It is true, as a recent author contends, that whaling is not properly described as fishing. The whale is an animal, and his pursuit is a form of hunting. In Gordon Grant’s drawings the whole art and craft of catching whales is most lucidly and dramatically set forth. It is sport because the hunters risked their lives when the harpoon left the boatsteerer’s hands to plunge into the whale’s carcase. They were in the most dire peril of a “stove” or a “chawed” boat until the animal’s terrific struggles were ended by the thrust of a lance through his vitals. In modern whaling the operatives are in no more danger than the person who slits the jugular veins of the hogs suspended by their hind legs on a moving chain in a Chicago abattoir. I doubt exceedingly whether these modern whalers will ever have any songs or traditions. All too soon they will, as I understand it, have no more whales. They will have become history themselves without ever having become known to the public. If by chance the captain of the _Vikingen_, of the Viking Whaling Company, Limited, of London, ever meets Moby Dick, he will order full speed ahead on his 4300 horsepower and overhaul the White Whale in a few hours. A few days later he will be in sealed cans. Ships, and especially sailing craft, are the unhappy victims of artists who know more about pretty pictures than ships. They take quite felonious liberties with the craft and the men they depict. In “Greasy Luck” however, you will find the most austere fidelity to the truth combined with what to me is a most satisfying vivacity of presentation. I commend to your notice the lowered whaleboat on page 59 as an example of what I mean. Such a boat was an instrument to which men entrusted their lives and fortunes. It was the product of deep thought and shrewd designing for a century. It was, as one writer says, “sharp and clean-cut as a dolphin” with “a duck-like capacity to top the oncoming waves, so that it will dryly ride where ordinary boats would fill.... Here we have a boat that two men may lift, and which will make ten miles an hour in dead chase by the oars alone.” Such a craft has a beauty of its own, not to be found in pleasure craft. The same boat is shown at a dramatic moment of “A Nantucket Sleigh Ride” on page 75. It appears to me that Mr. Grant has made a definitive and conclusive contribution to Whaliana. If the whales go the way of the buffalo of North America, we shall depend on this book for a lively conception of the ancient sport. Ships and wild animals, it has been remarked, have a hard and tragic ending. This book will preserve for posterity the spiritual as well as the material glories of the whaler’s life. [Illustration: William McFee’s signature] _LIST OF PLATES_ Under Sail _Frontispiece_ Fitting Out _Facing Page_ 2 Hoisting Topsails 4 Choosing Boats’ Crews 6