AT SEA: ON THE WHALING GROUNDS 159 



even the most staid and taciturn mate conceived it to be his 

 function to urge the crew to the utmost exertion by a series of 

 excitable comments and picturesque exhortations. By turns he 

 entreated, besought, cajoled, urged, commanded, bullied, 

 threatened, and cursed, employing for the most part a slang 

 vocabulary peculiar to the whaling industry. A large share 

 of this jargon was crude, vulgar, and obscene 5 but there was 

 also much of the colorful and the picturesque about it. 



Sometimes these efforts were successful, and the whale se- 

 lected by a given boat was reached while still on the surface. 

 But when, in spite of the most vigorous exertions, the animals 

 sounded before they could be struck, there was nothing to be 

 done except to await their reappearance. Knowing that they 

 would seek the surface again in approximately an hour's time, 

 and estimating as carefully as possible their direction and 

 probable speed while under water, the boat was placed as near 

 as might be to the spot where they were expected to rise and 

 the event anxiously awaited. If it transpired that the location 

 had been well chosen, the whales would rise within a compara- 

 tively short distance 5 and this time it would be relatively easy 

 to reach them while they were still on the surface. 



' In coming to close quarters with a whale it was customary 

 to approach either from the rear (known as "going on the 

 flukes") or from the front (termed "taking it head and head"). 

 This was because the animal's eyes were so situated on the sides 

 of its huge body that it could see neither directly ahead nor 

 directly behind, but only to the side. Hence the obvious 

 advantage of avoiding its field of vision as far as possible. 

 When within a short distance of the goal the mate warned the 

 boatsteerer to stand up in the bow and to prepare for the dart. 

 The latter braced himself and, with harpoon poised, awaited 

 the most propitious moment. This was often delayed until 

 the prow of the boat was only a few feet from the body of the 

 whale, when the harpoon was sunk deep into the yielding 

 blubber and flesh j and if time permitted a second harpoon, at- 

 tached to the same line, followed the first. 



Such normal and successful harpooning, however, was by no 

 means universal. Sometimes the whale "settled" at the last 

 moment, leaving the disappointed boatsteerer without a tar- 



