“SCRIMSHAW”
With a four or five months’ passage home before him, the whaleman occupied himself by carving and fashioning all manner of articles out of bone and whales’ teeth;—scrimshaw work. He had usually some particular person in mind as he scraped and sawed, filed and drilled, often with tools made from nails or odd bits of metal.—Model ships or boats, knives, forks, combs, ladles, yarn winders, bodkins, and a thousand other nick-nacks were turned out.
The favourite article however was the “jagging wheel,”—a contrivance for decorating pie crust and pastry, and many were the variations on the handles of these jaggers.
The visitor inspecting the fine collection of these what Herman Melville calls “Skrimshandered” articles, in the Nantucket and New Bedford Whaling Museums, cannot help being struck with the exquisite workmanship of most of the specimens and the high degree of artistry attained in the decoration of them.
The whaleman and his trim little ships have gone on the long passage, but if in nothing else, he has left in this a delightful and worthy record behind him.
Transcriber’s Notes
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Archaic and unusual spelling has been retained as in the original.