The Cruise of the Cachalot [107]
indolence was cast aside. Toiling like Trojans, they made the old windlass rattle again as they spun the brakes up and down, every blanket- piece being hailed with a fresh volley of eldritch shrieks, enough to alarm a deaf and dumb asylum.
With such ample aid, it was, as may be supposed a brief task to skin our prize, although the strange arrangement of the belly blubber caused us to lift some disappointing lengths. This whale has the blubber underneath the body lying in longitudinal corrugations, which, when hauled off the carcass at right angles to their direction, stretch out flat to four or five times their normal area. Thus, when the cutting-blocks had reached their highest limit, and the piece was severed from the body, the folds flew together again leaving dangling aloft but a miserable square of some four or five feet, instead of a fine "blanket" of blubber twenty by five. Along the edges of these RUGAE, as also upon the rim of the lower jaw, abundance of limpets and barnacles had attached themselves, some of the former large as a horse's hoof, and causing prodigious annoyance to the toiling carpenter, whose duty it was to keep the spades ground. It was no unusual thing for a spade to be handed in with two or three gaps in its edge half an inch deep, where they had accidentally come across one of those big pieces of flinty shell, undistinguishable from the grey substance of the belly blubber.
But, in spite of these drawbacks, in less than ninety minutes the last cut was reached, the vertebra severed, and away went the great mass of meat, in tow of countless canoes, to an adjacent point, where, in eager anticipation, fires were already blazing for the coming cookery. An enormous number of natives had gathered from far end near, late arrivals continually dropping in from all points of the compass with breathless haste. No danger of going short need have troubled them, for, large as were their numbers, the supply was evidently fully equal to all demands. All night long the feast proceeded, and, even when morning dawned, busy figures were still discernible coming and going between the reduced carcass and the fires, as if determined to make an end of it before their operations ceased.
*
CHAPTER XXI
PROGRESS OF THE "HUMPBACK" SEASON
It will probably be inferred from the foregoing paragraph that we were little troubled with visits from the natives next day; but it would be doing them an injustice if I omitted to state that our various "flems" put in an appearance as usual with their daily offerings of fruit, vegetables, etc. They all presented a somewhat jaded and haggard look, as of men who had dined not wisely but too well, nor did the odour of stale whale-meat that clung to them add to their attractions. repentance for excesses or gluttony did not seem to trouble them, for they evidently considered it would have been a sin not to take with both hands the gifts the gods had so bountifully provided. Still, they did not stay long, feeling, no doubt, sore need of a prolonged rest after their late arduous exertions; so, after affectionate farewells, they left us again to our greasy task of trying-out.
The cow proved exceedingly fat, making us, though by no means a large specimen, fully fifty barrels of oil. The whalebone (baleen) was so short as to be not worth the trouble of curing, so, with the exception of such pieces as were useful to the "scrimshoners" for ornamenting their nicknacks, it was not preserved. On the evening of the third day the work was so far finished that we were able to go ashore for clothes-washing, which necessary process was accompanied with a good deal of fun and hilarity. In the morning cruising was resumed again.
For a couple of days we met with no success, although we had a very aggravating chase after some smart bulls we fell in with, to our mutual astonishment, just as we rounded a point of the outermost island. They were lazily sunning themselves close under the lee of the cliffs, which at that point were steep-to, having a depth of about twenty fathoms
With such ample aid, it was, as may be supposed a brief task to skin our prize, although the strange arrangement of the belly blubber caused us to lift some disappointing lengths. This whale has the blubber underneath the body lying in longitudinal corrugations, which, when hauled off the carcass at right angles to their direction, stretch out flat to four or five times their normal area. Thus, when the cutting-blocks had reached their highest limit, and the piece was severed from the body, the folds flew together again leaving dangling aloft but a miserable square of some four or five feet, instead of a fine "blanket" of blubber twenty by five. Along the edges of these RUGAE, as also upon the rim of the lower jaw, abundance of limpets and barnacles had attached themselves, some of the former large as a horse's hoof, and causing prodigious annoyance to the toiling carpenter, whose duty it was to keep the spades ground. It was no unusual thing for a spade to be handed in with two or three gaps in its edge half an inch deep, where they had accidentally come across one of those big pieces of flinty shell, undistinguishable from the grey substance of the belly blubber.
But, in spite of these drawbacks, in less than ninety minutes the last cut was reached, the vertebra severed, and away went the great mass of meat, in tow of countless canoes, to an adjacent point, where, in eager anticipation, fires were already blazing for the coming cookery. An enormous number of natives had gathered from far end near, late arrivals continually dropping in from all points of the compass with breathless haste. No danger of going short need have troubled them, for, large as were their numbers, the supply was evidently fully equal to all demands. All night long the feast proceeded, and, even when morning dawned, busy figures were still discernible coming and going between the reduced carcass and the fires, as if determined to make an end of it before their operations ceased.
*
CHAPTER XXI
PROGRESS OF THE "HUMPBACK" SEASON
It will probably be inferred from the foregoing paragraph that we were little troubled with visits from the natives next day; but it would be doing them an injustice if I omitted to state that our various "flems" put in an appearance as usual with their daily offerings of fruit, vegetables, etc. They all presented a somewhat jaded and haggard look, as of men who had dined not wisely but too well, nor did the odour of stale whale-meat that clung to them add to their attractions. repentance for excesses or gluttony did not seem to trouble them, for they evidently considered it would have been a sin not to take with both hands the gifts the gods had so bountifully provided. Still, they did not stay long, feeling, no doubt, sore need of a prolonged rest after their late arduous exertions; so, after affectionate farewells, they left us again to our greasy task of trying-out.
The cow proved exceedingly fat, making us, though by no means a large specimen, fully fifty barrels of oil. The whalebone (baleen) was so short as to be not worth the trouble of curing, so, with the exception of such pieces as were useful to the "scrimshoners" for ornamenting their nicknacks, it was not preserved. On the evening of the third day the work was so far finished that we were able to go ashore for clothes-washing, which necessary process was accompanied with a good deal of fun and hilarity. In the morning cruising was resumed again.
For a couple of days we met with no success, although we had a very aggravating chase after some smart bulls we fell in with, to our mutual astonishment, just as we rounded a point of the outermost island. They were lazily sunning themselves close under the lee of the cliffs, which at that point were steep-to, having a depth of about twenty fathoms