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As the Chinese drag their anchors on board instead of catting and fishing as other seamen do, this position of the stock offers no impediment. The flukes were of the same dimensions as those of similar sized anchors with us; they were straight and not rounded, and there were no palms. There was also a kedge, with only one fluke. The cables were of rattan.
First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons a wad of muscle but still contains some oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble.
Sometimes she'd flutter with her fins, and twitter her flukes, and sidle off like she was bashful, and then she'd come swooping around enough to make the harbour sizzle, and stick her nose in the bottom and her tail in the air, trembling with her emotions, and then she'd come up and smile at you a rod each way. I judged she meant all right, but she didn't understand her limitations.
Many a time we blessed ourselves that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to tow with boats, a sperm whale is about the worst. Owing to the great square mass of the head, they can hardly be towed head-on at all, the practice being to cut off the tips of the flukes, and tow them tail first. But even then it is slavery.
As we gazed breathlessly at the exciting scene, we saw the boat rush in between the two flippers, the harpooner at the same time darting an iron straight down. There was a whirl in the waters, and quick as thought the vast flukes of the whale rose in the air, recurving with a sidelong sweep as of some gigantic scythe. The blow shore off the bow of the attacking boat as if it had been an egg-shell.
The wind becoming favourable, the crew got the anchor up, on which, when catheaded, they found part of the chimney and the fire-tongs astride on one of the flukes!”
"How can they swim with petticoats on?" asked another. "My brother heard that real men wear wooden shoes! These must bother them, when on the water, to have their feet floating," said a third, whose name was Silver Scales. "What a pity they don't have flukes like us," and then she looked at her own glistening scaly coat in admiration.
This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close by.
In this extremity the captain ordered the anchor to be hove up, but this was not easily accomplished, and when at last it was hove up to the bow, both flukes were found to have been broken off, and the shank was polished bright with rubbing on the rocks.
At first they dragged upon the frozen snow, but soon the flukes caught in the crevices of the icy masses, and the great globe was securely anchored at the North Pole! They instantly prepared to descend in the cage. The cold was terrible, so much so that they could not have endured it at all but for provisions that Dr. Jones had made for this very event.
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