IN THE DOLDRUMS 97 



and to this, fifty or sixty feet of bark rope to which were secured 

 at intervals twenty or thirty inflated sealskins. 



Seriously hindered in his flight by this buoyant trailer, the 

 whale, once fairly struck, was doomed unless the barbs or 

 points broke, for the head of the harpoon, slipping off the 

 shaft, as does the removable toggle of the Esquimaux' harpoon, 

 remained deep in the wound, and the howling horde of red men 

 in their dugouts swarmed after the frightened beast and sooner 

 or later badgered it to death. But many whales were lost, be- 

 cause the bone and shell broke, and because it was not easy, 

 with so crude a weapon, to strike fairly; perhaps also because 

 so much depended upon the skill of a single man, especially early 

 in the season, when not the mightiest chief would presume to 

 strike a whale before the king had killed. 



"The whaling season now commenced,'' Jewitt says, "and 

 Maquina was out every day in his canoe in pursuit of them, but 

 for a considerable time with no success, one day breaking the 

 staff of his harpoon, another, after having been a long time fast 

 to a whale, the weapon drawing, owing to the breaking of the 

 shell which formed its point, with several such like accidents, 

 arising from the imperfection of the instrument. At these 

 times he always returned very morose and out of temper, up- 

 braiding his men with having violated their obligation to con- 

 tinence preparatory to whaling. In this state of ill humour he 

 would give us very little to eat, which added to the women not 

 cooking when the men are away, reduced us to very low fare. 



"In consequence of the repeated occurrence of similar acci- 

 dents, I proposed to Maquina to make him a harpoon or fore- 

 ganger of steel, which would be less likely to fail him. The idea 

 pleased him, and in a short time I completed one for him, with 

 which he was much delighted, and the very next day went out 

 to make a trial of it. He succeeded with it in taking a whale. 

 Great was the joy throughout the village as soon as it was 

 known that the king had secured a whale, by notice from a per- 

 son stationed at the head-land in the offing. All the canoes 

 were immediately launched, and, furnished with harpoons and 

 sealskin floats, hastened to assist in buoying it up and towing 



