Cachalot

“ The flesh of the humpbacked whale is not at all bad, being but little inferior to that of the porpoise; so that, as these people do not despise even the coarse rank flesh of the cachalot, their enthusiasm was natural. Their offers of help were rather embarrassing to us, as we could find little room for any of them in the boats, and the canoes only got in our way. Unable to assist us, they vented their superfluous energies on the whale in the most astounding aquatic antics imaginable—diving under it; climbing on to it; pushing and rolling each other headlong over its broad back ”

“ At this crisis their thoughts reverted to the cachalot,—not the live, leaping leviathan, whose hostile behaviour had so suddenly blighted their bright prospects; but the dead one, upon whose huge carcass they had so lately stood. There they might still find food,—more shark-meat. If not, there was the whale-beef, or blubber: coarse viands, it is true, but such as may sustain life. Of that there was enough to have replenished the larder of a whole ship’s crew,—of a squadron! ”

“ She is put about, making a course which shortly brings her a mile or two to windward of the slowly-moving cachalot. Now it is evident that no solitary whale is in sight, but a great school, gambolling in the bright spray. One occasionally, in pure exuberance of its tremendous vitality, springs twenty feet into the clear air, and falls, a hundred tons of massive flesh, with earthquake-like commotion, back into the sea.
Having got the weather-gage, the boats are lowered; sail is immediately set, and, like swift huge-winged birds, they swoop down upon the prey. ”

“ The very next day after our first exhaustive boat drill, a school of "Black Fish" was reported from aloft, with great glee the officers prepared for what they considered a rattling day's fun.
The Black Fish (PHOCAENA SP.) is a small toothed whale, not at all unlike a miniature cachalot, except that its head is rounded at the front, while its jaw is not long and straight, but bowed. It is as frolicsome as the porpoise, gambolling about in schools of from twenty to fifty or more, as if really delighted to be alive. ”

“ I gaily flung myself into my place in the mate's boat one morning, as we were departing in chase of a magnificent cachalot that had been raised just after breakfast. There were no other vessels in sight,—much to our satisfaction,—the wind was light, with a cloudless sky, and the whale was dead to leeward of us. We sped along at a good rate towards our prospective victim, who was, in his leisurely enjoyment of life, calmly lolling on the surface, occasionally lifting his enormous tail out of water and letting it fall flat upon the surface with a boom audible for miles. ”

“ The shapeless bulk of the cachalot makes it a difficult tow at all times, but, with a rising wind and sea, utterly impossible to whale-boats. The barometer is falling; great masses of purple-edged cumuli are piling high on the southern horizon, and no weather prophet is needed to foretell the imminent approach of a heavy gale. The captain looks wistfully to windward at Preservation Inlet, only twenty-five miles off, and thinks, with fierce discontent, of the prize, worth eight or nine hundred pounds, which lies but four or five miles away, and must be abandoned solely for want of steam-power. ”

“ Never had the lagoon looked more beautiful, glass-smooth, except where the vast bulk moved half submerged, escorted by the gulls whose reflection flew white on the surface, and whose shadows on the floor seemed phantom birds circling amidst the shark shadows and the shadows of the dogfish.
Then, as Dick watched, little by little the dying cachalot gained speed; rising on the water as the momentum increased, the great bulk showed clear, moving in the circle that Nature has prescribed for all creatures dazed or confused. ”

“ OUR FRIEND THE CACHALOT In Southern seas he was born, grew to his mighty maturity, and for many a year lorded it over a company of females and young bulls. Sixty feet in length, he weighed in his prime over eighty tons. He was father of many children, but they knew him only as lord and leader, and it was ordained that as time went on certain of them should rise up against him, and that one of them, ultimately, should conquer and depose him. ”

“ No cow cachalot has ever been seen in these waters. Some whalemen declare that the solitary cachalot is invariably vicious; others that he is as inoffensive as any of the great whales. Beholding our friend in that peaceful period of repletion and rest, you would have been disposed to accept the latter statement. ”

“ Himself a monster, the cachalot feeds on other monsters of the deep, as huge, almost, and still more monstrous-looking than himself. It has long been known that some parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans are inhabited by cuttlefish of a size sufficient to make them at least an annoyance, if not an absolute danger, to man. ”

“ Like bulldogs clinging to the head of the leviathan, they piloted it into the lagoon, the cachalot springing into the air and falling back in foam and thunder. Up the left arm of the lagoon the fighters came, driving everything before them, palu, garfish, bream, turtle, rays and eels all rushing to escape, the orcas like tigers to left and right and ahead, sharks and giant dogfish following after, tearing at the swordfish, whose fins were in ribbons and whose tail was gone. ”

“ The cachalot is a disagreeable creature, more tadpole than fish, according to Fredol's description. It is badly formed, the whole of its left side being (if we may say it) a "failure," and being only able to see with its right eye. ”

“ They can swallow whole nothing larger than a salmon, but can bite larger prey into manageable pieces, and have more than once seized and crushed a boat in their jaws. The cachalot attacks the giant squid whenever it meets one and the marks of the squid's winding arms and cruel suckers are often seen on the hides of whales as scars of some struggle between these Titans of the deep. ”

“ The three—Snowball, the sailor, and little William—had kept their place on the carcass of the cachalot, all three attentively listening,—the two last standing up, and the former in a reclining attitude, with his huge ear laid close to the skin of the whale,—as though he believed that to be a conductor of sound. There was no need for them to have been thus straining their ears: for when a sound reached them at length, it was that of a voice,—so harsh and loud, that a deaf man might almost have heard it. ”

“ Whether from superstition or not I cannot tell, but I never saw any creature injured out of pure wantonness, except sharks, while I was on board the CACHALOT. Of course, injuries to men do not count. Had that finback attempted to play about a passenger ship in such a fashion, all the loungers on board would have been popping at him with their revolvers and rifles without ever a thought of compunction; yet here, in a vessel whose errand was whale-fishing, a whale enjoyed perfect immunity. ”

“ Never, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has a cachalot attacked a man swimming or clinging to a piece of wreckage, although such opportunities occur innumerably. I have in another place told the story of how I once saw a combat between a bull-cachalot and so powerful a combination of enemies that even one knowing the fighting qualities of the sperm whale would have hesitated to back him to win, but the yarn will bear repetition. ”

“ Not that they had any intention of directing their attack upon it: for, from the peculiar conformation of his mouth, the shark is incapable of feeding upon the carcass of a large whale. But having, no doubt, accompanied the chase at the time the cachalot had been harpooned, they were now staying by a dead body, from an instinct that told them its destroyers would return, and supply them with its flesh in convenient morsels,—while occupied in flensing it.
“Ugh!” exclaimed the sailor; “they look hungry enough to bite at any bait we may throw out to them. ”

“ His blind rage so terrifies all the other Whales that they escape, bellowing, throwing themselves on the shore, or striving to hide themselves in the sand. Even when he is dead they still fear him and will not approach his carcass. The fiercest species of the Cachalot is the Ourque or Physetene of the ancients, which is so much dreaded by the Icelanders, that when they are on the sea they will not so much as name him lest he should come and attack them. ”

“ The "killer," or ORCA GLADIATOR, is a true whale, but, like the cachalot, has teeth. He differs from that great cetacean, though, in a most important particular; i.e. by having a complete set in both upper and lower jaws, like any other carnivore. For a carnivore indeed is he, the very wolf of the ocean, and enjoying, by reason of his extraordinary agility as well as comparative worthlessness commercially, complete immunity from attack by man. ”

“ Of this sub-family the best-known genus is Physeter, including the Sperm Whale or Cachalot. Of other reputed species we shall speak later. The genus is characterised in the first place by its large size—as much as 82 feet of length have been assigned to Physeter macrocephalus; but Sir William Flower thought that 55 or possibly 60 feet might be a better approximation to the greatest length of the Cachalot. The head is enormous, a third of the length of the body, and terminates in a massive and bluntish snout. ”

“ The thoroughly-roused leviathan, with a reversal of his huge bulk that made the sea boil like a pot, brandished his tail aloft and brought it down upon the doomed "killer," making him at once the "killed." He was crushed like a shrimp under one's heel.
The survivor fled—never faster—for an avalanche of living, furious flesh was behind him, and coming with enormous leaps half out of the sea every time. Thus they disappeared, but I have no doubts as to the issue. Of one thing I am certain—that, if any of the trio survived, they never afterwards attempted to rush a cachalot. ”

“ The only exception he seems to make is in the case of man. Instances have several—nay, many times occurred where men have been slain by the jaws of a cachalot crushing the boat in which they were; but their death was of course incidental to the destruction of the boat. ”

“ Mammalia also, like the porpoise, grampus, and rorqual, require enormous supplies of fish for their sustenance, and never fail to find them. As we ascend the scale of size the struggle becomes majestic—a war of Titans, such as no arena on earth has seen since the Deluge. The imagination recoils dismayed before the thought of such a spectacle as is afforded by the gigantic cachalot descending to the murky depths where in awful state the hideous Kraken broods. ”

“ The latter, however, though they will travel in company with the flying finback and the timid humpback and “right” whale, has no fear of the killers. He is too enormously strong, and could crush even a full-grown killer to a pulp between his mighty jaws were he molested, and consequently the killers give the cachalot a wide berth as a dangerous customer. ”

“ These creatures are only balaeaopterons, provided with dorsal fins; and, like the cachalots, are generally much smaller than the Greenland whale."
"Ah!" exclaimed the Canadian, whose eyes had never left the ocean, "they are coming nearer; they are in the same water as the Nautilus."
Then, returning to the conversation, he said:
"You spoke of the cachalot as a small creature. I have heard of gigantic ones. They are intelligent cetacea. It is said of some that they cover themselves with seaweed and fucus, and then are taken for islands. People encamp upon them, and settle there ”

“ This was to be accomplished by a fire of spermaceti.
As already stated, there was no scarcity on the score of this fuel. The “case” of the cachalot contained enough to have roasted all the sharks within a circle of ten mile around it; and, to all appearance, there were hundreds of them inside that circumference. Indeed, that part of the ocean where the dead whale had been found, though far from any land, is at all times most prolific in animal life. Sometimes the sea for miles around a ship will be seen swarming with fish of various kinds, while the air is filled with birds. ”

“ THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, 1839.
"The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only better armed than the True Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe." ”

“ It used to be thought that the great whales—the cachalot, the rorqual, and the Greenland whale—were the largest of ocean’s dwellers, but if evidence is of any value whatever, there is one marine creature that is larger even than they—indeed, so much larger and more powerful that he is able to make them his prey, conquering them—even the mighty sperm-whale himself—by main strength put forth in single combat. This portentous monster is, of course, the great sea-serpent, which has been seen, at intervals, probably from time immemorial, and recorded also from, at least, as far back as 1734. ”

“ In fact, these islands have long been a nursery for whale-fishers, because the cachalot loves their steep-to shores, and the hardy natives, whenever and wherever they can muster a boat and a little gear, are always ready to sally forth and attack the unwary whale that ventures within their ken. Consequently more than half of the total crews of the American whaling fleet are composed of these islanders. Many of them have risen to the position of captain, and still more are officers and harpooners ”