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Updated: June 8, 2025
Meanwhile one of the harpooners had brought out a number of knives, with which all hands were soon busy skinning the blubber from the bodies. Porpoises have no skin, that is hide, the blubber or coating of lard which encases them being covered by a black substance as thin as tissue paper.
He instantly ordered the smaller boats to be lowered, and worked through and over the ice to the pools, with harpooners ready to strike any whale which might rise in them. Meantime he armed himself with a harpoon, and ordered others to follow with lances, each with ice-shoes on his feet.
Here I made no long stay; for the day after my arrival, an extraordinary adventure happened, in which I was engaged chiefly by my own rashness. I was a spectator while the harpooners belonging to the whale fishery were exercising themselves in darting their harpoons, most of whom were drunk.
At the words, "We therefore commit his body to the deep," I paused, and, the mate making a sign, two of the harpooners tilted the hatch, from which the remains slid off into the unknown depths with a dull splash. Several of the dead man's compatriots covered their faces, and murmured prayers for the repose of his soul, while the tears trickled through their horny fingers.
We all sat down to our breakfast, and as soon as old Tom had finished, his son called for the history of Sam Bowles. "Well, now you shall have it. Sam Bowles was a shipmate of mine on board of the Greenlandman; he was one of our best harpooners, and a good, quiet, honest messmate as ever slung a hammock.
This of itself one would have thought sufficient torture for almost any offence, but in addition to it he received two dozen lashes with an improvised cat-o'-nine-tails, laid on by the brawny arm of one of the harpooners. We were all compelled to witness this, and our feelings may be imagined. He was then released in leisurely fashion, and we were permitted to take him forward and revive him.
Keep him nailed Quick! all hands to the rigging of the boats collect the oars harpooners! the irons, the irons! hoist the royals higher a pull on all the sheets! helm there! steady, steady for your life! I'll ten-times girdle the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay him yet!"
"Yon puir beastie kens mair, ay, an' sees mair nor you nor me!" was the comment of one of the leading harpooners, and the others nodded their acquiescence. It is vain to attempt to argue against such puerile superstition. They have made up their minds that there is a curse upon the ship, and nothing will ever persuade them to the contrary.
When I found Patrick Cairns among the harpooners, my research was nearing its end. I argued that the man was probably in London, and that he would desire to leave the country for a time. I therefore spent some days in the East End, devised an Arctic expedition, put forth tempting terms for harpooners who would serve under Captain Basil and behold the result!" "Wonderful!" cried Hopkins.
Even the three junior mates who had headed the whaleboats were gone: and of the four harpooners, only one was left, a wild New Zealander, or "Mowree" as his countrymen are more commonly called in the Pacific. But this was not all.
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