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'THAR SHE 'BLOWS'! '
Whaling, A Romantic Calling
If Australia has for many years lived
on sheep's wool, it is no less true that
once 'she depended on whale oil. The
whaleman was the pioneer of settle
ment in Victoria, South Australia, West
ern Australia and New Zealand, and, at
a time when no farmer had gone more
than 50 miles from the coasts, he was
combing the far Pacific. It was com
mon for a ship bringing convicts or
stores to Port Jackson, to go whaling as
soon as she had discharged her freight,
and, in 'eighteen hundred and war
time,' a well-found whaler often took
out letters of marque and went priva
teering, so that Dutch and Spanish
prizes were brought here as part of the
legitimate profit of the voyage.
The square painted ports of a modern
sailing ship are. of course, a reminder
of a time when the whalemen even
more than the merchant Jack must ne
prepared to fight his ship at need.
The life on a whaleship could be
bitterly hard, and was dreaded and de
spised by the merchant seaman, accus
tomed to his regular voyage under bet
ter conditions. The whaleship would
carry provision for two years, and
might be as much as four years at sea.
Her captain usually had a horror of
putting into a civilised port, as he then
risked losing his crew by desertion, and
a whaleman required a special training.
He was the world's best boatman.
Not many men went whaling for love
of the life, that is certain. A few were
attracted by the lure of adventure, of
which at certain hectic moments they
got full measure; but, even in the days
when whales were plentiful (some
say they are plentiful now), a ship
might go for months on end without
seeing a single spout. Whaleships never
lost an opportunity of 'gaming' when
they met and of exchanging news^ —
many months old perhaps — and and odd
books or papers
When their crews got ashore it would
for reasons already mentioned, probably
be at some lonely beach, where .? the
tropic loveliness would hold little at
traction for the rough sailors, though
A
a few hours' freedom, after being herded
for months in a squalid forecastle
witHput sight of land, might do more
to keep - them sane than they them
selves would understand. The only
man who deliberately went whaling a
second time was the one who hoped to
qualify for a command.
As the whaleman was in advance of
the settler, so he preceded the mission
ary, with the result that in many parts
of the Pacific he found it a risky mat
ter to go ashore a second time where
he or his kind had landed once already.
Every soul on board the Globe was
murdered by natives, who were led by
white beachcombers or escaped con
victs. The Syren was attacked while
her boats were away, so that the rem
nant of her crew were driven to take
refuge in the rigging.
Luckily someone remembered that a
packet of tin tacks had been left in
one of the tops, and on these being
judiciously sprinkled about the deck,
the startled natives leapt overboard
with howls of anguish!
Although Sydney and Hobart town
sent out so many good ships and men,
one is driven to admit that, first and
last and by and large, we never
equalled . American success in the
sperm fishery. Perhaps the brutal
methods of the Down East captains
made for efficiency, and certainly they
would flog and knock their men about
without mercy.
Half the trouble with the old-time
sailor came from starving him, and
British ships had no good reputation
in this respect. The Yankee captains
got the last ounce out of their men—
but were permitted by their owners
to feed them better. Readers of whal
ing stories know that a whaleman did
not get wages, but was on a 'lav';
that is, he had a percentage of the pro
fits of the voyage.
A green hand might, in his inno
cence, receive such a long lay that,
after receiving his clothing from the
ship shop's chest at the ship's prices,
and being debited similarly for tobacco,
matches and soap, he might well step
ashore, after a long voyage, little better
off than when he began it.
Nevertheless, the system made ? the
men keen and intolerant of ineffciency
— there was little room for that in ths
sperm fishing. Nor yet was there any
place whatever for the timid. The j
wsmmmmm
sperm whale was struck at a distance
of never more than six. yards, and it
might be a case of 'wood against black
skin',; with the whaleboat almoss
beached upon the whale. If a raw
hand 'pannicked' so badly as to lose
his wits the mate would promptly stun
him. It was safer so.
The accepted rule in getting fast was
to 'beware of a sperm whale's jaw and
a right whale's flukes.' Even so, it :s
on record that three -boats have been
destroyed with one blow of the tail, and
by the tail again, the chief officer
of the Tuscan was swept forty yards
out of his boat and killed instantly.
The sperm, with his eighty tons of
bulk and twenty-foot jaw, was a fight
ing animal.
Louis Becke saw the barquentine
'Handa Isle' put into Sydney in the
early nineties. On her passage from
New Zealand two large sperm whales
were sighted, travelling fast. Suddenly
they altered their course and made
straight for the ship, near which one
of them rounded- The other deliber
ately charged, striking the ship with
fearful force amidships below the water
line. Had it not been packed solid
with a load of timber the vessel must
have foundered instantly. In a few
minutes the water became bloodstained
and the whale appeared, beat the water
feebly with iia tail, and slowly sank
from sight.
Mosman's Bay (Sydney) was a busy
place a long time ago, with perhaps a
little fleet of whaleships waiting their
turn to be hove down. We should not
forget the hard-case, plucky men who
manned them, if only because they
toiled and died under the 'red duster.'
Maybe there was little romance in their
calling when seen too close at hand,
and quite certainly they themselves felt
none.
But the whaleman brought spermaceti
to light the card tables of dainty ladies,
and he traded in sandalwood and
mother-of-pearl. He was a sportsman,
too! hating a bomb gun. Armed only
with three feet of iron he set his
strength and courage against the might
iest creature that breathes; facing a
hundred feet of leaping energy in its
chosen element, with a half-inch be
tween himself and the ocean floor.
Over this strangest of all callings there
surely lingers a haunting appeal, like,
the faint scent of the whalemen's own
ambergris— From the Melbourne . 'Her-
ald.' ' ' ;
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