Meanwhile the fall of the first tackle had been secured and the strain put on the second tackle. There are two drums on the windlass, and one fall leads to each drum. The man with the boarding-knife again attacked the strip of blubber, this time a little above the hole, and by a series of stabs and slashes he cut it across, and the upper piece swung in over the open hatch, and was lowered to the blubber room, where it was stowed, the outside—“black skin,” as it is called—down. This proceeding surprised me, for I had supposed, without giving the matter any thought, that it would be dumped upon the deck and cut up there. I did not know what a mountain of blubber it would make, and the deck well cluttered up with the jaw and the junk and the small, as you will see. One or two of the last strips of blubber they did dump there. My surprise, I found, was justified somewhat. No more blubber is put between decks than is necessary to provide working space on deck. A big whale can be tried out in thirty-six hours, and it would only mean hoisting out almost immediately. But in this case there was a threat of rain, and rain spoils blubber.
The cutting-in proceeded rapidly. Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were engaged upon various dissections of the head at the same time that the blanket piece was being stripped off, and from time to time there were interruptions in the regular progress of the blanket pieces to enable them to finish certain stages of the operation in the order that has been found to be proper. It is necessary that the head should be dissected into its parts and cut off before the stripping of the blanket pieces has gone very far. This is the most important operation in cutting-in, as the head of the sperm whale contains the most valuable of his products.
CHAPTER IX
The head of the sperm whale, as seen from the side, is roughly rectangular in outline, with an exaggerated upper jaw which seems out of all manner of proportion to the lower. In large whales the height of the square forehead or nose is eleven to thirteen feet, and the width of it nine to eleven feet, while the lower jaw is slender and pointed. This exaggeration of the upper part of the head does not argue anything in regard to the size of the brain, as might naturally be supposed. The brain is placed in a normal position in regard to the eye, which is a little above and behind the angle of the mouth, and appears to be set too low down in the head.
All of this huge upper part of the head is nothing but an excrescence: a tough, fibrous or fatty matter, in which there can be little feeling if there is any. Whales sometimes ram ships, striking them with that upper part of the head or nose—and sink them, too—and swim raging off, apparently little the worse for the encounter. There are some well-authenticated cases which I cannot be expected to remember, for they happened many years before I was born. I refer especially to the cases of the Ann Alexander and the Essex, which were sunk by whales, and there have been others. There is no doubt about it, although the fact has been doubted by a good many people who knew nothing about whales. You would never have found a whaleman who doubted it. I know of one case, at least, which occurred well within my recollection. The Kathleen was sunk by a whale in 1902, several hundred miles from land, and the crew took to the boats, cheerfully enough, I do not doubt, with the prospect before them of a voyage of over a week at the very least, and possibly two or three. The master of the Kathleen lived within a block of me. His wife was on that voyage, with her parrot, which lived to tell the tale. These same Bolshevik whales can carry timbers, from the bows of ships which they have sunk, embedded in their heads for years without apparent inconvenience.
However, the primary purpose of that exaggeration of the upper jaw is not to serve as a battering ram. In the upper part of that great growth is a well of the purest oil extending very nearly the length of the head. This is called the “case.” Just what its purpose is nobody seems to know, although there have been many guesses. One of these guesses is that the well of oil helps to float the heavy head; but this guess can hardly be right, for the head, when severed, immediately turns, with the spiracle, or blow-hole, down.
Between the case and the skull lies the “junk,” of still tougher material than the case, but containing considerable oil, although it is not contained in a single well. The cells of the junk are from four to eight inches across, filled with faintly yellow oil, or oily substance, which is translucent when warm. The walls of these cells are composed of extremely tough, interlacing fibres, or ligaments, called “white horse.” The separation of the junk from the case is on a very nearly horizontal line running through the nose just above the bump—or what looks like a bump. The contents of the case seem to be liquid during the life of the whale, but after the body becomes cold, they become partly solid. The solid part is spermaceti.
The skull, if separated from the excrescence, bears some resemblance to the head of an alligator, and the eye seems to be set right enough. This separation of the head into its parts was what Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were proceeding to accomplish. While they were cutting the case from the junk, Macy and George Hall, boat-steerers for the first and second mates, rove ropes in each cheek for the chains which were to hold the case. When the separation was complete, the case was passed astern, held by chains, nose down in the water, until the cutting-in should be finished and the carcass cut adrift. The junk was then cut away from the skull and hoisted bodily on deck. During the operation of cutting the junk from the skull, they cut alongside and close to the skull, and as they could not see what they were cutting, but had to go by feeling, there were several spades spoiled. The cutters passed these dulled spades in on deck, and freshly sharpened spades were passed to them. I heard the noise of the grindstone during the whole operation.
They were a long time in cutting the junk and the case, and there was nothing to see except the swarming sharks, and I got tired of seeing the spades rise and fall out of sight in that mass of flesh, so I turned away. Unfortunately Mr. Baker chanced to see me, and suggested, in unnecessarily vigorous language, that if I had nothing else to do I had better turn the grindstone. I thought it best to humor him, so I went over to that device of the devil, and found Black Tony sharpening spades and Black Man’el turning for him.
Man’el looked up. “What you want, little Tim?” he asked, grinning.