256 THE CRUISE OF TEE " CACHALOT:' 



rank flesh of the cachalot, their enthusiasm was natural. 

 Their offers of help were rather embarrassing to us, as 

 we could find little room for any of them in the boats, 

 and the canoes only got in our way. Unable to assist 

 us, they vented their superfluous energies on the whale in 

 the most astounding aquatic antics imaginable — diving 

 under it ; climbing on to it ; pushing and rolling each 

 other headlong over its broad back ; shrieking all the 

 while with the frantic, uncontrollable laughter of happy 

 children freed from all restraint. Men, women, and 

 children all mixed in this wild, watery spree ; and as to 

 any of them getting drowned, the idea was utterly 

 absurd. 



When we got it alongside, and prepared to cut in, 

 all the chaps were able to have a rest, there were so 

 many eager volunteers to man the windlass, not only 

 willing, but, under the able direction of their com- 

 patriots belonging to our crew, quite equal to the work 

 of heaving in blubber. All their habitual indolence 

 was cast aside. Toiling like Trojans, they made the old 

 windlass rattle again as they spun the brakes up and 

 down, every blanket-piece being hailed with a fresh 

 volley of eldritch shrieks, enough to alarm a deaf and 

 dumb asylum. 



With such ample aid, it was, as may be supposed, a 

 brief task to skin our prize, although the strange 

 arrangement of the belly blubber caused us to lift some 

 disappointing lengths. This whale has the blubber 

 underneath the body lying in longitudinal corrugations, 

 which, when hauled off the carcass at right angles to 

 their direction, stretch out flat to four or five times their 

 normal area. Thus, when the cutting-blocks had reached 

 their highest limit, and the piece was severed from the 

 body, the folds flew together again, leaving dangling aloft 



