and a spar rigged across them at a good height above the top of the case.  A small block was lashed to this spar, through which a line was rove.  A long, narrow bucket was attached to one end of this rope; the other end on deck was attended by two men.  One unfortunate beggar was perched aloft on the above-mentioned spar, where his position, like the main-yard of Marryatt’s verbose carpenter was “precarious and not at all permanent.”  He was provided with a pole, with which he pushed the bucket down through a hole cut in the upper end of the “case,” whence it was drawn out by the chaps on deck full of spermaceti.  It was a weary, unsatisfactory process, wasting a great deal of the substance being baled out; but no other way was apparently possible.  The grease blew about, drenching most of us engaged in an altogether unpleasant fashion, while, to mend matters, the old barky began to roll and tumble about in an aimless, drunken sort of way, the result of a new cross swell rolling up from the south-westward.  As the stuff was gained, it was poured into large tanks in the blubber-room, the quantity being too great to be held by the try-pots at once.  Twenty-five barrels of this clear, wax-like substance were baled from that case; and when at last it was lowered a little, and cut away from its supports, it was impossible to help thinking that much was still remaining within which we, with such rude means, were unable to save.  Then came the task of cutting up the junk.  Layer after layer, eight to ten inches thick, was sliced off, cut into suitable pieces, and passed into the tanks.  So full was the matter of spermaceti that one could take a piece as large as one’s head in the hands, and squeeze it like a sponge, expressing the spermaceti in showers, until nothing remained but a tiny ball of fibre.  All this soft, pulpy mass was held together by walls of exceedingly tough, gristly integrument ("white horse"), which was as difficult to cut as gutta-percha, and, but for the peculiar texture, not at all unlike it.

When we had finished separating the junk, there was nearly a foot of oil on deck in the waist, and uproarious was the laughter when some hapless individual, losing his balance, slid across the deck and sat down with a loud splash in the deepest part of the accumulation.

The lower jaw of this whale measured exactly nineteen feet in length from the opening of the mouth, or, say the last of the teeth, to the point, and carried twenty-eight teeth on each side.  For the time, it was hauled aft out of the way, and secured to the lash-rail.  The subsequent proceedings were just the same as before described, only more so.  For a whole week our labours continued, and when they were over we had stowed below a hundred and forty-six barrels of mingled oil and spermaceti, or fourteen and a half tuns.