MATERIAL FOR ILLUSTRATION. 183 



by which they express the ways in which whale- 

 men busy themselves when making passages, 

 and in the intervals of taking whales, in working 

 up sperm whales' jaws and teeth and right whale 

 bone into boxes, swifts, reels, canes, whips, fol- 

 ders, stamps, and all sorts of things, according 

 to their ingenuity. 



Gurry is the term by which they call the 

 combined water, oil, and dirt that " cutting-in " 

 a whale leaves on deck and below. The yellow- 

 ish stuff 



"That creams and mantles on a standing pool, " 



and affords such a favourite, nice comparison, 

 ready to hand, and hackneyed, for writers that 

 want to express the odiousness of moral putres- 

 cence and stagnation, is nothing to this sui 

 generis composition elaborated on board a 

 whale ship. Hereafter, if any one should wish 

 to illustrate morals by physicals in a way par- 

 ticularly new and original, let him say that the 

 filth and foulness of Mr. So-and-so's mind, or 

 the daily scum and dregs of Mr. Slabbering 

 Editor Such a One, or the hebdomadal black 



