The trying-out started on the head-matter, in order to keep the oil from contamination, and to preserve its light color. Meanwhile there were two men in the blubber room with knife and spade to cut from the blubber the pieces of flesh that had come off with it. They then cut the blanket strips into smaller pieces, roughly rectangular. These “horse-pieces,” as they are called, were cut all the way across the blanket, and about six or eight inches wide; so that, in this case, they were strips, about three feet long and eight inches wide. They are sometimes not so long. In cutting the horse-pieces, the men generally stood on the strip in their bare feet, and cut it with a sharp spade held vertically. I knew how slippery those strips of blubber could be, and I trembled for fear that, on that unstable footing, the sharp spade might fall on the wrong spot and cut off a few of those wriggling toes, or even a foot. It would be easy. The spade was sharp and heavy, and a man might cut off his toes before he knew it; but I saw no such accident, either then or later, although I believe it was not uncommon. The men did not seem to be afraid of accidents. When the blubber had been cut this way, the “horse-pieces” were tossed on deck and taken to the mincers. The mincers were men—usually two—who wielded heavy, two-handled knives about two feet long, with a handle at each end; the knives being a sort of a cross between a butcher’s cleaver and a carpenter’s draw-knife, or more nearly, perhaps, a cleaver with a handle at each end. The mincers work against the end of a heavy block, or horse, at the height of their belts—if they happen to have {93} belts—and chop and slice the flesh side of the blubber, with a peculiar rolling motion of the heavy knife. The mincer used both hands to hold his mincing-knife, while a second man held the horse-piece on the block. The flesh side of the blubber is cut in this way into thin strips, resembling strips of bacon, leaving the outside, or black skin, intact. These are called “bible-leaves,” and are ready for the try-pots. There was a pair of try-pots set in brickwork just abaft the foremast, with room to work for the men tending them. These men stand forward of the try-works. As I have said before, there was a roof, or house, over them, as is usually, but not always, the case. The fire-space underneath was separated from the deck by a low platform which projected some distance beyond the fire-doors, and this platform had under it a tank, which was always filled with water when the fire was burning, to protect the deck. The fire-doors were in the forward side of the try-works. They were of iron, and could be slid back or swung upward. Two—three, if there are three try-pots—smokestacks of copper, and of rectangular section, projected a little way above the roof.