, eight to
ten inches thick, was sliced off, cut into suitable pieces, and passed
into the tanks. So full was the matter of spermaceti that one could
take a piece as large as one's head in the hands, and squeeze it like a
sponge, expressing the spermaceti in showers, until nothing remained
but a tiny ball of fibre. All this soft, pulpy mass was held together by
walls of exceedingly tough, gristly integrument ("white horse"), which
was as difficult to cut as gutta-percha, and, but for the peculiar
texture, not at all unlike it.

When we had finished separating the junk, there was nearly a foot of oil
on deck in the waist, and uproarious was the laughter when some hapless
individual, losing his balance, slid across the deck and sat down with a
loud splash in the deepest part of the accumulation.

The lower jaw of this whale measured exactly nineteen feet in length
from the opening of the mouth, or, say the last of the teeth, to the
point, and carried twenty-eight teeth on each side. For the time, it was
hauled aft out of the way, and secured to the lash-rail. The subsequent
proceedings were just the same as before described, only more so. For a
whole week our labours continued, and when they were over we had stowed
below a hundred and forty-six barrels of mingled oil and spermaceti, or
fourteen and a half tuns.

It was really a pleasant sight to see Abner receiving as if being
invested with an order of merit, the twenty pounds of tobacco to which
he was entitled. Poor fellow! he felt as if at last he were going to be
thought a little of, and treated a little better. He brought his bounty
forrard, and shared it out as far as it would go with the greatest
delight and good nature possible. Whatever he might have been thought of
aft, certainly, for the time, he was a very important personage forrard;
even the Portuguese, who were inclined to be jealous of what they
considered an infringement of their rights, were mollified by the
generosity shown.

After every sign of the operations had been cleared away, the jaw was
brought out, and the teeth extracted with a small tackle. They were set
solidly into a hard white gum, which had to be cut away all around them
before they would come out. When cleaned of the gum, they were headed up
in a small barrel of brine. The great jaw-pans were sawn off, and placed
at the disposal of anybody who wanted pieces of bone for "scrimshaw," or
carved work. This is a very favourite pastime on