CHAPTER IX 

 HAZARDS AND COMPENSATIONS 



THE dangers of whaling were legion. Whalemen 

 were exposed not only to the recurrent risks of 

 storm, fog, and reef which beset every vessel at 

 sea, but also to countless perils arising within the 

 industry itself. In cutting-in it was necessary to guard 

 against sharks, boat-spades, and the treacherous footing af- 

 forded by the oil-covered decks of a rolling vessel} in trying- 

 out there was the constant possibility that the flames or the 

 boiling oil would escape from confinement and set fire to the 

 shipj while in a gale the heavy casks of oil might break loose 

 from their lashings and charge about the decks to the imminent 

 peril of both vessel and crew. 



The average whaler, too, was commonly isolated and friend- 

 less. Always far from the regular lanes of commerce, her 

 captain was essentially an explorer, often years in advance of 

 those first forerunners of civilization, the trading-post and the 

 missionary. Consequently succor was seldom to be expected 

 in any emergency. Unfrequented seas, with their reefs, shoals, 

 dangerous currents, rocky coasts, and strange lands and peoples, 

 had to be navigated with incomplete charts and maps or with 

 none at all. If shipwreck ensued, there was a choice between 

 long days and nights at sea in an open boat, possibly without 

 food and drink, and the prospect of longer weeks or months 

 on uninhabited islands or in the company of unfriendly savages. 

 But the greatest risks came only when the boats were lowered 

 in actual pursuit of whales. Although the very frequency of 

 such lowerings forced the whalemen to become expert in han- 

 dling their well-constructed boats under all conditions, grue- 

 some accidents of the chase were all too common. When at 



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