22 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



ago was worth about 1500 per ton ; previously it was worth 

 as much as 3000 per ton, so one good whale paid a trip. It 

 was pursued from barques like the one below sailing-ships 

 with auxiliary steam and screw, fifty men of a crew, and small 

 boats, each manned with five men, with a harpoon gun in 

 its bows, or merely a hand harpoon. When the harpoon was 

 fired and fixed into the whale, it generally dived straight 

 down, and when exhausted from want of air, came up and 

 was dispatched with lances or bombs from shoulder guns ; 

 they measured from forty to fifty-five feet. 



On another page is a small picture of the sperm or 

 cachalot, valuable for its spermaceti oil, and for ambergris, 

 a product found once in hundreds of whales caught. It is a 

 toothed whale and carries no whalebone. 



But during the centuries these Right whales and sperm 



were being killed there were other larger and much more 

 powerful whales, easily distinguished from the " Right 

 whales " by the fin on their backs. These were to be 

 found in all the oceans and were unattacked by men. They 

 have only a little whalebone in their mouths and were much 

 too powerful to be killed by the old methods. 



Once or twice the old whalers by accident harpooned one 

 of these " modern whales " or finners, and the tale of their 

 adventure, as told by one of Mr Bullen's Yankee harpooneers, 

 bears out exactly what we ourselves experienced down in 

 the Antarctic, off Graham's Land, in 1892-1893, when one of 

 our men tried to do the same. We had been for months 

 hopelessly looking for Right whale and only saw these big 

 finners in great numbers close alongside of our boats, so one 

 of our harpooneers in desperation fastened to one. 



In his book, " The Cruise of the Cachalot," Mr Bullen 



