292 GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
verc exertion, the whole crew were greatly fa¬ 
tigued. In the blubber of one of the fish, the 
head of a harpoon was found imbedded. It was 
entirely concealed beneath the skin, and its place 
only marked by a whitish cicatrice. It seemed 
to have been a long time in this situation, the 
shank of the instrument having been separated, 
apparently by the decay of the iron protruding 
through the skin. The fish, nevertheless, was 
evidently in a healthy state, as appeared from its 
great produce in blubber. The total produce of 
the three fish was calculated to yield sixty tuns of 
oil, and three tons of whalebone,—the united va¬ 
lue of which proved to be about L. 2,100. This 
was an important accession to our former cargo, 
and raised us at once to the level of the most suc¬ 
cessful fishers of the season. 
It is a circumstance that appears to be worthy 
of observation, that these three whales were all 
males; and another killed by the crew of the 
Fame, near the same place, a day or two after¬ 
wards, was of the same sex. This fact intimates a 
separation of the sexes at this season of the year; 
as upon all other occasions, I have almost invari¬ 
ably found an indiscriminate mixture of males 
and females. The females, perhaps, retire into 
the interior of the bays and sounds at this season, 
which is generally considered as the commence^ 
