6 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



points across the channel, and the air is all at once filled with wild 

 ululations, hoarse man-shouts, and a frenzied splashing and slapping 

 of the waters. The glasslike surface of the sea is rent by a dozen 

 pools of disruption each of which is quickly surrounded by a ring 

 of madly dancing things. These are inflated bladders, or skin floats, 

 which the men in the canoes are feverishly tying to the lines trail- 

 ing from the harpoons that have been sunk in the maddened sea 

 beasts. At first these floats bob about disconsolately; then suddenly 

 they rush together, dip deep into the water, and go careening off 

 towards the open sea, dragging the canoes after them all together 

 as if by magic. The canoes at first crowd and jostle each other amid 

 a torrent of shouts and oaths, but then they slowly drop apart, one 

 behind the other, and dance over the water like a sea serpent, twist- 

 ing this way and that. 



But watch the bobbing floats. Every now and then they stop their 

 mad progress and come to rest, bouncing up and down while the 

 waters settle to placidity. Immediately the canoes come up and form 

 a circle around them. The men jump up, balancing themselves pre- 

 cariously and holding aloft long-shafted spears tipped with glisten- 

 ing white barbed points attached to snaking lines. They wait, wob- 

 bling about in their cockle boats, until a shiny black back rises 

 slowly from the waters amid the floats. Then the keen shafts lance 

 down from all sides and unutterable pandemonium breaks out once 

 more. The water is churned to madness; the canoes are cast about 

 or rush together in a welter of foam and spray. The men begin to 

 paddle all together with a thumping rhythm, grunting in unison, 

 and slowly they tow the whole watery disturbance towards the 

 shore. The canoes strain against the thin lines and the floats dance 

 about here and there, sometimes rushing forward and then again 

 dragging back. Every now and then one of the harpoons pulls out 

 of the quarry, a line suddenly goes slack, and a canoe drops out of 

 the huddle. The line is hauled in and swiftly attached to one of the 

 other canoes; then it goes taut again as its paddler adds his weight 

 to the tow. 



Sooner or later the paddler in the lead canoe gives a shout and 

 spills out into the water. His canoe drifts idly away while he faces 

 about and, bracing himself by digging his feet into the shifting sands 

 at the bottom of the shallow water, he begins to heave mightily. 



