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This sperm could be reached by simply removing the "junk" which forms the exterior portion of a cachalot's huge snout, and sinking a shaft into the skull. Here would, or should, be found a cavity filled with a delicate cellular tissue, containing ten or a dozen large barrels full of the purest spermaceti. They did not stand in need of anything like this quantity.
But on this strange voyage I was quite as much in the dark concerning our approximate position as any of the chaps who had never seen salt water before they viewed it from the bad eminence of the CACHALOT's deck. Of course, it was evident that we were bound eastward, but whether to the Indian seas or to the South Pacific, none knew but the skipper, and perhaps the mate. I say "perhaps" advisedly.
At the point where he intended to take his stand, close in by the "crutch" of the cachalot's tail-fin, he made three excavations with more care. At length, satisfied with his preparations, he stood, with pointed harpoon, waiting for we of the sharks to come within striking distance. They "fought shy" at first; but the old whaleman knew a way of overcoming their shyness.
Then the lethal spade would drop upon his soft crown, cleaving it to the jaws, and with one flap of his big tail he would loose his grip, roll over and over, and sink, surrounded by a writhing crowd of his fellows, by whom he was speedily reduced into digestible fragments. The condition of the CACHALOT's deck was now somewhat akin to chaos.
There could have been no difficulty in destroying any of the sharks so late threatening to swallow Snowball, had the harpooner been able to get within striking distance of them. But the slippery skin of the whale deterred the sailor from trusting himself on that dangerous incline; and he determined, therefore, to try elsewhere. In the direction of the cachalot's tail the descent was gradual.
By a singular arrangement, of which this is the only known instance, there is, opposite each of the cachalot's teeth, a corresponding cavity in the upper jaw, into which they fit closely, turning the monster's muzzle into the most formidable pair of pincers to be found in the animal kingdom.
M. Porpesse, also, availing himself of M. Cachalot's knowledge, reproduced it in an article with certain additions, which it is only fair to distinguish as his own, implying that the vigorous English of Grampus was not always as correct as a Frenchman could desire, while Merman's objections were more sophistical than solid.
"Every one to his own," answered the Captain, looking fixedly at Ned Land. I feared he would commit some act of violence, which would end in sad consequences. But his anger was turned by the sight of a whale which the Nautilus had just come up with. The creature had not quite escaped from the cachalot's teeth. I recognised the southern whale by its flat head, which is entirely black.
Anyhow, the syndicate led off with their main force first; for while the two killers hung on the cachalot's flanks, diverting his attention, the sword-fish, a giant some sixteen feet long, launched himself at the most vulnerable part of the whale, for all the world like a Whitehead torpedo.
To any one studying the peculiar configuration of a cachalot's mouth, it would appear a difficult problem how the calf could suck. Certainly it puzzled me more than a little. But, when on the "line" grounds we got among a number of cows one calm day, I saw a little fellow about fifteen feet long, apparently only a few days old, in the very act.
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