THE WIIALEIiONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 31 



Then follows a pai-agrapb as to the size being exaggerated by Ren6 Francois, 

 and then the story of the Floiida Indians from Acosta, after which comes an 

 account of an accident caused by a whale getting under a boat near Martinique. 

 A little farther on the following important passages occur: 



"One sees more whales ai'ound Martinique than at Guadalou[)e, because the 

 sea there is more channeled and deeper, from which it arises that they can frequent 

 these shores with less danger than those of Guadaloupe, which are less steep, and 

 where there are more keys and shallows, where they might more easily strand and 

 pei'ish. 



"Of Souffleurs. — The Souffieur is a large fish, which one might with much 

 reason consider a species of whale, supposing that one might enq)loy the word 

 whale in a generic sense; for it has so much resemblance to that animal that it 

 differs from it only in size ; it blows and syringes the water into the air through 

 its nostrils, like the whale, although a much smaller quantity, so that many take 

 them for small whale cubs, though it may be an entirely different kind of fish. 

 They go in schools like the porpoises, and it is only necessaiy to whistle to make 

 them turn suddenly and approach the ships, but it is not all play to capture them, 

 for they are endowed with a force so extraordinary, that a captain of a ship assured 

 me that one day having harpooned one, it made such a violent strain on the line 

 attached to the harpoon that it broke the large yard of his mast where this line 

 was fastened. They are in great numbers on all these coasts ; it seems as if they 

 had a liking for men, for they follow the canoes and boats, as though it gave them 

 pleasure to hear the noise that is made." ' 



PACIFIC COAST. 



Tiie earliest i-efei'ence to whales on the west coast of North America which I 

 have found is in Oviedo's chapter "on the whales which are in the seas of the 

 islands and mainland of the Indies," in Ramusio's Voyages. This relates to an 

 incident which occurred in the year 152!>, a very early date, earlier indeed than 

 that of the incident mentioned by Cartier as occurring in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 to which reference has already been made (p. 14). 



Oviedo's account is as follows : 



"I will relate what I myself with many others saw in the mouth of the Gulf 

 of Oi'otigna, which is 200 leagues distant from the town of Panama toward the 

 West. ... In 1529, going out of the Gulf into the open sea, to go to the town 

 of Panama, we saw at the mouth of the Gulf a fish or marine animal extremely 

 large, and which from time to time raised itself sti'aight out of the water. And 

 that which was to be seen above the water, which was only the head and two arms, 

 was considerably higher than our caravel with all its masts. And being elevated 

 in that way it let itself fall and struck the water violently, and then after a little 

 time i-eturned to repeat the act, but not, howevei", throwing up any water fi-om the 

 mouth, although in falling down with the blow and the fall it made nuich water 

 rise up into the air. And a cub of this animal, or •one like it but much smaller, did 

 the same, deviating always somewhat from the lai'ger one. And from what the 

 sailors and others who were in the caravel said they judged it to be a whale, and 

 the smaller a whale's cub. The ai'ins which they showed were very large, and 

 ' Du Tetre, J. B., Hist. G^n. des Antilles, 2, 1667, pp. 196-197. 



