ALONE IN THE CARIBBEAN
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by Frederic Fenger
Item -- I order that my executors
purchase a large stone, the best that they can find,
and place it upon my grave, and that they write round
the edge of it these words : -- "Here lies the
honorable Chevalier Diego Mendez, who rendered great
services to the royal crown of Spain, in the discovery
and conquest of the Indies, in company with the
discoverer of them, the Admiral Don Christopher
Columbus, of glorious memory, and afterwards rendered
other great services by himself, with his own ships,
and at his own cost. He died. . . . He asks of your
charity a Paternoster and an Ave Maria."
Item -- In the middle of the said stone let
there be the representation of a canoe, which is a
hollowed tree, such as the Indians use for
navigation ; for in such a vessel did I cross
three hundred leagues of sea ; and let them
engrave above it this word : "CANOA."
From the will of Diego
Mendez,
drawn up June 19th, 1536.
CHAPTER I
THE "YAKABOO" IS BORN AND THE CRUISE BEGINS
"Crab pas mache, il pas gras ; il mache
trop, et il tombe dans chodier."
"If a crab don't walk, he don't get fat ;
If he walk too much, he gets in a pot."
-- From the Creole.
IS IT in the nature of all of us, or is it just my own
peculiar make-up which brings, when the wind blows, that
queer feeling, mingled longing and dread? A thousand
invisible fingers seem to be pulling me, trying to draw
me away from the four walls where I have every comfort,
into the open where I shall have to use my wits and my
strength to fool the sea in its treacherous moods, to
take advantage of fair winds and to fight when I am
fairly caught -- for a man is a fool to think he can
conquer nature. It had been a long time since I had felt
the weatherglow on my face, a feeling akin to the numb
forehead in the first touch of inebriety. The lure was
coming back to me. It was the lure of islands and my
thoughts had gone back to a certain room in school where
as a boy I used to muse over a huge relief map of the
bottom of the North Atlantic. No doubt my time had been
better spent on the recitation that was going on.
One learns little of the geography of the earth from a
school book. I found no mention of the vast Atlantic
shelf, that extended for hundreds of miles to seaward of
Hatteras, where the sperm whale comes to feed in the
spring and summer and where, even while I was sitting
there looking at that plaster cast, terrific gales might
be screaming through the rigging of New Bedford whalers,
hove-to and wallowing -- laden with fresh water or grease
according to the luck or the skill of the skipper. Nor
was there scarcely any mention of the Lesser Antilles, a
chain of volcanic peaks strung out like the notched back
of a dinosaur, from the corner of South America to the
greater islands that were still Spanish. Yet it was on
these peaks that my thoughts clung like dead grass on the
teeth of a rake and would not become disengaged.
Now, instead of looking at the relief map, I was
poring over a chart of those same islands and reading off
their names from Grenada to tiny Saba. At my elbow was a
New Bedford whaler who had cruised over that Atlantic
shelf at the very time I was contemplating it as a boy.
And many years before that he had been shipwrecked far
below, on the coast of Brazil. The crew had shipped home
from the nearest port, but the love of adventure was
strong upon the captain, his father,* who decided to
build a boat from the wreckage of his vessel and sail in
it with his wife and two sons to New York. With mahogany
planks sawed by the natives they constructed a large sea
canoe. For fastenings they used copper nails drawn from
the wreck of their ship's yawl, headed over burrs made
from the copper pennies of Brazil. Canvas, gear, clothes,
and food they had in plenty and on the thirteenth of May
in 1888, it being a fine day, they put to sea. The son
traced their course with his finger as they had sailed
northward in the strong trade winds and passed under the
lee of the Lesser Antilles. Later as a whaler, he had
come to know the islands more intimately. "Here !" said
he, pointing to the Grenadines, "you will find the
niggers chasing humpback whales." On Saint Vincent I
should find the Carib living in his own way at Sandy Bay.
Another island had known Josephine, the wife of Napoleon,
and another had given us our own Alexander Hamilton. And
there were many more things which I should come to know
when I my self should cruise along the Lesser Antilles.
We talked it over. After the manner of the Carib, I would
sail from island to island alone in a canoe. Next to the
joy of making a cruise is that of the planning and still
greater to me was the joy of creating the Yakaboo which
should carry me. I should explain that this is an
expression use by Ellice Islanders** when they throw
something overboard and it means "Good-bye."
"Good-bye to civilization for a while," I thought, but
later there were times when I feared the name might have
a more sinister meaning.
* Captain Joshua Slocum,
who sailed around
the world alone in the sloop Spray.
** In the Pacific Ocean just north of the Fiji
group.
So my craft was named before I put her down on paper.
She must be large enough to hold me and my outfit and yet
light enough so that alone I could drag her up any
uninhabited beach where I might land. Most important of
all, she must be seaworthy in the real sense of the word,
for between the islands I should be at sea with no lee
for fifteen hundred miles. I got all this in a length of
seventeen feet and a width of thirty-nine inches. From a
plan of two dimensions on paper she grew to a form of
three dimensions in a little shop in Boothbay and later,
as you shall hear, exhibited a fourth dimension as she
gyrated in the seas off Kick 'em Jinny. The finished hull
weighed less than her skipper -- one hundred and
forty-seven pounds.
From a study of the pilot chart, I found that a
prevailing northeast trade wind blows for nine months in
the year throughout the Lesser Antilles. According to the
"square rigger," this trade blows "fresh," which means
half a gale to the harbor-hunting yachtsman. Instead of
sailing down the wind from the north, I decided to avoid
the anxiety of following seas and to beat into the wind
from the lowest island which is Grenada, just north of
Trinidad.
My first plan was to ship on a whaler bound on a long
voyage. From Barbados, where she would touch to pick up
crew, I would sail the ninety miles to leeward to
Grenada. A wise Providence saw to it that there was no
whaler bound on a long voyage for months. I did find a
British trading steamer bound out of New York for
Grenada. She had no passenger license, but it was my only
chance, and I signed on as A.B.
We left New York on one of those brilliant days of
January when the keen northwest wind has swept the haze
from the atmosphere leaving the air clear as crystal. It
was cold but I stood with a bravado air on the grating
over the engine room hatch from which the warm air from
the boilers rose through my clothes. Below me on the dock
and fast receding beyond yelling distance stood a friend
who had come to bid me goodbye. By his side was a large
leather bag containing the heavy winter clothing I had
sloughed only a few minutes before. The warmth of my body
would still be in them, I thought, as the warmth clings
to a hearth of a winter's evening for a time after the
fire has gone out. In a day we should be in the Gulf
Stream and then for half a year I should wear just enough
to protect me from the sun. Suddenly the tremble of the
steamer told me of an engine turning up more revolutions
and of a churning propeller. The dock was no longer
receding, we were leaving it behind. The mad scramble of
the last days in New York ; the hasty breakfast of
that morning ; the antique musty-smelling cab with
its pitifully ambling horse, uncurried and furry in the
frosty air, driven by a whisky-smelling jehu ; the
catching of the ferry by a narrow margin, were of a past
left far behind. Far out in the channel, that last
tentacle of civilization, the pilot, bade us "good luck"
and then he also became of the Past. The Present was the
vibrating tramp beneath my feet and the Future lay on our
course to the South.
On the top of the cargo in the forehold was the crated
hull of the Yakaboo, the pretty little "mahogany coffin,"
as they named her, that was going to carry me through
five hundred miles of the most delightful deep sea
sailing one can imagine. I did not know that the Pilot
Book makes little mention of the "tricks of the trades"
as they strike the Caribbean, and that instead of
climbing up and sliding down the backs of Atlantic
rollers with an occasional smother of foam on top to
match the fleecy summer clouds, I would be pounded and
battered in short channel seas and that for only thirty
of the five hundred miles would my decks be clear of
water. It is the bliss of ignorance that tempts the fool,
but it is he who sees the wonders of the earth.
The next day we entered the Gulf Stream where we were
chased by a Northeaster which lifted the short trader
along with a wondrous corkscrew motion that troubled no
one but the real passengers -- a load of Missouri mules
doomed to end their lives hauling pitch in Trinidad.
On the eighth day, at noon, we spoke the lonely island
of Sombrero with its lighthouse and black keepers whose
only company is the passing steamer. The man at the wheel
ported his helm a spoke and we steamed between Saba and
Statia to lose sight of land for another day -- my first
in the Caribbean. The warm trade wind, the skittering of
flying fish chased by tuna or the swift dorade, and the
rigging of awnings proclaimed that we were now well
within the tropics. The next morning I awoke with the
uneasy feeling that all motion had ceased and that we
were now lying in smooth water. I stepped on deck in my
pajamas to feel for the first time the soft pressure of
the tepid morning breeze of the islands.
We lay under the lee of a high island whose green mass
rose, surf-fringed, from the deep blue of the Caribbean
to the deep blue of the morning sky with its white clouds
forever coming up from behind the mountains and sailing
away to the westward. Off our port bow the grey buildings
of a coast town spread out along the shores and crept up
the sides of a hill like lichen on a rock. From the
sonorous bell in a church tower came seven deep notes
which spread out over the waters like a benediction.
There was no sign of a jetty or landing place, not even
the usual small shipping or even a steamer buoy, and I
was wondering in a sleepy way where we should land when a
polite English voice broke in, "We are justly proud of
the beautiful harbor which you are to see for the first
time I take it. "
I fetched up like a startled rabbit to behold a "West
Indie" gentleman standing behind me, "starched from clew
to earing" as Captain Slocum put it, and speaking a
better English than you or I. It was the harbormaster. I
was now sufficiently awake to recall from my chart that
the harbor of St. George's is almost landlocked. As we
stood and talked, the clanking windlass lifted our
stockless anchor with its load of white coral sand and
the steamer slowly headed for
shore.
![](artfengler/faf_grenada_harbor.jpg)
Carénage of St. George's
Grenada
The land under a rusty old fort seemed to melt away
before our bows and we slipped through into the
carénage of St. George's. We crept in till we
filled the basin like a toy ship in a miniature harbor.
From the bridge I was looking down upon a bit of the old
world in strange contrast, as my memory swung back across
two thousand miles of Atlantic, to the uncouth towns of
our north. The houses, with their jalousied windows, some
of them white but more often washed with a subdued orange
or yellow, were of the French régime, their
weathered red tile roofs in pleasing contrast to the
strong green of the surrounding hills.
Here in the old days, ships came to be careened in
order to rid their bottoms of the dread teredo. Under our
forefoot, in the innermost corner of the harbor, pirate
ships were wont to lie, completely hidden from the view
of the open sea. At one time this was a hornets nest,
unmolested by the bravest, for who would run into such a
cul-de-sac protected as it was by the forts and batteries
on the hills above?
Moored stern-to along the quays, was a fleet of small
trading sloops, shabby in rig and crude of build, waiting
for cargoes from our hold. Crawling slowly across the
harbor under the swinging impulse of long sweeps, was a
drogher piled high with bags of cocoa, a huge-bodied bug
with feeble legs.
![](artfengler/faf_grenada_quay.jpg)
Moored stern-to along the quays was a
fleet of small trading sloops, shabby in rig and crude
of build.
Along the mole on the opposite side of the
carénage straggled an assortment of small wooden
shacks, one and two-storied, scarcely larger than play
houses. Among these my eyes came to rest on something
which was at once familiar. There stood a small cotton
ginnery with shingled roof and open sides, an exact
counterpart of a corncrib. I did not then know that in
this shed I should spend most of my days while in St.
George's.
The blast of our deep-throated whistle stirred the
town into activity as a careless kick swarms an anthill
with life, and the busy day of the quay began as we were
slowly warped-in to our dock.
A last breakfast with the Captain and Mate and I was
ashore with my trunk and gear. The Yakaboo, a mere toy in
the clutch of the cargo boom, was yanked swiftly out of
the hold and lightly placed on the quay where she was
picked up and carried into the customhouse by a horde of
yelling blacks. Knowing no man, I stood there for a
moment feeling that I had suddenly been dropped into a
different world. But it was only a different world
because I did not know it and as for knowing no man -- I
soon found that I had become a member of a community of
colonial Englishmen who received me with open arms and
put to shame any hospitality I had hitherto experienced.
As the nature of my visit became known, I was given all
possible aid in preparing for my voyage. A place to tune
up the Yakaboo? A young doctor who owned the little
ginnery on the far side of the carénage gave me
the key and told me to use it as long as I
wished.
![](artfengler/faf_grenada_market.jpg)
The market place of St. George's
Grenada.
I now found that the cruise I had planned was not
altogether an easy one. According to the pilot chart for
the North Atlantic, by the little blue wind-rose in the
region of the lower Antilles, or Windward Islands as they
are called, I should find the trade blowing from east to
northeast with a force of four, which according to
Beaufort's scale means a moderate breeze of twenty-three
miles an hour. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I
found that the wind seldom blew less than twenty miles an
hour and very often blew a whole gale of sixty-five miles
an hour. Moreover, at this season of the year, I found
that the "trade" would be inclined to the northward and
that my course through the Grenadines -- the first
seventy miles of my cruise -- would be directly into the
wind's eye.
I had been counting on that magical figure (30) in the
circle of the wind-rose, which means that for every
thirty hours out of a hundred one may here expect "calms,
light airs, and variables." Not only this, but, I was
informed that I should encounter a westerly tide current
which at times ran as high as six knots an hour. To be
sure, this tide current would change every six hours to
an easterly set which, though it would be in my favor,
would kick up a sea that would shake the wind out of my
sails and almost bring my canoe to a standstill.
Nor was this all. The sea was full of sharks and I was
told that if the seas did not get me the sharks would.
Seven inches of freeboard is a small obstacle to a
fifteen-foot shark. Had the argument stopped with these
three I would at this point gladly have presented my
canoe to His Excellency the Governor, so that he might
plant it on his front lawn and grow geraniums in the
cockpit. Three is an evil number if it is against you but
a fourth argument came along and the magic triad was
broken. If seas, currents, and sharks did not get me, I
would be overcome by the heat and be fever-stricken.
I slept but lightly that first night on shore. Instead
of being lulled to sleep by the squalls which blew down
from the mountains, I would find myself leaning far out
over the edge of the bed trying to keep from being
capsized by an impending comber. Finally my imagination
having reached the climax of its fiendish trend, I
reasoned calmly to myself. If I would sail from island to
island after the manner of the Carib, why not seek out
the native and learn the truth from him ? The next
morning I found my man, with the blood of the Yaribai
tribe of Africa in him, who knew the winds, currents,
sharks, the heat, and the fever. He brought to me the
only Carib on the island, a boy of sixteen who had fled
to Grenada after the eruption in Saint Vincent had
destroyed his home and family.
From these two I learned the secret of the winds which
depend on the phases of the moon. They told me to set
sail on the slack of the lee tide and cover my distance
before the next lee tide ran strong. They pointed out the
fever beaches I should avoid and told me not to bathe
during the day, nor to uncover my head -- even to wipe my
brow. I must never drink my water cold and always put a
little rum in it -- and a hundred other things which I
did not forget. As for the "shyark" -- "You no troble
him, he no bodder you." "Troble" was used in the sense of
tempt and I should therefore never throw food scraps
overboard or troll a line astern. I also learned -- this
from an Englishman who had served in India -- that if I
wore a red cloth, under my shirt, covering my spine, the
actinic rays of the sun would be stopped and I should not
be bothered by the heat.
It was with a lighter heart, then, that I set about to
rig my canoe -- she was yet to be baptized -- and to lick
my outfit into shape for the long cruise to the
northward. I could not have wished for a better place
than the cool ginnery which the doctor had put at my
disposal. Here with my Man Friday, I worked through the
heat of the day -- we might have been out of doors for
the soft winds from the hills filtered through the open
sides, bringing with them the dank odor of the moist
earth under shaded cocoa groves. Crowded about the
wide-open doors like a flock of strange sea fowl, a group
of black boatmen made innumerable comments in their
bubbling patois, while their eyes were on my face in
continual scrutiny.
And now, while I stop in the middle of the hot
afternoon to eat delicious sponge cakes and drink
numerous glasses of sorrel that have mysteriously found
their way from a little hut near by, it might not be
amiss to contemplate the Yakaboo through the sketchy haze
of a pipeful of tobacco. She did not look her length of
seventeen feet and with her overhangs would scarcely be
taken for a boat meant for serious cruising. Upon close
examination, however, she showed a powerful midship
section that was deceiving and when the natives lifted
her off the horses -- "O Lard! she light!" -- wherein lay
the secret of her ability. Her heaviest construction was
in the middle third which embodied fully half of her
total weight. With her crew and the heavier part of the
outfit stowed in this middle third she was surprisingly
quick in a seaway. With a breaking sea coming head on,
her bow would ride the foamy crest while her stern would
drop into the hollow behind, offering little resistance
to the rising bow.
She had no rudder, the steering being done entirely by
the handling of the main sheet. By a novel construction
of the centerboard and the well in which the board rolled
forward and aft on sets of sheaves, I could place the
center of lateral resistance of the canoe's underbody
exactly below the center of effort of the sails with the
result that on a given course she would sail herself.
Small deviations such as those caused by waves throwing
her bow to leeward or sudden puffs that tended to make
her luff were compensated for by easing off or trimming
in the mainsheet. In the absence of the rudder-plane aft,
which at times is a considerable drag to a swinging
stern, this type of canoe eats her way to windward in
every squall, executing a "pilot's luff" without loss of
headway, and in puffy weather will actually fetch
slightly to windward of her course, having more than
overcome her drift.
She was no new or untried freak for I had already
cruised more than a thousand miles in her predecessor,
the only difference being that the newer boat was nine
inches greater in beam. On account of the increased beam
it was necessary to use oars instead of the customary
double paddle. I made her wider in order to have a
stiffer boat and thus lessen the bodily fatigue in
sailing the long channel runs.
She was divided into three compartments of nearly
equal length -- the forward hold, the cockpit, and the
afterhold. The two end compartments were accessible
through watertight hatches within easy reach of the
cockpit. The volume of the cockpit was diminished by one
half by means of a watertight floor raised above the
waterline -- like the main deck of a ship. This floor was
fitted with circular metal hatches through which I could
stow the heavier parts of my outfit in the hold
underneath. The cockpit proper extended for a length of a
little over six feet between bulkheads so that when
occasion demanded I could sleep in the canoe.
Her rig consisted of two fore and aft sails of the
canoe type and a small jib.
An increasing impatience to open the Pandora's Box
which was waiting for me, hurried the work of preparation
and in two weeks I was ready to start. The Colonial
Treasurer gave me a Bill of Health for the Yakaboo as for
any ship and one night I laid out my sea clothes and
packed my trunk to follow me as best it could.
On the morning of February ninth I carried my outfit
down to the quay in a drizzle. An inauspicious day for
starting on a cruise I thought. My Man Friday, who had
evidently read my thoughts, hastened to tell me that this
was only a little "cocoa shower." Even as I got the canoe
alongside the quay the sun broke through the cloud bank
on the hill tops and as the rain ceased the small crowd
which had assembled to see me off came out from the
protection of doorways as I proceeded to stow the various
parts of my nomadic home. Into the forward compartment
went the tent like a reluctant green caterpillar,
followed by the pegs, sixteen pounds of tropical bacon,
my cooking pails and the "butterfly," a powerful little
gasoline stove. Into the after compartment disappeared
more food, clothes, two cans of fresh water, fuel for the
"butterfly," films in sealed tins, developing outfit and
chemicals, ammunition, and that most sacred of all things
-- the ditty bag.
Under the cockpit floor I stowed paint, varnish, and a
limited supply of tinned food, all of it heavy and
excellent ballast in the right place. My blankets, in a
double oiled bag, were used in the cockpit as a seat when
rowing. Here I also carried two compasses, an axe, my
camera, and a chart case with my portfolio and log. I had
also a high-powered rifle and a Colt's
thirty-eight-forty.
With all her load, the Yakaboo sat on the water as
jaunty as ever. The golden brown of her varnished
topsides and deck, her green boot-top and white sails
made her as inviting a craft as I had ever stepped
into.
I bade good-bye to the men I had come to know as
friends and with a shove the canoe and I were clear of
the quay. The new clean sails hung from their spars for a
moment like the unprinted leaves of a book and then a
gentle puff came down from the hills, rippled the glassy
waters of the carénage and grew into a breeze
which caught the canoe and we were sailing northward on
the weather tide. I have come into the habit of saying
"we," for next to a dog or a horse there is no
companionship like that of a small boat. The smaller a
boat the more animation she has and as for a canoe, she
is not only a thing of life but is a being of whims and
has a sense of humor. Have you ever seen a cranky canoe
unburden itself of an awkward novice and then roll from
side to side in uncontrollable mirth, having shipped only
a bare teacupful of water? Even after one has become the
master of his craft there is no dogged servility and she
will balk and kick up her heels like a skittish colt. I
have often "scended" on the face of a mountainous
following sea with an exhilaration that made me whoop for
joy, only to have the canoe whisk about in the trough and
look me in the face as if to say, "You fool, did you want
me to go through the next one ?" Let a canoe feel that
you are afraid of her and she will become your master
with the same intuition that leads a thoroughbred to take
advantage of the tremor he feels through the reins. At
every puff she will forget to sail and will heel till her
decks are under. Hold her down firmly, speak
encouragingly, stroke her smooth sides and she will fly
through a squall without giving an inch. We were already
acquainted for I had twice had her out on trial spins and
we agreed upon friendship as our future status.
It has always been my custom to go slow for the first
few days of a cruise, a policy especially advisable in
the tropics. After a morning of delightful coasting past
the green hills of Grenada, touched here and there with
the crimson flamboyant like wanton splashes from the
brush of an impressionist, and occasional flights over
shoals that shone white, brown, yellow and copper through
the clear bluish waters, I hauled the Yakaboo up on the
jetty of the picturesque little coast town of Goyave and
here I loafed through the heat of the day in the cool
barracks of the native constabulary. I spent the night on
the hard canvas cot in the Rest Room.
It was on the second day that the lid of Pandora's Box
sprang open and the imps came out. My log reads :
"After beating for two hours into a stiff wind that came
directly down the shore, I found that the canoe was
sinking by the head and evidently leaking badly in the
forward compartment. Distance from shore one mile. The
water was pouring in through the centerboard well and I
discovered that the bailing plugs in the cockpit floor
were useless so that she retained every drop that she
shipped. I decided not to attempt bailing and made for
shore with all speed. Made Duquesne Point at 11 A.M.,
where the canoe sank in the small surf."
She lay there wallowing like a contented pig while I
stepped out on the beach. "Well!" she seemed to say, "I
brought you ashore -- do you want me to walk up the
beach?" A loaded canoe, full of water and with her decks
awash, is as obstinate as a mother-in-law who has come
for the summer -- and I swore.
My outfit, for the most part, was well protected in
the oiled bags which I had made. It was not shaken down
to a working basis, however, and I found a quantity of
dried cranberries in a cotton bag -- a sodden mass of
red. With a yank of disgust, I heaved them over my
shoulder and they landed with a grunt. Turning around I
saw a six-foot black with a round red pattern on the
bosom of his faded cotton shirt, wondering what it was
all about. I smiled and he laughed while the loud guffaws
of a crowd of natives broke the tension of their long
silence. The West Indian native has an uncomfortable
habit of appearing suddenly from nowhere and he is
especially fond of following a few paces behind one on a
lonely road. As for being able to talk to these people, I
might as well have been wrecked on the coast of Africa
and tried to hold discourse with their ancestors. But the
men understood my trouble and carried my canoe ashore
where I could rub beeswax into a seam which had opened
wickedly along her
forefoot.
![](artfengler/faf_tall_native.jpg)
The tall native whom I hit in the chest
with the bag of cranberries. On the beach at Duquesne
Point.
Picturing a speedy luncheon over the buzzing little
"butterfly" I lifted it off its cleats in the forward
compartment, only to find that its arms were broken. The
shifting of the outfit in the seaway off shore had put
the stove out of commission. I was now in a land where
only woodworking tools were known so that any repairs
were out of the question. I was also in a land where the
sale of gasoline was prohibited.* My one gallon of
gasoline would in time have been exhausted, a
philosophical thought which somewhat lessened the sense
of my disappointment. And let this be a lesson to all
travelers in strange countries -- follow the custom of
the country in regard to fires and cooking.
* On account of the danger
of its use in the hands of careless natives.
The
breaking of the "butterfly" only hastened my acquaintance
with the delightful mysteries of the "coal" pot. Wood
fires are but little used in these islands for driftwood
is scarce and the green wood is so full of moisture that
it can with difficulty be made to burn. Up in the hills
the carbonari make an excellent charcoal from the hard
woods of the tropical forests and this is burned in an
iron or earthenware brazier known as the coalpot.
Iron Coal-Pot
By means of the sign language, which consisted chiefly
in rubbing my stomach with one hand while with the other
I put imaginary food into my mouth, the natives
understood my need and I soon had one of my little pails
bubbling over a glowing coalpot.
The promise of rain warned me to put up my tent
although I could have been no wetter than I was. Food, a
change of dry clothes and a pipe of tobacco will work
wonders at a time like this and as I sat in my tent
watching the drizzle pockmark the sands outside, I began
to feel that things might not be so bad after all. This,
however, was one of those nasty fever beaches against
which my Man Friday had warned me, so that with the
smiling of the sun at three o'clock, I was afloat again.
The Yakaboo had been bullied into some semblance of
tightness. By rowing close along shore we reached
Tangalanga Point without taking up much water.
I was now at the extreme northern end of Grenada and
could see the Grenadines that I should come to know so
well stretching away to windward.** They rose, mountain
peaks out of the intense blue of the sea, picturesque but
not inviting. As I looked across the channel, whitened by
the trade wind which was blowing a gale, I wondered
whether after all I had underestimated the Caribbean.
Sauteurs lay some two miles around the point and I now
set sail for the first time in the open sea.
**In these parts northeast
and windward are
synonymous, also southwest and leeward.
In my anxiety lest the canoe should fill again I ran
too close to the weather side of the point and was caught
in a combing sea which made the Yakaboo gasp for breath.
She must have heard the roar of the wicked surf under her
lee for she shouldered the green seas from her deck and
staggered along with her cockpit full of water till we
were at last safe, bobbing up and down in the heavy swell
behind the reef off Sauteurs. The surf was breaking five
feet high on the beach and I dared not land even at the
jetty for fear of smashing the canoe.
A figure on the jetty motioned to a sloop which I ran
alongside. The outfit was quickly transferred to the
larger boat and the canoe tailed off with a long scope of
line. In the meantime a whaleboat was bobbing alongside
and I jumped aboard. As we rose close to the jetty on a
big sea, a dozen arms reached out like the tentacles of
an octopus and pulled me up into their mass while the
whaleboat dropped from under me into the hollow of the
sea.
Whatever my misfortunes may be, there is always a law
of compensation which is as infallible as that of
Gravity. One of those arms which pulled me up belonged to
Jack Wildman, a Scotch cocoa buyer who owned a whaling
station on Île-de-Caille, the first of the
Grenadines. By the time we reached the cocoa shop near
the end of the jetty the matter was already arranged.
Jack would send for his whalers to convoy me to his
island and there I could stay as long as I wished. The
island, he told me, was healthy and I could live apart
from the whalers undisturbed in the second story of his
little whaling shack. Here I could overhaul my outfit
when I did not care to go chasing humpbacks, and under
the thatched roof of the tryworks I could prepare my
canoe in dead earnest for the fight I should have through
the rest of the islands.
That night I slept on the stiff canvas cot in the Rest
Room of the police station -- a room which is reserved by
the Government for the use of traveling officials, for
there are no hotels or lodging houses in these parts.
From where I lay, I could look out upon the channel
bathed in the strong tropical moonlight. The trade which
is supposed to drop at sunset blew fresh throughout the
night and by raising my head I could see the gleam of
white caps. For the first time I heard that peculiar
swish of palm tops which sounds like the pattering of
rain. Palmer, a member of the revenue service, who had
come into my room in his pajamas, explained to me that
the low driving mist which I thought was fog was in
reality spindrift carried into the air from the tops of
the seas. My thoughts went to the Yakaboo bobbing easily
at the end of her long line in the open roadstead. All
the philosophy of small boat sailing came back to me and
I fell asleep with the feeling that she would carry me
safely through the boisterous seas of the Grenadine
channel.
CHAPTER II
WHALING AT ÎLE-DE-CAILLE
THERE were thirteen of them when I landed on
Île-de-Caille -- the twelve black whalemen who
manned the boats and the negress who did the cooking --
and they looked upon me with not a little suspicion.
What manner of man was this who sailed alone in a
canoe he could almost carry on his back, fearing neither
sea nor jumbie, the hobgoblin of the native, and who now
chose to live with them a while just to chase
"humpbacks"? Jack Wildman was talking to them in their
unintelligible patois, a hopeless stew of early French
and English mixed with Portuguese, when I turned to
José Olivier and explained that now with fourteen
on the island the spell of bad luck which had been with
them from the beginning of the season would end. The tone
of my voice rather than what I said reassured him.
"Aal roit," he said, "you go stroke in de
Aactive tomorrow."
Between Grenada and Saint Vincent, the next large
island to the north, lie the Grenadines in that seventy
miles of channel where "de lee an' wedder toid"
alternately bucks and pulls the northeast trades and the
equatorial current, kicking up a sea that is known all
over the world for its deviltry. Île-de-Caille is
the first of these.
In this channel from January to May, the humpback
whale, megaptera versabilis, as he is named from the
contour of his back, loafs on his way to the colder
waters of the North Atlantic. For years the New Bedford
whaler has been lying in among these islands to pick up
crews, and it is from him that the negro has learned the
art of catching the humpback.
![](artfengler/faf_whale.jpg)
In This Channel From January to May, the
Humpback Loafs On His Way to the Colder Waters of the
North Atlantic.
While the humpback is seldom known to attack a boat,
shore whaling from these islands under the ticklish
conditions of wind and current, with the crude ballasted
boats that go down when they fill and the yellow streak
of the native which is likely to crop out at just the
wrong moment, is extremely dangerous and the thought of
it brings the perspiration to the ends of my fingers as I
write this story. One often sees a notice like
this : "May 1st, 1909. -- A whaleboat with a crew of
five men left Sauteurs for Union Island ; not since
heard of."
The men were not drunk, neither was the weather out of
the ordinary. During the short year since I was with
them* four of the men I whaled with have been lost at
sea. With the negro carelessness is always a great
factor, but here the wind and current are a still greater
one. Here the trade always seems to blow strongly and at
times assumes gale force "w'en de moon chyange."
*This was written in
1912.
This wind, together with the equatorial current,
augments the tide which twice a day combs through the
islands in some places as fast as six knots an hour.
During the intervals of weather tide the current is
stopped somewhat, but a sea is piled up which shakes the
boat as an angry terrier does a rat. It is always a fight
for every inch to windward, and God help the unfortunate
boat that is disabled and carried away from the islands
into the blazing calm fifteen hundred miles to leeward.
For this reason the Lesser Antilles from Trinidad to
Martinique are known as the Windward Islands.
And so these fellows have developed a wonderful
ability to eat their way to windward and gain the help of
wind and tide in towing their huge catches ashore. Even a
small steamer could not tow a dead cow against the
current, as I found out afterward. While the humpback is
a "shore whale," the more valuable deep-water sperm whale
is also seen and occasionally caught. True to his
deep-water instinct he usually passes along the lee of
the islands in the deeper waters entirely out of reach of
the shore whaler who may see his spout day after day only
a few tantalizing miles away. A sperm whale which by
chance got off the track was actually taken by the men at
Bequia, who in their ignorance threw away that diseased
portion, the ambergris, which might have brought them
thousands of dollars and kept them in rum till the crack
of doom.
As we stood and talked with José, my eyes
wandered over the little whaling cove where we had
landed, almost landlocked by the walls of fudge-like lava
that bowled up around it. The ruined walls of the
cabaret, where in the days of Napoleon rich stores of
cotton and sugar were kept as a foil for the far richer
deposit of rum and tobacco hidden in the cave on the
windward side, had their story which might come out later
with the persuasion of a little tobacco.
The tryworks, like vaults above ground with the old
iron pots sunk into their tops, gave off the musty rancid
smell of whale oil that told of whales that had been
caught, while a line drying on the rocks, one end of it
frayed out like the tail of a horse, told of a wild ride
that had come to a sudden stop. But most interesting of
all were the men -- African -- with here and there a
shade of Portuguese and Carib, or the pure Yaribai,
superstitious in this lazy atmosphere where the mind has
much time to dwell on tales of jumbie and lajoblesse,*
moody and sullen from the effects of a disappointing
season. So far they had not killed a whale and it was now
the twelfth of February.
* The spirits of negro
women who have died in illegitimate
childbirth.
But even the natives were becoming uneasy in the heat
of the noon and at a word from José two of them
picked up the canoe and laid her under the tryworks roof
while the rest of us formed a caravan with the outfit and
picked our way up the sharp, rocky path to the level
above where the trade always blows cool.
Here Jack had built a little two-storied shack, the
upper floor of which he reserved for his own use when he
visited the island. This was to be my home. The lower
part was divided into two rooms by a curtain behind which
José, as befitting the captain of the station,
slept in a high bed of the early French days. In the
other room was a rough table where I could eat and write
my log after a day in the whaleboats, with the wonderful
sunset of the tropics before me framed in the open
doorway.
![](artfengler/faf_house.jpg)
Jack's Shack on Ile-de-Caille Where
I Made My Home
I later discovered that the fractional member of the
station, a small male offshoot of the Olivier family,
made his bed on a pile of rags under the table. We were
really fourteen and a half. In another sense he reminded
me of the fraction, for his little stomach distended from
much banana and plantain eating protruded like the half
of a calabash. A steep stair led through a trap door to
my abode above. This I turned into a veritable conjurer's
shop. From the spare line which I ran back and forth
along the cross beams under the roof, I hung clothes,
bacon, food bags, camera, guns and pots, out of the reach
of the enormous rats which overrun the island. On each
side, under the low roof, were two small square windows
through which, by stooping, I could see the Caribbean. By
one of these I shoved the canvas cot with its net to keep
out the mosquitoes and tarantulas. I scarcely know which
I dreaded most. Bars on the inside of the shutters and a
lock on the trap door served to keep out those Ethiopian
eyes which feel and handle as well as look.
Near the shack was a cabin with two rooms, one with a
bunk for the cook. The other room was utterly bare except
for wide shelves around the sides where the whalemen
slept, their bed clothing consisting for the most part of
worn out cocoa bags.
Almost on a line between the cabin and the shack stood
the ajoupa, a small hut made of woven withes, only
partially roofed over, where the cook prepared the food
over the native coalpots. As I looked at it, I thought of
the similar huts in which Columbus found the gruesome
cannibal cookery of the Caribs when he landed on
Guadeloupe. A strange place to be in, I thought, with
only the Scotch face of Jack and the familiar look of my
own duffle to remind me of the civilization whence I had
come. And even stranger if I had known that later in one
of these very islands I should find a descendant of the
famous St.-Hilaire family still ruling under a feudal
system the land where her ancestors lived like princes in
the days when one of them was a companion of the Empress
Josephine.
![](artfengler/faf_ajoupa.jpg)
Ajoupa - A Reminder of Carib Days
Even our meal was strange as we sat by the open
doorway and watched the swift currents eddy around the
island, cutting their way past the smoother water under
the rocks. The jack-fish, not unlike the perch caught in
colder waters, was garnished with the hot little "West
Indie" peppers that burn the tongue like live coals. Then
there was the fat little manicou or 'possum, which tasted
like a sweet little suckling pig. I wondered at the skill
of the cook, whose magic was performed over a handful of
coals from the charred logwood, in an iron kettle or two.
Nearly everything is boiled or simmered ; there is
little frying and hardly any baking.
With the manicou we drank the coarse native chocolate
sweetened with the brown syrupy sugar* of the islands. I
did not like it at first, there was a by-taste that was
new to me. But I soon grew fond of it and found that it
gave me a wonderful strength for rowing in the heavy
whaleboats, cutting blubber and the terrific sweating in
the tropical heat.
* Muscovado.
As early as 1695 Père Labat in his enthusiasm
truly said, "As for me, I stand by the advice of the
Spanish doctors who agree that there is more nourishment
in one ounce of chocolate than in half a pound of
beef."
At sunset Jack left for Grenada in one of the whale
boats, and I made myself snug in the upper floor of the
shack. Late that night I awoke and looking out over the
Caribbean, blue in the strong clear moonlight, I saw the
white sail of the returning whaleboat glide into the cove
and was lulled to sleep again by the plaintive chantey of
the whalemen as they sang to dispel the imaginary terrors
that lurk in the shadows of the cove.
"Blo-o-ows!" came with the sun the next morning,
followed by a fierce pounding on the underside of the
trap door. Bynoe, the harpooner, had scarcely reached the
lookout on the top of the hill when he saw a spout only
two miles to windward near Les Tantes. The men were
already by the boats as I ran half naked down the path
and dumped my camera in the stern of the Active by "de
bum (bomb) box," as José directed. With a string
of grunts, curses and "oh-hee's" we got the heavy boats
into the water and I finished dressing while the crews
put in "de rock-stone" for ballast. As we left the cove
we rowed around the north end of the island, our oars
almost touching the steep rocky shore in order to avoid
the strong current that swept between Caille and
Ronde.
When José said, "You go stroke in de Aactive,"
I little knew what was in store for me. The twenty-foot
oak oar, carried high above the thwart and almost on a
line with the hip, seemed the very inbeing of
unwieldiness. The blade was scarcely in the water before
the oar came well up to the chest and the best part of
the stroke was made with the body stretched out in a
straight line -- we nearly left our thwarts at every
stroke -- the finish being made with the hands close up
under our chins. In the recovery we pulled our bodies up
against the weight of the oar, feathering at the same
time -- a needless torture, for the long narrow blade was
almost as thick as it was wide. Why the rowlock should be
placed so high and so near the thwart I do not
know ; the Yankee whaler places the rowlock about a
foot farther aft.
While the humpbacker has not departed widely from the
ways of his teacher a brief description of his outfit may
not be amiss. His boat is the same large double-ended
sea-canoe of the Yankee but it has lost the graceful ends
and the easy lines of the New Bedford craft. Almost
uncouth in its roughness, the well painted topsides,
usually a light grey with the black of the tarred bottom
and boot-top showing, give it a shipshape
appearance ; while the orderly confusion of the worn
gear and the tarry smell coming up from under the floors
lend an air of adventure in harmony with the men who make
up its crew.
![](artfengler/faf_whaleboat.jpg)
Grenadine whaleboat showing bow and
false-chock. The harpoon is poised in the left hand
and heaved with the right arm.
The crew of six take their positions beginning with
the harpooner in the bow in the following order :
bow-oar, mid-oar, tub-oar, stroke and boatsteerer. For
the purpose of making fast to the whale the harpooner
uses two "irons" thrown by hand. The "iron" is a sharp
wrought iron barb, having a shank about two feet long to
which the shaft is fastened. The "first" iron is made
fast to the end of the whale line, the first few fathoms
of which are coiled on the small foredeck or "box." This
is the heaving coil and is known as the "box line." The
line then passes aft through the bow chocks to the
loggerhead, a smooth round oak bitt stepped through the
short deck in the stern, around which a turn or two are
thrown to give a braking action as the whale takes the
line in its first rush.
From the loggerhead, the line goes forward to the tub
amidships in which 150 fathoms are coiled down. The
"second" iron is fastened to a short warp, the end of
which is passed around the main line in a bowline so that
it will run freely. In case of accident to the first, the
second iron may hold and the bowline will then toggle on
the first. Immediately after the whale is struck, the
line is checked in such a manner that the heavy boat can
gather headway, usually against the short, steep seas of
the "trades," without producing too great a strain on the
gear. The humpbacker loses many whales through the
parting of his line, for his boat is not only heavily
constructed but carries a considerable weight of stone
ballast "rock-stone" to steady it when sailing. The
Yankee, in a boat scarcely heavier than his crew, holds
the line immediately after the strike and makes a quick
killing. He only gives out line when a whale sounds or
shows fight. He makes his kill by cutting into the vitals
of the whale with a long pole lance, reserving the less
sportsmanlike but more expeditious bomb gun for a last
resort, while the humpbacker invariably uses the
latter.
![](artfengler/faf_under_sail.jpg)
The humpbacker under sail.
A jib and spritsail are carried, the latter having a
gaff and boom, becketed for quick hoisting and lowering.
Instead of using the convenient "tabernacle" by which the
Yankee can drop his rig by the loosening of a pin, the
humpbacker awkwardly steps his mast through a thwart into
a block on the keel.
![](artfengler/faf_mast.jpg)
Unshipping the rig.
The strike may be made while rowing or under full
sail, according to the position of the boat when a whale
is "raised." Because of the position of its eyes, the
whale cannot see directly fore and aft, his range of
vision being limited like that of a person standing in
the cabin of a steamer and looking out through the port.
The whaler takes advantage of this, making his approach
along the path in which the whale is traveling. The early
whalemen called the bow of the boat the "head," whence
the expression, "taking them head-and-head," when the
boat is sailing down on a school of whales.
"Ease-de-oar!" yelled José, for we were now out
of the current, bobbing in the open sea to windward of
Caille where the "trade" was blowing half a gale. We
shipped our oars, banking them over the gunwale with the
blades aft. The other boat had pulled up and it was a
scramble to see who would get the windward berth.
"You stan' af' an' clar de boom," he said to me, as
the men ran the heavy mast up with a rush while the
harpooner aimed the foot as it dropped through the hole
in the thwart and into its step -- a shifty trick with
the dripping nose of the boat pointed skyward one instant
and the next buried deep in the blue of the Atlantic.
"Becket de gyaf -- run ou' de boom -- look shyarp!"
With a mighty sweep of his steering oar, José
pried our stern around and we got the windward berth on
the starboard tack. One set of commands had sufficed for
both boats ; we were close together, and they seemed
to follow up the scent like a couple of joyous Orchas.
Now I began to understand the philosophy of "de
rock-stone" for we slid along over the steep breaking
seas scarcely taking a drop of spray into the boat. As I
sat on the weather rail, I had an opportunity to study
the men in their element. The excitement of the start had
been edged off by the work at the oars. We might have
been on a pleasure sail instead of a whale hunt. In fact,
there was no whale to be seen for "de balen* soun'," as
José said in explanation of the absence of the
little cloud of steam for which we were looking.
Daniel-Joe, our harpooner, had already bent on his
"first" iron and was lazily throwing the end of the short
warp of his "second" to the main line while keeping an
indefinite lookout over the starboard bow. He might have
been coiling a clothesline in the back yard and thinking
of the next Policeman's Ball.
* From the French balein,
meaning whale.
The bow-oar, swaying on the loose stay to weather,
took up the range of vision while we of the weather rail
completed the broadside. José, who had taken in
his long steering oar and dropped the rudder in its
pintles, was "feeling" the boat through the long tiller
in that absent way of the man born to the sea. With a
sort of dual vision he watched the sails and the sea to
windward at the same time. "Wet de leach!" and "Cippie,"
the tub-oar, let himself down carefully to the lee rail
where he scooped up water in a large calabash, swinging
his arm aft in a quick motion, and then threw it up into
the leach to shrink the sail where it was flapping.
Time after time I was on the point of giving the yell
only to find that my eye had been fooled by a distant
white cap. But finally it did come, that little
perpendicular jet dissipated into a cloud of steam as the
wind caught it, distinct from the white caps as the sound
of a rattlesnake from the rustle of dry leaves. It was a
young bull, loafing down the lee tide not far from where
Bynoe had first sighted him.
Again he sounded but only for a short time and again
we saw his spout half a mile under our lee. We had
oversailed him. As we swung off the wind he sounded. In a
time too short to have covered the distance, I thought,
José gave the word to the crew who unshipped the
rig, moving about soft-footed like a lot of big black
cats without making the slightest knock against the
planking of the boat.
We got our oars out and waited. Captain Caesar held
the other boat hove-to a little to windward of us. Then I
remembered the lee tide and knew that we must be
somewhere over the bull. Suddenly José whispered,
"De wale sing!" I thought he was fooling at first, the
low humming coming perhaps from one of the men, but there
was no mistaking the sound. I placed my ear against the
planking from which it came in a distinct note like the
low tone of a 'cello. While I was on my hands and knees
listening to him the sound suddenly ceased. "Look!"
yelled José, as the bull came up tail first,
breaking water less than a hundred yards from us, his
immense flukes fully twenty feet out of the water.
Time seemed to stop while my excited brain took in the
cupid's bow curve of the flukes dotted with large white
barnacles like snowballs plastered on a black wall, while
in reality it was all over in a flash -- a sight too
unexpected for the camera. Righting himself, he turned to
windward, passing close to the other boat. It was a long
chance but Bynoe took it, sending his harpoon high into
the air, followed by the snaky
line.
![](artfengler/faf_bynoe.jpg)
Once more we had the weather berth and
bore down on tem under full sail, Bynoe standing high
up on the 'box', holding the forestay.
A perfect eye was behind the strong arm that had
thrown it and the iron fell from its height to sink deep
into the flesh aft of the fin. As the line became taut,
the boat with its rig still standing gathered headway,
following the whale in a smother of foam, the sails
cracking in the wind like revolver shots while a thin
line of smoke came from the loggerhead. Caesar must have
been snubbing his line too much, however, for in another
moment it parted, leaving a boatload of cursing,
jabbering negroes a hundred yards or more from their
starting point. The bull left for more friendly waters.
The tension of the excitement having snapped with the
line, a volley of excuses came down the wind to us which
finally subsided into a philosophical, "It wuz de will ob
de Lard."
Whaling was over for that day and we sailed back to
the cove to climb the rocks to the ajoupa where we filled
our complaining stomachs with manicou and chocolate.
While we ate the sun dropped behind the ragged fringe of
clouds on the horizon and the day suddenly ended changing
into the brilliant starlit night of the tropics. Even if
we had lost our whale, the spell was at last broken for
we had made a strike. Bynoe' s pipe sizzled and bubbled
with my good tobacco as he told of the dangers of Kick
'em Jinny or Diamond Rock on the other side of Ronde.
The men drew close to the log where we were sitting as
I told of another Diamond Rock off Martinique of which
you shall hear in due time. Bynoe in turn told of how he
had helped in the rescue of an unfortunate from a third
Diamond Rock off the coast of Cayan (French Guiana) where
the criminal punishment used to be that of putting a man
on the rock at low tide and leaving him a prey to the
sharks when the sea should rise. But there was something
else on Bynoe's mind. The same thing seemed to occur to
Caesar, who addressed him in patois. Then the harpooner
asked me :
"An' you not in thees ilan' before?"
I lighted my candle lamp and spread my charts out on
the ground before the whalers. As I showed them their own
Grenadines their wonder knew no bounds Charts were
unknown to them. Now they understood the magic by which I
knew what land I might be approaching -- even if I had
never been there before.
Most of the names of the islands are French or
Carib ; even the few English names were unknown to
the men, who used the names given to the islands before
they were finally taken over by the British. One which
interested me was Bird Island, which they called
Mouchicarri, a corruption of Mouchoir Carré or
Square Handkerchief. This must have been a favorite
expression in the old days for a whitened shoal or a low
lying island where the surf beats high and white, for
there is a Mouchoir Carré off Guadeloupe, another
in the Bahamas and we have our own Handkerchief Shoals.
From the lack of English names it is not at all
unreasonable to suppose that it was a Frenchman who first
explored the Grenadines. Columbus, on his hunt for the
gold of Veragua, saw the larger islands of Grenada and
Saint Vincent from a distance and named them without
having set foot on them. Martinique was the first well
established colony in the Lesser Antilles and from that
island a boatload of adventurers may have sailed down the
islands, naming one of the Grenadines Petit Martinique,
from their own island, because of its striking similarity
of contour, rising into a small counterpart of
Pelée. Also, it was more feasible to sail down
from Martinique than to buck the wind and current in the
long channel from Trinidad.
As the fire in the ajoupa died down, the men drew
closer and closer to the friendly light of my candle,
away from the spooky shadows, and when I bade them good
night they were behind the tightly closed door and
shutters of their cabin by the time I had reached my
roost in the top of the shack.
For several days after our first strike the cry of
"blows" would bring us "all standing" and we would put to
sea only to find that the whale had made off to windward
or had loafed into those tantalizing currents to leeward
where we could see it but dared not follow. Finally our
chance came again -- and almost slipped away under our
very noses.
We had been following a bull and a cow and calf since
sunrise. At last they sounded an hour before sunset. We
had eaten no food since the night before and all day long
the brown-black almost hairless calves of the men had
been reminding me in an agonizing way of the breast of
roasted duck. The constant tacking back and forth, the
work of stepping and unshipping the rig, the two or three
rain squalls which washed the salt spray out of our
clothes and made us cold, had tired us and dulled our
senses. Suddenly the keen Bynoe, with the eyes of a
pelican, gave the yell. There they were, scarcely a
hundred yards from us. The bull had gone his way. I was
in Caesar's boat this time and as Bynoe was considered
the better of the two harpooners we made for the calf and
were soon fast.
If ever a prayer were answered through fervency our
line would have parted and spared this baby -- although
it seems a travesty to call a creature twenty-eight feet
long a baby. But it was a baby compared to its mother,
who was sixty-eight feet long. As the calf was welling up
its life blood, giving the sea a tinge that matched the
color of the dying sun, the devoted mother circled around
us, so close that we could have put our second iron into
her.
It is always this way with a cow and her calf. The
first or more skillful boat's crew secures the calf while
the mother's devotion makes the rest easy for the other
boat. There was no slip this time and the program was
carried out without a hitch. José bore down in the
Active and Daniel-Joe sent his iron home with a yell. We
stopped our work of killing for the moment to watch them
as they melted away in the fading light, a white speck
that buried itself in the darkness of the horizon. It was
an all-night row for us, now in the lee tide, now in the
weather tide, towing this baby -- a task that seemed
almost as hopeless as towing a continent. But we made
progress and by morning were back in the cove.
Having eaten three times and cut up the calf, we
sailed for Sauteurs late in the afternoon for news of
José and the cow. José's flight from
Mouchicarri, where we had struck the whales, had been
down the windward coast of Grenada. We were met on the
jetty by Jack, who told us that the cow had been killed
at the other end of Grenada and would not start till the
next noon. He had made arrangements for the little
coasting steamer, Taw, to tow the carcass up from St.
George's.
And so the cow would make the circuit of the island,
the first part very much alive, towing a crew of negroes
half dead from fright and the last of the way being towed
very much dead. While we had been rowing our hearts out,
José and his crew had been streaking it behind the
whale, not daring to pull up in the darkness for the
"kill."
At dawn they dispatched the weakened animal more than
thirty miles from their starting point. We learned later
that, although the wind and tide had been in their favor
and as they neared shore other boats had put out to reach
them, they did not reach St. George's till eleven the
following night. They had made half a mile an hour.
As we turned in on the floor of Jack's cocoa shop, I
began to have visions of something "high" in the line of
whale on the morrow. I knew the Taw. She could not
possibly tow the whale any faster than three miles an
hour and would not leave St. George's till one o'clock
the next day. The distance was twenty-one miles, so that
by the time she could be cut -- in the whale would have
been dead three nights and two days. I no longer
regretted the wild night ride I had missed.
The next afternoon we were again in the whaleboat,
Jack with us. Our plan was to wait near London Bridge, a
natural arch of rocks half way between Sauteurs and
Caille and a little to windward. We did this to entice
the captain of the Taw as far to windward as possible for
we were not at all certain that he would tow the whale
all the way to Île-de-Caille. If he brought the
whale as far as London Bridge, the two boats might be
able to tow the carcass during the night through the
remaining three miles to the island so that we could
begin to cut-in in the morning.
So we sailed back and forth till at last, as the sun
was sinking, we made out the tiny drift of steamer smoke
eight miles away. They were not even making the three
miles an hour and Bynoe said that the tongue must have
swollen and burst the lines, allowing the mouth to open.
We began to wonder why they did not cut off the ventral
flukes and tow the whale tail first. But the reason came
out later.
The moon would be late, and we continued sailing in
the darkness without a light, lest the captain should
pick us up too soon and cast off the whale in mid-channel
where ten whaleboats could not drag her against the
current which was now lee. We lost sight of the steamer
for an hour or so but finally decided that what we had
taken for a low evening star was her masthead light. In
another hour we could make out the red and green of her
running lights. She was in the clutches of the tide
directly to leeward. She was also two miles off her
course and we began to wonder why the captain did not
give up in disgust and cast the whale adrift. We sailed
down to find out.
First the hull of the steamer began to take shape in
the velvety darkness ; then as we swung up into the
wind we made out the whaleboat some distance astern. As
the bow of the steamer rose on a long sea, her after deck
lights threw their rays on a low black object upon which
the waves were shoaling as on a reef. At the same instant
a stray whiff from the trade wind brought us the message.
We were doubly informed of the presence of the cow.
But it was not the cow that drew our attention. On the
aft deck, leaning far out, stood the captain. His
features were distinct in the beams of the range light.
Suddenly he started as though he had seen something. Then
he bellowed, "Where in hell did you come from?"
"We've been waiting to windward for
you ; what's the trouble?"
"Trouble?" he shrieked, "trouble? -- your damned
old whale is fast and I can't get her off."
We guessed the rest. As Bynoe had predicted, the
tongue had swollen and burst the lashing that had held
the mouth closed. Next the towline had parted. This had
happened shortly after the steamer left St. George's and
the men who were towing behind in their boat had begged
the captain to pass out his steel cable. He didn't know
it but it was here that he erred. The whalemen ran the
cable through the jaw, bending the end into a couple of
hitches. When they started up again, the hitches slipped
back and jammed, making it impossible to untie the
cable.
Progress had been slow enough under the lee of Grenada
but when the steamer got clear of the land she felt the
clutches of the current and progress to the northward was
impossible. He announced to the pleading whalemen that he
was sick of the job and was going to cut loose. But he
couldn't. There was not a tool aboard except the engine
room wrenches. Not even a file or a cold-chisel.
Jack asked him, "What are you going to do?"
"Me? -- it's your whale."
"Yes, but you've got it. I don't want it, it's too
old now."
And old it was. The smell even seemed to go to
windward. But there was only one course left and twelve
o'clock found us at Sauteurs, the whale still in
possession of the Taw.
The scene of our midnight supper in the cocoa shop
that night will long remain in my memory as one of those
pictures so strange and far off that one often wonders
whether it was a real experience or a fantasy suggested
by some illustration or story long since forgotten. We
cooked in Jack's little sanctum, railed off at one end of
the shop, where the negress brings his tea in the morning
and afternoon. At the other end was the small counter
with the ledger and scales that brought out the very idea
of barter. On the floor space between were bags of cocoa
and the tubs in which the beans are "tramped" with red
clay for the market. Two coils of new whale line and a
bundle
I am firmly convinced that the next morning the odor
from that carcass opened the door, walked in and shook me
by the shoulders. No one else had done it and I sat up
with a start. Shortly after, a courier from the district
board brought the following message : (I use the
word "courier" for it is the only time I ever saw a
native run.)
ST. PATRICK'S DISTRICT BOARD, SECRETARY'S
OFFICE,
24th, February, 1911. John S. Wildman, Esq.,
SIR : -- In the interest of
sanitation, I am instructed to request that the
whale's carcass be removed from the harbor within
three hours after the service of this notice.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant, R.L.B.A., Warden.
We were not unwilling and had what was left of the cow
towed out into the current which would carry it far into
the Caribbean where for days the gulls could gorge
themselves and scream over it in a white cloud. At least
that was our intention, but by a pretty piece of
miscalculation on the part of Bynoe the carcass fetched
up under Point Tangalanga where the last pieces of flesh
were removed on the eighth day after the whale's
death.
Our work done at Sauteurs, we sailed back to Caille,
where we scrubbed out the boats with white coral sand to
remove the grease, dried out the lines and coiled them
down in the tubs for the next whale.
My real ride behind a humpback came at last in that
unexpected way that ushers in the unusual. We were
loafing one day near Mouchicarri, lying-to for the moment
in a heavy rain squall, when it suddenly cleared,
disclosing three whales under our lee. They were a bull,
a cow and a yawlin (yearling), with José close on
their track. Bynoe hastily backed the jib so that we
could "haal aft" and we made a short tack.
Just as we were ready to come about again in order to
get a close weather berth of the bull, the upper rudder
pintle broke and our chance slipped by. Why Caesar did
not keep on, using the steering oar, I do not know.
Perhaps it was that yellow streak that is so dangerous
when one is depending on the native in a tight place, for
we should have had that bull. He was immense.
The rudder was quickly tied up to the stern post, but
it was only after two hours of tedious sailing and rowing
that we were again upon them. Once more we had the
weather berth and bore down on them under full sail,
Bynoe standing high up on the "box," holding to the
forestay. Except for the occasional hiss of a sea
breaking under us, there was not a sound and we swooped
down on them with the soft flight of an owl.
As I stood up close to Caesar, I could see the whole
of the action. The three whales were swimming abreast,
blowing now and then as they rose from a shallow dive.
The tense crew, all looking forward like ebony carvings
covered with the nondescript rags of a warehouse, seemed
frozen to their thwarts. Only one of us moved and he was
Caesar, and I noticed that he swung the oar a little to
port in order to avoid the bull and take the yawlin. I
had guessed right about the yellow streak.
But even the yawlin was no plaything and as he rose
right under the bow the sea slid off his mountainous back
as from a ledge of black rock, a light green in contrast
to the deep blue into which it poured. The cavernous rush
of air and water from his snout sprayed Bynoe in the face
as he drove the iron down into him. He passed under us,
our bow dropping into the swirl left by his tail and I
could feel the bump of his back through Caesar's oar.
I wondered for the moment if the boat would trip.
There seemed to be no turning, for the next instant the
flying spray drove the lashes back into my eyes and I
knew we were fast. Blinded for the moment I could feel
the boat going over and through the seas, skittering
after the whale like a spoon being reeled in from a cast.
When I finally succeeded in wiping the lashes out of my
eyes there was nothing to be seen ahead but two walls of
spray which rose from the very bows of the boat, with
Bynoe still clinging to the stay with his head and
shoulders clear of the flying water. There was no need to
wet the line ; the tub oar was bailing instead.
How the rig came down I do not know and I marvel at
the skill or the luck of the men who unshipped the heavy
mast in that confusion of motions, for my whole attention
was called by the yelling Caesar to the loggerhead, which
somehow had one too many turns around it. Caesar was busy
with the steering oar, and the men had settled down a
little forward of midships to keep the boat from yawing.
So I committed the foolhardy trick of jumping over the
line as it whizzed past me in a yellow streak and,
bracing myself on the port side, I passed my hand aft
along the rope with a quick motion and threw off a turn,
also a considerable area of skin, of which the salt water
gave sharp notice later.
The line was eased and held through this first rush.
As the whale settled down to steady flight we threw back
that turn and then another, till the tub emptied slower
and slower and the line finally came to a stop. We were
holding. But we were still going ; it only meant
that the yawlin, having gone through his first spurt, had
struck his gait ; it was like a continuous ride in
the surf. By this time the boat was well trimmed and
bailed dry.
"Haal een, now," came from Caesar, and I was again
reminded of the missing skin. By the inch first, then by
the foot it came, till we had hauled back most of our
thousand feet of line. The walls of spray had dropped
lower and lower, till we could see the whale ahead of us,
his dorsal fin cutting through the tops of the waves. We
were now close behind his propelling flukes that came out
of the water at times like the screw of a freighter in
ballast. Caesar told me to load "de bum lance," and I
passed the gun forward to Bynoe. He held it for a moment
in pensive indecision -- and then placed it carefully
under the box.
He now removed the small wooden pin that keeps the
line from bobbing out of the bow chocks, and with the
blunt end of a paddle he carefully pried the line out of
the chock so that it slid back along the rail, coming to
rest against the false chock about three feet abaft the
stem. We now swerved off to one side and were racing
parallel to the whale opposite his flukes. The bow four
surged on the line while I took in the slack at the
loggerhead, Caesar wrestling frantically with his
steering oar that was cutting through the maelstrom
astern.
We were now fairly opposite the yawlin, which measured
nearly two of our boat's length. It was one of those
ticklish moments so dear to the Anglo-Saxon lust for
adventure -- even the negroes were excited beyond the
feeling of fear. But at the sight of the bomb gun, as
Bynoe took it out from under the box, a feeling of
revulsion swept over me and if it were not for the fatal
"rock-stone," or the sharks that might get us, I would
have wished the gun overboard and a fighting sperm off
Hatteras on our line.
The yawlin continued his flight in dumb fear. Fitting
his left leg into the half-round of the box, the
harpooner raised his gun and took aim. Following the
report came the metallic explosion of the bomb inside the
whale. Our ride came to an end almost as suddenly as it
had begun ; the yawlin was rolling inert at our
side, having scarcely made a move after the shot. The
bomb had pierced the arterial reservoir, causing death so
quickly that we missed the blood and gore which usually
come from the blow-hole in a crimson fountain with the
dying gasps of the whale. Bynoe explained that one could
always tell if the vital spot had been reached :
"If he go BAM! he no good. W'en he go CLING! de balen
mus stop." His way of expressing it was perfect, for the
"cling" was not unlike the ringing hammer of trapped air
in a steam pipe, but fainter.
Luck was with us this time, for we were well to
windward of Caille, with a tide that was lee to help us
home.
But it was my last whale at Île-de-Caille, and
after we had cut him in and set his oily entrails adrift
I turned once more to the Yakaboo. I had had enough of
humpbacking and one night I packed my outfit and smoked
for the last time with the men.
![](artfengler/faf_guts.jpg)
The immense intestines and bladders that
looked like a fleet of balloons come to grief.