Softly Comes the Dawn 137 



mendous pennant at the head. Far forward was a fifty-foot triquietj 

 or foremast, with one or two squaresails, and equally far aft a 

 mizzen of some forty feet on which a variety of square, lateen, or 

 fore-and-aft sails was rigged. There was also a tremendous bowsprit 

 forty feet long bearing another sprit, known as a civadierCy of up to 

 twenty feet, below which a small sail could be set. Although clumsy 

 to operate, caravels were practical ocean-going vessels. They were, 

 however, so uncomfortable it seems hard to understand how even 

 the toughest Basques could survive an extended cruise in one. 



Not even the captain had a cabin or an appointed place to sleep. 

 The company numbered about fifty, consisting of the pilot, who was 

 almost invariably a Breton or Norman, first and second officers, 

 carpenter, two cook-pursers, harpooners, steersmen, flensers, who 

 specialized in cutting up the whales, mariners, and a number of ap- 

 prentices. The food consisted of hung beef and biscuits which were 

 invariably moldy, rotten, or filled with v/eevils. The fresh water was 

 kept in barrels and went foul also, but large quantities of cider were 

 carried for the outward voyage — as many as 3680 barrels were 

 shipped from one small port alone in the year 1625. One shallop was 

 carried inboard, but when the whaling became more extensive and 

 small Basque fleets roved the seas together, up to five were carried on 

 some ships, although only two per ship were used at a time. Naviga- 

 tion was aided by compass, astrolabe, and wood and metal quadrants, 

 but time had to be kept by sand clocks. 



Throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, 

 high-sea whaling was a Basque monopoly. All the Basques' coast 

 ports, both on the Spanish and French sides, were engaged in the 

 industry, and since Spain regarded them as foreigners, the Basques 

 set up trade consulates in the various countries where they marketed 

 whale products and, later, the dried codfish which eventually fed 

 half of Europe. There are constant references to this international 

 semidiplomatic activity with Denmark, Holland, and England. Mat- 

 ters did not always go smoothly either, and there is some very amus- 

 ing reading to be found among old complaints, such as that of an 

 Englishman named Mellowes who got the whole British Government 

 in an uproar by wanting to sell rapeseed for soapmaking in competi- 

 tion with whaleoil. All kinds of monopolies and privileges were in- 

 volved, and he seems to have won his case, but then to have gone 



