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MOBY DICK; OR 
semi-circular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber 
envelops the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it 
stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped 
by spiralising it. For the strain constantly kept up by the windlass 
continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water, and as 
the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the 
“scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the 
mates ; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very 
act itself, it is all the time bejng hoisted higher and higher aloft till 
its upper end grazes the maintop; the men at the windlass then cease 
heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass 
sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and every one present 
must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may box his ears 
and pitch him headlong overboard. 
One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen 
weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexter- 
ously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying 
mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle 
is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to pre- 
pare for what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, 
warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at 
the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging slices, severs 
it completely in twain ; so that while the short lower part is still fast, 
the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all 
ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and 
while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the 
whale, the other is slowing slackened away, and down goes the first 
strip through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished 
parlour called the blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry 
nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a 
great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds ; the 
two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously ; both whale and wind- 
lass heaving, the heavers singing, the blubber room gentlemen coiling, 
the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasion- 
ally, by way of assuaging the general friction, 
