THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIO. 31 
Then follows a paragraph as to the size being exaggerated by René Frangois, 
oo 
and then the story of the Florida 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 around Martinique than at Guadaloupe, 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 
perish. 
“Of Souffleurs.—The Souffleur is a large fish, which one might with much 
reason consider a species of whale, supposing that one might employ 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 necessary 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.” ! 
PAOIFIC COAST, 
The earliest reference 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 1529, 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: 
“T will relate what I myself with many others saw in the mouth of the Gulf 
of Orotigna, 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 straight 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 returned to repeat the act, but not, however, throwing up any water from the 
mouth, although in falling down with the blow and the fall it made much 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 larger 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 arms which they showed were very large, and 
‘Du Terre, J. B., Hist. Gén. des Antilles, 2, 1667, pp. 196-197. 
