244 THRILLING ADVENTURES. 



the hands into the boats, and out to sea, pulling right against 

 the wind, toward the place where the whales were spouting. 

 Three hours afterward the first headsman, Mr. Luis, got fast 

 again ; and as we were beating against a tolerably stiff breeze, 

 it became nearly dark before we could get the whale alongside. 



The old blubber had now come on deck to make room in 

 the blubber hole for the fresh, and the stench it emitted 

 next day was nearly suffocating. All the white varnished 

 parts of the vessel received a blue and lustrous tinge, the 

 smell on deck being as bad, and even worse, than in the 

 cabin. 



We commenced trying out on the sixth, and had finished 

 on the tenth of January. The deck still looked bad enough, 

 but the blubber was gone, and the deck was also soon cleared. 

 The grease of the sperm whale can be removed very easily 

 with salt water, being in this respect not half so bad as that 

 of the common whale, which requires to be removed by the 

 ashes of the burnt blubber, and hard scrubbing. A singular 

 fact connected with sperm-fish is, that its own skin forms the 

 best soap for washing off its grease. If your hands are dirtied 

 with the grease, you have only to scrape the thin black and 

 soft outer part of the skin a little, and you may wash in salt- 

 water the grease as easily off with this as with soap in fresh 

 water. 



These three fish, though of no great size, yielded about one 

 hundred and four barrels of oil ; and our captain had strong 

 hopes of falling in with some more of this kind ; but day after 

 day passed without seeing a single spout. The deck was hailed 

 several times, it is true, but only, as it turned out afterward, 

 for a finback, or perhaps the deceving light of the sun that glit- 

 tered on the waves, and made the look-out fancy it the spout 

 of a sperm -fish." 



