While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed
in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm;
and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully
manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.
It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when,
with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's
bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps,
here and there rolling about in the liquid part.
It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid.
A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this
sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such
a sweetener! such a softener; such a delicious mollifier!
After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt
like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.
As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter
exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship
under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed
my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues,
woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers,
and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes
their wine; as.
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