136 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



breathe five or six times in rapid succession, rolling just below the 

 surface between each breath. It is a stupid, blundering beast that 

 appears to cause harm only by mistake and when in its death throes. 

 Its mouth contains up to 250 baleen plates, the longest averaging six 

 to seven feet; these are black in color. It yields an enormous quantity 

 of oil, and was therefore extremely valuable. Whether the Basques 

 exterminated it along these coasts or drove it away from them, its 

 total numbers were eventually so reduced that it was on the verge of 

 extinction by the beginning of the present century. 



Basque offshore whaling is of great historical interest, first be- 

 cause it bridges the gap between the ancient industries, culminating 

 in that of the Norse, and the modern periods, and secondly because 

 it may itself be the outcome of a sixteen-thousand-year tradition. 

 But the Basques' high-sea whaling is of much greater importance. 

 Although again this was not their exclusive invention, in view of the 

 Phoenician activities of almost three thousand years before, it is 

 from their initiative in this field that all modern whaling practices 

 have stemmed. 



Somewhere between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the 

 Basques took to following the whales upon the high seas in large 

 vessels. These may at first have been late types of galleys with both 

 sail and oars, but when this enterprise comes under the clearer light 

 of recorded history, we find that a type of ship known as the caravel 

 is their principal means of transport. This was originally about fifty 

 to sixty feet long, with a beam of up to thirty feet, and drew only 

 about seven feet; it had a high prow and bulwarks, and a towering 

 poop built up like a castle — this was, in fact, known as the castillette. 

 The exact shape of a caravel can hardly be described. It was grossly 

 top-heavy although filled with many tons of sand ballast on which 

 the galley fire was built and on which the "try-works" for boiling 

 the whale blubber were later constructed. However, since all this 

 was below the single main deck, it often resulted in the ship's catch- 

 ing fire. Caravels evolved throughout several centuries, ending up 

 with three-decker ships of 700 to 1000 tons, and having a comple- 

 ment of 250 men. 



The caravel carried three masts; one placed centrally, and about 

 eighty feet tall, had a large squaresail with a smaller sail above, and a 

 "crow's-nest," often of elaborate design, on top, and usually a tre- 



