CHAPTER XXII 



AFTER killing our first bull sperm off the Azores 

 we killed a few more whales, north of the Line, 

 rorquals and small sperms of no great value. 

 Then, owing to the warm water of the tropics not cooling 

 our engine sufficiently, we had more engine trouble on the 

 voyage from the Line to Cape Town. One day under sail 

 and engine, the next drifting and tinkering at the engine. 

 At the Cape, however, relief came ; a Norwegian expert at 

 Diesel motors was sent out and he diagnosed the trouble at 

 once, increased the flow of cooling water, altered the screw 

 slightly and got the St Ebba into splendid trim, and the old 

 engineer, a Swede, went home. 



Under sail and motor our little vessel did a record passage 

 up the Mozambique Channel, in heavy weather, past Mada- 

 gascar to the region of calm seas round the Seychelle Islands, 

 five degrees south of the Line. We would rather have gone 

 south instead of north, to the Crozet Islands, for the sea- 

 elephants which we know are there, but, owing to the last 

 two vessels that called there having been wrecked, insurance 

 rates became prohibitive ; so we acted on the alternative 

 plan we had formed in Norway, and went to the Seychelles 

 to find if my old whaling chart said sooth about the sperm 

 there. I had also heard from old whalers that there were 

 many blue whales, and these we knew had never been 

 hunted, and the sperm we counted on having increased 

 in numbers ; since the sperm-whaling was almost given up 

 forty years ago. Our forecast was correct ; we found both 

 sperm and rorquals in great numbers. 



We set to killing and flinching (or flensing) the sperm 

 whales at sea. But we soon realised that for one we killed 

 and flinched at sea we could take and utilise a dozen with a 

 shore station ; for the labour, French Creole, on the Sey- 

 chelles is plentiful and cheap. Besides, we were losing not 



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