The Unobservant Sailor 49 



hunting and realising the spoil was terrific, and it 

 alternated with long spells of absolute idleness, when 

 whales came near enough to be attacked, or for some 

 reason none were seen at all. Yet there was a savage 

 freedom about it which appealed to those rough repre- 

 sentatives of many lands, and apparently it pleased 

 them well, in spite of its appalling dangers, terrible 

 hardships, and scanty rewards. 



A singular circumstance connected with the haunts 

 of the Southern Right Whale is noteworthy, as showing 

 how little of a naturalist or observer the sailor is. 

 During the Antarctic expedition of the eighteenth 

 century, all the log-keepers, with the exception of 

 Captain Weddell, who was a whale-fisher, were enthu- 

 siastic in their reports of the enormous number of valu- 

 able whales (Right and Sperm Whales are repeatedly 

 mentioned) in those tormented seas during the southern 

 summer. Now the fact is, as one or two whaling 

 expeditions have discovered to their cost, that the 

 sperm whale is never found south of the Antarctic 

 Circle, and the Right Whale hardly ever. These two 

 species, practically the only ones commercially valuable 

 enough to warrant the outfitting of ships for an ocean 

 voyage in order to catch them, prefer to avoid those 

 stern regions, and the whales seen and repeatedly 

 logged by the crews of the ' Erebus ' and ' Terror ' were 

 of a totally different and almost valueless species, such 

 as no ships are sent long voyages after. It would seem 

 as if life in those tremendous regions adjacent to the 

 eternal barrier of Antarctic ice, and the great southern 

 continent, was altogether too strenuous for a leisurely 

 monster like a Right Whale, even though the southern 

 Mysticetus is so much smarter both in appearance and 

 agility than his great northern congener. There, where 

 the awful sea of the south, unhindered in its world- 



