Whale Hunter

This is the narrative of a harpooner in the whale-ship Charles W Morgan, whose four-year voyage in 1849–1853 took him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the South Pacific and on around the world. Before the days of the whale-gun and its explosive warhead, whaling was a dangerous and far from one-sided pursuit indeed, one of Haleys earliest experiences was the destruction of his boat by a whale attack, and even when the harpoon hit the target, the whaleboat would be towed at speed until the...