WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 159 



Ambergris is found sometimes in sperm's intestine, some- 

 times thrown from the whale into sea. It is used as the basis 

 of scents. At present its selling price is 100 shillings per 

 ounce. A whaler a year ago secured some from one whale, 

 sold it for 20,000. 



All afternoon we worked, cutting up the whale first of all 

 we made a cut round its shoulder and fin, or hand a whale 

 has bones like those of a hand inside the fibrous fin. In fact, 

 the whale's anatomy is similar to that of a land animal, not 

 like that of fish. The hip bone and thigh are only floating 

 rudimentary bones. 



We cut a round hole through the blubber, round the fin 

 or arm, shoved a strop or loop of rope through from the 

 under side of the blubber and pulled that taut on to a sort 

 of button of oak called a toggle on the outside surface of skin. 

 Then, with the winch's hook and chain hooked on to the 

 strop, we pulled away, by steam power gradually raising a 

 strip of blubber about two feet in width and of about eight 

 inches in depth off the whale, as the body slowly revolved 

 in the water, cutting it clear of the flesh with the flensing 

 blades from the dory or flat-bottomed boat. 



From the illustration you may form an idea of how the 

 blubber is " made off. " The head and tail parts were treated 

 separately. Finner whales on a landing-stage on shore 

 are stripped or flensed from end to end with an instrument 

 like a sabre on a long shaft, but if we have to strip or flense 

 one at sea, we shall have to do so in the same way as this 

 sperm whale. 



We worked late and turned in, all very tired. The sharks 

 that came round us to feed on our whale were a new experience 

 to most of our northern sailors ; they grew quite excited 

 about them ; some of them, instead of sleeping, stayed on 

 deck to kill sharks. To kill one single-handed seemed to be 

 the great ambition. 



The first mate at breakfast to-day related how he harpooned 

 his shark, fifteen feet long, in the morning watch, dropped a 

 running bowline round its tail, and with a tackle got it on 

 board by himself, and Henriksen, his elder brother, quietly 

 described a cross with his knife's point on our galley roof ! 



