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Pushing into this tiny port, we come to these half-naked men, and hear the story of Carmelo Bay.
Some Portuguese sailors found the deserted quarries, where the monks had taught the Indians how to cut stone, and fancying they could work them for their profit, squatted on the spot.
They failed.
A quarry man requires a builder, and the men who built in stone were gone.
Our mariners had fallen on an age of logs.
Unable to live by stone, they thought of fish.
There flowed the sea, alive with smelts and seals. . Below the headland they could see the whales go sweeping by. Why not put off in chase?
It was a dangerous trade; but when they plied it eagerly, they found it pay.
Six or eight men, they say, go out in each boat, according to the number of oars.
Two watch; the others pull.
On darting his harpoon into a whale, the leader pays out rope, and lets his victim writhe and plunge.
The fight is often long, and sometimes fatal to the men. When hooked, the whale is towed to port, where he is sliced and boiled.
“ You have no natives living in your port?”
“No, Sefior, the natives are no good in a whaling craft.”
1875.
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