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1Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the
2watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the
3principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout
4becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and
5Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire;--but now it remains to conclude the last
6chapter of this part of the description by rehearsing--singing, if I may--the romantic proceeding of decanting off his
7oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,
8sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow. While still warm, the oil, like hot
9punch, is received into the six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this way and that in
10the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot
11across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round
12the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper. At length,
13when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown
14open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically
15closed, like a closet walled up. In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the
16business of whaling. One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous
17masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the
18try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire ship seems great
19leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening. But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your
20ears in this self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, you would all but swear you trod
21some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a
22singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair
23of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is readily made; and whenever any
24adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands go
25diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is
26brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and
27put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask is out of
28sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of almost the entire
29ship's company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own
30ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as
31bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland. Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes,
32and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging
33to the top; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of
34oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and
35bring us napkins! But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent on spying out more whales,
36which, if caught, infallibly will again soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot somewhere.
37Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight
38through for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the
39Line,--they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in
40their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial
41try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a
42spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are
43startled by the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing
44again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted
45from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its
46defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when--There she blows!--the
47ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again. Oh! the
48metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I
49sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage--and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to
50splice a rope!
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