Oars are the normal method of propulsion. There are five long oars, three to starboard and two to port. From bow to stern, they are called harpooner’s (generally called “harpoonier” on a whaler), bow, midship, tub, and after oar. The harpooner’s and the after oar are fourteen feet long, and the midship oar eighteen feet. Those three are the starboard oars. The port oars, the bow and the tub, are sixteen feet each. Under the tub oar, by the way, seems to be the favorite place for a whale to strike a boat. By this inequality in length of the oars a pretty good balance is reached, whether the harpooner is rowing or not. Each of these long, heavy oars is handled by one man, who sits far over on the thwart on the opposite end from the thole-pins or rowlocks. When thole-pins are used the oar works on a mat laid up of small line, placed between the pins, to muffle the sound; rowlocks are matted with marline or other small stuff. The steering oar, as I have mentioned, is twenty-two feet long. It passes out astern over the gunwale on the port side of the stern-post, through a bight of rope covered with leather, which rests on a bracket. One end of the rope forming this bight is taken inboard through an eye, and belayed on a cleat on the deck at the stern. There is a projecting handle on the upper side of the steering oar, and the steersman stands up to his work. When the steering oar is not in use, it is drawn in clear of the water, and on the boats of the Clearchus, at any rate, the handle was held in an eye spliced into a rope, which was worked in above the gunwale on the port side. This just fitted the handle, and held the oar out of everybody’s way and ready for instant use. The boat is decked over for three feet at the bow, and four feet at the stern. The deck at the bow is sunk six inches below the gunwale, and is called the “box.” {37} Directly aft of the box is the cleat, or “clumsy cleat.” This is a wide, heavy plank, on a level with the gunwale, in which—on the port side, unless made especially for a left-handed man—a roughly semicircular piece is cut out, into the place of which will fit a man’s left thigh, or upper leg. The edges of this hole are thickly matted with yarn or other soft stuff. Into this opening the harpooner fits his left thigh to steady him when he is about to dart the harpoon, or the mate fits his when he is about to use the lance. Various sheaths are on the forward edge of the cleat, for knives, and along its top runs a loose piece of heavy line, its ends knotted underneath at opposite ends of the cleat. This is the “kicking-strap,” under which the whale line passes. There is a hatchet in a frame on the side of the boat below the cleat, where the mate can reach it easily, to cut the line; and a whaling-gun lies on a board under the cleat, at his right, fast to the boat by a line through its stock.