Late in the morning on the day after I arrived at Oshima the long-drawn wail of a siren whistle sounded far down the bay, and in a few moments a little whaling vessel swept proudly around a picturesque rocky headland and steamed swiftly toward the station. She was listing far to starboard and we could see the huge flukes of a blue whale, the _shiro-nagasu kujira_ of the Japanese, waving at her bow, the carcass stretching alongside almost to the stern. She slipped quietly up to the end of the wharf and two cutters sculled a sampan out to meet her. There were a few hoarse shouts, a sharp command, the rattle of a heavy chain, and a great splash as the whale was dropped into the water. [Illustration: “A steel wire cable was looped about the tail just in front of the flukes, and the huge carcass drawn slowly upward over the end of the wharf.” ] On shore the station bell was clanging and men were assembling on the wharf; strong well-built fellows they were, many of them half naked and busy sharpening the blades of murderous-looking knives. With them mingled dozens of women and girls clad in tight blue trousers and kimonas, each one armed with a stout iron hook or with carrying racks slung over their shoulders. In a few moments the rattling steam winch had brought the whale close in shore, a steel wire cable was looped about the tail just in front of the flukes, and the huge carcass drawn slowly upward over the end of the wharf. As it rose the eager cutters attacked it savagely with their long-bladed knives, slicing off enormous blocks of flesh and blubber which were seized by “hook men” almost before they fell, passed to the women, and drawn to the back of the platform. Meanwhile two other cutters in a sampan were at work dividing the carcass just in front of the dorsal fin. The entire posterior part of the whale was then drawn upward and lowered on the wharf to be stripped of blubber and flesh. Transverse incisions were made in the portion of the body remaining in the water, a hook was fastened to a “blanket piece,” and as the blubber was torn off by the winch the carcass rolled over and over. The head, disjointed at the neck, was hoisted bodily upon the pier. Section by section the carcass was cut apart and drawn upward to fall into the hands of the men on the wharf and be sliced into great blocks two or three feet square.