"Sole sitting on the shore of old romance,"
"Sole sitting on the shore of old romance,"
and wondering if there are any larger mammals on this planet.
Its next West Indian congener is the Jamaica rice rat, and there are at least ten species of mice, all clearly distinct from any Old-Worldrodent, though it is barely possible that some of them may have stolen a ride on Spanish trading vessels from Central America.
Water-moles burrow in the banks of several Cuban rivers, and two genera of aquatic mammals have solved the problem of survival: the bayou porpoise and the manatee, both known to the creoles of the early colonial era, and vaguely even to the first discoverers, since Columbus himself alludes to a "sort of mermaids (sirenas) that half rose from the water and scanned the boat's crew with curious eyes."
Naturally the manatee is, indeed, by no means a timid creature, but bitter experience has changed its habits since the time when the down-town sportsmen of Santiago used to start in sailboats for the outer estuary and return before night with a week's supply of manatee meat. The best remaining hunting grounds are the reed shallows of Samana Bay (San Domingo) and the deltas of the Hayti swamp rivers. Old specimens are generally as wary as the Prybilof fur seal that dive out of sight at the first glimpse of a sail; still, their slit-eyed youngsters are taken alive often enough, to be kept as public pets in many town ponds, where they learn to come to a whistle and waddle ashore for a handful of cabbage leaves.
Fish otters have been caught in the lagoons of Puerto Principe (central Cuba) and near Cape Tiburon, on the south coast of San Domingo, the traveler Gerstaecker saw a kind of "bushy-tailed dormouse, too small to be called a squirrel."
But the last four hundred years have enlarged the list of indigenous mammals in more than one sense, and the Chevalier de Saint-Méry should not have been criticised for describing the bush dog of Hayti as a "canis Hispaniolanus." Imported dogs enacted a declaration of independence several centuries before the revolt of the Haytian slaves, and their descendants have become as thoroughly West Indian as the Franks have become French. A continued process of elimination has made the survivors climate-proof and self-supporting, and above all they have ceased to vary; Nature has accepted their modified type as wholly adapted to the exigencies of their present habitat. And if it is true that all runaway animals revert in some degree to the characteristics of their primeval relatives, the ancestor of the domestic dog would appear to have been a bush-tailed, brindle-skinned, and black-muzzled brute, intermittently gregarious, and combining the burrowing propensity of the fox with the co-operative huntingpenchantof the wolf.
Fourteen years of bushwhacker warfare have almost wholly exterminated the half-wild cattle of the Cuban sierras, but the bush dog has come to stay. The yelping of its whelps can be heard in thousands of jungle woods and mountain ravines, both of Cuba and Hayti, and no variety of thoroughbreds will venture to followthese renegades into the penetralia of their strongholds. Sergeant Esterman, who shared the potluck of a Cuban insurgent camp in the capacity of a gunsmith, estimates the wild-dog population of the province of Santiago alone at half a million, and predicts that in years to come their raids will almost preclude the possibility of profitable cattle-breeding in eastern Cuba.
Still, theperro pelon, or "tramp dog," as the creoles call the wolfish cur, is perhaps a lesser evil, where its activity has tended to check the over-increase of another assisted immigrant. Three hundred years ago West Indian sportsmen began to import several breeds of Spanish rabbits, and with results not always foreseen by the agricultural neighbors of the experimenters. Rabbit meat, at first a luxury, soon became an incumbrance of the provision markets, and finally unsalable at any price. Every family with a dog or a trap-setting boy could have rabbit stew for dinner six times a week, and load their peddlers with bundles of rabbit skins.
The burrowing coneys threatened to undermine the agricultural basis of support, when it was learned that the planters of the Fort Isabel district (Hayti) had checked the evil by forcing their dogs to live on raw coney meat. The inexpensiveness of the expedient recommended its general adoption, and the rapidly multiplying quadrupeds soon found that "there were others." The Spanish hounds, too, could astonish the census reporter where their progeny was permitted to survive, and truck farmers ceased to complain.
In stress of circumstances the persecuted rodents then took refuge in the highlands, where they can still be seen scampering about the grassy dells in all directions, and the curs of the coast plain turned their attention tohutiavenison and the eggs of the chaparral pheasant and other gallinaceous birds. On the seacoast they also have learned to catch turtles and subdivide them, regardless of antivivisection laws. How they can get a business opening through the armor of the larger varieties seems a puzzle, but thecanis rutilusof the Sunda Islands overcomes even the dog-resisting ability of the giant tortoise, and in Sumatra the bleaching skeletons of the victims have often been mistaken for the mementos of a savage battle.
Near Bocanso in southeastern Cuba the woods are alive with capuchin monkeys, that seem to have escaped from the wreck of some South American trading vessel and found the climate so congenial that they proceeded to make themselves at home, like the ring-tailed colonists of Fort Sable, in the Florida Everglades. The food supply may not be quite as abundant as in the equatorial birthland of their species, but that disadvantage is probably more than offset by the absence of tree-climbing carnivora.
Millions of runaway hogs roam the coast swamps of all the largerAntilles, and continue to multiply like our American pension claimants. The hunters of those jungle woods, indeed, must often smile to remember the complaint of the early settlers that the pleasure of the chase in the West Indian wilderness was modified by the scarcity of four-footed game, and in the total number (as distinct from the number of species) of wild or half-wild mammals Cuba and Hayti have begun to rival the island of Java.
[To be continued.]
ByM. A. DASTRE.
Iron occurs, in small and almost infinitesimal proportions, in numerous organic structures, in which its presence may usually be detected by the high color it imparts; and in the animal tissues is an important ingredient, though far from being a large one. It is essential, however, that the animal tissues, and particularly the liquids that circulate through them, should be of nearly even weight, else the equilibrium of the body would be too easily disturbed, and disaster arising therefrom would be always imminent. Hence the iron is always found combined and associated with a large accompaniment of other lighter elements which, reducing or neutralizing its superior specific gravity, hold it up and keep it afloat. Thus the molecule of the red matter of the blood contains, for each atom of iron, 712 atoms of carbon, 1,130 of hydrogen, 214 of nitrogen, 245 of oxygen, and 2 of sulphur, or 2,303 atoms in all. Existing in compounds of so complex composition, iron can be present only in very small proportions to the whole. Though an essential element, there is comparatively but little of it. The whole body of man does not contain more than one part in twenty thousand of it. The blood contains only five ten-thousandths; and an organ is rich in it if, like the liver, it contains one and a half ten-thousandths. When, then, we seek to represent to ourselves the changes undergone by organic iron, we shall have to modify materially the ideas we have formed respecting the largeness and the littleness of units of measure and as to the meaning of the words abundant and rare. We must get rid of the notion that a thousandth or even a ten-thousandth is a proportion that may be neglected. The humble ten-thousandth, which is usually supposed not to be of much consequence, becomes here a matter of value. Chemists working with iron in its ordinary compounds may consider that they are doing fairly well if they do not lose sight of more than a thousandth of it; but such looseness would be fatal in a biologicalinvestigation, where accuracy is necessary down to the infinitesimal fraction. The balances of the biologists must weigh the thousandth of a milligramme, as their microscopes measure the thousandth of a millimetre.
The great part performed by iron in organisms, what we may call its biological function, appertains to the chemical property it possesses of favoring combustion, of being an agent for promoting the oxidation of organic matters.
The chemistry of living bodies differs from that of the laboratory in a feature that is peculiar to it—that instead of performing its reactions directly it uses special agents. It employs intermediaries which, while they are not entirely unknown to mineral chemistry, yet rarely intervene in it. If it is desired, for example, to add a molecule of water to starch to form sugar, the chemist would do it by heating the starch with acidulated water. The organism, which is performing this process all the time, or after every meal, does it in a different way, without special heating and without the acid. A soluble ferment, a diastase or enzyme, serves as the oxidizing agent to produce the same result. Looking at the beginning and the end, the two operations are the same. The special agent gives up none of its substance. It withdraws after having accomplished its work, and not a trace of it is left. Here, in the mechanism of the action of these soluble ferments, resides the mystery, still complete, of vital chemistry. It may be conceived that these agents, which leave none of their substance behind their operations, which suffer no loss, do not have to be represented in considerable quantities, however great the need of them may be. They only require time to do their work. The most remarkable characteristic of the soluble ferments lies, in fact, here, in the magnitude of the action as contrasted with infinitesimal proportion of the agent, and the necessity of having time for the accomplishment of the operation.
Iron behaves in precisely the same way in the combustion of organic substances. These substances are incapable at ordinary temperatures of fixing oxygen directly, and will not burn till they are raised to a high temperature; but in the presence of iron they are capable of burning without extreme heat, and undergo slow combustion. And as iron gives up none of its substance in the operation, and acts, as a simple intermediary, only to draw oxygen from the inexhaustible atmosphere and present it to the organic substance, we see that it need not be abundant to perform its office, provided it have time enough. This action resembles that of the soluble ferments in that there is no mystery about it, and its innermost mechanism is perfectly known.
Iron readily combines with oxygen—too readily, we might say,if we regarded only the uses we make of it. It exists as an oxide in Nature; and the metallurgy of it has no other object than to revivify burned iron, remove the oxygen from it, and extract the metal. Of the two oxides of iron, the ferrous, or lower one, is an energetic base, readily combining with even the weakest acids, and forming with them ferrous or protosalts. Ferric oxide, on the other hand, is a feeble base, which combines only slowly with even strong acids to form ferric salts or persalts, and not at all with weak acids like carbonic acid and those of the tissues of living beings. It is these last, more highly oxidized ferric compounds that provide organic substances with the oxygen that consumes them, when, as a result of the operation, they themselves return to the ferrous state.
Facts of this sort are too nearly universal not to have been observed very long ago, but they were not fully understood till about the middle of this century. The chemists of the time—Liebig, Dumas, and especially Schönbein, Wöhler, Stenhouse, and many others—established the fact that ferric oxide provokes at ordinary temperatures a rapid action of combustion on a large number of substances: grass, sawdust, peat, charcoal, humus, arable land, and animal matter. A very common example is the destruction of linen by rust spots; the substance of the fiber is slowly burned up by the oxygen yielded by the oxide. About the same time, Claude Bernard inquired whether the process took place within the tissues, in contact with living matter in the same way as we have just seen it did with dead matter—the remains of organisms that had long since submitted to the action of physical laws—and received an affirmative answer. Injecting a ferric salt into the jugular vein of an animal, he found it excreted, deprived of a part of its oxygen, as a ferrous salt.
This slow combustion of organic matter, living or dead, accomplished in the cold by iron, represents only one of the aspects of its biological function. A counterpart to it is necessary in order to complete the picture. It is easy to perceive that the phenomenon would have no bearing or consequence if it was limited to this first action. With the small provision of oxygen in the iron salt used up, and, if reduced to the minimum of oxidation, the source of oxygen being exhausted, the combustion of organic matter would stop. The oxidation obtained would be insignificant, while the oxidation should be indefinite and unlimited, and it is really so.
There is a counterpart. The iron salt, which has gone back to the minimum of oxidation and become a ferrous salt, can not remain long in that state in contact with the air and with other sources of the gas to which it is exposed. It has always been known that ferrous compounds absorb oxygen from the air and pass into the ferric state; we might say that we have seen it done, for the transformation isaccompanied by a characteristic change of color, by a transition from the pale green tint of ferrous bases to the ochery or red color of ferric compounds.
We can understand now what should happen when the ferruginous compound is placed in contact alternately with organic matter and oxygen. In the former phase the iron will yield oxygen to the organic matter; in the second phase it will take again from the atmosphere the combustible which it has lost, and will be again where it started. The same series of operations may be continued a second time and a third time, and indefinitely, as long as the alternations of contact with organic matter and exposure to atmospheric oxygen are kept up, the iron simply performing the part of a broker. The same result will occur if atmospheric air and organic matter are constantly together; the consumption will continue indefinitely, and the iron will perform the part of an intermediary till one of the elements of the process is exhausted.
This explanation was necessary to make clear the solution of the mystery of slow or cool combustion, the existence of which has been known since Lavoisier, without its mechanism being understood. That illustrious student gave out the theory that animal heat and the energy developed by vital action originated in the chemical reactions of the organism, and that, on the other hand, the reactions that produce heat consisted of simple combustions, slow combustions, that differed only in intensity from that of the burning torch. The development of chemistry has shown that this figure was too much simplified from the reality, and that most of these phenomena, while they are in the end equivalent to a combustion, differ greatly from it in mechanism and mode of execution. By this we do not mean to say that all the combustions are of this character, and that there do not exist in the organism a large number of such as Lavoisier understood, and of such as the combustions effected by the intervention of iron furnish the type of. Lavoisier's successors, Liebig among them, tried to find reactions conformed to this type. Their attempts were unsuccessful, but they had the happy result of revealing, if not the real function of iron in the blood, at least that of the red matter in which it is fixed.
The question of the presence of iron in the coloring matter of the blood gave rise to long discussions. Vauquelin denied it. He made the mistake of looking for iron in the form of a known compound, in direct combination with the blood, while later researches have shown that it is found almost exclusively in the red matter that tinges the globules, in a complicated combination that escapes the ordinary tests; or, according to a usual method of expression, it is dissimulated. Liebig also failed to find this combination, and it wasnot till 1864 that Hoppe-Seyler succeeded in obtaining it pure and crystallized. But Liebig had already perceived its essential properties, and was able to point out approximately its functions as early as 1845; yet the single fact that there was no assimilation possible between this substance and the salts of iron, cut this question off into a kind of negative suspense. Different from these compounds, it could not behave like them, and accomplish slow combustions of the same type. It is a remarkable fact, and one that illustrates well how iron preserves through all its vicissitudes some trace of its fundamental property of favoring the action of oxygen on substances, that this composition, so special and so different from the salts of iron, behaves nearly as they do. While it is not of itself an energetic combustible, it is, according to Liebig's expression, "a transporter of oxygen"—a luminous view, which the future was destined to confirm. Although the transportation is not produced by the mechanism supposed by Liebig, but by another, the general result is very much the same from the point of view of the physiology of the blood. The coloring matter of the blood conveyed by the globules fixes oxygen in contact with the pulmonary air, and distributes it as it passes through the capillaries upon the tissues. The globule of blood brings nothing else and distributes nothing else, contrary to the opinion that had been held before. The theory of slow combustion effected through iron, while not absolutely contradicted in principle, was not entirely confirmed in detail, so far as concerned iron, or the more prominently ferruginous tissue.
No search was made for other tissues or organs presenting more favorable conditions, for no others were known that had iron in themselves. The liver and the spleen were supposed to receive it from the blood under the complicated form in which it exists there, or under some equivalent form. It was not, therefore, supposed till within a very few years that the two conditions were realized in any organ that were required to secure a slow combustion by iron—that is, combinations resembling ferrous and ferric salts with a weak acid and a source of oxygen. The doubt has been resolved by recent studies. The liver fulfils the requirement. It contains iron existing under forms precisely comparable to the ferrous and ferric compounds, and is washed by the blood which carries oxygen in a state of simple solution in its plasma and of loose combination in its globules. Thus all the conditions necessary for the production of slow combustion are gathered here, and we can not doubt that it takes place. A new function is therefore assigned to the liver, and it becomes one of the great furnaces of the organism.
Compounds of iron are so abundant in the ground and the water that we need not be surprised when we find them in various partsof plants, and particularly in the green parts. Their habitual presence does not, however, authorize the conclusion that this metal is necessary to the support and development of vegetable life. Some substances, evidently indifferent, foreign, and even injurious, if they exist abundantly in a soil, may be drawn into roots through the movement of the sap, and fix themselves in various organs. This occurs with copper in certain exceptional circumstances when the soil is saturated with its compounds, and if such a condition should be found to be repeated over a large extent of country, we might be led, by analysis alone of its vegetable productions, to the false conclusion that copper was an essential or even necessary constituent of them. But the value of the part performed by an element can not be determined by analysis alone. Direct proofs are necessary for that, methodical and comparative experiments in cultivation in mediums artificially deprived or furnished with the element the importance of which we wish to estimate. This has been done for combinations of iron, and the utility of that metal, especially to the higher plants, has been made thereby to appear.
If iron is absent from the nutritive medium the plant will wither. If we sprout seeds in a solution from which this metal has been carefully excluded, the development will follow its regular course as long as the plant is in the condition properly called that of germination, or while it does not have to draw anything from the soil. The stem rises and the first leaves are formed as usual. But all these parts will continue pale, and the green matter, the granulation of chlorophyll, will not appear. Now, if we add a small quantity of salt of iron to the ground in which the roots are planted, or a much-diluted solution is sprinkled on the leaves and the stem, the chlorotic plant will recover its health and take on its normal coloration. Experiments of this sort make well manifest that iron is necessary to green plants, and they show, besides, the bearing of its action, and that what is most special and most characteristic in the phenomena of vegetable life may be traced exactly to the organization of that green matter. It was long thought that if iron was necessary for the formation of chlorophyll, it was because it had a part in its constitution. We know now that this is not so. The metal does nothing but accompany the chlorophyll in the granulation in which it is found.
The influence which iron exerts in the development of the lower plants, like the muscidenes, was illustrated with great precision in a study made about thirty years ago by M. Raulin, who experimented with the common mold (Aspergillus niger), to determine the coefficient of importance of all the elements that have a part in its vegetation. When the iron was removed from a medium that had been shown capable of giving a maximum crop of that mold, the plantslanguished, and the return fell off immediately to one third. Estimating the quantity of metal that produces this effect, it was found that the addition of one part of iron was sufficient to determine the production of a weight of plant nearly nine hundred times as great. The suppression of the iron further caused an irreparable loss, for when it was sought to remedy the wilting of the plants by restoring the iron which had been taken from the medium—an experiment which had been successful with higher plants—the attempt was a failure, and the plants could not be prevented from perishing.
These facts are full of interest in themselves, and they further show well the necessity or utility of iron in plant life, but they teach us no more. They reveal nothing of the mechanism of the action, and if we wish to penetrate further in the matter we always have to turn to animal physiology.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.
ByR. CLYDE FORD,
PROFESSOR OF GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, ALBION COLLEGE.
A gentleman who had lived for several years among the Indians of the Canadian northwest said that he went among them believing they were an untutored race. But when they told him of a dozen kinds of berries growing in a locality where he knew but two, brought him flowers he could not find after careful search, and around their council fires showed as deep an insight into the mysteries of life as thesavantsof his university, then he concluded they could no longer be called untutored.
And why should they be? Is there no culture or civilization outside of the enlightenment of Europe or America? And because a civilization does not exactly fit the grooves in which most of the world has moved, may it not be a real civilization for all that? If such is possible, then we vote the Malays a cultured people. Of course, their culture is not like our own; it knows no railroads, no telegraphs, boasts of no intricate political machinery, has no complicated social despotisms. Native princes rule for the most part over peaceful states, and politics means no more than the regulation of quiet village life. But what need of railroads, when the rivers are avenues of trade and communication? Why telegraphs, when the world is bounded by the jungle horizon? Or why, in short, severe civil and social enactments, when the commonWahlspruchof life is, "Fear disgrace rather than death"? Such a civilization, we admit, is a humble one; butit also has the advantage of being a happy one. And where contentment dwells, where honesty prevails, where the home is a stronghold, there are culture and civilization, even though they may not coincide with our own.
The Malays are not barbarians, and their language by its grace and adaptability has shown its right to be. To-day it is the mother tongue of more than forty millions of people, and thelingua francaof Chinamen, Hindus, European, and natives. It is spoken from Madagascar to the distant islands of the Pacific, and from the Philippines to Australia. With it one can barter in Celebes and sell in Java; converse with a sultan in Sumatra or a Spaniard in Manila. Moreover, it is soft and melodious, rich in expression, poetical in idiom, and simple in structure—a language almost without grammar and yet of immense vocabulary, with subtle distinctions and fine gradations of thought and meaning; a language that sounds in one's ears long afterTanah Malayuand the coral islands and the jungle strand have sunk into hazy recollection, just as they once dropped out of sight behind one's departing ship.
Malay is written in the Arabic character, which was adopted with Mohammedanism, probably in the thirteenth century. Anciently, the Malays used a writing of their own, but it is not yet clearly settled what it was. There are now thirty-four characters employed, each varying in form, according as it is isolated, final, medial, or initial. Naturally, the Arabic influence over the language has been a marked one; the priest who dictates in the religion of a people is a molder and shaper of language. We have only to recall the Catholic Church and the influence of the Latin tongue in the mouths of her priests to know that this is so. Many Arabic words and phrases have been adopted, but more in the language of literature than in that of everyday speech. A large number of expressions of court and royalty, and terms of law and religion, are Arabic; also the names of months, days, and many articles of commerce and trade; nevertheless, the language of common speech is still Malay.
Another influence, also, has been felt in the Malay—that of the Sanskrit language. The presence of many Sanskrit words has caused some very ingenious theories to be constructed in proof that the Malays were of Indian origin, and such word fragments the survival of the primitive tongue. Such theories, however, have not stood the test of philology, and the fact still remains that the language is essentially unique, with an origin lost in the darkness of remote antiquity. However, Sanskrit influence has been much greater, and has penetrated much deeper into the elemental structure of the language than the Arabic. In fact, the aboriginal language, before it felt the animating spirit of the Aryan tongue, must have been a barren one, the languageof a primitive man, a fisherman, a hunter, a careless tiller of the soil. As Maxwell says in his Manual of the Malay Language, the Sanskrit wordhala(plow) marks a revolution in Malayan agriculture and, one may say further, Malayan civilization. What changed the methods of cultivating the soil, changed the people themselves. It is probable that this change came through contact with people to whom Sanskrit was a vernacular tongue, but whether through conquest by the sword or by religion is hard to tell. Perhaps it was by both. At any rate, it was deep and strong, and left a lasting impression on the language. Sanskrit names fastened on trees, plants, grain, fruits, household and agricultural implements, parts of the body, articles of commerce, animals, metals and minerals, time and its division and measurement, family relationships, abstract conceptions, warfare, and fundamental ideas of religion and superstition. Such a conquest must have been an early and tremendous one.
Strangely enough, Malay is almost a grammarless tongue. It has no proper article, and its substantives may serve equally well as verbs, being singular or plural, and entirely genderless. However, adjectives and a process of reduplication often indicate number, and gender words are added to nouns to make sex allusions plain. Whatever there is of declension is prepositional as in English, and possessives are formed by putting the adjectives after the noun as in Italian. Nouns are primitive and derivative, the derivations being formed by suffixes or prefixes, or both, and one's mastery of the language may be gauged by the idiomatic way in which he handles theseAnhängsel. Adjectives are uninflected.
The use of the pronouns involves an extensive knowledge of Oriental etiquette—some being used by the natives among one another, some between Europeans and natives, some employed when an inferior addresses a superior andvice versa, some used only when the native addresses his prince or sovereign; and, last of all, some being distinctly literary, and never employed colloquially. Into this maze one must go undaunted, and trust to time and patience to smooth out difficulties.
Verbs, like nouns, are primitive and derivative, with some few auxiliaries and a good many particles which are suffixed or prefixed to indicate various states and conditions. These things are apt to be confusing, and when the student learns that a verb may be past, present, or future without any change in form, he does not know whether to congratulate himself or not. Prepositions, too, are many and expressive; conjunctions, some colloquial, some pedantic.
We now come to a peculiarity which Malay has in common with other Indo-Chinese languages—the "numeral co-efficients," as Maxwell calls them, which are always employed with a certain class ofobjects, just as we say "head" of horses, "sail" of ships, etc. They are very many as compared with English, and very idiomatic in their use. For instance, the Malay says, "Europeans, threepersons," "cats, fourtails," "ships, fivefruits," "cocoanuts, threeseeds," "spears, twostems," "planks, fivepieces," "houses, twoladders," and so on to fifteen or twenty different classes of articles or objects. By some this has been regarded as a peculiarity of the languages of southeastern Asia; but the same thing may be noticed in the Indian languages of our own continent.
As a language Malay is easily learned and has much to repay for so doing. It is full of wonders and surprises—among other things is the natural home of euphemism, where a spade is called anything but a spade. For instance, to die is beautifully expressed in Malay as a return to the mercy of Allah. The language is decidedly rich in poetical expression and imagery. A neighbor is one whom you permit to ascend the ladder of your cottage, and your friend is a sharer of your joys and sorrows. Interest is the flower of money, a spring is an eye of water, the sun the eye of day, and a policeman all eyes. A walk is a stroll to eat the wind, a man drunk is one who rides a green horse, and a coward a duck without spurs. A flatterer is one who has sugar cane on his lips, a sharper is a man of brains, a fool a brain-lacker.
In his proverbs also the Malay shows a matchless use of metaphor and imagery, his words having the softness of the jungle breeze, and at the same time the grimness of the jungle shades. Nowhere does the nature of his race or the peculiar genius of his language show out better than in these terse, pithy sayings which the Malay uses to sweeten his speech or lend effectiveness to it. The real Malay is a creature of the forest or the sea, whence he draws his livelihood, and it is but natural that he should envelop his daily and perhaps dangerous life with homely philosophy. He loves the freedom which he enjoys; take him away from it and he eats his heart out in homesickness. "Though you feed a jungle fowl from a golden plate, it will return to the jungle again." In his humble life he has discovered that blood, be it good or bad, counts for something, and he thinks of the forest lairs; "a kitten and small, but a tiger's cub." He is beset with dangers by sea and land; often he is between the devil and the deep. "One may escape the tiger, and fall into the jaws of the crocodile." He recognizes the inevitable, and draws what consolation he can. "When the prow is wrecked the shark gets his fill"—a very stoical recognition of ill winds. "For fear of the ghost he hugs the corpse," is often the solution of his dilemma. Sometimes he indulges in drollery, but is never unphilosophical. "To love one's children, one must weep for them now and then; to love one's wife,one must leave her now and then." The language is full of such expressions; they are the natural products of the speech of a poetical and Nature-loving folk. Without attempting a classification we give a few of the most characteristic proverbs, drawing largely on a collection made in the Malay Peninsula by W. E. Maxwell, at one time British resident there:
Will the crocodile respect the carcass?Follow your heart, death; follow your feelings, destruction.You find grasshoppers where you find a field.Earth does not become grain.Don't grind pepper for a bird on the wing.The flower comes, age comes.When the father is spotted, the son is spotted.The plant sprouts before it climbs.When he can't wring the ear, he pulls the horn.The creel says the basket is poorly made.Ask from one who has,Make vows at a shrine,Sulk with him who loves you.When the house is done the chisel finds fault.As the crow goes back to his nest (no richer, no poorer).Whoever eats chilies burns his mouth.Because of the mouth the body comes to harm.If you are at the river's mouth at nightfall, what's the use of talking of return?A broken thread may be mended, but charcoal never.The pea forgets its pod.As water rolls from akladileaf.A shipwrecked vessel may float again, a heart once broken is broken forever.It is a project, and the result with God.He carries a torch in daylight.A slave who does well is never praised; if he does badly, never forgiven.It rains gold afar, but stone at home.What if you sit on a cushion of gold with an uneasy mind!When money leaves, your friend goes.If you dip your hand into the fish tub, go to the bottom.Whoever digs a hole falls into it himself.If your legs are long, have your blanket long.Like a frog under a cocoanut shell, he thinks he sees the sky.If you can't get rattan, bind with roots.The plantain does not bear twice.He sits like a cat, but leaps like a tiger.The tortoise lays a thousand eggs and tells no one; the hen lays a single egg and tells all the world.Those will die of thirst who empty the jar when it thunders in a dry time.Handsome as a princess, poisonous as a snake.Small as an ant, wise as a mouse-deer.
Will the crocodile respect the carcass?Follow your heart, death; follow your feelings, destruction.You find grasshoppers where you find a field.Earth does not become grain.Don't grind pepper for a bird on the wing.The flower comes, age comes.When the father is spotted, the son is spotted.The plant sprouts before it climbs.When he can't wring the ear, he pulls the horn.The creel says the basket is poorly made.Ask from one who has,Make vows at a shrine,Sulk with him who loves you.When the house is done the chisel finds fault.As the crow goes back to his nest (no richer, no poorer).Whoever eats chilies burns his mouth.Because of the mouth the body comes to harm.If you are at the river's mouth at nightfall, what's the use of talking of return?A broken thread may be mended, but charcoal never.The pea forgets its pod.As water rolls from akladileaf.A shipwrecked vessel may float again, a heart once broken is broken forever.It is a project, and the result with God.He carries a torch in daylight.A slave who does well is never praised; if he does badly, never forgiven.It rains gold afar, but stone at home.What if you sit on a cushion of gold with an uneasy mind!When money leaves, your friend goes.If you dip your hand into the fish tub, go to the bottom.Whoever digs a hole falls into it himself.If your legs are long, have your blanket long.Like a frog under a cocoanut shell, he thinks he sees the sky.If you can't get rattan, bind with roots.The plantain does not bear twice.He sits like a cat, but leaps like a tiger.The tortoise lays a thousand eggs and tells no one; the hen lays a single egg and tells all the world.Those will die of thirst who empty the jar when it thunders in a dry time.Handsome as a princess, poisonous as a snake.Small as an ant, wise as a mouse-deer.
ByFRANK T. BULLEN.
Cachalots, or sperm whales, must have been captured on the coasts of Europe in a desultory way from a very early date, by the incidental allusions to the prime products spermaceti and ambergris which are found in so many ancient writers. Shakespeare's reference—"The sovereign'st thing on earth was parmaceti for an inward bruise"—will be familiar to most people, as well as Milton's mention of the delicacies at Satan's feast—"Grisamber steamed"—not to carry quotation any further.
But in the year 1690 the brave and hardy fishermen of the northeast coasts of North America established that systematic pursuit of the cachalot which has thriven so wonderfully ever since, although it must be confessed that the last few years have witnessed a serious decline in this great branch of trade.
For many years the American colonists completely engrossed this branch of the whale fishery, contentedly leaving to Great Britain and the continental nations the monopoly of the northern or arctic fisheries, while they cruised the stormy, if milder, seas around their own shores.
As, however, the number of ships engaged increased, it was inevitable that the known grounds should become exhausted, and in 1788, Messrs. Enderby's ship, the Emilia, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale ship Syren opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North Pacific, afterward familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average annual catch of forty thousand barrels of oil was taken, which, at the average price of £8 per barrel, will give some idea of the value of the trade generally.
From the crushing blow of the civil war the American sperm-whale fishery has never fully recovered. When the writer was in the trade, some twenty-two years ago, it was credited with a fleet of between three and four hundred sail; now it may be doubted whether the numbers reach an eighth of that amount. A rigid conservatism of method hinders any revival of the industry, which is practically conducted to-day as it was fifty or even a hundred years ago; and it is probable that another decade will witness the final extinction of what was once one of the most important maritime industries in the world.
In the following pages an attempt has been made—it is believed for the first time—to give an account of the cruise of a South Sea whaler from the seaman's standpoint. Its aim is to present to the general reader a simple account of the methods employed and the dangers met with in a calling about which the great mass of the public knows absolutely nothing.
At the age of eighteen, after a sea experience of six years from the time when I dodged about London streets, a ragged Arab, with wits sharpened by the constant fight for food, I found myself roaming the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
My money was all gone, I was hungry for a ship; and so, when a long, keen-looking man with a goatlike beard, and mouth stained with dry tobacco juice, hailed me one afternoon at the street corner, I answered very promptly, scenting a berth. "Lookin' fer a ship, stranger?" said he. "Yes; do you want a hand?" said I anxiously. He made a funny little sound something like a pony's whinny, then answered: "Wall, I should surmise that I want between fifty and sixty hands, ef yew kin lay me onto 'em; but, kem along, every dreep's a drop, an' yew seem likely enough." With that he turned and led the way until we reached a building, around which was gathered one of the most nondescript crowds I had ever seen. There certainly did not appear to be a sailor among them—not so much by their rig, though that is not a great deal to go by, but by their actions and speech. However, I signed and passed on, engaged to go I knew not where, in some ship I did not know even the name of, in which I was to receive I did not know how much or how little for my labor, nor how long I was going to be away.
From the time we signed the articles, we were never left to ourselves. Truculent-looking men accompanied us to our several boarding houses, paid our debts for us, finally bringing us by boat to a ship lying out in the bay. As we passed under her stern, I read the name Cachalot, of New Bedford; but as soon as we ranged alongside, I realized that I was booked for the sailor's horror—a cruise in a whaler.Badly as I wanted to get to sea, I had not bargained for this, and would have run some risks to get ashore again; but they took no chances, so we were all soon aboard. Before going forward, I took a comprehensive glance around, and saw that I was on board of a vessel belonging to a type which has almost disappeared off the face of the waters. A more perfect contrast to the trim-built English clipper ships that I had been accustomed to I could hardly imagine. She was one of a class characterized by sailors as "built by the mile, and cut off in lengths as you want 'em," bow and stern almost alike, masts standing straight as broomsticks, and bowsprit soaring upward at an angle of about forty-five degrees. She was as old-fashioned in her rig as in her hull. Right in the center of the deck, occupying a space of about ten feet by eight, was a square erection of brickwork, upon which my wondering gaze rested longest, for I had not the slightest idea what it could be. But I was rudely roused from my meditations by the harsh voice of one of the officers, who shouted, "Naow then, git below an' stow yer dunnage, 'n look lively up agin!" Tumbling down the steep ladder, I entered the gloomy den which was to be for so long my home, finding it fairly packed with my shipmates. The whole space was undivided by partition, but I saw at once that black men and white had separated themselves, the blacks taking the port side and the whites the starboard. Finding a vacant bunk by the dim glimmer of the ancient teapot lamp that hung amidships, giving out as much smoke as light, I hurriedly shifted my coat for a "jumper" or blouse, put on an old cap, and climbed into the fresh air again. Evenmyseasoned head was feeling bad with the villainous reek of the place. I had hardly reached the deck when I was confronted by a negro, the biggest I ever saw in my life. He looked me up and down for a moment, then opening his ebony features in a wide smile, he said: "Great snakes! why, here's a sailor man for sure! Guess thet's so, ain't it, Johnny?" I said "yes" very curtly, for I hardly liked his patronizing air; but he snapped me up short with "yes,sir, when yew speak to me, yew blank limejuicer. I'se de fourf mate of dis yar ship, en my name's Mistah Jones, 'n yew jest freeze on to dat ar, ef yew want ter lib long 'n die happy. See, sonny?" Isaw, and answered promptly, "I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't know." "Ob cawse yew didn't know, dat's all right, little Britisher; naow jest skip aloft 'n loose dat fore-taupsle." "Ay, ay, sir," I answered cheerily, springing at once into the fore-rigging and up the ratlines like a monkey, but not too fast to hear him chuckle, "Dat's a smart kiddy, I bet." On deck I could see a crowd at the windlass heaving up anchor. I said to myself, "They don't waste any time getting this packet away." Evidently they were not anxious to test any of the crew's swimming powers. They were wise, for hadshe remained at anchor that night I verily believe some of the poor wretches would have tried to escape.
The anchor came aweigh, the sails were sheeted home, and I returned on deck to find the ship gathering way for the heads, fairly started on her long voyage.
Before nightfall we were fairly out to sea, and the ceremony of dividing the crew into watches was gone through. I found myself in the chief mate's or "port" watch (they called it "larboard," a term I had never heard used before, it having long been obsolete in merchant ships), though the huge negro fourth mate seemed none too well pleased that I was not under his command, his being the starboard watch under the second mate.
I was pounced upon next morning by "Mistah" Jones, the fourth mate, whom I heard addressed familiarly as "Goliath" and "Anak" by his brother officers, and ordered to assist him in rigging the "crow's-nest" at the main royal-mast head. It was a simple affair. There were a pair of cross-trees fitted to the mast, upon which was secured a tiny platform about a foot wide on each side of the mast, while above this foothold a couple of padded hoops like a pair of giant spectacles were secured at a little higher than a man's waist. When all was fast one could creep up on the platform, through the hoop, and, resting his arms upon the latter, stand comfortably and gaze around, no matter how vigorously the old barky plunged and kicked beneath him. From that lofty eerie I had a comprehensive view of the vessel. She was about three hundred and fifty tons and full ship-rigged—that is to say, she carried square sails on all three masts. Her deck was flush fore and aft, the only obstructions being the brick-built "try-works" in the waist, the galley, and cabin skylight right aft by the taffrail. Her bulwarks were set thickly round with clumsy-looking wooden cranes, from which depended five boats. Two more boats were secured bottom up upon a gallows aft, so she seemed to be well supplied in that direction.
The weather being fine, with a steady northeast wind blowing, so that the sails required no attention, work proceeded steadily all the morning. The oars were sorted, examined for flaws, and placed in the boats; the whale line, Manilla rope like yellow silk, an inch and a half round, was brought on deck, stretched, and coiled down with the greatest care into tubs holding, some two hundred fathoms, and others one hundred fathoms each. New harpoons were fitted to poles of rough but heavy wood, without any attempt at neatness but every attention to strength. The shape of these weapons was not, as is generally thought, that of an arrow, but rather like an arrow with one huge barb, the upper part of which curved out from the shaft. The whole of the barb turned on a stout pivot of steel, but was kept in line withthe shaft by a tiny wooden peg which passed through barb and shaft, being then cut off smoothly on both sides. The point of the harpoon had at one side a wedge-shaped edge, ground to razor keenness; the other side was flat. The shaft, about thirty inches long, was of the best malleable iron, so soft that it would tie into a knot and straighten out again without fracture. Three harpoons, or "irons" as they were always called, were placed in each boat, fitted one above the other in the starboard bow, the first for use being always one unused before. Opposite to them in the boat were fitted three lances for the purpose ofkillingwhales, the harpoons being only the means by which the boat was attached to a fish, and quite useless to inflict a fatal wound. These lances were slender spears of malleable iron about four feet long, with oval or heart-shaped points of fine steel about two inches broad, their edges kept keen as a surgeon's lancet. By means of a socket at the other end they were attached to neat handles, or "lance poles," about as long again, the whole weapon being thus about eight feet in length, and furnished with a light line, or "lance warp," for the purpose of drawing it back again when it had been darted at a whale. The other furniture of a boat comprised five oars of varying lengths from sixteen to nine feet, one great steering oar of nineteen feet, a mast and two sails of great area for so small a craft, spritsail shape; two tubs of whale line containing together eighteen hundred feet, a keg of drinking water, and another long, narrow one with a few biscuits, a lantern, candles and matches therein; a bucket and "piggin" for baling, a small spade, a flag or "wheft," a shoulder bomb gun and ammunition, two knives, and two small axes. A rudder hung outside by the stern.
With all this gear, although snugly stowed, a boat looked so loaded that I could not help wondering how six men would be able to work in her; but, like most "deep-water" sailors, I knew very little about boating. I was going to learn.
The reports I had always heard of the laziness prevailing on board whale ships were now abundantly falsified. From dawn to dark work went on without cessation. Everything was rubbed and scrubbed and scoured until no speck or soil could be found; indeed, no gentleman's yacht or man-of-war is kept more spotlessly clean than was the Cachalot.
On the fourth day after leaving port we were all busy as usual except the four men in the "crow's-nests," when a sudden cry of "Porps! porps!" brought everything to a standstill. A large school of porpoises had just joined us, in their usual clownish fashion, rolling and tumbling around the bows as the old barky wallowed along, surrounded by a wide ellipse of snowy foam. All work was instantly suspended, and active preparations made for securing a few of thesefrolicsome fellows. A "block," or pulley, was bung out at the bowsprit end, a whale line passed through it and "bent" (fastened) on to a harpoon. Another line with a running "bowline," or slip noose, was also passed out to the bowsprit end, being held there by one man in readiness. Then one of the harpooners ran out along the back ropes, which keep the jib boom down, taking his stand beneath the bowsprit with the harpoon ready. Presently he raised his iron and followed the track of a rising porpoise with its point until the creature broke water. At the same instant the weapon left his grasp, apparently without any force behind it; but we on deck, holding the line, soon found that our excited hauling lifted a big vibrating body clean out of the smother beneath. "'Vast hauling!" shouted the mate, while, as the porpoise hung dangling, the harpooner slipped the ready bowline over his body, gently closing its grip round the "small" by the broad tail. Then we hauled on the noose line, slacking away the harpoon, and in a minute had our prize on deck. He was dragged away at once and the operation repeated. Again and again we hauled them in, until the fore part of the deck was alive with the kicking, writhing sea pigs, at least twenty of them. 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 incases them being covered by a black substance as thin as tissue paper. The porpoise hide of the bootmaker is really leather, made from the skin of theBeluga, or "white whale," which is found only in the far north. The cover was removed from the "try-works" amidships, revealing two gigantic pots set in a frame of brickwork side by side, capable of holding two hundred gallons each—such a cooking apparatus as might have graced a Brobdingnagian kitchen. Beneath the pots was the very simplest of furnaces, hardly as elaborate as the familiar copper hole sacred to washing day. Square funnels of sheet iron were loosely fitted to the flues, more as a protection against the oil boiling over into the fire than to carry away the smoke, of which from the peculiar nature of the fuel there was very little. At one side of the try-works was a large wooden vessel, or "hopper," to contain the raw blubber; at the other, a copper cistern or cooler of about three hundred gallons capacity, into which the prepared oil was baled to cool off, preliminary to its being poured into the casks. Beneath the furnaces was a space as large as the whole area of the try-works, about a foot deep, which, when the fires were lighted, was filled with water to prevent the deck from burning.
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 whichhad been reserved from the previous voyage. They burned 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.
We were now in the haunts of the sperm whale, or "cachalot," a brilliant lookout 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.
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. 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 I had 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 "blackfish" was reported from aloft, and with great glee the officers prepared for what they considered a rattling day's fun.
The blackfish (Phocæna 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, gamboling 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 girth; 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.
We lowered and left the ship, pulling right toward the school, the noise they were making in their fun effectually preventing them from hearing our approach. It is etiquette to allow the mate's boat first place, unless his crew is so weak as to be unable to hold their own; but as the mate always has first pick of the men this seldom happens. So, as usual, we were first, and soon I heard the order given, "Stand up, Louey, and let 'em have it!" Sure enough, here we were rightamong them. Louis let drive, "fastening" a whopper about twenty feet long. The injured animal plunged madly forward, accompanied by his fellows, while Louis calmly bent another iron to a "short warp," or piece of whale line, the loose end of which he made a bowline with round the main line which was fast to the "fish." Then he fastened another "fish," and the queer sight was seen of these two monsters each trying to flee in opposite directions, while the second one ranged about alarmingly as his "bridle" ran along the main line. Another one was secured in the same way, then the game was indeed great. The school had by this time taken the alarm and cleared out, but the other boats were all fast to fish, so that didn't matter. Now, at the rate our "game" were going, it would evidently be a long while before they died, although, being so much smaller than a whale proper, a harpoon will often kill them at a stroke. Yet they were now so tangled or "snarled erp," as the mate said, that it was no easy matter to lance them without great danger of cutting the line. However, we hauled up as close to them as we dared, and the harpooner got a good blow in, which gave the biggest of the three "Jesse," as he said, though why "Jesse" was a stumper. Anyhow, it killed him promptly, while almost directly after another one saved further trouble by passing in his own checks. But he sank at the same time, drawing the first one down with him, so that we were in considerable danger of having to cut them adrift or be swamped. The "wheft" was waved thrice as an urgent signal to the ship to come to our assistance with all speed, but in the meantime our interest lay in the surviving blackfish keeping alive. Shouldhedie and, as was most probable, sink, we should certainly have to cut and loose the lot, tools included.
We waited in grim silence while the ship came up, so slowly, apparently, that she hardly seemed to move, but really at a good pace of about four knots an hour, which for her was not at all bad. She got alongside of us at last, and we passed up the bight of our line, our fish all safe, very much pleased with ourselves, especially when we found that the other boats had only five between the three of them.
Chain slings were passed around the carcasses, the end of the "fall," or tackle rope, was taken to the windlass, and we hove away cheerily, lifting the monsters right on deck. A mountainous pile they made. After dinner all hands turned to again to "flench" the blubber and prepare for trying out. This was a heavy job, keeping us busy until it was quite dark, the latter part of the work being carried on by the light of a "cresset," the flames of which were fed with "scrap," which blazed brilliantly, throwing a big glare over all the ship. The last of the carcasses was launched overboard by about eight o'clock that evening, but not before some vast junks of beef had been cut off and hung up in the rigging for our food supply.
"Trying out" went on busily all night, and by nightfall of the next day the ship had resumed her normal appearance, and we were a tun and a quarter of oil to the good. Blackfish oil is of medium quality, but I learned that, according to the rule of "roguery in all trades," it was the custom to mix quantities such as we had just obtained with better class whale oil, and thus get a much higher price than it was really worth.
We had now been eight days out, having had nothing, so far, but steady breezes and fine weather. As it was late autumn—the first week in October—I rather wondered at this, for even in my brief experience I had learned to dread a "fall" voyage across the "Western Ocean."
Gradually the face of the sky changed, and the feel of the air, from balmy and genial, became raw and cheerless. The little wave tops broke short off and blew backward, apparently against the wind, while the old vessel had an uneasy, unnatural motion, caused by a long, new swell rolling athwart the existing set of the sea.
We were evidently in for a fair specimen of Western Ocean weather, but the clumsy-looking, old-fashioned Cachalot made no more fuss over it than one of the long-winged sea birds that floated around, intent only upon snapping up any stray scraps that might escape from us. Higher rose the wind, heavier rolled the sea, yet never a drop of water did we ship, nor did anything about the deck betoken what a heavy gale was blowing. During the worst of the weather, and just after the wind had shifted back into the northeast, making an uglier cross sea than ever get up, along comes an immense four-masted iron ship homeward bound. She was staggering under a veritable mountain of canvas, fairly burying her bows in the foam at every forward drive, and actually wetting the clews of the upper topsails in the smothering masses of spray, that every few minutes almost hid her hull from sight.
It was a splendid picture; but—for the time—I felt glad I was not on board of her. In a very few minutes she was out of our ken, followed by the admiration of all. Then came, from the other direction, a huge steamship, taking no more notice of the gale than as if it were calm. Straight through the sea she rushed, dividing the mighty rollers to the heart, and often bestriding three seas at once, the center one spreading its many tons of foaming water fore and aft, so that from every orifice spouted the seething brine. Compared with these greyhounds of the wave, we resembled nothing so much as some old lightship bobbing serenely around, as if part and parcel of the mid-Atlantic.
The gale gradually blew itself out, leaving behind only a long and very heavy swell to denote the deep-reaching disturbance that the ocean had endured. And now we were within the range of the sargassoweed, that mysteriousfucusthat makes the ocean look like some vast hayfield, and keeps the sea from rising, no matter how high the wind. It fell a dead calm, and the harpooners amused themselves by dredging up great masses of the weed, and turning out the many strange creatures abiding therein.
We were all gathered about the fo'lk'sle scuttle one evening, a few days after the gale referred to above, and the question of whale-fishing came up for discussion. Until that time, strange as it may seem, no word of this, the central idea of all our minds, had been mooted. Every man seemed to shun the subject, although we were in daily expectation of being called upon to take an active part in whale-fighting. Once the ice was broken, nearly all had something to say about it, and very nearly as many addle-headed opinions were ventilated as at a Colney Hatch debating society. For we none of usknewanything about it. It was Saturday evening, and while at home people were looking forward to a day's respite from work and care, I felt that the coming day, though never taken much notice of on board, was big with the probabilities of strife such as I at least had at present no idea of—so firmly was I possessed by the prevailing feeling.
The night was very quiet. A gentle breeze was blowing, and the sky was of the usual "trade" character—that is, a dome of dark blue fringed at the horizon with peaceful cumulus clouds, almost motionless. I turned in at 4A. M.from the middle watch and, as usual, slept like a babe. Suddenly I started wide awake, a long, mournful sound sending a thrill to my very heart. As I listened breathlessly, other sounds of the same character but in different tones joined in, human voices monotonously intoning in long-drawn-out expirations the single word "bl-o-o-o-ow." Then came a hurricane of noise overhead, and adjurations in no gentle language to the sleepers to "tumble up lively there, no skulking, sperm whales." At last, then, fulfilling all the presentiments of yesterday, the long-dreaded moment had arrived. Happily, there was no time for hesitation; in less than two minutes we were all on deck, and hurrying to our respective boats. The skipper was in the main crow's-nest with his binoculars. Presently he shouted: "Naow then, Mr. Count, lower away soon's y'like. Small pod o' cows, an' one 'r two bulls layin' off to west'ard of 'em." Down went the boats into the water quietly enough; we all scrambled in and shoved off. A stroke or two of the oars were given to get clear of the ship and one another, then oars were shipped and up went the sails. As I took my allotted place at the main-sheet, and the beautiful craft started off like some big bird, Mr. Count leaned forward, saying impressively to me: "Y'r a smart youngster, an' I've kinder took t'yer; but don't ye look ahead an' get gallied, 'r I'll knock yestiff wi' th' tiller; y'hear me? N' don't ye dare to make thet sheet fast, 'r ye'll die so sudden y' won't know whar y'r hurted." I said as cheerfully as I could, "All right, sir," trying to look unconcerned, telling myself not to be a coward, and all sorts of things; but the cold truth is that I was scared almost to death, because I didn't know what was coming. However, I did the best thing under the circumstances, obeyed orders and looked steadily astern, or up into the bronzed impassive face of my chief, who towered above me, scanning with eagle eyes the sea ahead. The other boats were coming flying along behind us, spreading wider apart as they came, while in the bows of each stood the harpooner with his right hand on his first iron, which lay ready, pointing over the bow in a raised fork of wood called the "crutch."
All of a sudden, at a motion of the chief's hand, the peak of our mainsail was dropped, and the boat swung up into the wind, laying "hove to," almost stationary. The centerboard was lowered to stop her drifting to leeward, although I can not say it made much difference that ever I saw.Now, what's the matter? I thought, when to my amazement the chief addressing me said, "Wonder why we've hauled up, don't ye?" "Yes, sir, I do," said I. "Wall," said he, "the fish hev sounded, an' 'ef we run over 'em, we've seen the last ov 'em. So we wait awhile till they rise agin, 'n then we'll prob'ly git thar' 'r thareabouts before they sound agin." With this explanation I had to be content, although if it be no clearer to my readers than it then was to me, I shall have to explain myself more fully later on. Silently we lay, rocking lazily upon the gentle swell, no other word being spoken by any one. At last Louis, the harpooner, gently breathed "Blo-o-o-w"; and there, sure enough, not half a mile away on the lee beam, was a little bushy cloud of steam apparently rising from the sea. At almost the same time as we kept away all the other boats did likewise, and just then, catching sight of the ship, the reason for this apparently concerted action was explained. At the mainmast head of the ship was a square blue flag, and the ensign at the peak was being dipped. These were signals well understood and promptly acted upon by those in charge of the boats, who were thus guided from a point of view at least one hundred feet above the sea.
"Stand up, Louey," the mate murmured softly. I only just stopped myself in time from turning my head to see why the order was given. Suddenly there was a bump, at the same moment the mate yelled, "Give't to him, Louey, give't to him!" and to me, "Haul that main sheet, naow haul, why don't ye?" I hauled it flat aft, and the boat shot up into the wind, rubbing sides as she did so with what to my troubled sight seemed an enormous mass of black India rubber floating. As wecrawledup into the wind, the whale went into convulsionsbefitting his size and energy. He raised a gigantic tail on high, thrashing the water with deafening blows, rolling at the same time from side to side until the surrounding sea was white with froth. I felt in an agony lest we should be crushed under one of those fearful strokes, for Mr. Count appeared to be oblivious of possible danger, although we seemed to be now drifting back on to the writhing leviathan. In the agitated condition of the sea it was a task of no ordinary difficulty to unship the tall mast, which was of course the first thing to be done. After a desperate struggle, and a narrow escape from falling overboard of one of the men, we got the long "stick," with the sail bundled around it, down and "fleeted" aft, where it was secured by the simple means of sticking the "heel" under the after thwart, two thirds of the mast extending out over the stern. Meanwhile, we had certainly been in a position of the greatest danger, our immunity from damage being unquestionably due to anything but precaution taken to avoid it.
By the time the oars were handled, and the mate had exchanged places with the harpooner, our friend the enemy had "sounded"—that is, he had gone below for a change of scene, marveling, no doubt, what strange thing had befallen him. Agreeably to the accounts which I, like most boys, had read of the whale-fishery, I looked for the rushing of the line round the loggerhead (a stout wooden post built into the boat aft), to raise a cloud of smoke with occasional bursts of flame; so, as it began to slowly surge round the post, I timidly asked the harpooner whether I should throw any water on it. "Wot for?" growled he, as he took a couple more turns with it. Not knowing "what for," and hardly liking to quote my authorities here, I said no more, but waited events. "Hold him up, Louey, hold him up, cain't ye?" shouted the mate, and to my horror, down went the nose of the boat almost under water, while at the mate's order everybody scrambled aft into the elevated stern sheets.
The line sang quite a tune as it was grudgingly allowed to surge round the loggerhead, filling one with admiration at the strength shown by such a small rope. This sort of thing went on for about twenty minutes, in which time we quite emptied the large tub and began on the small one.
Suddenly our boat fell backward from her "slantindicular" position with a jerk, and the mate immediately shouted, "Haul line, there! look lively, now! you—so on, etcetera, etcetera" (he seemed to invent new epithets on every occasion). The line came in hand over hand, and was coiled in a wide heap in the stern sheets, for, silky as it was, it could not be expected in its wet state to lie very close. As it came flying in, the mate kept a close gaze upon the water immediately beneath us, apparently for the first glimpse of our antagonist. Whenthe whale broke water, however, he was some distance off, and apparently as quiet as a lamb. Now, had Mr. Count been a prudent or less ambitious man, our task would doubtless have been an easy one, or comparatively so; but, being a little over-grasping, he got us all into serious trouble. We were hauling up to our whale in order to lance it, and the mate was standing, lance in hand, only waiting to get near enough, when up comes a large whale right alongside of our boat, so close, indeed, that I might have poked my finger in his little eye, if I had chosen. The sight of that whale at liberty, and calmly taking stock of us like that, was too much for the mate. He lifted his lance and hurled it at the visitor, in whose broad flank it sank, like a knife into butter, right up to the pole-hitches. The recipient disappeared like a flash, but before one had time to think, there was an awful crash beneath us, and the mate shot up into the air like a bomb from a mortar. He came down in a sitting posture on the mast thwart; but as he fell, the whole framework of the boat collapsed like a derelict umbrella. Louis quietly chopped the line and severed our connection with the other whale, while in accordance with our instructions we drew each man his oar across the boat and lashed it firmly down with a piece of line spliced to each thwart for the purpose. This simple operation took but a minute, but before it was completed we were all up to our necks in the sea—still in the boat, it is true, and therefore not in such danger of drowning as if we were quite adrift; but, considering that the boat was reduced to a mere bundle of loose planks, I, at any rate, was none too comfortable. Now, had he known it, was the whale's golden opportunity; but he, poor wretch, had had quite enough of our company, and cleared off without any delay, wondering, no doubt, what fortunate accident had rid him of our very unpleasant attentions.
I was assured that we were all as safe as if we were on board the ship, to which I answered nothing; but, like Jack's parrot, I did some powerful thinking. Every little wave that came along swept clean over our heads, sometimes coming so suddenly as to cut a breath in half. If the wind should increase—but no—I wouldn't face the possibility of such a disagreeable thing. I was cool enough now in a double sense, for, although we were in the tropics, we soon got thoroughly chilled.
Help came at last, and we were hauled alongside. Long exposure had weakened us to such an extent that it was necessary to hoist us on board, especially the mate, whose "sudden stop," when he returned to us after his little aërial excursion, had shaken his sturdy frame considerably, a state of body which the subsequent soaking had by no means improved. In my innocence I imagined that we should be commiserated for our misfortunes by Captain Slocum, and certainlybe relieved from further duties until we were a little recovered from the rough treatment we had just undergone. But I never made a greater mistake. The skipper cursed us all (except the mate, whose sole fault the accident undoubtedly was) with a fluency and vigor that was, to put it mildly, discouraging.
A couple of slings were passed around the boat, by means of which she was carefully hoisted on board, a mere dilapidated bundle of sticks and raffle of gear. She was at once removed aft out of the way, the business of cutting in the whale claiming precedence over everything else just then. The preliminary proceedings consisted of rigging the "cutting stage." This was composed of two stout planks a foot wide and ten feet long, the inner ends of which were suspended by strong ropes over the ship's side about four feet from the water, while the outer extremities were upheld by tackles from the main rigging, and a small crane abreast the try-works.
These planks were about thirty feet apart, their two outer ends being connected by a massive plank which was securely bolted to them. A handrail about as high as a man's waist, supported by light iron stanchions, ran the full length of this plank on the side nearest the ship, the whole fabric forming an admirable standing place whence the officers might, standing in comparative comfort, cut and carve at the great mass below to their hearts' content.