On Tower-hill, as you go down
- To the London docks, you may have seen a
crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board
before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his
leg
Promo There are three
whales and three boats - And one of the boats (presumed to contain
the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the
jaws of the foremost whale
Any time these ten years, they tell me,
has that man held up - That picture, and exhibited that stump to
an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come.
His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping,
at any rate; and his stump
Throughout the Pacific, and also in
Nantucket, and New Bedford - and Sag Harbor, you will come across
lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen
themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the
Right Whale-bone
The whalemen call the numerous little
ingenious contrivances - They elaborately carve out of the rough
material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little
boxes of dentistical-looking implements
Some of them have little boxes of
dentistical-looking implements - Specially intended for the
skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their
jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the
sailor
Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage
as an Iroquois - I myself am a savage, owning no
allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to
rebel against him. Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the
savage in his domestic hours
An ancient Hawaiian war-club or
spear-paddle - In its full multiplicity and elaboration
of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin
lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's
tooth
As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the
white sailor-savage - With the same marvellous patience, and
with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will
carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike
Track Achilles's shield
- Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile
out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are
frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them
are done with much accuracy
At some old gable-roofed country houses
- You will see brass whales hung by the
tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is sleepy, the
anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom
remarkable as faithful essays
On the spires of some old-fashioned
churches - You will see sheet-iron whales placed
there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are
to all intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot
examine them
In bony, ribby regions of the earth
- Where at the base of high broken cliffs
masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you
will often discover images as of the petrified forms
Here and there from some lucky point of
view - You will catch passing glimpses of the
profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be
a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you
wish to return to such a sight again
To the London docks, you may have seen a
crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board
before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his
leg
Any time these ten years, they tell me, has
that man held up
That picture, and exhibited that stump to
an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come.
His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping,
at any rate; and his stump
Throughout the Pacific, and also in
Nantucket, and New Bedford
and Sag Harbor, you will come across
lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen
themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the
Right Whale-bone
Some of them have little boxes of
dentistical-looking implements
Specially intended for the
skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their
jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the
sailor
Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage
as an Iroquois
I myself am a savage, owning no
allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to
rebel against him. Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the
savage in his domestic hours
In its full multiplicity and elaboration
of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin
lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's
tooth
As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the
white sailor-savage
With the same marvellous patience, and
with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will
carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike
Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile
out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are
frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them
are done with much accuracy
You will see brass whales hung by the
tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is sleepy, the
anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom
remarkable as faithful essays
You will see sheet-iron whales placed
there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are
to all intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot
examine them
Where at the base of high broken cliffs
masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you
will often discover images as of the petrified forms
You will catch passing glimpses of the
profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be
a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you
wish to return to such a sight again
