A clean bright copy of this account of a French whaling voyage. It was on Duboc’s voyage that the first North Pacific right whale was taken by the crew of the Le Gange. Robert Lloyd Webb, translates it:
“After a chase of two or three hours … the harpooner left his oar, seized his harpoon, turned it and lanced vigorously at the animal; the iron entered deeply, but the boat was suddenly smashed by a blow of the tail; the harpooner was thrown … in the air, also one of the oarsmen, who fell back down and injured himself critically on the wreckage. One of the other boats … advanced boldly, and soon we saw it fly like an arrow, it was fast [to the whale], and the whale dashed along with it in it flight … But this frightening chase slackened little by little; the other boats … surrounded it, harassed it and wounded it with the lance; it received a mortal blow … but night arrived, and all disappeared from sight.”
Departing Le Havre, Le Gange sailed through the Channel to the Atlantic, stopping off on Porto Santo, Madeira, Tenerife, and the islands of Cape Verde and Fernando de Noronha. On reaching South America they encountered their first whale while sailing down the coasts of Brazil and Argentina. Rounding the Cape, they proceeded north to Chile, via Lemus Island in the Chonos Archipelago and San Carlos on Chiloe Island, where he witnessed the eruption of a volcano. In pursuit of a whale the ship sails to Mocha Island, from whence Duboc travels to Valparaiso on the Chilean coast where he meets a young Araucan man, whose story he recounts. Setting sail again, the ship journeys to the Peruvian village of Paita, where he walks in the neighbouring Andes. Strong winds blow the ship past the Galapagos Islands, forcing it to begin the long sea passage to Monterrey, California. Here Duboc takes part in a festival celebrating Mexican independence before the ship takes him back down the Colombian coast, with a short stop on Paledo Island, to Valparaiso, where his travels on Le Gange come to an end.
Duboc gives us a scrupulous account of his journey interspersed with his musings on the sea and the night sky, remembrances of his childhood dreams, as well as retellings of some of the many stories he hears along the way. The second part of the book concentrates on one such tale, a picaresque love story with a turbulent conclusion.
Rare: no copies on ABPC or Rare Book Hub. Howes, D520; Palau 76316; Barrett, “Baja California”, 731; Monagha, 575; Kirckheimer, 365; Vaucaire, p.243; Webb, R.L., On the Northwest: commercial whaling in the Pacific Northwest, 1790-1967. pp 41-2
