 the windlass
continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water, and as the
blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the scarf,
simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as
fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the
time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the
main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two
the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky,
and everyone present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may
box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.
    One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon
called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a
considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the end
of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold
upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this
accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a
scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging
slicings, severs it completely in twain; so that while the short lower part is
still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is
all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the
one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is
slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway
right beneath, into an unfurnished parlour called the blubber-room. Into this
twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-piece
as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds;
the two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass
heaving, the heavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates
scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of
assuaging the general friction.
 

                                 Chapter LXVIII

                                  The Blanket

I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of the
whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen afloat, and
learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is
only an opinion.
    The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you know
what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the
