128 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



and all hands get on to the rope, spring at it like ferrets at 

 a rabbit, active as cats, a heap of them tumbling aft along 

 bulwarks till amidships somehow or other the kicking dolphin 

 is lugged over the side amongst the struggling young sailors, 

 and one with an axe chops its tail quiet, and in a second or 

 two our first cetacean, the destroyer of lovely flying-fish, 

 breathes no more. 



I should think it must weigh about two hundred pounds. 

 Henriksen takes the opportunity to demonstrate on a small 

 scale the process of flensing the blubber according to pre- 

 cedent, and his own plan, so that some of our hands, new to 

 whaling, may know what is wanted when we get hold of 

 sperm or the large finner whales. It is rather like a demon- 

 stration by a surgeon to students, so rapid, but more of this 

 method anon. 



Yes, we find remains of exquisite flying-fish inside the 

 mammal, and yet none of us have seen flying-fish about here ; 

 are there then flying-fish here, but deep in the sea, or has the 

 dolphin brought these from farther south ? 



Alas ! that the deck of the St Ebba should be stained with 

 gore. The best of the meat we have cut off, two long strips 

 down the back, perhaps thirty pounds each, and into vinegar 

 and water they go, enough fresh meat for all hands for several 

 days, and the oil of the spec or blubber will probably amount 

 to a gallon one gallon clear profit for our shareholder one 

 little drop of the vast ocean of whale oil we hope to collect 

 some day for the furtherance of British industries, and the 

 manufacture of margarine and olive oil in Paris, and the 

 hundred and one other purposes for which whale oil is used. 



We have not exactly broken the Sabbath, for though 

 we are a British ship the crew is Norse and the Norwegian 

 Sunday begins on Saturday afternoon and ends at two on 

 Sunday. 



Henriksen is rather pleased that we have a young crew for 

 our new kind of ship and methods, as older men would be 

 more difficult to train to our special needs. 



We see a large steamer, French, Italian or Spanish, in tow 

 of a Liverpool tug, grey-black funnel white ship. We have 

 seen only four craft since we left Belfast. 



