58 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



to be looked up, and, when found, are rusty and 

 blunt, and minus their wooden shaft. 



A well-stretched line is another requisite. The 

 line, as a rule, is to hand, but is not stretched. 



A block is also required for the jib-boom, and a 

 skilled harpooner is essential with a bow-line or 

 noose ready to his hand at the bows. 



All these, with the exception of the harpooner, 

 we had actually in readiness on board our vessel, 

 and when the boatswain, standing on a rope 

 beneath the bowsprit, 1 burning to distinguish 

 himself, hurriedly and clumsily struck a passing 

 porpoise, he only wounded it. The poor creature 

 its flesh torn by the barbs and streaming with 

 blood rushed away, pursued by its cannibal 

 companions, who speedily rent it into a hundred 

 morsels. 



Then the captain, an old whaler, condescend- 

 ingly came forward to the bows, and, wielding the 

 weapon with the greatest deftness, sent it with an 

 imperceptible effort deep into the side of a large 

 fellow just behind the pectoral fin, where it held 

 fast. " Haul away ! " he cried, and the hands on 

 the forecastle, pulling with might and main upon 



1 Sometimes the harpooner takes his stand at the bottom 

 of the martingale or dolphin-striker, a short perpendicular 

 spar beneath the bowsprit. 



