32 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



episode which Sinbad himself might have envied. One 

 can hardly conceive an excitement more full of fascina- 

 tion than a whaling enterprise. As for fox-hunting, it 

 pales before it. What is a five-barred gate compared with 

 an iceberg, or the cry of " Gone away ! " as against the 

 ecstatic shout " She blows ! she blows ! " All the sur- 

 roundings are full of spirit-stirring adventure. The wild 

 voyage over the stormy northern seas, the long-continued 

 watch for the sign of the first prize, the intense anxiety as 

 the harpooner poises his weapon, the shout which hails the 

 successful stroke, the mad gallop of the monster through the 

 deep, dragging behind him the boat to which he is irre- 

 vocably harnessed, the frantic struggles of the indignant 

 beast, the troubled sea lashed into foam on every side, the 

 imminent peril lest boat and crew should disappear at a 

 rush beneath the waves as the creature dives, or rises sud- 

 denly high in the air at a blow of his enormous tail, — such 

 incidents as these afford no common excitement, and are 

 not to be found in ordinary occupations. Equally attractive 

 to a different and larger class of minds is the value of the 

 take when captured. The Great or Greenland whale is a 

 magnificent creature, measuring sometimes some sixty 

 feet, but the well-known adventurer, Scoresby, says that 

 though he killed 322, he never saw one more than fifty-eight 

 feet long. 



A whale of the South Seas, for they exist in both hemi- 

 spheres, will bring in from eighty to one hundred barrels of 

 oil, at £4. to ;^5 a barrel, besides whalebone to the value of 

 £1^0, and those of the North will fetch double the amount. 

 Every portion, too, of the huge fish, or rather beast, is 

 available for the service of man. The flesh serves for 

 manure, containing 14 to 15 per cent, of azote, its bones for 

 charcoal, its intestinal linings give material for travelling 



