50 THAT GREAT LEVIATHAN. 



I saw this process repeated until the blubber 

 was stripped from the whale. 



I saw the head cut off from the huge beast 

 and hoisted on deck. I felt the great ship 

 strain. The standing-rigging on the starboard 

 side slackened. The mast bent over like a whip- 

 stock. I saw the Sivift listed till her plank-shear 

 was nearly level with the water. 



A filthy column of black smoke rose out of the 

 try-works. They were cutting the blubber into 

 horse-pieces, mincing these pieces, and putting the 

 hashed blubber into huge pots with brick flooring 

 under them and a blazing fire of blubber scraps 

 blazing around them. Thence the oil passed into 

 a huge copper cooler and thence in turn into casks. 



They made merry over the boiling. They 

 nibbled bits of fried blubber, and they fried 

 doughnuts in the grease. 



The whole ship was befouled, but we soon had 

 her cleaned up again, man-o'-war fashion; and 

 what was better yet, we coopered a hundred 

 barrels of oil. 



" Lands and seas," said I to myself, " this is the 

 biggest business afloat or ashore." 



But as yet I had not chased a whale. 



