THE WHITE WHALE 
257 
vapoured with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary 
ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable 
to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to 
the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary 
quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which 
it must he subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar 
in general by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, 
however much it may give it compactness and gloss. 
Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost 
entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-line; for, though 
not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; 
and I will add (since there is an aesthetic in all things), is much more 
handsome and becoming to the boat than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, 
dark fellow, a sort of Indian ; but Manilla is a golden-haired Circassian 
to behold. 
The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first 
sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experi- 
ment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred 
and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly 
equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures 
something over two hundred fathoms. Toward the stern of the boat it is 
spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still, though, 
but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded 
“sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralisations, without any hollow 
but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the 
cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running 
out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off, the ut- 
most precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some har- 
pooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business, 
carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a 
block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all 
possible wrinkles and twists. 
In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same 
line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage 
in this: because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily 
into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American 
