THE DUTCH WHALERS lOI 



from which hung the two sets of three hundred black 

 whale fins, were cut out in sections and brought on 

 deck. With these preliminaries completed the Dutch- 

 men proceeded with the main task of stripping the 

 blubber. The windlass creaked; the Dutchmen swore; 

 the ship careened as the mainmast felt the fifty-ton weight 

 on its cutting tackle ; the blubber shd into the hold and the 

 decks ran with oil and blood. The mates bellowed orders 

 and the flocks of hungry sea-birds quarrelled in plaintive 

 tones. The stripped carcass was released from its 

 chains and sank from sight into the green depths; the 

 next whale was brought to the side, the stage was set 

 and the players repeated their performance. 



Sometimes it was a humpback whale that was brought 

 to the ship and then every available boat had to lend its 

 buoyancy to supporting the carcass that might otherwise 

 have sunk. And once it was a twenty-four-foot baby blue 

 whale that had failed to swim away with its mother from 

 danger. 



Day after day the hunting, the kilHng and the stripping 

 continued, the fleet of ships stopping only to spread its 

 sails and move southwards as the season shortened and 

 winter threatened. Somewhere hundreds of miles to the 

 northward lay the httle Pilgrim that the lads would never 

 see again. And in the harbour town of Sherburne, later 

 known as Nantucket, women wept for sons and husbands 

 who did not return. 



