WHALERS AND WHALING. 



a foot thick, and full of oil. The men cut it in huge unbroken strips, 

 into which blubber hooks — as they call them — are fastened. 



The sailors at the windlass aboard ship, now begin to hoist, and 

 the huge strip peels off as the carcass rolls over and over. As soon as 

 a piece — reaching sometimes nearly as high as the lower mast head — 

 is got over the deck, it is severed from the body with big knives, 

 and cut in small pieces which are thrown into the big iron "try 

 pots " set in a sort of square brick furnace on the forward part of 

 the deck. 



To have a steady fire going day and night on wooden decks 

 streaming with oil, and with tar covered rigging and cordage on every 

 side, is a pretty ticklish business. Underneath the try works is a tank 

 of water called a " pen," which is watched with increasing care, for 

 if it should spring aleak and run dry, the ship would be enveloped 

 in flames in five minutes. Strange to say, this ever threatening dan- 



50 



