WHALES AND WHALING 



sharks that are lying in wait with an eye to such a 

 contingency. 



Naturally everyone has a reason to offer for the disaster; 

 one fellow swears that the whale was wounded in the 

 abdomen ; another that it never once spouted blood ; 

 either may be right ; for half a dozen reasons a dead 

 whale is liable to sink ; invariably if the water have 

 rushed into its windpipe. 



Such accidents, however, are comparatively rare; it is 

 more likely that the whale will float, and that the sharks 

 will be cheated by his being towed ashore ; or, if the boat 

 has a busy day before it, by his being buoyed up and left for 

 a time. Boats of this sort, that go no great distance from 

 home, carry no gear for quartering the whale ; they merely 

 tow the carcass as near to the shore as possible, whence 

 it is drawn in chains up the beach, by steam-power, to the 

 butchering sheds. On some boats they have a practice, 

 before mooring the body, of inflating it with air pumped 

 in by the engines, very much as boys blow out a frog ; it 

 can then be hitched to a buoy without fear of its sinking, 

 unless one of its enemies comes along and makes a hole in 

 it a danger which is warded off by a man and a gun 

 being left in charge, in a small boat. 



I said further back that not an ounce of the whale need 

 be wasted; its flesh is as sweet and wholesome as beef; 

 the oil, and the whalebone from the toothless whales, are 

 of course of great value ; the skeleton is made up into all 

 sorts of " earthenware " vessels ; and now some sages have 

 arisen to show that the skin can be tanned for leather and 

 the milk of the females converted into condensed milk. 



248 



