832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and with magic songs and beating of drums do their best to make 

 it come. 



It is not every man in the village who owns an umiak that 

 fits it out for whaling, as it requires a good deal of property to 

 procure the necessary outfit. About eight or ten boats from each 

 village make up the usual fleet. The crews eight or ten men to 

 a boat are made up during the winter. 



The owner of the boat who is always the captain and steers- 

 man sometimes hires his crew outright, paying them with to- 

 bacco or cartridges or other goods, and sometimes allows them a 

 share in the profits, but, I believe, always feeds them while the 

 boat is " in commission." When enough men for a full crew can 

 not be secured, women and even half-grown lads take their places 

 in the boat. One man is selected for harpooner and posted in the 

 bow, and usually another, amidships, has charge of a whaleman's 

 bomb-gun, for firing an explosive lance into the whale, for most 

 of the rich Eskimo whalemen now own these guns. 



Now, as to the instruments used for the capture of the whale. 

 Instead of harpooning the whale, or " fastening " to him, as the 

 white whalemen say, and keeping the end of the line fast in the 

 boat, which the whale is made to drag about till the crew can 

 manage to haul up and lance him to death, there is but a short 

 line attached to each harpoon, to the end of which are fastened 

 two floats made of whole seal-skins, inflated, which are thrown 

 overboard as soon as the harpoon is fixed in the whale. Each 

 boat carries four or five harpoons, and several boats crowd round 

 and endeavor to attach these floats to the whale every time he 

 comes to the surface, until he can dive no longer, and lies upon 

 the water ready for the death-stroke. Some of the harpoons are 

 regular whalemen's "irons," but they still also use their own 

 ingenious harpoons, in which the head, made of bone or walrus 

 ivory, with a point of stone or metal set into it, is alone fastened 

 to the line, and is contrived so as to " unship " from the shaft as 

 soon as it is thrust into the whale, and to turn at right angles to 

 the line, like a toggle, under the skin. To kill the whale after he 

 is harpooned, they used in old times long lances, with beautifully 

 flaked flint heads, as broad as one's hand ; but now they all have 

 regular steel whale lances, and, as I have said before, most of 

 them own bomb-guns. 



Some of the boats are carried out over the ice to the place where 

 they are to be launched before the " lead " opens, and, as soon as 

 open water is reported by the scouts, all start. There is a great deal 

 of ceremony and superstition connected with the whale-fishery. 

 The captain and harpooner of each boat wear special trappings, 

 and streak their faces with black-lead, as, indeed, is often done on 

 festive occasions. Long before the time for whaling, all those 



