Amber mouthpiece.
John Green collection.
PCoL #UK207L

Catching the Albatross for sport – or – the making of pipe stems.

The home of the albatross is the seas of the Antarctic. These majestic birds often followed and accompanied sailing ships in the hope of picking up scraps of food. Catching albatrosses was one of the favourite pastimes on voyages around Cape Horn.

To attract the great bird, a thin metal triangle about 20 cm long and 3 – 4 cm wide was attached to the top of a piece of wood so that it would float. A piece of lard was wrapped around one of the angles. In order to catch the albatross without blood being spilt, the triangle was tied to the end of a thin line and let into the water.

Some captains placed a ban on albatross hunting, others allowed a few specimens to be caught and killed, others took part themselves.

The long wing bones were very popular with sailors as tobacco-pipe stems, and the beak could be used as a crook. But many albatrosses were set free again.

‘L’Albatros’ by Charles Baudelaire

Souvent, pour s’amuser, les hommes d’équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l’azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d’eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu’il est comique et laid!
L’un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L’autre mime, en boitant, l’infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.

English translation, by A. Z. Foreman

Often for sport the crewmen will ensnare
Some albatrosses: vast seabirds that sweep
In lax accompaniment through the air
Behind the ship that skims the bitter deep.

No sooner than they dump them on the floors
These skyborn kings, graceless and mortified,
Feel great white wings go down like useless oars
And drag pathetically at either side.

That sky-rider: how gawky now, how meek!
How droll and ugly he who shone on high!
The sailors poke a pipe stem in his beak,
Then limp to mock this cripple born to fly.

The poet is so like this prince of clouds
Who haunted storms and sneered at earthly slings;
Now, banished to the ground, to cackling crowds,
He cannot walk beneath the weight of wings.