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- .. < chapter xcv 6 THE CASSOCK >
-
- Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a
- certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled
- forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with
- no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have
- seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous
- cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw;
- not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you,
- as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone, -- longer than a Kentuckian is
- tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, the ebony
- idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or, rather, in old times, its
- likeness was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen
- Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, king Asa, her son, did depose
- her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook
- Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the first book of Kings.
- Look at the 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
- .. <p 418 >
- 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 archbishoprick, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!
- .. <p 418n. >
- 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.
- .. <p 418 >
-