24 WHALING 



statement that there is evidence of such buildings at Smeeren- 

 burg as early as 1619. In any case this ancient oil boom was 

 short-lived, like those of our own day, for twenty years later the 

 whole place was deserted and in decay. 



Still, in its day it was a boom indeed. Thither came vessels 

 from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoom, Enkhuisen, Flushing, 

 Middleburg, Viere, and Delft. They built "tents," and "oil 

 cookeries," and warehouses, and sutleries, and bakeries where in 

 the morning the blast of a horn announced to the fleet that hot 

 rolls and white bread were fresh from the oven. They built, 

 too, a church and a fort. At the height of Smeerenburg's 

 glory more than a thousand whalers and their hangers-on visited 

 the town every summer, and in the autumn sailed away home. 



There were rough times in those old days. Some whaling 

 vessels fell into the hands of privateers. It is recorded that 

 five English ships, on their way to the whaling grounds, were 

 about to attack two Zeelanders when a Dutch man-of-war bore 

 down to the rescue. Rival fleets stole shallops left over from 

 one season to the next, burned casks, and plundered houses and 

 forts. It is significant that about 1675 "each [Dutch] ship had to 

 deposit six thousand guilders caution money before starting, as 

 a security that it would return with its cargo to the home port." 



At first, of course, it was bay whaling only that they pursued, 

 but as the whales became scarcer and shyer, the Dutch pushed 

 on after them — ostensibly on voyages of exploration for the 

 Northeast Passage — and reached a new ground northeast of 

 Spitzbergen, at the north end of Hinlopen Strait. This they 

 called " Waigat," the blow-hole. 



By 1623, the Dutch had entered upon the preeminence that 

 they held until long after American whaling had proved itself a 

 profitable business; of 189 vessels in the northern fleets of the 

 year 1698, 129 were Dutch; of the 1,968 whales that the whale- 

 men of all nations took, the Dutch took 1,255. The aggregate 

 proceeds of the Arctic whaling industry in 1697 were £378,449; 

 of this, the Dutch got £249,532. 



For some years all Dutch whaling was monopolized by the 

 Noordsche Company but, after much complaint from without, 



