第82章 "HUMPBACKING" AT VAU VAU(6)

The whole business was completed in half an hour from the first sight of her, and by the mate's hand alone, none of the other boats needing to use their gear.As soon as she was dead, a hole was bored through the lips, into which a tow-line was secured, the two long fins were lashed close into the sides of the animal by an encircling line, the tips of the flukes were cut off, and away we started for the ship.We had an eight-mile tow in the blazing sun, which we accomplished in a little over eight, hours, arriving at the vessel just before two p.m.News of our coming had preceded us, and the whole native population appeared to be afloat to make us welcome.The air rang again with their shouts of rejoicing, for our catch represented to them a gorgeous feast, such as they had not indulged in for many a day.The flesh of the humpbacked whale is not at all bad, being but little inferior to that of the porpoise; so that, as these people do not despise even the coarse rank flesh of the cachalot, their enthusiasm was natural.Their offers of help were rather embarrassing to us, as we could find little room for any of them in the boats, and the canoes only got in our way.Unable to assist us, they vented their superfluous energies on the whale in the most astounding aquatic antics imaginable--diving under it; climbing on to it;pushing and rolling each other headlong over its broad back;shrieking all the while with the frantic, uncontrollable laughter of happy children freed from all restraint.Men, women, and children all mixed in this wild, watery spree; and as to any of them getting drowned, the idea was utterly absurd.

When we got it alongside, and prepared to cut in, all the chaps were able to have a rest, there were so many eager volunteers to man the windlass, not only willing but, under the able direction of their compatriots belonging to our crew, quite equal to the work of heaving in blubber.All their habitual 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.