53 THE WHALE AND 



The Tongue. The Flensing. The Blubber-room. 



often have to lose it, especially from the north- 

 west whale, it being impossible to get it up on 

 deck detached and alone, because it would not 

 hold, and it is generally too large and heavy to 

 raise along with the throat. 



After this was hoisted in, the rest of the way 

 was plane sailing, the blubber of the body being 

 cut and peeled off, in huge unbroken strips, as 

 the carcass rolled over and over, being heaved 

 on by the windlass, then hooked into by the 

 blubber hooks, and hoisted in by the men all 

 the time heaving at the windlass. 



As often as a piece, nearly reaching to the 

 top of the main mast, was got over the deck, 

 they would attack it with great boarding-knives, 

 and cutting a hole in it at a place nearly even 

 with the deck, thrust in the strap and toggel of 

 the " cutting blocks," that they might still have 

 a purchase on the carcass below. Then they 

 would sever the huge piece from the rest, and 

 lower it down into " the blubber-room" between 

 decks, where two men had as much as they 

 could do to cut it into six or eight pound pieces 

 and stow it away. It was from nine to eleven 

 inches thick, and looked like very large fat pork 

 slightly colored with salt-petre. 



