WHALES AND WHALING 



regions ; and now America and England rely largely on 

 the produce of these fishing grounds. But it is not 

 necessarily the cold latitudes in which we must look for 

 whaling; the African, Australian, and New Zealand 

 coasts ; Japan, Corea, and Norway offer ample scope ; for 

 the whale will go wherever he can find food, whether 

 the latter be the molluscs of the French and Scotch 

 coasts, or the opossum shrimps of the Arctic regions. 

 When a whale is thrown ashore or caught near the coast 

 in the British Isles, it is, like the sturgeon, a Fish Royal, 

 the head being the property of the king, and the tail, 

 of the queen. 



Steam and gunpowder have robbed whaling of its 

 sporting and romantic features to a very great extent, 

 but not altogether ; you cannot go into deep water, what- 

 ever may be your boat and equipment, in pursuit of a 

 giant considerably longer than a cricket-pitch, that may 

 elect to smash all the small boats and some of the large 

 ones within reach of his ponderous tail, without feeling 

 a little bit like a mighty hunter. The Norwegian and 

 American fishermen laugh at the notion of harpooning 

 a whale in the old-fashioned style ; and use only the 

 harpoon-gun which we shall presently consider. But 

 first let us watch the traditional method, which we can 

 do very well from a Dutch or Shetland whaler. 



The ship will probably be a three-master, with fore- 

 and main-mast square-rigged, having a crew of five-and- 

 thirty; and with her will be half a dozen four or five- 

 oared boats. When a likely ground is reached a look- 

 out man is posted aloft, and, at his signal, the small 



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