srrr/iiERGKx and gukeni.am). loo 



"fat as a -whale, wherefore M'e do not much care to catch him, 

 for ho doth not pay ns for our hahour. It is much more 

 dangerous to kill him than to kill a whale, hccause he moves 

 quicker and beats about him Avith his tail, and from him 

 with his {inns, so that we dare not come near unto him with 

 our sloops or long-boats, for the launces kill him soonest. I 

 was informed that once some, before they were aware of it, 

 did fling, by a mistake, their harpoon into a finn-fish, where- 

 upon he drew both boat and men, all on a sudden, under- 

 neath a large ice-sheet before they were aware of it, and not 

 one of them escaped. His tail lies flat, like unto that of the 

 whale. When the finn-fishes appear, Ave see no more whales. 

 The train-oyl of the Avhale is used by several, viz., by the 

 frize- makers, curriei's, cloth-workers, and soap-hoilers, but the 

 greatest use that is made of it is to burn it in lamps instead 

 of other oyl. 



The Greenland ships carry thirty or more men, and some- 

 times more, chiefly the great ships, that have six sloops be- 

 longing to them : such ships hold from eight hundred to one 

 thousand cardels of fat ; the less ships have commonly fewer 

 cardels or vessels, from four hundred to seven hundred, and 

 have commonly five sloops or boats belonging to them. 

 There also go galliots to Spitzhergen to catch whales ; they 

 have three or four sloops belonging to them. Some put the 

 sloops upon the deck of the ships, others hang them over- 

 board, as they do at Spitzhergen when they are amongst the 

 ice, that as soon as they call " Fall, fall,'''' they may imme- 

 diately let down their sloops into the water. Then there 

 remains on board in the ships the steersman, the barber, 

 the chyrurgion, the cooper, and a boy, to look after the ship; 

 the skipper or commander himself goeth out with the rest of 

 the men, for they are all obliged to go a whale-catching. 



In each ship there are sixty launces, six sea-horse launces, 

 forty harpoons, ten long harpoons, wherewith they strike the 

 whales under water, six small sea-horse harpoons, thirty lines 



