, Il never heard of such
thing. Whalers don't think any more
of going for a sixty or seventy foot
whale than they would of driving a
COW home. In fact" and he laughed
as something struck him. IT asked a
boat steerer few days ago to milk
that COW of mine there and he was
afraid to go near her."
Comparing whales with cows is a
common smile with New Bedford men,
And when the comparison is used, even
the unimaginative listener cannot help
thinking of that wonderful cow-herd-
ing of the ocean. A mighty cow indeed
Is a seventy foot right whale-a COW
whose mouth alone would furnish a
comfortable stable for ten Jerseys,
whose tongue alone weighs as much as
ten oxen and whose lips, throat and
Iawbones weigh as much as twenty
five 1000 pound steers.
Striking the Whale.
,.raJ CT
Captain, lis about seventy feet long.
Sometimes you see bigger fish, but
not often No, whale as big as that
doesn't stick out of the water very
much. Whales float so that only lust
a. small part of their backs and heads
shows. In happening them, of
course, the main idea is to get the iron
in deep so that it will hold and stop
the fighting as much as possible. A
man has to take mighty good care not
to strike the white horse. That's the
part OF the whale that's all bone and
gristle and the harpoon will simply
slide off if 1t hits there. 1t means a
good deal of ridicule for a harpooner
If he makes a mistake like that.
when a whale is struck the first
thing that he does generally is to roll
over into the sore. Now and then a
whale will roll over and over till he
has the line wrapped around his whole
body. We don't let a whale run any
further than we have to, of course.
Many times a whale will hardly
move away from the spot where he
has been struck. Sometimes one will
lie still and take two and even three
irons without trying to run. AS soon
as the boat is fast we try to work up
on him and get alongside so that the
mate can use the killing lance and
reach his life.
The life of a whale is as big as a
house, and there isn't any trouble to
find it, The lance is driven in with
all the mans might right behind his
fluke and from the shoulder down
ward. When the lance reaches his
life the blood comes up thick as tar.
Then we lay off and wait. A good
quick man will often brace himself
right on the haft of the harpoon that
is sticking in the whale and lance him
half a dozen times before the boat
backs away. Then it's merely a case
of keeping out of the way till the fish
dies. Sometimes a whale will die as
easily as if he was asleep. There won't
be furry or anything. He takes the
harpoon and the lance and just dies.
IF a whale runs too fast and far
there is nothing for it except to cut
away. Whalers don't generally hold
fast long enough to permit a fish to
tow them out of sight of the ship.
That makes the usual limit of hanging
on in clear weather about eight miles.
If they can come up with a whale in
that distance they heave in on the line
until they have as much as they can
get and then they cut. OF course they
don't cut till they have to.
1--WE CANNED the Ellen Swift one
day. She had just lost six lines of
$50 fathoms each to one whale. He
took it all without stopping a min
ute and at last when they were towing
behind him with more than three
miles of line out they lost the whole
business. That's pretty expensive
work. for whale line is nightly costly
and fine line
In Due and Ancient Fashion.
Whalers still recount in their logs
that. they CANNED" a ship, meaning
that they stopped and had a talk, just
as the logs of fifty years ago put it..
Comparison between those old logs
and logs of last year shows differ
ence only in dates. They still use all
the log terms just as they still use the
old weapons.
Each ship is supplied with a set of
rubber stamps, one depicting sperm,
another a right whale and so on.
When a whale is taken and saved, the
entry for that day is stamped with
picture of the particular kind of whale
that it was. If more than one whale
was caught, there are as many pictures
as there are whales. Each picture has
written across it the number of bar
rels of oil that were oSNained from the
fish.
When "a vessel lowers and chases
and family loses the whale for any
reason the margin of the log for that
date is ornamented with the stamp
of the whales tail sticking up just as
if he were diving. That denotes that
the result of the chase was "fluke."
Sometimes a half dozen "flukes" will
ornament one entry.
This system of keeping the log
saves the ship owners the trouble of
reading through all the entries. They
need merely glance through the book
to find the number of whales, how
many barrels of OIL and what kind
were taken by the ship.
The logs are locked up and guarded
carefully. Ship owners and captains
make a. great secret of where the
whales were found. The writer was
permitted to read through the log of
one famous whaling bark only after
he had promised the owners solemn
ly that he would not divulge the lati
tude and longitude of any places where
big whales were taken.
The crews have as much interest IN
keeping the secret, for they share in
the proceeds as crews did in the old
days. Most of the new New Bedford
whalers sail in the same vessel voyage
after voyage. When they retire at
last from the sea many of them buy
farms in Massachusetts. These Por-
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