The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading
one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is
given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old
city graveyard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.
I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against
whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast
of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called
Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used
by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells,
a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat;
berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford
a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out,
without being taken home to Holland for that purpose.
It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds;
and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth
no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different
from a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four
years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil,
does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out;
and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless.
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