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Updated: May 15, 2025
In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene.
It was, I heard, our skipper's boast that he could "skin a bowhead in forty minutes;" and although we were certainly longer than that, the celerity with which what seemed a gigantic task was accomplished was marvellous. Of course, it was all plain-sailing, very unlike the complicated and herculean task inevitable at the commencement of cutting-in a sperm whale.
I desire to be surrounded only by healthy, vigorous plants and trees, which require constant cutting-in and management. Merely to cut away dead branches is like perpetual attendance at a funeral, and puts one in low spirits. I want to have a garden and orchard rise up and meet me every morning, with the request to "lay on, Macduff."
We had just finished cutting-in and trying out our third whale, and as it was not long since we reached the fishing-ground, we were in high hopes of making a good thing of it that season; so that every one was in good spirits, from the captain down to the youngest man in the ship. Tom Lokins was smoking his pipe, and Tom's pipe was an uncommonly black one, for he smoked it very often.
The blubber is lowered down the main hatchway and cut up into small pieces, called "horse pieces." These are afterwards piled up on deck to be minced into thin slices for boiling in the pots. The operation of "cutting-in" is a very dangerous one when there is any sea on to make the ship roll.
I desire to be surrounded only by healthy, vigorous plants and trees, which require constant cutting-in and management. Merely to cut away dead branches is like perpetual attendance at a funeral, and puts one in low spirits. I want to have a garden and orchard rise up and meet me every morning, with the request to "lay on, Macduff."
They've come down to spy on us, and they're doing it, too. There's no good trying to rush that camp now. They'll go back and tell the crew that we know their lay." It was still very dark. Near the hulk of the beached "Bertha Millner" were grouped her crew, each armed with a long and lance-like cutting-in spade, watching and listening to the conference of the chiefs.
We now did so at once, and a hard night's work we had of it, as we had to secure the whale alongside, and get ready for cutting-in as soon as it was day. Soon after this, while I was aloft, I saw Jim, who had just been relieved at the wheel, go to the side, and, throwing off his clothes, jump overboard.
The party tramped steadily forward, Moran, Wilbur, and Charlie leading, the coolies close behind carrying the cutting-in spades over their shoulders. Slowly and in silence they made the half circuit of the bay. The "Bertha Millner" was far behind them by now, a vague gray mass in the early morning light. "Did you ever fight before?" Moran suddenly demanded of Charlie.
In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene.
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