CHAPTER XXTHE GREAT CACHALOT OR SPERM-WHALE—HOW THE BULLS FIGHT—A BATTLE OF MONSTERS—GIANTS THAT EAT GIANTS—ENORMOUS CUTTLEFISH—THE KRAKEN A REALITY—DISAPPOINTED PROFESSORS.
THE GREAT CACHALOT OR SPERM-WHALE—HOW THE BULLS FIGHT—A BATTLE OF MONSTERS—GIANTS THAT EAT GIANTS—ENORMOUS CUTTLEFISH—THE KRAKEN A REALITY—DISAPPOINTED PROFESSORS.
A slight digression arising out of the subject took me away from the seals, or rather from the cetaceans, or whale tribe, which come next to them in that orderly sequence by which land animals pass, gradually, into water ones. Now, therefore, I will resume the thread. One of the very largest, and, in the sense of our title-page, most romantic of these great creatures is the sperm-whale or cachalot. He may grow to seventy-six feet long, with a girth round the hugest part of him of quite thirty-eight feet. Or say, rather, that he has been known to grow to that size. What he may sometimes grow to who can say? Just as there are, or have been, elephants standing twelve feet from the ground, though, as a rule, this largest of the pachyderms does not attain to much over ten feet, soamongstthe giants of the deep, there are, no doubt, giants too, though, owing to their rarity, the chances are against the look-out man, in the crow’s-nest of a whaling-ship, ever setting eyes on one. Why should not one imagine so, since with much greater facilities for observation, and much more variety, probably,in the subject of it, one might walk about the streets of London all one’s life, without ever seeing a man seven feet high? Yet therearemen seven feet high—yes, and eight feet or nine feet, or at least there have been—and so, perhaps, in the vast ocean solitudes that they inhabit, there may, here and there, be a great bull cachalot of eighty or ninety feet long—perhaps even a hundred feet.
But take him at his more ordinary figure—fifty to seventy feet or so—and what a gigantic monster he is! In appearance, from the point of the nose—where he seems to have been sawn through—to the middle of the back, he is like an enormous black tree-trunk. From here the body tapers, or rather slopes steeply, to the tail, where first a shape is observable—that, namely, with which we are familiar in the tail, or caudal fin, of almost every fish. Unlike the latter, however, the tail or “flukes” of the cachalot—as well as every other whale—lies flat-ways in the water, with its two points shooting out at right angles to the two sides, instead of to the back and belly of the creature. The difference is like that between the way a plank floats on the water, and the way in which the keel of a boat cuts through it. It seems curious that there should be such a difference here between the whale and the fish tribe, seeing that in each the tail has been gradually developed to meet the requirements of a similar mode of life. This being so, one might have supposed that the plan of the tail would have been the same in each, on the principle that one way—as represented by the whole class of fishes—must bebetter than any other. Apparently, however, this is not the case, since cetaceans, on the whole, swim as well and as swiftly as fish. The tail in their case, and not the two hinder limbs, as with seals, has been modified into a fin, and it is curious that in the beaver, where it has also been modified to a considerable extent, in this direction the expansion has likewise been lateral and not vertical. We see the same thing in the case of many crustaceans, and throughout nature this principle of attaining the same end by a variety of means is apparent. This should teach us that it is a great mistake to think, as people often do think, that the particular way in which any animal does a certain thing is the only, or best way, in which it might conceivably be done. Even a man—if a clever one—might think of some improvement in the structure of most animals, in relation to their habits of life. Only he could not carry out these improvements. Nature alone can do that, and in her own time and way she is always ready to do so.
With this great tail of his—for it is in proportion to his own size, and sometimes eighteen feet from point to point—the cachalot, like other whales, can deliver the most tremendous blows, curving it at first, as does the crocodile, away from the object of its animosity, and then causing it to leap back with an impetus in which the natural force of the recoil is increased a hundredfold by the hearty goodwill which the creature, whose strength is enormous, puts into it. These dreadful blows are dealt with great sureness of aim, and, considering the size of the instrument inflicting them, with wonderful rapidity. Beneath theirflail-like vigour and fury the sea foams and spouts, the air is rent by a succession of thundering roars, like the sound of artillery, whilst about the mighty causer of all this vast commotion, the waters heave mountainous, the white waves break, the spray leaps, hisses, and flies till, huge and rock-like as the mass is that forms the centre of the area of disturbance, it is almost lost amidst the turmoil that its own energies have raised. Such scenes may be witnessed when two bull sperm-whales contend for the favours of one or more females, for, in opposition to the general rule prevailing amongst the cetaceans, these huge creatures are polygamous, each full-grown male collecting together a harem, with which he roams the deep, and which is of greater or lesser extent, in proportion either to his prowess as a fighter, or his personal attractions.
It is not with the tail only, however, that these battles are maintained. The cachalot belongs to the toothed order of whales, and his lower jaw, which is extraordinarily thin and slight, in comparison with the upper one and huge snout above it, is furnished with some fifty thick, curved, and bluntly pointed fangs, each one of which fits into a corresponding socket of the upper jaw, which latter, contrary to what one might expect, is toothless. These teeth, in old males, attain a weight of from two to four pounds apiece, and being composed entirely of ivory, form handsome as well as curious objects, upon which sailors are fond of exercising their skill in carving. They are to be seen, sometimes, upon the cottage mantelshelves of retired old salts, or on those belonging to the parents of younger ones, having been brought home to them fromone of their son’s trips. Thus furnished, the jaws of the cachalot are a formidable weapon, even when used against each other, nor does the absence of teeth from the upper one seem much to diminish their effectiveness. For some reason, however, possibly because it is easier, or more effective, to bring the teeth down than to strike them up, the sperm-whale, before he makes a bite, is accustomed to turn on his back, as does a shark, and in this position he has often been known to crush a whaling-boat with, incidentally, a man or two that was in it, between his jaws. With what effect, therefore, they can be used against the softer substance of any denizen of the deep that may have the temerity to attack their owner, may be imagined.
Singly, unless it be the sea-serpent—for whose existence there is a large and ever-increasing body of evidence—there is no fish or aquatic mammal that has the least chance with him, but as a sword-fish and two killers were observed, on one occasion, to unite their efforts for his destruction, it is possible that the principle of combination may be sometimes more largely, and, perhaps, successfully employed. On the occasion in question it was certainly not successful. The sword-fish struck first, aiming for the heart, but, with a quick movement, the whale interposed his head, striking the weapon sideways, and then, rolling over and sinking himself beneath the aggressor, ere the latter had recovered from the shock of the impact, gaped upwards with distended jaws, which, closing like a scissors, on either side of the long, thin body, cut it completely in half. Meanwhile the twokillers had dashed in on either flank, but sweeping suddenly, amidst cataracts of foam, his enormous tail into the air, the mighty cachalot delivered with it a blow that stretched one of them dead on the sea, and then turning like a mountain in the water, pursued the other, now flying for its life. Here against three lesser giants—the sword-fish alone was some sixteen feet long—the issue of the combat was soon decided, but how many mighty strokes must be delivered, how often, yet unavailingly, must the vast jaws open and the huge teeth tear and rend, before one of two well-matched cachalots has defeated the other. Not infrequently, the under jaw of sperm whales that have been harpooned is found wrenched and twisted out of the straight line—sometimes to a remarkable degree. Such injuries can only have been received in fighting, and they are a proof of the fury with which such combats are waged.
Himself a monster, the cachalot feeds on other monsters of the deep, as huge, almost, and still more monstrous-looking than himself. It has long been known that some parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans are inhabited by cuttlefish of a size sufficient to make them at least an annoyance, if not an absolute danger, to man. Captain Cook, in his first voyage, fell in with the floating body of one of these creatures, which, judging from the parts that were brought home and placed in the Hunterian Museum in London, must have attained a length of at least six feet, measuring along the body to the tips of the tentacles. Another, a larger one, was sighted by the French voyager Peron off the coast of Tasmania. Thisis described as rolling over and over in the water, but whether alive or not, is not distinctly stated. It was, however, taken on board, and, on measurement, the arms, or tentacles, alone, were found to be seven feet in length. They were eight in number—the usual complement of the group to which this species belongs, and which is thence calledoctopus—and had the appearance of so many writhing and hideous-looking snakes.
Here, then, were ascertained facts, and if Nature could have been held back by the discreditings and head-shakings of learned professors, who piqued themselves on sobriety of judgment, these ample measurements would have remained the limit of her capacity, as far as cuttlefish were concerned. Here, indeed, in a parrot-beaked, sack-bodied cephalopod, with eight waving tentacles, seven feet long and as many inches in circumference at the base, we had a being—it might even be called a monster—quite capable of seizing, drowning, and even of afterwards devouring the most expert and stalwart of the Polynesian pearl-divers. What more was wanted? Why would people keep on talking about and even seeing cuttlefish of much greater size, by which discoveries professors themselves ran the risk of having, ultimately, to give their sanction to, or even to make, statements which, in spite of all their names and titles could do to make them look sober, would still smack a little of imaginative wildness? However, the thing continued—as, indeed, it had begun long before. Pliny—or was it Aristotle—had started it, by talking of tentacles thirty feet long, and thick in proportion; but Pliny, though a sort of professor himself,had lived so long ago that he need not be treated like one. Later, in the Middle Ages, came rumours of cuttlefishes that flung their vast sucker-armed feelers aloft amidst the rigging of ships, and overwhelmed them in the waves. But this, too, was pre-scientific, and though the accounts of the great kraken of the Norwegian seas belonged to the age in which scientific voyages had been made, and cuttlefish actually measured, yet these were so obviously fabulous that no sober-minded scientist, with a reputation for incredulity to maintain, need trouble himself about them.
It was in 1750 that Pontoppidan, a Danish writer, and for the last seventeen years of his life Bishop of Bergen, in Norway, first gave to the world his account of the kraken and sea-serpent, and it must be admitted that what he says of both of them—but especially of the former—is sufficient to justify many a head-shake, on the part of grave people. The kraken, according to the bishop, has a back which, when it rises from the sea-bottom, provides anyone who may be in the neighbourhood, with a comfortable island of about a mile and a half in circumference. For an island, accordingly, it is often, and very naturally, mistaken. It may be landed upon and walked over with ease and comfort, but has the disadvantage of sinking slowly and leaving one in the water, if anything of a disagreeable nature, such as the lighting of a fire or the digging of a hole, is instituted upon it. Upon provocation, moreover, or when the creature is hungry, a forest of vast, snake-like trees, being its enormous tentacles, rise from and wave over the supposedisland, seizing and overwhelming any vessel that may be within their reach. As it sinks, too, a violent whirlpool is caused, owing to the displacement of the water consequent on the disappearance of so huge a body—in which whirlpool ships are sucked down. The waters, for miles about it, are discoloured with a turbid fluid—the well-known inky discharge of the cuttlefish—and shoals of fishes, that have been attracted by the monster’s musky smell, and have lost their way in the darkness, are received into its vasty maw.
Such was the kraken, and with such an example before one it is no wonder that the learned world continued to fight stubbornly against the admission of tentacles more than seven or eight feet long, and eight inches round at the base. However, they still went on growing, and have become, at last, more authentic, so that there is now little doubt that the cuttlefish, on which the great cachalot habitually feeds, are sometimes of a size sufficient to bear comparison with his own enormous bulk. That they ever equal it—at least in weight—I should certainly hesitate to affirm, but that there are mighty cephalopods, whose eight or ten arms are capable of clasping the huge barrel of a sperm-whale’s body, and must, therefore, be some thirty feet in length, appears to be settled by ocular demonstration. Mr. Bullen, to whose interesting work,The Cruise of the Cachalot, I am indebted for most of this chapter, was once looking over his ship’s side at midnight, when there arose in the midst of that broad and shining pathway which the full moon of the tropics flings down upon the sea, a very large cachalot struggling with and, as itsoon appeared, devouring a squid, or cuttlefish, which Mr. Bullen distinctly says was almost as large as itself. The great arms of this eerie-looking creature were writhed about the whale’s vast head, almost, if not quite, the hugest part of him, and certainly so, when, as was constantly here the case, the jaws were distended. As for the head of the cuttlefish, Mr. Bullen, after a very careful examination of it through the night-glasses—and it must be remembered that there was the whale’s head beside it, to compare it with—came to the conclusion that it was, at least, as large as one of the ship’s pipes, holding 850 gallons, but probably a good deal larger. The eyes alone he estimated as at least a foot in diameter. Huge as was this cuttlefish, it had not the smallest chance in its struggle with the cachalot. True struggle, indeed, as between the two, there was none, for the whale was simply eating the cuttlefish, nor did he experience any difficulty in doing so.
Taking the softness of the cephalopoda into consideration, and comparing it with the hard, solid, block-like body of the whale, it is not easy to imagine that there would ever be a different result to a rencontre between the two. Still, this may be possible. By the mere doctrine of chances, it is very unlikely that the largest specimen of a creature but very seldom seen should represent the greatest size to which it ever attains. Eight great tentacles of, let us say, thirty feet long are, as we have seen, incapable of holding a large bull cachalot powerless in their embrace. But to what length may not those tentacles grow, and would a length of fifty, seventy,or eighty feet be sufficient to do so? Sixteen mighty cables—for arms like these would wind at least twice about their enemy—would make a net from which even the hugest whale might find it difficult to free himself, and even he might at last yield to that paralysing effect which the suckers of the cuttlefish are supposed to have upon their prey. Then, again, there are female cachalots as well as males, and these are but half the size of the latter. Upon them or the young, are the wrongs of the giant octopus ever avenged?
I have speculated, in face of the incident here alluded to, upon the possibility of a cuttlefish’s tentacles sometimes reaching thirty feet in length, but there seems to be better evidence—that of actual contact and measurement—of their sometimes being longer still. Whilst in the death agony the cachalot belches out the contents of his vast stomach, which consist, for the most part, of huge-sized fragments of such great cuttlefishes, which have been bitten off and swallowed whole. Mr. Bullen fished up and examined one of these fragments, which he found to be a piece of an arm about five feet square, having on it six or seven round sucking discs, of the size of saucers, armed on their outer circumference with large sharp hooks resembling a tiger’s claw. On a subsequent occasion, still larger fragments were observed, their size being taken to equal that of the ship’s hatch-house, which was eight feet long, with a breadth and height of six feet. What must have been the length of the entire tentacle, of which such blocks as these were the component parts? Since one of seven feet long measured only seven or eightinches round the base, the calculation is not difficult to make, but I will leave the making of it to someone else. If we suppose, however, that these gobbets represented portions of the expanded ends, only, of two greatly elongated tentacles, which the various species of decapods possess, over and above the other eight, this would make their entire length immense: since such expanded part bears but a small proportion to the tentacle as a whole, and is not much more than twice its narrower circumference.
Look at it in what way we will, the creature that was bitten into such fragments as these, must have been of proportions so vast that the Bishop Pontoppidan himself can hardly have erred more in overstatement, than our grudging scientists have, in under-estimation. Seven feet for an arm or a tentacle! That was enough—we were to be satisfied with that. But no, neither we nor the cachalots are going to be satisfied with short commons. Though professors be virtuous there shall still be cakes and ale in the world. We shall have our monsters—our krakens and sea-serpents—let them bite their thumbs at them as they will. The Prince of Monte Carlo, too, not many years ago, found one for himself, and his naturalist called itLepidotenthis Grimaldii. With a Latin name and a naturalist, there can surely be no more objection.