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HARPERS'S
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE
No. XLVII. -- APRIL, 1854. -- Vol. VIII.
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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
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ABOARD A SPERM-WHALER.
We dare say the reader is sufficiently familiar with the many-times-told story of the Greenland whale-fishery, but we may be permitted to doubt whether he knows much about the sperm-whale, and its capture in the far-off South Seas. We therefore invite him to accompany us on board a whaler, on its cruising station – and to do this he need not quit his cushioned arm-chair by the parlor fire – and we will show him the whole art and mystery of capturing the sperm or cachalot whale.
But before stepping on board, it may be as well to say a few words about the South-sea whalers and their equipment. These vessels are not old double-sided tubs like the Greenlandmen, but smart, well-formed, thoroughly rigged ships and barques of 300 to 400 tons, manned by a crew of which at least three-fourths are prime A. Bs. These ships make voyages which frequently occupy three years, and which call into exercise the utmost degree of nautical skill, both scientific and practical. During this prolonged voyage, the mariners generally make the acquaintance of foreign people of all colors and all degrees of civilization, in the South Sea Isles, the coast of South America, the Indian Archipelago, &c., and find abundant exercise for every manly virtue – courage, endurance, patience, and energy, all being absolutely requisite, together with no small amount of real talent on the part of the commanding-officers. The South-seaman surpasses all merchant vessels in the very romantic nature of its service. It roves round the globe; and in the vast Pacific Ocean sails to and fro, and from island to island, for years at a spell. The crew employed in such a service, if they only possess the ordinary intelligence of seamen, can not fail to have their powers of observation sharpened, their reasoning faculties called into exercise, and their whole mental development stimulated. Accordingly, sperm-whalers are remarkably shrewd intelligent men; close observers of the phenomena of nature so liberally exhibited in their ocean pathways; and altogether noble specimens of seamen.
On the deck of a sperm-whaler, there is a platform to receive the portions of the whale taken on board, and at the mainmast-head are strong pulleys, called the cutting blocks and falls, which are used to hoist the blubber, &c., on board by aid of the windlass. There is also on deck a square brick erection, a little abaft the foremast, made to support a couple of great iron caldrons, called try-pots, in which the blubber is boiled. Adjoining them is a copper cooler; and every possible precaution is adopted to guard against accidents from fire. The number of casks carried by a South-seaman is very great, and the sizes vary up to nearly 350 gallons. The crew generally have abundance of fresh water till the cargo is nearly full; and besides the casks, there are four large iron tanks. Indeed, we have been informed that recently the South-seamen have been entirely fitted with iron tanks for the oil, and carry no more barrels than are requisite for the supply of fresh water, which in some instances is also kept in iron tanks.
On a somewhat similar system to that adopted in the Greenland trade, the officers and crew of South-seamen are paid for their services, not in fixed wages, but in a certain percentage on the cargo – thus stimulating them to obtain as large a freight in as short a period as possible, and insuring the best exertion of their energies for mutual advantage. The lay, or share of the captain, is, on the average, about one-thirteenth of the value of the cargo; and an able seaman gets about the one-hundred-and-sixtieth part for his portion. The entire crew, including master, mates, surgeon, harpooners, &c., amount to from thirty to forty men. A supply of provisions for three years and upward is taken out; and the arrangements now made for the preservation of health are so judicious, that scurvy is of very rare occurrence. South-seamen are remarkably clean ships -– the reverse of the popular notion concerning whalers; within a few hours after the capture of a whale, the vessel and crew exhibit no signs of the temporary disorder the cutting-up necessarily occasions.
A South-seaman usually carries five swift boats, thirty feet in length, built of light materials, and shaped both ends alike, in order that they may with greater readiness be backed from the vicinity of a dangerous whale; they are steered with a long oar, which gives a much greater and more decided command over a boat than a rudder. Five long oars propel each boat, the row-locks in which they play being muffled, in order to approach the destined victim without noise. Sockets in the floor of the boat receive the oars when apeak. As these whale-boats are thin in the timbers, for the sake of buoyancy and speed, they very frequently get shattered by blows from the fins, flukes, and tail of the whale attacked; and consequently their crews would inevitably perish, were it not for a contrivance which we think can not be too generally known to all who go a-boating either on business or pleasure. Life-lines are fixed at the gunwales of the boat; and when an accident causes her to fill, the oars are lashed athwart by aid of these lines, and although
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she may be quite submerged, still she will not sink, but bear up her crew until rescue arrives. We are sure that were this simple expedient known and adopted by merchant seamen and others, many hundreds of lives would be saved every year; for it is rarely that a boat is swamped so rapidly that there is not time to lash the oars athwart her gunwale.
And now, reader, please to step on board the sperm-whaler. We are cruising somewhere in the great Pacific Ocean. Our ship is clean from stem to stern – from try-works to cutting-falls; our boats are hanging ready to be launched at a moment’s notice; keen eyes are sweeping the horizon in every direction, and sharp ears are anxiously listening for the anticipated cry of "There she spouts" – for we are sailing along the edge of a current, and sperm-whales are known to be in the vicinity. It is early morning, with a fine working-breeze; and if you will take your station with us on the cross-trees – or, if that is too lofty an elevation, on the foretop beneath them – we will point out to you the well-known indications of sperm-whales being hereabouts. First of all, you probably glance, with a sort of wondering smile, at the queer-looking machine at the cross-trees overhead. Well, that is the crow’s-nest; but its tenant is not a feathered creature, but a tarry, oily, old Salt, who is the look-out man for the nonce, and whose keen gray eye, even while he refills his cheek with a fresh plug, is fixed with absorbing attention on yonder tract of water, where he seems to expect every instant to see a whale rise and spout. The crow’s-nest, as you perceive, is composed of a framework in the shape of a cask, covered with canvas, and furnished with a bit of seat and other little conveniences, to accommodate the look-out, and, when necessary, shelter him in some measure from the weather, as he frequently has to remain long aloft at a time. We believe, however, that South-seamen do not use, nor require, the crow’s-nest so much as the Greenlandmen.
Now, look around, and mark what vast fields there are of the Sally-man, and of Medusae of all kinds, and observe the numerous fragments of cuttle-fish floating about, remnants of the recent meals of the cachalot; and, above all, see the great smooth tracts of oily water, which show that a party of whales has passed over this portion of the ocean’s surface not very long ago. Ah! you admire the countless flocks of birds hovering close by the ship. Yes, they are in unusual numbers, for they know by instinct that they will soon obtain abundance of food. But for one bird in the air, there are a thousand fish just beneath the surface. See! for hundreds of yards on every side of the ship, the water is literally blackened with albacores. They have attended us for many weeks, and will not be got rid of, unless a strong wind drives the ship along at a very rapid rate. They swim sociably along with us from one cruising-ground to another, and can be captured by hook and line with the greatest ease. They are fine fellows, averaging some four feet in length, and are of excellent quality for the table. Watch them frightening the poor little flying-fish into the air! The latter are soon snapped up by the hovering birds, or are seized and devoured by the voracious albacores, the moment their feeble powers of flight are exhausted, and they drop helpless into the sea again. The albacores, too, have a very terrible enemy in turn – nothing less than the sword-fish, many of which corsairs make a rush, from time to time, through the dense droves of albacores, and transfix them, one or two together, with their long projecting swords, off which the slain albacores are then shaken and devoured by their ruthless enemy. It sometimes happens that the sword-fish misses his aim, and drives his weapon into, and even through a ship’s side, to the great danger of the vessel.
Ha! our old look-out man sees a sign! Now he hails the deck. "There she blows! there she spouts!" What lungs the old fellow has! Hark to what follows. "Where away?" sharply cries the officer on deck. "A school of whales broad off the lee-bow, sir!" "Main-yard aback! &c. Out boats!" "There she blows again! There she flukes!" "How far off!’ "Three miles, sir! There she breaches." "Be lively, men! Lower away!" "All clear, sir! Lower away it is!" "Cast off falls! – unhook! – out oars! – give way, men!"
You will please to bear in mind, worthy companion, that you and we are now seated somewhere in the boat, as it pulls away, "With measured strokes, most beautiful!" and that we shall consequently see whatever takes place. Meanwhile, let us take advantage of the interval which must intervene ere the whale we pursue is within harpoon’s reach, to enlighten you a little about sperm-whales generally. The cachalot or sperm-whale is one of the largest of all the cetacean tribe, not unfrequently attaining the length of 60 feet: there is an authenticated instance of a sperm-whale 76 feet in length, and 38 feet in girth – a leviathan among leviathans! The female cachalot does not attain much more than half the size of the male, and yet gives birth to young ones 14 feet in length, and of proportionate girth. The average yield of oil is about eighty barrels for a full-grown male, and twenty-five for a female. The cachalot is black in color, but is occasionally spotted with white toward the tail. The head is one-third the entire length of the creature, and is of a square form, with a very blunt snout. The body is round, or nearly so, and tapers much toward the tail. The fins are triangular shaped, and very small; but the tail is of immense size, very flexible, and of tremendous power. When the animal strikes it flatly on the water, the report is like that of a small cannon. When used in propulsion, the tail is bent back beneath the body, and then sprung out again; when aiming at a boat or other object, it is bent sharply, and strikes the object by its recoil. The eyes are placed far back in the head, and well protected by integuments. They do not measure more than two inches in length by one in breadth, and have small power of gazing in an
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oblique direction. The tongue is small, and can not be protruded; but the gullet or throat is quite in proportion to the bulk of the animal, so that it could easily swallow a man; and this fact clearly disposes of the skeptical objection to the Scripture narrative of the prophet Jonah. The expansion of a pair of jaws nearly a score of feet in length must be a startling sight! The lower jaw appears slender in comparison with the vast bulk of the upper one.
The greater part of the head of the sperm-whale is composed of soft parts, called junk and case. The junk is oily fat; and the case is a delicate fluid, yielding spermaceti in large proportion. The teeth of the cachalot appear mainly on the lower jaw, projecting about two inches through the gum, and they are solid ivory, but without enamel. The black skin of this whale is destitute of hair, and possesses such a peculiar alkaline property, that seamen use it in lieu of soap. The lard or blubber beneath it varies from four to fourteen inches in thickness, and is perfectly white and inodorous. What whalers term schools are assemblages of female cachalots in large numbers – from twenty to a hundred, together with their young, called calves, and piloted by one or more adult males, called bulls. The females are called cows. As a general rule, full-grown males either head the schools or roam singly; sometimes a number of males assemble in what is called a drove.
And now let us revert to the chase we are engaged in. See! the school has taken the alarm, and is off at the rate of eight miles or more an hour. Is it not a beautiful and exciting spectacle to watch these huge monsters tearing along on the surface of the water, spouting vapor from their spiracles like steam from the valve of a steamboat, and leaving a creamy wake behind them, almost equal to that of a ship. Their movement is easy and majestic, their heads being carried high out of the water, as though they were conscious of being the monarchs of old Ocean. See, again! there is a sperm of the largest size, which has just leaped so as to show its entire bulk in the air – almost like a ship in size. What a crash and whirl of foam as it falls into its native element! But we gain on one fine fellow, which our headsman is steering for. Ay, now we are within fair striking distance, and a harpoon is hurled by the brawny arm of the harpooner in the bows, and pierces deep into the cachalot’s side. A second follows; and the wounded animal gives a convulsive plunge, and then starts off along the surface at astonishing speed, dragging our boat along with it. You observe that the whale-line runs through a groove lined with lead, and is secured round a logger-head. The 200 fathoms of line will soon be all out, for the whale is preparing to sound, or dive deep beneath the surface. There he sounds; and the practiced harpooner has already bent on a second line to the end of the first. Well, he can not possibly remain above an hour beneath the surface, and probably will reappear very soon. Just as we thought; and now we must haul gently alongside, the officer in command standing with his formidable lance poised ready to dart on the first opportunity. That blow is well planted; more succeed, and already the victim is in its last flurry. Our watchful rowers back water, to be beyond reach of a blow from the expiring monster’s tail or flukes. He now spins round, spouting his life-blood, and crimsoning the sea far and near; now he turns over on his side, and the cheers of the men proclaim their easy victory.
While preparations are making to tow the dead cachalot to the ship, permit us to impart a little further information concerning the chase and capture of the sperm-whale. You have beheld a very easy capture; but not unfrequently the cachalot makes a most determined resistance, and with every appearance of being actuated by revenge, as well as by the instinct of self-preservation, attempts to seize and destroy a boat with its jaws. In this it frequently succeeds. At other times, it sweeps its tail rapidly through the air, and suddenly bringing it down on a boat, cuts the latter asunder, and kills some of the crew, or whirls them to a great distance. Occasionally, so far from fleeing from approaching boats, as the Greenland whale almost invariably does, the terrible cachalot will boldly advance to attack them, rushing open-mouthed, and making every effort to crush or stave them. Often will the cachalot turn on its side or back, and project its long lower jaw right over a boat, so that the terrifled crew have to leap overboard, oars in hand. Sometimes it rushes head-on at the boat, splintering it beyond repair, or overturning it with all on board. But what shall we say to a cachalot attacking the ship itself, and actually coming off victor! An enormous cachalot rushed head-on, and twice struck the American sperm-whale ship Essex, so as to stave in the bows, and the ship was lost, the crew barely having time to escape in the boats! We refer the reader who desires to know more of the peculiar habits of the sperm-whale, to the books of Herman Melville, the American sailor-author, and of Mr. Bennett. We may say a few words more, however, on the subject of the dangers incident to the capture of the cachalot. The harpooner, especially, is liable to be entangled in coils of the line as it runs out after a whale is struck, and to be then dragged beneath the surface; and even although the line is severed at the moment by the ax kept in readiness, the man is usually gone. Yet more appalling is the calamity which occasionally befalls an entire crew, when the struck whale is diving perpendicularly. It has happened repeatedly on such an occasion, that the line has whirled round the loggerhead, or other fixture of the beat; and that in the twinkling of an eye, almost ere a prayer or ejaculation could be uttered, the boat, crew, and all, have been dragged down into the depths of ocean! Such, too, is the pressure of the water upon a boat when it descends to a certain depth, that on being drawn to the surface again, it will not float, owing to the fluid being forced into the pores of the planks, not only by
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the mere density of the ocean, but also by the rapid rate at which the whale has dragged it. It has happened many a time, that a boat at a distance from the ship has been seen to disappear suddenly, pulled bodily down by a harpooned whale, not a vestige of boat or crew being ever seen on the surface again! If we regard whaling merely as a manly hunt or chase, quite apart from its commercial aspects, we think it is far more exciting; and requires more nerve and more practiced skill, and calls into exertion more energy, more endurance, more stout-heartedness, than the capture of any other creature – not even excepting the lion, tiger, or elephant.
But let us return to our own captured cachalot. You perceive that the men on board the ship are preparing to receive it. They have placed some short spars outside the vessel to facilitate operations, and have removed a dozen feet of the bulwark in front of the platform to which we before directed attention. The cutting-falls are also all ready, and the ship itself is hove-to. We will anticipate what ensues, and describe it for you. The dead whale floats buoyantly – although in some rare instances it will sink – alongside the ship, where it is well secured, and a stage is slung over the vessel’s side, from which the officers overlook and direct operations, &c. The blubber between the eye and pectoral fin is cut through with the spade, which is a triangular-shaped instrument, as sharp as a razor, attached to a long shaft or handle. A man now gets upon the whale – his boots being spiked to prevent slipping – and fixes the hook of the falls to it. The windlass is then manned, and lifts up the detached blubber, the spades cutting away and the whale slowly turning over at the same time. The strip of blubber thus in course of separation is about four feet in breadth, and is called a blanket-piece. It is cut in a spiral direction, and lowered on deck when it reaches up to the head of the cutting-falls. Fresh hold is then taken, and the operation is continued until the whale is entirely flenshed. If the whale is a small one, the whole of the head is at once cut off, and hoisted bodily on deck; but if a large one, its important parts are separately secured. Finally, the skeleton is cut adrift, to float or sink, as may happen. The entire operation occupies at least ten hours, if the whale is very large.
During this cutting-up affair, the water far and near is red with blood, and great flocks of petrels, albatrosses, &c., hover about to pick up the floating morsels. Swarms of sharks also never fail to attend; and so voracious are these creatures, that the men have to strike at them with their spades, to prevent them from devouring the whale piecemeal, ere its remains are abandoned to fish and fowl as their legitimate prey. Although the whalers generally kill many sharks on such occasions, it is said that if a man slips from the carcass of the whale into the midst of these devourers, they seldom attempt to injure him. Personally, however, we can not say that we should like to put the generosity of Messieurs Sharks to such a test.
The blubber is carefully separated from the bits of flesh which may adhere to it preparatory to boiling, an operation first undergone by the head matter, which is kept distinct from the body matter – the former yielding spermaceti, the latter sperm-oil. The scraps, or refuse matter from the oil, themselves supply the furnace with fuel, burning clearly, and emitting intense heat. This operation is called trying-out, and is only dangerous when proper precaution is not used to prevent water from falling into the boiling oil, or by carelessly throwing in wet blubber; in which cases the caldrons may overflow very suddenly, and every thing be in flames together. From the try-works the oil is conveyed to the coolers, and thence to the casks; and a good-sized whale, in favorable weather, may be cut up and converted into oil, &c., within a couple of days.
The spectacle of trying-out on a dark night is exceedingly impressive. There is the ship, slowly sailing along over the pathless ocean, the furnace roaring and producing lurid flames that illumine the surrounding waves, the men passing busily to and fro, and dense volumes of black smoke continually rising in the air and drifting to leeward. Trying-out in a gloomy midnight has a touch even of sublimity about it; and we can conceive the feelings of awe and terror it would inspire in a spectator beholding the ghastly show for the first time from the deck of another ship. We think it is Herman Melville who compared the crew of a sperm-whaler, on such an occasion, to a party of demons busily engaged in the celebration of some unhallowed rite; nor is this fancy at all outrageous, to our thinking. What a picture might a painter of genius make of the scene!
And now, reader, we hope you do not begrudge the time spent with us aboard a sperm-whaler! But we crave the favor of your company, or rather, in Shakspearian language, we say, "lend us your ear" yet a little longer. Certain announcements appeared recently in the papers concerning improved methods of killing the leviathans of the deep. First in order was a simple and presumably effective plan for projecting the harpoon into the body of the whale. A small cannon or swivel was fixed in the bow of the boat, so as to be capable of being raised or depressed, and to turn on its pivot in any required direction. The harpoon was fired from this gun at the object – with a few fathoms of small chain attached, so that no injury would result to the whale-line itself in the act of firing. This scheme appears to have been well received for its apparent feasibility; but whether it has, on fair practical trial, been found to fall short of what was expected from it, we are unable to state. Its advantages were expected to be the following: The harpoon could be fired from such a distance, that there would not be any necessity of approaching dangerously near the animal at the outset; and the force of its projection would be such, that the harpoon would be certain to be firmly planted, and very probably might penetrate a vital part, and nearly kill the whale at a blow.
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A yet more important and extraordinary innovation is that which was proposed some two years ago, and is now again attracting new attention – being nothing less than whaling by electricity. The electricity is conveyed to the body of the whale from an electro-galvanic battery contained in the boat, by means of a metallic wire attached to the harpoon, and so arranged as to re-conduct the electric current from the whale through the sea to the machine. This machine is stated to be capable of throwing into the body of the whale such strokes of electricity as would paralyze in an instant its muscles, and deprive it of all power of motion, if not actually of life.
Should all we are told about this whaling by electricity be true, a marvelous change will take place in the fishery. The danger of attacking and killing the cachalot will be reduced to its minimum; few or no whales which have once received the fatal galvanic shock will escape; the time consumed in their capture will probably not average the tenth of what it does at present; and the duration of the ship’s voyage will be materially shortened, for there will be no limit to the success of the chase, and the rapidity with which the cargo will be made up, except the time which now, as always, will be absolutely necessary to boil down the blubber. But how long will the supply of cachalots be sufficient, under the new system, to yield remunerative freights! We know that the sperm-whale has already been seriously thinned in some localities, and that a certain time – perhaps much longer than whalers aud naturalists reckon – is necessary for whales to grow to a profitable size. Now, the electric battery, according to our authorities, being so deaJly in its application, we should suppose that when a whaler falls in with a large school of cachalots, and sends out all his boats, each armed with a battery, they will be able to kill perhaps thrice the present maximum number (five), which can be secured at one chase and attack, and in one-fifth of the usual time, If they do this, it matters little whether they can secure all the dead whales for cutting up – the animal is at any rate destroyed, and years must elapse ere another will have grown to take its place in the ocean. To drop this speculation, however, we may at least reasonably conclude, that the capture of sperm-whales will become a matter of more certainty and greater expedition than it is at present; and if the number does not rapidly diminish year by year – although we seriously anticipate that it will – the price of sperm-oil, and the other commercial products of the fishery, may be expected to become materially lower. That this would cause an increased demand for these products, there can be no doubt, for at present the limited supply, and the large quantity of sperm-oil used for lubricating delicate machinery keep up the price.
Let us now conclude with a few words on the commercial products of the cachalot. The most important is the sperm-oil, used for lamps and for lubricating machinery. It is more pure than any other animal oil. Spermaceti is a transparent fluid when first extracted from the whale, hut it becomes concrete when exposed to a cold temperature, or placed in water. It is found in all parts of the whale, but chiefly in the head and the dorsal hump. After being prepared, it is cast in moulds for sale in the shops, and is chiefly used for making candles. Formerly, as Shakspeare tells us, it was considered to possess curative properties –
The sovereign’st thing on earth
Is spermaceti for an inward bruise.
The teeth yield ivory, which always sells at a remunerative price. Lastly, there is the rare and mysterious substance called ambergris – the origin of which was long a problem, which even the learned could not solve. It is now known to be a kind of morbid excrescence produced in the intestines of the cachalot, and in no other species of whale. It is sold as a perfume, fetching five dollars an ounce when pure, and rare in the market even at that price. When found floating on the sea, it has undoubtedly been voided by the cachalot, or has drifted from it when the body became decomposed after death.
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SOURCE.
"Aboard A Sperm Whaler",
Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
Volume 8, Issue 47, April 1854,
pp. 670-674.
Last updated by Tom Tyler, Denver, CO, USA, September 22, 2018.
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