Our ship carried four boats on the cranes, besides four more spare ones in case of accident, such as a boat being stove, etc. They are built in a manner to enable them to stand a very heavy sea, and at the same time very light and buoyant; about twenty-five feet in length and four in breadth, and sharp at both ends, for motion in either direction without turning. Near the stern of the boat is placed a strong, upright, round piece of wood, a little one side from the centre, which is termed the “loggerhead.” The whale-line passes two or three times around this when running out of the boat. At the head or bow is a groove, exactly in the centre, through which the line passes when taken out by the whale. In each boat are two tubs, containing each about one hundred and fifty fathoms, or eighteen hundred feet altogether in length, of the best Manilla tow-line, very carefully coiled, that it may run out perfectly clear and free; for such is the velocity of its egress sometimes that, should any thing obstruct its free passage, the boat, with all its contents, would be immediately drawn under the surface. There are also five or six harpoons, three lances, a keg, called the lantern-keg, containing a lantern with candles, matches, tinder, bread, pipes, and tobacco, that the boat’s crew may have something with which to sustain nature in case of being off in the night-time, or losing the ship in the day-time; a waif, which is a small flag fastened to a pole, to be inserted in the dead whale, as a signal to the ship that it is a “dead fish;” one or two drugs, which are pieces of plank about a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, with a centre-post, and short line attached, by which they are fastened to the whale-line, serving to check the speed of the whale in sounding or running. [Illustration: DRUG.] Each boat is commanded by one of the officers of the ship, who is styled “boat-header;” the captain commanding the starboard boat, the first mate the larboard boat, the second mate the waist-boat, and the third mate the bow boat; and they are manned each by a crew of five, one of whom is the harpooner, or “boat-steerer.” All four boats are used in the chase, the race often becoming exciting as to which shall be the “first boat fast.” [Illustration: Spade and Sheath. Blubber Pike. Lance. Harpoon and Sheath. Dipper. Oil Dipper. Pike.] [Illustration: THE MASTHEADMAN.]