196 ZOOLOGY. 



power and tact to manage it, especially during rapid 

 motion through a heavy sea. The other oars are five 

 in number ; they are fifteen feet in length, and dis- 

 tinguished by appropriate names, as harpooner, bow, 

 midship, tub, and after oar. The thowels and row-locks, 

 on which they play, are muffled with mats ; and as it 

 is often necessary, during the attack on a whale, to 

 put the oars out of hand, but at the same time to have 

 them ready for instant use, small sockets are built on 

 the floor of the boat, one corresponding to each oar, to 

 receive its handle when depressed. Thus fixed, the 

 oars bristle forth at an acute angle with the gunwale, 

 and are said to be "apeak. 55 Many boats are, in 

 addition, supplied with the short paddles, used by the 

 Polynesian islanders to propel their canoes, and which 

 are found of great service when employed to approach 

 a watchful or timid whale. " Life-lines," attached to 

 the sides of the boat, serve to secure the oars across 

 the gunwales, when the boat is shattered and filled 

 with water ; the oars thus arranged, the steer-oar being 

 lashed in the centre, will enable a boat to sustain her 

 crew, though she may be sunk to the level of the sea. 



There are some other peculiarities in the economy of 

 awhale-boat, and which equally result from the exigences 

 of the service in which she is employed. At the stern, 

 a plane boarded surface, raised to the level of the gun- 

 wale, supports, near its centre, a stout and cylindrical 

 wooden pillar, or " logger-head, 5 ' which is employed to 

 restrain the line, when the latter is attached to a whale. 

 At the bow, a boarded surface, similar to that at the 

 stern, but somewhat sunk beneath the gunwale, is 

 named the " box/ 5 and has fixed to its border a stout 

 piece of wood, or " thigh-board," excavated to receive 

 and steady the lower extremities of the harpooner, 



