222 MODE OF TAKING WHITE PORPOISE. 



from gluttony, and seemed to forget for several hours the 

 dangers that surrounded it as the tide went out. The 

 fishermen, silent, and on the look-out on the cliif, having seen 

 that the waves had retreated, give the signal : two or three 

 light skiffs (either bark or wooden canoes), manned by three 

 or four expert rowers, appear upon the waves, which they 

 scarcely touch with their oars. Standing in the bow of each 

 of these canoes, a man with bare and muscular arm, a steel 

 spear in his hand, intently follows with his eye the track of 

 the fish, indicating the course to be taken, Avhether to the 

 right or left, and strikes the mortal blows. Often after one 

 of these vigorous strokes, Avhich are enough to kill the 

 largest porpoise, the spearsman may be seen, w^hen he does 

 not strike aright, urging on the pursuit for a new contest 

 of speed between his skiff and the wounded animal : some- 

 times the blood which reddens the surface of the water 

 indicates the course to be followed, and sometimes the sound 

 of the subdued breathing of the porpoise, which comes to the 

 surface of the water to breathe, throwing up a stream which 

 descends in the form of a curve. The porpoise might break 

 through this fence of flexible poles, eighteen or twenty 

 inches apart, but it is afraid, and it returns by the way it 

 came: a new stroke is given, but it is by a harpoon which 

 has a rope attached to it. The struggle becomes more in- 

 tense and exciting. The paddle at the stern of the frail 

 skiff is alone put in requisition. It is now the boatman's 

 turn to display his skill. The animal leaps out of the water, 

 stops, dives, and turns about in every way; a white foam 

 rises on each side of the boat, and its progress, hitherto so 

 swift, is suddenly stopped; the animal is fatigued by its 

 wound, wants to breathe, but fear keeps it below the water, 

 and immediately the man in the bow rolls up at his knee 

 the line which he had allowed to run out, and the boat is 

 brought silently forward towards the victim. Again he stands 

 up and with one hand brandishes the spear, while with the 



