“Upon arrival at Smithton we found all the local world and their wives, their sisters (and other people’s sisters), cousins, aunts, to say nothing of the children were waiting to embark per medium of something floating to go and see the whales. Several motor launches, sailing and rowing boats were doing the trips and carrying full passenger lists on every trip.”
Later after the viewing the whales, Spurling remarked, “Many were the expression of wonderment as to the cause of the stranding of the school, as it would be difficult to imagine a smoother or more gradually shelving beach than the one on which they be. We saw them at low tide, the water being 50 yards away from the carcasses, but as one walked the sand oozed not water, but oil, green sickly vile smelling oil, which soaked out from the bulky masses of blubber. One farmer pointed sadly to them and remarked that there was £70,000 going to waste.” A short time later a company (Smithton Whaling Company) was established for the purpose of extracting the ambergris from the whales and this was stored in barrels and shipped to London. Upon arrival, the content of the barrels were deemed worthless.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
HELLOThanks for checking in and welcome to my adventure Follow in Facebook to receive the latest updates
Archives
September 2020
Categories
All
worth watching |
|