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 as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow.
While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling
this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed
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