CHAPTER VII 



WHALING is like salmon-fishing, but the waiting 

 part is on an enormous scale, bigger in proportion 

 than even the game or the tackle, however huge 

 that is. Fancy waiting and fishing for nine months for 

 your first fish. That was my first whaling. Henriksen 

 in Japanese seas on his first whaling command was, I think, 

 a year before he saw a whale. Then he had a lot of shots 

 in succession and missed every time, till he discovered the 

 powder was at fault, and then he killed about ninety in 

 three months. 



He sometimes gives me thumb-nail jottings of his 

 experiences. 



Once he ran into port. Yusako, I believe, and the harpoon- 

 gun on the bows was still loaded, and the Japanese Bos'n 

 fiddled with it and let it off. Two white chickens were resting 

 on the forego (coils of rope under muzzle of gun), and Jap 

 shoemakers, tailors with their goods and chattels, were on 

 foredeck, sitting on the line, and they were all upset by 

 its tautening suddenly. The boom brought Henriksen on 

 deck, he found his bos'n standing pale as china, and a few 

 white feathers floating in the air a rather Whistleresque 

 picture, is it not ? Another time he himself upset all his 

 poultry. He had quite a lot of hens on board, and they rather 

 took to him. He had stood for hours on hours chasing 

 two finners that never gave him a chance of harpooning them, 

 and just at twilight he grew tired waiting and let drive a 

 long shot on chance, never noticing that the fowls had 

 collected round his feet and on the coiled forego. Overboard 

 they went, every hen and chick of them, and great was the 

 retrieving in the pram. 1 



Another curious mistake by a gunner I have heard of. 



1 A pram is a flat-bottomed boat, square stern and pointed saucer 

 bow. 



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