THE COMMON RORQUAL 409 



' Presently coming up with the whale, the gun is fired, 

 the great harpoon buries itself in the quivering monster, 

 sometimes, indeed, with a small bomb in its head. With 

 scarcely any exception, once the harpoon has found its 

 mark, the fate of that Rorqual is sealed. The wound is so 

 deep, the strain is so great, that in a short time it succumbs 

 and sinks dead.' 



When the windlass is started the immense carcass is 

 towed off to a shore station, where not only the blubber 

 and baleen are secured, but every other vestige of fat is 

 utilised to swell the tale of oil barrels. The huge mass of 

 offal and bones is converted into manure. It is a brutal 

 business, robbed of the merest claim to sport ; but it at 

 least gains for the Rorqual hunter a precarious living in 

 return for arduous toil not unmixed with frightful perils. 

 The Greenland W T hale is hunted in a very similar manner, 

 except that its buoyant carcass is dragged to the side of the 

 whaling vessel, instead of ashore as in the case of the 

 Rorqual. 



When a shoal of Rorquals approaches the coast of the 

 Faroe Islands the fishermen at once put out in boats. 

 Strangely enough, the Whales do not dive under the boats 

 and escape, as they might easily do, but allow themselves to 

 be driven into a bay. Along the shore stands a dense crowd 

 of women and children, with a sprinkling of veterans 

 whose whaling days are over, yet who hasten from all 

 parts to witness the spectacle. As soon as the Whales are 

 in the cove, with the boats forming a serried line across its 

 mouth, the signal is given to the men, spear in hand, 

 standing in the bows. 



The spears whiz through the air and the oarsmen shoot 

 forward into the terror-stricken shoal, driving it into the 

 shallows. Timber crashes and splinters as boats collide, 

 and the wretched creatures, with quivering spears embedded 

 in their flesh, spout jets of blood. Some men leap over- 

 board, and, with long knives held in their teeth, wade 

 chest high towards animals that flap helplessly in the 

 shallow water. Others lean over the sides of the boats, 

 thrust great iron hooks into wounded Whales, and, in spite of 

 their frenzied struggles, hack through to the spinal column. 



