The Whale-chasing Brothers.

I knew, long ago, George Cook's younger brother, Captain Bert Cook, now dead. He was the whaler of Whangamumu, on the North Auckland Coast, where he and his Maori crews used to set strong nets to entangle the humpback whales when they came close in to the rocky bay. There were lively scenes there when those expert harpooneers and lance-men fought and killed the flurried whales tangled in the nets set near the rocks.

Bert was a deep-sea sailor, too, and sailed on many a Pacific whaling cruise. Once, when he was in a boat's crew belonging to the American barque “Alaska,” there was a strange and dramatic race for a whale off the Chathams, with a rival whaleship's boat in which his brother George was in charge as boatsteerer. Bert was a tremendously powerful oarsman, and he put forth a herculean effort which won by a boat's bow the race for the whale. “Your whale, Bert!” shouted George, as his brother's crew swept past and the harpooneer poised his iron to strike.