THE WHALES ALONG THE SHORE 21 



shorten the distance but he was still a quarter of a mile 

 away when he stopped suddenly and Hstened. 



From the man on the lookout spar came an oft repeated 

 call. 



'Town ho! Town ho! They blow, they blow!' 



It was the call that was to echo again and again through 

 the coming years of Jonathan's life, the whaleman's call to 

 action that in other versions Ottar the voyager had heard 

 in King Alfred's time, that the Basques had heard along 

 the Biscay shores in the twelfth century and the Dutch, 

 German and English whalemen had heard in the bays of 

 Spitzbergen for several hundred years. 



It was the cry that the islanders used on first sighting 

 the whale to call out the whalemen from their towns, 

 villages and camps and which in later decades of American 

 deep-sea whalers was to change to the well-known cry of 

 There She Blows!' 



Jonathan's gaze followed the direction of the lookout's 

 pointing arm. From his position on the summit of the 

 dune he had a clear view of the sea but for a moment he 

 saw nothing but the white specks of a flock of seabirds 

 wheeling over the Atlantic rollers. Then his sharp eyes 

 caught sight of a crystal white fountain that lingered over 

 the sea and then dissolved itself into the sunlit atmos- 

 phere; again within several seconds the white fountain 

 shot upwards. It came from the head of a whale which 

 now emerged from the water to reveal its black shining 

 back. He saw more spouts of white vapour as other 

 whales came to the surface to replenish their lungs with 

 fresh air and he knew from the things that Mr. Mather 

 had told him that this was a pod of black right whales. 



In response to the cry of the lookout the camp came 

 suddenly to life. White men and Indians came hurrying 

 from the huts carrying lances, harpoons and other equip- 

 ment which they tossed into the four slender, canoe-like 

 boats that lay on the beach. Each boat was launched 



