Midday North and South 229 



barrier to navigation all across the northwest, one, moreover, that 

 we might suppose would have been insurmountable or impas- 

 sable by the clumsy, lumbering sailing vessels of that age. But the 

 North-Sea-men of those days were exceptionally rugged individu- 

 als and unexcelled mariners, and they were driven by a strange urge 

 which was neither avarice nor mere love of adventure for its own 

 sake nor the result of fear nor a desire to escape the turmoil of Europe, 

 but some curious compound of all these motives. They pursued the 

 whale right into the ice and thereby suffered the most ghastly priva- 

 tions and disasters, as we shall see later on. At this point, however, 

 we must turn aside, to follow the British in their pursuit of whales to 

 quite other climes and into quite another area, and to observe one of 

 the oddest phases of the whole history of whaling. 



As we said above, British whaling was first deliberately revived 

 under official governmental auspices with the express intention of 

 exploiting the "South Seas." Not only did the whole effort fail miser- 

 ably; nobody made even the slightest attempt to go to any sea south 

 of the equator during the first fifty years. It was not until the great 

 mercantile houses entered the field about 1775 that any real attempt 

 was made to reach southern seas and even then the first successes re- 

 sulted from pure chance. The lucrative trade with India and the Far 

 East was closed to these traders by the all-powerful. Crown- 

 chartered, government-sponsored monopoly known as the East India 

 Company, but a vast watery empire lay to the south of their domains, 

 waiting to be exploited. This was open to all and there were those 

 who were earnestly contemplating its possibilities, though appar- 

 ently British officialdom could see only one use for it then; this was 

 as a dumping ground for unwanted citizenry who were costing 

 money to keep in jails, had transgressed certain established social 

 injunctions, such as the bonds of slavery or apprenticeship, or were 

 politically obstreperous. By making their ships available for the trans- 

 port and dumping of these unfortunates, the merchants gained not 

 only legitimate but officially praiseworthy entrance to the South 

 Pacific, and this they did for the most part from the west by going 

 east round the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean. 

 However, this is not to say that they had not already made some at- 

 tempt to exploit that ocean, and for whales, to boot. 



The first tentative foray to the south was made by a few British 



