CETACEOUS FISHES. 



621 



they tie it with a strong iron chain to the side 

 of the boat, and either cut it up in pieces, and 

 carry it home in that manner, or extract the 

 oil from the blubber on ship-board. 



Such is the manner in which these fish were 

 taken in the beginning ; but succeeding arts 

 have improved the method, and the harpoon 

 is now thrown by; a machine being used 

 which inflicts a deeper wound, and strikes the 

 animal with much greater certainty : there are 

 better methods for extracting the oil, and pro- 

 per machines for cutting the animal up, than 

 were used in the early fisheries. But as an 

 account of this belongs to the history of art, 

 and not of nature, we must be contented with 

 observing, that several parts of this animal, 

 and all but the intestines and the bones, are 

 turned to a very good account ; not only the 

 oil, but the greaves from which it is separated. 

 The barbs also were an article of great profit; 

 but have sunk in their price, since women no 

 longer use them to swell out their petticoats 

 with whale-bone. The flesh of this animal 

 is also a dainty to some nations, and even the 

 French seamen are now and then found to 



dress and use it as their ordinary diet at sea. 

 It is said, by the English and Dutch sailors, to 

 be hard and ill-tasted ; but the French assert 

 the contrary ; and the savages of Greenland, 

 as well as those near the south pole, are 

 fond of it to distraction. They eat the 

 flesh, and drink the oil, which is a first-rate 

 delicacy. The finding a dead whale is 

 an adventure considered among the fortunate 

 circumstances of their wretched lives. They 

 make their abode beside it ; and seldom re- 

 move till they have left nothing but the 

 bones. 



Jacobson, whom we quoted before in the 

 History of Birds, where he described his 

 countrymen of the island of Feroe as living a 

 part of the year upon salted gulls, tells us also, 

 that they are very fond of salted whale's 

 flesh. The fat of the head they season with 

 bay salt, and then hang it up to dry in the 

 chimney. He thinks it tastes as well as fat 

 bacon ; and the lean, which they boil, is, in 

 his opinion, not inferior to beef. I fancy poor 

 Jacobson would make but an indifferent taster 

 at one of our city feasts ! 



CHAPTER CXXXIX. 



OF THE NARWHAL. 



FROM whales that entirely want teeth, we 

 come to such as have them in the upper jaw 

 only ; and in this class there is found but one, 

 the Narwhal, or Sea-unicorn. This fish is 

 not so large as the whale, not being above 

 sixty feet long. Its body is slenderer than 

 that of the whale, and its fat not in so great 

 abundance. But this great animal is sufficient- 

 ly distinguished from ijltnhers of the deep by 

 its tooth or teeth, which stand pointing direct- 

 ly forward from the upper jaw, and are from 

 nine to fourteen feet long. In all the variety 

 of weapons with which nature has armed her 

 various tribes, there is not one so large or so 

 formidable as this. This terrible weapon is 

 generally found single, and some are of opin- 

 ion that the animal is furnished but with one 

 by nature ; but there is at present the skull of 



a narwhal at the Stadthouse at Amsterdam, 

 with two teeth ; which plainly proves that in 

 some animals, at least, this instrument is 

 double. It is even a doubt whether it may not 

 be so in all ; and that the narwhal's wanting 

 a tooth is only an accident which it has met 

 with in the encounters it is obliged daily to be 

 engaged in. Yet it must be owned, of those 

 that are taken only with one tooth, there 

 seems no socket, nor no remains of any other 

 upon the opposite side of the jaw, but all is 

 plain and even. However this be, the tooth, 

 or, as some are pleased to call it, the horn of 

 the narwhal, is the most terrible of all natural 

 instruments of destruction. Itis as straight as 

 an arrow, about the thickness of the small of 

 a man's leg, wreathed in the manner we 

 sometimes see twisted bars of iron ; it tapers 



4T* 



