CHAPTER FOUR.
"CUTTING-IN THE BLUBBER" AND "TRYING OUT THE OIL."
The scene that took place on board ship after we caught our first fishwas most wonderful.
We commenced the operation of what is called "cutting-in," that is,cutting up the whale, and getting the fat or blubber hoisted in. Thenext thing we did was to "try out" the oil, or melt down the fat inlarge iron pots brought with us for this purpose; and the change thattook place in the appearance of the ship and the men when this began wasvery remarkable.
When we left port our decks were clean, our sails white, our masts wellscraped; the brass-work about the quarter-deck was well polished, andthe men looked tidy and clean. A few hours after our first whale hadbeen secured alongside all this was changed. The cutting up of the hugecarcass covered the decks with oil and blood, making them so slipperythat they had to be covered with sand to enable the men to walk about.Then the smoke of the great fires under the melting-pots begrimed themasts, sails, and cordage with soot. The faces and hands of the men gotso covered with oil and soot that it would have puzzled any one to saywhether they were white or black. Their clothes, too, became so dirtythat it was impossible to clean them. But, indeed, whalemen do not muchmind this. In fact, they take a pleasure in all the dirt that surroundsthem, because it is a sign of success in the main object of theirvoyage. The men in a _clean_ whale-ship are never happy. Wheneverything is filthy, and dirty, and greasy, and smoky, and black--decks, rigging, clothes, and person--it is then that the hearty laughand jest and song are heard as the crew work busily, night and day, attheir rough but profitable labour.
The operations of "cutting-in" and "trying out" were matters of greatinterest to me the first time I saw them.
After having towed our whale to the ship, cutting-in was immediatelybegun. First, the carcass was secured near the head and tail withchains, and made fast to the ship; then the great blocks and ropesfastened to the main and foremast for hoisting in the blubber werebrought into play. When all was ready, the captain and the two mates,with Tom Lokins, got upon the whale's body, with long-handled sharpspades or digging-knives. With these they fell to work cutting off theblubber.
I was stationed at one of the hoisting ropes, and while we were waitingfor the signal to "hoist away," I peeped over the side, and for thefirst time had a good look at the great fish. When we killed it, somuch of its body was down in the water that I could not see it veryclearly, but now that it was lashed at full length alongside the ship,and I could look right down upon it, I began to understand more clearlywhat a large creature it was. One thing surprised me much; the top ofits head, which was rough and knotty like the bark of an old tree, wasswarming with little crabs and barnacles, and other small creatures.The whale's head seemed to be their regular home! This fish was by nomeans one of the largest kind, but being the first I had seen, I fanciedit must be the largest fish in the sea.
Its body was forty feet long, and twenty feet round at the thickestpart. Its head, which seemed to me a great, blunt, shapeless thing,like a clumsy old boat, was eight feet long from the tip to theblow-holes or nostrils; and these holes were situated on the back of thehead, which at that part was nearly four feet broad. The entire headmeasured about twenty-one feet round. Its ears were two small holes, sosmall that it was difficult to discover them, and the eyes were alsovery small for so large a body, being about the same size as those of anox. The mouth was very large, and the under jaw had great ugly lips.
When it was dying, I saw these lips close in once or twice on its fatcheeks, which it bulged out like the leather sides of a pair of giganticbellows. It had two fins, one on each side, just behind the head. Withthese, and with its tail, the whale swims and fights. Its tail is itsmost deadly weapon. The flukes of this one measured thirteen feetacross, and with one stroke of this it could have smashed our largestboat in pieces. Many a boat has been sent to the bottom in this way.
I remember hearing our first mate tell of a wonderful escape a comradeof his had in the Greenland Sea fishery. A whale had been struck, and,after its first run, they hauled up to it again, and rowed so hard thatthey ran the boat right against it. The harpooner was standing on thebow all ready, and sent his iron cleverly into the blubber. In itsagony the whale reared its tail high out of the water, and the flukeswhirled for a moment like a great fan just above the harpooner's head.One glance up was enough to show him that certain death was descending.In an instant he dived over the side and disappeared. Next moment theflukes came down on the part of the boat he had just left, and cut itclean off; the other part was driven into the waves, and the men wereleft swimming in the water. They were all picked up, however, byanother boat that was in company, and the harpooner was recovered withthe rest. His quick dive had been the saving of his life.
I had not much time given me to study the appearance of this whalebefore the order was given to "hoist away!" so we went to work with awill. The first part that came up was the huge lip, fastened to a largeiron hook, called the blubber hook. It was lowered into theblubber-room between decks, where a couple of men were stationed to stowthe blubber away. Then came the fins, and after them the upper-jaw,with the whalebone attached to it. The "right" whale has no teeth likethe sperm whale. In place of teeth it has the well-known substancecalled whalebone, which grows from the roof of its mouth in a number ofbroad thin plates, extending from the back of the head to the snout.The lower edges of these plates of whalebone are split into thousands ofhairs like bristles, so that the inside roof of a whale's mouthresembles an enormous blacking brush! The object of this curiousarrangement is to enable the whale to catch the little shrimps and smallsea-blubbers, called "medusae," on which it feeds. I have spoken beforeof these last as being the little creatures that gave out such abeautiful pale-blue light at night. The whale feeds on them. When hedesires a meal he opens his great mouth and rushes into the midst of ashoal of medusae; the little things get entangled in thousands among thehairy ends of the whalebone, and when the monster has got a large enoughmouthful, he shuts his lower-jaw and swallows what his net has caught.
The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain.Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his mouthagape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water would rushdown it and choke him. Shutting his throat then, as he does, the wateris obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; it is alsospouted up through his blow-holes, and this with such violence that manyof the little creatures would be swept out along with it, but for thehairy-ended whalebone which lets the sea-water out, but keeps themedusae in.
Well, let us return to our "cutting-in." After the upper-jaw came thelower-jaw and throat, with the tongue. This last was an enormous massof fat, about as large as an ox, and it weighed fifteen hundred or twothousand pounds. After this was got in, the rest of the work wassimple. The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips,beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail. It washoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and themen at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round untilwe got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to nearlyas high as the mainyard-arm. This mass was nearly a foot thick, and itlooked like fat pork. It was cut off close to the deck, and loweredinto the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there attacked itwith knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it away. Thenanother piece was hoisted on board in the same fashion, and so on wewent till every bit of blubber was cut off; and I heard the captainremark to the mate when the work was done, that the fish was a good fatone, and he wouldn't wonder if it turned out to be worth 300 poundssterling.
Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose whichI had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins, had oftenspoken of it on the voyage out. This was the arrival of great numbersof sea-birds.
Tom had often told me of the birds that always keep company withwhalers;
but I had forgotten all about it, until I saw an enormousalbatross come sailing majestically through the air towards us. Thiswas the largest bird I ever saw, and no wonder, for it is the largestbird that flies. Soon after that, another arrived, and although we weremore than a thousand miles from any shore, we were speedily scented outand surrounded by hosts of gonies, stinkards, haglets, gulls, pigeons,petrels, and other sea-birds, which commenced to feed on pieces of thewhale's carcass with the most savage gluttony. These birds weredreadfully greedy. They had stuffed themselves so full in the course ofa short time, that they flew heavily and with great difficulty. Nodoubt they would have to take three or four days to digest that meal!
Sharks, too, came to get their share of what was going. But thesesavage monsters did not content themselves with what was thrown away;they were so bold as to come before our faces and take bites out of thewhale's body. Some of these sharks were eight and nine feet long, andwhen I saw them open their horrid jaws, armed with three rows ofglistening white sharp teeth, I could well understand how easily theycould bite off the leg of a man, as they often do when they get thechance. Sometimes they would come right up on the whale's body with awave, bite out great pieces of the flesh, turn over on their bellies,and roll off.
While I was looking over the side during the early part of that day, Isaw a very large shark come rolling up in this way close to Tom Lokins'legs. Tom made a cut at him with his blubber-spade, but the sharkrolled off in time to escape the blow. And after all it would not havedone him much damage, for it is not easy to frighten or take the lifeout of a shark.
"Hand me an iron and line, Bob," said Tom, looking up at me. "I've gota spite agin that feller. He's been up twice already. Ah! hand it downhere, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line. There hecomes, the big villain!"
The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tomsent the harpoon right down his throat.
"Hold on hard," shouted Tom.
"Ay, ay," replied several of the men as they held on to the line, theirarms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself. Wequickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauledit on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was veryhorrible, for there was no killing the brute. It threshed the deck withits tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we hadto keep a sharp look out lest it should catch hold of a leg. At lastits tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails taken out,yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck forsome time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes afterit was taken out and pierced with a knife.
I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own eyes. Incase some of my readers may doubt its truth, I would remind them howdifficult it is, to kill some of those creatures, with which we are allfamiliar. The common worm, for instance, may be cut into a number ofsmall pieces, and yet each piece remains alive for some time after.
The skin of the shark is valued by the whalemen, because, when cleanedand dry, it is as good as sand-paper, and is much used in polishing thevarious things they make, out of whales' bones and teeth.
When the last piece of blubber had been cut off our whale, the greatchain that held it to the ship's side was cast off, and the now uselesscarcass sank like a stone, much to the sorrow of some of the smallerbirds, which, having been driven away by their bigger comrades, had notfed so heartily as they wished, perhaps! But what was loss to the gullswas gain to the sharks, which could follow the carcass down into thedeep and devour it at their leisure.
"Now, lads," cried the mate, when the remains had vanished, "rouse upthe fires, look alive, my hearties!"
"Ay, ay, sir," was the ready reply, cheerfully given, as every mansprang to his appointed duty.
And so, having "cut in" our whale, we next proceeded to "try out" theoil.