You’d think we’d
get along considering the size of our world. We should have our own patch of
land, our own lean-to and a garden plot to grow veggies but it seems we are an
argumentative species. Nothing is safe.
Take the 17th
century. Compared to today, there weren’t many folks on the planet. London was
a metropolis, with a large portion of the English population within its
walls. Holland had her canals and Amsterdam. Paris belonged to France. These
nations found plenty of land to explore but as squabbling children, they all wanted
the same spots.
 | |
| East India Company Battle in Indonesia |
During the early
part of 17th century, the English and Dutch each had an East India
Company who plied foreign waters, seeking trade. Whenever the Dutch or English
sailed into the same harbor, there were sea battles, torture and murder. There
were plenty of islands in the South Pacific and the Caribbean but the grass was
always greener on the other’s atoll.
To compete, it
wasn’t until the 1660’s that France established their own East India Company,
but the French had not been idle the first half of the century. They
established colonies all over the world, in the East and West Indies, along the
Norwegian and North American coasts.
In the Banda
Islands of today’s Indonesia where nutmeg grew, a fierce rivalry sprang up
between the Dutch and English. They fought over these islands until the native
peoples were decimated and the crop completely destroyed. It reminds me of a
Star Trek episode where the mindset is so stubborn, the enemy would rather see
the death of a planet than share it.
 |
| Killing a Whale |
Whaling was
another product the French, English and Dutch fought over. There were a lot of
whales in the seas, but everyone congregated on the same shores. Initially,
Norwegian islands offered places where whale and walrus meat could be processed
but others sailed on to the cold waters of the Atlantic for whale blubber.
Stories ensued
from these exertions. Hostilities transferred from country against country to
whales against men.
Whales are big
animals. They fight for what is theirs. Moby Dick came into being where a large
mammalian beast fought in a life and death struggle against a madman, and then
there was James Bartley.
Off the Falkland
Islands, the crew on a whaler spotted an 80’ whale basking in the cold waters, sifting
krill through its fringed baleen. Men climbed the ships’ shrouds, hung from the
yardarms and pointed. Two small boats were launched. It was time to kill a
whale!
 |
| Processing Whale Blubber etc. |
One harpooner
sent his weapon into the whale, who lashed out. The small boats in peril, men fell overboard. Water sprayed the remaining men but they bagged their prey.
They hauled the 80’ beast onto the vessel and began to dissect it.
Someone reported
a man missing, a James Bartley. Everyone assumed he had drowned in the battle
against the big whale. They shrugged and continued to dissect the animal. After
6 hours of backbreaking work, they threw in the towel and went to sleep for the
night.
The next
morning, they were at it again. “Suddenly sailors were startled by something in
the stomach which gave spasmodic signs of life. Inside they found the missing
sailor, James Barley, doubled up and unconscious. He was placed on deck and
treated to a bath of seawater, which soon revived him, but his mind was not
clear and the crew placed him in the captain’s quarters.”
 |
| Poor Sod about to Beaten by Whale |
Once Bartley
recovered his senses, he related that he’d been hit by the whale’s tail and had
been “encompassed by great darkness, and he felt he was slipping along a smooth
passage that seemed to move and carry him forward. His hands came in contact
with a yielding, slimy substance, which seemed to shrink from his touch. He
could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It seemed to open the pores of
his skin and draw out his vitality. The next he remembered he was in the
captain’s cabin.”
Even as James
Bartley survived being sucked into the belly of a beast, he was lucky. The
whale was more benign than being tortured by a hostile, East India Company person.
The Salt Box, YA Fantasy
~*~*~*~*~*~
Many thanks to:
The
People’s Almanac by David Wallechinsky & Irving Wallace, Doubleday &
Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1975, page 1399
Wikipedia
Commons, public domain
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