CHAPTER 25

  Postscript

  In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but

substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who

should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell

eloquently upon his cause- such an advocate, would he not be

blame-worthy?

  It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even

modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their

functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so

called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,

precisely- who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is

solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it

be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run

well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,

concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in

common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints

his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature

man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got

a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount

to much in his totality.

  But the only thing to be considered here is this- what kind of oil

is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar

oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.

What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured,

unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?

  Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and

queens with coronation stuff!