for the command to throw. It comes, "latah!" and the instrument descends with cruel force and precision into the whale's body, followed by others, and the oarsmen quickly back away to escape the commotion which the creature's huge tail creates in the water when it is wounded. Other lines are attached to the harpoon-lines, to which are fastened "floats" made of the stomachs of the hair-seal, filled with air, to prevent the canoes from being drawn Under water.
In his agony the whale at first lashes the sea furiously, then starts off on a run, and drags the canoes. But with half a dozen harpoons in him he is doomed. Should night come on, or the sea be rough, the canoes are detached, and the whale left to die at his leisure, prevented from going to the bottom by the lines of floats attached to him. He may travel all night and all the following day, but not straight ahead, and is usually found in the morning, when if be shows game the boats are again fastened to the lines, and away they go once more, moving about in a circle of fifteen or twenty miles. When at last the whale succumbs, the carcass is towed ashore, the tide assisting to beach it. When this happens there is a race to be the first to touch the body, as thereby one becomes eligible to the office of chief harpooner, or hoa-chin-i-ca-ha.*
The medicine-man removes the whale's eyes, which he uses in his incantations; runners are sent out to collect the tribe, and the whale's blubber is cut up and divided among them. As much as one thousand or fifteen hundred gallons of oil are obtained from one whale. When all are present a "potlatch," or feast, is held, presided over by the "medicine," and the festivities close with libations of fire-water, poured, if not to the gods of Olympus, down the thirsty throats of these savages.
- This account of whale-chasing is merely a synopsis of a very interesting description by an eye-witness,—H. D. C.,—published in the Oregonian. On the occasion of his observations at Neah Bay, one of the pursuing boats containing seven Indians became separated from the fleet and was lost. There is a life-saving station at Neah Bay, which could, however, be of no use to a canoe in distress in the open sea. The neighborhood of Cape Flattery is the centre frequently of wild storms, and is often overhung with thick fogs. A long list of vessels lost about this part of the coast might be given, and yet the life-saving station there is very ill equipped and inefficient.
