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Updated: June 8, 2025
It was my comrade in my student days, it has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part of my humble kit when I went a-whaling in the Arctic. Honest Scotch harpooners have addled their brains over it, and you may still see the grease stains where the second engineer grappled with Frederick the Great.
"Well, when I came to examine the box I found there was no money in it, and nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell. I had lost my hold on Black Peter and was stranded in London without a shilling. There was only my trade left. I saw these advertisements about harpooners, and high wages, so I went to the shipping agents, and they sent me here.
Then every one of the culprits was stripped, and secured to the lash-rail by the wrists; scourges were made of cotton fish-line, knotted at intervals, and secured to a stout handle; the harpooners were told off as executioners, and the flogging began.
It is true that only icebergs of small dimensions were found there; they were already worn by collisions, eaten away by the warm waters, and the greater number of them were going to melt in the Pacific or the Atlantic. Under the command of Captain Hull, a good seaman, and also one of the most skilful harpooners of the flotilla, was a crew composed of five sailors and a novice.
But supposing the whale to be oblivious of its approach, the boat comes as near as seems safe, and the harpooner, poised in the bow, his knee against the bracket that steadies him, lets fly his weapon; and, hit or miss, follows it up at once with a second bent onto the same line. Some harpooners were of such strength and skill that they could hurl their irons as far as four or five fathoms.
There was here to be found no jealousy of the Maories being officers and harpooners, no black looks or discontented murmuring; all hands seemed particularly well satisfied with their lot in all its bearings; so that, although the old tub was malodorous enough to turn even a pretty strong stomach, it was a pleasure to visit her cheerful crowd for the sake of their enlivening society.
The highly skilled hands, such as the boat-steerers and harpooners, had a lay of only one seventy-fifth, or perhaps a little more than two hundred dollars cash as the reward of a voyage which netted the owner at least fifty per cent on his investment. Occasionally they fared better than this and sometimes worse.
Altogether, such a panorama was spread out at our feet, as we stood gazing from the lofty crow's-nest, as was worth a year or two of city life to witness. I could not help pitying my companion, one of the Portuguese harpooners, who stolidly munched his quid with no eyes for any of these glorious pictures, no thought of anything but a possible whale in sight.
Skilled harpooners, linesmen and boat-steerers, on their return from a whaling cruise, could obtain from any Collector of Customs, for sufficient bond put in, a protection from the impress which no Admiralty regulation, however sweeping, could invalidate or override.
Our oars dipped noiselessly; the crews were silent; the harpooners stood, each in the bow of his launch, with naked weapons extended, waiting to strike. The first opportunity occurred to the launch on our extreme right. At the distance of twenty yards the executioner hurled his javelin full into the back of the great bull; a roar ensued and a frightful leap.
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