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Updated: May 9, 2025
M. Pomel, whom I cited above, believed it to come from the brain of the whale called "cachalot." No one would have dreamt in the sixteenth century of mixing this precious stuff with beeswax for modelling purposes. At that date one would as soon have mixed amber with pitch. That reminds me that "grey amber" or "ambergris" is also a product of the sperm whale not to be confounded with spermaceti.
The spot where the harpoon had been sticking was in the side of the cachalot, and, as the carcass lay, a broad space around the weapon presented an inclined plane, sloping abruptly towards the water. Lubricated as it was with the secreted oil of the animal, it was smooth as glass. Upon this slope Snowball had been standing; and upon it had he fallen.
It is scarce necessary to say, that the raft now introduced as lying upon the ocean some twenty miles from the dead cachalot was that which some days before had parted from the Pandora, or that the fiendish forms that occupied it were the remnant of the Pandora's crew. These were not all there: nearly a score of them were absent.
They are little known, except to the wandering fishermen from Reunion and Rodriguez, who roam about these islets and reefs, seeking anything that may be turned into coin, from wrecks to turtle, and in nowise particular as to rights of ownership. When between the Cosmoledos and Astove, the next island to the northward, we sighted a "solitary" cachalot one morning just as the day dawned.
Like all our fishing operations on board the CACHALOT, this day's fishing was conducted on scientific principles, and resulted in twenty-five fine fish being shipped, which were a welcome addition to our scanty allowance.
The cachalot, on the other hand, has the orifice at the point of his square snout, the internal channel running in a slightly diagonal direction downwards, and back through the skull to the lungs.
A black-fish which, it may be mentioned here, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a species of cachalot, although differing from the true spermaceti family of whales in having the spout-holes placed on the top of the head, in place of on the snout, and the pectoral fins shorter was being assailed by its bitter enemy the thresher or "fox shark."
It would at first sight appear strange that, in view of the enormous traffic of steamships through the Malacca Straits, so easily "gallied" a creature as the cachalot should care to frequent its waters; indeed, I should certainly think that a great reduction in the numbers of whales found there must have taken place.
The mist was no longer producing its magnifying effect upon the vision of our adventurers; but although the carcass of the cachalot could no more have been mistaken for an island, still was it an object of enormous dimensions; and might easily have passed for a great black rock standing several fathoms above the surface of the sea.
It was the work of only a few minutes to cut the tiny cable by which the little embarkation had been attached to the fin of the cachalot, and push the craft clear of its moorings. But, short as was the time, during its continuance the sun had produced a wonderful change in that oceanic panorama.
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