112 VOYAGE IXTO 



make twisted whips. Their bones are hard, like unto them 

 of great four-footed beasts, but porous, like unto a spunge, 

 and filled with marroAv ; when that is consumed out, they 

 will hold a great deal of water, for the holes are big, like 

 unto the wax of a honey-comb. Tavo great and strong bones 

 hold up the under lip, they lye one against the other, and 

 both of them make a figvire like unto an half-moon, but one 

 alone by itself maketh a figure like to the quarter of the 

 moon. Some of these bones I saw at Spitzhergen lying on 

 the strand, about twenty foot long, of a very white colour, as 

 if they had been calcined. Our seamen bring some of these 

 along with them home, to shew us how big some ichales are, 

 which are already whitened to their hands ; for those that 

 come fresh from a whale stink abominably, because of the 

 marrow that is in them. Their flesh is coarse and hard, and 

 it doth look like that of a bull : it is intermix'd with many 

 sinews ; it is very dry and lean when it is boiled, because 

 their fat is only between their flesh and skin : some looks 

 green and blue as our powder'd beef, chiefly where the 

 muscles meet together ; if one lets it lye a little, it grows 

 black and stinking. The flesh of the tail boils tendcrest, 

 and is not quite so dry as that of the body. When we have 

 a mind to eat of a whale, we cut great pieces ofl^ before the 

 tail where it is four-square, and boil it like other meat ; 

 good beef I prefer far before it, yet rather than be starv'd I 

 advise to eat whale's flesh, for none of our men dyed of it, 

 and the Frenchmen did eat almost daily of it ; they fling it 

 sometimes on the tops of their tubs, and let it lye until it is 

 black, and yet they eat it for all that. The flesh of the ichale, 

 as well as that of the seales, is alone by itself, and the fat at 

 the top thereof, between the flesh and skin. It is about 

 six inches thick on the back and belly, but I have also seen 

 it a foot thick upon a finn, according as they are great or 

 little fish. The fat of their under lip is thicker than two 

 foot, and is the thickest of all the ichale. The tongue, as I 



