July 16, 2019 - Chapters Sixty-six, Sixty-seven, and Sixty-eight

The first of these three chapters is an odd little chapter that just describes how a whale yet to be harvested for blubber is to be kept, particularly when the waters are shark-infested. One particular quote could my eye: “any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.” Readers of Carlo Ginzburg will recognize this allusion to The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller and in particular its subject, about whom you can read more here. Clearly this was a story known before Ginzburg wrote his book.

The second and third chapters deal with the blubber and skin of the whale and the harvesting of both.