The history of European whaling begins with the excursions of the Basques, who, as long ago at least as the tenth century, were accustomed to go out from their shore-towns in search of the southern right whale which frequents the Bay of Biscay and its offing. Doubtless their boats were small, half-decked, lugger-rigged “shyppes,” carrying ten to fifteen men, and looking much like many of the Channel fishermen of to-day. This “fishery” supplied all Europe during the Middle Ages with the whalebone and oil which were among the luxuries of the rich at that time; but by the time the sixteenth century had arrived, whales had become so scarce in the Eastern Atlantic—where now they are almost extinct—that this industry must have ceased had not the Cabots shown the way to Newfoundland, to whose shores the Basques at once extended their voyages with excellent results, for in those days whales were commonly seen all along the American shore of the North Atlantic. But this remote fishery would have been too precarious and costly to be of great consequence had it not been for the early efforts, related in Chapter V, to find a passage to the East north of the continents. The earliest of these failed, but they brought back reports that the edge of the frozen sea abounded in whales, and men rushed into this newly discovered field of wealth, as, centuries later, they abandoned everything in headlong haste to go to the gold-fields of California, Australia, South Africa or the Yukon Valley. The English did their best to monopolize the whale fishery at once, but the Dutch sent war-vessels, and in a fleet action almost at the edge of the ice in 1618 the Dutch conquered and opened the seas to all comers, while separate districts on the coast of Spitzbergen were assigned to each nationality. The English interest in the fishery declined, but the Dutch increased their attention to it, taking over one thousand whales each year. “About 1680,” we read, “they had two hundred and sixty vessels and fourteen thousand seamen employed. Their fishery continued to flourish on almost as extensive a scale until 1770, when it began to decline, and finally, owing to the war, came to an end before the end of the century.” The Germans were always associated with them, and continued to send a whaling fleet to Barentz Sea and the Jan Mayen waters until 1873. Meanwhile the Greenland whaling-grounds had begun to attract British whalemen, followed by the Danes in the early part of the last century; then this local industry fell off, but was revived about 1800, remained prosperous for many years, and is still the support of Peterhead and a few other Scotch ports. [Illustration: WHALERS TRYING OIL OUT OF BLUBBER.]