FISHING BEGINS. 17 



(fastened) on to a harpoon. Another line with a running 

 "bowline," or slip-noose, was also passed out to the 

 bowsprit end, being held there by one man in readiness. 

 Then one of the harpooners ran out along the back- 

 ropes, which keep the jib-boom down, taking his stand 

 beneath the bowsprit with the harpoon ready. Presently 

 he raised his iron and followed the track of a rising 

 porpoise with its point until the creature broke water. 

 At the same instant the weapon left his grasp, appa- 

 rently without any force behind it ; but we on deck, 

 holding the line, soon found that our excited hauling 

 lifted a big vibrating body clean out of the smother 

 beneath. " 'Vast hauling ! " shouted the mate, while as 

 the porpoise hung dangling, the harpooner slipped the 

 ready bowline over his body, gently closing its grip round 

 the " small " by the broad tail. Then we hauled on 

 the noose-line, slacking away the harpoon, and in a 

 minute had our prize on deck. He was dragged away 

 at once and the operation repeated. Again and again 

 we hauled them in, until the fore part of the deck was 

 alive with the kicking, writhing sea-pigs, at least twenty 

 of them. I had seen an occasional porpoise caught at 

 sea before, but never more than one at a time. Here, 

 however, was a wholesale catch. At last one of the 

 harpooned ones plunged so furiously while being hauled 

 up that he literally tore himself off the iron, falling, 

 streaming with blood, back into the sea. 



Away went all the school after him, tearing at him 

 with their long well-toothed jaws, some of them leaping 

 high in the air in their eagerness to get their due share 

 of the cannibal feast. Our fishing was over for that 

 time. Meanwhile one of the harpooners had brought 

 out a number of knives, with which all hands were soon 



