“I’ve sailed the seas most of my life and the largest sperm we ever took made a hundred and ten,” said one of the old sailors.
When the blubber was stripped off and the head severed, the body rolled over; and then a man, who had a spade in his hand, uttered an exclamation.
“What’s the matter?” some one asked.
“What’s the matter? Look at that big bunch.” He pointed to a spot where the intestines were greatly swollen. “There’s something in there, sure. I don’t know what it is. I never see anything like that before.”
“Well, I know what it is,” said Captain Gamans, who was passing. “Give me that spade and I’ll show you what it is, even though it’s the first time I ever saw anything of the kind.”
The captain pressed with the spade, and the intestines opened and disclosed a large substance, which he declared to be ambergris. There was great excitement, and the buzzing reminded me of a gathering of gossipers. While deference, of course, had to be paid to the captain, yet every one had something to say about the preservation and uses of this strange and valuable secretion. The truth is, no one knew anything about ambergris, for a man might spend his life on a whaler without ever seeing a whale which carried a pound of the substance. The captain ordered a large tub to be brought. This was lowered, and a couple of sturdy Portuguese descended and lifted the mass into the receptacle. When it was landed on deck the buzzing was resumed as the inspection proceeded. Every one had to feel of it. It was hard and apparently perfectly formed.
Now the truth was, the captain didn’t know any more about ambergris than the foremast hands. Addressing Lakeum, he said, “We shall have to take this stuff home with us, for it’s so valuable I wouldn’t dare ship it, and the question is how best to take care of it. I suppose the best thing to do is to put it in a small cask and head it up and then put the cask into a bigger one filled with water. This will tend to keep it cool and preserve it. What do you think?”
“This is the first ambergris,” said Lakeum, “that I ever saw, and I confess that I don’t know how to treat it. What do you say if I ask the crew if any one of them knows anything about taking care of it?”
The captain assented. Only one man responded to the inquiry. It was Kreelman.
“I never was on a whaler that took any ambergris, but a man who was on the Tiger, which took a whale in 1848 which had a lump that weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, told me that they made a great mistake. He said that they kept it moist and it kind of spoiled, and he said that, if they had kept it dry, they would have got ten thousand dollars more for it than they did.”