IS4 
PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
others, are enabled to smuggle on shore, and sell at great profits, 
considerable quantities of dry goods, which are frequently brought 
oht in their oil-casks, for fear of search being made by the Span¬ 
ish guarda-costas, and other picaroons which infest the coast; 
for the smuggling business is monopolized entirely by the gov¬ 
ernors, they allowing no other person whatever to have any con¬ 
cern in it, unless well paid for granting the privilege. 
When the whale is killed, and brought alongside the ship, the 
separating the head from the body, baling the liquid oil or head 
matter from the case which contains it, and flinching the whale, 
or separating the blubber or thick fat from the carcase, as well as 
trying out the oil, cooling, straining, starting it below, coopering 
the casks, and frequently wetting and examining them, are all la¬ 
borious operations, and which it is supposed every one who un¬ 
dertakes to conduct the voyage must be acquainted with, before 
he engages in the business. If the voyage is successful, every 
thing that can be made to contain oil is filled with it, even to the 
buoys of their anchors, jugs, cans, kids, and buckets ; and it is no 
uncommon thing for the oil contained in such small articles to 
amount to a sum sufficient to pay all the disbursements of a ves¬ 
sel during a voyage of two years. On their arrival in England, 
their cargoes are worth from 150,000 to 200,000 dollars, when oil 
is at a fair price, which is from 100 to 110 pounds sterling the 
ton. With good management and proper industry, to which all 
are stimulated by the hopes of gain, these voyages generally turn 
out to great advantage, and are never known to fail, unless from 
shipwreck, or some other unavoidable disaster. Vessels which 
come into this sea for the purpose of taking spermaceti oil, never 
consider it an object to take other whales, although they are so 
abundant that they would be enabled, in a very short time, to fill 
up their cargoes with the oil; but it is, when taken, of but little 
value when compared with the spermaceti, and a full cargo in 
England would not defray the expenses of the outfits. To those 
unacquainted with the business, it seems a mystery how they are 
enabled to determine the class of whale before they are taken. 
An expert whaler will, however, by the manner of their spouting 
(at the greatest distance the spout can be seen), tell in an instant 
