CUTTING-IN. 39 



heaved on by the power of the windlass, 

 then hooked into by the blubber hooks, and 

 hoisted in. 



As often as a piece, nearly reaching to the 

 top of the main rnast, was got over the deck, 

 they would attack it with great boarding- knives, 

 and cutting a hole in it at a place nearly even 

 with the deck, thrust in the strap and toggel of 

 the " cutting blocks," that they might still have 

 a purchase on the carcass below. Then they 

 would sever the huge piece from the rest, and 

 lower it down into the "blubber-room," between 

 decks, where two. men had as much as they 

 could do to cut it into six or eight pound pieces, 

 and stow it away. It was from nine to eleven 

 inches thick, and looked like very large fat pork 

 slightly coloured with salt-petre. 



The magnificent, swan-like albatrosses were 

 round us by hundreds, eagerly seizing and fight- 

 ing for every bit and fragment that fell off into 

 the water, swallowing it with the most carni- 

 vorous avidity, and a low, avaricious greed of 

 delight, that detracted considerably from one's 

 admiration of this most superb of birds, just 



