58 CUTTING IN. 



it away in the stern sheets of the boat, so as to pre- 

 vent its entangling, if again run out by the whale, 

 and the boat is hauled close to him, so as to give the 

 officer an opportunity to lance and despatch him. 

 If he shows a good chance, this is the work of but a 

 few minutes, and the monster is turned up with little 

 or no trouble ; but it often happens that hours inter- 

 vene, before you have an opportunity to kill the 

 whale, and oftentimes are obliged to cut, from the 

 near approach of nightfall. But to return to our 

 whale. We got him alongside, and made him fast by 

 a strong chain, encircling his flukes, passed through 

 the hawse-hole, and secured to the bitts on the fore- 

 castle ; then a hole was cut close to the whale's eye, 

 the tackles attached, the cutting fall taken to the 

 windlass, and with a merrj' song we bowsed his jacket 

 in, stripping the blubber from the carcass, and allow- 

 ing the latter, with the flukes, to go adrift. Next the 

 head was hove in and lashed on the quarter-deck, then 

 several men with axes split the bone from the jaw, to 

 which it was attached by an adhesive substance known 

 as the gum ; it was then scraped, in preparation for the 

 home market, and, after scraping, stowed away in the 

 hold, where no moisture could reach it. The appear- 

 ance of this bone in the jaw, before separation, is beau- 

 tiful; its regular arrangement, and long, fringe-like 

 edging, giving it the aj^pearance of an artificial grotto. 

 After disposing of the head and heaving in all the 

 blubber, this, as fast as stripped, is deposited be- 

 tween decks in the main hold — which apartment is 

 designated as the "blubber-room." The try works 

 being started, two men go into the blubber-room, and, 

 with sharp spades and knives, cut off" the lean from 



