SPITZBERGEN 33 



against the vessel, etc., shall be held bound to denounce it, 

 and shall be recompensed for his fidelity. 



"11. All cases omitted in the foregoing shall be decided 

 according to the usages and customs of the sea. 



"Done at Hamburg, the day of the year 1671." 



Though fashions come and go, and forms and phrases change, 

 the spirit of ships' articles, like human nature, remains the 

 same from century to century. 



Old writers indicate that each boat carried from five to seven 

 lines, of a hundred and twenty-five fathoms apiece, which were 

 to be bent, one to the end of another. If the whale continued 

 to sound when all the lines were run out, another boat would 

 rush to the rescue and lend its lines to keep the first boat from 

 the dilemma of losing the whale or being dragged under. 



At the cry of " Val! Val!" or "Whale! Whale!" the men would 

 leap into the boats and "spring" to the oars. They would 

 give the first line a turn or two round the bollard that we now 

 call the king-post, but that the Dutch called Shipsteven. To 

 the free end of the line was seized a piece of the best hemp rope, 

 the Voorganger, about five fathoms long, which in turn was 

 secured to the iron and was kept coiled over a pin in the bow, 

 to be always ready. The iron itself — the English then called it 

 harping-iron, a happy medium between the approved word, iron, 

 of to-day, and the familiar but unprofessional word, harpoon — 

 had a steel head, well sharpened, of the arrow-head shape, a 

 rather short shank, and a socket into which a six foot "harping 

 staffe" fitted. 



The harpooner struck and the whale sounded. There was 

 a wet cloth ready to dash on the bollard if the outrush- 

 ing line should set it on fire. As the whale dashed off with 

 one line, then another, and another, the boat surged, bows 

 down, in its wake. Ten lines were said to mark the limit 

 of the whale's endurance. By the time it had run them 

 out it would have to come to the surface, where with har- 

 poons and lances the whalemen, if fortune favoured them, even- 

 tually killed the beast, and all the boats, rowing one behind 



