THE WHITE WHALE 379 
likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that 
maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all 
things of ill-savour, Cologne water, in its rudimental manufacturing 
stages, is the worst. 
I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but can- 
not owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whale- 
men, and which, in the estimation of some already biassed minds, might 
be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the 
Erenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous as- 
persion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout 
a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. 
They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious 
stigma originate? 
I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Green- 
land whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because 
those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as 
the southern ships have always done ; but cutting up the fresh blubber 
in small bits, thrust it through the bung-holes of large casks, and carry 
it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those icy seas, 
and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, for- 
bidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking 
into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the 
Greenland dock, a savour is given forth somewhat similar to that aris- 
ing from excavating an old city graveyard, for the foundation of a 
Lying-in Hospital. 
I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be 
likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former 
times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenherg, which 
latter name is the one used by the learned Eogo Yon Slack, in his great 
work on Smells , a text-book on that subject. As its name imports 
( Smeer , fat ; berg , to put up), this village was founded in order to afford 
a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to he tried out, without 
being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of 
furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full 
operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savour. But all this is 
quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler ; which in a voyage of 
four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, 
