As for the great head itself, that was doing
as well as could be expected.
And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg,
the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully
accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently
hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten.
Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing,
riding and rowing.
I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure
to seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have
either seen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern ashore;
an accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too
than the Indian's, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb
of the Sperm Whale's well.
But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this?
We thought the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale,
was the lightest and most corky part about him; and yet thou makest
it sink in an element of a far greater specific gravity than itself.
We have thee there. Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time poor
Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents,
leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well--a double welded,
hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than
the sea water, and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost.
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