CHAPTER VII
A JAPANESE WHALE HUNT
After spending a delightful month at Oshima, where three fine whale skeletons were secured, I returned to Shimonoseki to send them to New York, and then traveled northward to Aikawa, three hundred miles from Tokyo. Aikawa is a typical little fishing village, situated at the end of a beautiful bay which sometimes harbors as many as fourteen whale ships from the four neighboring stations.
In the early spring finbacks and an occasional blue whale are taken there, but in June and July sei and sperm whales arrive in great numbers. The sei whale (the iwashi kujira, or sardine whale of the Japanese) is an exceedingly interesting species which, to the scientific world, had been unknown in the Pacific Ocean until my visit, although it had formed the basis of the Japanese summer fishery for twelve or fifteen years. My first hunt for sei whales resulted in a very exciting experience and one which in modern whaling is comparatively rare.
A series of violent storms which kept the ships inside had been raging along the coast, but at last the clouds began to break one evening and gather into great fleecy mountains of white, now and then drifting away enough to show the moon behind. The bad weather had apparently ended and at ten o’clock I went aboard the Hogei Maru No. 5 as the guest of Captain Y. E. Andersen.
The whaling station at Aikawa, North Japan. “Aikawa is a typical little fishing village, situated at the end of a beautiful bay which sometimes harbors as many as fourteen whale ships from the four neighboring stations.”
A streak of brilliant sunshine playing across my face from the skylight awakened me at five o’clock in the morning. The ship was rolling along in a moderate swell, but the patch of sky which shone through the open square above my head was as blue as the waters of a tropic sea. Captain Andersen was still asleep, and I had just decided to dress and go on deck when the cabin boy ran hurriedly down the companionway and called “Kujira” (whale). In five minutes we were both on deck, and upon reaching the bridge I said to the man at the wheel, “Kore wa nani desu ka?” (What kind is it?)
A sei whale on the slip at Aikawa. This species is allied to the finback but is smaller.
He replied in Japanese: “I don’t know yet; sperm, I think.”
The spout of a sei whale. The column of vapor shoots straight upward and is lower and less dense than that of the finback.
I was tremendously excited at this for I wished above all things to get at close quarters with a school of sperm whales, which, off this coast, often numbers several hundred individuals. I strained my eyes through a powerful field glass, sweeping the sea ahead to catch sight of a spout which would tell the story. Suddenly it came, about a mile ahead, and we both exclaimed, “Iwashi kujira!” (Sardine whale!) for the column of vapor shooting straight upward and drifting slowly off on the wind was strikingly different from the puff-like blow of the sperm.
We were running at full speed toward the animal, which was spouting every ten or fifteen seconds. Andersen was forward superintending the loading of the gun and inspecting the harpoon rope which lay coiled on the heavy iron pan at the bow.
“He ... would sometimes swim just under the surface with only the tip of the dorsal fin exposed.”
“He’s a good whale,” the Gunner called out to me, and by that he meant that we would soon get a shot because the animal was spouting so frequently. He was never down longer than five minutes, and would sometimes swim just under the surface with only the tip of the dorsal fin exposed. At other times his course could be followed by patches of smooth, green water which spread out in a broad trail behind him.
The gun had hardly been loaded before we were close to the whale, with the engines at dead slow, waiting for him to come up. I had taken out one of the lenses of my camera but decided that the light was not yet strong enough for the use of the single combination since the shutter would have to be operated at a high speed. Sitting down upon a tool box near the rail, I began hurriedly to replace the back lens and was just screwing it into position when “who-o-o” came the spout, not five fathoms from the stern of the ship.
We all jumped as though a bomb had been exploded beside us and I nearly dropped the camera in my excitement. Somehow I managed to get the lens readjusted without accident, and stood ready with my arm around a rope just behind the gun platform. Before the ship swung about the whale had spouted two or three times and gone down. We hardly breathed while waiting and my nerves were so on edge that I almost released the shutter of the camera when the silence was broken by the voice of the Bo’s’n from the “top” singing out, “He’s coming, he’s coming!”
“I can’t see him!” shouted the Gunner.
“There, there, on the port bow!” came the answer from aloft.
With a rush the great animal burst to the surface, and I caught a glimpse of the spout in the mirror of my camera as it shot up in a white cloud, glittering in the sunlight.
“Will he shoot?” I thought. “No, no, it is too far,” and I pressed the button of the camera as the broad back came into view.
Almost with the sound of the shutter, and before I had lifted my eyes from the focusing hood, I was deafened by the roar of the gun and enveloped in a great cloud of white smoke. It was impossible to see, but the line could be heard singing over the roller at the bow and, as the smoke blew away, I caught sight of the high back-fin of the whale cutting the water like a knife.
“I pressed the button of the camera as the broad back came into view.”
“Bur-r-r, whip!” went the heavy rope and in a few seconds a hundred fathoms had gone out. Never had I seen a whale run as that one did. The Engineer at the winch was just visible through the haze of smoke which streamed from the brake, and the smell of powder and burning wood hung thick in the air.
The sei whale. From a drawing by J. Henry Blake under the direction of the author.
Suddenly with a swish, up from the hold, fast to the rope, came a wad of brown fishing net that had become entangled in the coil below. I jumped to one side just in time to miss it as it swept by and to see it pass safely over the roller at the bow. It was a narrow escape, for if it had jammed, the line would surely have snapped and the whale been lost.
“The winch was then started and the whale drawn slowly toward the ship.”
The burst of speed was soon ended and the whale sounded for ten minutes, giving us all a chance to breathe and wonder what had happened. When the animal came up again, far ahead, the spout was high and full, with no trace of blood, so we knew that he would need a second harpoon to finish him. I was delighted, for I had long wished for a chance to get a roll of motion-picture film showing the killing of a whale, and now the conditions were ideal—good light, little wind, and no sea.
I ran below to get the cinematograph and tripod and set it on the bridge while the gun was being loaded. The winch was then started and the whale drawn slowly toward the ship. He persisted in keeping in the sunlight, which drew a path of glittering, dancing points of light, beautiful to see but fatal to pictures. I shouted to Captain Andersen, asking him to wait a bit and let the whale go down, hoping it would rise in the other direction. He did so and the animal swung around, coming up just as I wished, so that the sun was almost behind us. It was now near enough to begin work and I kept the crank of the machine steadily revolving whenever it rose to spout. The whale was drawn in close under the bow and for several minutes lay straining and heaving, trying to free himself from the biting iron.
“Stand by! I’m going to shoot now,” sang out the Gunner, and in a moment he was hidden from sight in a thick black cloud.
The beautiful gray body was lying quietly at the surface when the smoke drifted away, but in a few seconds the whale righted himself with a convulsive heave. The poor animal was not yet dead, though the harpoon had gone entirely through him. Captain Andersen called for one of the long slender lances which were triced up to the ship’s rigging, and after a few more turns of the winch had brought the whale right under the bows, he began jabbing the steel into its side, throwing his whole weight on the lance. The whale was pretty “sick” and did not last long, and before the roll of motion-picture film had been exhausted it sank straight down, the last feeble blow leaving a train of round white bubbles on the surface.
A sei whale at Aikawa, Japan. This species is about forty-eight feet long and is allied to the finback and blue whales.
Andersen and I went below for breakfast and by the time we were on deck again the whale had been inflated and was floating easily beside the ship. When we had reached the bridge the Gunner said:
“I don’t want to go in yet with this one; we’ll cruise about until twelve o’clock and see if we can’t find another. I am going up in the top and then we’ll be sure not to miss any.”
I stretched out upon a seat on the port side of the bridge and lazily watched the water boil and foam ver the dead whale as we steamed along at full speed. Captain Andersen was singing softly to himself, apparently perfectly happy in his lofty seat. So we went about for two hours and I was almost asleep when Andersen called down:
“There’s a whale dead ahead. He spouted six times.”
“‘There’s a whale dead ahead. He spouted six times.’”
“The click of the camera and the crash of the gun sounding at almost the same instant.” The harpoon, rope, wads, smoke, sparks and the back of the whale are shown in the photograph.
I was wide awake at that and had the camera open and ready for pictures by the time we were near enough to see the animal—a sei whale—blow. He was spouting constantly and this argued well, for we were sure to get a shot if he continued to stay at the surface. The Bo’s’n made a flag ready so that the carcass alongside could be let go and marked. Apparently this was not going to be necessary, for there was plenty of food and the whale was lazily wallowing about, rolling first on one side and then on the other, sometimes throwing his fin in the air and playfully slapping the water, sending it upward in geyser-like jets.
“Half speed!” shouted the Gunner; then, “Slow!” and “Dead slow!”
The little vessel slipped silently along, the propellers hardly moving and the nerves of every man on board as tense as the strings of a violin. In four seconds the whale was up, not ten fathoms away on the port bow, the click of the camera and the crash of the gun sounding at almost the same instant. The harpoon struck the animal in the side, just back of the fin, and he went down without a struggle, for the bursting bomb had torn its way into the great heart.
By eleven o’clock it was alongside and slowly filling with air while the ship was churning her way toward the station. Andersen went below for a couple of hours’ sleep in the afternoon, and I dozed on the bridge in the sunshine. We were just off Kinka-San at half-past six, and by seven were blowing the whistle at the entrance to the bay.
Three other ships, the San Hogei, Ne Taihei, and Akebono, were already inside but had no whales. Later Captain Olsen, of the Rekkusu Maru, brought in a sei whale, but this was the only other ship that had killed during the day. About eleven o’clock, just as I came from the station house after developing the plates, and started to go out to the ship, the Fukushima and Airondo Maru stole quietly into the bay and dropped anchor. They, too, had been unsuccessful, and, we learned later, had not even seen a whale.
Before we turned in for the night Captain Andersen said to me:
“We were just off Kinka-san at half-past six, and by seven were blowing the whistle at the entrance to the bay.”
“We’ll go sou’-sou’ west tomorrow; that’s a whale cruise. But I’m afraid there is going to be a big sea on, for the wind has shifted and we always get heavy weather when it’s blowing offshore.”
The news was not very encouraging, for although I have spent many days on whaling ships I have never learned to appreciate perfectly the charm of the deep when the little cork-like vessels are tossing and throwing themselves about as though possessed of an evil spirit. Each time, I make a solemn vow that if ever I am fortunate enough once more to get on solid ground my days of whaling will be ended.