any intelligent attention to the party of the second
part.

But I may safely promise that from the workman's point of view, the
habits, manners, and build of the whales shall be faithfully described
as I saw them during my long acquaintance with them, earnestly hoping
that if my story be not as technical or scientific as that of Drs.
Bennett and Beale, it may be found fully as accurate and reliable; and
perhaps the reader, being like myself a mere layman, so to speak, may be
better able to appreciate description free from scientific formula and
nine-jointed words.

Two things I did notice on this occasion which I will briefly allude to
before closing this chapter. One was the peculiar skin of the whale. It
was a bluish-black, and as thin as gold-beater's skin. So thin, indeed,
and tender, that it was easily scraped off with the finger-nail.
Immediately beneath it, upon the surface of the blubber, was a layer or
coating of what for want of a better simile I must call fine short fur,
although unlike fur it had no roots or apparently any hold upon the
blubber. Neither was it attached to the skin which covered it; in fact,
it seemed merely a sort of packing between the skin and the surface of
the thick layer of solid fat which covered the whole area of the whale's
body. The other matter which impressed me was the peculiarity of the
teeth. For up till that time I had held, in common with most seamen, and
landsmen, too, for that matter, the prevailing idea that a "whale" lived
by "suction" (although I did not at all know what that meant), and that
it was impossible for him to swallow a herring. Yet here was a mouth
manifestly intended for greater things in the way of gastronomy than
herrings; nor did it require more than the most casual glances to
satisfy one of so obvious a fact. Then the teeth were heroic in size,
protruding some four or five inches from the gum, and solidly set more
than that into its firm and compact substance. They were certainly not
intended for mastication, being, where thickest, three inches apart, and
tapering to a short point, curving slightly backwards. In this specimen,
a female, and therefore small as I have said, there were twenty of
them on each side, the last three or four near the gullet being barely
visible above the gum.

Another most convincing reason why no mastication could have been
possible was that there were no teeth visible in the upper jaw. Opposed
to each of the teeth was a so