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Updated: May 9, 2025
The resultant oil, when recent, is of a clear white, unlike the golden-tinted fluid obtained from the cachalot. As it grows stale it developes a nauseous smell, which sperm does not, although the odour of the oil is otto of roses compared with the horrible mass of putridity landed from the tanks of a Greenland whaler at the termination of a cruise.
This whale, among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words.
So doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have taken our Chamois for a kindred fish. Spite of all our efforts, he drew nearer and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against the Chamois' gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the glossy transparent substance which thin as gossamer invests the body of the Cachalot. In terror at a sight so new, Samoa shrank.
It was a good job for us that this was the case, for while the porpoises lasted the "harness casks," or salt beef receptacles, were kept locked; so if any man had felt unable to eat porpoise well, there was no compulsion, he could go hungry. We were now in the haunts of the Sperm Whale, or "Cachalot," a brilliant look-out being continually kept for any signs of their appearing.
The Abraham Lincoln checked its speed and made for the animal signalled, a simple whale, or common cachalot, which soon disappeared amidst a storm of abuse. But the weather was good. The voyage was being accomplished under the most favourable auspices.
When at last we did get into their water, and the mate's harpooner stood up to dart, his foot slipped, and down he came with a clatter enough to scare a cachalot twenty miles away. It gallied our friends effectually, sending them flying in different directions at the top of their speed.
He told me that, when dying, the cachalot always ejected the contents of his stomach, which were invariably composed of such masses as we saw before us; that he believed the stuff to be portions of big cuttle-fish, bitten off by the whale for the purpose of swallowing, but he wasn't sure. Anyhow, I could haul this piece alongside now, if I liked, and see.
The Cachalot, or Spermaceti Whale, an enormous cetacean, which rivals the true whale in size, and whose head alone forms nearly the half of its body, has teeth in the lower jaw only.
Had it been the demon of the mist that gave utterance to these speeches, they could not have produced a more fearful effect upon those who heard them from the back of the cachalot. The accent, along with that profane shibboleth, might have proceeded from anyone who spoke the language of France; but the tone of the voice could not be mistaken.
It was daylight before any of them awoke, or it should have been daylight, by the hour: but there was a thick fog around them, so thick and dark that the carcass of the cachalot was not visible from the deck of the Catamaran, although only a few feet of water lay between them. Ben Brace was the first to bestir himself.
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