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Show 1881.] THE BASQUE PROVINCES OF SPAIN. 975 formerly the " Oasa de Ballenas," or house where business connected with the whale-fishery was transacted. At Gijon there is also a " Casa de Ballenas," and a street called Whale-lane. These names, with the coats of arms and traditions, are all relics of the old whaling days. At San Sebastian, too, there are enormous tinajas, or earthenware jars, in which the oil was stored. It was at one time supposed that the Balana biscayensis had become quite extinct; but this is certainly not the case. Whales are seen on the Cantabrian coast at intervals of about ten years. In 1844 a whale was seen off Zarauz. Boats went out, and it was hit; but it broke the lines, and got away with two harpoons and three lances in its body, after having towed the boats for six hours. On the 25th of July 1850, early in the morning, a whale appeared off Guetaria. Boats quickly pursued it; but the harponeer missed his aim, and the whale went off, heading N.W. In January 1854 a whale and her two young entered the bay of San Sebastian. One of the young whales was singled out for attack; but the mother made desperate efforts to defend it, and once broke the line. Eventually the mother and one calf escaped, while the other was secured. Of course, with proper boats and apparatus, and if the fishermen had had a little of their ancestor's experience, all three would have been caught. It was the skeleton of this young whale that Professor Eschricht purchased at Pampluna. It is now at Copenhagen. While I was at Gijon, in the Asturias, I was told by an old fisherman that a whale had been caught, about twenty years ago, by the villagers near the lighthouse on Punta de Peiias. The story was not believed by merchants and others of whom I made inquiries ; so I thought it best to investigate the matter myself. I therefore went westward to the little fishing-village of Luanco, and next day proceeded on foot across a wild mountainous country to the lighthouse of Punta de Penas-a distance of 16 miles there and back. There, in the courtyard of the lighthouse was a whale's jaw-bone ; and the man in charge corroborated the story. But he added the curious statement that the whale was dead and half flensed, drifting in under the land, when the villagers first saw it and went out in their boats to tow it on shore. I also found parts of the rib-bones in the granary of a farm-house at Viodo, a hamlet near the lighthouse. The last whale of which I obtained intelligence was sighted between Guetaria and Zarauz on the 11th of February 1878. Many boats went out from those two places, and one boat from Orio. The first harpoon that kept fast was thrown by a smart young sailor of Guetaria, the countryman of Sebastian del Cano, the first circumnavigator of the globe. He is now in the Spanish navy. Eventually the whale was killed and towed on shore. No one derived any benefit, because there was a law-suit tried at Azpeitia. It appears that the harpoon was of Guetaria, but that the line belonged to Zarauz. Meanwhile the whale became unpleasant and had to be blown up. The authorities of San Sebastian, however, through the intervention of Don Nicolas Soraluce, secured the bones; and the |