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In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines.
After a wail of sorrow for this inhuman neglect, he bursts into a gush of gratitude for the private generosity which relieved his wants at the last moment by the following list of supplies: "24 bottles best claret, 12 ditto Madeira, 12 ditto porter, 12 ditto cider, 12 ditto rum, 2 large loaves white sugar, 2 gallons brandy, 6 bottles muscadel, 2 gallons lemon-juice, 2 gallons ground coffee, 2 large Westphalia hams, 2 salted bullocks' tongues, 1 bottle Durham mustard, 6 dozen spermaceti candles."
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.
The sailor and Snowball exchanged glances of despair. Both had already looked behind them. There, blazing fiercely up, was the fire of spermaceti, with the shark-steaks browning in its flame. In the excitement of the moment they had forgotten all about it.
It had been observed by the crew of the Rancocus, not only in her original run through those seas, but in her two subsequent passages from America, that the spermaceti whale abounded in all that part of the ocean which lay to windward of the group. Now Walker had once been second officer of a Nantucket craft, and was regularly brought up to the business of taking whales.
Oil is at $50 now, and spermaceti will always bring $100. We'll take it on, mate, but we'll keep our eyes on the rats all the time. I don't want them aboard at all. Look at their belts. Not three out of the dozen who aren't carrying those filthy little hatchets. Faugh!" she exclaimed, with a shudder of disgust. "Such vipers!" What followed proved that Moran had guessed correctly.
I said to myself that spermaceti was the 'sovereignest thing on earth for an inward wound, and I told myself that he was of 'very soft society, and great showing." She smiled, though she did not know the words he quoted, and assured him that her poor cousin Lord Lovel would not trouble him much in the days that were to come.
What do I say 21l. 5s.? That and a month's salary that I should have had to pay forfeit down on the nail, by Jingo! for leaving the shop, as I intended to do to-morrow morning. I've got a place a tip-top place, I tell you. Five guineas a week, six journeys a year, my own horse and gig, and to travel in the West of England in oil and spermaceti. Here's confusion to gas, and the health of Messrs.
The whole of the following day and the following night found us employed in a similar manner. At last the whole carcass was stripped to the very flukes of every particle of blubber, and, to our no little satisfaction, cast loose to float away, and to become a feast for the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. The head, full of the valuable spermaceti, was now floated alongside.
Ephraim Hermans, according to our promise, with his spermaceti, which we did. It cost us twenty-eight guilders, because it was the last one of Ravesteyn's edition. There was a new edition in press at the Fish Market, at the place where we bought this one, upon the point of the gate as you go to the Post Office.
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