168 WHALING 



gardless of the direction of the ship, as if even in death there 

 persisted a sullen and obstinate desire to make difficult the task 

 of the victors, they dipped oars and pulled till the long ash 

 blades bent; hour after hour they rowed, furlong by furlong, 

 until in the dusk they came wearily down upon the vessel. 

 Lights shone in the rigging and from deckhouse and cabin port. 



They brought the whale alongside, the head aft now, and 

 with weighted cords they worked to get a line round the ''small " 

 — the stocky mass of bones and tendons just forward of the 

 flukes. There were different methods for this. One was to 

 send out two boats, each holding one end of a line, with a heavy 

 sinker to carry down the bight, which they worked forward 

 under the whale until it caught at the proper place. Another 

 was to fish with a line that had a float at one end and a sinker 

 some fathoms away from the float; as they let the line go down 

 beside the whale, and pulled it up, the float would rise on the 

 other side of the carcass. In either case, a rope would follow 

 the cord; a hawser, the rope; and a chain, the hawser. Thus, 

 with the chain round the small, made fast on board, and an- 

 other leading from the head, the whale itself was secure until 

 daylight. 



At break of day they hoisted, by lighter tackles, the huge 

 cutting tackles to the lower masthead and there securely lashed 

 them or slung them from straps of great strength. The stage 

 for the cutters they swung out from the side and made fast. 

 The gigantic lower block of one of the cutting tackles, to which 

 was secured the blubber hook, in size and strength proportionate 

 to the block itself, they brought out over the gangway. 



Armed with spades longer and heavier than those carried in 

 the boats, the mates would go out on the cutting stage. Round 

 their waists they wore ''monkey-ropes," which led inboard and 

 were there made fast or were held by a man delegated to 

 that one task; thus they made sure that they should not fall into 

 the sea, which, in the tropics, swarmed with sharks feasting 

 on the dead whale. 



Flinging or jabbing their spades, with sure aim, into the great 

 carcass, as it lay fin out, they cut, between the fin and the nape 



