50 WHALES AND WHALERS. [PART I. 



died, exhausted from the many wounds which the 

 irons and harpoons had inflicted. The calf was 

 stated by the whalers to be six weeks old (on what 

 grounds I do not know), and was twenty-four feet 

 long. It was cut up in a few minutes, and gave 

 several barrels of oil. The process was so rapid, 

 that when I came ashore I found only the head. I 

 cut out the brains, the weight of which, amounting 

 to five pounds and one ounce, astonished me greatly. 

 The whalebone was very soft, and therefore useless. 

 There were two hundred plates of it on each side of 

 the roof of the upper jaw. I got the whole roof 

 cut off, and, intending to dry and preserve it, I 

 placed it on the roof of a native house ; but on the 

 following morning I had the mortification to find 

 that the rats and native dogs had found their way 

 to it in the night, and had eaten all the softer parts, 

 so that the rest fell to pieces 



A portion of the heart of this calf was roasted 

 and sent to our table. In taste I found it very like 

 beef, but it was darker in colour. The cow was 

 sixty feet long, and measured between the fins on the 

 belly eighty-two inches. Her skin was a velvet-like 

 black, with the exception of a milk-white spot round 

 the navel. As regards the colour of the whale, I have 

 been repeatedly assured that it is sometimes speckled, 

 and that even perfect albinos, or cream-coloured 

 ones, are seen, which must indeed be beautiful ani- 

 mals. The fat or blubber of this whale was nine 

 inches thick, and yielded eight tuns and a half of oil. 



