Chapter LXII: THE DART
A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. According to the
invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes off from the
ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary steersman, and
the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost oar, the one
known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous arm to
strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called a
long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of
twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the
chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the
uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman
activity to the rest, not only by 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 recklessly at one
and the same time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his
back to the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the
exciting cry -- Stand up, and give it to him! He now has to drop and
secure his oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon
from the crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays
to pitch it somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet
of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not
five are successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are
madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst
their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen
are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship
owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that
makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can
you 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 boat-header and harpooneer likewise start to
running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of themselves and every
one else. It is then they change places; and the headsman, the chief
officer of the little craft, takes his proper station in the bows of
the boat. Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is
both foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows
from first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and
no rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under
circumstances obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would
sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase; but long
experience in various whalemen of more than one nation has convinced
me that in the vast majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by
any means been so much the speed of the whale as the before described
exhaustion of the harpooneer that has caused them. To insure the
greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this world must
start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.