OLD WHALING DAYS. 195 



mouldy. Great care is taken of everything connected with 

 the whaling gear, such as guns, harpoons, knives and 

 lances, etc. These are carefully cleaned and coated with 

 black lead and paint oil to preserve them from rust during 

 the winter. The ship is thoroughly scrubbed from the 

 truck to the water edge when the weather permits, so that 

 when we return home everything is clean until we commence 

 discharging. We caught a Norwegian crow about six 

 hundred miles from the land, and kept it until we reached 

 Shetland. There we gave it its liberty, which it apparently 

 did not appreciate, as it came back after two days, when we 

 were twenty-six miles from Lerwick. 



A fine breeze had favoured us so far, when we encountered 

 a very heavy gale, which forced us to lay the ship to under 

 bare poles, or only a small tarpaulin in the weather rigging. 

 In this way we lay thirty hours, and were surprised on the 

 second morning to see the sea covered with porpoises, as far 

 as the eye could reach. There must have been thousands 

 of them. Instead of plunging up and down, as they 

 usually do, they lay nearly motionless. Captain Gravill 

 said he had only once seen them like that during a heavy 

 gale off the Cape of Good Hope. 



As soon as the weather moderated, we again set our 

 canvas and proceeded to Lerwick, where we got a good supply 

 of fresh provisions. In Baffin's time, about 1612, we are 

 told that the people of these islands used to barter geese, 

 fowls, sheep, etc., for old or new clothes in preference to 

 money, and they continue to do so up to the present time. 

 Contrary winds detained us three days, at the end of which 

 time a fair wind sprang up. We then got under weigh, and 

 arrived at Hull in due course. 



In coming through the docks, the rigging was crowded 

 with boys, the boarding of the sealers and whalers having 

 been the custom for generations by the boys of Hull. 



At one time Hull was the principal port in the kingdom 



