WHALES AND WHALING 



weight ; or, having taken up a temporary position half in 

 and half out of the flesh, it may easily be expelled by 

 a special muscular action on the part of the whale. In 

 either of these cases the loss that would be sustained by 

 the crews is incalculable, for the wounded creature, 

 having escaped, will gather together its friends and its 

 neighbours, and the whole " school " will dash away out 

 of further reach. Judge, then, whether the harpooner 

 should not be a man of unshakable nerve. Yet some 

 are not ; some turn livid and tremulous the moment the 

 harpoon has left their hands, and, if the shot should fail, 

 probably could not make a second, even if the lives of the 

 crew depended on it. Seasoned whalers will tell you that 

 the work is more nerve-destroying than all the other 

 fisheries put together. The risk is so awful, death so 

 certain, if a false step be made ; the stake at issue such a 

 huge one (for so great are the rewards that a poor man 

 may become rich in no time), that everything combines to 

 make whaling infinitely worse than pearl-diving, and as bad 

 as the gambling-tables, as far as nerves are concerned. 



As the cox shouts, the heavy dart whistles across the 

 few yards of space, and the barbs cleave their way 

 through skin and blubber and tissue, fixing themselves in 

 the fibres of one of the tough elastic muscles which close 

 over them with a spring, and from which they can never 

 be torn while the animal remains alive. 



" Good shot ; look out for the line ! " says the man at 

 the helm. 



The harpooned whale has this in common with the 

 hooked salmon you never know what he will do next. 



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