WHALE FISHING. 131 



The head is about one third of its whole length. His jaws are 

 from fifteen to twenty feet long, and his tail very nearly twenty 

 feet in breadth. His skin, which is black and spongy, is often in- 

 vaded by a great number of parasites. Some attach themselves 

 to it as to a rock, and others penetrate into its substance and are 

 nourished at its expense. The layer of fat (blubber) which 

 entirely covers the body of this animal is often several feet in 

 thickness, and yields an immense quantity of oil ; finally, the 

 whalebones are from three to fifteen feet long, according to the 

 part of the mouth they occupy. 



49. The catching of big-headed cetacea, which naturalists 

 separate into Cachalots and Whales, but which mariners often 

 confound under the latter name, is among the most important of 

 maritime pursuits from the products it affords, and from the in- 

 fluence it exercises on the nautical education of sailors. Whale 

 fishing was pursued in very remote times. The historians of 

 Norway, and the account of his voyages related by Otho to Alfred 

 the Great, King of England, show that, from the ninth century, the 

 Normans devoted themselves actively to the taking of whales that 

 approached their coasts, and it seems that they made the cordage 

 used in the rude marine of that people, of the skins of these cetacea. 

 At the period of the invasion of France by the Normans, whales 

 were seen in great numbers in the British channel, and were there 

 attacked by the fishermen. From time immemorial the Basques pur- 

 sued these animals near the vicinity of the shore ; and gradually, 

 as whales became rare in the Bay of Biscay, they pursued them 

 on the high seas : to these hardy mariners belongs the honour of 

 being the first to carry on a regular fishery for whales at . a dis- 

 tance. They pursued their prey along the coasts of Spain to 

 Cape Finistere, and upon those shores rnay slill be seen the 

 watch-towers established by the Basque fishermen for the dis- 

 covery of whales, and the ruins of 'kilns constructed for the 

 rendering or " trying-out " their blubber. It appears that to- 

 wards the close of the tenth century, they occupied Oporto, by 

 the right of conquest, and founded colonies in the vicinity. The 

 fishery, at first coast-wise, was aiterwards conducted on the open 

 ocean. The mariner's compass being discovered, the Basques 

 ventured to the north east in pursuit of w r hales, and it is affirmed 

 that, as early as 1372, they arrived on the grand bank of New- 

 foundland, whence they continued their voyages to the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, and the coasts of Labrador. In the fourteenth 

 century the merchants of Bordeaux fitted out two whale ships 



49. Is whale fishing a modern practice? What people were the first 

 pursue Whales upon the high seas ? 

 12 



