128 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



cal iron bowls; in its sides are four square holes from which smoke 

 soon begins to curl. The whole erection stands upon a platform of 

 carefully cemented bricks and stones, and over it is raised a wooden 

 canopy not unlike a curving tent. This is the great gamble of Fran- 

 cois Sopite. With this he hopes to free the Eskualdunak forever 

 from the nausea of rotting, oily flesh, the worthless battling with 

 winds and tides to reach home when the ship is but half burthened, 

 the bitter disappointment of a half-empty purse after months of 

 arduous labor. His orders therefore are curt to a degree. 



Immediately men go overboard and jump on to the great corpse 

 that floats alongside. Then, with long blades rasped to a razor's edge 

 and attached to long handles they set to work cutting into the fatty 

 mass of blackness that protrudes from the waves. Great hooks are 

 lowered from the big ship above on the ends of ropes passed through 

 blocks high upon the rigging, and slowly long belts of blubber 

 three feet wide and ten, twenty, thirty feet long are hoisted into the 

 air as men cut and hack and the great corpse slowly revolves in the 

 water. It is like peeling an enormous orange. At the same time hooks 

 are inserted into the tip of the immense lower jaw, and when the 

 animal is floating on its back, the cavernous mouth is opened and 

 men go right inside to hack away the lips and loosen the hundreds 

 of baleen plates, while others cut in behind the bulging white 

 tongue so that it may be hoisted out with tackle and a heavy winch 

 all in one piece. 



And as the strips of blubber come aboard the ship, Captain Fran- 

 cois Sopite personally supervises their dissection into blocks about 

 two feet square. Meanwhile a wood fire has been stoked within the 

 brick house, and when the iron bowls sunk into its top are almost 

 red hot, the blocks of blubber are tossed in to crackle and sizzle. 

 They sink down in a growing pool of clear oil which is then ladled 

 out into iron tanks standing in larger wooden tanks of water, so 

 that it may cool. The residue left in the bowls is brought out with 

 large tongs and looks like vast bits of pork crackling. It is tossed 

 into the fire below, where it burns furiously, giving off an acrid 

 smell. Soon, in fact, the fire is burning on this crackling alone 

 while oil runs continuously from the cooling tanks into barrels, and 

 the whole process is self-sustaining. The great experiment is a suc- 

 cess, and while men chant and shout in the gathering darkness Ht 



