" EtJMPBAOKINQ '' AT VAU VAU. 257 



but a miserable square of some four or five feet, instead 

 of a fine " blanket " of blubber twenty by five. Along the 

 edges of these rugaif as also upon the rim of the lower 

 jaw, abundance of limpets and barnacles had attached 

 themselves, some of the former large as a horse's hoof, 

 and causing prodigious annoyance to the toiling car- 

 penter, whose duty it was to keep the spades ground. It 

 was no unusual thing for a spade to be handed in with 

 two or three gaps in its edge half an inch deep, where 

 they had accidentally come across one of those big pieces 

 of flinty shell, undistinguishable from the grey substance 

 of the belly blubber. 



But, in spite of these drawbacks, in less than ninety 

 minutes the last cut was reached, the vertebra severed, 

 and away went the great mass of meat, in tow of count- 

 less canoes, to an adjacent point, where, in eager antici- 

 pation, fires were already blazing for the coming cookery. 

 An enormous number of natives had gathered from far 

 and near, late arrivals continually dropping in from all 

 points of the compass with breathless haste. No danger 

 of going short need have troubled them, for, large as 

 were their numbers, the supply was evidently fully equal 

 to all demands. All night long the feast proceeded, and, 

 even when morning dawned, busy figures were still dis- 

 cernible coming and going between the reduced carcass 

 and the fires, as if determined to make an end of it 

 before their operations ceased. 



