CHAPTER EIGHT 



The Elusive Bowhead 



*WHEN I WAS in Spitzbergen,' old Pierre the cook was say- 

 ing as he and Jonathan stood in the galley picking weevils 

 from the flour, 'the Dutchmen, they have their tryworks 

 on the shore and men live there during the season in huts. 

 The ships bring the whales to the shore and the men they 

 cut them up and boil out the oil just like in New England. 

 Then when the season is finished and the bad Arctic 

 weather come the ships they take the oil and the whale- 

 fins to their homelands. The German and the English, 

 they do the same thing, but always it is the Dutchmen 

 who are the finest whalemen. Before that it was my 

 people along the Biscay shore who catch the whale best. 

 Then we kill all the whales on our shores and we do not 

 prosper. So we go in the ships of other countries and 

 show them how it is that we catch the whale.' 



*Is that how you came to sail in a Dutch ship?' asked 

 Jonathan. 



'No; the Dutchmen 'ave learned by then; but it is why 

 mon grandpere sail in her,' continued Pierre, 'et mon pere 

 aussi, Mais pour moi,^ and he shrugged his broad, bent 

 shoulders, T go because it is in the blood of my family to 

 hunt whale. In our villages on the Biscay coast a man 

 can fish or catch whale. I catch whale. But now I have 

 too many years and they say I am good only to cook. So 



