WHALE. 
127 
avoid them if they were not neatly clad. In this 
manner a number of men and women, sometimes 
amounting to more than fifty, set out together in one 
of their large boats. The women, upon these occa- 
sions, carry along with them their sewing implements, 
which are equally employed to mend their hus- 
bands’ clothes if they should be torn, or to repair 
the boat if it should receive any damage in the 
seams. When a whale makes its appearance on 
the water, the most vigorous fisherman strikes into 
it a harpoon, which is a sort of javelin well steeled 
at one extremity, and five or six feet long : to this 
are fastened lines or straps made of seal’s skin, two or 
three fathoms in length, and having at the end a 
bag of a whole seal’s skin blown up. This tends in 
some measure to prevent the whale from sinking, 
and almost compels it to keep near the surface of 
the water, where it is constantly attacked by the 
people in the boat till it is killed. As soon as the 
animal is dead, they put on their spring jackets , 
made all in one piece of a dressed seal’s skin, with 
their boots, gloves, and caps, which are laced so 
tightly to each other that no water can penetrate 
them. In this garb they plunge into the sea, and 
begin to slice oft" the fat all round the whale’s body, 
even from those parts that are under water. This 
they can do by the help of their spring jackets , 
which, being full of air, prevent their sinking un- 
der water, and at the same time enable them to 
keep themselves upright in the sea. These men 
