428 



THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 



"they are -I HE PREY OF THE SAVAGE KILLER, OR ' ORCA GLADIATOR 



he does sometimes draw his human 

 persecutors beneath the ice-floe. But he 

 cannot sound or go down far, for those seas 

 are shallow as compared with the outward 

 ocean, and, as for his natural enemies, he 

 seems to be delivered entirely into their hands 

 or teeth. Yet that is not so, because the 

 balance of Nature, when undisturbed by man, 

 is ever held true ; and the condition of those 

 seas when first the daring Norsemen burst 

 into their primeval solitudes sufficiently 

 attests that fact. Reading the records of the 

 infant days of whale-fishing in the Arctic, 

 we find it hard to credit what they tell of the 

 countless schools of whales that almost hid 

 the waters at times from their view ; how 

 they needed not to chase their prey, but only 

 lie and wait a little until the wondering 

 monsters surrounded them. Then they could 

 slay and slay, and keep on slaying, until from 

 sheer weariness they desisted, and began 

 to flench the coats of blubber from their 

 multitudinous prizes, loading therewith the 

 vessels that followed them simply for the 

 purpose of carrying home the spoil. What 

 wonder was it that from Spain, France, 

 Holland, Germany, and England came whole 

 fleets of eager adventurers craving a share 

 in the rich spoil, and that of all the waters 

 on all the globe none were so crowded with 



shipping, or so resounded 

 with the eager hum of men, 

 as those now deserted 

 Arctic seas ? Primeval quiet 

 has resumed its sway in 

 those regions — yes, more 

 than primeval quiet, for the 

 whales are almost gone, and 

 the long-drawn sighs of their 

 countless breathings or the 

 heavy splashings of their 

 mountainous gambols no 

 longer re-echo from glacier 

 face or iceberg caves, ex- 

 cept at such far-distant in- 

 tervals as merely to punctu- 

 ate the silence and make it 

 more impressive. 



Strangely enough, the 

 whale that was first pursued 

 for commercial purposes, 

 unless all the ancient re- 

 cords of the whale fishery 

 be at fault, is one of a class 

 that have long been tabooed 

 by whale-fishers as having 

 little or no commercial 

 value, as being almost 

 impossible to kill in the 

 open sea, and, if killed there, as being 

 almost impossible to secure. This species 

 of cetacea is known by the generic 

 term of "rorqual," but there are several 

 varieties. All, however, are noticeable as 

 possessing in an eminent degree those un- 

 desirable characteristics that cause them to 

 be shunned by the whalers. Slender in body 

 and of great length, they are the swiftest of 

 all the cetacea, this being accounted for by 

 the fact tlmt they feed entirely on fish, and 

 must needs be agile in order to secure suf- 

 ficient food to keep their vast bodies in con- 

 dition. And, since extreme speed and great 

 thickness of blubber never go together in 

 whales, these clipper - built monsters are 

 but thinly clad with a coating of lard 

 that produces the poorest quality of train- 

 oil known. Belonging to the "balaenae," or 

 toothless whales, they have got a fringe of 

 that marvellous substance in their mouths, 

 but it is so short, so weedy, and of such low 

 quality that it is perfectly useless for any of 

 the purposes to which whalebone is put. 

 But it is perfectly fitted for the whale's use. 

 It is of just sufficient length to prevent the 

 escape of the lively herring, sprat, or pilchard, 

 when the rorqual, gliding swiftly into the midst 

 of an enormous school of those useful fish, 

 drops the great scoop of his lower jaw an^'^ 



