CHAPTER 62
The Dart
A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.
According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boatpushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer astemporary steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pullingthe foremost oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needsa strong, nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish;for often, in what is called a long dart, the heavy implementhas to be flung to the distance of twenty or thirty feet.But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, the harpooneer isexpected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; indeed, he isexpected to set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not onlyby incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations;and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's compass,while all the other muscles are strained and half started--what that is none know but those who have tried it.For one, I cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklesslyat one and the same time. In this straining, bawling state,then, with his back to the fish, all at once the exhaustedharpooneer hears the exciting cry--"Stand up, and give it to him!"He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his centrehalf way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what littlestrength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale.No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that outof fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonderthat so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated;no wonder that some of them actually burst their blood-vesselsin the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are absent fouryears with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship owners,whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that makesthe voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how canyou expect to find it there when most wanted!
Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant,that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneerlikewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardyof themselves and every one else. It is then they change places;and the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes hisproper station in the bows of the boat.
Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all thisis both foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stayin the bows from first to last; he should both dart the harpoonand the lance, and no rowing whatever should be expectedof him, except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman.I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss of speedin the chase; but long experience in various whalemen of morethan one nation has convinced me that in the vast majorityof failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so muchthe speed of the whale as the before described exhaustionof the harpooneer that has caused them.
To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneersof this world must start to their feet from out of idleness,and not from out of toil.