Roy Chapman Andrews

“ Even though it was the very middle of the night when a ship’s whistle sounded, long before the whale had been dropped at the wharf, paper lanterns, flashing like fireflies, would begin to shine and disappear among the thatched-roofed cottages and the crowd of villagers gathering at the end of the wharf. Half-naked men, child-faced geishas, and little youngsters carrying sleeping babies as large as themselves strapped to their backs, formed a curious, picturesque, ever changing group. ”

“ There are no dull moments when one is hunting a humpback, for it is never possible to foretell what the animal’s next move will be. He may dash along the surface with his enormous mouth wide open, stand upon his head and “lobtail,” throwing up clouds of spray with smashing blows of his flukes, or launch his forty-ton body into the air as though shot from a submarine catapult. ”

“ In the mirror of my camera I could see the enormous gray head burst from the water, the blowholes open and send forth a cloud of vapor, and the slim back draw itself upward, the water streaming from the high fin as it cut the surface. Andersen’s last words were drowned in the crashing roar of the gun. Before we could see through the veil of smoke we heard the sailors shout, “Shinda!” (dead) , and the next instant the black cloud drifted away showing the whale lying on its side motionless. ”

“ I always have a feeling of admiration when watching either a blue or finback whale, for the magnificent brutes move in a slow and dignified way as though conscious that they are the largest and most imposing animals of ancient or modern times.
When sounding the finback sinks lower and lower until the dorsal fin disappears; this is the last part of the body to leave the surface. This species never draws out the flukes as do the humpback, sperm and right whales. ”

“ A DEEP-SEA SPERM WHALE HUNT Every time I see a sperm whale shot with a bomb harpoon from the bows of a steamship, I have more respect for the old-time hunters who kill the huge brutes with a hand harpoon and lance. The vitality of a sperm is enormous, and even when several bombs have exploded in its body the animal will often fight for hours before it spouts blood and dies. ”

“ This is an excellent illustration of what an important part the camera plays in natural history study, for often a photograph will show with accuracy many things which the eye does not record. When a whale rises so close to the ship that one can almost touch its huge body, the few seconds of its appearance are so full of excitement that it is well-nigh impossible to study details—at least so I have found. ”

“ The Orion was twisting and writhing about as though possessed of a demon, and every time she climbed a huge wave to rock uncertainly a moment on the crest and then plunge headlong down its smooth, green slope, I was certain she would never rise again. Balcom was doggedly hanging to the gun, but just after we had both been soaked by a big sea that came over 31the ship’s nose he shouted, “If we don’t get a shot soon we’ll have to leave them.”
At that time we were heading for the whales, which were spouting only a short distance away. One of them had left the others and seemed to be feeding. ”

“ It is perhaps most abundant about the Faroe Islands north of Scotland, where the natives take advantage of its follow-the-leader habit and drive the herds into narrow fjords to be slaughtered by the hundreds and used for oil and food. These blackfish hunts of the Faroes are famous and lend a welcome touch of romance and picturesqueness to the present-day whaling which contains so little of the old-time glamour. ”

“ The whaling ships usually return to the station each night and, if one is free from seasickness, furnish a rather inviting home for a short stay. They are trim, high-bowed vessels of about one hundred tons burden, ninety to one hundred feet long, and have a speed of from nine to twelve knots per hour. Round-bottomed to facilitate speedy manipulation, they ride the water like a cork but roll and pitch almost beyond belief in the slightest seaway.
Most striking of all the upper works is the harpoon-gun mounted upon a heavy iron support at the very bow. ”

“ I shall not attempt to chronicle here the numerous authentic instances of ships or boats which have been destroyed and sunk by sperm whales, for they are the common property of every book on deep-sea whaling. They leave no doubt that these animals often turn the tables on their hunters and attack with savage ferocity and dire results.
Apparently the sperm is the only whale which will deliberately turn upon its pursuers when not in its death flurry. ”

“ After waiting fifteen or twenty minutes the Captain ordered a boat lowered and Sorenson, with two sailors, rowed out to finish the whale with the long killing lance. I had climbed to the barrel at the masthead, glass and camera slung at my side, and was watching the little pram as it neared the dying finback. After circling around the animal the boat was slowly backed toward it, the Gunner standing erect in the stern with lance ready, awaiting his opportunity. Suddenly he leaned forward and thrust the steel with all his strength deep into the whale’s side. ”

“ Space will not allow me to give any of the numerous stories of the exciting hunts to which one listens in the galley and the cabin of the Atlantic Finwhalers, but they prove that the chase of this great Whale calls for the sternest courage and readiest resource.
To stand up in a tiny “pram” amidst a whirl of waters and lance a fighting Finback is no child’s play, and requires that six o’clock in the morning pluck that the Norsemen possess in a high degree. ”

“ Unfortunately there appears to be a universal belief that shore whaling is a short-lived industry and that everyone must get for himself the greatest possible share of the profits without regard for the future. It is commercial greed in its worst form, because in the mad scramble for quick money, such pernicious operations as those of the floating factory are inaugurated, and but a small part of the real value of each whale is secured after its life has been taken. ”

“ A few more wallows’ of despair, the great tail-flukes thrash the water with lessening force, and presently the huge body, inert, lifeless, lies quietly on the surface. Hawsers are made fast to the dead whale, and while the boats return to their stations to watch the remaining nets it is towed by the launch to the flensing jetty ashore. ”

“ THE WOLF OF THE SEA Although the killer whale has no great commercial value, it is often brought in at the shore stations and figures so prominently in all deep-sea life that to omit it from any book on whaling would be a grave error.
The killer is the wolf of the sea and like the land wolves hunts in packs of twenty or more individuals which will attack and devour almost anything that swims. ”

“ I was anxious to get some pictures of the white porpoises, but it would have been useless to think of photographing in all that rush of wind and spray, so the four men put off in the canoes while I continued work upon the dead whale. In about three hours they returned, each towing a full-grown porpoise and almost exhausted. It had been hard and dangerous work to kill the whales and bring them in, for the wind drove with tremendous force across the clear stretch of river, catching the tops of the waves and whirling the spray like snow. ”

“ Probably no mammalian adaptation for the securing of food is more remarkable than the whale’s baleen. It is almost unbelievable that an animal which once had teeth could, as its food changed, replace them by a complicated straining apparatus such as the whalebone. The baleen is an epidermal growth and is in reality merely an exaggeration of the transverse ridges present in the mouths of land mammals. ”

“ At the Oshima station in Japan, my cook who had one day been pressed into service when several whales were waiting to be cut in was struck fairly upon the head by a blanket piece and instantly killed; his skull was crushed as though it had been paper and his neck, shoulder, and arm broken. At Aikawa a blubber strip gave way when half the carcass of a humpback was suspended in the air, letting the weight of some fifteen or twenty tons fall upon a cutter standing below; 153when taken from beneath the whale the poor fellow could hardly be recognized as a human being. ”

“ Everywhere there is an atmosphere of carnage; the air itself becomes infected with the odor of blood. In the fjord, now stained crimson, there is a confused mass of boats and blood-splashed men wading fearlessly among the floundering whales. Some of these make mad rushes for shore, scattering groups of men bending over the stranded grind; others in their last agonies dive on the muddy bottom and, half out of water, beat the air with their great tails. The hunt may last for hours, for some of the boats chase the stragglers even out to the open sea.
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A school of “blackfish” at Cape Cod. ”

“ From their Viking ancestors the Scandinavians have inherited their love for the sea and, since Svend Foyn’s time, Tønsberg has sent forth her sons to the whaleships much as did New Bedford half a century ago. Thus the present generation has grown up as the industry developed, and from boys to men they have seen it in all its phases and learned not only how to shoot a whale but how to handle it afterward, which is fully as important. ”

“ He had first seen killers circling about the whale which was lying at the surface, belly up, with the fins outspread. The animal was absolutely paralyzed by fright. The vessel steamed up at half speed and Johnson shot at once, the 201iron striking the whale squarely between the flippers.
The gray whales live in such constant terror that when porpoises are playing about a single animal, as frequently happens, it will sometimes become terrified and dash madly for the shore, thinking that the killers have appeared. ”

“ In the old days only three species, the sperm, bowhead and right whale, were hunted and until Svend Foyn invented the harpoon-gun the fin whales, of less commercial value, were seldom captured. Their yield of oil was so small, and the whalebone so short and coarse, that if these products alone were utilized they were not worth the trouble of killing. Moreover, the great speed of the animals in the water and their tendency to sink when dead made them unacceptable to the men who hunted in a small boat with a hand harpoon and lance. ”

“ The manager’s house is often beautifully furnished, with electric light, bathrooms, and even steam heat, so that when one becomes accustomed to the all-pervading odor from the “dryer,” the station is a delightful place at which to work. Although each one differs in respect to food, nevertheless the meals are for the most part excellent, for the managers realize that if their men are to be contented they must be well fed. ”

“ A whale’s flippers must not be compared with the fins of a fish, for in structure the two are quite unlike. The flippers of all cetaceans are merely the fore-limbs of ordinary land mammals, which have become overlaid with blubber to form a paddle in adaptation to an aquatic life and have the bones, blood vessels, and nerves of the human arm. The flipper of the humpback whale has four greatly elongated fingers but in some other species there are five fingers as in the human hand. ”

“ In not a single country of the globe where shore whaling is being carried on today are there intelligent laws to insure for the future an industry which is yielding millions of dollars every year, or to save from extermination the animals which, of all others on the land or in the sea, have taken the most important place in the history of the world. ”

“ The tongue of a humpback whale, which has been forced out of the animal’s mouth by air pumped into the body to keep it afloat.
The feeding operations are most interesting to watch, and if the shrimps happen to be but a short distance under water, as often happens during the morning and evening or just before a storm, they can be easily seen. The whale starts forward at good speed, then opens its mouth and takes in a great quantity of water containing numbers of shrimp, turns on its side and brings the ponderous lower jaw upward, closing the mouth. ”

“ The excessive slaughter in the South Atlantic has a direct effect upon the industry in other parts of the world, for it is very probable that the fin whales go northward from the Antarctic waters into both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
In Japan it will be a national catastrophe when whaling ceases, because the diet of the ordinary native would consist of little besides rice, fish, and vegetables were it not for the thousands of tons of whale meat which are distributed fresh or canned to almost the entire Empire, and which furnish a healthful and palatable food at a low cost. ”

“ The sperm whale is probably the only marine animal which is more than a match for a herd of killers. The enormous lower jaw of a sperm whale presents an array of teeth even more formidable than those of the orca, and I greatly doubt if the killer could succeed in terrifying this whale; it is significant that the flukes and flippers of sperms are practically always free from injuries. ”

“ A land animal, if it becomes too large, cannot hold its body off the ground or move about readily and is doomed to certain destruction. But a whale has to face none of these problems and can grow without restraint. The sperm and right whales float when killed, but the fin whales usually sink although the specific gravity of their bodies is but little more than that of water. ”