others, again, were drawing off the oil into the
casks ready to receive it, and stowing them away in the hold.

The whole of the following day and the following night found us employed
in a similar manner. At last the whole carcass was stripped to the very
flukes of every particle of blubber, and, to our no little satisfaction,
cast loose to float away, and to become a feast for the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air. The head, full of the valuable spermaceti,
was now floated alongside. A bucket was then forced down through the
neck; by means of a long pole, into the case, till, by repeated dips, it
was entirely emptied of its contents; and, as Knowles predicted, the
case was found to contain even more than a ton of oil. The spermaceti
was carefully boiled by itself--an operation necessary to preserve it.
The blubber surrounding the head was also taken off and boiled down, and
the empty skull was then cast loose, and sunk, by its own weight, with
rapidity to the bottom--there, perhaps, to form the caverned abode of
some marine monster never yet seen by human eye. It took us nearly
three days to cut-in, try-out, and stow away that huge whale, the
produce altogether being no less than eighty-five barrels! We broke
forth into loud shouts when our work was accomplished and our first fish
stowed away.

I have no great sympathy with those who talk of the cruelty of the work.
A whale feels acutely, no doubt, and so does a mouse or a sparrow, when
wounded; but not having huge bodies to twist and turn about in their
agony, they do not appear to suffer so much as does the mighty monarch
of the deep. I suspect that the amount of pain felt by the small animal
is equally great with that felt by the large one. However, I would make
my argument a plea for merciful treatment of all alike, and urge that
pain should never be unnecessarily inflicted on even the smallest of
created beings in whose nostrils is the breath of life.

Our success put us all in spirits, and we were ready to do or to dare
anything. Our captain had heard that sperm whales were to be found in
the icy seas towards the Antarctic Pole, and, accordingly, before
keeping across to New Zealand and the isles of the Indian Ocean, he
resolved to take a cruise to the south for a few weeks in order to try
our fortune. Over the seas on which we were sailing it was necessary,
both night and day, to keep a very sharp look-out; not only for whales,
but to avoid