tearing off large pieces of his flesh. The
sharks prefer " whale beef " to a tough bony
man.

The fins having been cut off, and the body
of the whale clean picked, it was turned
adrift, and, deprived of the light blubber,
sank immediately. The " case," or head, was
next brought alongside, the lower jaw being
uppermost. This was separated from the case
and hoisted on deck. The bony palate or
upper jaw was then raised, and from beneath it
was cut the "junk," an enormous mass of
blubber, weighing some thousands of pounds.
We had then reached the real case, in which
is secreted the most valuable product of the
sperm whale. Strong tackles hoisted it above
the wash of the waves, and a hole was broken
into it, through which buckets were let down
and whipped on deck filled with the precious
liquor. This was pure spermaceti: whalers
call it "head-matter." When first extracted,
it is a clear liquid slightly tinged with pink;
but, on being exposed to the air it coagulates
and solidifies. The oil with which it is
mixed is expelled by pressure, and the spermaceti
remains in hard masses of thin irregular
flakes. The oil thus procured is the
finest and purest of all animal oils, and burns
with a peculiarly bright clear flame.

One of the men presently stepped into the
case, and proceeded to knock down the partitions
which divide it into several small
apartments, each filled with head-matter. The
whole space was thus turned into a large
room.

The blubber having been separated from
the " white horse " of the junk, all the remainder
of the carcase was turned over to the
sharks. " White horse " is a term sometimes
applied to all the useless flesh of the whale,
but more particularly to a mass of whitish
stringy gristle, which covers the head, and
seems to serve the purpose of a "cork
fender" in defending it from blows.

The " try-works " were then in full play.
They are three iron pots, firmly bedded in
brick-work, amidships, with fire-places beneath
them, separated from the deck by a
pen filled with water. Into these pots a
barrel of oil was poured from the case (which
yields from twelve to twenty barrels), and
the fires lighted. The " horse-pieces" were
pitched upon deck from the blubber-room
with a long fork, and carried to the " mincing
horses"—small blocks or tables securely
fastened to the deck. A boy holding a horse-piece
on the block by a, small hook, a man
with a two-handled knife—resembling a
joiner's drawing-knife turned upside down—
rapidly cut it into thin slices, which just hung
together. It was then a " book," ready for
melting, or " trying out." The pots were
well filled with books, and as the oil rose to
the surface it was skimmed oif with a large
ladle, and poured into a copper cooler, from
whence it was transferred to casks, and safely
stowed in the hold. Whalers require very
little fuel, as the scraps that remain from the
melted blubber are enough to keep the fires
going.

A whale ship presents a strange scene
during the process of trying out. The decks
are literally swimming in oil: it covers the
ropes, the men's clothes; the , very galley
and cooking coppers are saturated with it,
and every mouthful of beef and biscuit has
the whale flavour. The white sails are
blackened by the smoke, and the neat
trim, ship of yesterday has suddenly become
a floating mass of dirt and grease
enveloped in thick, black, and stinking
clouds. Our sails were rtearly all furled at
sundown, but the work went on all night.
The fires threw a red glare on the ropes and
spars, and, fed by the oily scraps, sprang up
in vivid flames that lightened all the sea.
Dark figures moved in the red gleam, armed
with strange weapons, or stood beside great
cauldrons, slowly stirring round their boiling
broth. Unearthly noises and wild songs
mingled with the low dash of the sea, the
mournful creaking of the spars, and the sad
moaning of the tainted wind; whilst over all
hung a thick canopy of heavy smoke which,
in that calm weather, drooped around the
ship, and formed a fitting veil for such a.
dismal spectacle.

But, to the actors in it the scene had
nothing of dismalness, for out of all this
smoke aud dirt, we were to get clean gold.
We were sea alchemists. Every man in a
whale-ship shares in the profits of the voyage,
his wages being paid by the " lay." A certain
share is appropriated by the owners of the
ship, and the remainder is divided among the
crew; the lay of a foremast hand, a common
'' spouter," being about a sixty-fifth in a colonial
whaler. The value of both oil and bone
is fixed before the ship sails, so that the
markets have no effect on the " lay; " but
the price thus fixed is always far below the
actual value of the articles.

Few vessels are now fitted out in England
for the South Sea fisheries: nearly all the
British ships in the trade belong to Australian
ports; their oil is discharged at the Antiodes,
and then reshipped for London. Colonial
whalers usually remain at sea six months
taking sperm whales when they can catch
them, and filling up with black oil from
the " right whale." But the trade is chiefly
engrossed by the Americans, who have always
a numerous fleet employed in it. At
some seasons it is almost impossible to enter
a port on the west coast of South America,
in the South Sea Islands, or New
Holland without finding a " Yankee spouter"
refitting or refreshing. The number of American
whalers has ranged, for some years,
between six and seven hundred; but the increasing
scarcity of fish has latterly decreased
their number. The additional, expense incurred,
in consequence of the length of time
which it now takes to fill a ship, has rendered