Bab Bab 94 · A Squeeze of the Hand.

That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the

Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations

previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of

the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.

While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in

dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and

when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated

ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with

several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I

found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about

in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back

into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this

sperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener!

such a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it

for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it

were, to serpentine and spiralise.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter

exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under

indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands

among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost

within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all

their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that

uncontaminated aroma,—literally and truly, like the smell of spring

violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky

meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible

sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit

the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in

allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely

free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort

whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm

till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a

strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly

squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the

gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving

feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually

squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as

much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish

any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;

let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into

each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and

sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since

by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all

cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of

attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the

fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the

fireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready

to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I

saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of

spermaceti.

Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things

akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the

try-works.

First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering

part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It

is tough with congealed tendons—a wad of muscle—but still contains some

oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut

into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like

blocks of Berkshire marble.

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the

whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and

often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is

a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name

imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked

snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and

purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason,

it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I

stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should

conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have

tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the

venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an

unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in

the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling

adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation

original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.

It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the

tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I

hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case,

coalescing.

Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but

sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the

dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the

Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those

inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s

vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s

nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering

part of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the

rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along

the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless

blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.

But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at

once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its

inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for

the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the

proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a

scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by

a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They

generally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The

whaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same

name. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the

gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from

slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the

spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into

the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the

spademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes

irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of

his own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much

astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.