BASKING SHARK. 63 



man in the bow ready to harpoon it; the line attached to the 

 harpoon is two hundred fathoms long, and is coiled up in the 

 bow; a man stands by with a hatchet ready to cut it, should 

 it get entangled or foul of anything in running out. When 

 the fish is struck, he will at the first dart carry out from 

 seventy to a hundred and fifty or two hundred fathoms of line; 

 he makes this rush to the bottom, where he rolls himself, and 

 rubs his wound against the ground to free himself from the 

 harpoon. The fishermen generally allow him an hour to tire 

 himself before they begin to haul upon the harpoon line; they 

 coil up the slack of it again, ready for him to make another 

 rush, and play him in this way, sometimes for eight or nine 

 hours, before they can get him to come to the surface; and 

 when he does so they are ready to strike him with two or 

 three more harpoons; and when these are fixed in him, they 

 are able to pull him alongside the vessel with the harpoon lines; 

 they then stretch him fore and aft along the vessel's side, and 

 get a jowl rope round his head, and the bight of a hawser 

 round his tail; they then give him two deep cuts, one on each 

 side of the tail, with a hatchet. In his agony and his efforts 

 to get free, he works his tail so hard, that he snaps the bone 

 across where the cuts were made; they then cut flesh holes in 

 the body of the fish on both sides, that will take a large rope 

 through them; they then reeve ropes through these holes, and 

 by hauling taut on the side of the fish next the vessel, and 

 slacking away rope to the other side of the fish, it will cant 

 him over on his back. They then split down the stomach, take 

 out the liver, which is the only part they use for oil, and let 

 the rest of the fish go adrift. There is no blubber between 

 the skin and the flesh, as in the Whale, but the oil extracted 

 from the liver is as fine as the finest spermaceti. The liver 

 of these fish is generally two tons in weight, and makes from 

 six to eight barrels of oil." 



"These fish are most powerful in the water, and if harpooned 

 in the shoulder they are very hard to kill; often carrying off 

 the whole harpoon line; but experienced harpooners strike them 

 in the body near the dorsal fin, rather low down, where it 

 will go through into the intestines, or near the vertebras towards 

 the tail. They must be struck with great caution, as they will 

 stave in the boat with a blow of their tail, if it is at all 



