GREAT NORTHERN RORQUAL. 135 



is the method which the native Greenlanders take 

 of securing some of the smaller animals of this 

 species (the Balaena Boops), which frequent their 

 coasts in the summer months. Both men and 

 women engage in the adventure, the former in their 

 kayacks, the latter in their bomiaks. The men in 

 their light skiffs follow the whale as close as possible, 

 and continue to throw as many harpoons and lances 

 into him as possible, until he dies of loss of blood ; 

 they then join their canoes together, fasten their 

 spoil to them, and carry their booty home, where 

 it is faithfully divided (Art. Greenland, Edin. En- 

 cy eloped.) ; in the words of one of the most power- 

 ful and interesting poets of the present day : 



Trained with inimitable art to float, 

 Each balanced in his bubble of a boat, 

 With dexterous paddle steering through the spray, 

 With poised harpoon to strike his plunging prey ; 

 As if the skiff, the seamen, oar, and dart, 

 Were one compacted body, by one heart 

 With instinct, motion, pulse empowered to ride 

 A human nautilus upon the tide. 



Montgomery's Greenland. 



Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke gives a somewhat 

 different account of its mode of capture by the 

 Laplanders on the Finmark coast. They pursue 

 the animal with all the strength the party can 

 muster, and wounding it as severely and rapidly 

 as possible, they leave it. For the time, it escapes 

 them; but, in the course of a few days, it is 

 generally found dead on some part of the neigh- 



