MY FIRST WHALE HUNT 



and tied against the gun's support. When coming in 

 from the last trip the vessel had encountered heavy 

 weather, and the rope was taken off the pan to pre- 

 vent it from being carried away by a wave and foul- 

 ing the propeller. Now as we were nearing the feed- 

 ing grounds, the Bo's'n went forward to load the 

 gun,, re-coil the harpoon line, and see that all was clear 

 and running smoothly. 



The men on board were greatly interested in my 

 camera and anxious that opportunities might be given 

 for pictures. For two hours, with the Chief Engi- 

 neer and the Mate, I sat aft on the great coil of 

 towing line, used only in very heavy weather, lis- 

 tening to stories of the idiosyncrasies of whales, 

 especially humpbacks. Their firm conviction was that 

 one -never could guess what a "hump" was going to 

 do except that it would be exactly what was least 

 expected. 



The Engineer had just finished telling about a big 

 fellow that a few days before had come up in front 

 of the ship and swam towards it with his enormous 

 mouth wide open, when the man in the barrel called 

 down, "Whales on the port bow!" 



I jumped as though a bomb had been exploded and 

 grabbed my camera. The other men took things 

 rather quietly, for the whales were still a long way 

 off. The Captain tried to -show me the spouts but 

 it was several minutes before I could distinguish 

 the white columns of vapor shooting up every few 

 seconds. 



There were three of them all humpbacks. On the 



27 



