Its head, which seemed to me a great, blunt, shapeless thing,
like a clumsy old boat, was eight feet long from the tip to the
blow-holes or nostrils; and these holes were situated on the back of the
head, which at that part was nearly four feet broad. The entire head
measured about twenty-one feet round. Its ears were two small holes, so
small that it was difficult to discover them, and the eyes were also
very small for so large a body, being about the same size as those of an
ox. The mouth was very large, and the under jaw had great ugly lips.

When it was dying, I saw these lips close in once or twice on its fat
cheeks, which it bulged out like the leather sides of a pair of gigantic
bellows. It had two fins, one on each side, just behind the head. With
these, and with its tail, the whale swims and fights. Its tail is its
most deadly weapon. The flukes of this one measured thirteen feet
across, and with one stroke of this it could have smashed our largest
boat in pieces. Many a boat has been sent to the bottom in this way.

I remember hearing our first mate tell of a wonderful escape a comrade
of his had in the Greenland Sea fishery. A whale had been struck, and,
after its first run, they hauled up to it again, and rowed so hard that
they ran the boat right against it. The harpooner was standing on the
bow all ready, and sent his iron cleverly into the blubber. In its
agony the whale reared its tail high out of the water, and the flukes
whirled for a moment like a great fan just above the harpooner's head.
One glance up was enough to show him that certain death was descending.
In an instant he dived over the side and disappeared. Next moment the
flukes came down on the part of the boat he had just left, and cut it
clean off; the other part was driven into the waves, and the men were
left swimming in the water. They were all picked up, however, by
another boat that was in company, and the harpooner was recovered with
the rest. His quick dive had been the saving of his life.

I had not much time given me to study the appearance of this whale
before the order was given to "hoist away!" so we went to work with a
will. The first part that came up was the huge lip, fastened to a large
iron hook, called the blubber hook. It was lowered into the
blubber-room between decks, where a couple of men were stationed to stow
the blubber away. Then came the fins, and after them the upper-jaw,
with the whalebone atta