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The end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached.

The end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached.

Along the very fine road to the fall, a profusion of palms and gigantic tree ferns, between thirty and forty feet high, up whose great stems gaily flowered creepers wind their hawser-like fronds, make a delicious and cooling shade. Yonder tree away there in the background, with delicate pea-green leaves, is an old friend of ours. Let your memories go back to your infancy.

Road, there was none; only a sort of bridle path, very heavy with mud, and overgrown with great hawser-like creepers, indicated a way along which we trudged. Now and then the fallen trunk of a great tree barred our further progress, or a chasm yawned before us, or mayhap, a great time-worn boulder stopped the way; insignificant objects all when matelôts are on the war trail.