320 



DISCOVERY REPORTS 



a few taps of the pole upon the ground : at no time is the keen-edged toggle allowed to touch any hard 

 surface. At this stage the iron-strap is finished, about 6 or 12 in. from the butt of the pole, with a 

 good-sized eyesplice called the becket. It is here that the box-line will 

 be bent later. The actual mounting of the iron, the fastening of it tight and 

 true to the pole, is accomplished by passing through the becket a stout billet 

 of wood, and then toggling this between a door frame or iron bitts, or what- 

 ever improvised holdfast may be handy. The butt is now jammed against a 

 door-step, or something similar, and an assistant bears down all his weight 

 upon the pole until the strap is stretched taut along it, and there stopped 

 down with two marlin seizings, each of three or four turns. The toggling 

 arrangement is now withdrawn and each seizing finished with two copper 

 tacks to jam it and prevent it riding up the pole. Finally a light line is rove 

 through a hole in the butt end and then spliced to make an open loop. A last 

 touch is given to the point and edges of the flue, all the metal parts are 

 well greased, and the mounted iron, now a heavy weapon some 8| ft. long, 

 is ready for the boat (Fig. 6). 



The Azores whaleboat carries four mounted irons, although most of the 

 American boats had six. Two of these harpoons are the live irons, that is, 

 they are attached to the whaleline and will be used in getting fast. They 

 are called first and second irons. The end of that stray part of the whale- 

 line called the box-line, after passing through the loop at the butt, is 

 fastened to the strap of the first iron by a double becket hitch. The signifi- 

 cance of the butt loop is to save the harpoon pole : when the whale is struck the 



iron takes the strain and the marlin seizings on the pole are quickly broken 



and it slips from the iron socket, but is still held on the whaleline by its loop 



where it rides loosely and can eventually be recovered. The second iron is 



bent to a short-warp (Az. chote-ope) which is a rope of some 4 fm. and is 



itself attached by a bowline to the whaleline, where it runs freely. As soon 



as the first iron is fast the harponeer darts his second, trying to get that 



fast also. But frequently there may be no time for the second dart before 



the whale sounds. In this case, to avoid the danger in the boat from a live 



iron on a running line, the harponeer at once tosses the second iron into 



the sea, whence it may later be recovered on the short-warp. When the 



American and English whaleboats lowered for whales, the live irons were 



placed ready to the harponeer's hand in a special forked rest, called a boat- 

 crotch or iron-crotch (or 'mik' in the English fishery), cleated to the 



starboard gunwale. I have never seen the boat-crotch fitted in Azores 



whaleboats, where the irons are simply leaned in a handy position against 



the thigh-board. The remaining irons, making the four carried, are the 



two spare irons which are stowed in their traditional place, in the waist 



of the boat against the port side, lying across the thwarts below the gun- 

 wale, and protected by a bit of canvas. 



The whale lance is a long spear for killing. The cast steel head (called 



the mouth in the English fishery) is a petal-shaped blade about 4 in. long 



and 2 in. broad, with a razor-sharp edge all round. Brown (1884) mentions that sometimes the faces 



of the American blade bore longitudinal grooves, for easier entrance, but I have never seen these 



I foot 



Fig. 6. The hand harpoon and 

 lance. Sketch of the mounted 

 craft specified in Table 7. 



