528 MODERN SEA FISHING 



observed him hanging on by the iron ring on the stem of the 

 rescuing boat in an exhausted state. He was picked up, and 

 the whale eventually secured. 



Unlike the sperm whale, the black fish seldom charges a boat, 

 indeed the writer only remembers one instance when a fast fish 

 made for a loose boat, and she was turned by the receipt of a 

 gun harpoon in her head. Plenty of accidents to life and limb 

 are recorded in whaling books. My friend Admiral Mark- 

 ham had two narrow escapes. On one occasion he and the 

 boat's crew were nearly carried down by the harpooneer taking 

 three turns round the bollard head when the fish sounded 

 without any warning, and the line, owing to the friction, would 

 not run ; but fortunately the water rushing over the bow lubri- 

 cated it, and it rendered just in time to save them. Another 

 time he was knocked out of the dinghy when helping to kill 

 a fish. 



If readers want further information on the subject of the 

 Greenland whale, they cannot do better than read the following 

 books : 'An Account of the Arctic Regions,' 1820, and 

 'Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery,' 1823, 

 by William Scoresby, jun. ; also ' A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's 

 Bay,' by Albert Hastings Markham, 1875. 



Little appears to be known as to the length of the life of a 

 whale, but it is said some people profess to tell the age up to a 

 certain date, beyond which they do not pretend to be able to 

 arrive at it. In 1894 the Balcena was fishing in Davis Strait, 

 and killed a fish, out of which was cut a harpoon stamped with 

 the name of the ship Jean, of Bowness (Firth of Forth). Now 

 the Jean was lost in 1861, so that, unless it fell into other hands, 

 this harpoon must have been placed in the fish either in the 

 year 1861 or previously to it. If we are to judge by other large 

 animals, as, for instance, the elephant, whales must be extremely 

 long-lived. 



