Moby Dick

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round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot
across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last
man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap,
rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, EX OFFICIO,
every sailor is a cooper.

At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great
hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down
go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are
replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.

In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable
incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with
freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of
the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as
in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the
bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire