126 WHALING AND FISHING. 



deck for an hour, he bit and crushed a stout ash 

 pole between his teeth. They remain about the 

 ship until the carcass is set adrift, when they 

 divide the rich prize with the sea-birds. There 

 are few instances on record of a shark having 

 bitten a man while cutting-in. There is too great 

 a superabundance of other food. Boatsteerers, 

 whose business it is to go down upon the whale 

 to hook on the first blanket -piece, an operation 

 requiring sometimes fifteen or twenty minutes to 

 execute, are scarce ever molested. The mate 

 stands by, however, with a spade, ready to meet 

 any advances on the part of the sharks. I have 

 seen a man working on the whale, with a shark 

 close beside him : he simply giving the fish a kick 

 with his heavy sea-boot, when he became aware 

 of its close proximity. 



Meantime the cutting-in proceeded; and, by 

 dint of strenuous exertions, we finished this part 

 of our labor at five o'clock, p. M. The gory car- 

 cass was then set adrift, and floated off to leeward 

 a huge bone of contention to innumerable sharks 

 and sea-birds. 



The first thing now to be done was to start up 

 the fires. The enormous blanket -pieces had beec 

 piled into the blubber-room 'until it was full to tht 

 brink, and now two men, stripping off their shirts, 

 and enveloping their heads in cotton handker- 

 chiefs, got on to this mass of grease to cut it up 

 into horse-pieces, morsels about fourteen inches 

 qnare. These again were thrown upon deck, 



