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There was no part of her which I did not over-haul, and I could see that they had had a great time with whales, for a mighty carcass, attached to the outside of the ship by the powerful cant-purchase tackle, had been in process of flensing and cutting-in, and on the deck two great blankets of blubber, looking each a ton-weight, surrounded by twenty-seven men in many attitudes, some terrifying to see, some disgusting, several grotesque, all so unhuman, the whale dead, and the men dead, too, and death was there, and the rank-flourishing germs of Inanity, and a mesmerism, and a silence, whose dominion was established, and its reign was growing old.
With their blubber-knives the men then cut it into oblong pieces, just as a fish is cut across at table; and with their spades they lifted it from the flesh and bones, performing the same work on a larger scale that the fish-knife does. To the end thus first lifted a strap and tackle is fastened, called the "speck-tackle," by which those on deck haul it up. This operation is called "flensing."
I ought to have said, that while the harpooners were flensing the whale, another division of the crew were employed in receiving it on deck, in pieces of half a ton each, while others cut it into portable pieces of about a foot square; and a third set passed it down a hole in the main hatches to between decks, where it was received by two men, styled kings, who stowed it away in a receptacle called the "flense gut."
The ship had for some time been off the western shore of the bay, and several whales had been taken every one was actively engaged, for when the operation of flensing was not going on, the boats were generally away in chase of their prey. Archy had hitherto always remained on board. He had long wished, however, to be present at one of the exciting scenes he had only witnessed from a distance.
No ropes or blocks are capable of bearing the jerk of the sea. The harpooners are annoyed by the surge, and repeatedly drenched in water; and are likewise subject to be wounded by the breaking of ropes or hooks of tackles, and even by strokes from each other's knives. Hence accidents in this kind of flensing are not uncommon.
The blow of the harpoon that sent Chang's brains flying like the contents of a smashed custard apple was like a flash of lightning, it was the thunder that terrified. Roaring like a sea bull he sprang from the body of Chang towards the crowd who faced him for a moment with their flensing knives like a herd of jackals.
A suspension of labor is generally allowed after the whale has been secured aside of the ship, and before the commencement of the operation of flensing. An unlucky circumstance once occurred in an interval of this kind.
Thus, when a whale is killed, and the flensing is prevented by a storm, it is usually taken in tow; if the rope by which it is connected with the ship should happen to break, and the people of another ship should seize upon it while disengaged, it becomes their prize. The following circumstance, which occurred a good many years ago, has a tendency to illustrate the existing Greenland laws.
Some of the officers lamented this circumstance, and wished that the harpoon might be better fast; at the same time observing that if it should slip out, either the fish would be lost, or they should be under the necessity of flensing it where it lay, and of dragging the blubber over the ice to the ship; a kind and degree of labor every one was anxious to avoid.
When we had got the baleen inboard, however, the more disagreeable work of "flensing" began. A number of the men, with old Tom Anderly at their head, got upon the whale in spiked shoes and with blubber spades attacked the main carcass of the beast.
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