The Nautilus
will disperse them. It is armed with a steel spur as good
as Master Land's harpoon, I imagine."
The Canadian did not put himself out enough to shrug his shoulders.
Attack cetacea with blows of a spur! Who had ever heard of such a thing?
"Wait, M. Aronnax," said Captain Nemo. "We will show you something you
have never yet seen. We have no pity for these ferocious creatures.
They are nothing but mouth and teeth."
Mouth and teeth! No one could better describe the macrocephalous
cachalot, which is sometimes more than seventy-five feet long.
Its enormous head occupies one-third of its entire body.
Better armed than the whale, whose upper jaw is furnished only
with whalebone, it is supplied with twenty-five large tusks,
about eight inches long, cylindrical and conical at the top,
each weighing two pounds. It is in the upper part of this
enormous head, in great cavities divided by cartilages, that is
to be found from six to eight hundred pounds of that precious
oil called spermaceti. The cachalot is a disagreeable creature,
more tadpole than fish, according to Fredol's description.
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