THE A 31 ERIC AN WHALE-FISHERY. 199 
put a great iron hook, which is fastened to a strong tackle, and also sometimes, 
before in the ship, are fix'd two other tackle, wherewith all the fat is drawn up 
into the ship. In the ship stand two men, with hooks as long as a man, where- 
with they hold the great piece of fat, which the two men cut into square pieces 
with their long knives. By them stands another, that hath a short hook witli a 
ring in his hands, which he thrusts into the pieces of fat that are cut scpxarc, and 
puts it upon the bench or dressing -board, where it is cut by others into less 
pieces. The two first men with their long knives, that cut the large pieces of fat, 
stand near the larboard of the ship, at that side where the whale is fix'd, and the 
other men, that afterwards cut it into less pieces, stand on the other side call'd 
starboard. When it is a good time to catch whales, and they will not lose it, they 
tow sometimes several fish behind their ship, and catch more ; and they cut only 
the great pieces of fat of them, and fling them underneath into the ship. But 
when they have no more vessels to put their fat into, they sail into an harbor ; or 
if it be calm weather, and not windy, they stay in the sea, and fasten themselves 
to a sheet of ice, and so they drive along with the stream. The other men cut 
the fat into small pieces, on a table ; on the further side of the table is a nail 
fastened, whercunto they fasten a hook, which they put into the fat, that it may 
may lye steddy when they cut it into small pieces ; the fat is tough to cut, where- 
fore it must lie firm. That side whereon the skin is they lay undermost, and so 
cut the fat from it by pieces. The knives wherewith they cut the fat into small 
pieces are less than the other, about three foot long with their hafts. They all cut 
from them that they may not be bedaubed with the fat, which might occasion a 
shrinking-up and lameness of the sinews of their hands and arms. One of them 
cuts the soft and tough fat into small pieces with a long knife ; this man they call 
the chopper, and he is mightily daubed, wherefore he doth hang about him all sorts 
of rags and clouts he can get. The fat of some whales is white, of others yellow, 
and of some red. The white fat is full of small sinews, and it does not yield so 
much oyl as the yellow. The yellow fat that looks like butter is the best. The 
red and watery fat cometh from dead whales, for in the place where the fat runs 
out the blood settles in its room, and yields the worst and least oyl. Before the 
table is a gutter made of two boards nailed together, whereinto the small or 
minced fat is flung ; by it stands a boy that shuffles the fat by degrees into a bag 
that is fixed to the end of the gutter, and is like unto a pudding -bag, so that it 
reaches down into the ship ; out of this bag the fat runs down into a tub or 
wooden funnel, which they put upon empty vessels, or cardels, as they call them, 
and the men that are below in the ship fill them with it, and so it is kept until 
