he water it was perfectly
unmanageable. I had to yoke "Eddy" and myself together, and drag the
monster above high water-mark, till I decided what to do with it.

In the morning I took off the skin, which would have made excellent
leather, but I had no means of tanning it, so was jettisoned. Beneath
the skin was a thick layer of blubber, and this I flayed off, making
myself in a pretty pickle, and soon had a large pile of this reeking
adipose deposit. Then I brought my copper on the beach, as it was a
portable one, and lighting a fire I "tryed," or boiled my blubber down
and had several gallons to bottle by the end of the day.

The flesh, I believe, is eatable, but it looked so dark and rich that I
was afraid to cook a piece and try it. Grampus is, no doubt, all very
well for shipwrecked mariners, but as I had plenty of other food the
carcase followed the skin into the sea. As it glided into the rough
water the oil exuded, and made a large patch of calm water as smooth as
a mill-pond.

This gave me a splendid idea for using the oil. For the future I would
always take some with me on my boating expeditions! I did, and put it in
a bottle which I kept near the bows, and whenever I got into
difficulties near rocks or in a rough sea I could command a calm. This
power I used on many occasions, and with invariable success. For
instance, if my lines got foul in a choppy sea, I could make the sea
calm, and get my gear out of tangle capitally, which, with the pitching
of my craft and the "send" of the following waves, would have otherwise
been a nearly hopeless task. Another use I put the oil to was to pour
some on my fish pond and bring the surface to a perfect calm; then I
could study my fish as well as if they were simply under a sheet of
glass, while by lying flat down on the margin of the pool, with my face
near the water, I could see even the most minute object on the bottom.
Looking into this pool was to me like looking into another world. Once
when very intent upon the doings of some spider-crabs, the rock upon
which I leaned my chest and hands gave way beneath my weight, and I was
immediately transformed into a fish, or at any rate, for some moments I
was an occupant of the same element and abode as the fish; but I soon
scrambled out without even a crab or lobster taking the opportunity of
tweaking my nose.

To keep up my supply of oil I was continually on the look out for
grampuses or porpoises; but I did not see ano