CHAPTER XI.
The blubber of the whale boiled and stored—A unique machine—Expedition to Prospect Hill—Whale's tongue is voted no delicacy—We land on Whale Island—Jack discovers a strange skeleton—Turtle turning—Towed ashore—The loom completed—Return of the herring shoals—Basket-making—We manufacture a sedan chair—Ernest's wild ride therein—A boa constrictor appears—He retreats to the marsh—Suspense—Poor Grizzle's fate—An awful scene—Death of the monster—An account of snakes—Remedies for poisoned bites—Ernest writes Grizzle's epitaph—The serpent stuffed and placed in the museum.
“Now for the finishing up of this dirty job,” cried I, merrily, as we all woke up next morning at day-break. And after the regular work was done, we commenced operations by raising a stand or rough scaffold on which the tubs full of blubber were placed and heavily pressed, so that the purest and finest oil over-flowed into vessels underneath.
The blubber was afterwards boiled in a cauldron over a fire kindled at some distance from our abode, and by skimming and straining through a coarse cloth, we succeeded in obtaining a large supply of excellent train-oil, which, in casks and bags made of the intestines, was safely stowed away in the “cellar,” as the children called our roughest storeroom. This day's work was far from agreeable, and the dreadful smell oppressed us all, more especially my poor wife, who, nevertheless, endured it with her accustomed good temper. Although she very urgently recommended that the new island should be the headquarters for another colony, where, said she, “any animals we leave would be safe from apes and other
