To what manner of awful monster this portion of limb belonged, I could only faintly imagine; but of course I remembered, as any sailor would, that from my earliest sea-going I had been told that the cuttle-fish was the biggest in the sea, although I never even began to think it might be true until now.  I asked the mate if he had ever seen such creatures as this piece belonged to alive and kicking.  He answered, languidly, “Wall, I guess so; but I don’t take any stock in fish, ’cept for provisions er ile—­en that’s a fact.”  It will be readily believed that I vividly recalled this conversation when, many years after, I read an account by the Prince of Monaco of his discovery of a gigantic squid, to which his naturalist gave the name of LEPIDOTEUTHIS GRIMALDII!  Truly the indifference and apathy manifested by whalers generally to everything except commercial matters is wonderful—­hardly to be credited.  However, this was a mighty revelation to me.  For the first time, it was possible to understand that, contrary to the usual notion of a whale’s being unable to swallow a herring, here was a kind of whale that could swallow—­well, a block four or five feet square apparently; who lived upon creatures as large as himself, if one might judge of their bulk by the sample to hand; but being unable, from only possessing teeth in one jaw, to masticate his food, was compelled to tear it in sizable pieces, bolt it whole, and leave his commissariat department to do the rest.

While thus ruminating, the mate and Louis began a desultory conversation concerning what they termed “ambergrease.”  I had never even heard the word before, although I had a notion that Milton, in “Paradise Regained,” describing the Satanic banquet, had spoken of something being “grisamber steamed.”  They could by no means agree as to what this mysterious substance was, how it was produced, or under what conditions.  They knew that it was sometimes found floating near the dead body of a sperm whale—­the mate, in fact, stated that he had taken it once from the rectum of a cachalot—­and they were certain that it was of great value —­from one to three guineas per ounce.  When I got to know more of the natural history of the sperm whale, and had studied the literature of the subject, I was so longer surprised at their want of agreement, since the learned doctors who have written upon the subject do not seem to have come to definite conclusions either.

By some it is supposed to be the product of a diseased condition of the creature; others consider that it is merely the excreta, which, normally fluid, has by some means become concreted.  It is nearly always found with cuttle-fish beaks imbedded in its substance, showing that these indigestible portions of the sperm whale’s food have in some manner become mixed with it during its formation in the bowel.  Chemists have analyzed it with scanty results.  Its great value is due to its property of intensifying