The Woman of Porto Pim Read online

  The female carries her young for nine months. Her tasty rather sugary milk has the warm sweetness of a woman’s. But since the whale must always forge through the waves, if the udders were located on the breast, the young whale would be constantly exposed to the brunt of the sea; hence they are to be found a little further down, in a more sheltered place, on the belly, whence the young whale was born. And the baby hides away there and takes pleasure in the wave that his mother breaks for him.

  Michelet, La Mer, page 238

  They say that ambergris is formed from the remains of the keratin shells of shellfish that the whale is unable to digest and which accumulate in certain segments of the intestine. But others maintain that it forms as the result of a pathological process, a sort of limited intestinal calculus. Today ambergris is used almost exclusively in the production of luxury perfumes, but in the past it had as many applications as human fantasy could dream up for it: it was used as a propitiatory balsam in religious rites, as an aphrodisiac lotion, and as a sign of religious dedication for Muslim pilgrims visiting the Qa’aba in Mecca. It is said to have been an indispensable aperitif at the banquets of the Mandarins. Milton talks about ambergris in Paradise Lost. Shakespeare mentions it too, I don’t remember where.

  L’amour, chez eux, soumis à des conditions difficiles, veut un lieu de profonde paix. Ainsi que le noble elephant, qui craint les yeux profanes, la baleine n’aime qu’au desert. Le rendez-vous est vers les poles, aux anses solitaires du Groënland, aux brouillards de Behring, sans doute aussi dans la mer tiède qu’on a trouvée près du pole même.

  La solitude est grande. C’est un théâtre étrange de mort et de silence pour cette fête de l’ardente vie. Un ours blanc, un phoque, un renard bleu peut-être, témoins respectueux, prudents, observant à distance. Les lustres et girandoles, les miroirs fantastiques, ne manquent pas. Cristaux bleuâtres, pics, aigrettes de glace éblouissante, neiges vierges, ce sont les témoins qui siègent tout autour et regardent.

  Ce qui rend cet hymen touchant et grave, c’est qu’il y faut l’expresse volonté. Ils n’ont pas l’arme tyrannique du requin, ces attaches qui maîtrisent le plus faible. Au contraire, leurs fourreaux glissants les séparent, les éloignent. Ils se fuient malgré eux, échappent, par ce désespérant obstacle. Dans un si grand accord, on dirait un combat. Des baleiniers prétendent avoir vu ce spectacle unique. Les amants, d’un brûlant transport, par instants, dresses et debout, comme les deux tours de Notre-Dame, gémissant de leurs bras trop courts, entreprenaient de s’embrasser. Ils retombaient d’un poids immense . . . L’ours et l’homme fuyaient épouvantés de leurs soupirs.

  Michelet, La Mer, pages 240–42

  So intense and poetic is this passage from Michelet it would be wrong to tone it down with a translation.

  Those days of intense sunshine and oppressive stillness when a thick sultry heat weighs on the ocean – it occurred to me these might be the rare moments when whales return in their physiological memory to their terrestrial origins. To do this they have to concentrate so intensely and completely that they fall into a deep sleep which gives an appearance of death: and thus floating on the surface, like blind, polished stumps, they somehow remember, as though in a dream, a distant, distant past when their clumsy fins were dry limbs capable of gestures, greetings, caresses, races through the grass amid tall flowers and ferns, on an earth that was a magma of elements still in search of a combination, an idea.

  The whalemen of the Azores will tell you that when an adult whale is harpooned at a distance of five or six miles from another, the latter, even if in this state of apparent death, will wake with a start and flee in fear. The whales hunted in the Azores are mainly sperm whales.

  Sperm Whale. This whale, among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa Whale, and the Physeter Whale and the Anvil Headed Whale, is the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottfisch of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm Whale was almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the one then known in England as Greenland or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known its original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity.

  Melville, Moby-Dick, chapter XXXII

  Sperm whales are great whales which live in areas of both hemispheres where the water temperature is fairly high. There are important differences between their physiology and that of other whales: the whalebones, which fortify the mouth of the latter and which are used to grind up small elements of food, are replaced in the sperm whale by sturdy teeth firmly inserted in the lower jaw and capable of snapping a large prey; the head, an enormous mass which ends vertically like the prow of a ship, accounts for a third of the whole body. These anatomical differences between the two groups of whales assign them to distinct territories: other whales find the thick banks of microscopic organisms they feed on mainly in the cold waters of the polar regions, where they absorb this food with the same naturalness with which we breathe; the sperm whale, on the other hand, mainly feeds on cephalopods which flourish in temperate waters. There are also important differences in the way these giant whales behave, differences which whalemen have learnt to recognize to perfection in the interests of their own safety. While other whales are peaceful animals, the older male sperm whale, like the boar, lives alone and will both defend and avenge himself. Having wounded the creature with their harpoons, many whaleboats have been snatched between the jaws of these giants and then crushed to pieces; and many crews have perished in the hunt.

  Albert I, Prince of Monaco, La Carrière d’un navigateur, pages 277–78

  No small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores . . . How it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen.

  Melville, Moby Dick, chapter XXVII

  The island of Pico is a volcanic cone which rises sheer from the ocean: it is no more and no less than a high rocky mountain resting on the water. There are three villages: Madalena, São Roque and Lajes; the rest is lava rock on which are dotted meagre vineyards and a few wild pineapples. The small ferry ties up at the landing stage in Madalena. It’s Sunday and many families are taking trips to the nearby islands with baskets and bundles. The baskets are overflowing with pineapples, bananas, bottles of wine, fish. In Lajes there is a small whale museum I want to see. But since it’s not a workday the bus isn’t running very often and Lajes is forty kilometres away at the other end of the island. I sit patiently on a bench under a palm in front of the strange church that stands in the little praça. I planned to take a swim, it’s a fine day and the temperature is pleasant. But on the ferry they told me to be careful, there’s a dead whale near the rocks and the sea is full of sharks.

  After a long wait in the midday heat I see a taxi which, having set down a passenger by the harbor, is turning back. The driver offers me a free ride to Lajes, because he has just made the trip and is going home, and
the price his passenger paid included the return trip and he doesn’t want any money he doesn’t deserve. There are only two taxis in Lajes, he tells me with a satisfied look, his and his cousin’s. Pico’s only road runs along the cliffs with bends and potholes above a foaming sea. It’s a narrow, bumpy road crossing a grim stony landscape, with just the occasional isolated village, dominated by an incongruously large eighteenth-century monastery and an imposing padrão – the stone monument that Portuguese sailors used to set up wherever they landed as a sign of their king’s sovereignty.

  The whale museum is in the main street on the first floor of a handsome renovated townhouse. My guide is a youngster with a vaguely half-witted air and a hackneyed, formal way of talking. What interests me most are the pieces of whale ivory which the whalemen used to carve, and then the ship’s logs and some archaic tools of bizarre design. Along one wall are some old photographs. One bears the caption: Lajes, 25 de Dezembro 1919. Heaven knows how they managed to drag the sperm whale as far as the church. It must have taken quite a few pairs of oxen. It’s a frighteningly huge sperm whale, it seems incredible. Six or seven young boys have climbed up onto its head: they’ve placed a ladder against the front of the head and are waving caps and handkerchiefs on top. The whalemen are lined up in the foreground with a proud, satisfied air. Three of them are wearing woolen bobble caps, one has an oilskin hat shaped like a fireman’s. They are all barefoot, only one has boots, he must be the master. I imagine they then left the photograph, took off their caps and went into church, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to leave a whale in the square outside. Thus they spent Christmas day on Pico in 1919.

  As I come out of the museum, a surprise awaits me. From the end of the street, still deserted, appears a band. They are old men and boys dressed in white with sailor’s caps, their brass buttons brightly polished and winking in the sun. They’re playing a melancholy air, a waltz it seems, and they play it beautifully. In front of them walks a little girl holding a staff on the end of which two bread rolls and a dove made of sugar have been skewered. I follow the little procession in their lonely parade along the main street as far as a house with blue windows. The band arranges itself in a semicircle and strikes up a dashing march. A window opens and an old man with a distinguished look to him greets them, leaning out, smiling. He disappears, then reappears a moment later on the doorstep. He is met with a short burst of applause, a handshake from the bandleader, a kiss from the little girl. Obviously this is a homage, though to whom or what I don’t know, and there wouldn’t be much sense in asking. The very short ceremony is over, the band rearranges itself into two lines, but instead of turning back they set off toward the sea which is right there at the bottom of the street. They start playing again and I follow them. When they reach the sea they sit on the rocks, put their instruments down on the ground and light up cigarettes. They chat and look at the sea. They’re enjoying their Sunday. The girl has left her staff leaning against a lamppost and is playing with a friend her own age. From the other end of the village the bus honks its horn, because at six it will be making its only trip to Madalena, and right now it’s five to.

  There are two sorts of whalemen in the Azores. The first come from the United States on small schooners of around a hundred tons. They look like pirate crews, because of the motley of races they include: negroes, Malays, Chinese, and indefinable cosmopolitan crosses of this or that, are all mixed up with deserters and rascals using the ocean as a means of escape from the justice of men. An enormous boiler takes up the centre of the schooner; it is here that the chunks of lubber cut from the captured sperm whale, which is tied to scaffolding beside the ship’s hull, are transformed into oil using an infernal cooking process constantly disturbed by the pitch and roll of the boat: meanwhile coils of sickening smoke wreath all about. And when the sea is rough what a wild spectacle it becomes! Rather than give up the fruits of prey heroically snatched from the belly of the Ocean, these men prefer to put their lives in jeopardy. To double the ropes holding the whale to the scaffolding, a number of men will risk their lives climbing out on that enormous oily mass awash with rushing water, its great bulk tossed about by the waves and threatening to smash the hull of the schooner to pieces. Having doubled the ropes they will hang on, prolonging the risk to the point where it is no longer tolerable. Then they cut the hawsers and the whole crew shouts violent, angry imprecations at the carcass as it drifts off on the waves, leaving only a terrible stench where before it had inspired dreams of riches.

  The other group of whalemen is made up of people more similar to common mortals. They are the fishermen of the islands, or even adventurous farmers, and sometimes simple emigrants who have come back to their own country, their souls tempered by other storms in the Americas. Ten of them will get together to make the crews for two whaling boats belonging to a tiny company with a capital of around thirty thousand francs. A third of the profits go to the shareholders, the other two thirds are divided equally between members of the crews. The whaling sloops are admirably built for speed and fitted with sails, oars, paddles, an ordinary rudder and an oar rudder. The hunting tools include several harpoons (their points carefully protected in cases), a number of fairly sharp steel lances, and five or six hundred metres of rope arranged in spirals inside baskets from which it runs forward through an upright fork on the prow of the boat.

  These small boats lie in wait, concealed on small beaches or in the rocky bays of these inhospitable little islands. From a highpoint on the island a look-out constantly scans the sea the way a topman does on a ship; and when that column of watery stream the sperm whale blows out from his spiracle is sighted, the look-out musters the whalemen with an agreed signal. In a few minutes the boats have taken to the sea and are heading towards the place where the drama will be consummated.

  Albert I, Prince of Monaco, La Carrière d’un navigateur, pages 280–83

  FROM A CODE OF REGULATIONS

  I Concerning the Whales

  Art. 1. These regulations are valid for the hunting of those whales indicated below when hunting is carried out in the territorial waters of Portugal and of the islands over which Portugal holds sovereignty:

  Sperm whale, Physeter catodon (Linnaeus)

  Common Whale, Baloenoptera physalus (Linnaeus)

  Blue Whale, Baloenoptera musculus (Linnaeus)

  Dwarf Whale, Baloenoptera acustorostrata (Linnaeus)

  Hump-backed Whale or “Ampebeque,” Megaptera nodosa (Linnaeus)

  II Concerning the Boats

  Art. 2. The craft used in the hunt shall be as follows:

  a) Whaling sloops. Boats without decks, propelled by oar or sail, used in the hunt, that is to harpoon or kill the whales.

  b) Launches. Mechanically propelled boats used to assist the whaling sloops by towing them and the whales killed. When necessary and within the terms of these regulations, such boats may be used in the hunt itself to surround and harpoon the whales.

  Art. 44. The dimensions of whaling sloops are fixed by law as follows: length, from 10 to 11.5 metres; width, from 1.8 to 1.95 metres.

  Art. 45. The launches must have a weight of at least 4 tons and a speed of at least 8 knots.

  Art. 51. In addition to such tools and equipment as are necessary for the hunt, all whaling boats must carry the following items on board: an axe to cut the harpoon rope if this should be necessary; three flags, one white, one blue, one red; a box of biscuits; a container with fresh water; three Holmes luminous torches.

  III Concerning the Conduct of the Hunt

  Art. 54. It is expressly forbidden to hunt whales with less than two boats.

  Art. 55. It is forbidden to throw the harpoon when the boats are at such a distance from each other as not to be able to offer mutual assistance in the event of an accident.

  Art. 56. In the event of an accident, all boats in the vicinity must assist those in difficulty, even if this means breaking off the hunt.

  Art. 57. If a member of the crew should
fall overboard during the hunt, the master of the boat involved will break off all hunting activity, cutting the harpoon rope if necessary, and will attend to the recovery of the man overboard to the exclusion of all else.

  Art. 57a. If a boat captained by another master is present at the place where the accident occurs, this boat cannot refuse the necessary assistance.

  Art. 57b. If the man overboard is the master, command will pass to the harpooneer, who must then follow the regulation described at Art. 57.

  Art. 61. The direction of the hunt will be decided by the senior of the two masters, except where prior agreement to the contrary has been declared.

  Art. 64. In the event of dead or dying whales being found out at sea or along the coast, those who find them must immediately inform the maritime authorities who will have the responsibility of proceeding to verify the report and to remove any harpoons. The finder of the whale will have the right to remuneration which will be paid under the terms of Art. 685 of the Commercial Code.