He burns, too, the purest of oil,
in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state;
a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore.
It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts
for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness,
even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own
supper of game.
CHAPTER 98
Stowing Down and Clearing Up
Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off
descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors,
and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside
and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman
of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded
surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time,
he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire;--but now
it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description
by rehearsing--singing, if I may--the romantic proceeding of decanting
off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold,
where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,
sliding along beneath the surface :is before; but, alas! never more
to rise and blow.
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