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Updated: June 16, 2025
The whale was heading in the direction of the ship, and when we came up to the scene of action the second mate had just "touched the life"; in other words, he had driven the lance deep down into the whale's vitals. This was quickly known by jets of blood being spouted up through the blowholes. Soon after, our victim went into its dying agonies, or, as whalemen say, "his flurry ".
Whales seldom stay more than an hour under water, and when they come up to breathe, they discharge the last breath they took through their nostrils or blowholes, mixed with large quantities of water which they have taken in while feeding. But the most remarkable point of difference between the whale and fishes of all kinds is, that it suckles its young.
BLOWHOLES AND SEA ARCHES. As a sea cave is drilled back into the rock, it may encounter a joint or crevice opened to the surface by percolating water. The shock of the waves soon enlarges this to a blowhole, which one may find on the breezy upland, perhaps a hundred yards and more back from the cliff's edge.
Unfortunately no surface water can be obtained. The formation is limestone, in which are found "blowholes" that is to say, circular holes two to four feet in diameter, which go down vertically to a depth never yet ascertained. They derive their name from the curious booming noise which they emit, probably caused by the wind.
So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.
"If I were on board a whaler, there's an encounter that would be great fun! That's one big animal! Look how high its blowholes are spouting all that air and steam! Damnation! Why am I chained to this hunk of sheet iron!" "Why, Ned!" I replied. "You still aren't over your old fishing urges?" "How could a whale fisherman forget his old trade, sir? Who could ever get tired of such exciting hunting?"
Instantly realizing that he was free the great creature, which was about ninety feet long, darted away, swimming on the surface of the water, for he needed to get all the air possible. Quickly acquiring momentum, the whale came on like a locomotive, spouting at intervals, the vapor from the blowholes looking not unlike steam from some submarine boat.
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