128 VOYAGE IJvTO 



pieces. The two first men with their long knives, that cut 

 the large pieces of fat, stand near the larboard of the ship, at 

 that side where the whale is fix'd, and the otlier men that 

 afterwards cut it into less pieces, stand on the other side 

 ciillcd starboard. When it is a good time to catch whales, 

 and they will not lose it, they tow sometimes several fish be- 

 hind their ship and catch more ; and they cut only the great 

 pieces of fat of them, and fling them underneath into the 

 ship. But when they have no more vessels to put their fat 

 into, they sail into an harbour, or if it be calm weather and 

 not windy, they stay in the sea, and fasten themselves to a 

 sheet of ice, and so they drive along with the stream. The 

 other men cut the fat into small pieces on a table ; on the 

 further side of the tail is a nail fastened, whereunto they 

 fasten a hook, which they put into the fat, that it may lye 

 steddy when they cut it into small pieces : the fat is tough 

 to cut, wherefore it must lye firm. That side whereon the 

 skin is they lay undermost, and so cut the fat from it by 

 pieces. The knives wherewith they cut the fat into small 

 pieces are less than the other, about three foot long with 

 their hafts. They all cut from them that they may not be 

 bedaubed with the fat, which might occasion a shrinking up 

 and lameness of the sinews of their hands and arms. One of 

 them cuts the soft and tough fat into small pieces with a long 

 knife ; this man they call the chopper, and he is mightily 

 daubed, wherefore he doth hang about him all sorts of rags 

 and clouts he can get. The fat of some whales is white, of 

 others yellow, and of some red : the white fat is full of small 

 sincAvs, and it doth not yield so much oyl as th^ yellow : the 

 yellow fat that looks like butter is the best. The red and 

 watery fat cometh from dead lohales, for in the place where 

 the fat runs out the blood settles in its room, and yields the 

 worst and least oyl. Before the table is a gutter, made of two 

 boards nailed together, whereinto the small or minced fat is 

 flung ; by it stands a boy, that shuffles the fat by degrees into 



