68 The Ameriwan Angler 
after her. And so the fight kept on, 
the whale all the time working out sea- 
ward, while the boat kept in full chase, 
shooting at every available opportunity. 
Meanwhile the bull and yearling had 
got a whiff of the blood from the 
wounded cow, and they headed out 
to sea, fighting mad, and thrashing 
angrily around. The other three Wade 
Shore boats kept off after them, but 
their anxiety to escape was so great, 
that the powerful five-oared boats, 
although pulled by well trained rowers, 
lost ground all the time, and finally 
gave up the chase without getting a 
single opportunity to throw a harpoon 
or shoot a bomb. Something seemed 
to be wrong with the ammunition of the 
first boat, or else the bombs did not 
reach the vital spot—the lungs—as no 
less than five explosive bombs were put 
into the whale without causing her to 
spout blood or stop her seaward course. 
A boat from Morehead was seen com- 
ing out and the one in chase of the 
whale signaled the latter to join in, as 
they were known to have their gun 
aboard. The Morehead boat, with 
Mart Willis in the bow, now came up, 
and the two together kept up the fight 
unceasingly. The shore line was get- 
ting fainter and fainter and the whale 
getting weaker from loss of blood. 
She was keeping under about half an 
hour at a time, and nearly every time 
she rose to blow one or the other of the 
boats made itsmark. Finally, at about 
noon, the end came. She rose, with 
both boats close up. Joe Lewis fired 
another bomb into her body, laid down 
the gun and picking up a harpoon drove 
the iron home. At the same time Mart 
Willis fired a bomb, and another har- 
poon and a lance were likewise put in 
Then the boats, which were right up 
on the whale’s back, backed off and lay 
on their oars waiting for the end. It 
soon came. She was spouting thick 
streams of blood, showing that she was 
badly wounded in the lungs, the vital 
spot, and after a few flurries with her 
powerful tail she lay dead on the water, 
ten miles out at sea, with nothing to 
indicate the direction of the land, but 
the thin dark line of the tops of the ce- 
dars on the banks to the northward and 
the tapering tower of the Cape Lookout 
lighthouse to the northeast. The other 
three boats had come up previously, 
and all five joined in to tow the monster 
ashore. It was a long, hard pull, but 
she was safely beached that night at 
Wade Shore—a valuable prize and one 
of the largest whales ever caught on 
this coast. 
When the whale was killed the boats 
were invisible from the beach and were 
estimated to be ten miles off shore 
Altogether eight bombs and _ several 
harpoons and lances were put into this 
whale, a number of the bombs failing 
to explode. I saw one whole bomb, a 
piece of one that had exploded, and 
one harpoon taken out of the carcass, 
the shank of the latter being bent ata 
right angle by the struggles of the 
animal. On being towed ashore, the 
body grounded in twelve feet of water, 
and as there was then about two feet 
of the body above the surface its thick- 
ness must have been about fourteen 
feet. Some idea of the size of this 
whale may be had by reference to the 
following measurements, taken by the 
writer. It was impossible to get all of 
them absolutely correct, as the carcass 
had been very much mutilated when 
seen, the head and tail having been cut 
off and all the blubber removed from 
one side. The whalebone had been re- 
moved from the mouth and the head 
cut apart, and the weather being warm 
