I WHALE FISHING. J33 



then so numerous near the shores and even in the small inlets of 

 the last named island, that whaling vessels promptly completed 

 their cargoes, lying near the shore, and with the object of facilita- 

 ting their operations, the Dutch established on a small island 

 in the neighbourhood, a village called Smerremberg, where they 

 brought the captured whales, and tried out the oil to be after- 

 wards transported to Europe ; but these animals soon deserted 

 the coasts of Spitzbergen and the neighbouring islands, to seek 

 refuse along the great icy bank that bounds the sea of Green- 

 land on the north west. The fishermen followed them there as 

 soon as they left the waters of Spitzbergen. From the middle 

 of the seventeenth century the whale fishery has been most active 

 about the 78th or 81st degree of north latitude, or in Davis* 

 Straits, about the isle of Disco; but these waters in turn have 

 been depopulated, and for three or four years past, the English 

 whalers have almost entirely abandoned those places, to advance 

 in the midst of the ice, in Baffin s Bay, to Lancaster Sound and 

 Melville Bay. 



But the voyages of whalers are not confined to the northern 

 seas. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the American 

 whaiers of Massachusetts began to look towards the south and 

 visited the waters of Cape de Verd, the south western coast ot' 

 Africa, along the coasts of Brazil and Paraguay to the Falkland 

 islands. From that time, the Knglish have also carried on a 

 fishery to the south, and now the whale ships of both nations 

 plough not only the southern parts of the Atlantic, but the whole 

 expanse of the Pacific Ocean: during the season, they cross 

 to the waters of Japan, then descend towards the Sandwich, 

 Marquisas, and Galapagos islands, and if their cargo is not com- 

 plete, they touch upon the coasts of Chile and Peru, and return 

 by Cape Horn ; but, if they wish to continue their operations, 

 they cross the southern hemisphere in the summer to New Zealand, 

 to return towards the north to visit the seas of Japan, or the coast 

 of California. In this way, they sometimes keep at sea for eight 

 months together, exposed to the greatest fatigue and privations 

 of all kinds ; but in general, the dangers are less in this vast ocean 

 than in the polar seas, where the stoutest vessels are sometimes 

 crushed by the ice, and where shipwreck is unfortunately verv 

 frequent. 



The northern fishery is for the common whale, while that o! 

 the south is chiefly for the Cachalot, ( Pkyseter Macrocepkalus) or 

 Sperm whale. 



The mode of attacking both these immense cetacea, is the 

 ame. As soon as the sailor, placed in a lookout at the mast 



