The Cruise of the Cachalot [76]
need not worry myself about my inability to be at work, because the old man was not unfavourably disposed towards me, which piece of news gave me a great deal of comfort.
When my poor, weary shipmates came below from their heavy toil of cutting in, they were almost inclined to be envious of my comfort--small blame to them--though I would gladly have taken my place among them again, could I have got rid of my hurts. But I was condemned to lie there for nearly three weeks before I was able to get about once more. In my sleep I would undergo the horrible anticipation of sliding down that awful, cavernous mouth over again, often waking with a shriek and drenched with sweat.
While I lay there, three whales were caught, all small cows, and I was informed that the skipper was getting quite disgusted with the luck. At last I managed to get on deck, quite a different- looking man to when I went below, and feeling about ten years older. I found the same sullen quiet reigning that I had noticed several times before when we were unfortunate. I fancied that the skipper looked more morose and savage than ever, though of me, to my great relief, he took not the slightest notice.
The third day after my return to duty we sighted whales again. We lowered three boats as promptly as usual; but when within about half a mile of the "pod" some slight noise in one of the boats gallied them, and away they went in the wind's eye, it blowing a stiffish breeze at the time, It was from the first evidently a hopeless task to chase them, but we persevered until recalled to the ship, dead beat with fatigue. I was not sorry, for my recent adventure seemed to have made quite a coward of me, so much so that an unpleasant gnawing at the pit of my stomach as we neared them almost made me sick. I earnestly hoped that so inconvenient a feeling would speedily leave me, or I should be but a poor creature in a boat.
In passing, I would like to refer to the wonderful way in which these whales realize at a great distance, if the slightest sound be made, the presence of danger. I do not use the word "hear" because so abnormally small are their organs of hearing, the external opening being quite difficult to find, that I do not believe they can hear at all well. But I firmly believe they possess another sense by means of which they are able to detect any unusual vibration of the waves of either air or sea at a far greater distance than it would be possible for them to hear, Whatever this power may be which they possess, all whalemen are well acquainted with their exercise of it, and always take most elaborate precautions to render their approach to a whale noiseless.
Our extraordinary want of success at last so annoyed the skipper that he determined to quit the ground and go north. The near approach of the open season in those regions probably hastened his decision, but I learned from Goliath that he had always been known as a most fortunate man among the "bowheads," as the great MYSTICETAE of that part of the Arctic seas are called by the Americans. Not that there is any difference, as far as I have been able to ascertain, between them and the "right " whale of the Greenland seas, but from some caprice of nomenclature for which there is no accounting.
So in leisurely fashion we worked north, keeping, of course, a bright look-out all the way for straggling cachalots, but not seeing any. From scraps of information that in some mysterious fashion leaked out, we learned that we were bound to the Okhotsk Sea, it being no part of the skipper's intentions to go prowling around Behrings Sea, where he believed the whales to be few and far between.
It may be imagined that we of the crew were not at all pleased with this intelligence, our life being, we considered, sufficiently miserable without the addition of extreme cold, for we did not realize that in the Arctic regions during summer the cold is by no means unbearable, and our imagination pictured a horrible waste of perpetual ice and snow, in the midst of which we should be compelled to freeze
When my poor, weary shipmates came below from their heavy toil of cutting in, they were almost inclined to be envious of my comfort--small blame to them--though I would gladly have taken my place among them again, could I have got rid of my hurts. But I was condemned to lie there for nearly three weeks before I was able to get about once more. In my sleep I would undergo the horrible anticipation of sliding down that awful, cavernous mouth over again, often waking with a shriek and drenched with sweat.
While I lay there, three whales were caught, all small cows, and I was informed that the skipper was getting quite disgusted with the luck. At last I managed to get on deck, quite a different- looking man to when I went below, and feeling about ten years older. I found the same sullen quiet reigning that I had noticed several times before when we were unfortunate. I fancied that the skipper looked more morose and savage than ever, though of me, to my great relief, he took not the slightest notice.
The third day after my return to duty we sighted whales again. We lowered three boats as promptly as usual; but when within about half a mile of the "pod" some slight noise in one of the boats gallied them, and away they went in the wind's eye, it blowing a stiffish breeze at the time, It was from the first evidently a hopeless task to chase them, but we persevered until recalled to the ship, dead beat with fatigue. I was not sorry, for my recent adventure seemed to have made quite a coward of me, so much so that an unpleasant gnawing at the pit of my stomach as we neared them almost made me sick. I earnestly hoped that so inconvenient a feeling would speedily leave me, or I should be but a poor creature in a boat.
In passing, I would like to refer to the wonderful way in which these whales realize at a great distance, if the slightest sound be made, the presence of danger. I do not use the word "hear" because so abnormally small are their organs of hearing, the external opening being quite difficult to find, that I do not believe they can hear at all well. But I firmly believe they possess another sense by means of which they are able to detect any unusual vibration of the waves of either air or sea at a far greater distance than it would be possible for them to hear, Whatever this power may be which they possess, all whalemen are well acquainted with their exercise of it, and always take most elaborate precautions to render their approach to a whale noiseless.
Our extraordinary want of success at last so annoyed the skipper that he determined to quit the ground and go north. The near approach of the open season in those regions probably hastened his decision, but I learned from Goliath that he had always been known as a most fortunate man among the "bowheads," as the great MYSTICETAE of that part of the Arctic seas are called by the Americans. Not that there is any difference, as far as I have been able to ascertain, between them and the "right " whale of the Greenland seas, but from some caprice of nomenclature for which there is no accounting.
So in leisurely fashion we worked north, keeping, of course, a bright look-out all the way for straggling cachalots, but not seeing any. From scraps of information that in some mysterious fashion leaked out, we learned that we were bound to the Okhotsk Sea, it being no part of the skipper's intentions to go prowling around Behrings Sea, where he believed the whales to be few and far between.
It may be imagined that we of the crew were not at all pleased with this intelligence, our life being, we considered, sufficiently miserable without the addition of extreme cold, for we did not realize that in the Arctic regions during summer the cold is by no means unbearable, and our imagination pictured a horrible waste of perpetual ice and snow, in the midst of which we should be compelled to freeze