The whalers are often very successful in and outside Plover Bay in securing their prey. Each boat is known by its own private mark—a cross, red stripes, or what not—on its sail, so that at a distance they can be distinguished from their respective vessels. When the whale is harpooned, often a long and dangerous job, and is floating dead in the water, a small flag is planted in it. After the monster is towed alongside the vessel, it is cut up into large rectangular chunks, and it is a curious and not altogether pleasant sight to witness the deck of a whaling ship covered with blubber. This can be either barreled, or the oil “tryed out” on the spot. If the latter, the blubber is cut into “mincemeat,” and chopping knives, and even mincing machines, are employed. The oil is boiled out on board, and the vessel when seen at a distance looks as if on fire. On these occasions the sailors have a feast of dough-nuts, which are cooked in boiling whale-oil, fritters of whale brain, and other dishes. The writer has tasted whale in various shapes, but although it is eatable, it is by no means luxurious food. [Illustration: WHALERS AT WORK.] It was in these waters of Bering Sea and the Arctic that the _Shenandoah_ played such havoc during the American war. In 1865 she burned _thirty_ American whalers, taking off the officers and crews, and sending them down to San Francisco. The captain of an English whaler, the _Robert Tawns_, of Sydney, had warned and saved some American vessels, and was in consequence threatened by the pirate captain. The writer was an eye-witness of the results of this wanton destruction of private property. The coasts were strewed with the remains of the burned vessels, while the natives had boats, spars, &c., in numbers.