210 WHALING 



hands, the old whaler crossed the Atlantic on the first leg of 

 her long voyage. Young Sanf ord learned to pick out by instinct 

 each tack and sheet and brace, on the darkest nights. He 

 learned to ride a topgallant yardarm with the ship swinging 

 under him like a pendulum. In such boat-drills as no 'varsity 

 crew has ever dreamed of, he swung a long ash oar under the cold 

 eye and profane tongue of a bucko mate, until he could pull 

 with the best of them, as they drove the light boat through 

 tumbling seas for hours on end. 



They were a month and five days out when they first sighted 

 sperm whales and lowered for them. Their ill fortune is tersely 

 recorded in the log book, thus: ''At 7 A.M. saw S whales at 8 

 lowered 4 boats went alongside a large whale and missed him. 

 Larboard boat John Baptiste." 



Poor John Baptiste! After seventy years the record of his 

 failure still stands on the pages of the log book for all to read 

 who will. He committed the unforgivable blunder of missing a 

 large whale. 



Taking a blackfish three days later did not go far to console 

 them; but on the sixth day after that, the starboard boat, headed 

 by Chief Mate Owen Fisher, struck a whale and saved it. In 

 the log book of the Lancer, the picture of a black whale with a 

 blood-red spout, drawn with firm hand and liberally inked, 

 and stretching from one side of the page to the other, expresses 

 the general exultation. 



That night the wind blew a gale, and the next morning a heavy 

 sea was running when they began to cut in. Although the sea 

 added immensely to the risks and labour of the officers and men 

 on the outswung staging, as, with their spades, they shaped 

 the great blanket pieces of blubber, at nine o'clock that evening 

 they finished the body and lay by the head. But at eleven 

 o'clock word that the seas had parted the head chains brought 

 all hands on deck. They worked all night to save the case; at 

 daylight they began to bail spermaceti; by noon the next day 

 they finished bailing and cutting, and let the worthless shell 

 of the great head go down. 



When the work of boiling was fairly under way, the mincing 



