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Now , I care not who maintains the contrary , but all this is both foolish and unnecessary . The headsman should stay in the bows from first to last ; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance , and no rowing whatever should be expected of him , except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman . I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase ; but long experience in various whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures in the fishery , it has not by any means been so much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has caused them . To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart , the harpooneers of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness , and not from out of toil . CHAPTER 63 . The Crotch . Out of the trunk , the branches grow ; out of them , the twigs . So , in productive subjects , grow the chapters . The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention . It is a notched stick of a peculiar form , some two feet in length , which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow , for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoon , whose other naked , barbed end slopingly projects from the prow . Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler , who snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall . It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch , respectively called the first and second irons . But these two harpoons , each by its own cord , are both connected with the line ; the object being this : to dart them both , if possible , one instantly after the other into the same whale ; so that if , in the coming drag , one should draw out , the other may still retain a hold . It is a doubling of the chances . But it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous , violent , convulsive running of the whale upon receiving the first iron , it becomes impossible for the harpooneer , however lightning - like in his movements , to pitch the second iron into him . Nevertheless , as the second iron is already connected with the line , and the line is running , hence that weapon must , at all events , be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat , somehow and somewhere ; else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands . Tumbled into the water , it accordingly is in such cases ; the spare coils of box line ( mentioned in a preceding chapter ) making this feat , in most instances , prudently practicable . But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties . Furthermore : you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard , it thenceforth becomes a dangling , sharp - edged terror , skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale , entangling the lines , or cutting them , and making a prodigious sensation in all directions . Nor , in general , is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse .
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