20 TEE CRUISE OF THE "CACHALOT:' 



constant drill rapidly teaching even these clumsy lands- 

 men how to find their way aloft, and do something else 

 besides hold on to anything like grim death when they 

 got there. 



At last, one beautiful day, the boats were lowered 

 and manned, and away went the greenies on their first 

 practical lesson in the business of the voyage. As 

 before noticed, there were two greenies in each boat, 

 they being so arranged that whenever one of them 

 "caught a crab," which of course was about every other 

 stroke, his failure made little difference to the boat's 

 progress. They learned very fast under the terrible 

 imprecations and storm of blows from the iron-fisted and 

 iron-hearted officers, so that before the day was out the 

 skipper was satisfied of our ability to deal with a " fish " 

 should he be lucky enough to "raise" one. I was, in 

 virtue of my experience, placed at the after-oar in the 

 mate's boat, where it was my duty to attend to the 

 ** main sheet " when the sail was set, where also I had 

 the benefit of the lightest oar except the small one used 

 by the harpooner in the bow. 



The very next day after our first exhaustive boat 

 drill, a school of " Black Fish " was reported from aloft, 

 and with great glee the officers prepared for what they 

 considered a rattling day's fun. 



The Black Fish {Phocsena Sp.) is a small toothed 

 whale, not at all unlike a miniature cachalot, except that 

 its head is rounded at the front, while its jaw is not 

 long and straight, but bowed. It is as frolicsome as 

 the porpoise, gambolling about in schools of from twenty 

 to fifty or more, as if really delighted to be alive. Its 

 average size is from ten to twenty feet long, and seven 

 or eight feet in girth, weight from one to three tons* 



