[95] The surface—from cream or ream, what rises to the surface—or perhaps from rim, brim.
[96] This story seems to be founded on the fact that the snout of the sword fish is often found driven through parts of vessels’ bottoms; whence it has been inferred, the fish mistook them for whales. We imagine the account of the thresher to be fabulous.
[97] In the thirteenth century the tongue of the whale was esteemed as an article of food; and whale beef, as it is called, is eaten at Bermuda, and probably elsewhere.
[98] In the early days of the whale fishery, when the fish were plentiful, the oil was boiled out on shore, near the place of capture. At present the blubber is imported from the northern fishery.
“And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise.”
—Henry IV, Part I.
Spermaceti is obtained from the brain of the sperm whale,—physeter monocephalus—not from the spawn.
[100] Bezoar—name applied to a concretion found in the stomach of various animals. Many extraordinary virtues were formerly ascribed to it, without much foundation.
[101] Ambergris is still considered to be a concretion formed in the stomach of the sperm whale.
[102] In Waterton’s Wanderings will be found a parallel story, of a gentleman riding on a cayman.