Before long, the catamarans came up with us, but although deeply grateful for Yamba's and my own safety, I was still greatly distressed at the loss of my boat.Never once did this thought leave my mind.I remembered, too, with a pang, that I had now no tools with which to build another; and to venture out into the open sea on a catamaran, probably for weeks, simply meant courting certain destruction.I was a greater prisoner than ever.
My harpoon had evidently inflicted a mortal wound on the calf whale, because as we looked we saw it lying exhausted on the surface of the water, and being gradually swept nearer and nearer the shore by the swift-flowing tide.The mother refused to leave her little one however, and still continued to wheel round it continuously, even when it had reached dangerously shallow water.
The result was that when the tide turned, both the mother and her calf were left stranded high and dry on the beach, to the unbounded delight and amazement of the natives, who swarmed round the leviathans, and set up such a terrific uproar, that I verily believe they frightened the mother to death.In her dying struggle she lashed the water into a perfect fury with her tail, and even made attempts to lift herself bodily up.Furious smoke-signals were at once sent up to summon all the tribes in the surrounding country--enemies as well as friends.Next day the carcasses were washed farther still inshore--a thing for which the blacks gave me additional credit.
I ought to mention here that the loss of my boat was in some measure compensated for by the enormous amount of prestige which accrued to me through this whale episode.To cut a long story short, the natives fully believed that I HAD KILLED SINGLE-HANDEDAND BROUGHT ASHORE BOTH WHALES! And in the corroborees that ensued, the poets almost went delirious in trying to find suitable eulogiums to bestow upon the mighty white hunter.The mother whale surpassed in size any I had ever seen or read about.I measured her length by pacing, and I judged it to be nearly 150 feet.My measurements may not have been absolutely accurate, but still the whale was, I imagine, of record size.As she lay there on the beach her head towered above me to a height of nearly fifteen feet.
Never can I forget the scene that followed, when the blacks from the surrounding country responded to the smoke-signals announcing the capture of the "great fish." From hundreds of miles south came the natives, literally in their thousands--every man provided with his stone tomahawk and a whole armoury of shell knives.They simply swarmed over the carcasses like vermin, and I saw many of them staggering away under solid lumps of flesh weighing between thirty and forty pounds.The children also took part in the general feasting, and they too swarmed about the whales like a plague of ants.
A particularly enterprising party of blacks cut an enormous hole in the head of the big whale, and in the bath of oil that was inside they simply wallowed for hours at a time, only to emerge in a condition that filled me with disgust.There was no question of priority or disputing as to whom the tit-bits of the whale should go.Even the visitors were quite at liberty to take whatever portion they could secure.For about a fortnight this cutting-up and gorging went on, but long before this the stench from the decomposing carcasses was so horrible as to be painfully noticeable at my camp, over a mile away.Some of the flesh was cooked, but most of it was eaten absolutely raw.The spectacle witnessed on the beach would have been intensely comical were it not so revolting.Many of the savages, both men and women, had gorged themselves to such an extent as to be absolutely unable to walk;and they rolled about on the sand, tearing at the ground in agony, their stomachs distended in the most extraordinary and disgusting manner.It may amuse you to know that smoke-signals were at once sent up for all the "doctors" in the country, and these ministering angels could presently be seen with their massage shells, rubbing the distended stomachs of the sufferers as they lay on the beach.
I saw some men fairly howling with agony, but yet still devouring enormous quantities of oil and blubber! Besides the massage treatment (with the thumbs as well as shells), the "doctors"administered a kind of pill, or pellet, of some green leaf, which they first chewed in their own mouth and then placed in that of the patient.So magical was this potent herb in its action, that Ifeel sure it would make the fortune of an enterprising syndicate.
Other patients, who had obtained temporary relief through the kind offices of the medicine-men, returned to the whales again, and had another enormous gorge.In fact, the blacks behaved more like wild beasts of the lowest order than men, and in a very short time--considering the enormous bulk of the whales--nothing remained except the immense bones.
On the other hand, the orgie had its uses from my point of view, because I took advantage of the arrival of so many strange tribes to make myself acquainted with their chiefs, their languages, and their manners and customs, in the hope that these people might be useful to me some day when I commenced my journey overland to civilisation.For, of course, all hope of escape by sea had now to be abandoned, since my boat was destroyed.Several days elapsed, however, before I was able to remain in their presence without a feeling of utter disgust.To be precise, I could not talk to them before they ate, because they were so anxious to get at the food;and after the feast they were too gorged with fat to be able to talk rationally.In all my wanderings amongst the blacks I never came across anything that interested them so much as a whale.
