After this was got in, the rest of the work was simple.

The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips, beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail.

It was hoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and the men at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round until we got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to nearly as high as the mainyard-arm.

This mass was nearly a foot thick, and it looked like fat pork.

It was cut off close to the deck, and lowered into the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there attacked it with knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it away.