Previous to the commencement of the experiment, the preparing of his cutting instruments, viz. a “blubber-spade” and “blubber-knife,” became matter of personal and special attention. The _spade_, (an instrument with the cutting part about eight inches broad, and used in the manner of the “hay-spade,”) was not merely ground to a fine edge and then sharpened with an oil-stone, but the sides (ordinarily left black with varnish, or encrusted with rust,) were reduced by the grindstone to a bright and smooth surface. His blubber-knife (an instrument with a three feet blade and three feet straight handle) was, in like manner, carefully ground, sharpened, and polished; so that these instruments, presenting the least possible resistance, from the adhesion of the metal to the blubber, when in use, the muscular strength of the flenser might, in no respect, be uselessly expended.
All things being ready, and the men duly distributed, the time was noted, and my Father, single-handed, as I have said,—except as to a man to put in the straps[G] and attach the tackles, that he might not have occasion to wet or grease his hands,—proceeded to the trial on his apparently presumptuous challenge.
The plan he had previously determined on, and which subsequently became very common in the flensing of small fish, was the following:—
The under part of the head (always being placed upward for flensing), with the jaw-bones, “lips,” and tongue, is first attached to the capstan tackle, and, being separated as it is hove up, is taken on deck altogether. Meanwhile the skull, with the whalebone and upper part of the head,—which is brought in sight, clear of the water, by the strain hove upon the other section or lower jaw,—is secured by the second tackle, and speedily made to follow its companion in the ascent to the deck.
One of the fins, having a strap previously put round it, is next hove upon, till (the fish being free to roll over, so as to adjust its position to the direction of the strain,) it is well raised upward, and, the blubber annexed to it, put upon the stretch. The fin is then easily “unsocketed,” and the blubber on the seaward side being cut across beyond it, it becomes the attachment for heaving up a long slip of three or four feet in width, and extending, with its upper part, high above the level of the deck. As this ascends, (the fish meanwhile spontaneously “canting” outwardly from the ship), the other fin appears in sight, and, being embraced by another strap, is, in its turn, hove up by the “fore-tackle” correspondently, as to its further progress, with its fellow. When the attachment of the second, or fore-tackle, rises to about the level of the deck, the blubber-slip is cut across, just above the place of that attachment, and the separated portion, being lowered down upon the deck, is cut up, with singular celerity, into square lumps, adapted for being easily thrown about by the “pick-haak” men; and these, as rapidly as they are cut out, are made to disappear through a hole in one of the main-hatches into the flens-gut below.