Midday North and South 235 



consider strangely modern foresight — and the assistance of the 

 Navy, as we have seen — dispatched it simply to explore. His effort 

 was fully justified, for he obtained the first really rehable informa- 

 tion on the congregating areas and seasonal movements of the sperm 

 whales throughout the eastern Pacific, which stood the Enderby 

 Company in good stead for half a century in face of the massive 

 American world-wide competition that was to come during that 

 period. 



This initial flurry was almost wholly directed at sperming, but, 

 as we have said, both the mariners and the early colonists, from the 

 first, had their eyes on the abundance of right whales. From this a 

 new industry called "bay whaling" sprang up. The business really 

 began in Tasmania, which was first settled in 1803 by a man named 

 Bowen. With him were some convicts, a few free settlers, eight sol- 

 diers, and a remarkable man named Ebor Bunker who brought them 

 all in his whaler, the Albion. One of the settlers was a man named 

 Collins, whom Bowen appointed the first harbor master, and he, in 

 partnership with Bunker, started bay whaling in the Derwent River 

 inlet the very first year. They were very successful, and the practice 

 slowly spread to southeastern Australia and thence north up to 

 Queensland and west along the south coast and around into the 

 Indian Ocean. 



Bay whaling was conducted in the same old offshore manner that 

 we have already met among the Basques and New Englanders. 

 Clinker-built, open boats of cedar, about thirty feet long, double- 

 ended with a small deck aft, with from five to eight oarsmen, were 

 launched from shore when whales were sighted. The crew consisted 

 of a harpooner, bow oar, midship oar, tub oarsman, who handled 

 the line coiled in an open tub amidships, after oarsman, and a heads- 

 man, who wielded a twenty-seven-foot sweep held by a leather 

 thong in lieu of a tiller. As always, the harpooner changed places 

 with the headsman as soon as a whale was struck and fast to the 

 harpoon. This strange custom gave rise to what was probably the 

 first whaling law in British jurisprudence. This stated that as long 

 as a harpoon stayed in a whale and the line was in the headsman's 

 hand, the animal was a "fast fish." If anybody cut the Hne or in any 

 way prevented a kill, he became subject to a fine of not less than ten 

 pounds and not more than a hundred pounds. 



