The winch had not yet stopped when two men with long-handled knives began to cut off the lobes of the tail to prevent the flukes from pounding the rail as the body swung up and down in the seaway. Already other sailors were working at a long coil of small rubber hose, one end of which was attached to an air pump and the other to a hollow, spear-pointed tube of steel, perforated along its entire length. This was jabbed well down into the whale’s abdomen, the engines started, and the animal slowly filled with air. When the body had been inflated sufficiently to keep it afloat, the tube was withdrawn and the incision plugged with oakum. The other whales were a long way off when the ship was ready to start. The man in the “top” reported them as far to the south and traveling fast. As there was little chance of getting another shot that day and the wind was blowing half a gale, the Captain decided to turn about and run for the station. We reached Sechart at 1:30 A. M. and the whale was left floating in the water, tied to the end of the wharf near a long inclined platform called the “slip”; then the _Orion_ put out to sea and I went to bed at the station. I shall never forget my intense surprise next morning when I saw the humpback “cut in.” Work began at seven o’clock, and as the Manager had just awakened me, I ran out and did not wait for breakfast, thinking there would be ample time to eat when the operations were under way. It soon became evident, however, that there were no breathing spells when whales were being cut in, and every soul was at his work until the last scrap of flesh was in the boiling vats. [Illustration: “A hollow, spear-pointed tube of steel ... was jabbed well down into the whale’s abdomen, the engines started, and the animal slowly filled with air.” ] After a heavy wire cable had been made fast about the posterior part of the whale, just in front of the flukes, the winch was started. The cable straightened out, tightened, and became as rigid as a bar of steel. Slowly foot after foot of the wire was wound in and the enormous carcass, weighing at least forty tons, was drawn out of the water upon the slip. One of the Japanese scrambled up the whale’s side and, balancing himself on the smooth surface by the aid of his long knife, made his way forward to sever at the “elbow” the great side fin, or flipper, fifteen feet in length. Before the carcass was half out of the water other cutters were making longitudinal incisions through the blubber along the breast, side, and back, from the head the entire length of the body to the flukes. The cable was made fast to the blubber at the chin, the winch started, and the thick layer of fat stripped off exactly as one would peel an orange. When the upper side had been denuded of its blubber covering, the whale was turned over by means of the canting winch, and the other surface was flensed in the same manner.