222 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " CACEALOT." 



wash of the flukes, -which, acting somewhat like the 

 " sculHng" of an oar at the stern of a boat, propel the 

 carcass in the direction it is pointing. Consequently we 

 had an awful amount of towing to do before we got the 

 three cows alongside. Many a time we blessed ourselves 

 that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to 

 tow with boats, a sperm whale is about the worst. Owing 

 to the great square mass of the head, they can hardly be 

 towed head-on at all, the practice being to cut off the tips 

 of the flukes, and tow them tail first. But even then it 

 is slavery. To dip your oar about three times in the 

 same hole from whence you withdrew it, to tug at it with 

 all your might, apparently making as much progress as 

 though you were fast to a dock- wall, and to continue this 

 fun for four or five hours at a stretch, is to wonder indeed 

 whether you have not mistaken your vocation. 



However, ** it's dogged as does it," so by dint of sheer 

 sticking to the oar, we eventually succeeded in getting 

 all our prizes alongside before eight bells that evening, 

 securing them around us by hawsers to the cows, but 

 giving the big bull the post of honour alongside on the 

 best fluke-chain. 



We were a busy company for a fortnight thence, until 

 the last of the oil was run below — two hundred and fifty 

 barrels, or twenty-five tuns, of the valuable fluid having 

 rewarded our exertions. During these operations we 

 had drifted night and day, apparently without anybody 

 taking the slightest account of the direction we were 

 taking ; when, therefore, on the day after clearing up the 

 last traces of our fishing, the cry of " Land ho ! " came 

 ringing down from the crow's-nest, no one was surprised, 

 although the part of the Pacific in which we were 

 cruising has but few patches of terra Jirma scattered 



