At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on
this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you;
unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term
"crown" also bestowed upon it; in which case you will take
great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually
a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put
together for him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale
be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem.
Look at that hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk and pout is
there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's measurement, about twenty
feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield
you some 500 gallons of oil and more.
A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.
The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during
an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast,
when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip,
as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth.
Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside
of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went?
The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle,
as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed,
arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical,
scimitar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side,
which depending from the upper part of the head or crown bone,
form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned.
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