THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 307 



The following account is not intended to duplicate Figueiredo's descriptions. It rather attempts 

 a comparative approach which may examine and establish the degree to which the traditions of old- 

 style American Sperm whaling have been retained in the existing gear and methods of the Azores 

 industry. 



For comparisons with the American gear and methods I have found two long papers by J. T. 

 Brown, in 1884 and 1887, to give the best account of the construction and furnishing of nineteenth- 

 century whaleboats and of all those products of blacksmith work, the harpoons, lances, spades, and 

 trying out implements, which were collectively known as 'craft' or ' whalecraft '. Illustrations of 

 whaleboats, boat-gear and craft are shown best in the Atlas of plates in Goode, G. B. & Associates 

 (1887), and also in Starbuck (1878, pi. ill-vi), and in Scammon (1874, ch. m) whose text is also com- 

 prehensive, but not so detailed as that of Brown. To compare the hunting of whales then and now, 

 there is much precise information in Melville's book (185 1). There are other good first-hand accounts 

 of whale hunting in J. R. Browne (1846), Cheever (1851), Nordhoff (1941, posthumous), Haley (1950, 

 posthumous), Davis (1874), Bullen (1901), although the latter has some inaccuracies of nomenclature, 

 and Ashley (1926), Murphy (1947) and Chippendale (1953), the last three authors having sailed in the 

 late nineties or early years of this century near the end of the whaleship era. All of these, but principally 

 Melville, Browne and Davis, also give details of cutting in and trying out. The narratives cover some 

 seventy years of Sperm whaling, but the advances over that period (in part reviewed by Ashley, 1926) 

 only concerned details, like the advance from fixed-flue to toggle harpoon, the use of small-arms, and 

 the introduction of centre-boards in whaleboats and a second tub of line. Otherwise these descriptions 

 do not contradict each other, so I have mentioned the authors here in order to save overburdening with 

 references the comparative passages in this description of the Azores open boat whaling as it was in 

 1949 and remains today. 



The cliff look-outs 



Except for Santa Maria each island has several look-outs or vigias placed at intervals on the cliff 

 tops (Table 4). In Santa Maria there is only one look-out, located in the south-east corner of the island. 

 There is a look-out above every station where whaleboats are kept, and the remaining look-outs in an 

 island are spaced so that together all command as much as possible of the ocean prospect. The arc of 

 search is methodically swept with binoculars, and each arc substantially overlaps that of the adjacent 

 look-out on either hand : in this way a large area of sea from two or three miles off-shore outwards 

 to the horizon is searched for the blow of Sperm whales by two or more look-outs simultaneously. 

 This is illustrated in Fig. 5, giving the dispositions and arcs of search of the Fayal look-outs whose 

 names and organization are set out in Table 5. For the details in this table I am indebted to Senhor 

 Tomas Alberto de Azevedo who took a special interest in showing me the look-outs of Fayal. 



All look-outs seem to be permanent structures. Those recently built or rebuilt are made of stone 

 faced with concrete. Such a recent example which I visited is the look-out in the cliff some 700 ft. 

 above the try-works station at Porto do Castelo, Santa Maria. It is about 14 ft. square, and the sea- 

 ward wall extends upwards only half-way to the eaves so that the watchers have an unrestricted view. 

 At the end of the day's search this window can be closed by a wooden shutter which in the hours of 

 manning is propped up like a shop sun-blind (Plate XIV). Fayal has some similar light and airy 

 structures, but there is an old vigia in use at Atafona above the whaleboat station of Salao on the north 

 coast of Fayal. This look-out is a weathered barn, with freestone walls of larva rock, standing beside 

 a field of maize sloping to the cliff edge. I found it a dark, raftered place inside, mostly filled with 

 trusses of hay, except for one corner where a solitary watcher bestrode a rough stool in front of a 

 small unglazed window. A singular look-out is to be found at Monte da Guia, a ruined volcano which 



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