The Smell of a Sperm Whale

The shortness of the season in those icy seas and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed forbidding any other course. A savour is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city graveyard for the foundations of a lying in hospital. I partly surmise also that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise, imputed to the existence on the coast of greenland, in former times, of a dutch village called smeermenburg. As its name imports smear fat burg to put up. The truth is that, living or dead, if by decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odour.