"A FALL! A FALL!" 387 



plunges anew for twenty-five to thirty minutes. The 

 fisher must therefore take careful note of the manner in 

 which the animal inclines his tail, so as to guess the 

 direction of his course ; and when chasing a a lively 

 whale " amongst heavy ice the duty of the boat-steerer is 

 both arduous and. onerous. At times the boats must be 

 forced between two floes, just wide enough apart to admit 

 her passage \ in such a case she has to be sculled through 

 by the steerer, and the continuous work of carrying the 

 boat round the numerous pieces of ice is most laborious. 

 Now the men must throw all their force into a long pull, 

 a strong pull, and a pull all together ; now they scarcely 

 move their oars-; at times they drift with the current ; 

 always vigilant, always ready, always composed and calm. 

 They lie on their oars, at length, and wait for the 

 whale to rise. In a minute or two he once more comes 

 to the surface, and the harpooneer, quick as thought, 

 discharges his fatal weapon. It shoots through the air, 

 pierces the fat, and fixes its barb in the huge quivering 

 side. A joyous shout goes up, "A fall! a fall!" A 

 second harpoon follows ; the line unrolling from the 1 reel 

 with inconceivable velocity. Already upwards of two 

 hundred fathoms are beneath the waves, and yet the 

 panic-stricken animal continues his downward course. 

 With so much violence is the line uncoiled, that if only 

 a fragment of a shell impeded the movement it would 

 capsize the boat. It not infrequently occurs that the 

 rope, when uncoiling, will catch a man by the arm, leg, 

 or body, and drag him into the sea. It would be diffi- 

 cult, then, to give the reader an idea of the absolute cool- 

 ness and tranquillity with which every manoeuvre must 

 be executed. The true whaler, however, is insensible to 



