... cover is clapped on the american line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales. Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order ... — Moby-Dick • Melville
...
