North Eastern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 3 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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[Footnote: Of The Various Species Of Whales, The Narwhal Occurs Very
Rarely Off Novaya Zemlya.
It is more common at Hope Island, and Witsen
states that large herds have been seen between Spitzbergen and Novaya
Zemlya.
The White Whale (_Delphinapterus leucas_, Pallas), on the other
hand, occurs in large shoals on the coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya
Zemlya. In 1871, 2167 White Whales were taken by the Tromsoe fleet alone,
an estimated value of L6500. In 1880, one vessel had 300 whales at one cast
of the net, in Magdalena Bay. In former times they appear to have been
caught at the mouth of the Yenisej, which river they ascend several hundred
miles. Nordenskiold also saw large shoals off the Taimur peninsula. Other
species occur seldom off Novaya Zemlya. It is rather amusing to find the
meeting with a whale mentioned as very remarkable and dangerous. When
Nearchus sailed with the fleet of Alexander the Great from the Indus to the
Red Sea, a whale also caused so great a panic that it was only with
difficulty that the commander could restore order among the frightened
seamen, and get the rowers to row to the place where the Whale spouted
water and caused a commotion in the sea like that of a whirlwind. All the
men shouted, struck the water with their oars, and sounded their trumpets,
so that the large, and, in the judgment of the Macedonian Heroes, terrible
animal, was frightened. _(See the "Indica" of Nearchus, preserved to us by
Arrian, an excellent translation of which, by J. W. McCrindle, appeared in
1879.)_ Quite otherwise was the Whale regarded on Spitsbergen some few
years after Burrough's voyage.
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