HAZARDS AND COMPENSATIONS 187 



to keep himself afloat. Upon seeing him in the water, the 

 now infuriated animal attempted to fall upon him with its 

 gigantic body or to strike him with its flukes. Time after time 

 the master was forced to dive in order to escape the sweeps of 

 the massive tailj for neither the vessel nor the remaining boats 

 could get into position to extend assistance. Finally, however, 

 when the swimmer was completely exhausted, the mate suc- 

 ceeded in making a rush and in hauling him out of danger. 

 Another fighting leviathan, encountered by a Captain Hunt- 

 ting off the Rio de la Plata, destroyed in rapid succession four 

 boats sent against it, and finally escaped with several harpoons 

 imbedded in its flesh and twelve hundred fathoms of whale- 

 line trailing in its wake. Though not a single man was killed, 

 the four boats' crews were so unnerved by their harrowing ex- 

 perience that they were unfit for further service, forcing the 

 captain to put into Buenos Aires to ship a new crew, as well as 

 to refit his vessel. 



In coming to close quarters a blow from the flukes or jaws 

 sometimes struck the man standing in the bow without touching 

 the boat itself. Captain Edmund Gardner, a well-known 

 whaleman of New Bedford, was so wounded while serving as 

 an ofiicer on the whaler Winslow. While attempting to lance 

 a large sperm whale, he received a blow from the animaPs 

 lower jaw which was all but fatal. His skull was laid bare, 

 his jawbone broken, and his arms and shoulders severely lace- 

 rated. All sail was made at once for the nearest port, which 

 chanced to be Payta. But upon arriving there six days later it 

 was found that the only available surgeon was fifty miles away, 

 and consequently another thirty-six hours elapsed before the 

 wounds could be adequately dressed. In spite of such tardy 

 treatment, however, the patient was later able to resume the 

 voyage and to recover completely. 



Another source of mishap was the fouling of the line as it 

 was being taken out by a running or sounding whale. One of 

 the earliest records of an American whaling accident described 

 such an event. The log-book of a certain Peter Folger, kept 

 during the course of a voyage made in 1761, contained this en- 

 try: "July ye 29 we stowed away our whale. We saw 2 

 sloops to the Easterd, and we saw divers sparmocities and we 



