84 TEAYEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



the waves, the skilful harpooneer buries the "barbed 

 point deep in the victim's flesh. A mighty plunge, 

 a billow of foam, and a crimson stain upon the water, 

 shows that the weapon has struck home. The har- 

 pooneer pulls out the wooden shaft as the oarsmen 

 back astern, and the barb is left embedded. By 

 means of the attached line the poor beast is slowly 

 but surely pulled to the surface ; his struggles be- 

 come gradually fainter as, drowning and bleeding, he 

 receives the fatal lunges with the lance which the 

 harpooneer is now administering, striking through 

 the back of his head into the brain. Spouts of 

 blood have now taken the place of the feathery 

 clouds he was so sportively throwing up but a short 

 time ago ; and as he lies wallowing in his gore, he 

 is disentangled from the net, lashed underneath the 

 stern of the boat, and towed on shore, where he is 

 secured by a rope and grapnel, and left for the pre- 

 sent. Not all the whales are killed thus, however. 

 Many keep quite clear of the net, and have to be 

 harpooned in the ordinary way, when the finest sport 

 is afforded the sharp doublings of the stricken 

 animal testing to the utmost the strength and stability 

 of the best-built boat. Sir Henry Gore-Booth who 

 will, I hope, forgive me for recording his prowess 

 himself harpooned and killed three at least in the 

 open, having pulled up, directly he saw what was 

 going on, in his walrus-boat, which he had brought 

 with him in his little ketch, the Kava. This keen 



