Once a sperm whale had exhausted itself, harpooners would row alongside and repeatedly stab it until, as Melville wrote, " the red tide poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a hill ."
42.
Samuel B . Comstock, a 22-year-old boatsteerer ( harpooner ), was the instigator of the mutiny, which occurred on 26 January 1824, near Fanning Island, 900 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands.
43.
When a 8 m ( 26 ft ) long whale was sighted, chalupas ( chaloupes in French, and later shallops in English ) were sent out, each manned by a steersman, five oarsmen, and a harpooner.
44.
The Wampanoag have a separate history; their creation myth tells that their ancestors reached the island after traveling on an Tashtego in Herman Melville's novel " Moby-Dick " is a Native American harpooner from Aquinnah.
45.
For example, she turns Melville's astonishing tale of a harpooner trapped in the sinking skull of a dead whale into a slight anecdote, finishing with a playful suggestion that the novel is " really about head size ."
46.
There were hardly any experienced whalemen remaining in Britain, and the Company had to engage Dutch and Danish whalemen for the key posts aboard their ships : for instance all commanding officers and harpooners were hired from the North Frisian island of F�hr.
47.
He is an extraordinary harpooner, impressing the money-tight owners of the " Pequod " so much that they immediately offer him a 90th lay ( of the ship's profit ) in exchange for his signing on with the crew.
48.
St . Pierre has been working with Ron Sr . as his spotter, his only spotter, for seven years, so the relationship between St . Pierre in the plane and the harpooner on the boat was as seamless as that of brain to hand.
49.
As a child, he heard legends about one of his ancestors, also a harpooner, except that in those days it was tougher : the job then was to row a small boat alongside a whale, jump on its back, and drive a spear into its head.
50.
"We'd row and row and row, 18-foot oars, lot of work, and the harpooner would stab the whale, and then the next man, he would kill the whale, shoot him in the head with a bomb, a gun that would shoot bombs.
