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Updated: May 21, 2025
"Now, lads," said the captain, who steered the boat in which I rowed, "bend your backs, my hearties; that fish right ahead of us is a hundred-barrel whale for certain. Give way, boys; we must have that fish."
The last is not only more active than the larger animal, but is much more disposed to make fight, commonly giving his captors the greatest trouble. This may be one of the reasons why Roswell Gardiner now found himself towing at a reasonable rate, so close upon the flukes of a hundred-barrel whale. Still, there was that in the movements of this animal, that induced our hero to be exceedingly wary.
Of course if we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten acres and get a royalty of $400 a day for a few years, it would help out nicely, but the oil business is uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote Percy "the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which her children must always draw their nourishment."
At all events, it was esteemed a bold, as well as a prosperous exploit, for a little schooner like the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, to take a hundred-barrel whale, and to send home its "ile," as the deacon always pronounced the word, in common with most others in old Suffolk.
"It's a fine beginning, governor a most capital start; and, though the young 'uns can't do much at taking a whale, or securing the ile, just now, they'll come on in their turns, and be useful when we're in dock as hulks sir." "Talking of oil, you must be getting rich, Captain Betts. I hear you got in another hundred-barrel gentleman last week!"
But, no one there now thought of the risk he ran, it being the Vineyard against Oyster Pond, one Sea Lion against the other, and, in many instances, pocket against pocket. Roswell, as if disdaining all meaner game, pulled quite through the herd, and laid the bows of his boat directly on the side of the old bull a hundred-barrel whale, at the very least.
"Now, lads," said the captain, who steered the boat in which I rowed, "bend your backs, my hearties; that fish right ahead of us is a hundred-barrel whale for certain. Give way, boys; we must have that fish."
It was full of drifts, bare spots, and oukhabas, and our motion was as varied as a politician's career. Sometimes it was up, then down, then sidewise, and then all ways at once. We pitched and rolled like a canoe descending the Lachine rapids, or a whale-boat towed by a hundred-barrel "bow-head."
He took this opportunity to explain to me that by a "hundred-barrel fish" is meant a fish that will yield a hundred-barrels of oil. He further informed me that such a fish was a big one, though he had seen a few in the North-west Seas that had produced upwards of two hundred-barrels. I now observed that the other boats had separated, and each had gone after a different whale.
He took this opportunity to explain to me that by a "hundred-barrel fish" is meant a fish that will yield a hundred barrels of oil. He further informed me that such a fish was a big one, though he had seen a few in the North-West Seas that had produced upwards of two hundred barrels. I now observed that the other boats had separated, and each had gone after a different whale.
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