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 {83}
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 {84} 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.
“Mr. Baker told me to turn the grindstone,” I answered.
“Aw, you go ’way f’om here,” said Man’el, his grin widening. “I turn
for Tony. You could n’t turn well enough. Nice place over there,” he
went on, nodding his head sidewise toward the port rail. “Mr. Baker
won’t see you.”
He looked up at Tony, who nodded in confirmation, and I found an
inconspicuous place against the rail, on the side away from the
cutting. Here I stood, and looked out over a gentle sea. The sun
was high, and it was pleasantly warm, and the oily smell from the
cutting-in was not {85} disagreeable, although I was to leeward and
got it all. The sounds of the men pumping at the windlass, and the
mates on the cutting-stage, and the noise of an occasionally shouted
order, sounded more and more faintly in my ears until they ceased
to carry their message to my brain. I heard only the screams of the
seabirds wheeling above me, and I saw a glittering sea which danced
before my half-closed eyes.
How long I remained in this hypnotic state, between sleeping and
waking, I do not know; but I was suddenly aroused by a shout, and
turned, to see what seemed to be a blackfish come sliding across the
deck, straight at me. It was the small. The explanation is simple,
although I did not know it at the time. As they approach the small
in unrolling the blanket piece, it comes harder and harder, for the
forward end of the carcass has no support except the strip of blubber
to which the hook of the cutting-falls is fast, and the raw, red
shoulders hang low in the water, so that it is hard to turn them
over. When the small is reached, therefore, the carcass is cut clean
through, and the forward end sent adrift, accompanied by the shoal of
silent sharks and the swarming seabirds. The flukes are then cut off,
and the small hoisted bodily in upon deck.
My only thought, if I had a thought, was to get out of the way of
this slippery black monster. I jumped away from my place, which
seemed to be its destined resting-place, the next jump being as far
into the future as I had time to look. The deck was now a perilous
place to make your way about on, lumbered up as it was with the jaw
and the junk, and the last blanket piece of blubber, which lay pretty
well across it, beside the open hatch; and it was covered with oil,
as was the gangway and the rail near it. I had no time to consider or
to measure chances. I went skipping lightly from floe to floe, like
Eliza fleeing from the bloodhounds; and I stepped upon the piece of
blubber innocently lying there, meaning to spring across {86} the
hatch. It looked firm, and there was nowhere else to step without
running into something, and I was on my way and I could not stop.
It did not look so very slippery. But it was slippery, and it was
not firm; and my foot slipped, and the piece of blubber tipped just
enough to shoot me down the open hatch.
As I went down, I caught a glimpse of an astonished brown face, in
the comparative darkness of the blubber room, gazing with mouth
hanging open, and wide eyes. Then I landed, sitting down, on the
other pieces of blubber, which the owner of the brown face had been
stowing. I struggled about there in the half darkness for some time
before I could get upon my feet. I had no help from the Kanaka Tom.
I thought he would have a fit. He fairly shrieked with laughter
until he could not stand, to say nothing of helping me. The pieces
of blubber slipped about and threw me again and again, and when I
finally managed to get up, I seemed to have been swimming in oil. My
clothes were soaked with it. I had managed to keep my face and hair
out of it, but that was about all.
I heard great shouts of laughter from the deck, but I did not mind,
for it was funny. It would have been funnier for them if they could
all have seen me wrestling with the blubber. I found myself grinning
as soon as I had got over the immediate effects of my struggle. I
grinned at the helpless Tom. My clothes were not uncomfortable, but
they were hopelessly spoiled for any other use than an oily one.
When I got on deck again—I took good care to be aft of the hatch,
and stood under the gallows by the mainmast—they were shifting the
case forward, so that it should be near the gangway. A whip was
already rigged at the main yardarm, which was braced forward. Every
few seconds one of the crew caught sight of me standing there in
my oily clothes, and he whooped and shouted with laughter. I was
not sensitive about such things, and I {87} grinned in return. The
Admiral and Black Man’el were the most affected by the sight of me,
the Admiral letting out such a whoop as would have scared away all
the whales within ten miles. Even Black Tony, who rarely smiled and
never laughed, but was always dignified and as stiff and straight as
a poker, could not help smiling.
Black Tony should have been an officer of the high command in some
army. He looked the part, lean, straight, and tall, dignified always,
and silent and reserved, the only thing out of keeping being his
thin gold earrings, and perhaps his color. I think all the other men
looked up to him, even the mates, in a way; but he was not even a
boatsteerer. Certainly few attempts were made to play upon him any
of the rough jokes of sailors. I remember once, when we were on the
Western grounds, which are to the westward of the Azores, in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean, some poor fool did try a practical joke
on him.
The case was now at the gangway, and there was no more chance for
shouts of merriment on the part of the crew, for they were again
at the windlass, swaying up on the cutting-tackles, which had been
hooked on to the case. They could do very little with it, however,
no matter how hard they pumped. The ship heeled over toward it, and
there it stuck, and there it was secured, the upper, open end about
on a level with the deck.
The case-bucket was then made fast to the line running through
the block at the yardarm. The case-bucket looks not unlike an
old-fashioned fire-bucket with a bulging bottom, except that old
fire-buckets were made of leather, and the case-bucket was of wood,
bound about with as many hoops as the old oaken bucket. Wright took
his place at the gangway, with a wooden pole in his hands nearly
twenty feet long. With this pole he pushed the bucket down, and a
bucketful of the mushy contents of the case, consisting of oil and
shreds of half-solidified spermaceti, plopped into it. It was then
drawn up by men {88} on the other end of the line, and emptied into
a butt. As many men as could get at the open end of the well of
oil were bailing with anything they could lay their hands to, the
long-handled copper dippers for dipping oil out of the try-pots,
buckets, tin pails without long handles. When the level of oil was
lowered, the dippers without long handles became useless, of course,
but the copper dippers could be used for some time. When these came
up nearly empty the case-bucket worked alone.
At last the long pole in Wright’s hands had been pushed down
for nearly its whole length, to the bottom of the well and the
case-bucket would bring up no more oil. There was still some at the
bottom of the well, however, and Black Man’el, stripped to a ragged
old pair of overalls, went down with the bucket. He disappeared in
the black cavern. We could see nothing of him, but the bucket made
more than one trip before it brought him up again. He was a sight to
see, dripping oil everywhere, his tightly curling hair full of it
and of soft, silky shreds of spermaceti. I laughed at him, saying
that it was my turn to laugh; but he only showed all his white
teeth, replying that he liked it, and that the oil kept him warm
and “soopled” him, and recommending it to me. I could understand
that it might be pleasant to bathe in oil, in case-oil, for it had
an agreeable smell, faintly like that of milk as it foams in the
buckets; but I could not have stood getting my hair full of it.
[Illustration: BAILING CASE]
As Man’el came up from his oil bath, I heard laughter behind me, and
other sounds of merriment and gaiety, and I turned to see the cause.
There was the small, from which the blubber had been stripped, lying
raw and ghastly. Some half-dozen men were gathered behind it, on the
side away from the gangway, and as I looked, they began to push. It
was like a game of push-ball, with the raw, red small of a whale for
the ball; too heavy to be {89} much like the real push-ball, of
which, of course, I had never heard at that time. Nobody had heard
of it in 1872. The ship was rolling gently, and while they had to
push uphill they made little or no progress, but when she rolled to
starboard, the small got to going pretty fast. The deck was slippery,
and each man was pushing as hard as he could for his chuckling,
hoping, I supposed, to swing it around so that it would not go out of
the gangway, for which it was aimed.
In that purpose they were successful. The small struck hard against
one of the stanchions at the corner of the opening, swung around, and
as the ship rolled back, it started for the port rail, knocking a
man down. Then the laughter bubbled forth, led by the blacks and the
Kanakas. I had some fear that the sliding small might break out the
rail on the port side; but the jaw was there, and the men collected
strength enough to stop the slide, although it carried very nearly
across the deck. The discipline was not strict, for it does no harm
to have a laughing crew; but the pushing rapidly developed into
horse-play. Then Mr. Brown stopped it with a curt word, and the men
fell to very industriously, but their faces were merry still, and
gushes of laughter bubbled out now and then. At the next roll of the
ship, the small shot from the gangway as from a catapult, and into
the water nearly a couple of fathoms from the side with a tremendous
splash, which wet the men at the gangway.
Of course it had to be Mr. Brown who stopped that horse-play, and I
felt an admiration for his way of doing it, with two or three words,
although I did not hear what he said. Mr. Baker would have stopped
it sooner and more violently. I think the men were all afraid of Mr.
Baker, which was, no doubt, the feeling which he wished to inspire.
As for Mr. Wallet, he could not have done it in a thousand years,
and it would never have occurred to him {90} to try; but Mr. Brown
stopped it at just the right point, and left the men feeling gay and
high-spirited. The whole thing, while unimportant in itself, showed
the feeling of the men toward our third mate, and his way of dealing
with them.
{91}