The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists
for building houses.
CHAPTER 75
The Right Whale's Head - Contrasted View
Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the the
Right Whale's head.
As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared
to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so
broadly rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears
a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe.
Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape
to that of a shoemaker's last. And in this same last or shoe,
that old woman of the nursery tale with the swarming brood,
might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.
But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume
different aspects, according to your point of view.
If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped
spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass viol,
and these spiracles, the apertures in its soundingboard.
Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested,
comblike incrustation on the top of the mass--this green,
barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown,"
and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale;
fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for
the trunk of some huge oak, with a bird's nest in its crotch.
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