第8章 FISHING BEGINS(2)

It may be imagined that the blubber from our twenty porpoises made but a poor show in one of the pots; nevertheless, we got a barrel of very excellent oil from them.The fires were fed with "scrap," or pieces of blubber from which the oil had been boiled, some of which had been reserved from the previous voyage.They burnt with a fierce and steady blaze, leaving but a trace of ash.

I was then informed by one of the harpooners that no other fuel was ever used for boiling blubber at any time, there being always amply sufficient for the purpose.

The most interesting part of the whole business, though, to us poor half-starved wretches, was the plentiful supply of fresh meat.Porpoise beef is, when decently cooked, fairly good eating to a landsman; judge, then, what it must have been to us.Of course the tit-bits, such as the liver, kidneys, brains, etc., could not possibly fall to our lot; but we did not complain, we were too thankful to get something eatable, and enough of it.

Moreover, although few sailors in English ships know it, porpoise beef improves vastly by keeping, getting tenderer every day the longer it hangs, until at last it becomes as tasty a viand as one could wish to dine upon.It was a good job for us that this was the case, for while the porpoises lasted the "harness casks," or salt beef receptacles, were kept locked; so if any man had felt unable to eat porpoise--well, there was no compulsion, he could go hungry.

We were now in the haunts of the Sperm Whale, or "Cachalot," a brilliant look-out being continually kept for any signs of their appearing.One officer and a foremast hand were continually on watch during the day in the main crow's-nest, one harpooner and a seaman in the fore one.A bounty of ten pounds of tobacco was offered to whoever should first report a whale, should it be secured, consequently there were no sleepy eyes up there.Of course none of those who were inexperienced stood much chance against the eagle-eyed Portuguese; but all tried their best, in the hope of perhaps winning some little favour from their hard taskmasters.Every evening at sunset it was "all hands shorten sail," the constant drill rapidly teaching even these clumsy landsmen how to find their way aloft, and do something else besides hold on to anything like grim death when they got there.

At last, one beautiful day, the boats were lowered and manned, and away went the greenies on their first practical lesson in the business of the voyage.As before noticed, there were two greenies in each boat, they being so arranged that whenever one of them "caught a crab," which of course was about every other stroke, his failure made little difference to the boat's progress.They learned very fast under the terrible imprecations and storm of blows from the iron-fisted and iron-hearted officers, so that before the day was out the skipper was satisfied of our ability to deal With a "fish" should he be lucky enough to "raise" one.I was, in virtue of my experience, placed at the after-oar in the mate's boat, where it was my duty to attend to the "main sheet" when the sail was set, where also Ihad the benefit of the lightest oar except the small one used by the harpooner in the bow.

The very next day after our first exhaustive boat drill, a school of "Black Fish" was reported from aloft, with great glee the officers prepared for what they considered a rattling day's fun.

The Black Fish (PHOCAENA SP.) is a small toothed whale, not at all unlike a miniature cachalot, except that its head is rounded at the front, while its jaw is not long and straight, but bowed.

It is as frolicsome as the porpoise, gambolling about in schools of from twenty to fifty or more, as if really delighted to be alive.Its average size is from ten to twenty feet long, and seven or eight feet in grirth, weight from one to three tons.

Blubber about three inches thick, while the head is almost all oil, so that a good rich specimen will make between one and two barrels of oil of medium quality.

The school we were now in sight of was of middling size and about average weight of individuals, and the officers esteemed it a fortunate circumstance that we should happen across them as a sort of preliminary to our tackling the monarchs of the deep.