44 
MAMMALIA. 
one of its blow-holes, followed it to the bottom of tbe sea, came up 
again with it to tbe surface, closed tbe other blow-bole with a 
second plug, and so caused it to die of suffocation. This is simply 
impossible. 
Tbe ancient Esquimaux employed in attacking tbe Whale a very 
ingenious system, which they still put in practice at tbe present 
day. They surround tbe Whale they want to take in little canoes. 
Those who man these canoes, throw at it arrows or harpoons, 
attached to hollow balls of large dimensions, and which are made 
of seal- skin, of the intestines of Cetacea, &c. When the animal 
wishes to plunge, it cannot manage it, for these balls buoy it up, 
and it is obliged to remain near the surface of the water. It 
advances very gently in this position, so that it cannot escape from 
the blows of its enemies, who thus slowly, but surely, kill it. 
We now arrive at the period when whaling was practised, not 
by the savage inhabitants of Northern Europe and America, but 
by civilised people. 
It is in a book which dates back as far as the year 875, Miracles 
de Saint Waast, that we find the first mention made of the syste- 
matic pursuit of Whales. The people of Biscay were those who 
were engaged in it. 
Nearly about the same time, Otherus, a German navigator, 
visited the coasts of Norway, to the North Cape, and pushed on 
as far as the entrance into the White Sea. He met in these 
northern seas quantities of fishermen, and saw more than two 
hundred Whales taken in two days. 
From the eleventh to the twelfth century this branch of in- 
dustry took root in Flanders and in Normandy, and the principal 
whaling ships were fitted up in the ports of these countries. The 
author of a Life of St. Arnould , Bishop of Soissons, describes the 
form of the harpoons, the way in which they were used, and 
enumerates the tithes paid by the whalers to the ecclesiastics of 
that canton. In the twelfth century, the Norwegian sailors 
carried on the pursuit of Whales with great activity. 
In the fourteenth century, the sailors of Biscay began to under- 
take regular expeditions to the northern seas ; their ships were 
fitted out in the different harbours along our (French) sea-shore. 
Their expeditions were always crowned with success, for they 
came back each year with a full cargo. It was then that the 
