Peter the Whaler

by William Henry Giles Kingston

The krang is the refuse, as I have said, and the men who separate the oily part from it are called “krangers.” The “kings” throw the blubber in rough out of the “flense gut” to the “krangers” on deck; from them it is passed to the harpooners, who are the skinners. After the skin has been sliced off, it is placed on the chopping-block, before which stand in a row the boat-steerers, who with their long knives cut it up into oblong pieces not larger than four inches in diameter, and then push it into the speck-trough.

The line-managers are stationed in the hold, and guide the tube or lull to the casks they desire to fill. Finally, when no more can fall in, piece after piece is jambed in by a pricker, and the cask is bunged up. Sometimes not only are all the casks on board filled, but the blubber is stowed away in bulk in the hold, and even between decks; but this good fortune does not often occur.

It will be seen by any one who has read an account, that the process of preparing the cargo by the whalers in the southern seas is very different. Andrew Thompson had once been in a South Sea whaler, and he told me he never wished to go in another; for a wilder, more mutinous set of fellows it was never his ill-luck, before or since, to meet. This was, of course, owing partly to the captain, who was a rough, uncultivated savage, and totally unfit to gain any moral restraint over his men.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Peter,” said Andrew, as I sat by him in the forecastle that evening, listening to his yarns, “till the masters are properly educated, and know how to behave like officers and gentlemen, the men will be mutinous and ill-conducted. When I say like gentlemen, I don’t mean that they should eat with silver forks off china, drink claret, and use white pocket-handkerchiefs. Those things don’t make the gentleman afloat more than on shore. But what I like to see, is a man who treats his crew with proper gentleness, who looks after their interest in this world and the next, and tries to improve them to the best of his power—who acts, indeed, as a true Christian will act—that man is, I say, a gentleman. I say, put him where you will, ask him to do what you will, he will look and act like a gentleman. Who would dare to say that our good captain is not one? He looks like one, and acts like one, at all times and occasions; and if we had many more like him in the merchant service generally, we should soon have an improvement in the condition of our seamen.

“But I have got adrift from what I was going to tell you about the South Sea whalers. You see, the whales in those seas are generally sperm-whales, with blunt bottle-noses, altogether unlike the fish about here. There is not much difference in the way of killing them, except that one has not to go among the ice for them, in the way we have here, as they are met with in ‘schools’ in the open sea. What we call ‘making-off’ is there called ‘trying-out.’

“You see, on account of the hot climates they have to come through to return home, and partly from the value of the blubber, they have to boil it to get out the oil; and for this object they have to build large stoves or fire-places with brick on deck, between the fore-mast and main hatchway; and above them are three or four large pots. The blubber is then, you see, minced up, and pitched into the pots with long forks. Just fancy what a curious scene there must be while the trying-out is going on at night—the red glare of the fires, and the thick lurid smoke ascending in dense columns round the masts! Any one, not knowing what was going forward, would think, to a certainty, the ship was on fire; and then the stench of the boiling oil, hissing and bubbling in the pots—the suffocating feel of the smoke—the fierce-looking, greasy, unwashed men—I say, those who have been in a South Sea whaler will never wish to go again.”

I told him that I had no wish, after his description, ever to belong to one, though I liked the life, as far as I had seen of it, where I was.

“I have not a word to say against it, mate,” replied Andrew. “But wait a bit till we come to boring and cutting through the ice, in case we are beset, and then you’ll say that there is something like hard work to be done.”

It took us two hours to kill our first whale, and four to flense it. We afterwards performed the last operation in less time, when all hands were more expert.

The next morning we again stood in towards the ice, to see if there was any opening through which we might force the ship, but none appeared. What was curious, we hit the spot to which the krang of the fish we had killed the day before had floated. We saw something moving on the ice, as we approached, besides the clouds of wild-fowl which hovered over it, and on the sea around.