WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 161 



at sea and take the blubber on board, melt or cook it, and 

 sail away. 



Our deck is now like a marble quarry, with great white 

 chunks of fat in the moonlight, and dusky figures cutting 

 these into blocks of about a foot square to go into our two 

 pots. 



To-day steam was let into them at one hundred and sixty 

 pounds' pressure, and the cooker has to watch two taps 

 running from these, each now pouring out beautifully fine 

 sperm oil. 



Our whale cooker is little more than a boy, but he is a bit 

 of a chef already, having studied whale-boiling in these very 

 remote frost-bound islands, the South Shetlands previously 

 referred to. 



He stands by the two pots on either side of our small ship 

 amidships, one to port, one to starboard ; now and then he 

 dips a bright tin ladle into the oil that keeps running out into 

 an open tank, and sniffs at it, and pours it back lovingly, 

 examining its colour, which is like pale sherry. 



There is no smell actually about our cooking process, till 

 the water that is formed in the pots by the condensing steam 

 has to be blown out of the bottoms of the pots. Then the 

 blue sea gets a yellow scum and the atmosphere is pervaded 

 far and near with the smell of beef- tea the smell alone would 

 make an invalid get up and walk for miles to windward. 



At night it comes into my port under the blanket and per- 

 meates my being ; we wish all whales at the bottom of the 

 sea, but toute passe and in a minute or two the air is fresh 

 again, and there is nothing left but a greasy feeling. 



Each pot holds about fifteen barrels. I think this whale's 

 blubber will fill them several times and produce, say, seventy 

 barrels, at five barrels to the ton, and the ton at 30. 

 This whale ought to be worth moneys, so we see a fortune in- 

 creasing by leaps and bounds, and we put aside all thoughts 

 of more delays and difficulties and losses. 



It is sweltering hot on our lee side, the side on which we 



are flensing the whale. Our men take to drink ! a pale 



pink tipple brewed in a large margarine tin and ladled round ; 



I think it must be one part red-currant wine to five of water ; 



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