A. Conan Doyle

“ Every man shares in the profit—so much for the captain, so much for the mate, so much for the seaman. If the voyage is successful, every one is rich until another spring comes round. If the ship comes home clean, it means a starvation winter for all hands. The men do not need to be told to be keen. The shout from the crow's-nest which tells of the presence of a whale, and the rattle of the falls as the boats are cleared away, blend into one sound. ”

“ On the farthest visible ice one can still see that sprinkling of pepper grains. And the young lie everywhere also, snow-white slugs, with a little black nose, and large dark eyes. Their half-human cries fill the air; and when you are sitting in the cabin of a ship which is in the heart of the seal pack, you would think you were next door to a monstrous nursery. ”

“ Our tally of seals stood as high as any; and in whaling we were once the harpooning and once the lancing boat, so our record was an excellent one. So congenial was the work to me that Captain Gray was good enough to offer to make me harpooner as well as surgeon if I would come with him upon a second voyage, with power to draw the double pay. It is as well that I refused, for the life is such a fascinating one that I could imagine that a man would find it more and more difficult to give it up. Most of the crew are never called upon to do so, for they spend their whole lives in the same trade. ”

“ It is seldom that one meets anyone who understands the value of a Greenland whale. A well-boned and large one as she floats is worth to-day something between two and three thousand pounds. This huge price is due to the value of whalebone, which is a very rare commodity, and yet is absolutely essential for some trade purposes. The price tends to rise steadily, for the number of the creatures is diminishing. In 1880, Captain Gray calculated that there were probably not more than 300 of them left alive in the whole expanse of the Greenland seas, an area of thousands of square miles. ”

“ But the lancing, when the weary fish is killed with the cold steel, is a more exciting because it is a more prolonged experience. You may be for half an hour so near to the creature that you can lay your hand upon its slimy side, The whale appears to have but little sensibility to pain, for it never winces when long lances are passed through its body. But its instinct urges it to get its tail to work on the boats, and yours urges you to keep poling and boat-hooking along its side, so as to retain your safe position near its shoulder. ”

“ The perpetual light, the glare of the white ice, the deep blue of the water, these are the things which one remembers most clearly, with the dry, crisp, exhilarating air, which makes mere life the keenest of pleasures. ”

“ IT has been my good fortune-to have an experience of a life which is already extinct; for although whale-ships, both English and American, still go to Davis Strait, the Greenland fishing—that is, the fishing in the waters between Greenland and Spitzbergen—has been attended with such ill-fortune during the last ten years that it has now been abandoned. ”

“ If it should happen to do so, however, and if the loop catches the limbs of any one of the boat's crew, that man goes to his death so rapidly that his comrades hardly know that he has gone. It is a waste of fish to cut the line, for the victim is already hundreds of fathoms deep. ”

“ There are eight boats on board a whaler, but it is usual to send out only seven, for it takes six men each to man them, so that, when the seven are out, no one is left on board except the so-called "idlers," who have not signed to do seaman's work at all. It happened, however, that on board the "Hope" the "idlers" were an exceptionally active and energetic lot, so we volunteered to man the eighth boat, and we made it, in our own estimation at least, one of the most efficient both in sealing and in whaling. ”

“ The peculiar other-world feeling of the Arctic regions—a feeling so singular that if you have once been there the though of it haunts you all your life—is due largely to the perpetual daylight. Night seems more orange-tinted and subdued than day, but there is no great difference. ”

“ Perhaps other generations of whalers may follow that warty tail, for the whale is a very long-lived creature. How long they live has never been ascertained; but in the days when it was customary to stamp harpoons with the names of vessels, old harpoons have been cut out of whales bearing names long forgotten in the trade, and all the evidence goes to prove that a century is well within their powers. ”

“ These fill the air, and below, the waters are forever giving you a peep of some strange new creature. The commercial whale may not often come your way, but his less valuable brethren abound on every side. The finner shows his ninety feet of worthless tallow, with the absolute conviction that no whaler would condescend to lower a boat for him. ”

“ They are wary creatures, and it takes good long-range shooting to bag them. Then, in June, the sealing is over, and the ship bears away farther north still, until in the seventy-ninth or eightieth degree she is in the best Greenland whaling latitudes. ”

“ The cook—a very burly, powerful man—the little mate was only assistant—had a private store of rum, and treated himself so liberally to it that for three successive days the dinner of the crew was ruined. ”

“ There she remains for three months or so, and if she is fortunate she may bring back 300 or 400 per cent, to her owners, and a nice little purseful for every man of her ship's company. Or if her profits be more modest, she has at least afforded such sport that every other sport is dwarfed by the comparison. ”

“ The reason for this is that the breeding season is in March, and if the mothers should be killed before the young are able to take care of themselves the race would soon become extinct. For breeding purposes, the seals all come together at a variable spot, which is evidently prearranged among them, and as this place may be anywhere within many hundreds of square miles of floating ice, it is no easy matter for the fisher to find it. ”