sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted
by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it,
and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier
carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle
deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an
African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside
out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to
double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging,
to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it,
towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes
at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer
now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling.
Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately
protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the
pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted
endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into
which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's
desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent
on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a
Pope were this mincer!*

*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates
to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as
thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of
boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably
increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.

CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished
by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid
masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship.
It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her
planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most
roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength,
fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and
mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The
foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly
secured to the surface by pon