88 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



cleaning out the whale gun on the bows with tow and 

 cleaning rod and the charge is put in, and the india-rubber 

 wad driven home on top of three hundred and eighty-five 

 grammes of black powder. The second line from the port 

 side of the hold is made ready, and a new harpoon, one and 

 a half hundredweights, slung from the hold. The line is 

 spliced to the twisted wire grummet or ring that travels in 

 a slot in the shaft of the harpoon, which is rammed into the 

 gun so that line and ring hang from the shaft at the muzzle 

 of the gun. Getting this done and putting chains and ropes 

 in order takes time and a considerable amount of work for 

 five men, and meanwhile we on the bridge are conscious, as 

 we roll, of occasional whiffs from the galley of roast whale 

 steak and onions. For merit I place caribou meat first, 

 whale and black bear about equal, in second place, and beef 

 third. 



Five-forty-five. We have screwed on the explosive point to 

 the harpoon (over the time fuse), swung round the gun, and 

 are off in pursuit of the whale we sighted at five- thirty. By 

 six-thirty he has appeared several times, made two or three 

 handsome blasts and gone down " tail up," and we followed, 

 as we thought, in the direction he took, but he always 

 appeared right off our track. I use the term " tail up " not 

 quite accurately here ; the expression really means the whole 

 tail going into air as the whale goes down for a long dive. In 

 the case of these northern finners it is generally only the part 

 of the back next to the tail that is raised, not the flukes, 

 and this rising tells you the whale intends to go down deep 

 for twenty minutes or half-an-hour. "A wrong vone," 

 the engineer says "he be chased before." You see the 

 engineer, when his mate is below, joins in the sport of watch- 

 ing, ahead, to port, to starboard and astern, and works the 

 winch when we are playing the fish ; always there is work 

 for all, and little enough time for meals, if any. 



Whilst we roll about in the swell waiting for the leviathan 

 to make our closer acquaintance, I may relate some of 

 the thrilling dangers with which the track of the modern 

 whaler is beset. Novel, unfamiliar dangers must always 

 make interesting reading when people are tired of hearing 



