[94] _Xiphias_--the sword or snout is about three-tenths of his whole length.
[95] _The surface_--from cream or ream, what rises to the surface--or perhaps from rim, brim.
[96] This story seems to be founded on the fact that the snout of the sword fish is often found driven through parts of vessels’ bottoms; whence it has been inferred, the fish mistook them for whales. We imagine the account of the thresher to be fabulous.
[97] In the thirteenth century the tongue of the whale was esteemed as an article of food; and whale beef, as it is called, is eaten at Bermuda, and probably elsewhere.
[98] In the early days of the whale fishery, when the fish were plentiful, the oil was boiled out on shore, near the place of capture. At present the blubber is imported from the northern fishery.
“And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise.”
Spermaceti is obtained from the brain of the sperm whale,--_physeter monocephalus_--not from the spawn.
[100] _Bezoar_--name applied to a concretion found in the stomach of various animals. Many extraordinary virtues were formerly ascribed to it, without much foundation.
[101] Ambergris is still considered to be a concretion formed in the stomach of the sperm whale.
[102] In Waterton’s _Wanderings_ will be found a parallel story, of a gentleman riding on a cayman.
[103] According to Horsburgh, the least favorable season for getting to the southward, is the period from June to September inclusive.
[104] Bisoño--(Spanish) raw, undisciplined:--
_Pistol._ Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die.
[105] The double pistole was a coin of about the value of thirty or thirty-five shillings.
[106] So that he may get away when it pleases him.
[107] Alluding to the attempt the fleet made to return northabout. In the British Museum is preserved a curious old pack of playing cards, on which are depicted subjects relating to the defeat of the “Spanish Armada”. On the ten of spades is shewn a consultation about returning by the North Ocean.
[108] Such a wind as would enable them to lie aslant or obliquely near the desired course. It is commonly said that “a calm is half a fair wind”; it is more than this, as out of thirty-two points, twenty would be fair.