SPITZBERGEN 27 



roaming over a country covered with snow. In six weeks the 

 snow would be gone and the deer would have two inches of fat 

 on their ribs. The country afforded no trees or shrubs, but 

 so much driftwood was cast ashore by the sea that there was 

 more than enough fuel for boiling out blubber. 



Along the shore the fleets of each country had their stations, 

 or harbours, where they built huts and try-works and kept 

 their tools for handling and boiling blubber and oil — the wind- 

 lasses for hauling the whales on shore, the great knives for 

 cutting the blubber, and the copper kettles for trying out the 

 oil. All winter the warehouses and try- works and huts of the 

 whaling towns were snowbound and silent, but when the fleets 

 arrived in early summer, they swarmed with men and rang 

 with the clatter and clamour of artisans and labourers. 



It would be hard to find a better picture of the Spitzbergen 

 whalers at work than Captain John Monck gives in his "suc- 

 cinct account of that monstrous fish called the whale, and the 

 manner how it is taken, having not been treated of so circum- 

 stantially, as far as I know, by any other author before.'* 



*'The manner of catching and killing the whale," he says, ''is 

 performed thus: as soon as they espy a whale either from the 

 shore or ship, they put out three chalops, man'd with six men 

 each, among whom is one who being calFd the harpuneer, is the 

 person who is first to wound the whale with his harpun. Those 

 three chalops row as fast as possibly they can after the whale, 

 but must be very cautious they don't come too near his tail; 

 when they come pretty near him, they are as silent and make as 

 little noise with their oars as possibly they can, for fear the 

 whale should take to the bottom of the sea. When they are 

 near enough, the harpuneer of one of these chalops, who be- 

 lieves himself to be within reach, throws his harpun at him with 

 all his force; this harpun is about three foot long, having on both 

 sides hooks or notches to prevent its being torn out again, after 

 once it is fixed in the body of the whale: it has a wooden handle, 

 the better to balance it for the conveniency of throwing, and a 

 line fastened at the end, which being about two hundred fathom 

 long, is laid in a vessel in the chalop; for no sooner finds the 



