574 WHALE FISHERY. 



and secured. After a fish is properly secured, it is car- 

 ried towards the ship. All the boats* join themselves in 

 a line, by ropes carried for the purpose, and unite their 

 efforts in towing the fish towards the ship. The course 

 of the ship is directed towaids the fish, unless in calms, 

 or where the ship is moored to the ice, at no great dis- 

 tance, or when the situation of the fish is inconvenient 

 or inaccessible, when the ship is obliged to wait the ap- 

 proach of the fish. When the fish is secured to the ship, 

 the operation of flensing is performed. For this a varie- 

 ty of knives and other instruments are requisite. The 

 enormous weight of a whale prevents the possibility of 

 raising it more than one fourth or fifth part out of the 

 water. 



PROCESS OF FLENSING, i. 6. REMOVING THE BLUBBER. 



' Before the harpooners descend upon the fish their 

 feet are furnished with spurs, to prevent their slipping. 

 The blubber, in pieces of half a ton each, is received on 

 deck, and being divided '.here into portable, cubical, or 

 oblong pieces, containing near a solid foot of fat, and 

 passed down between decks, when it is packed in a re- 

 ceptacle provided for it in the hold. As the fish is turn- 

 ed round, every part of the blubber becomes necessarily 

 uppermost and is removed. When sharks are present, 

 they generally help themselves very plentifully, during the 

 progress of the flensing ; but they often pay for their te- 

 merity with their lives. Fulmars, a species of bird of 

 prey, pay close attendance in immense numbers. They 

 seize fragments of the fish disengaged by the knife, while 

 they are swimming in the water, but most of the other 

 gulls, take their share on the wing. The burgomaster 

 is decidedly the master of the feast; hence every'bird is 

 obliged to relinquish the most delicious morsel, when the 

 burgomaster descends to claim it. 



'In flensing, the harpooners are annoyed by the surge, 

 and repeatedly drenched in water, and are likewise sub- 

 ject to be wounded by the breaking of ropes, or hooks, 

 or tackles, and even by strokes from each other's knives. 

 The harpooners not unfrequently fall into the fish's 



