132 
CAPE COD. 
blubber looked like pork, and this man said that when 
they were trying it the boys would sometimes come 
round with a piece of bread in one hand, and take a 
piece of blubber in the other to eat with it, preferring it 
to pork scraps. He also cut into the flesh beneath, 
which was firm and red like beef, and he said that for 
his part he preferred it when fresh to beef. It is stated 
that in 1812 blackfish were used as food by the poor of 
Bretagne. They were waiting for the tide to leave these 
fishes high and dry, that they might strip off the blubber 
and carry it to their try-works in their boats, where they 
try it on the beach. They get commonly a barrel of 
oil, worth fifteen or twenty dollars, to a fish. There 
were many lances and harpoons in the boats,—much 
slenderer instruments than I had expected. An old man 
came along the beach with a horse and wagon distribut¬ 
ing the dinners of the fishermen, which their wives had 
put up in little pails and jugs, and which he had collected 
in the Pond Village, and for this service, I suppose, he 
received a share of the oil. If one could not tell his 
own pail, he took the first he came to. 
As I stood there they raised the cry of ‘‘another 
school,” and we could see their black backs and their 
blowing about a mile northward, as they went leaping 
over the sea like horses. Some boats were already in 
pursuit there, driving them toward the beach. Other 
fishermen and boys running up began to jump into the 
boats and push them off from where I stood, and I might 
have gone too had I chosen. Soon there were twenty- 
five or thirty boats in pursuit, some large ones under 
sail, and others rowing with might and main, keeping 
outside of the school, those nearest to the fishes striking 
on the sides of their boats and blowing horns to drive 
