The scene was one of “orderly confusion”—men, women and girls, laughing and chattering, running here and there, sometimes stopping for a few words of banter but each with his or her own work to do. Above the babel of sounds, the strange, half wild, meaningless chant, “Ya-ra-cu-ra-sa,” rose and died away, swelling again in a fierce chorus as the sweating, half-naked men pulled and strained at a great jawbone or swung the hundred-pound chunks of flesh into the waiting hand cars which carried them to the washing vats. Sometimes a kimona-clad, bare-footed girl slipped on the oily boards or treacherous, sliding, blubber cakes and sprawled into a great pool of blood, rising amid roars of laughter to shake herself, wipe the red blotches from her little snub nose and go on as merrily as before. [Illustration: “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.” ] It was essentially a good-natured crowd, working hard and ceaselessly but apparently deriving as much fun from their labor as though it were a holiday. The spirit of the place was infectious, and as I splashed about in the blood and grease, I talked and joked with the cutters in bad Japanese, causing screams of laughter when I seriously informed them that “the sun was very hot water” by the quite natural mistake of substituting the word _atsui-yu_ for _atsui_ (hot). Almost every night we would be awakened by the siren whistle bringing the news of more whales. If I did not at once stir, the little _amah_ (maid), always devoted to my interests, would quietly slide back the paper screen to the sleeping room and say, “_Andrews-san, go Hogei wa kujira ga torn mashita_” (Hogei No. 5 has caught whales). When I had rolled out of the comfortable _futons_ and begun to dress, I would hear little Scio-san pattering about in the other room, gathering my pencils, notebook, and tape measure. Looking like a beautiful night-moth in her bright-colored kimona, with the huge bow of her _obi_ (sash) always neatly arranged, she would be there to help me into the greasy oilskins and rubber boots, and would clump along in front to the wharf, lighting the way with a _chochin_ (paper lantern) that I might not bump my head on the eaves and rafters of the low station shed. [Illustration: “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.” ]