WHALES AND WHALING 



Otherus, a ninth-century German navigator, saw more 

 than two hundred whales taken in two days by Biscayan 

 fishermen in the White Sea ; in fact, the Biscayans had 

 practically the whole of the whaling industry in their 

 hands up till the seventeenth century ; for most nations 

 (the Japanese and the Eskimos excepted) regarded the 

 pursuit of the monster rather as a sport than as a 

 business. 



The Spaniards and the Dutch forcibly took the trade 

 away from the Biscayans, who fell into the secondary 

 position of guides and teachers, and even English mariners 

 were glad to learn of them. In the seventeenth century 

 the Dutch applied their proverbial business capacity to 

 the work ; pursued the whales to Spitzbergen, and founded 

 the village of Smeerenbourg (" Grease Town ") on 

 Amsterdam Island ; and, when the animals were gradually 

 chased from that neighbourhood, instituted the Green- 

 land fishery. 



For a long while the British met with but poor success 

 at the business ; but, in 1732, Government offered large 

 subsidies (which were doubled in 1749), and so, bit by 

 bit, England and her colonies rose to the front rank as 

 whalers. 



Up to the earlier part of the nineteenth century, a 

 favourite ground for the fishery was round about Disko 

 Island ; but now many of the Arctic whales have sought 

 refuge still further north in Baffin Bay, etc. In the 

 eighteenth century, explorers from the United States 

 resolved to try whaling off the Falkland Islands and 

 PatagoDJ% and pushed their researches to the Antarctic 



233 



