The boy travellers in the Far East : adventures of two youths ... - Library

62
THE BOY TRAVELLERS.
and the third was picked np near Valparaiso with everybody dead but
two, and tliose barely alive. Provisions and water had given out, and
another day would have finished the poor fellows. Another ship was the
Union, which was stove right under the bows by a single blow from a
sperm-whale, and went down in half an hour.
" I was fifteen years old when I pulled my first oar in a whale-boat
I was boat-steerer at eigliteen, and second mate at twenty, and before
I was twenty-one I had known what it was to be in the mouth of a
sperm-whale. It is hardly necessary to say that I got out of it as fast
as I could, and didn't stop to see if my hair was combed and my shirt-
collar buttoned. A man has no time to put on frills under such circum-
stances.
" The way of it was this. The lookout in the cross-trees—we always
keep a man up aloft to look out for whales when we're on cruising
ground—the man had called out, ' There she blows !' and everybody was
mPLEME.NTS USED IN WIIALINO.
on his feet in an instant.
" ' Where away V shouted the first
mate.
" ' Two points on the weather bow.'
" And before the words had done
echoing he called out ' There she blows '
again, and a moment after again. That
meant that he had seen two more whales.
" We put two boats into the water,
the first mate's and mine, and away we
went. We pulled our best, and the boats
fairly bounced through the waves. It was
a race to see who could strike the first
whale ; we had a good half mile to go,
and we went like race-horses.
"Each boat has six men in her—
boat-steerer, as he is called, and five at
the oars. The boat-steerer handles the
harpoon and lance and directs the whole
movement ; in fact, for the time- he is
captain of the boat.
" The first mate's boat headed me a
little, and made for a big fellow on the
starboard. I went for another, and we
struck almost at the same instant. With-
a
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