.. < chapter xcv 6  THE CASSOCK >


     Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a

certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled

forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with

no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have

seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers.  Not the wondrous

cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw;

not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you,

as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone, -- longer than a Kentuckian is

tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, the ebony

idol of Queequeg.  And an idol, indeed, it is; or, rather, in old times, its

likeness was.  Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen

Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, king Asa, her son, did depose

her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook

Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the first book of Kings.

Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by

two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and

with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying

a dead comrade from the field.  extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now

proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the

pelt of a boa.  This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg;

gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last

hangs it, well spread, in the

.. <p 418 >

rigging, to dry.  Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet

of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for

arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it.  The

mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling.

Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect

him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.  That office

consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the pots; an operation

which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted endwise against the

bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces

drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's desk.  Arrayed in decent black;


     occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for

an archbishoprick, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!

.. <p 418n. >

Bible leaves!  Bible leaves!  This is the invariable cry from the mates to

the mincer.  It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as thin

slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the


     oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, besides

perhaps improving it in quality.

.. <p 418 >

