122 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



a Dundee whaler called Wedderburn as his mate. Extracts 

 from the Prince's letter are as follows : 



" The trial of our whaling business has given splendid 

 results ... in twenty-four hours we harpooned and secured 

 three big cetaceans and lost a whale. Each of these cases 

 was very dramatic ; the whale . . . was one of those who 

 dive very deep and straight towards the bottom. She pulled 

 out the 400 metres of line that we had, in three minutes or 

 less, with such a powerful speed that the fore part of the boat 

 took fire. We had to cut just when a few fathoms were 

 left, and then our boat was full of water. Then the animal 

 reappeared on the surface, about half an hour later and at a 

 distance of three miles ; we steamed after it, and the run 

 lasted the whole day without loss or gain, but after all, 

 without the possibility for us to shoot the rocket to cause an 

 end, the whale having got the harpoon in some part which 

 was not deadly and losing no blood at all. At night I had, 

 of course, to abandon the pursuit." He then proceeds to 

 describe a fight they had with three huge specimens of 

 Orca gladiator, the killer-whale, which is described as the 

 tiger of the ocean, carrying jaws filled with formidable teeth 

 for attack and animated with dauntless courage. They 

 succeeded in killing one at once. Then the two others 

 attacked the boat and worked so as to squeeze it between 

 them, which did not succeed because the dead one, which had 

 been hauled up close, served as a protection on one side, and 

 also because the rounded shape of the boat and of the 

 animals produced the effect of lifting the boat out of the 

 water. Other boats were immediately launched from the 

 yacht and sent to the battlefield. Meanwhile Wedderburn 

 succeeded in killing with one stroke of his harpoon the biggest 

 of the two enemies. The incident was a real battle, which 

 lasted an hour, and in which four boats and seventeen men 

 were engaged. As the result of these and similar occur- 

 rences, the Prince tells us, in the letter, that the beach at 

 Monaco was now being turned into a whaling station, 



