REDISCOVERING AN EXTINCT WHALE 



flock of vultures. \Yith a knife or a bit of stone they 

 scraped each bone, cleaning it of every ounce of meat. 

 At first this seemed to me a splendid arrangement, but 

 suddenly I discovered that some of the smaller bones 

 themselves were disappearing and realized that my 

 ' 



Cutting in a gray whale. The head is lying on the wharf and 

 two Koreans are standing beside it. They wear long white 

 coats, enormous baggy trousers and a horsehair hat. 



skeleton was slowly but surely being boiled for soup. 

 It did not take long to issue an edict against all 

 Koreans in reference to my whale, but the matter 

 did not end there. The pile of toothsome bones was 

 too great a temptation and whenever I happened to 

 be out of sight some white-gowned native was sure 

 to steal up and leave with a bone under his coat. 



193 



