adventurous of their own populations.

Hardly had the long-drawn clarion of the look-out's _B--l--o--w!_
sounded aloft than the boats were lowered from the davits and began
pulling away towards the likeliest spot for a rise. Two barbed
harpoons, always known as 'irons,' were carried on the same line,
always called the 'warp.' It both could be used, so much the better,
especially as they were some distance apart on the warp, the bight of
which formed a considerable drag in the water. Other drags, usually
called 'drugs,' were bits of wood made fast thwart-wise on the warp, so
as to increase the pull on a sounding whale. The coiling and
management of the warp was of the utmost importance. Many a man has
gone to Davy Jones with a strangling loop of rope around him.
Everything, of course, had to be made shipshape in advance, as there
was no time for finishing touches once the cry of _B--l--o--w!_ was
{167} raised. And if there was haste at all times, what was there not
when fleets of whalers under different flags were together in the same
waters?

The approach, often made by changing the oars for silent paddles; the
strike; the flying whale; the snaking, streaking, zipping line; the
furious tow, with the boat almost leaping from crest to crest; the long
haul in on the gradually slackening warp; the lancing and the dying
flurry, were all exciting enough by themselves. And when a whale
showed fight, charged home, and smashed a boat to splinters, it took a
smart crew to escape and get rescued in time. A Greenland whale once
took fifteen harpoons, drew out six miles of line, and carried down a
boat with all hands drowned before it was killed. Old sperms that had
once escaped without being badly hurt were always ready to fight again.
One fighting whale took down the bow oarsman in its mouth, drowned the
next two, and sent the rest flying with a single snap of its jaws.
Another fought nine hours, took five harpoons and seven bombs, smashed
up three boats, and sank dead--a total loss. A third, after smashing a
boat, charged the ship and stove her side so badly that she sank within
five minutes.

{168}

Yet accidents like these only spurred the whalemen on to greater
efforts, not of mere bravado, but of daring skill. Perhaps the most
wonderful regular feat of all was 'spading,' which meant slewing the
boat close in, as the whale was about to sound, and cutting the tendons
of its tremendous death-dealing tail by a sl