50 TEE CRDISE OF THE "CACHALOT.'" 



the blubber, it needs to be sL'ced as thin as possible, 

 but for convenience in handling the refuse (which is the 

 only fuel used) it is not chopped up in small pieces, but 

 every "horse-piece" is very deeply scored as it were, 

 leaving a thin strip to hold the slices together. This 

 then was the order of work. Two harpooners attended 

 the try-pots, replenishing them with minced blubber 

 from the hopper at the port side, and baling out the 

 sufficiently boiled oil into the great cooling tank on the 

 starboard. One officer superintended the mincing, 

 another exercised a general supervision over all. There 

 was no man at the wheel and no look-out, for the vessel 

 was " hove-to" under two close-reefed topsails and fore- 

 topmast-staysail, with the wheel lashed hard down. 

 A look-out man was unnecessary, since we could not 

 run anybody down, and if anybody ran us down, it 

 would only be because all hands were asleep, for the 

 glare of our try-works fire, to say nothing of the 

 blazing cresset before mentioned, could have been seen 

 for many miles. So we toiled watch and watch, six 

 hours on and six ojff, the work never ceasing for an 

 instant night or day. Though the work was hard and 

 dirty, and the discomfort of being so continually wet 

 through with oil great, there was only one thing 

 dangerous about the whole business. That was the 

 job of filling and shifting the huge casks of oil. Some 

 of these were of enormous size, containing 350 gallons 

 when full, and the work of moving them about the 

 greasy deck of a rolling ship was attended with a terrible 

 amount of risk. For only four men at most could 

 get fair hold of a cask, and when she took it into her 

 silly old hull to start rolling, just as we had got one 

 half-way across the deck, with nothing to grip your 



