208 OLD WHALING DAYS. 



Centipeding is as follows : When it is calm, the boats on 



both sides of the ship are lowered to the water edge. 



They are made fast fore and aft to each other and to 



the vessel, to keep them steady. The off side oars are 



pulled, which only employs half the men. This is the 



custom when all hands have been up a long time and 



require a little rest. (This is a very old custom.) 

 Clew. Of a hammock or cot. 

 Clue. Of a square sail, either the lower corners, reaching 



down to where tacks and sheets are made fast to it. 

 Crow's Nest is a cask fixed at the main top-gallant masthead 



for the master and officers to keep a look out. 

 Dodging, Plying easy, with fore or mainyards aback, taking 



it easy. 

 Dyce, and very well dyce. A term now obsolete for the 



helmsman to keep the ship as she goes. 

 Esquimaux. A name derived from Esquimantsic, or an 



eater of raw flesh. 

 Fetch to. To reach, or arrive at. 

 Flensing. To strip the fat or blubber from a whale. 

 Floe. A field of floating ice of any extent as beyond the 



field of vision. 



Flurry. A convulsive movement > of a dying whale. 

 Fresh way. Increased speed through the water. 

 Heavy drift ice. Dense ice, which has a great depth in the 



water in proportion to its size. 

 Hole of Water. A small space of various dimensions 



surrounded by ice. 

 Hove to. The motion of a ship stopped from going her 



course. 

 Hummock. Protuberant lumps of ice thrown up by some 



pressure upon a field of ice. 

 Ice Anchor. A bar of iron tapering to a point, and bent as 



a pothook, the point entering the ice and the hawser 



bent to the shorter hook. 



