{"id":"01KJNXJV7WZTMANJYJ3WQCSTRG","cid":"bafkreihumcjrba7gauvsycrxtiai3gozsh4ii7rjnwwirzxb3iydnmhs6y","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":930467,"char_start":922474,"chunk_index":130,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked\r\nsnowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and\r\npurple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason,\r\nit is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I\r\nstole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should\r\nconceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have\r\ntasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the\r\nvenison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an\r\nunusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.\r\n\r\nThere is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in\r\nthe course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling\r\nadequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation\r\noriginal with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.\r\nIt is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the\r\ntubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I\r\nhold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case,\r\ncoalescing.\r\n\r\nGurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but\r\nsometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the\r\ndark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the\r\nGreenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those\r\ninferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.\r\n\r\nNippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s\r\nvocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s\r\nnipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering\r\npart of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the\r\nrest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along\r\nthe oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless\r\nblandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.\r\n\r\nBut to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at\r\nonce to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its\r\ninmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for\r\nthe blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the\r\nproper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a\r\nscene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by\r\na dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They\r\ngenerally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The\r\nwhaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same\r\nname. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the\r\ngaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from\r\nslipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the\r\nspade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into\r\nthe portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the\r\nspademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes\r\nirresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of\r\nhis own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much\r\nastonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 95. The Cassock.\r\n\r\nHad you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this\r\npost-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the\r\nwindlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small\r\ncuriosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen\r\nthere, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous\r\ncistern in the whale’s huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower\r\njaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so\r\nsurprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,—longer than\r\na Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and\r\njet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it\r\nis; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that\r\nfound in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for\r\nworshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the\r\nidol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly\r\nset forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.\r\n\r\nLook at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and\r\nassisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners\r\ncall it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a\r\ngrenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the\r\nforecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt,\r\nas an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt\r\ninside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as\r\nalmost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in\r\nthe rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some\r\nthree feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two\r\nslits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself\r\nbodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full\r\ncanonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this\r\ninvestiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the\r\npeculiar functions of his office.\r\n\r\nThat office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the\r\npots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse,\r\nplanted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath\r\nit, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt\r\norator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit;\r\nintent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a\r\nlad for a Pope were this mincer!*\r\n\r\n*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates\r\nto the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as\r\nthin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of\r\nboiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably\r\nincreased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.\r\n\r\nBesides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly\r\ndistinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the\r\nmost solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the\r\ncompleted ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were\r\ntransported to her planks.\r\n\r\nThe try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most\r\nroomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength,\r\nfitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and\r\nmortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The\r\nfoundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly\r\nsecured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all\r\nsides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased\r\nwith wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened\r\nhatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in\r\nnumber, and each of several barrels’ capacity. When not in use, they\r\nare kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone\r\nand sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the\r\nnight-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil\r\nthemselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them—one\r\nman in each pot, side by side—many confidential communications are\r\ncarried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound\r\nmathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod,\r\nwith the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first\r\nindirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies\r\ngliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from\r\nany point in precisely the same time.\r\n\r\nRemoving the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare\r\nmasonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of\r\nthe furnaces, directly underneath the pots."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.100Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.100Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}