THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 49 



I beheld two stages slung over the side of the 

 ship, each stage six feet long and a foot wide. 

 Men stood upon the stages with sharp spades — 

 one to cut the blubber, the other to kill the sharks 

 that would have devoured our prize. 



I saw an aperture made near the whale's fin. I 

 saw the great hook inserted. I saw a semi-circle 

 cut around the hook. 



Then they took the falls to the windlass. The 

 windlass wound in the falls. The falls passed 

 through a block at the main-mast head. The falls 

 then became the tackle, heaved hard at the iron 

 hook, and stripped the blubber from the whale. 



The blubber came off in a continuous spiral 

 strip. The whale meanwhile kept turning over 

 and over in the water. The ripping of the blubber 

 from the carcass was guided by the sharp spade of 

 the officer on the stage. 



I saw a strip of white, pork-like blubber, 

 twenty-five feet long and five feet wide, hoisted 

 into a perpendicular position and its top touch- 

 ing the mast-head. Then they cut the piece 

 ( " blanket-piece," they said) loose from the whale 

 and lowered the blubber into the ship's hold 

 between decks, at the same time attaching the 

 other tackle to a fresh cut in the whale's flesh and 

 preparing to raise another blanket-piece. 



4 



