b THE WHALE HUNTERS 



was known as Sherburne, is really a huge sandbank 

 reaching out like a beckoning arm from the east coast of 

 the North American continent. Its area is about fifty 

 square miles. Among the low, sandy hillocks of its 

 central parts are pools and marshes of both fresh and salt 

 water and, as in the Romney marshes of England, you 

 feel that the sea is always with you. The salt winds sweep 

 across the flat pastures of beach grass, the cry of seabirds 

 and the distant roar of the surf are always in your ear 

 and you know that this island belongs in its nature, not to 

 the great continent to the westward, but to the Atlantic 

 Ocean; and you wonder as you look upon the frailty of its 

 structure how, in the course of its precarious existence, it 

 has withstood the fury of the mighty ocean that embraces 

 it. You wonder, too, how the Nantucketers have wrought 

 a livelihood from such a barren island until you learn that 

 it is the sea itself which has been the green pastures of 

 Nantucket. 



Long before the first white settlers arrived Indians 

 lived there and caught mackerel and cod from their frail 

 bark canoes. When whales came close to the shore they 

 went forth in full force and by means of long drawn 

 harassing tactics they wore these Leviathans down until 

 they were able to kill them with spears. They ate the 

 flesh and boiled the oil from the blubber. The sea 

 provided them with the greater part of their livelihood 

 but the land was also a source of food, for at that time the 

 island was wooded and the soil fertile. Then the white 

 men came. They needed timber for houses, for boats 

 and fuel, and in the areas where trees were felled the soil 

 was no longer fertilised by their fallen leaves nor protected 

 by them from the fierce sea winds, so that its productivity 

 waned and the Nantucketers, white and red alike, became 

 more and more dependent upon the harvests from the 

 sea. The settlers built boats that were much more 

 seaworthy than the Indian canoes and made an industry 



