Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/333

Rh jaws, and continues his destructive course until he has sufficiently charged his mouth with prey.

“Closing his jaws and forcing out through the interstices of the whalebone, the water which he has taken together with his prey, he retains the captured animals, and swallows them at his leisure.

“The nostrils, or blow-holes, are placed, you see, on the upper part of the head, in order that the whale may rise to breathe, and repose on the surface of the sea, showing very little of his huge carcase.

“The breathings are called ‘spoutings,’ because a column of mixed vapour and water is thrown from the blow-holes, sometimes to a height of twenty feet.

“And now, boys, fasten on your buskins, and let me see if you can face the work of climbing this slippery mountain of flesh, and cutting it up.”

Fritz and Jack stripped, and went to work directly, scrambling over the back to the head, where they assisted me to cut away the lips, so as to reach the whalebone, a large quantity of which was detached and carried to the boat.

Ernest laboured manfully at the creature's side, cutting out slabs of blubber, while his mother and Franz helped as well as they could to put it in casks.

Presently we had a multitude of unbidden guests.

The air was filled by the shrill screams and hoarse croaks and cries of numbers of birds of prey; they flew around us in ever narrowing circles, and becoming bolder as their voracity was excited by the near view of the tempting prey, they alighted close to us, snatching morsels greedily from under the very strokes of our knives and hatchets.

Our work was seriously interrup t ed by these feathered marauders, who, after all, were no greater robbers than we ourselves. We kept them off as well as we could by blows from our tools,