One of the attending boat-steerers now advances with a long, keen weapon, called a boarding-knife, and, watching his opportunity, he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole the end of the second alternating great tackle is hooked, so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in two; so that, while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, the “blanket piece,” swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song and their work, and, while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the “blubber-room.” Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-pieces, as if they were a great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously, both whale and windlass heaving, the crew singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates cutting, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general friction. And now the “body” of the whale is all in; the carcass has floated off, food for the sharks; the head, which has been made fast alongside the ship, is brought to the gangway, and the junk is separated from the case, and “hove in” on deck. Now comes the bailing of the case. It is hoisted up alongside the gangway, nearly level with the ship’s deck; a “whip” is rigged, being simply a rope, one end on deck, the other passing through a single block made fast to the main-yard, to which is attached a bucket of the capacity of about a gallon. One of the boat-steerers stands on the end of the case, with a short spade cuts a hole in the case, and the bucket is then sunk into it by means of a long pole, until it is filled, when it is hoisted out and emptied, and so on until the liquid oil is all bailed out. From the case of a hundred-barrel sperm whale from fifteen to seventeen barrels of liquid oil is generally obtained, though a great deal is unavoidably wasted. After the case is bailed it is cut loose, and immediately sinks with great rapidity. CHAPTER VII. “Trying out.”—“Stowing down.”—“Cleaning up.”—Gale off the River De la Plata.—Thunder and Lightning.—Narrow Escape of the Ship.