18 WHALING 



is a quaint account in *'Nova Francia: or the Description of that 

 Part of New France, which is one Continent with Virginia." 

 I have it in a foho collection of old voyages: 



" There is a great traffick made in Europe of the oyle of the fish 

 of Newfoundland. And for this only cause many go to the 

 fishing of the whale, and of the hippopotameSy which they call 

 the beast with the great tooth or the morses; of whom some- 

 thing we must say. 



"The Almighty, willing to show unto Job how wonderful are 

 his works; wilt thou draw (saith he) Leviathan with a hook, and 

 his tongue with a string which thou hast cast in the water"! By 

 this Leviathan is the whale meant, and all fish, of that reach, 

 whose hugeness (and chiefly of the whale) is so great, that it is a 

 dreadful thing, as we have shewed elsewhere, speaking of one 

 that was cast on the coast of Brasil by the tide; and Pliny 

 saith that there be some found in the Indies which have four 

 acres of ground in length. This is the cause why man is to be 

 admired (yea, rather God, who hath given him the courage to 

 assail so fearful a monster, which hath not his equal on the land.) 

 I leave the manner of taking her, described by Oppian and iS'^. 

 Basil, for to come to our Frenchmen, and chiefly the Basques, 

 who do go every year to the gi-eat river of Canada for the whale. 

 Commonly the fishing thereof is made in the river called 

 Lesquemin towards Tadoussac. And for to do it they go by 

 scouts to make watch upon the tops of rocks, to see if they may 

 have the sight of some one; and when they have discovered any, 

 forthwith they go with four shallops after it, and having 

 cunningly boarded her, they strike her with a harping iron to 

 the depth of her lard, and to the quick of the flesh. Then 

 this creature feeling herself rudely pricked, with a dreadful 

 boisterousness casteth herself into the depth of the sea. The 

 men in the mean while are in their shirts, which vere out the 

 cord where-unto the harping iron is tied, which the whale 

 carrieth away. But at the shallop side that hath given the 

 blow there is a man ready with a hatchet in hand to cut the 

 said cord, lest perchance some accident should happen that it 



