ARCTIC FISHING-GROUND. 341 



lessness or recklessness on the part of tlie boat- 

 header. Some years ago it was unusual to hear of 

 a fatal accident to those engaged in the pursuit of 

 the whale. At that time the fish were plenty, and 

 boatheaders, as a class, were cool, sagacious, and ex- 

 perienced men, who had been accustomed to and 

 occupied in the whaling business for years. These 

 men would not risk their boat and crew to almost 

 certain destruction to strike a whale, or to be the 

 first boat fast, or to get a fatal lance before another 

 boat arrived ; but, working carefully and securely, 

 the}^ bided the time until a fit opportunity presented 

 itself, and then, guided by their long experience, 

 applied the lance expeditiously and fatally. This 

 race of whalemen has, however, been supplanted by 

 another of younger men, who were brought into the 

 field by the prolific grounds of the Arctic Ocean and 

 Ochotsk Sea, inhabited as they were by myriads of 

 bowhead whales that had never been chased or 

 interfered with by whalemen ; consequently, they 

 had not learned from the past to use all the expedients 

 furnished them by nature to avoid and combat 

 against the wiles and stratagems of men. Hence, 

 little else was necessary to capture the bowhead but 

 to have a boat and crew, pull alongside the fish, dart 

 the irons into him, and, ere the bewildered creature 

 had recovered from his astonishment, drive in the 

 lance and kill him ; but now that the bowhead has 

 grown more wary, and to take him is a work of 

 difficulty and danger, ships do not make such remu- 

 nerative voyages in their pursuit as formerly ; there- 

 fore their owners, instead of directing their vessels 

 only to the Arctic and Ochotsk, began again to turn 

 29* 



