3 oo DISCOVERY REPORTS 



captures. Nevertheless, Corvo still plays its part in whaling, for I have been told by Colonel Agostinho 

 that towards the end of July a look-out is manned on the Corvo cliffs and some whaleboats belonging 

 to Flores are brought across the strait to fish from Rosario, although the dead whales are towed back 

 to Flores for working up. In this way the look-outs command the northern ocean prospect otherwise 

 obscured from Flores by the loom of Corvo. Turning to Graciosa and San Jorge in the Central Group, 

 we know from the official statistics (Table 10) that whaleries had been established in these islands by 

 1896. Probably they started a good deal earlier. Graciosa has made little headway, but San Jorge, 

 although whaling with occasional intermissions, appears since the turn of the century to have been as 

 active as Fayal except that it has not shared so obviously in the period of expansion after 1940. To the 

 south-eastward Santa Maria, the remaining island to be considered, was whaling in 1896, although 

 within ten years the industry had lapsed despite the comparative abundance of whales round the 

 Santa Maria coasts (p. 298). Possibly the island experienced difficulties akin to those of Corvo. No 

 island in the archipelago is more steeply cliffed or more beset with dangerous reefs than Santa Maria. 

 But in 1937 the whalery was revived. I do not know whether the single station at Porto do Castelo 

 (p. 341) is the original one constructed some time in the nineteenth century, but it has secured, 

 during the twelve years to 1949, a higher average catch per whaleboat than that of any other island 

 (Table 10). 



Since 1900 the Azores whaling industry has undergone developments or has acquired certain 

 modern adjuncts which, although they have left intact the essential traditions and methods of open 

 boat whaling, have greatly improved the efficiency possible 100 years ago. Surveying these, and the 

 recent history of the fishery, it is useful to refer, not only to Table 1 and Fig. 2, comparing the Azores 

 and the world catches, but also to the catch of whales per whaleboat for the archipelago, shown in the 

 extreme right-hand column of Table 10. 



A preliminary step taken by the island whalemen was to make themselves independent of New 

 England for the boats and special equipment of the whaling business. During the nineteenth century 

 all the whaleboats were imported from New Bedford. But in 1894 a whaleman and shipwright of 

 Lagens do Pico, called Francisco Jose Machado (as I am informed by Senhor Medeiros) built the 

 first local boat: the other islands, following the Pico lead, drew upon their indigenous tradition of small 

 boat construction, and by 1900 all the necessary whaleboats were built locally. At the present time the 

 whaleries are largely self-sufficient, and save for the special cooking equipment of modern factories, 

 they import only ropes, try-pots and motor-boat engines. All the other gear, the harpoons, lances and 

 cutting spades, the coopered barrels and tubs, the boat furnishings and the motor-boat hulls, are made 

 in the islands. 



The most important step forward has no doubt been the introduction of motor tow-boats. Even 

 these had an American precedent in nineteenth-century whaling, for a 28-ft. steam launch was suc- 

 cessfully operated from the bark Rainboio as a tow-boat for whaleboats and captured whales in the 

 North Pacific Bowhead season of 1882 (Brown, 1887, p. 246). Senhor Medeiros has established that 

 a motor-boat for towing purposes was first used by the Fayal whalemen in 1909. The effect of this 

 development was not immediately apparent, for the industry suffered a period of depression during 

 the four years between 191 1 and the beginning of the First World War. Sperm oil during the 1900's 

 was exported to London and to the United States (Estatistica das Pescas), but it had at this time few 

 uses except as a lubricant and as a fuel sufficiently superior to kerosene to be required for railway 

 signal lamps and for lighthouses: spermaceti, which had formerly provided the finest wax candles, 

 found only limited employment in making cosmetics and medicinal salves, and in reinforcing the 

 cheap paraffin candles which had ousted it. Up to 1910 the modest demand arising from these uses 

 could be met without superfluity by the production from the Azores, and in a lesser degree from other 



