76 NIMEOD OF THE SEA; OR, 



a word of encouragement for us. He said he had hopes that 

 in time we would be steady, and to be depended on. 



A great many things were done with boat and lance in- 

 comprehensible to me. I was alone responsible for the bow- 

 oar, and I pulled and starned, as the rapid orders came 

 from the captain or boat-steerer. In good time, thick blood 

 was spouted, the flurry followed, and a dead whale, floating 

 fin out, was lying ahead of our boat. We were still to lee- 

 ward of the ship. She ran down, and luffed to the wind, 

 with the foreyard aback. This brought the whale on the 

 weather-side, with the tail toward the bows ; and then, by a 

 curious arrangement of buoy and line, a heavy fluke-chain 

 was secured around the small at the junction of the body 

 with the flukes, while the other end, through a side hawse- 

 hole, was brought to the windlass bitts. The cutting-in falls 

 for the morrow's work. I had time to look over the side, 

 and try to study a sperm-whale ; but as he lay alongside, 

 exposing but a small part of his bulk, I was disappointed in 

 his apparent size. My notions regarding the leviathan had 

 been somewhat loose, and I had a general idea that a whale 

 was as large as a Pennsylvania barn. I set this fellow down 

 as a baby, perhaps, but was disenchanted by a remark of the 

 second mate that we would see few larger. Our capture was 

 estimated at eighty-five barrels. That night we turned in 

 with blistered hands but easy consciences. 



Feb. 8. The ship we had se"en to windward ran down to 

 speak us. As she approached it was plain that a whaler 

 on the cruise could not be mistaken in her calling. The 

 large number of beautiful boats on her cranes, the cumber- 

 some try-works amidships, the two enormous blocks lashed 

 to the mainmast-heads for " cutting-in " (or flensing, as the 

 English writers term it), and the men at the mast-head, all 

 proclaimed her occupation. 



