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CHAPTER XXI
THE MONSTER WHALE
With these occupations we passed the time pleasantly enough, and in spite of the rain we always made a point of taking a run along the beach, or a scramble about the cliffs, every day.
While we were out in this way we saw one day, far along the beach, a dark mass, which we imagined at first to be the hull of an upturned boat, but on investigation it proved to be the body of a dead whale drifted up by the waves. We put some empty barrels in our boat, and, launching it, sailed along, and landed near the monster, which was between sixty and seventy feet long.
I set to work to get possession of the fat or blubber, which I knew would be very useful to us, but we found the task no pleasant one. Ernest and I cut several feet deep into the fat which covered the sides of the animal, while the others
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