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The quantity of beer , too , is very large , 10 , 800 barrels . Now , as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate , so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen , including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea , did not much exceed three months , say , and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail , we have 5 , 400 Low Dutch seamen in all ; therefore , I say , we have precisely two barrels of beer per man , for a twelve weeks ’ allowance , exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin . Now , whether these gin and beer harpooneers , so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been , were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat’s head , and take good aim at flying whales ; this would seem somewhat improbable . Yet they did aim at them , and hit them too . But this was very far North , be it remembered , where beer agrees well with the constitution ; upon the Equator , in our southern fishery , beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast - head and boozy in his boat ; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford . But no more ; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers ; and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example . For , say they , when cruising in an empty ship , if you can get nothing better out of the world , get a good dinner out of it , at least . And this empties the decanter . CHAPTER 102 . A Bower in the Arsacides . Hitherto , in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale , I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect ; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features . But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him , it behooves me now to unbutton him still further , and untagging the points of his hose , unbuckling his garters , and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones , set him before you in his ultimatum ; that is to say , in his unconditional skeleton . But how now , Ishmael ? How is it , that you , a mere oarsman in the fishery , pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale ? Did erudite Stubb , mounted upon your capstan , deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea ; and by help of the windlass , hold up a specimen rib for exhibition ? Explain thyself , Ishmael . Can you land a full - grown whale on your deck for examination , as a cook dishes a roast - pig ? Surely not . A veritable witness have you hitherto been , Ishmael ; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone ; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams ; the rafters , ridge - pole , sleepers , and under - pinnings , making up the frame - work of leviathan ; and belike of the tallow - vats , dairy - rooms , butteries , and cheeseries in his bowels .
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