138 
RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE 
be worth many hundred pounds!” A weighty reason 
for the establishment of the fishery no doubt. The 
same writer in another part of his letter states, “there is 
one island among the Bahamas, which some of our 
people are settled upon, and more are going thither. 
It is called New Providence , where many rare things 
might be discovered, if the people were but encouraged.” 
This same New Providence afterwards became so famous 
as a whale fishing station, by the exertions of our 
American descendants. But even before these needy 
adventurers commenced their career of spermaceti hunt- 
ing, we have had it proved to us that the Indians 
who inhabited the shores of America used to voyage 
out to sea and attack this animal from their canoes, and 
pierce him with their lances of wood, or other instruments 
of the same material, which were barbed, and which 
before they were plunged into his flesh were fastened by 
a short warp, or piece of rope, to a large block of light 
wood, which was thrown overboard the moment the 
barbed instrument was thrust into its body, which— 
being repeated at every rising of the whale, or when they 
were so fortunate as to get near enough to do so — in a 
few instances, by a sort of worrying-to-death system, 
rewarded the enterprising savage with the lifeless body 
of his victim, but which in most cases was that of a very 
young one; and even this, when towed to the shore, it 
was impossible for them to turn over, so that they were 
obliged to content themselves with flinching the fat from 
one side of the body only. Few, indeed, must these 
instances have been, when we consider the means that 
