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Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads;

some looking over the bulwarks glasses! of ships from China; some high

aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep.

But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--

tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks.

How then is this?  Are the green fields gone?  What do they here?



But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,

and seemingly bound for a dive.  Strange!  Nothing will content

them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady

lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice.  No. They must get

just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in.

And there they stand--miles of them--leagues.  Inlanders all,

they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues,--

north, east, south, and west.  Yet here they all unite.

Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses

of all those ships attract them thither?



Once more.  Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes.

Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you

down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream.

There is magic in it.  Let the most absent-minded of men be

plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs,

set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water,

if water there be in all that region.  Should you ever be athirst

in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your

caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor.

Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.



But here is an artist.  He desires to paint you the dreamiest,

shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all

the valley of the Saco.  What is the chief element he employs?

There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit

and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there

sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke.

Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping

spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue.  But though

the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down

its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain,

unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him.

Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you

wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the one charm wanting?--

Water there is not a drop of water there!  Were Niagara but a

cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?

Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls

of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed,

or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?  Why is

almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him,

at some time or other crazy to go to sea?  Why upon your first voyage

as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration,

when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land?

Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy?  Why did the Greeks

give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?  Surely all this

is not without meaning.  And still deeper the meaning of that story

of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting,

mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned.

But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans.

It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key

to it all.



Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin

to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs,

I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.

For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but

a rag unless you have something in it.  Besides, passengers get sea-sick--

grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy themselves much,

as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am

something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain,

or a Cook.  I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices

to those who like them.  For my part, I abominate all honorable

respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever.

It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking

care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.  And as for

going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that,

a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never

fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously buttered,

and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more

respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will.

It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled

ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures

in their huge bakehouses the pyramids.



No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,

plumb down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal

mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me

jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow.

And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough.

It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come

of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers,

or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes.  And more than all, if just

previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been

lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys

stand in awe of you.  The transition is a keen one, I assure you,

from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction

of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it.

But even this wears off in time.



What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get

a broom and sweep down the decks?  What does that indignity amount to,

weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament?  Do you think

the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly

and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?

Who ain't a slave?  Tell me that.  Well, then, however the old

sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump and punch

me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right;

that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--

either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is;

and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub

each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.



Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make

a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never

pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.

On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay.  And there is

all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.

The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction

that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.  But being paid,--

what will compare with it?  The urbane activity with which a

man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we

so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills,

and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven.

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!



Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the

wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck.

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds

from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim),

so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his

atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle.

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.  In much the same

way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things,

at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt

the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my

head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police

officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me,

and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way--

he can better answer than any one else.  And, doubtless,

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sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed

for any four harpooneers to sleep abreast.



"There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old

sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table;

"there, make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye."

I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.



Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed.

Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny

tolerably well.  I then glanced round the room; and besides

the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture

belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls,

and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale.

Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a

hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner;

also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe,

no doubt in lieu of a land trunk.  Likewise, there was a parcel

of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place,

and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed.



But what is this on the chest?  I took it up, and held it close

to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way

possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it.

I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat,

ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something

like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin.

There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see

the same in South American ponchos.  But could it be possible

that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade

the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise?

I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper,

being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp,

as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it

of a rainy day.  I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck

against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life.

I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself

a kink in the neck.



I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking

about this head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat.

After thinking some time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my

monkey jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room thinking.

I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves.

But beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was,

and remembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer's

not coming home at all that night, it being so very late,

I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots,

and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended

myself to the care of heaven.



Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or broken crockery,

there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could

not sleep for a long time.  At last I slid off into a light doze,

and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod,

when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer

of light come into the room from under the door.



Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer,

the infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still,

and resolved not to say a word till spoken to.  Holding a light

in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other,

the stranger entered the room, and without looking towards

the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor

in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords

of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room.

I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted

for some time while employed in unlacing the bag's mouth.

This accomplished, however, he turned round--when, good heavens;

what a sight!  Such a face!  It was of a dark, purplish, yellow color,

here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares.

Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible bedfellow;

he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is,

just from the surgeon.  But at that moment he chanced to turn

his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not

be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks.

They were stains of some sort or other.  At first I knew not what

to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me.

I remembered a story of a white man--a whaleman too--

who, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them.

I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his

distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure.

And what is it, thought I, after all!  It's only his outside;

a man can be honest in any sort of skin.  But then, what to make of

his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about,

and completely independent of the squares of tattooing.

To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning;

but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a

purplish yellow one.  However, I had never been in the South Seas;

and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects

upon the skin.  Now, while all these ideas were passing

through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me

at all.  But, after some difficulty having opened his bag,

he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort

of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on.

Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room,

he then took the New Zealand head--a ghastly thing enough--

and crammed it down into the bag.  He now took off his hat--

a new beaver hat--when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise.

There was no hair on his head--none to speak of at least--

nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead.  His bald

purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull.

Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would

have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.



Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of

the window, but it was the second floor back.  I am no coward,

but what to make of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether

passed my comprehension.  Ignorance is the parent of fear,

and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger,

I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil

himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night.

In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough

just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer

concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.



Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at

last showed his chest and arms.  As I live, these covered

parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face,

his back, too, was all over the same dark squares;

he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just

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myself at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favor to give

me a good slippering for my misbehaviour:  anything indeed but

condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time.

But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers,

and back I had to go to my room.  For several hours I lay

there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever

done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes.

At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze;

and slowly waking from it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my eyes,

and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness.

Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame;

nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard;

but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine.  My arm hung

over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form

or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely

seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages,

I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring

to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but

stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken.

I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me;

but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all,

and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself

in confounding attempts to explain the mystery.  Nay, to this

very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.



Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at

feeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar,

in their strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking

up and seeing Queequeg's pagan arm thrown round me.

But at length all the past night's events soberly recurred,

one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to

the comical predicament.  For though I tried to move his arm--

unlock his bridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he was, he still

hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.

I now strove to rouse him--"Queequeg!"--but his only answer

was a snore.  I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it

were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch.

Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping

by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby.

A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange

house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk!

"Queequeg!--in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!"  At length,

by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations

upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that

matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt;

and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all over

like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed,

stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes

as if he did not altogether remember how I came to be there,

though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemed

slowly dawning over him.  Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him,

having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly observing

so curious a creature.  When, at last, his mind seemed made

up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became,

as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor,

and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that,

if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me

to dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself.

Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very

civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an

innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous

how essentially polite they are.  I pay this particular

compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much

civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;

staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions;

for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding.

Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't see every day,

he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding.



He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat,

a very tall one, by the by, and then--still minus his trowsers--

he hunted up his boots.  What under the heavens he did it for,

I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himself--

boots in hand, and hat on--under the bed; when, from sundry

violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hard at work

booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of,

is any man required to be private when putting on his boots.

But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state--

neither caterpillar nor butterfly.  He was just enough civilized

to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner.

His education was not yet completed.  He was an undergraduate.

If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably

would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then,

if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt

of getting under the bed to put them on.  At last, he emerged

with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes,

and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being

much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones--

probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormented

him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.



Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that

the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view

into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that

Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on;

I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat,

and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible.

He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself.  At that time in

the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg,

to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions

to his chest, arms, and hands.  He then donned his waistcoat,

and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table,

dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face.

I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold,

he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long

wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot,

and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall,

begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.

Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance.

Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know

of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly

sharp the long straight edges are always kept.



The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched

out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket,

and sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.







CHAPTER 5



Breakfast





I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted

the grinning landlord very pleasantly.  I cherished no malice

towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little

in the matter of my bedfellow.



However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too

scarce a good thing; the more's the pity.  So, if any one man,

in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke

to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully

allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way.

And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him,

be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.



The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping

in the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at.

They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates,

and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers,

and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers;

a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an unshorn,

shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns.



You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore.

This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted

pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky;

he cannot have been three days landed from his Indian voyage.

That man next him looks a few shades lighter; you might say

a touch of satin wood is in him.  In the complexion of a third

still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal;

he doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore.  But who could

show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints,

seemed like the Andes' western slope, to show forth in one array,

contrasting climates, zone by zone.



"Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door,

and in we went to breakfast.



They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become

quite at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company.

Not always, though:  Ledyard, the great New England traveller,

and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all men, they possessed

the least assurance in the parlor.  But perhaps the mere

crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did,

or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro

heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's performances--

this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode

of attaining a high social polish.  Still, for the most part,

that sort of thing is to be had anywhere.



These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance

that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing

to hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small

surprise nearly every man maintained a profound silence.

And not only that, but they looked embarrassed.  Yes, here were

a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness

had boarded great whales on the high seas--entire strangers to them--

and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here they

sat at a social breakfast table--all of the same calling,

all of kindred tastes--looking round as sheepishly at each other

as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold

among the Green Mountains.  A curious sight; these bashful bears,

these timid warrior whalemen!



But as for Queequeg--why, Queequeg sat there among them--

at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle.

To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding.  His greatest

admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon

into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony;

reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy

of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him.

But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one

knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly

is to do it genteelly.



We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here;

how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided

attention to beefsteaks, done rare.  Enough, that when breakfast

was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room,

lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly

digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I

sallied out for a stroll.







CHAPTER 6



The Street





If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish

an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society

of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking

my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.



In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently

offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts.

Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will

sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies.  Regent Street is not unknown

to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees

have often scared the natives.  But New Bedford beats all Water Street

and Wapping.  In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors;

but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners;

savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh.

It makes a stranger stare.



But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians,

and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft

which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still

more curious, certainly more comical.  There weekly arrive in this town

scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain

and glory in the fishery.  They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;

fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch

the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence

they came.  In some things you would think them but a few hours old.

Look there! that chap strutting round the corner.  He wears a beaver hat

and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife.

Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.



No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean

a downright bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow

his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands.

Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make

a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you

should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport.

In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats;

straps to his canvas trowsers.  Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly

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"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands

press upon me.  I have read ye by what murky light may be mine

the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye,

and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye.

And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit

on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen,

while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson

which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God.  How being

an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden

by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a

wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise,

fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking

ship at Joppa.  But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached.

As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed

him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore

him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths

sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped

about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him.

Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet--'out of the belly

of hell'--when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones,

even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried.

Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold

and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards

the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth;

and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord

came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears,

like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean--

Jonah did the Almighty's bidding.  And what was that, shipmates?

To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood!  That was it!



"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that

pilot of the living God who slights it.  Woe to him whom this

world charms from Gospel duty!  Woe to him who seeks to pour

oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale!

Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal!

Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!

Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor!

Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false

were salvation!  Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul

has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!



He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting

his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes,

as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,--"But oh! shipmates!

on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight;

and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe

is deep.  Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low?

Delight is to him--a far, far upward, and inward delight--

who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth,

ever stands forth his own inexorable self.  Delight is to him

whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base

treacherous world has gone down beneath him.  Delight is to him,

who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys

all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators

and Judges.  Delight,--top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges

no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.

Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas

of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel

of the Ages.  And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his,

who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath--O Father!--

chiefly known to me by Thy rod--mortal or immortal, here I die.

I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own.

Yet this is nothing:  I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man

that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"



He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with

his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed,

and he was left alone in the place.







CHAPTER 10



A Bosom Friend





Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there

quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time.

He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on

the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his

face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face,

and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose,

meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way.



But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going to

the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began

counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page--

as I fancied--stopping for a moment, looking vacantly around him,

and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment.

He would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at

number one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty,

and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found together,

that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.



With much interest I sat watching him.  Savage though he was,

and hideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--

his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no

means disagreeable.  You cannot hide the soul.  Through all his

unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple

honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold,

there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils.

And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about

the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim.

He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.

Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was

drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive

than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide;

but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one.

It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head,

as seen in the popular busts of him.  It had the same long regularly

graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise

very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top.

Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.



Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be

looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence,

never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared

wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book.

Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous,

and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown

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watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it;

peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans

declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that

has survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous!

That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness

of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded

than his most fearless and malicious assaults!



And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits,

issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered

the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among

them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three

pirate powers did Poland.  Let America add Mexico to Texas,

and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India,

and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this

terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his;

he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right

of way through it.  Merchant ships are but extension bridges;

armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers,

though following the sea as highwaymen the road.  they but plunder

other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves,

without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself.

The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea;

he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships;

to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.

There is his home; there lies his business which a Noah's flood

would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions

in China.  He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie;

he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters

climb the Alps.  For years he knows not the land; so that

when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world,

more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.  With the

landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked

to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer,

out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest,

while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.







CHAPTER 15



Chowder





It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly

to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend

to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed.

The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin

Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one

of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured

us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders.

In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better

than try pot-luck at the Try Pots.  But the directions he had given

us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we

opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on

the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard,

and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was;

these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first,

especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse--

our first point of departure--must be left on the larboard hand,

whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard.

However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now

and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way,

we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.



Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'

ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front

of an old doorway.  The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the

other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows.

Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time,

but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving.

A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two

remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me.

It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first

whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel,

and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too!

Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?



I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled

woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch

of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much

like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man

in a purple woollen shirt.



"Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing ye!"



"Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right.  There's Mrs. Hussey."



And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving

Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs.

Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed,

Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present,

ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread

with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round

to us and said--"Clam or Cod?"



"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness.



"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.



"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?"

says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time,

ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?"



But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple

shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing

but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading

to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two," disappeared.



"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make out a supper

for us both on one clam?"



However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie

the apparently cheerless prospect before us.  But when that

smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained.

Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me.  It was made of small juicy clams,

scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits,

and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched

with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.

Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular,

Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder

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of him?" he demanded.



"I was thinking of shipping."



"Thou wast, wast thou?  I see thou art no Nantucketer--

ever been in a stove boat?"



"No, Sir, I never have."



"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say--eh?



"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn.

I've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-"



"Merchant service be damned.  Talk not that lingo to me.

Dost see that leg?--I'll take that leg away from thy stern,

if ever thou talkest of the merchant service to me again.

Marchant service indeed!  I suppose now ye feel considerable

proud of having served in those marchant ships.  But flukes! man,

what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?--it looks a little

suspicious, don't it, eh?--Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?--

Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?--Dost not think

of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?"



I protested my innocence of these things.  I saw that under

the mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman,

as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his

insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens,

unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.



"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I

think of shipping ye."



"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is.  I want to see the world."



"Want to see what whaling is, eh?  Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?"



"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"



"Aye, aye, I thought so.  Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship."



"I am mistaken then.  I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself."



"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg--that's who ye are speaking to,

young man.  It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted

out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew.

We are part owners and agents.  But as I was going to say, if thou wantest

to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way

of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out.

Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has

only one leg."



"What do you mean, sir?  Was the other one lost by a whale?"



"Lost by a whale!  Young man, come nearer to me:  it was devoured,

chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped

a boat!--ah, ah!"



I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched

at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly

as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could

I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale,

though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact

of the accident."



"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see;

thou dost not talk shark a bit.  Sure, ye've been to sea before now;

sure of that?"



"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages

in the merchant-"



"Hard down out of that!  Mind what I said about the marchant service--

don't aggravate me--I won't have it.  But let us understand each other.

I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye yet feel

inclined for it?"



"I do, sir."



"Very good.  Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live

whale's throat, and then jump after it?  Answer, quick!"



"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so;

not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact."



"Good again.  Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling,

to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want

to go in order to see the world?  Was not that what ye said?

I thought so.  Well then, just step forward there, and take

a peep over the weather bow, and then back to me and tell me

what ye see there."



For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request,

not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest.

But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg

started me on the errand.



Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived

that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was

now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean.  The prospect

was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding;

not the slightest variety that I could see.



"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back;

"what did ye see?"



"Not much," I replied--"nothing but water; considerable horizon though,

and there's a squall coming up, I think."



"Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world?

Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh?

Can't ye see the world where you stand?"



I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would;

and the Pequod was as good a ship as any--I thought the best--

and all this I now repeated to Peleg.  Seeing me so determined,

he expressed his willingness to ship me.



"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,"

he added--"come along with ye."  And so saying, he led the way

below deck into the cabin.

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and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee

and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious,

daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives,

strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand

bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king,

or a poetical Pagan Roman.  And when these things unite

in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular

brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness

and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters,

and beneath constellations never seen here at the north,

been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all

nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin

voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some

help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous

lofty language--that man makes one in a whole nation's census--

a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies.

Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded,

if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems

a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature.

For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness.

Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is

but disease.  But, as yet we have not to do with such an one,

but with quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar,

it only results again from another phase of the Quaker,

modified by individual circumstances.



Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.

But unlike Captain Peleg--who cared not a rush for what are called

serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things

the veriest of all trifles--Captain Bildad had not only been originally

educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism,

but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad,

lovely island creatures, round the Horn--all that had not moved this

native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle

of his vest.  Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack

of common consistency about worthy Captain Bildad.  Though refusing,

from conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders,

yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific;

and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his

straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore.

How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad

reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know;

but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had

long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's

religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another.

This world pays dividends.  Rising from a little cabin boy

in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad

shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief mate,

and captain, and finally a shipowner; Bildad, as I hinted before,

had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active

life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days

to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.



Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being

an incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter,

hard task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it

certainly seems a curious story, that when he sailed the old

Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all

carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out.

For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly

rather hard-hearted, to say the least.  He never used to swear,

though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate

quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them.

When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored eye

intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous,

till you could clutch something--a hammer or a marling-spike,

and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what.

Indolence and idleness perished from before him.  His own

person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character.

On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh,

no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it,

like the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.



Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom

when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin.

The space between the decks was small; and there, bolt upright,

sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this

to save his coat-tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him;

his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned

up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed

in reading from a ponderous volume.



"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh?  Ye have

been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years,

to my certain knowledge.  How far ye got, Bildad?"



As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,

Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up,

and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.



"He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants to ship."



"Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.



"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.



"What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg.



"He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling

away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.



I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg,

his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer.

But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply.

Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles,

placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a little table.

I began to think it was high time to settle with myself

at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage.

I was already aware that in the whaling business they

paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain,

received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that

these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance

pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company.

I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own

lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used

to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that,

I made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered

at least the 275th lay--that is, the 275th part of the clear net

proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount to.

And though the 275th lay was what they call a rather long lay,

yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage,

might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it,

not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I

would not have to pay one stiver.



It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate

a princely fortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed.

But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes,

and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I

am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud.  Upon the whole,

I thought that the 275th lay would be about the fair thing,

but would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th,

considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.



But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about

receiving a generous share of the profits was this:  Ashore, I had heard

something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad;

how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod,

therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners,

left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two.

And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty

deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board

the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible

as if at his own fireside.  Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend

a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise,

considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings;

Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book,

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth-"



"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say,

what lay shall we give this young man?"



"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred

and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?--'where moth

and rust do corrupt, but lay-'"



Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and

seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one,

shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt.

It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the magnitude

of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest

consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven

is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it,

you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part

of a farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven

gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.



"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, Thou dost not want

to swindle this young man! he must have more than that."



"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without lifting

his eyes; and then went on mumbling--"for where your treasure is,

there will your heart be also."



"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said Peleg,

"do ye hear that, Bildad!  The three hundredth lay, I say."



Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards

him said, "Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart;

but thou must consider the duty thou owest to the other

owners of this ship--widows and orphans, many of them--

and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this young man,

we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans.

The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg."



"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin.

"Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters,

I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy

enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn."



"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be

drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell;

but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly

fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end

sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg."



"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing,

ye insult me.  It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature

that he's bound to hell.  Flukes and flames!  Bildad, say that again

to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'll--I'll--yes, I'll swallow a live

goat with all his hair and horns on.  Out of the cabin, ye canting,

drab-colored son of a wooden gun--a straight wake with ye!"



As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a

marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.



Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal

and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind

to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably

owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door

to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness

to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg.  But to

my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly,

and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing.

He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways.

As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed

no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb,

though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated.

"Whew!" he whistled at last--"the squall's gone off to leeward,

I think.  Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance,

mend that pen, will ye.  My jack-knife here needs the grindstone.

That's he; thank ye, Bildad.  Now then, my young man,

Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say?  Well then, down ye

go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay."



"Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to ship too--

shall I bring him down to-morrow?"



"To be sure," said Peleg.  "Fetch him along, and we'll look at him."



"What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the Book

in which he had again been burying himself.



"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg.  "Has he ever

whaled it any?" turning to me.



"Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg."



"Well, bring him along then."



And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I

had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical

ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.



But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me

that the Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen

by me; though, indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be

completely fitted out, and receive all her crew on board,

ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving to take command;

for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore

intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain

have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort,

he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port,

but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea.

However, it is always as well to have a look at him

before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands.

Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab

was to be found.



"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab?  It's all right enough;

thou art shipped."



"Yes, but I should like to see him."



"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present.  I don't know

exactly what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house;

a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so.  In fact, he ain't sick;

but no, he isn't well either.  Any how, young man, he won't always see me,

so I don't suppose he will thee.  He's a queer man, Captain Ahab--

so some think--but a good one.  Oh, thou'lt like him well enough;

no fear, no fear.  He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab;

doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen.

Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been in colleges,

as well as 'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than

the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales.

His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle!

Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg;

he's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!"



"And a very vile one.  When that wicked king was slain, the dogs,

did they not lick his blood?"



"Come hither to me--hither, hither," said Peleg,

with a significance in his eye that almost startled me.

"Look ye, lad; never say that on board the Pequod.  Never say

it anywhere.  Captain Ahab did not name himself .'Twas a foolish,

ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when

he was only a twelvemonth old.  And yet the old squaw Tistig,

at Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic.

And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same.

I wish to warn thee.  It's a lie.  I know Captain Ahab well;

I've sailed with him as mate years ago; I know what he is--

a good man--not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing

good man--something like me--only there's a good deal more

of him.  Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly;

and I know that on the passage home he was a little out of his

mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his

bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see.

I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage

by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of moody--

desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off.

And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man,

it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing

bad one.  So good-bye to thee--and wrong not Captain Ahab,

because he happens to have a wicked name.  Besides, my boy,

he has a wife--not three voyages wedded--a sweet, resigned girl.

Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child:

hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab?  No, no,

my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!"



As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had

been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me

with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him.

And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him,

but for I don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg.

And yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe,

which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not

know what it was.  But I felt it; and it did not disincline

me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed like

mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.

However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions,

so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.







CHAPTER 17



The Ramadan





As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue

all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall;

for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious

obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart

to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool;

or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with

a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets,

bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely

on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented

in his name.



I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable

in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior

to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy

conceits on these subjects.  There was Queequeg, now, certainly

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are you talking about prying open any of my doors?"--

and with that she seized my arm.  "What's the matter with you?

What's the matter with you, shipmate?"



In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand

the whole case.  Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet

to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant;

then exclaimed--"No! I haven't seen it since I put it there."

Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced

in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing.

"He's killed himself," she cried.  "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done

over again there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor mother!--

it will be the ruin of my house.  Has the poor lad a sister?

Where's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter,

and tell him to paint me a sign, with--"no suicides permitted here,

and no smoking in the parlor;"--might as well kill both

birds at once.  Kill?  The Lord be merciful to his ghost!

What's that noise there?  You, young man, avast there!"



And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force

open the door.



"I won't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled.

Go for the locksmith, there's one about a mile from here.  But avast!"

putting her hand in her side pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess;

let's see."  And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas!

Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.



"Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry

a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me,

again vowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore

from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full

against the mark.



With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob

slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling;

and there, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool

and self-collected; right in the middle of the room;

squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head.

He looked neither one way nor the other way but sat like a carved

image with scarce a sign of active life.



"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's

the matter with you?"



"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the landlady.



But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him;

I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position,

for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and

unnaturally constrained; especially, as in all probability

he had been sitting so for upwards of eight or ten hours,

going too without his regular meals.



"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's alive at all events; so leave us,

if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself."



Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail

upon Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain.  There he sat;

and all he could do--for all my polite arts and blandishments--

he would not move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look

at me, nor notice my presence in any the slightest way.



I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan;

do they fast on their hams that way in his native island.

It must be so; yes, it's a part of his creed, I suppose;

well, then, let him rest; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt.

It can't last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes

once a year; and I don't believe it's very punctual then.



I went down to supper.  After sitting a long time listening to the long

stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage,

as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig,

confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only);

after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I

went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg

must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination.  But no;

there he was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch.

I began to grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless

and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams

in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his head.



"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have

some supper.  You'll starve; you'll kill yourself, Queequeg."  But not

a word did he reply.



Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep;

and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me.

But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket,

and threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night;

and he had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on.

For some time, do all I would, I could not get into the faintest doze.

I had blown out the candle; and the mere thought of Queequeg--

not four feet off--sitting there in that uneasy position,

stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really wretched.

Think of it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide

awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!



But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till

break of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted

Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor.

But as soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the window,

up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but with a cheerful look;

limped towards me where I lay; pressed his forehead again

against mine; and said his Ramadan was over.



Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion,

be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult

any other person, because that other person don't believe it also.

But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive

torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable

inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual

aside and argue the point with him.



And just so I now did with Queequeg.  "Queequeg," said I,

"get into bed now, and lie and listen to me."  I then went on,

beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions,

and coming down to the various religions of the present time,

during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all

these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold,

cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health;

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg

ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner.

I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could

be got up; involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told

Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran,

in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot.

I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious

Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred

and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear,

and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg

in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity.

That was my first kick.



"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared.

"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone!  Why don't

ye spring, I say, all of ye--spring!  Quohog! spring, thou chap with

the red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants.

Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!"  And so saying,

he moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely,

while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody.

Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.



At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided.

It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged

into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean,

whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor.

The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight;

and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving

icicles depended from the bows.



Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon,

as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering

frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang,

his steady notes were heard,--



             "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,

                Stand dressed in living green.

              So to the Jews old Canaan stood,

                While Jordan rolled between."





Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then.

They were full of hope and fruition.  Spite of this frigid winter night

in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket,

there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store;

and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up

by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.



At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were

needed no longer.  The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us

began ranging alongside.



It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were

affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad.  For loath

to depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound

on so long and perilous a voyage--beyond both stormy Capes;

a ship in which some thousands of his hardearned dollars

were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate sailed as captain;

a man almost as old as he, once more starting to encounter

all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye

to a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,--

poor old Bildad lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides;

ran down into the cabin to speak another farewell word there;

again came on deck, and looked to windward; looked towards

the wide and endless waters, only bounded by the far-off unseen

Eastern Continents; looked towards the land; looked aloft;

looked right and left; looked everywhere and nowhere;

and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin,

convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up

a lantern, for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face,

as much as to say, "Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it;

yes, I can."



As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher;

but for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye,

when the lantern came too near.  And he, too, did not a little

run from the cabin to deck--now a word below, and now a word

with Starbuck, the chief mate.



But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look

about him,--"Captain Bildad--come, old shipmate, we must go.

Back the mainyard there!  Boat ahoy!  Stand by to come

close alongside, now!  Careful, careful!--come, Bildad, boy--

say your last.  Luck to ye, Starbuck--luck to ye, Mr. Stubb--

luck to ye, Mr. Flask--good-bye and good luck to ye all--

and this day three years I'll have a hot supper smoking for ye

in old Nantucket.  Hurrah and away!"



"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmured old Bildad,

almost incoherently.  "I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so that

Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye--a pleasant sun is all he needs,

and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go.  Be careful

in the hunt, ye mates.  Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers;

good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent within the year.

Don't forget your prayers, either.  Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't

waste the spare staves.  Oh! the sail-needles are in the green locker.

Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair

chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts.  Have an eye

to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.

If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication.

Good-bye, good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold,

Mr. Starbuck; it'll spoil.  Be careful with the butter--twenty cents

the pound it was, and mind ye, if--"



"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,--away!" and with that,

Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.



Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between;

a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled;

we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate

into the lone Atlantic.







CHAPTER 23



The Lee Shore





Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall,

newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.



When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive

bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her

helm but Bulkington!  I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness

upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years'

dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still

another tempestuous term.  The land seemed scorching to his feet.

Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories

yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave

of Bulkington.  Let me only say that it fared with him as with

the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land.

The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful;

in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper,

warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities.

But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy;

she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it

but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through.

With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing,

fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward;

seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake

forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!



Know ye now, Bulkington?  Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally

intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid

effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea;

while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on

the treacherous, slavish shore?



But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless,

indefinite as God--so better is it to perish in that howling infinite,

than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!

For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land!

Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain?

Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington!  Bear thee grimly, demigod!

Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up,

leaps thy apotheosis!







CHAPTER 24



The Advocate





As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling;

and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among

landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I am

all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done

to us hunters of whales.



In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish

the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not

accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions.

If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society,

it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were he

presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the

naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery)

to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminently

presuming and ridiculous.



Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring

us whalemen, is this:  they think that, at best, our vocation

amounts to a butchering sort of business; and that when actively

engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements.

Butchers we are, that is true.  But butchers, also, and butchers

of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom

the world invariably delights to honor.  And as for the matter

of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be

initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown,

and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm

whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth.

But even granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered

slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable

carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return

to drink in all ladies' plaudits?  And if the idea of peril

so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier's profession;

let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up

to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm

whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head.

For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with

the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!



But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it

unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding

adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles

that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines,

to our glory!



But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of scales;

see what we whalemen are, and have been.



Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their

whaling fleets?  Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own

personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely

invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island

of Nantucket?  Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788

pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards of 1,000,000 pounds?

And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber

all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; sail a navy of

upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men;

yearly consuming 00824,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth,

at the time of sailing, 20,000,000 dollars; and every year importing

into our harbors a well reaped harvest of 00847,000,000 dollars.

How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling?



But this is not the half; look again.



I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot,

for his life, point out one single peaceful influence,

which within the last sixty years has operated more potentially

upon the whole broad world, taken in one aggregate,

than the high and mighty business of whaling.  One way

and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves,

and so continuously momentous in their sequential issues,

that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother,

who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb.

It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things.

Let a handful suffice.  For many years past the whale-ship has

been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known

parts of the earth.  She has explored seas and archipelagoes

which had no chart, where no Cooke or Vancouver had ever sailed.

If American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride

in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor

and glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed them

the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages.

They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions,

your Cookes, Your Krusensterns; but I say that scores of anonymous

Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great,

and greater, than your Cooke and your Krusenstern.  For in

their succorless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish

sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands,

battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cooke with all his

marines and muskets would not willingly have willingly dared.

All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages,

those things were but the life-time commonplaces of our

heroic Nantucketers.  Often, adventures which Vancouver

dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy

of being set down in the ship's common log.  Ah, the world!

Oh, the world!



Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial,

scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe

and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast.

It was the whalemen who first broke through the jealous policy of

the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted,

it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated

the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain,

and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.



That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia,

was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman.

After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships,

long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous;

but the whale-ship touched there.  The whale-ship is the true

mother of that now mighty colony.  Moreover, in the infancy

of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several

times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of

the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters.

The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth,

and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way

for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried

the primitive missionaries to their first destinations.

If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable,

it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due;

for already she is on the threshold.



But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling

has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it,

then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there,

and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.



The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler,

you will say.



The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler?

Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan?  Who but mighty Job?

And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who,

but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own

royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian

whale-hunter of those times!  And who pronounced our glowing

eulogy in Parliament?  Who, but Edmund Burke!



True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils;

they have no good blood in their veins.



No good blood in their veins?  They have something better

than royal blood there.  The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin

was Mary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of

the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line

of Folgers and harpooneers--all kith and kin to noble Benjamin--

this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world

to the other.



Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable.



Whaling not respectable?  Whaling is imperial!  By old English

statutory law, the whale is declared "a royal fish."



Oh, that's only nominal!  The whale himself has never figured

in any grand imposing way.



The whale never figured in any grand imposing way?  In one of the mighty

triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital,

the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast,

were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.*





*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.





Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is no real

dignity in whaling.



No dignity in whaling?  The dignity of our calling the very

heavens attest.  Cetus is a constellation in the South!  No more!

Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off

to Queequeg!  No more!  I know a man that, in his lifetime

has taken three hundred and fifty whales.  I account that man

more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted

of taking as many walled towns.



And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered

prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small

but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of;

if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather

have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors,

or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS.  in my desk,

then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling;

for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.









CHAPTER 25



Postscript





In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught

but substantiated facts.  But after embattling his facts,

an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise,

which might tell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate,

would he not be blame-worthy?



It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,

even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them

for their functions is gone through.  There is a saltcellar

of state, so called, and there may be a caster of state.

How they use the salt, precisely--who knows?  Certain I am,

however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation,

even as a head of salad.  Can it be, though, that they

anoint it with a view of making its interior run well,

as they anoint machinery?  Much might be ruminated here,

concerning the essential dignity of this regal process,

because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow

who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.

In truth, a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally,

that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.

As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.



But the only thing to be considered here is this--what kind of oil is used

at coronations?  Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil,

nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.

What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured,

unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?



Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings

and queens with coronation stuff!

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arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow

over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal

critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality,

which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind!

Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not

refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl;

Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold,

the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst

pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him

upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne!

Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest

Thy selectest champions from the kingly commoners; bear me

out in it, O God!







CHAPTER 27



Knights and Squires





Stubb was the second mate.  He was a native of Cape Cod;

and hence, according to local usage, was called a

Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant;

taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while

engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away,

calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year.

Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his

whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner,

and his crew all invited guests.  He was as particular

about the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat,

as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box.

When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight,

he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a

whistling tinker his hammer.  He would hum over his old rigadig

tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster.

Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death

into an easy chair.  What he thought of death itself,

there is no telling.  Whether he ever thought of it at all,

might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind

that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor,

he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft,

and bestir themselves there, about something which he would

find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.



What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,

unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a

world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs;

what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his;

that thing must have been his pipe.  For, like his nose, his short,

black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face.

You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk

without his nose as without his pipe.  He kept a whole row of pipes

there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand;

and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession,

lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading

them again to be in readiness anew.  For, when Stubb dressed,

instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe

into his mouth.



I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of

his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air,

whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless

miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it;

and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a

camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all

mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated

as a sort of disinfecting agent.



The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard.

A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales,

who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally

and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort

of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered.

So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels

of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything

like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them;

that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species

of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little

circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order

to kill and boil.  This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his

made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed

these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage round

Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time.

As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails;

so mankind may be similarly divided.  Little Flask was one

of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long.

They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form,

he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name

in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side

timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy

concussions of those battering seas.



Now these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous men.

They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod's

boats as headsmen.  In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab

would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three

headsmen were as captains of companies.  Or, being armed with their

long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers;

even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.



And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman,

like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his

boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides

him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted,

or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally

subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness;

it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down

who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each

of them belonged.



First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate,

had selected for his squire.  But Queequeg is already known.



Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly

promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last

remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring

island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers.

In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of

Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones,

and black rounding eyes--for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness,

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with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity,

that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch,

so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail,

foreboding shivers ran over me.  Reality outran apprehension;

Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.



There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him,

nor of the recovery from any.  He looked like a man cut away

from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all

the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle

from their compacted aged robustness.  His whole high, broad form,

seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould,

like Cellini's cast Perseus.  Threading its way out from among

his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny

scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing,

you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish.

It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight,

lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly

darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and

grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into

the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded.

Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar

left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.

By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little

or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates.

But once Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,

superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years

old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him,

not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife

at sea.  Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived,

by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man,

who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never

ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab.  Nevertheless, the old

sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested

this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment.

So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said

that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out--

which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered--then, whoever should

do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him

from crown to sole.



So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me,

and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments

I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness

was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood.

It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been

fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw.

"Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old Gay-Head Indian once;

"but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without

coming home for it.  He has a quiver of 'em."



I was struck with the singular posture he maintained.

Upon each side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close

to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half

an inch or so, into the plank.  His bone leg steadied in that hole;

one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect,

looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow.

There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate,

unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless,

forward dedication of that glance.  Not a word he spoke;

nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their

minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy,

if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled

master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood

before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless

regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.



Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin.

But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew;

either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had;

or heavily walking the deck.  As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began

to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse;

as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry

bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded.  And, by and by,

it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air;

but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at

last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast.

But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising;

nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully

competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself,

to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval,

the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever

all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.



Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant,

holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood.

For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home

to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most

thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts,

to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end,

a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air.

More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any

other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.







CHAPTER 29



Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb







Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod

now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea,

almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August

of the Tropic.  The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing,

redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up--

flaked up, with rose-water snow.  The starred and stately nights seemed

haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride,

the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!

For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and

such seducing nights.  But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather

did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world.

Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild

hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice

most forms of noiseless twilights.  And all these subtle agencies,

more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture.



Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life,

the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest

leave their berths to visit the night-cloaked deck.

It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much

to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits

were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks.

"It feels like going down into one's tomb,"--he would mutter

to himself--"for an old captain like me to be descending this

narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth."



So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night

were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below;

and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors

flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it

to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this

sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent

steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man

would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way.

Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these,

he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his

wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel,

such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step,

that their dreams would have been of the crunching teeth of sharks.

But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings;

and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from

taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below,

and with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if

Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay;

but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something

indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion

into it, of the ivory heel.  Ah!  Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.



"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst

wad me that fashion?  But go thy ways; I had forgot.

Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds,

to use ye to the filling one at last.--Down, dog, and kennel!"



Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly

scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly,

"I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half

like it, sir."



"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away,

as if to avoid some passionate temptation.



"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely

be called a dog, sir."



"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass,

and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!"



As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing

terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.



"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,"

muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle.

"It's very queer.  Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well

know whether to go back and strike him, or--what's that?--

down here on my knees and pray for him?  Yes, that was the thought

coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.

It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore

and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with.

How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad!

Anyway there's something's on his mind, as sure as there

must be something on a deck when it cracks.  He aint in his

bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four;

and he don't sleep then.  Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward,

tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock

clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot,

and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort

of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it?

A hot old man!  I guess he's got what some folks ashore

call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--

worse nor a toothache.  Well, well; I don't know what it is,

but the Lord keep me from catching it.  He's full of riddles;

I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night,

as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should

like to know?  Who's made appointments with him in the hold?

Ain't that queer, now?  But there's no telling, it's the old game--

Here goes for a snooze.  Damn me, it's worth a fellow's

while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep.

And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing

babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too.  Damn me,

but all things are queer, come to think of 'em.  But that's

against my principles.  Think not, is my eleventh commandment;

and sleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again.

But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten

times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that!

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In connexion with this appellative of "Whalebone whales,"

it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature

may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales,

yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan,

founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth;

notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously

seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system

of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions,

which the whale, in his kinds, presents.  How then?

The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose

peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales,

without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure

in other and more essential particulars.  Thus, the sperm whale and

the humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases.

Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale,

each of these has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases.

And it is just the same with the other parts above mentioned.

In various sorts of whales, they form such irregular combinations;

or, in the case of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation;

as utterly to defy all general methodization formed upon such a basis.

On this rock every one of the whale-naturalists has split.



But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts

of the whale, in his anatomy--there, at least, we shall

be able to hit the right classification.  Nay; what thing,

for example, is there in the Greenland whale's anatomy more

striking than his baleen?  Yet we have seen that by his baleen

it is impossible correctly to classify the Greenland whale.

And if you descend into the bowels of the various leviathans,

why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available

to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated.

What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily,

in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way.

And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted;

and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone

is practicable.  To proceed.



BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV.  (Hump Back).--This whale is often seen

on the northern American coast.  He has been frequently captured there,

and towed into harbor.  He has a great pack on him like a peddler;

or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale.  At any rate,

the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him,

since the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one.

His oil is not very valuable.  He has baleen.  He is the most gamesome

and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white

water generally than any other of them.



BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. ( Razor Back).--Of this whale

little is known but his name.  I have seen him at a distance

off Cape Horn.  Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters

and philosophers.  Though no coward, he has never yet shown any

part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge.

Let him go.  I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.



BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI.  (Sulphur Bottom).--Another retiring

gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along

the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings.  He is seldom seen;

at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas,

and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance.

He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line.

Prodigies are told of him.  Adieu, Sulphur Bottom!  I can say nothing

more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.



Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II.  (Octavo).



OCTAVOES.* These embrace the whales of middling magnitude,

among which at present may be numbered:--I., the Grampus; II., the

Black Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer.





*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain.

Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those

of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness

to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its

dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume,

but the Octavo volume does.





BOOK II.  (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).--Though this fish,

whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing,

has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen

of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales.

But possessing all the grand distinctive features of

the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one.

He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five

feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist.

He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his

oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light.

By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory

of the advance of the great sperm whale.



BOOK II.  (Octavo), CHAPTER II.  (Black Fish).--I give the popular

fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best.

Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so,

and suggest another.  I do so now touching the Black Fish,

so called because blackness is the rule among almost

all whales.  So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please.

His voracity is well known and from the circumstance

that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards,

he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face.

This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length.

He is found in almost all latitudes.  He has a peculiar way

of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks

something like a Roman nose.  When not more profitably employed,

the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale,

to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment--

as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite

alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax.

Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will

yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.



BOOK II.  (Octavo), CHAPTER III.  (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale.--

Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose

from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose.

The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages

five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet.

Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out

from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal.

But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect,

giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy

left-handed man.  What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers,

it would be hard to say.  It does not seem to be used like the blade

of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that

the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of

the sea for food.  Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer;

for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding

it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through.

But you cannot prove either of these surmises to be correct.

My own opinion is, that however this one-sided horn may really

be used by the Narwhale--however that may be--it would certainly

be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets.

The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale,

and the Unicorn whale.  He is certainly a curious example of the

Unicornism to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature.

From certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same

sea-unicorn's horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote

against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices.

It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies the same

way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn.

Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity.

Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that

voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from

a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames;

"when Sir Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter,

"on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn

of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle

at Windsor."  An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester,

on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn,

pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.



The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a

milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of black.

His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it,

and he is seldom hunted.  He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.



BOOK II.  (Octavo), CHAPTER IV.  (Killer).--Of this whale

little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing

at all to the professed naturalists.  From what I have seen

of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness

of a grampus.  He is very savage--a sort of Feegee fish.

He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs

there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death.

The Killer is never hunted.  I never heard what sort of oil he has.

Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale,

on the ground of its indistinctness.  For we are all killers,

on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.



BOOK II.  (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).--This gentleman is famous for

his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes.  He mounts the

Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by flogging him;

as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar process.

Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer.  Both are outlaws,

even in the lawless seas.



Thus ends BOOK II.  (Octavo), and begins BOOK III, (Duodecimo.)



DUODECIMOES.--These include the smaller whales.  I. The Huzza Porpoise.

II.  The Algerine Porpoise.  III.  The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.



To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject,

it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding

four or five feet should be marshalled among WHALES--a word,

which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness.

But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales,

by the terms of my definition of what a whale is--i.e. a spouting fish,

with a horizontal tail.



BOOK III.  (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1.  (Huzza Porpoise).--This is

the common porpoise found almost all over the globe.  The name is

of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises,

and something must be done to distinguish them.  I call him thus,

because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea

keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd.

Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner.

Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows

to windward.  They are the lads that always live before the wind.

They are accounted a lucky omen.  If you yourself can withstand

three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye;

the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye.  A well-fed, plump

Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon of good oil.

But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is

exceedingly valuable.  It is in request among jewellers and watchmakers.

Sailors put it on their hones.  Porpoise meat is good eating, you know.

It may never have occurred to you that a porpoise spouts.

Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readily discernible.

But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and you will then

see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.



BOOK III.  (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II.  (Algerine Porpoise).--A pirate.

Very savage.  He is only found, I think, in the Pacific.  He is somewhat

larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make.

Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark.  I have lowered for him

many times, but never yet saw him captured.



BOOK III.  (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III.  (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise).--The

largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far

as it is known.  The only English name, by which he has hitherto

been designated, is that of the fisher--Right-Whale Porpoise,

from the circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization.

Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness

in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint,

incidentally so important in his art, as the one now alluded to.



But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket

grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors

and Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old

whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings

and housings are denied me.  Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee,

it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep,

and featured in the unbodied air!







CHAPTER 34



The Cabin-Table





It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread

face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and master who,

sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an observation

of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the smooth,

medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on the upper

part of his ivory leg.  From his complete inattention to the tidings,

you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial.  But presently,

catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to the deck,

and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck,"

disappears into the cabin.



When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck,

the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated,

then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along

the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some

touch of pleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends the scuttle.

The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly

shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that

important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid

"Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows after his predecessors.



But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck,

seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all

sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off

his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe

right over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a dexterous sleight,

pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down

rollicking so far at least as he remains visible from the deck,

reversing all other processions, by bringing up the rear with music.

But ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he pauses,

ships a new face altogether, and, then, independent, hilarious little

Flask enters King Ahab's presence, in the character of Abjectus,

or the Slave.



It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense

artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck

some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly

and defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one,

let those very officers the next moment go down to their

customary dinner in that same commander's cabin, and straightway

their inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him,

as he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous,

sometimes most comical.  Wherefore this difference?  A problem?

Perhaps not.  To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon;

and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously,

therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur.

But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides

over his own private dinner-table of invited guests, that man's

unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for the time;

that man's royalty of state transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar

was not the greatest.  Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted

what it is to be Caesar.  It is a witchery of social czarship

which there is no withstanding.  Now, if to this consideration

you super-add the official supremacy of a ship-master, then,

by inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity

of sea-life just mentioned.



Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion

on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-like but still

deferential cubs.  In his own proper turn, each officer waited

to be served.  They were as little children before Ahab; and yet,

in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance.

With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife,

as he carved the chief dish before him.  I do not suppose that for the

world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation,

even upon so neutral a topic as the weather.  No!  And when reaching

out his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked,

Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate

received his meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly;

and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate;

and chewed it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection.

For, like the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor

profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin

meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at

table old Ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb.

What a relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden

racket in the hold below.  And poor little Flask, he was

the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party.

His were the shin-bones of the saline beef; his would have been

the drumsticks.  For Flask to have presumed to help himself,

this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree.

Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would

he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world;

nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him.  And had Flask

helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it.

Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter.

Whether he thought the owners of the ship denied it to him,

on account of its clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether

he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such marketless waters,

butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for him, a subaltern;

however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man!



Another thing.  Flask was the last person down at the dinner,

and Flask is the first man up.  Consider!  For hereby Flask's

dinner was badly jammed in point of time.  Starbuck and Stubb

both had the start of him; and yet they also have the privilege

of lounging in the rear.  If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher

than Flask, happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows

symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself,

he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day; for it

is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck.

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that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer,

from that moment he had never known what it was to be otherwise

than hungry, more or less.  For what he ate did not so much relieve

his hunger, as keep it immortal in him.  Peace and satisfaction,

thought Flask, have for ever departed from my stomach.

I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fist a bit of old-fashioned

beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was before the mast.

There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory:

there's the insanity of life!  Besides, if it were so that

any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask

in Flask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do,

in order to obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime,

and get a peep at Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting

silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab.



Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first

table in the Pequod's cabin.  After their departure, taking place

in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared,

or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward.

And then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being

its residuary legatees.  They made a sort of temporary servants'

hall of the high and mighty cabin.



In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint

and nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table,

was the entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic

democracy of those inferior fellows the harpooneers.

While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the sound

of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed

their food with such a relish that there was a report to it.

They dined like lords; they filled their bellies like Indian

ships all day loading with spices.  Such portentous appetites

had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made

by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring

on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox.

And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a

nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly

way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back,

harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor,

assisted Dough-Boy's memory by snatching him up bodily,

and thrusting his head into a great empty wooden trencher,

while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the circle

preliminary to scalping him.  He was naturally a very nervous,

shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward;

the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse.

And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab,

and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages,

Dough-Boy's whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly,

after seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded,

he would escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining,

and fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door,

till all was over.



It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,

opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's; crosswise to them,

Daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought

his hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion

of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake,

as when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship.

But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious,

not to say dainty.  It seemed hardly possible that by such

comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality

diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person.

But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep

of the abounding element of air; and through his dilated

nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds.

Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished.

But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating--

an ugly sound enough--so much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy

almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his

own lean arms.  And when he would hear Tashtego singing out

for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked,

the simple-witted Steward all but shattered the crockery hanging

round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy.

Nor did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets,

for their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones,

at dinner, they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives;

that grating sound did not at all tend to tranquillize poor

Dough-Boy. How could he forget that in his Island days, Queequeg,

for one, must certainly have been guilty of some murderous,

convivial indiscretion.  Alas!  Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter

who waits upon cannibals.  Not a napkin should he carry on his arm,

but a buckler.  In good time, though, to his great delight,

the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous,

fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them

at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.



But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally

lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits,

they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just

before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their

own peculiar quarters.



In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American

whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion

that by rights the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by

courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there.

So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might

more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in it.

For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor

enters a house; turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned

out the next; and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air.

Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin was no companionship;

socially, Ahab was inaccessible.  Though nominally included

in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it.

He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived

in settled Missouri.  And as when Spring and Summer had departed,

that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree,

lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement,

howling old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body,

there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!







CHAPTER 35



The Mast-Head





It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation

with the other seamen my first mast-head came round.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

and with a high raised voice exclaiming:  "Whosoever of ye raises

me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;

whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes

punctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me

that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"



"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins

they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.



"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul:

"a white whale.  Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water;

if ye see but a bubble, sing out."



All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even

more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention

of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was

separately touched by some specific recollection.



"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same

that some call Moby Dick."



"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab.  "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"



"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"

said the Gay-Header deliberately.



"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,

even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"



"And he have one, two, tree--oh! good many iron in him hide,

too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk,

like him--him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand

round and round as though uncorking a bottle--"like him--him-"



"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie

all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is

a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile

of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing;

aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall.

Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen--

Moby Dick--Moby Dick!"



"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus

far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last

seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder.

"Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dick

that took off thy leg?"



"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck;

aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me;

Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now.

Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of

a heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale

that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!"

Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out:

"Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn,

and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames

before I give him up.  And this is what ye have shipped for,

men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all

sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.

What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now?  I think ye

do look brave."



"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer

to the excited old man:  "A sharp eye for the White Whale;

a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"



"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout.

"God bless ye, men.  Steward! go draw the great measure of grog.

But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not

chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?"



"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,

Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow;

but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance.

How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,

Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."



"Nantucket market!  Hoot!  But come closer, Starbuck;

thou requirest a little lower layer.  If money's to be

the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their

great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas,

one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee,

that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!"



"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it

rings most vast, but hollow."



"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee

from blindest instinct!  Madness!  To be enraged with a dumb thing,

Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."



"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer.  All visible objects, man,

are but as pasteboard masks.  But in each event--in the living act,

the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning

thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind

the unreasoning mask.  If man will strike, strike through the mask!

How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?

To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.

Sometimes I think there's naught beyond.  But 'tis enough.

He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength,

with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.  That inscrutable

thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent,

or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.

Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever

a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations.

But not my master, man, is even that fair play.  Who's over me?

Truth hath no confines.  Take off thine eye! more intolerable

than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare!  So, so; thou reddenest

and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye,

Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself.

There are men from whom warm words are small indignity.

I meant not to incense thee.  Let it go.  Look! see yonder Turkish

cheeks of spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun.

The Pagan leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live;

and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel!

The crew, man, the crew!  Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this

matter of the whale?  See Stubb! he laughs!  See yonder Chilian!

he snorts to think of it.  Stand up amid the general hurricane,

thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck!  And what is it?

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Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this

indissoluble league.  Ha!  Starbuck! but the deed is done!

Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it.  Drink, ye harpooneers!

drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow--

Death to Moby Dick!  God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick

to his death!"  The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted;

and to cries and maledictions against the white whale,

the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss.

Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered.  Once more, and finally,

the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew;

when, waving his free hand to them, they all dispersed;

and Ahab retired within his cabin.







CHAPTER 37



Sunset





The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.





I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,

where'er I sail.  The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track;

let them; but first I pass.



Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush

like wine.  The gold brow plumbs the blue.  The diver sun--

slow dived from noon--goes down; my soul mounts up! she

wearies with her endless hill.  Is, then, the crown too heavy

that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy.  Yet is it bright

with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings;

but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds.

'Tis iron--that I know--not gold.  'Tis split, too--that I feel;

the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against

the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs

no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!



Dry heat upon my brow?  Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly

spurred me, so the sunset soothed.  No more.  This lovely light,

it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can

ne'er enjoy.  Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low,

enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly!

damned in the midst of Paradise!  Good night--good night!

(waving his hand, he moves from the window.)



'Twas not so hard a task.  I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;

but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,

and they revolve.  Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder,

they all stand before me; and I their match.  Oh, hard! that to

fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting!  What I've dared,

I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do!  They think me mad--

Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened!

That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!

The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and--Aye!  I lost

this leg.  I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.

Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one.  That's more than ye,

ye great gods, ever were.  I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,

ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes!  I will not

say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own size;

don't pommel me!  No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again;

but ye have run and hidden.  Come forth from behind your cotton bags!

I have no long gun to reach ye.  Come, Ahab's compliments to ye;

come and see if ye can swerve me.  Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me,

else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there.  Swerve me?

The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my

soul is grooved to run.  Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled

hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!

Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!







CHAPTER 38



Dusk





By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it.





My soul is more than matched; she's over-manned; and by a madman!

Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field!

But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me!

I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it.

Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with

a cable I have no knife to cut.  Horrible old man!  Who's over him,

he cries;--aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords

it over all below!  Oh!  I plainly see my miserable office,--

to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity!

For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.

Yet is there hope.  Time and tide flow wide.  The hated whale has

the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its

glassy globe.  His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside.

I would up heart, were it not like lead.  But my whole clock's run down;

my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again.





[A burst of revelry from the forecastle.]





Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch

of human mothers in them!  Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.

The white whale is their demigorgon.  Hark! the infernal orgies!

that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft!

Methinks it pictures life.  Foremost through the sparkling sea

shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag

dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his sternward cabin,

builded over the dead water of the wake, and further on,

hunted by its wolfish gurglings.  The long howl thrills me through!

Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch!  Oh, life! 'tis in an

hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,--

as wild, untutored things are forced to feed--Oh, life! 'tis

now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me!

that horror's out of me, and with the soft feeling of the human

in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures!

Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!







CHAPTER 39

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

(Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.--

Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job--coming.







CHAPTER 40



Midnight, Forecastle



HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS





(Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning,

and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)



          Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!

          Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!

                   Our captain's commanded.--



1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR



Oh, boys, don't be sentimental.  it's bad for the digestion!

Take a tonic, follow me!  (Sings, and all follow)

           Our captain stood upon the deck,

             A spy-glass in his hand,

           A viewing of those gallant whales

             That blew at every strand.

           Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,

             And by your braces stand,

           And we'll have one of those fine whales,

             Hand, boys, over hand!

      So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail!

      While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!



MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK



Eight bells there, forward!



2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR



Avast the chorus!  Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy? Strike

the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the watch.

I've the sort of mouth for that--the hogshead mouth.  So, so,

(thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!

Eight bells there below!  Tumble up!



DUTCH SAILOR



Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that.  I mark this in our old

Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as filliping to others.

We sing; they sleep--aye, lie down there, like ground-tier butts.

At 'em again!  There, take this copper-pump, and hail 'em through it.

Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lassies.  Tell 'em it's

the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment.

That's the way--that's it; thy throat ain't spoiled with

eating Amsterdam butter.



FRENCH SAILOR



Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor

in Blanket Bay.  What say ye?  There comes the other watch.

Stand by all legs!  Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!



PIP (Sulky and sleepy)



Don't know where it is.



FRENCH SAILOR



Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears.  Jig it, men, I say;

merry's the word; hurrah!  Damn me, won't you dance?

Form, now, Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle?

Throw yourselves!  Legs! legs!



ICELAND SAILOR



I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste.

I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject;

but excuse me.



MALTESE SAILOR



Me too; where's your girls?  Who but a fool would take his left hand

by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do?  Partners!  I must

have partners!



SICILIAN SAILOR



Aye; girls and a green!--then I'll hop with ye; yea, turn grasshopper!



LONG-ISLAND SAILOR



Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us.

Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon.

Ah! here comes the music; now for it!



AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.)



Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits;

up you mount!  Now, boys!



(The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below;

some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging.  Oaths a-plenty.)



AZORE SAILOR (Dancing)



Go it, Pip!  Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,

bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!



PIP



Jinglers, you say?--there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.



CHINA SAILOR



Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of thyself.





FRENCH SAILOR



Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it!

Split jibs! tear yourselves!  Tashtego ( Quietly smoking.)



That's a white man; he calls that fun:  humph!  I save my sweat.



OLD MANX SAILOR



I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are

dancing over.  I'll dance over your grave, I will--that's the bitterest

threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round corners.

O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled crews!

Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars

have it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it.

Dance on, lads, you're young; I was once.



3D NANTUCKET SAILOR



Spell oh!--whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a calm--

give us a whiff, Tash.



(They cease dancing, and gather in clusters.  Meantime the sky darkens--

the wind rises.)



LASCAR SAILOR



By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon.  The sky-born, high-tide

Ganges turned to wind!  Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!



MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking his cap)



It's the waves--the snow's caps turn to jig it now.

They'll shake their tassels soon.  Now would all the waves

were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them evermore!

There's naught so sweet on earth--heaven may not match it!--

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and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind,

which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent,

it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the

frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral.

But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it

must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts

and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer

inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind

of self-assumed, independent being of its own.  Nay, could grimly

live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was conjoined,

fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth.

Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what

seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing,

a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure,

but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in itself.

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee;

and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus;

a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very

creature he creates.







CHAPTER 45



The Affidavit





So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed,

as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious

particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its

earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume;

but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more

familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood,

and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance

of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural

verity of the main points of this affair.



I care not to perform this part of my task methodically;

but shall be content to produce the desired impression

by separate citations of items, practically or reliably known

to me as a whaleman; and from these citations, I take it--

the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself.



First:  I have personally known three instances where a whale,

after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape;

and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been

again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons,

both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body.

In the instance where three years intervened between the flinging

of the two harpoons; and I think it may have been something more

than that; the man who darted them happening, in the interval,

to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there,

joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior,

where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered

by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other

common perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions.

Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels;

no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its

flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.  This man and

this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the other.

I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this;

that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second

attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them,

afterwards taken from the dead fish.  In the three-year instance,

it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last,

and the last time distinctly recognized a peculiar sort of huge mole

under the whale's eye, which I had observed there three years previous.

I say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that.

Here are three instances, then, which I personally know the truth of;

but I have heard of many other instances from persons whose veracity

in the matter there is no good ground to impeach.



Secondly:  It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant

the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several

memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean

has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable.

Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally

owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales;

for however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be,

they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling

him down into a peculiarly valuable oil.  No:  the reason was this:

that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung

a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there

did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were

content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins

when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea,

without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance.

Like some poor devils ashore that happen to known an irascible

great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him

in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further,

they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.



But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great

individual celebrity--nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown;

not only was he famous in life and now is immortal in

forecastle stories after death, but he was admitted into

all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a name;

had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar.  Was it not so,

O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg,

who so long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name,

whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay?  Was it

not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed

their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land?  Was it not so,

O Morquan!  King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times

assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky?

Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like

an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back!

In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students

of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar.



But this is not all.  New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various

times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels,

were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out,

chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their

anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting

out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it

in his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon,

the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.



I do not know where I can find a better place than just here,

to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important,

as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness

of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe.

For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires

full as much bolstering as error.  So ignorant are most landsmen of some

of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without

some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise,

of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable,

or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.



First:  Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general

perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid

conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur.

One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters

and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record

at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record.

Do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps

caught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being

carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan--

do you suppose that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper

obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast?  No:  because the

mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea.  In fact,

did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect

from New Guinea?  Yet I will tell you that upon one particular voyage

which I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty

different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale,

some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat's crew.

For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon

you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.



Secondly:  People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea

that a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power;

but I have ever found that when narrating to them some specific

example of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly

complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I declare upon

my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses,

when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.



But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established

upon testimony entirely independent of my own.  That point is this:

The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing,

and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,

utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more,

the Sperm Whale has done it.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship

in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual

adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village

of Dorchester near Boston.  I have the honor of being a nephew

of his.  I have particularly questioned him concerning

this passage in Langsdorff.  He substantiates every word.

The ship, however, was by no means a large one:  a Russian

craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle

after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.



In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure,

so full, too, of honest wonders--the voyage of Lionel Wafer,

one of ancient Dampier's old chums--I found a little matter

set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I

cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example,

if such be needed.



Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando,"

as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes.  "In our way thither,"

he says, "about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about

one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship

felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation

that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think;

but every one began to prepare for death.  And, indeed, the shock

was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship

had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over,

we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground.  ... The

suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages,

and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks.

Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown

out of his cabin!"  Lionel then goes on to impute the shock

to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation

by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time,

did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land.

But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early

hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen

whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.



I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known

to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale.

In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase

the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself,

and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks.

The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head;

and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been examples

where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm,

been transferred to the ship, and secured there! the whale towing

her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart.

Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck,

is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage,

as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers;

nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his character,

that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth,

and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes.

But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration;

a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail

to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book

corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels

(like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for

the millionth time we say amen with Solomon--Verily there is nothing

new under the sun.



In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian

magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian

was Emperor and Belisarius general.  As many know, he wrote

the history of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value.

By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most

trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one

or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently

to be mentioned.



Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of

his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the

neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels

at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years.

A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid.

Nor is there any reason it should be.  Of what precise species this

sea-monster was, is not mentioned.  But as he destroyed ships,

as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am

strongly inclined to think a sperm whale.  And I will tell you why.

For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always

unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it.

Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be,

in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual

gregarious resort.  But further investigations have recently proved to me,

that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence

of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean.  I am told, on good authority,

that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found

the skeleton of a sperm whale.  Now, as a vessel of war readily passes

through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route,

pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.



In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar

substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right whale.

But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale--

squid or cuttle-fish--lurks at the bottom of that sea,

because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort,

have been found at its surface.  If, then, you properly

put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit,

you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning,

Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships

of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.







CHAPTER 46



Surmises





Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his

thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;

though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that

one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature

and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways,

altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage.

Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wanting other

motives much more influential with him.  It would be refining

too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that his

vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight

for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries,

picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way.

Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object--

that final and romantic object, too many would have turned

from in disgust.  I will not strip these men, thought Ahab,

of all hopes of cash--aye, cash.  They may scorn cash now;

but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them,

and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them,

this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.



Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more

related to Ahab personally.  Having impulsively, it is probable,

and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private

purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that,

in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable

charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal,

his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all

further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command.

From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible

consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground,

Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself.

That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain

and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention

to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his

crew to be subjected to.



For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally

developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree

continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's voyage;

observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself

to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit

of his profession.



Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard

hailing the three mastheads and admonishing them to keep

a bright look-out, and not omit reporting even a porpoise.

This vigilance was not long without reward.







CHAPTER 47



The Mat-Maker





It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging

about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters.

Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat,

for an additional lashing to our boat.  So still and subdued and yet

somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of revelry

lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his

own invisible self.



I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat.

As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline

between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle,

and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy

oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon

the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn;

I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over

the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting

dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were

the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically

weaving and weaving away at the Fates.  There lay the fixed

threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning,

unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit

of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own.

This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own

hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into

these unalterable threads.  Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive,

indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly,

or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be;

and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a

corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric;

this savage's sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions

both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance--

aye, chance, free will, and necessity--no wise incompatible--

all interweavingly working together.  The straight warp

of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course--

its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that;

free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads;

and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines

of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will,

though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either,

and has the last featuring blow at events.





Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound

so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly,

that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood

gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing.

High aloft in the cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego.

His body was reaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out

like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he continued his cries.

To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being

heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs

perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could

that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence

as from Tashtego the Indian's.



As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly

and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought

him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate,

and by those wild cries announcing their coming.



"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!"



"Where-away?"



"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!"



Instantly all was commotion.



The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating

and reliable uniformity.  And thereby whalemen distinguish this

fish from other tribes of his genus.



"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego;

and the whales disappeared.

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CHAPTER 48



The First Lowering





The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other

side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose

the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.  This boat had

always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called

the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter.

The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart,

with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips.

A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him,

with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff.  But strangely

crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban,

the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head.

Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid,

tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives

of the Manillas;--a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty,

and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies

and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord,

whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.



While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers,

Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head,

"All ready there, Fedallah?"



"Ready," was the half-hissed reply.



"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck.

"Lower away there, I say."



Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their

amazement the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled

round in the blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped

into the sea; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring,

unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leaped

down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below.



Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth keel,

coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern,

and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect

in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread

themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water.

But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and

his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command.



"Captain Ahab?-" said Starbuck.



"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats.

Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!"



"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his

great steering oar.  "Lay back!" addressing his crew.  "There!--there!--

there again!  There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay back!



"Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy."



"Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now.

Didn't I hear 'em in the hold?  And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it?

What say ye, Cabaco?  They are stowaways, Mr. Flask."



"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children;

pull, my little ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb

to his crew, some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness.

"Why don't you break your backbones, my boys?  What is it you stare at?

Those chaps in yonder boat?  Tut!  They are only five more hands

come to help us never mind from where the more the merrier.

Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone devils are good

fellows enough.  So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke

for a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes!

Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes!

Three cheers, men--all hearts alive!  Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--

don't be in a hurry.  Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals?

Bite something, you dogs!  So, so, so, then:--softly, softly!

That's it--that's it! long and strong.  Give way there, give way!

The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep.

Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull.  Pull, will ye? pull,

can't ye? pull, won't ye?  Why in the name of gudgeons and

ginger-cakes don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull,

and start your eyes out!  Here," whipping out the sharp knife

from his girdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife,

and pull with the blade between his teeth.  That's it--that's it.

Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her--

start her, my silverspoons!  Start her, marling-spikes!"



Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large,

because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general,

and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing.

But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings

that he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation.

Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity.

He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone

so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed

so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman

could hear such queer invocations without pulling for

dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing.

Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself,

so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped--

open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning commander,

by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew.

Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists,

whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put

all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.



In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely

across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were

pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.



"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir,

if ye please!"



"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch

as he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew;

his face set like a flint from Stubb's.



"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!



"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed.

(Strong, strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew,

then speaking out loud again:  "A sad business, Mr. Stubb!

(seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb,

all for the best.  Let all your crew pull strong, come what will.

(Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead,

Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for.  (Pull, my boys!)

Sperm, sperm's the play!  This at least is duty; duty and profit

hand in hand."



"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the

boats diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so.

Aye, and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often,

as Dough-Boy long suspected.  They were hidden down there.

The White Whale's at the bottom of it.  Well, well, so be it!

Can't be helped!  All right!  Give way men!  It ain't the White Whale

to-day! Give way!"



Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical

instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not

unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of

the ship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time

previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,

this had in some small measure prepared them for the event.

It took off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all

this and Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance,

they were for the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the

affair still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures

as to dark Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning.

For me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen

creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn,

as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.



Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided

the furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats;

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Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of

the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm

to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed

head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one

dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders.

And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing

him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by.



At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with

what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman

will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched

about by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas.

Still more strange to see him giddily perched upon the logger

head itself, under such circumstances.  But the sight of little

Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious;

for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of,

barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously

rolled his fine form.  On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask

seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider.

Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask

would now and then stamp with impatience; but not one added

heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly chest.

So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living

magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her

seasons for that.



Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing solicitudes.

The whales might have made one of their regular soundings,

not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case,

Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace

the languishing interval with his pipe.  He withdrew it from

his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather.

He loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end;

but hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper

of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been

setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light

from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy

of hurry, "Down, down all, and give way!--there they are!"



To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been

visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish

white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it,

and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from

white rolling billows.  The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled,

as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron.

Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath

a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming.  Seen in advance

of all the other indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted,

seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders.



All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot

of troubled water and air.  But it bade far to outstrip them;

it flew on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles borne

down a rapid stream from the hills.



"Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest possible

but intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp

fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow,

almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses.

He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything

to him.  Only the silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly

pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now harsh with command,

now soft with entreaty.



How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out and

say something, my hearties.  Roar and pull, my thunderbolts!

Beach me, beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me,

and I'll sign over to you my Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys;

including wife and children, boys.  Lay me on--lay me on!

O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad!  See! see that

white water!"  And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head,

and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it

far off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging

in the boat's stern like a crazed colt from the prairie.



"Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his

unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth,

at a short distance, followed after--"He's got fits, that Flask has.

Fits? yes, give him fits--that's the very word--pitch fits into 'em.

Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;--

merry's the word.  Pull, babes--pull, sucklings--pull, all.

But what the devil are you hurrying about?  Softly, softly,

and steadily, my men.  Only pull, and keep pulling; nothing more.

Crack all your backbones, and bite your knives in two--that's all.

Take it easy--why don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your

livers and lungs!"



But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that

tiger-yellow crew of his--these were words best omitted here;

for you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land.

Only the infidel sharks in the audacious seas may give ear

to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of red murder,

and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.



Meanwhile, all the boats tore on.  The repeated specific

allusions of Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitious

monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing

his boat's bow with its tail--these allusions of his were at

times so vivid and life-like, that they would cause some one

or two of his men to snatch a fearful look over his shoulder.

But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must put

out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks;

usages announcing that they must have no organs but ears;

and no limbs but arms, in these critical moments.



It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe!  The vast swells

of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made,

as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a

boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat,

as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the

sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two;

the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows;

the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill;

the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these,

with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering

gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory

Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails,

like a wild hen after her screaming brood;--all this was thrilling.

Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into

the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost

encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world;--

neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than

that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling

into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.



The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more

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and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope

in the midst of despair.



Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat,

we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on.  The mist still spread

over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat.

Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear.

We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled

by the storm.  The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were

dimly parted by a huge, vague form.  Affrighted, we all sprang into

the sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon

us within a distance of not much more than its length.



Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one

instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip

at the base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it,

and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern.

Again we swam for it, were dashed against it by the seas,

and were at last taken up and safely landed on board.

Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose

from their fish and returned to the ship in good time.

The ship had given us up, but was still cruising,

if haply it might light upon some token of our perishing,--

an oar or a lance pole.







CHAPTER 49



The Hyena





There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed

affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast

practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns,

and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing.

He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions,

all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby;

as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints.

And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden

disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself,

seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches

in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker.

That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man

only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst

of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him

a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.

There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy

sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this

whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.



"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck,

and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water;

"Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?"

Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me

to understand that such things did often happen.



"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his

oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb, I

think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met,

our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent.

I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail

set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?"



"Certain.  I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale

off Cape Horn."



"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing

close by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am not.

Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery,

Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself

back-foremost into death's jaws?"



"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask.  "Yes, that's the law.

I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale

face foremost.  Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint

for squint, mind that!"



Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate

statement of the entire case.  Considering, therefore, that squalls

and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep,

were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that

at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I

must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat--

oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness

upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings;

considering that the particular disaster to our own particular boat

was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his whale

almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that Starbuck,

notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in the fishery;

considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat;

and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated,

touching the White Whale:  taking all things together, I say,

I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.

"Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my lawyer,

executor, and legatee."



It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering

at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people

in the world more fond of that diversion.  This was the fourth

time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing.

After the ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion,

I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart.

Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days

that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary

clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case may be.

I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest.

I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet

ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a

snug family vault.



Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock,

here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction,

and the devil fetch the hindmost.







CHAPTER 50



Ahab's Boat and Crew.  Fedallah

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A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats;

his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities.

Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns

from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be

not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities

of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm

to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one.

In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is,

is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so

many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind,

except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains.

Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to

many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line,

the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition

between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and recklessly

ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.



"'I see!  I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his

chicha upon his silvery ruffles.  'No need to travel!

The world's one Lima.  I had thought, now, that at your temperate

North the generations were cold and holy as the hills.--

But the story.'



"I had left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay.

Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior

mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck.

But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers

rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards

the forecastle.  Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt,

and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm's way,

the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling

upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke

him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to

the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into the heart of it

with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his resentment.

But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them all;

they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing

about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass,

these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade.



"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing

them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward.

'Come out of that, ye cut-throats!'



"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,

defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain

to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would

be the signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands.

Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true,

the captain a little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents

instantly to return to their duty.



"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their ringleader.



"'Turn to! turn to!--I make no promise; to your duty!

Do you want to sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this?

Turn to!' and he once more raised a pistol.



"'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt.  'Aye, let her sink.

Not a man of us turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn

against us.  What say ye, men?' turning to his comrades.

A fierce cheer was their response.



"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping

his eye on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:--

'It's not our fault; we didn't want it; I told him to take

his hammer away; it was boy's business; he might have known

me before this; I told him not to prick the buffalo;

I believe I have broken a finger here against his cursed jaw;

ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there,

men? look to those handspikes, my hearties.  Captain, by God,

look to yourself; say the word; don't be a fool; forget it all;

we are ready to turn to; treat us decently, and we're your men;

but we won't be flogged.'



"'Turn to!  I make no promises, turn to, I say!'



"'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him,

'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped

for the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim

our discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don't want a row;

it's not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work,

but we won't be flogged.'



"'Turn to!' roared the Captain.



"Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:--'I tell

you what it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung

for such a shabby rascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless

ye attack us; but till you say the word about not flogging us,

we don't do a hand's turn.'



"'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye there

till ye're sick of it.  Down ye go.'



"'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men.  Most of them

were against it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt,

they preceded him down into their dark den, growlingly disappearing,

like bears into a cave.



"As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks,

the Captain and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing

over the slide of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it,

and loudly called for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock

belonging to the companionway.



Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something down

the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them--ten in number--

leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained neutral.



"All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers,

forward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and

fore hatchway; at which last place it was feared the insurgents

might emerge, after breaking through the bulkhead below.

But the hours of darkness passed in peace; the men who still

remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinking

and clanking at intervals through the dreary night dismally

resounded through the ship.



"At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck,

summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused.

Water was then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls

of biscuit were tossed after it; when again turning the key upon

them and pocketing it, the Captain returned to the quarter-deck.

Twice every day for three days this was repeated; but on the fourth

morning a confused wrangling, and then a scuffling was heard,

as the customary summons was delivered; and suddenly four men

burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready to turn to.

The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united perhaps

to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to

surrender at discretion.  Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated

his demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific

hint to stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged.

On the fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into

the air from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain them.

Only three were left.



"'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer.



"'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt.



"Oh! certainly," said the Captain, and the key clicked.



"It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection

of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice

that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place

as black as the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed

to the two Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst

out of their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed

with their keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements

with a handle at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail;

and if by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship.

For himself, he would do this, he said, whether they joined him

or not.  That was the last night he should spend in that den.

But the scheme met with no opposition on the part of the other two;

they swore they were ready for that, or for any other mad thing,

for anything in short but a surrender.  And what was more, they each

insisted upon being the first man on deck, when the time to make

the rush should come.  But to this their leader as fiercely objected,

reserving that priority for himself; particularly as his two comrades

would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter; and both of them

could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one man at a time.

And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants must come out.



"Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own

separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same

piece of treachery, namely:  to be the foremost in breaking out,

in order to be the first of the three, though the last of the ten,

to surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon

such conduct might merit.  But when Steelkilt made known his

determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way,

by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret

treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze,

verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences;

and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords;

and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight.



"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood,

he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle.

In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot,

the still struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air

by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the honor

of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder.

But all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like

dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging,

like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning.

'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them,

'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!'



"At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had rebelled

from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former

that he had a good mind to flog them all round--thought, upon the while,

he would do so--he ought to--justice demanded it; but for the present,

considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a reprimand,

which he accordingly administered in the vernacular.



"'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men

in the rigging--'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;'

and, seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs

of the two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung

their heads sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn.



"'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last; 'but there is still

rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give up.

Take that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can

say for himself.'



"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion

of his cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head,

said in a sort of hiss, 'What I say is this--and mind it well---

if you flog me, I murder you!'



"'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'--and the Captain drew

off with the rope to strike.



"'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman.



"'But I must,'--and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke.



"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but

the Captain; who, to the amazement of all hands, started back,

paced the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly

throwing down his rope, said, 'I won't do it--let him go--

cut him down:  d'ye hear?'



But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man,

with a bandaged head, arrested them--Radney the chief mate.

Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning,

hearing the tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far

had watched the whole scene.  Such was the state of his mouth,

that he could hardly speak; but mumbling something about his

being willing and able to do what the captain dared not attempt,

he snatched the rope and advanced to his pinioned foe.



"'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman.



"'So I am, but take that.'  The mate was in the very act

of striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm.

He paused:  and then pausing no more, made good his word,

spite of Steelkilt's threat, whatever that might have been.

The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned to,

and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps

clanged as before.



"Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below,

a clamor was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors

running up, besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort

with the crew.  Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back,

so at their own instance they were put down in the ship's run

for salvation.  Still, no sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest.

On the contrary, it seemed, that mainly at Steelkilt's instigation,

they had resolved to maintain the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders

to the last, and, when the ship reached port, desert her in a body.

But in order to insure the speediest end to the voyage, they all

agreed to another thing--namely, not to sing out for whales,

in case any should be discovered.  For, spite of her leak,

and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still maintained her

mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to lower for a fish

that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the cruising ground;

and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his berth for a boat,

and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the vital jaw

of the whale.



"But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this

sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel

(at least till all was over) concerning his own proper and private

revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ventricles of his heart.

He was in Radney the chief mate's watch; and as if the infatuated

man sought to run more than half way to meet his doom, after the

scene at the rigging, he insisted, against the express counsel

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan,

learnedly known as the Matse Avatar.  But though this sculpture

is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail

of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong.

It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda,

than the broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes.



But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian

painter's portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better

than the antediluvian Hindoo.  It is Guido's picture of

Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale.

Where did Guido get the model of such a strange creature as that?

Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his own

"Perseus Descending," make out one whit better.  The huge

corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface,

scarcely drawing one inch of water.  It has a sort of howdah on

its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows

are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from

the Thames by water into the Tower.  Then, there are the Prodromus

whales of the old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale, as depicted

in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers.

What shall be said of these?  As for the book-binder's whale

winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--

as stamped and gilded on the backs and titlepages of many

books both old and new--that is a very picturesque but purely

fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures

on antique vases.  Though universally denominated a dolphin,

I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale;

because it was so intended when the device was first introduced.

It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere

about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning;

and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period,

dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan.



In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books

you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale,

where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold,

Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain.

In the title-page of the original edition of the "Advancement of Learning"

you will find some curious whales.



But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those

pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations,

by those who know.  In old Harris's collection of voyages there

are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages,

A.D. 1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas

in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master."  In one of those

plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying

among ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs.

In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing

the whale with perpendicular flukes.



Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett,

a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage round

Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending

the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries."  In this book is an outline

purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale,

drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793,

and hoisted on deck."  I doubt not the captain had this veracious

picture taken for the benefit of his marines.  To mention but one

thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which applied,

according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale,

would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long.

Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking

out of that eye!



Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History

for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same

heinousness of mistake.  Look at that popular work

"Goldsmith's Animated Nature."  In the abridged London edition

of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale."

I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale

looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale,

one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth

century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon

any intelligent public of schoolboys.



Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede,

a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book,

wherein are several pictures of the different species of

the Leviathan.  All these are not only incorrect, but the picture

of the Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say the Right

whale), even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching

that species, declares not to have its counterpart in nature.



But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business

was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the

famous Baron.  In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales,

in which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale.

Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best

provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket.  In a word,

Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash.

Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men

seldom have), but whence he derived that picture, who can tell?

Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field,

Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a

Chinese drawing.  And what sort of lively lads with the pencil

those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.



As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging

over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them?

They are generally Richard III.  whales, with dromedary humps,

and very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts,

that is whaleboats full of mariners:  their deformities

floundering in seas of blood and blue paint.



But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very

surprising after all.  Consider!  Most of the scientific drawings have

been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a

drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent

the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars.

Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living

Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait.

The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only

to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast

bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship;

and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal

man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty

swells and undulations.  And, not to speak of the highly presumable

difference of contour between a young suckling whale and a full-grown

Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the case of one of those young

sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such is then the outlandish,

eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that his precise expression

the devil himself could not catch.



But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale,

accurate hints may be derived touching his true form.  Not at all.

For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan,

that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape.

Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra

in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea

of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's

other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of this

kind could be inferred from any leviathan's articulated bones.

In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale

bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal

as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it.

This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part

of this book will be incidentally shown.  It is also very curiously

displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer

to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb.  This fin has

four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger.

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Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line

is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there,

is again carried forward the entire length of the boat,

resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar,

so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing

between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales,

to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of

the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common quill,

prevents it from slipping out.  From the chocks it hangs in a slight

festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again;

and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon

the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still

a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp--

the rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon;

but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry

mystifications too tedious to detail.



Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils,

twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction.

All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions;

so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers,

with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs.

Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid

those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar,

bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted,

and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings;

he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes

the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly.

Yet habit--strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies,

more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never

heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch

white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses;

and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six

men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter

around every neck, as you may say.



Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account

for those repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are

casually chronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of

the boat by the line, and lost.  For, when the line is darting out,

to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst

of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play,

when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you.

It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of

these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you

are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning;

and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness

of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of,

and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never

pierce you out.



Again:  as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and

prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;

for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm;

and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle

holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion;

so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines

about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play--

this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other

aspect of this dangerous affair.  But why say more?  All men live

enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks;

but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death,

that mortals realize the silent, subtle, everpresent perils of life.

And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat,

you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though

seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon,

by your side.







CHAPTER 61



Stubb Kills a Whale







If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents,

to Queequeg it was quite a different object.



"When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow

of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale."



The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing

special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly

resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea.

For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were

voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; that is,

it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and

other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off

the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.



It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my

shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds,

to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air.

No resolution could withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing

all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body;

though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will,

long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.



Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that

the seamen at the main and mizzen mast-heads were already drowsy.

So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars,

and for every swing that we made there was a nod from below from

the slumbering helmsman.  The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests;

and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west,

and the sun over all.



Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes;

like vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible,

gracious agency preserved me; with a shock I came back to life.

And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic

Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull

of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue,

glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror.  But lazily undulating

in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his

vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe

of a warm afternoon.  But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last.

As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship

and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness;

and more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel,

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black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped out

huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head.

This particular feat of the shark seems all but miraculous.

How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they contrive to gouge

out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the universal

problem of all things.  The mark they thus leave on the whale,

may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking

for a screw.



Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight,

sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks,

like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved,

ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though,

while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally

carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded

and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths,

are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat;

and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down,

it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say,

a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though

sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships

crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be

handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave

to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances

might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions,

when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast;

yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them

in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits,

than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea.

If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision

about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of

conciliating the devil.



But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet

that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded

the smacking of his own epicurean lips.



"Cook, cook!--where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length,

widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure

base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork

into the dish, as if stabbing with his lance; "cook, you cook!--

sail this way, cook!"



The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously

routed from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour,

came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks,

there was something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did

not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece,

as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his

step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made

of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along,

and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop

on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands

folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed

his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways

inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.



"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel

to his mouth, "don't you think this steak is rather overdone?

You've been beating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender.

Don't I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough?

There are those sharks now over the side, don't you see they

prefer it tough and rare?  What a shindy they are kicking up!

Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are welcome to help

themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet.

Blast me, if I can hear my own voice.  Away, cook, and deliver

my message.  Here, take this lantern," snatching one from his sideboard;

"now then, go and preach to them!"



Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across

the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand drooping his light

low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation,

with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning

far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks,

while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.



"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat

dam noise dare.  You hear?  Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips!

Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings,

but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!"



"Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap

on the shoulder,--Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way

when you're preaching.  That's no way to convert sinners, Cook!  Who dat?

Den preach to him yourself," sullenly turning to go.



No, Cook; go on, go on."



"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"--



"Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax 'em to it, try that,"

and Fleece continued.



"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you,

fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness--'top dat dam slappin' ob de tail!

How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up such a dam slapping

and bitin' dare?"



"Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won't have that swearing.

Talk to 'em gentlemanly."



Once more the sermon proceeded.



"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don't blame ye so much for;

dat is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur,

dat is de pint.  You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de

shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing

more dan de shark well goberned.  Now, look here, bred'ren, just

try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale.

Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say.

Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale?  And, by Gor, none on

you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else.

I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders;

but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de

brigness of de mout is not to swallar wid, but to bit off de

blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge

to help demselves."



"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go on."



"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scrougin'

and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word;

no use a-preaching to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em,

till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless;

and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you den;

for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral,

and can't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber."



"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give

the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to my supper."



Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob,

raised his shrill voice, and cried--



"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can;

fill your dam bellies 'till dey bust--and den die."



"Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan;

Stand just where you stood before, there, over against me,

and pay particular attention."



"All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs

in the desired position.



"Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile;

"I shall now go back to the subject of this steak.

In the first place, how old are you, cook?"



"What dat do wid de 'teak, " said the old black, testily.



"Silence!  How old are you, cook?"



"'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered.



And have you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred

years, cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?"

rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word,

so that that morsel seemed a continuation of the question.

"Where were you born, cook?"



"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke."



"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too.  But I want to know

what country you were born in, cook!"



"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he cried sharply.



"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook.

You must go home and be born over again; you don't know how to cook

a whale-steak yet."



"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he growled, angrily,

turning round to depart.



"Come back here, cook;--here, hand me those tongs;--now take that bit of

steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be?

Take it, I say"--holding the tongs towards him--"take it, and taste it."



Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old

negro muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy."



"Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more; "do you belong

to the church?"



"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly.



"And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,

where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his

hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook!

And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did

just now, eh?" said Stubb.  "Where do you expect to go to, cook?"



"Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.



"Avast! heave to!  I mean when you die, cook.  It's an awful question.

Now what's your answer?"



"When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly,

changing his whole air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go nowhere;

but some bressed angel will come and fetch him."



"Fetch him?  How?  In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah?

And fetch him where?"



"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head,

and keeping it there very solemnly.



"So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook,

when you are dead?  But don't you know the higher you climb,

the colder it gets?  Main-top, eh?"



"Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks.



"You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see

where your tongs are pointing.  But, perhaps you expect to get

into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no,

no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way,

round by the rigging.  It's a ticklish business, but must be done,

or else it's no go.  But none of us are in heaven yet.

Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders.  Do ye hear?

Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart,

when I'm giving my orders, cook.  What! that your heart, there?--

that's your gizzard!  Aloft! aloft!--that's it--now you have it.

Hold it there now, and pay attention."



"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,

vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front

at one and the same time.



"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,

that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that,

don't you?  Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak

for my private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do

so as not to spoil it by overdoing.  Hold the steak in one hand,

and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear?

And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure

you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle.

As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook.  There, now

ye may go."



But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.



"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D'ye

hear? away you sail then.--Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.--

Avast heaving again!  Whale-balls for breakfast--don't forget."



"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale.

I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,"

muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation

he went to his hammock.









CHAPTER 65



The Whale as a Dish









That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds

his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say;

this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little

into the history and philosophy of it.



It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale

was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large

prices there.  Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of

the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce

to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species

of whale.  Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating.

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Already you know what his blubber is.  That blubber is something

of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher,

more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve

and fifteen inches in thickness.



Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's

skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point

of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you

cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body

but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal,

if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?  True, from the

unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an

infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest

shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin;

that is, previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens,

but becomes rather hard and brittle.  I have several such dried bits,

which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I

said before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes

pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence.

At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their

own spectacles, as you may say.  But what I am driving at here is this.

That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit,

invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be regarded

as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it

were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendous

whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new-born child.

But no more of this.



Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,

as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk

of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that,

in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state,

is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea

may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere

part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that.

Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight

of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.



In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among

the many marvels he presents.  Almost invariably it is all over obliquely

crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array,

something like those in the finest Italian line engravings.

But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass

substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it,

as if they were engraved upon the body itself.  Nor is this all.

In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks,

as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far

other delineations.  These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call

those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics,

then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion.

By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale

in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing

the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic

palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.  Like those

mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.

This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing.

Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale

presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks,

effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason

of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect.

I should say that those New England rocks on the seacoast,

which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping

contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, that those rocks

must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular.

It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably

made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarked

them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species.



A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin

or blubber of the whale.  It has already been said, that it

is stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces.

Like most sea-terms, this one is very happy and significant.

For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real

blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt

over his head, and skirting his extremity.  It is by reason of this

cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep

himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.

What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering,

icy seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout?

True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters;

but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish,

whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm

themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter

would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has

lungs and warm blood.  Freeze his blood, and he dies.  How wonderful

is it then--except after explanation--that this great monster,

to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man;

how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips

for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard,

they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen

into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber.

But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment,

that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo

negro in summer.



It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong

individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare

virtue of interior spaciousness.  Oh, man! admire and model

thyself after the whale!  Do thou, too, remain warm among ice.

Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it.

Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole.  Like the

great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man!

in all seasons a temperature of thine own.



But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things!

Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures,

how few vast as the whale!







CHAPTER 69



The Funeral





Haul in the chains!  Let the carcase go astern!



The vast tackles have now done their duty.  The peeled white

body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre;

though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk.

It is still colossal.  Slowly it floats more and more away,

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Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and

the ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars

contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged

through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her

main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset

of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead;

but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again.

Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then,

a conversation was sustained between the two parties;

but at intervals not without still another interruption of a

very different sort.



Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance,

even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up

all totalities.  He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all

over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair.

A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped

him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists.

A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.



So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed--

"That's he! that's he!--the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's company

told us of!"  Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam,

and a certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke

the Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subsequently learned,

it seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful

ascendency over almost everybody in the Jeroboam.  His story was this:



He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of

Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked,

secret meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way

of a trapdoor, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial,

which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of

containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum.

A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna

for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness,

he assumed a steady, common sense exterior, and offered himself

as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage.

They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship's getting

out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet.

He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded

the captain to jump overboard.  He published his manifesto,

whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles

of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica.  The unflinching

earnestness with which he declared these things;--the dark,

daring play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all

the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to invest

this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew,

with an atmosphere of sacredness.  Moreover, they were afraid of him.

As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship,

especially as he refused to work except when he pleased,

the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him;

but apprised that that individual's intention was to land him

in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened

all his seals and vials--devoting the ship and all hands to

unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out.

So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew,

that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him

if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain.

He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan.  Nor would they

permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would;

so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom

of the ship.  The consequence of all this was, that the archangel

cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since

the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever;

declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command;

nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure.

The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them

fawned before him; in obedience to his instructions,

sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god.

Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true.

Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect

to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his

measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.

But it is time to return to the Pequod.



"I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab from the bulwarks,

to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; "come on board."



But now Gabriel started to his feet.



"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious!

Beware of the horrible plague!"



"Gabriel!  Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew; "thou must either-"

But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead,

and its seethings drowned all speech.



"Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demanded Ahab, when the

boat drifted back.



"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk!

Beware of the horrible tail!"



"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that-" But again the boat tore ahead

as if dragged by fiends.  Nothing was said for some moments,

while a succession of riotous waves rolled by which by one of those

occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it.

Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently,

and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness

than his archangel nature seemed to warrant.



When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark

story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent

interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned,

and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.



It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon

speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised

of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.

Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned

the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster

should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale

to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers

receiving the Bible.  But when, some year or two afterwards,

Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey,

the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain

himself being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity,

despite all the archangel's denunciations and forewarnings,

Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat.

With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling,

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there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew.

Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there.

There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same

time everything has to be done everywhere.  It is much

the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene.

We must now retrace our way a little.  It was mentioned that upon

first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook was

inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates.

But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get

fixed in that hole?  It was inserted there by my particular

friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend

upon the monster's back for the special purpose referred to.

But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer

shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping

operation is concluded.  The whale, be it observed, lies almost

entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon.

So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor

harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water,

as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him.

On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume--

a shirt and socks--in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to

uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him,

as will presently be seen.



Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled

the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward),

it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking

that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back.

You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord.

Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down

there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery

a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted

round his waist.



It was a humorously perilous business for both of us.  For, before we

proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at

both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow

leather one.  So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,

were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both

usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag

me down in his wake.  So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us.

Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get

rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.



So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then,

that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly

to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a

joint stock company of two; that my free will had received

a mortal wound; and that another's mistake or misfortune

might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death.

Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence;

for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice.

And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now and

then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten

to jam him--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this

situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal

that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other,

has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals.

If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake

sends you poison in your pills, you die.  True, you may

say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape

these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life.

But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would,

sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard.

Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had

the management of one end of it.*





*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in

the Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together.

This improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less

a man than Stubb, in order to afford to the imperilled harpooneer

the strongest possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance

of his monkey-rope holder.





I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between

the whale and the ship--where he would occasionally fall,

from the incessant rolling and swaying of both.

But this was not the only jamming jeopardy he was exposed to.

Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the night,

the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent

blood which began to flow from the carcass--the rabid creatures

swarmed round it like bees in a beehive.



And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed

them aside with his floundering feet.  A thing altogether

incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale,

the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom

touch a man.



Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have

such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise

to look sharp to them.  Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope,

with which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too

close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed a peculiarly

ferocious shark--he was provided with still another protection.

Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and Daggoo

continually flourished over his head a couple of keen whale-spades,

wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could reach.

This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested

and benevolent of them.  They meant Queequeg's best happiness,

I admit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from

the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times half

hidden by the blood-muddled water, those indiscreet spades

of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg than a tall.

But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there

with that great iron hook--poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed

to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods.



Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I

drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea--

what matters it, after all?  Are you not the precious

image of each and all of us men in this whaling world?

That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes;

those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades

you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.



But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg.  For now,

as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last

climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily

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the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash,

as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured

from the smitten rock.



At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit,

he turned upon his back a corpse.



While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes,

and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing,

some conversation ensued between them.



"I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,"

said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having

to do with so ignoble a leviathan.



"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow,

"did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's

head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's

on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can

never afterwards capsize?"



"Why not?



"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah

saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms.  But I

sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last.

I don't half like that chap, Stubb.  Did you ever notice how that

tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb?"



"Sink him!  I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance

of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by;

look down there, Flask"--pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion

of both hands--"Aye, will I!  Flask, I take that Fedallah to be

the devil in disguise.  Do you believe that cock and bull story about

his having been stowed away on board ship?  He's the devil, I say.

The reason why you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up

out of sight; he carries it coiled away in his pocket, I guess.

Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff

into the toes of his boots."



"He sleeps in his boots, don't he?  He hasn't got any hammock;

but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging."



"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down,

do ye see, in the eye of the rigging."



"What's the old man have so much to do with him for?"



"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose."



"Bargain?--about what?"



"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale,

and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap

away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort,

and then he'll surrender Moby Dick."



"Pooh!  Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?"



"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a

wicked one, I tell ye.  Why, they say as how he went a sauntering

into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy

and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home.

Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted.

The devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.'  'What for?'

says the old governor.  'What business is that of yours,' says the devil,

getting mad,--'I want to use him.'  'Take him,' says the governor--

and by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera

before he got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful.

But look sharp--ain't you all ready there?  Well, then, pull ahead,

and let's get the whale alongside."



"I think I remember some such story as you were telling," said Flask,

when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden

towards the ship, "but I can't remember where."



"Three Spaniards?  Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes?

Did ye read it there, Flask?  I guess ye did?"



"No:  never saw such a book; heard of it, though.  But now,

tell me, Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking

of just now, was the same you say is now on board the Pequod?"



"Am I the same man that helped kill this whale?  Doesn't the devil

live for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead?

Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil?

And if the devil has a latch-key to get into the admiral's

cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a porthole?

Tell me that, Mr. Flask?"



"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?"



"Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing to the ship; "well, that's

the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold,

and string 'em along in a row with that mast, for oughts,

do you see; well, that wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age.

Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops enough

to make oughts enough."



"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now,

that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance.

Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is

going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard--

tell me that?



"Give him a good ducking, anyhow."



"But he'd crawl back."



"Duck him again; and keep ducking him."



"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though--

yes, and drown you--what then?"



"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes

that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again

for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives,

and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much.

Damn the devil, Flask; do you suppose I'm afraid of the devil?

Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch

him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him

go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him,

that all the people the devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him?

There's a governor!"



"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?"



"Do I suppose it?  You'll know it before long, Flask.  But I am

going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything

very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck,

and say--Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he makes

any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail,

take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and heaving,

that his tail will come short off at the stump--do you see; and then,

I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion,

he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail

between his legs."



"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?"



"Do with it?  Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;--what else?"

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rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen

drag stumps of old oaks out of wild woodlands.  There are

generally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down,

but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion.

The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists

for building houses.







CHAPTER 75



The Right Whale's Head - Contrasted View





Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the the

Right Whale's head.



As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared

to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so

broadly rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears

a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe.

Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape

to that of a shoemaker's last.  And in this same last or shoe,

that old woman of the nursery tale with the swarming brood,

might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.



But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume

different aspects, according to your point of view.

If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped

spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass viol,

and these spiracles, the apertures in its soundingboard.

Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested,

comblike incrustation on the top of the mass--this green,

barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown,"

and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale;

fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for

the trunk of some huge oak, with a bird's nest in its crotch.

At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on

this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you;

unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term

"crown" also bestowed upon it; in which case you will take

great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually

a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put

together for him in this marvellous manner.  But if this whale

be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem.

Look at that hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk and pout is

there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's measurement, about twenty

feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield

you some 500 gallons of oil and more.



A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.

The fissure is about a foot across.  Probably the mother during

an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast,

when earthquakes caused the beach to gape.  Over this lip,

as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth.

Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside

of an Indian wigwam.  Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went?

The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle,

as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed,

arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical,

scimitar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side,

which depending from the upper part of the head or crown bone,

form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned.

The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres,

through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose

intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes

through the seas of brit in feeding time.  In the central blinds

of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain

curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen

calculate the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings.

Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable,

yet it has the savor of analogical probability.  At any rate,

if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale

than at first glance will seem reasonable.



In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies

concerning these blinds.  One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous

"whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;* another, "hogs' bristles";

a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language:

"There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his

upper chop, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth."





*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker,

or rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white

hairs on the upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw.

Sometimes these tufts impart a rather brigandish expression

to his otherwise solemn countenance.





As every one knows, these same "hogs' bristles,"

"fins," "whiskers," "blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to

the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances.

But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline.

It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was in its glory,

the farthingale being then all the fashion.  And as those ancient

dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you

may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness,

do we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection;

the umbrella being a tent spread over the same bone.



But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and,

standing in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh.

Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about,

would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ,

and gazing upon its thousand pipes?  For a carpet to the organ

we have a rug of the softest Turkey--the tongue, which is glued,

as it were, to the floor of the mouth.  It is very fat

and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck.

This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I

should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you

about that amount of oil.



Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started with--

that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely

different heads.  To sum up, then:  in the Right Whale's there

is no great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long,

slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor

in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone;

no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a tongue.

Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes,

the Sperm Whale only one.



Look your last now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they

yet lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea;

the other will not be very long in following.



Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there?

It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles

in the forehead seem now faded away.  I think his broad brow

to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative

indifference as to death.  But mark the other head's expression.

See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side,

so as firmly to embrace the jaw.  Does not this whole head seem

to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death?

This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale,

a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.









CHAPTER 76



The Battering-Ram





Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have you,

as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly remark its front aspect,

in all its compacted collectedness.  I would have you investigate it

now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated,

intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged there.

Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle

this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one

of the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere

to be found in all recorded history.



You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale,

the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane

to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front

slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat

for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw;

you observe that the mouth is entirely under the head,

much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were

entirely under your chin.  Moreover you observe that the whale

has no external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole--

is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears

are at the sides of his head; nearly one third of his entire

length from the front.  Wherefore, you must now have perceived

that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a dead, blind wall,

without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever.

Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme,

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showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the bows.

It was his death stroke.  For, by this time, so spent was he by loss

of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had made;

lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin,

then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world;

turned up the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log,

and died.  It was most piteous, that last expiring spout.

As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off

from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy

gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground--

so the last long dying spout of the whale.



Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship,

the body showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled.

Immediately, by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at

different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken

whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords.

By very heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was

transferred to her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest

fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld,

the body would at once sink to the bottom.



It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade,

the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded

in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described.

But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead

bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed

around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote their place;

therefore, there must needs have been some other unknown reason

in the present case fully to account for the ulceration alluded to.

But still more curious was the fact of a lance-head of stone being

found in him, not far from the buried iron, the flesh perfectly

firm about it.  Who had darted that stone lance?  And when?

It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before

America was discovered.



What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous cabinet

there is no telling.  But a sudden stop was put to further discoveries,

by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways to the sea,

owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink.

However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it

to the last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length

the ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking

arms with the body; then, when the command was given to break clear

from it, such was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which

the fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible

to cast them off.  Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant.

To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up

the steep gabled roof of a house.  The ship groaned and gasped.

Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins were started

from their places, by the unnatural dislocation.  In vain handspikes

and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable fluke-chains, to pry

them adrift from the timberheads; and so low had the whale now settled

that the submerged ends could not be at all approached, while every

moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk,

and the ship seemed on the point of going over.



"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to the body,

"don't be in such a devil of a hurry to sink!

By thunder, men, we must do something or go for it.

No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes,

and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut

the big chains."



"Knife?  Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's

heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron,

began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes,

full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest.

With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted,

the carcase sank.



Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed

Sperm Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet

adequately accounted for it.  Usually the dead Sperm Whale

floats with great buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably

elevated above the surface.  If the only whales that thus sank

were old, meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their pads

of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic;

then you might with some reason assert that this sinking is

caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so sinking,

consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him.

But it is not so.  For young whales, in the highest health,

and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off

in the warm flush and May of life, with all their panting lard

about them! even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.



Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less

liable to this accident than any other species.

Where one of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do.

This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small

degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale;

his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton;

from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free.  But there

are instances where, after the lapse of many hours or several days,

the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life.

But the reason of this is obvious.  Gases are generated in him;

he swells to a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon.

A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him under then.

In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays of New Zealand,

when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they fasten buoys

to him, with plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone down,

they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again.



It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry

was heard from the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the

Jungfrau was again lowering her boats; though the only spout

in sight was that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of

uncapturable whales, because of its incredible power of swimming.

Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's spout is so similar to the Sperm Whale's,

that by unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken for it.

And consequently Derick and all his host were now in valiant

chase of this unnearable brute.  The Virgin crowding all sail,

made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared

far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.



Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.







CHAPTER 82

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew

story was this:--He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,

embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented

Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head--a peculiarity only true

with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale,

and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen

have this saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so

very small.  But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready.

It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in

the whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth.

And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop.  For truly,

the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables,

and comfortably seat all the players.  Possibly, too, Jonah might

have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts,

the Right Whale is toothless.



Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name)

urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet,

was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body

and the whale's gastric juices.  But this objection likewise falls

to the ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah

must have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead whale--

even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned

their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them.

Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators,

that when Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship,

he straightway effected his escape to another vessel near by,

some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; and, I would add,

possibly called "The Whale," as some craft are nowadays

christened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle."  Nor have

there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined

that the whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant

a life-preserver--an inflated bag of wind--which the endangered

prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom.

Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round.

But he had still another reason for his want of faith.

It was this, if I remember right:  Jonah was swallowed

by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days'

he was vomited up somewhere within three days' journey of Nineveh,

a city on the Tigris, very much more than three days'

journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast.

How is that?



But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within

that short distance of Nineveh?  Yes.  He might have carried him

round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.  But not to speak

of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean,

and another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea,

such a supposition would involve the complete circumnavigation

of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris waters,

near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to swim in.

Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope

at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that

great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer,

and so make modern history a liar.



But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his

foolish pride of reason--a thing still more reprehensible in him,

seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from

the sun and the sea.  I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride,

and abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy.

For by a Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to

Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification

of the general miracle.  And so it was.  Besides, to this day,

the highly enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story

of Jonah.  And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old

Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah,

in which Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.









CHAPTER 84



Pitchpoling







To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages

are anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform

an analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom.

Nor is it to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm,

it may possibly be of no contemptible advantage; considering that

oil and water are hostile; that oil is a sliding thing,

and that the object in view is to make the boat slide bravely.

Queequeg believed strongly in anointing his boat, and one morning

not long after the German ship Jungfrau disappeared, took more than

customary pains in that occupation; crawling under its bottom,

where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the unctuousness as though

diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel.

He seemed to be working in obedience to some particular presentiment.

Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event.



Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed

down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy;

a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.



Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost.

By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting

one iron; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding,

still continued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness.

Such unintermitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner

or later inevitably extract it.  It became imperative to lance

the flying whale, or be content to lose him.  But to haul the boat

up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and furious.

What then remained?



Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and

countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced,

none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling.

Small sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it.

It is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale;

its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long

lance is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat,

under extreme headway.  Steel and wood included, the entire spear

is some ten or twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter

than that of the harpoon, and also of a lighter material--pine.  It is

furnished with a small rope called a warp, of considerable length,

by which it can be hauled back to the hand after darting.

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inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has no gills.

How is this?  Between his ribs and on each side of his spine

he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth

of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits

the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood.

So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea,

he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel

crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply

of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs.

The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable;

and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true,

seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise

inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his

spoutings out, as the fishermen phrase it.  This is what I mean.

If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will

continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all

his other unmolested risings.  Say he stays eleven minutes,

and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths;

then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy

breaths over again, to a minute.  Now, if after he fetches a few

breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always

dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air.

And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally

go down to stay out his full term below.  Remark, however,

that in different individuals these rates are different;

but in any one they are alike.  Now, why should the whale

thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be

to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good?

How obvious it is it, too, that this necessity for the whale's

rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase.

For not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught,

when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight.

Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities

that strike the victory to thee!



In man, breathing is incessantly going on--one breath only serving

for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has

to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will.

But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday

of his time.



It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole;

if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water,

then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell

seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all answers

to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged with

two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of smelling.

But owing to the mystery of the spout--whether it be water or whether it

be vapor--no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head.

Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories.

But what does he want of them?  No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water

in the sea.



Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his

spouting canal, and as that long canal--like the grand Erie Canal--

is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut)

for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water,

therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying,

that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose.

But then again, what has the whale to say?  Seldom have I known

any profound being that had anything to say to this world,

unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living.

Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!



Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it

is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along,

horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head,

and a little to one side; this curious canal is very much

like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street.

But the question returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe;

in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere

vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is

mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and discharged through

the spiracle.  It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates

with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this

is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle.

Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be,

when in feeding he accidentally takes in water.  But the Sperm Whale's

food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout

even if he would.  Besides, if you regard him very closely,

and time him with your watch, you will find that when unmolested,

there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets

and the ordinary periods of respiration.



But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject?

Speak out!  You have seen him spout; then declare what

the spout is; can you not tell water from air?  My dear sir,

in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things.

I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all.

And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it,

and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.



The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist

enveloping it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water

falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale

to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion,

the water cascading all around him.  And if at such times

you should think that you really perceived drops of moisture

in the spout, how do you know that they are not merely condensed

from its vapor; or how do you know that they are not those

identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole fissure,

which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head?

For even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm,

with his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert;

even then, the whale always carries a small basin of water on

his head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity

in a rock filled up with rain.



Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching

the precise nature of the whale spout.  It will not do for him

to be peering into it, and putting his face in it.  You cannot go

with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away.

For even when coming into slight contact with the outer,

vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will

feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so touching it.

And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the spout,

whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot say,

the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.  Wherefore, among whalemen,

the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it.

Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it,

that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you.

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Fifth:  As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes

lies considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely

out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge

into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his

body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment,

till they downwards shoot out of view.  Excepting the sublime breach--

somewhere else to be described--this peaking of the whale's flukes

is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature.

Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically

snatching at the highest heaven.  So in dreams, have I seen majestic

Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame

Baltic of Hell.  But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what

mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you;

if in that of Isaiah, the archangels.  Standing at the mast-head

of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw

a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun,

and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes.  As it seemed

to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods

was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers.

As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then

testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings.

For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often

hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence.



The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the elephant,

so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk of the other

are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite organs on

an equality, much less the creatures to which they respectively belong.

For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so,

compared with Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily.

The most direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as the playful tap

of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash of the sperm

whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have one after

the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air,

very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.*





*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale

and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular

the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that

a dog does to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting

some points of curious similitude; among these is the spout.

It is well known that the elephant will often draw up water or dust

in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.





The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability

to express it.  At times there are gestures in it, which, though they

would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable.

In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these

mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin

to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these

methods intelligently conversed with the world.  Nor are there wanting

other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness,

and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant.  Dissect him

how I may, then, I but go skin deep.  I know him not, and never will.

But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his

head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none?

Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face

shall not be seen.  But I cannot completely make out his back parts;

and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face.









CHAPTER 87



The Grand Armada





The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward

from the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of

all Asia.  In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long

islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others,

form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia,

and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded

oriental archipelagoes.  This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports

for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are

the straits of Sunda and Malacca.  By the straits of Sunda, chiefly,

vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.



Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing

midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold

green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little

correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire:

and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks,

and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands

of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision

of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of the land,

should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual,

of being guarded from the all-grasping western world.  The shores

of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering

fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the Baltic,

and the Propontis.  Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand

the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless

procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries past,

by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra

and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east.

But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no

means renounce their claim to more solid tribute.



Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays,

lurking among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra,

have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits,

fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears.

Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they have received

at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs

has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present day,

we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which,

in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.



With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits;

Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Java sea, and thence,

cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there

by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain

the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.

By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the

known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending

upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else

foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick,

in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he might

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental

seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number.

And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan,

Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming,

like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession

of the Siamese!  So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we

sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden,

the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention

to something in our wake.



Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.

It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling something

like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come

and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing.

Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his

pivot-hole, crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet

the sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!"



As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod

should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics

were now in hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay.

But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself

in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny philanthropists

to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit,--

mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were.

As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck;

in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased,

and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him;

some such fancy as the above seemed his.  And when he glanced

upon the green walls of the watery defile in which the ship

was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate lay

the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same

gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end;

and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates

and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him

on with their curses;--when all these conceits had passed

through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt and ribbed,

like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing it,

without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.



But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and when,

after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod

at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side,

emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the harpooneers

seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining upon

the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained

upon the Malays.  But still driving on in the wake of the whales,

at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship neared them;

and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats.

But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the

Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,--

though as yet a mile in their rear,--than they rallied again, and forming

in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like

flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.



Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash,

and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce

the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave

animating tokens that they were now at last under the influence

of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the

fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied*. The

compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly

and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout;

and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander,

they seemed going mad with consternation.  In all directions

expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither

and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed

their distraction of panic.  This was still more strangely evinced

by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were,

helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea.

Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep,

pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not

possibly have evinced such excessive dismay.  But this occasional

timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures.

Though banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned

buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman.

Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold

of a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire,

rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming,

and remorselessly dashing each other to death.  Best, therefore,

withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us,

for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not

infinitely outdone by the madness of men.





* To gally, or gallow, is to frighten excessively--

to confound with fright.  It is an old Saxon word.

It occurs once in Shakespeare:--



The wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make

them keep their caves.



To common language, the word is now completely obsolete.

When the polite landsman first hears it from the gaunt Nantucketer, he is

apt to set it down as one of the whaleman's self-derived savageries.

Much the same is it with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort,

which emigrated to New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old

English emigrants in the time of the Commonwealth.  Thus, some of

the best and furthest-descended English words--the etymological Howards

and Percys--are now democratised, nay, plebeianised--so to speak--

in the New World.





Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,

yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither

advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place.

As is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated,

each making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal.

In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung;

the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then

running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart

of the herd.  Though such a movement on the part of the whale

struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented;

and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it

present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery.

For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the

frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist

in a delirious throb.



As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power

of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him;

as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced

as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us;

our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest,

and striving to steer through their complicated channels and straits,

knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and crushed.



But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering

off from this monster directly across our route in advance;

now edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead,

while all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand,

pricking out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts,

for there was no time to make long ones.  Nor were the oarsmen

quite idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with.

They chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business.

"Out of the way, Commodore!" cried one, to a great dromedary that of

a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threatened

to swamp us.  "Hard down with your tail, there!" cried a second

to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling

himself with his own fan-like extremity.



All whale-boats carry certain curious contrivances,

originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs.

Two thick squares of wood of equal size are stoutly

clenched together, so that they cross each other's grain at

right angles; a line of considerable length is then attached

to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line

being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon.

It is chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used.

For then, more whales are close round you than you can

possibly chase at one time.  But sperm whales are not every

day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can.

And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them,

so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is,

that at times like these the drug, comes into requisition.

Our boat was furnished with three of them.  The first and second were

successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off,

fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg.

They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball.

But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard

the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat,

and in an instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the

oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from under him.

On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we

stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped

the leaks for the time.



It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons,

were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way

greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further

and further from the circumference of commotion, the direful

disorders seemed waning.  So that when at last the jerking

harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways vanished;

then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided

between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if

from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake.

Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales,

were heard but not felt.  In this central expanse the sea

presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek,

produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale

in his more quiet moods.  Yes, we were now in that enchanted

calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion.

And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of

the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales,

eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied

spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder,

that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched

the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs.

Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales,

more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd,

no possible chance of escape was at present afforded us.

We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in;

the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up.

Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally

visited by small tame cows and calves; the women and children

of this routed host.



Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between

the revolving outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces

between the various pods in any one of those circles,

the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole multitude,

must have contained at least two or three square miles.

At any rate--though indeed such a test at such a time might

be deceptive--spoutings might be discovered from our low boat

that seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon.

I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and

calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold;

and as if the wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them

from learning the precise cause of its stopping; or, possibly,

being so young, unsophisticated, and every way innocent

and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller whales--

now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the lake--

evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still

becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at.

Like household dogs they came snuffling round us,

right up to our gunwales, and touching them; till it almost

seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.

Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs

with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time

refrained from darting it.



But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and

still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.

For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms

of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their

enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers.  The lake, as I

have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent;

and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze

away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time;

and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually

feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;--even so did the young

of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us,

as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight.

Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us.

One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed

hardly a day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length,

and some six feet in girth.  He was a little frisky; though as yet

his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it

had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head,

and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a

Tartar's bow.  The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes,

still freshly retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's

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"Oh! keep cool--cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you

pack those whales in ice while you're working at 'em?

But joking aside, though; do you know, Rose-bud, that it's

all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales?

As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in

his whole carcase."



"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe

it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before.

But come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me;

and so I'll get out of this dirty scrape."



"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,"

rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck.

There a queer scene presented itself.  The sailors,

in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles

in readiness for the whales.  But they worked rather slow

and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor.

All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like

so many jibbooms.  Now and then pairs of them would drop

their work, and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air.

Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum

in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils.

Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off

at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it

constantly filled their olfactories.



Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding

from the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction

saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar

from within.  This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain

remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken

himself to the Captain's round-house (cabinet he called it)

to avoid the pest; but still, could not help yelling out his

entreaties and indignations at times.



Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to

the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger

mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus,

who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle.

Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man

had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris.

He therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite

frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted

a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain,

without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity.

According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover

of an interpreter's office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased,

but as coming from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense

that should come uppermost in him during the interview.



By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin.

He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man

for a sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however;

and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side.

To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by

the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect

of interpreting between them.



"What shall I say to him first?" said he.



"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals,

"you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish

to me, though I don't pretend to be a judge."



"He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, in French,

turning to his captain, "that only yesterday his ship spoke

a vessel, whose captain and chief-mate, with six sailors,

had all died of a fever caught from a blasted whale they

had brought alongside."



Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.



"What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.



"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I

have eyed him carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no

more fit to command a whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey.

In fact, tell him from me he's a baboon."



"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale,

the dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one;

in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives,

to cut loose from these fish."



Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded

his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once

cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.



"What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to them.



"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that--that--in fact,

tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else."



"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any

service to us."



Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties

(meaning himself and mate), and concluded by inviting Stubb down into

his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.



"He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the interpreter.



"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to drink

with the man I've diddled.  In fact, tell him I must go."



"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking;

but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur

had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales,

for it's so calm they won't drift."



By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat,

hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,--that having a long

tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help them,

by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship's side.

While the Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship

one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way,

ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line.



Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale;

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and when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was

like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam.

His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief,

and looking as anxious as gold-hunters.



And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking,

and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them.

Stubb was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible

nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of

this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed

through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it,

as one river will flow into and then along with another,

without at all blending with it for a time.



"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something

in the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!"



Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out

handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap,

or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal.

You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue

between yellow and ash color.  And this, good friends,

is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.

Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost

in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured

were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist,

and come on board, else the ship would bid them good-bye.







CHAPTER 92



Ambergris





Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an

article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin

was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject.

For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day,

the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself,

a problem to the learned.  Though the word ambergris is but the French

compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct.

For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some

far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea.

Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance,

used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris

is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used

in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum.

The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same

purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome.  Some wine

merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.



Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should

regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels

of a sick whale!  Yet so it is.  By some, ambergris is supposed to be

the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale.

How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering

three or four boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out

of harm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.



I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris,

certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought

might be sailors' trousers buttons; but it afterwards turned

out that they were nothing, more than pieces of small squid

bones embalmed in that manner.



Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris

should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing?

Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians,

about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor,

but raised in glory.  And likewise call to mind that saying

of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk.

Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor,

Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages,

is the worst.



I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal,

but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made

against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already

biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated

by what has been said of the Frenchman's two whales.

Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved,

that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly,

untidy business.  But there is another thing to rebut.

They hint that all whales always smell bad.  Now how did this

odious stigma originate?



I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of

the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago.

Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out

their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done;

but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through

the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner;

the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and

violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course.

The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading

one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor 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

Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used

by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells,

a text-book on that subject.  As its name imports (smeer, fat;

berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford

a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out,

without being taken home to Holland for that purpose.

It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds;

and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth

no very pleasant savor.  But all this is quite different

from a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four

years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil,

does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out;

and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless.

The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated,

whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor;

nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle

ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose.

Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant,

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wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever

live to spend it.



Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun

and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's disks

and stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving,

are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems

almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories,

by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.



It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy

example of these things.  On its round border it bore the letters,

REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR:  QUITO.  So this bright coin came from a country

planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator,

and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes,

in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn.  Zoned by those letters

you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame;

a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching

over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all

marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering

the equinoctial point at Libra.



Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others,

was now pausing.



"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops

and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here,--

three peaks as proud as Lucifer.  The firm tower, that is Ahab;

the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted,

and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab;

and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,

which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn

but mirrors back his own mysterious self.  Great pains,

small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot

solve itself.  Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face;

but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox!

and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox

at Aries!  From storm to storm!  So be it, then.  Born in throes,

't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs!

So be it, then!  Here's stout stuff for woe to work on.

So be it, then."



"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's

claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday,"

murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks.

"The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing.

I have never marked the coin inspectingly.  He goes below; let me read.

A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks,

that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol.

So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom,

the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.

If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;

but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.

Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would

fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!

This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me.

I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely."



"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,

"he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same,

and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere

within nine fathoms long.  And all from looking at a piece

of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in

Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.

Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer.

I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons

of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili,

your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan;

with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes,

and half joes, and quarter joes.  What then should there be

in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing wonderful?

By Golconda! let me read it once.  Halloa! here's signs and

wonders truly!  That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome

calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto.

I'll get the almanack; and as I have heard devils can be raised

with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning

out of these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar.

Here's the book.  Let's see now.  Signs and wonders;

and the sun, he's always among 'em.  Hem, hem, hem; here they are--

here they go--all alive:  Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull

and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins.  Well; the sun

he wheels among 'em.  Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing

the threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring.

Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places.

You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come

in to supply the thoughts.  That's my small experience,

so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's navigator,

and Daboll's arithmetic go.  Signs and wonders, eh?  Pity if there

is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders!

There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark!  By Jove, I have it!

Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one

round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book.

Come, Almanack!  To begin:  there's Aries, or the Ram--

lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--

he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--

that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue,

when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here,

going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--

he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw;

we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love;

we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra,

or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we

are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio,

or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound,

when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer,

is amusing himself.  As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside!

here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt,

he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius,

or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us;

and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.

There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through

it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so,

alow here, does jolly Stubb.  Oh, jolly's the word for aye!

Adieu, Doubloon!  But stop; here comes little King-Post;

dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have

to say.  There; he's before it; he'll out with something presently.

So, so; he's beginning."



"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises

a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.  So, what's all

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"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day,

when the sun stands in some one of these signs.  I've studied signs,

and know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago,

by the old witch in Copenhagen.  Now, in what sign will the sun then be?

The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold.

And what's the horse-shoe sign?  The lion is the horse-shoe sign--

the roaring and devouring lion.  Ship, old ship! my old head shakes

to think of thee."



"There's another rendering now; but still one text.  All sorts of men

in one kind of world, you see.  Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--

all tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.  What says

the Cannibal?  As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;

thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels,

I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country.

And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--

I guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer.  No:  he don't know what to make

of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers.

But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled

out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual.

What does he say, with that look of his?  Ah, only makes a sign

to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin--

fire worshipper, depend upon it.  Ho! more and more.  This way comes Pip--

poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me.

He too has been watching all of these interpreters myself included--

and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face.

Stand away again and hear him.  Hark!"



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar!  Improving his mind,

poor fellow!  But what's that he says now--hist!"



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again."



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Well, that's funny."



"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats;

and I'm a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine

tree here.  Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw!  Ain't I a crow?

And where's the scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck

into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves

of an old jacket."



"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary--poor lad!--I could go

hang myself.  Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity.

I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too

crazy-witty for my sanity.  So, so, I leave him muttering."



"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one fire

to unscrew it.  But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence?

Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's

nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate.

Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye!  This is a pine tree.

My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found

a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring.

How did it get there?  And so they'll say in the resurrection,

when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it,

with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark.  Oh, the gold! the precious,

precious gold!--the green miser'll hoard ye soon!  Hish! hish!

God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying.  Cook! ho, cook! and cook us!

Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!"







CHAPTER 100



Leg and Arm



The Pequod of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London







"Ship, ahoy!  Hast seen the White Whale?"



So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colors,

bearing down under the stern.  Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing

in his hoisted quarter-deck, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the

stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow.

He was a darkly-tanned, burly, goodnatured, fine-looking man, of sixty

or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him

in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket

streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a huzzar's surcoat.



"Hast seen the White Whale!"



"See you this?" and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it,

he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden

head like a mallet.



"Man my boat!" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars

near him--"Stand by to lower!"



In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft,

he and his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside

of the stranger.  But here a curious difficulty presented itself.

In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since

the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any

vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious

and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod,

and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at

a moment's warning.  Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody--

except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen--

to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea;

for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks,

and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson.

So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being

altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now

found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again;

hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly

hope to attain.



It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward

circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang

from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or

exasperated Ahab.  And in the present instance, all this was heightened

by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over

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CHAPTER 101



The Decanter





Ere the English ship fades from sight be it set down here, that she

hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby,

merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house

of enderby and sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion,

comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons,

in point of real historical interest.  How long, prior to the year

of our Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence,

my numerous fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year

(1775) it fitted out the first English ships that ever regularly

hunted the Sperm Whale; though for some score of years previous

(ever since 1726) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket

and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued the Leviathan,

but only in the North and South Atlantic:  not elsewhere.

Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first

among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale;

and that for half a century they were the only people of the whole

globe who so harpooned him.



In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose,

and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded

Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat

of any sort in the great South Sea.  The voyage was a skilful

and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold full

of the precious sperm, the Amelia's example was soon followed

by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale

grounds of the Pacific were thrown open.  But not content with this

good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself:

Samuel and all his Sons--how many, their mother only knows--and under

their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense,

the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler

on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea.  Commanded by

a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it,

and did some service; how much does not appear.  But this is not all.

In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own,

to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan.  That ship--

well called the "Syren"--made a noble experimental cruise;

and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became

generally known.  The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded

by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.



All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think,

exists to the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel

must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea

of the other world.



The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast sailer

and a noble craft every way.  I boarded her once at midnight somewhere

off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the forecastle.

It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps--every soul on board.

A short life to them, and a jolly death.  And that fine gam I had--

long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory heel--

it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship;

and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever

lose sight of it.  Flip?  Did I say we had flip?  Yes, and we flipped

it at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came

(for it's squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands--

visitors and all--were called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy

that we had to swing each other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly

furled the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so that we hung there,

reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars.

However, the masts did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down,

so sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt

spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted

and pickled it for my taste.



The beef was fine--tough, but with body in it.

They said it was bullbeef; others, that it was dromedary beef;

but I do not know, for certain, how that was.  They had

dumplings too; small, but substantial, symmetrically globular,

and indestructible dumplings.  I fancied that you could feel them,

and roll them about in you after they were swallowed.

If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their

pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread--

but that couldn't be helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic,

in short, the bread contained the only fresh fare they had.

But the forecastle was not very light, and it was very easy

to step over into a dark corner when you ate it.  But all in all,

taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions

of the cook's boilers, including his own live parchment boilers;

fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship;

of good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all,

and capital from boot heels to hat-band.



But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other

English whalers I know of--not all though--were such famous,

hospitable ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread,

and the can, and the joke; and were not soon weary of eating,

and drinking, and laughing?  I will tell you.  The abounding good

cheer of these English whalers is matter for historical research.

Nor have I been at all sparing of historical whale research,

when it has seemed needed.



The English were preceded in the whale fishery by

the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived

many terms still extant in the fishery; and what is yet more,

their fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink.

For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew;

but not so the English whaler.  Hence, in the English, this thing

of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental

and particular; and, therefore, must have some special origin,

which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.



During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon

an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it,

I knew must be about whalers.  The title was, "Dan Coopman,"

wherefore I concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs

of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must

carry its cooper.  I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing

that it was the production of one "Fitz Swackhammer."  But my

friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch

and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Potts,

to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm

candles for his trouble--this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied

the book, assured me that "Dan Coopman" did not mean "The Cooper,"

but "The Merchant."  In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch

book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects,

contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery.

And in this chapter it was, headed, "Smeer," or "Fat," that I

found a long detailed list of the outfits for the larders

and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list,

as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following:



     0084400,000 lbs. of beef.

      60,000 lbs. Friesland pork.

     150,000 lbs. of stock fish.

     550,000 lbs. of biscuit.

      72,000 lbs. of soft bread.

       2,800 firkins of butter.

      20,000 lbs. of Texel and Leyden cheese.

     144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article).

         550 ankers of Geneva.

      10,800 barrels of beer.



Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading;

not so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded

with whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin

and good cheer.



At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all

this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts

were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental

and Platonic application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary

tables of my own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, &c.,

consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland

and Spitzbergen whale fishery.  In the first place, the amount

of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing.

I impute it, though, to their naturally unctuous natures,

being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their vocation,

and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar Seas,

on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the convivial

natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil.



The quantity of the beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels.

Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short

summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch

whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea,

did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men

to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen

in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer

per man, for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair

proportion of that 550 ankers of gin.  Now, whether these gin and

beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been,

were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat's head, and take

good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable.

Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too.  But this was very far North,

be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution;

upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make

the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat;

and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.



But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch

whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that

the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example.

For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing

better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.

And this empties the decanter.







CHAPTER 102



A Bower in the Arsacides







Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have

chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately

and in detail upon some few interior structural features.

But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him,

it behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging

the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose

the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones,

set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say,

in his unconditional skeleton.



But how now, Ishmael?  How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in

the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts

of the whale?  Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan,

deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help

of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition?

Explain thyself, Ishmael.  Can you land a full-grown whale on your

deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not.

A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael;

but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone;

the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams;

the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making

up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats,

dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels.



I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far

beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been

blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature.

In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once

bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths

for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances.

Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet

and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents

of that young cub?



And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan

in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge

I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque,

one of the Arsacides.  For being at Tranque, years ago,

when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited

to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque,

at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far

distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.



Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo,

being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu,

had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious

of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices,

chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes;

and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders,

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in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished,

to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction.



But you must look at this matter in every light.  Though so short

a period ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois

exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present

day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region;

and though the cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear

of man; yet the far different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily

forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan.  Forty men in one

ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months think they

have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home

the oil of forty fish.  Whereas, in the days of the old Canadian

and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far west

(in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin,

the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of months,

mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain

not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that,

if need were, could be statistically stated.



Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favor

of the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example,

that in former years (the latter part of the last century, say)

these Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much

oftener than at present, and, in consequence, the voyages

were not so prolonged, and were also much more remunerative.

Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by

some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans,

so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes,

and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into

vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies.  That is all.

And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called

whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years

abounding with them, hence that species also is declining.

For they are only being driven from promontory to cape; and if

one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure,

some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled

by the unfamiliar spectacle.



Furthermore:  concerning these last mentioned Leviathans,

they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability,

will for ever remain impregnable.  And as upon the invasion of

their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains;

so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas,

the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels,

and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there,

come up among icy fields and floes! and in a charmed circle

of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.



But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned

for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have

concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously

diminished their battalions.  But though for some time past

a number of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been

annually slain on the nor'west coast by the Americans alone;

yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance

of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter.



Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness

of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we

say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one

hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions

elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes.

And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants,

which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis,

by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East--

if they still survive there in great numbers, much more may

the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture

to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia,

both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles

of the sea combined.



Moreover:  we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity

of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,

therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult

generations must be contemporary.  And what this is, we may soon

gain some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries,

and family vaults of creation yielding up the live bodies of all

the men, women, and children who were alive seventy-five years ago;

and adding this countless host to the present human population

of the globe.



Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal

in his species, however perishable in his individuality.

He swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once

swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle,

and the Kremlin.  In Noah's flood he despised Noah's Ark;

and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands,

to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive,

and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood,

spout his frothed defiance to the skies.







CHAPTER 106



Ahab's Leg







The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted

the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small

violence to his own person.  He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart

of his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock.

And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there,

he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman

(it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);

then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist

and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all

appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.



And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all

his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab, did at times give careful

heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood.

For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing

from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon

the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable,

unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced,

that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin;

nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound

was entirely cured.

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No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this

slippery world that can hold, man.  What's Prometheus about there?--

the blacksmith, I mean--what's he about?



He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.



Right.  It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part.

He makes a fierce red flame there!



Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work.



Um-m. So he must.  I do deem it now a most meaning thing,

that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have

been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made

in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable.

How the soot flies!  This must be the remainder the Greek made

the Africans of.  Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle,

tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar

aboard with a crushing pack.



Sir?



Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man

after a desirable pattern.  Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks;

then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots

to 'em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist;

no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre

of fine brains; and let me see--shall I order eyes to see outwards?

No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards.

There, take the order, and away.



Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to,

I should like to know?  Shall I keep standing here? (aside.)



'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one.

No, no, no; I must have a lantern.



Ho, ho!  That's it, hey?  Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.



What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man?

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.



I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.





Carpenter? why that's--but no;--a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely

gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;--or would'st

thou rather work in clay?



Sir?--Clay? clay, sir?  That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.



The fellow's impious!  What art thou sneezing about?



Bone is rather dusty, sir.



Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself

under living people's noses.



Sir?--oh! ah!--I guess so; so;--yes, yes--oh dear!



Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good

workmanlike workman, eh?  Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well

for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall

nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it;

that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean.

Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?



Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now.

Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir;

how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling

of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times.

May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?



It is, man.  Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was;

so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul.

Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair,

do I. Is't a riddle?



I should humbly call it a poser, sir.



Hist, then.  How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing

may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely

where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite?

In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?

Hold, don't speak!  And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg,

though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayest not thou, carpenter,

feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body?  Hah!



Good Lord!  Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again;

I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.



Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long

before this leg is done?



Perhaps an hour, sir.



Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go).

Oh, Life.  Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor

to this blockhead for a bone to stand on!  Cursed be that mortal

inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers.

I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books.

I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest

Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's);

and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with.  By heavens!

I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small,

compendious vertebra.  So.



Carpenter ( resuming his work).





Well, well, well!  Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says

he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer;

he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it

into Mr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer.

And here's his leg.  Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bed-fellow!

has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife!  And this is his leg;

he'll stand on this.  What was that now about one leg standing

in three places, and all three places standing in one hell--

how was that?  Oh!  I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me!

I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that's

only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me,

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Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold

were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off.

So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper,

disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts;

and from that black midnight sending those gigantic moles

into the daylight above.  So deep did they go; and so ancient,

and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons,

that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask

containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards,

vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.

Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef,

and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out,

till at last the piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow

hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs,

and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn.

Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle

in his head.  Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.



Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion,

and fast bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever,

which brought him nigh to his endless end.



Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;

dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain,

the higher you rise the harder you toil.  So with poor Queequeg,

who, as harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the

living whale, but--as we have elsewhere seen--mount his dead back

in a rolling sea; and finally descend into the gloom of the hold,

and bitterly sweating all day in that subterraneous confinement,

resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see to their stowage.

To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the holders, so called.



Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled,

you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down

upon him there; where, stripped to his woollen drawers,

the tattooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness

and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well.

And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan;

where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings,

he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever;

and at last, after some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock,

close to the very sill of the door of death.  How he wasted

and wasted away in those few long-lingering days, till there

seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing.

But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper,

his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller;

they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but

deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous

testimony to that immortal health in him which could not die,

or be weakened.  And like circles on the water, which, as they

grow fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding,

like the rings of Eternity.  An awe that cannot be named would

steal over you as you sat by the side of this waning savage,

and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who were

bystanders when Zoroaster died.  For whatever is truly wondrous

and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

And the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all,

alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author

from the dead could adequately tell.  So that--let us say it again--

no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier thoughts

than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face

of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock,

and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest,

and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher

towards his destined heaven.



Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,

what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious

favor he asked.  He called one to him in the grey morning watch,

when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand,

said that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little

canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle;

and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died

in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy

of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike

the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior,

stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated

away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe

that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons,

their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens;

and so form the white breakers of the milky way.  He added,

that he shuddered at the thought of being buried in his hammock,

according to the usual sea-custom, tossed like something vile

to the death-devouring sharks.  No:  he desired a canoe like those

of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman,

that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel;

though that involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way

adown the dim ages.



Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft,

the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding,

whatever it might include.  There was some heathenish,

coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage,

had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands,

and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made.

No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking

his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude

of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took

Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking

Queequeg's person as he shifted the rule.



"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the

Long Island sailor.



Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake

and general reference, now transferringly measured on it

the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer

permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.

This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.



When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted,

he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it,

inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction.



Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which

the people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg,

to every one's consternation, commanded that the thing should

be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him;

seeing that, of all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical;

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child's play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!"

jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins.

"I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could

not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own

fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging the pouch upon the anvil.

"Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel

shoes of racing horses."



"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir?  Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then,

the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work."



"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue

from the melted bones of murderers.  Quick! forge me the harpoon.

And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist,

and hammer these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a

tow-line. Quick!  I'll blow the fire."



When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one,

by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt.

"A flaw!" rejecting the last one.  "Work that over again, Perth."



This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one,

when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron.

As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil,

Perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other,

and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame,

the Parsee passed silently, and bowing over his head towards

the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil.

But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.



"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?" muttered Stubb,

looking on from the forecastle.  "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee;

and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan."



At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat;

and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask

of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face.



"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the pain;

"have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?"



"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab.  Is not this

harpoon for the White Whale?"



"For the white fiend!  But now for the barbs; thou must make

them thyself, man.  Here are my razors--the best of steel;

here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea."



For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would

fain not use them.



"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave,

sup, nor pray till--but here--to work!"



Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank,

the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith

was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them,

he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.



"No, no--no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper.

Ahoy, there!  Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo!  What say ye, pagans!  Will ye

give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up.

A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes.  Three punctures were made

in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were then tempered.



"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!"

deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly

devoured the baptismal blood.



Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory,

with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket

of the iron.  A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms

of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension.

Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string,

then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed,

"Good! and now for the seizings."



At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread

yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon;

the pole was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower

end the rope was traced halfway along the pole's length,

and firmly secured so, with inter-twistings of twine.

This done, pole, iron, and rope--like the Three Fates--

remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon;

the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole,

both hollowly ringing along every plank.  But ere he entered

his cabin, a light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous

sound was heard.  Oh!  Pip, thy wretched laugh, thy idle

but unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly

blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship,

and mocked it!







CHAPTER 114



The Gilder





Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese

cruising ground the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery.

Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen,

and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats,

steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales,

or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting

their uprising; though with but small success for their pains.



At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth,

slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe;

and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves,

that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale;

these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil

beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger

heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember,

that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.



These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels

a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he

regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing

only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high

rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie:

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and Ahab again spoke:--



"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine;

and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound.

And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats:  look ye here;

thus I blow out the last fear!"  And with one blast of his breath

he extinguished the flame.



As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood

of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it

so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts;

so at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him

in a terror of dismay.







CHAPTER 120



The Deck Toward the End of the First Night Watch



Ahab standing by the helm.  Starbuck approaching him.





We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir.  The band is working

loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?"



"Strike nothing; lash it.  If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway

them up now."



"Sir!--in God's name!--sir?"



"Well."



"The anchors are working, sir.  Shall I get them inboard?"



"Strike nothing, and stir nothing but lash everything.  The wind rises,

but it has not got up to my table-lands yet.  Quick, and see to it.--

By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of some

coasting smack.  Send down my main-top-sail yard!  Ho, gluepots!

Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck

of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that?

Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time.

What a hooroosh aloft there!  I would e'en take it for sublime,

did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady.  Oh, take medicine,

take medicine!"







CHAPTER 121



Midnight - The Forecastle Bulwarks





Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings

over the anchors there hanging.





No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please,

but you will never pound into me what you were just now saying.

And how long ago is it since you said the very contrary?

Didn't you once say that whatever ship Ahab sails in,

that ship should pay something extra on its insurance policy,

just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft and boxes

of lucifers forward?  Stop, now; didn't you say so?"



"Well, suppose I did?  What then!  I've part changed my flesh

since that time, why not my mind?  Besides, supposing we

are loaded with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward;

how the devil could the lucifers get afire in this drenching

spray here?  Why, my little man, you have pretty red hair,

but you couldn't get afire now.  Shake yourself; you're Aquarius,

or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your

coat collar.  Don't you see, then, that for these extra

risks the Marine Insurance companies have extra guarantees?

Here are hydrants, Flask.  But hark, again, and I'll answer

ye the other thing.  First take your leg off from the crown

of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope; now listen.

What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's

lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast

that hasn't got any lightning-rod at all in a storm?

Don't you see, you timber-head, that no harm can come

to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first struck?

What are you talking about, then?  Not one ship in a hundred

carries rods, and Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no

more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten

thousand ships now sailing the seas.  Why, you King-Post, you,

I suppose you would have every man in the world go about with a small

lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia

officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash.

Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's easy to be sensible;

why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be sensible."



"I don't know that, Stubb.  You sometimes find it rather hard."



"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible,

that's a fact.  And I am about drenched with this spray.  Never mind;

catch the turn there, and pass it.  Seems to me we are lashing down

these anchors now as if they were never going to be used again.

Tying these two anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands

behind him.  And what big generous hands they are, to be sure.

These are your iron fists, hey?  What a hold they have, too!

I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere;

if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though.

There, hammer that knot down, and we've done.  So; next to

touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory.

I say, just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye?  Thank ye.

They laugh at long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me,

a long-tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat.

The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water,

d'ye see.  Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end

eave-troughs, Flask.  No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me;

I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so.

Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord,

that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!

This is a nasty night, lad."







CHAPTER 122



Midnight Aloft.--Thunder and Lightning





The Main-top-sail yard - Tashtego passing new lashings around it.

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had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they

revolved upon the cards; it is a sight that hardly anyone can

behold without some sort of unwonted emotion.



Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much,

that through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb--

one engaged forward and the other aft--the shivered remnants of

the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars,

and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross,

which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird

is on the wing.



The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed,

and a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon

went through the water with some precision again; and the course--

for the present, East-south-east--which he was to steer, if practicable,

was once more given to the helmsman.  For during the violence

of the gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes.

But as he was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible,

watching the compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind seemed

coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze became fair!



Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of "Ho!

the fair wind! oh-ye-ho cheerly, men!" the crew singing for joy,

that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil

portents preceding it.



In compliance with the standing order of his commander--

to report immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours,

any decided change in the affairs of the deck,--Starbuck had

no sooner trimmed the yards to the breeze--however reluctantly

and gloomily,--than he mechanically went below to apprise

Captain Ahab of the circumstance.



Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it

a moment.  The cabin lamp--taking long swings this way and that--

was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old

man's bolted door,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted,

in place of upper panels.  The isolated subterraneousness

of the cabin made a certain humming silence to reign there,

though it was hooped round by all the roar of the elements.

The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed,

as they stood upright against the forward bulkhead.

Starbuck was an honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart,

at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangely

evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or good

accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for itself.



"He would have shot me once," he murmured, "yes, there's the very

musket that he pointed at me;--that one with the studded stock;

let me touch it--lift it.  Strange, that I, who have

handled so many deadly lances, strange, that I should shake

so now.  Loaded?  I must see.  Aye, aye; and powder in the pan;--

that's not good.  Best spill it?--wait.  I'll cure myself of this.

I'll hold the musket boldly while I think.--I come to report

a fair wind to him.  But how fair?  Fair for death and doom,--

that's fair for Moby Dick.  It's a fair wind that's only fair for

that accursed fish.--The very tube he pointed at me!--the very one;

this one--I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very

thing I handle now.--Aye and he would fain kill all his crew.

Does he not say he will not strike his spars to any gale?

Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant? and in these same

perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning

of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did he not

swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed

old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down

to doom with him?--Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer

of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm;

and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will,

if Ahab have his way.  If, then, he were this instant--

put aside, that crime would not be his.  Ha! is he muttering

in his sleep?  Yes, just there,--in there, he's sleeping.

Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again.

I can't withstand thee, then, old man.  Not reasoning;

not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to;

all this thou scornest.  Flat obedience to thy own flat commands,

this is all thou breathest.  Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd

thy vow; say'st all of us are Ahabs.  Great God forbid!--

But is there no other way? no lawful way?--Make him a prisoner

to be taken home?  What! hope to wrest this old man's living

power from his own living hands?  Only a fool would try it.

Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes

and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor;

he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then.  I could

not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his howlings;

all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me

on the long intolerable voyage.  What, then, remains?  The land

is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest.

I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a

whole continent between me and law.--Aye, aye, 'tis so.--

Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be

murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?--

And would I be a murderer, then, if"--and slowly, stealthily,

and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end

against the door.



"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way.

A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.--

Oh Mary!  Mary!--boy! boy! boy!--But if I wake thee not to death,

old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day

week may sink, with all the crew!  Great God, where art Thou?  Shall I?

shall I?--The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main

topsails are reefed and set! she heads her course."



"Stern all!  Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!"



Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's

tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb

dream to speak.



The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel;

Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel, but turning from the door,

he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.



"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him,

and tell him.  I must see to the deck here.  Thou know'st

what to say."







CHAPTER 124

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

and though she had thus continued doing till daylight;

yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been seen.



The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal

his object in boarding the Pequod.  He desired that ship to unite

with his own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five

miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon,

as it were.



"I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask, "that some one

in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap, his watch--

he's so cursed anxious to get it back.  Who ever heard of two pious

whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height

of the whaling season?  See, Flask, only see how pale he looks--

pale in the very buttons of his eyes--look--it wasn't the coat--

it must have been the-"



"My boy, my own boy is among them.  For God's sake--I beg, I conjure"--

here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but

icily received his petition.  "For eight-and-forty hours let me

charter your ship--I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it--

if there be no other way--for eight-and-forty hours only--only that--

you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing."



"His son!" cried Stubb, "oh, it's his son he's lost!

I take back the coat and watch--what says Ahab?  We must

save that boy."



"He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night," said the old Manx

sailor standing behind them; "I heard; all of ye heard their spirits."



Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's

the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one

of the Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew;

but among the number of the other boats' crews, at the same time,

but on the other hand, separated from the ship during the dark

vicissitudes of the chase, there had been still another son;

as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged to the bottom

of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved for him

by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure

of a whaleship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between

jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority first.

But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason,

had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it

by Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy;

a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest

but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love,

had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders

of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race.

Nor does it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will

send a son of such tender age away from them, for a protracted

three or four years' voyage in some other ship than their own;

so that their first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall

be unenervated by any chance display of a father's natural

but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern.



Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;

and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without

the least quivering of his own.



"I will not go," said the stranger, "till you say aye to me.

Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case.

For you too have a boy, Captain Ahab--though but a child,

and nestling safely at home now--a child of your old age too--

Yes, yes, you relent; I see it--run, run, men, now, and stand

by to square in the yards."



"Avast," cried Ahab--"touch not a rope-yarn"; then in a voice that

prolongingly moulded every word--"Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.

Even now I lose time, Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I

forgive myself, but I must go.  Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch,

and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers;

then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before."



Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into

his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this

unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit.

But starting from his enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried

to the side; more fell than stepped into his boat, and returned

to his ship.



Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange

vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every

dark spot, however small, on the sea.  This way and that her yards

were swung around; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack;

now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it;

while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered

with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying

among the boughs.



But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw

that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort.

She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not.







CHAPTER 129



The Cabin





(Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches him by the hand to follow.)



Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now.

The hour is coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him,

yet would not have thee by him.  There is that in thee, poor lad,

which I feel too curing to my malady.  Like cures like;

and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health.

Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee,

as if thou wert the captain.  Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here

in my own screwed chair; another screw to it, thou must be."



"No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me

for your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more,

so I remain a part of ye."



"Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless

fidelity of man!--and a black! and crazy!--but methinks like-cures-like

applies to him too; he grows so sane again."



"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip,

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

"Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night.  Down royals and

top-gallant stunsails, Mr. Starbuck.  We must not run over him

before morning; he's making a passage now, and may heave-to a while.

Helm there! keep her full before the wind!--Aloft! come down!--

Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see

it manned till morning."--Then advancing towards the doubloon

in the main-mast--"Men, this gold is mine, for I earned it;

but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead;

and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall

be killed, this gold is that man's; and if on that day I shall again

raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye!

Away now! the deck is thine, sir!"



And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle,

and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at

intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on.







CHAPTER 134



The Chase - Second Day





At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.



"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space

for the light to spread.



"See nothing, sir."



"Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought for;--

the top-gallant sails!--aye, they should have been kept on her all night.

But no matter--'tis but resting for the rush."



Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale,

continued through day into night, and through night into day,

is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery.

For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience,

and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among

the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale

when last descried, they will, under certain given circumstances,

pretty accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue

to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable

rate of progression during that period.  And, in these cases,

somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general

trending he well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again,

but at some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass,

and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible,

in order the more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland,

eventually to be visited:  so does the fisherman, at his compass,

with the whale; for after being chased, and diligently marked,

through several hours of daylight, then, when night obscures

the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness is almost

as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the pilot's

coast is to him.  So that to this hunter's wondrous skill,

the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake,

is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land.

And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly

known in its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time

his rate as doctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it,

the up train or the down train will reach such or such a spot,

at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions

when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep,

according to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves,

so many hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles,

will have about reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude.

But to render this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind

and the sea must be the whaleman's allies; for of what present avail

to the becalmed or wind-bound mariner is the skill that assures him

he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port?

Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters

touching the chase of whales.



The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when

a cannonball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up

the level field.



"By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swift motion of the deck

creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart.  This ship and I

are two brave fellows!--Ha, ha!  Some one take me up, and launch me,

spine-wise, on the sea,--for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel.

Ha, ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!"



"There she blows--she blows!--she blows!--right ahead!"

was now the mast-head cry.



"Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it--ye can't escape--blow on and split

your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your trump--

blister your lungs!--Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller shuts

his watergate upon the stream!"



And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew.

The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them

bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew.  Whatever pale

fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before;

these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing

awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed,

as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison.

The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring

perils of the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense;

the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild

craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things,

their hearts were bowled along.  The wind that made great bellies

of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible

as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency

which so enslaved them to the race.



They were one man, not thirty.  For as the one ship that held them all;

though it was put together of all contrasting things--oak, and maple,

and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp--yet all these ran

into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way,

both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so,

all the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear;

guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness,

and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord

and keel did point to.



The rigging lived.  The mast-heads, like the tops of

tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs.

Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other

with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the

vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars

in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate.

Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek

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When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.



So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed

nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers,

and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight,

as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful

rigging of the spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons

for the morrow.  Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked

craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as on

the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle;

his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial;

sat due eastward for the earliest sun.







CHAPTER 135



The Chase - Third Day





The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once

more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved

by crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast

and almost every spar.



"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.



"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all.

Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going.

What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for

a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its

throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world.

Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks;

he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal

man! to think's audacity.  God only has that right and privilege.

Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our

poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.

And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm--

frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which

the contents turned to ice, and shiver it.  And still this hair

is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it;

but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere,

between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava.

How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn

shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to.

A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors

and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes

blowing hither as innocent as fleeces.  Out upon it!--it's tainted.

Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world.

I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there.  And yet,

'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it?

In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow.  Run tilting

at it, and you but run through it.  Ha! a coward wind that strikes

stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow.

Even Ahab is a braver thing--a nobler thing than that.

Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most

exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless,

but only bodiless as objects, not as agents.  There's a

most special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference!

And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there's something

all glorious and gracious in the wind.  These warm Trade Winds,

at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong

and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark,

however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack,

and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about,

uncertain where to go at last.  And by the eternal Poles!

these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on;

these Trades, or something like them--something so unchangeable,

and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along!  To it!  Aloft there!

What d'ye see?"



"Nothing, sir."



"Nothing! and noon at hand!  The doubloon goes a-begging! See

the sun!  Aye, aye, it must be so.  I've over-sailed him.

How, got the start?  Aye, he's chasing me now; not I, him--

that's bad; I might have known it, too.  Fool! the lines--

the harpoons he's towing.  Aye, aye, I have run him by last night.

About! about!  Come down, all of ye, but the regular look outs!

Man the braces!"



Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the

Pequod's quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction,

the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned

the cream in her own white wake.



"Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," murmured Starbuck

to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail.

"God keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from

the inside wet my flesh.  I misdoubt me that I disobey my God

in obeying him!"



"Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket.

"We should meet him soon."



"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding,

and once more Ahab swung on high.



A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages.

Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense.

But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried

the spout again, and instantly from the three mast-heads

three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.



"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick!

On deck there!--brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye.

He's too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck.  The sails shake!

Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast,

and I must down.  But let me have one more good round look aloft

here at the sea; there's time for that.  An old, old sight, and yet

somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it,

a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket!  The same--the same!--

the same to Noah as to me.  There's a soft shower to leeward.

Such lovely leewardings!  They must lead somewhere--

to something else than common land, more palmy than the palms.

Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then;

the better if the bitterer quarter.  But good bye, good bye,

old mast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these

warped cracks.  No such green weather stains on Ahab's head!

There's the difference now between man's old age and matter's.

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  ETYMOLOGY



  (Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School)



The pale Usher--threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain;

I see him now.  He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars,

with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay

flags of all the known nations of the world.  He loved to dust

his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.



  "While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by

what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out,

through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the

signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true."

    --HACKLUYT



  "WHALE. ... Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness

or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted."

    --WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY



  "WHALE. ... It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger.

Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow."

    --RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY



          KETOS,               Greek.

          CETUS,               Latin.

          WHOEL,               Anglo-Saxon.

          HVALT,               Danish.

          WAL,                 Dutch.

          HWAL,                Swedish.

          WHALE,               Icelandic.

          WHALE,               English.

          BALEINE,             French.

          BALLENA,             Spanish.

          PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,     Fegee.

          PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,     Erromangoan.





  EXTRACTS

  (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian)



It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm

of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long

Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random

allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever,

sacred or profane.  therefore you must not, in every case at least,

take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic,

in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.  Far from it.

As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets

here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining,

as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been

promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan,

by many nations and generations, including our own.



So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am.

Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world

will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong;

but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too;

and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full

eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness--

Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please

the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless!

Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye!

But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with

your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing

out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long

pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming.

Here ye strike but splintered hearts together--there, ye shall

strike unsplinterable glasses!



  "And God created great whales."

  --GENESIS.



  "Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him;

  One would think the deep to be hoary."

  --JOB.



  "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah."

  --JONAH.



  "There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made

to play therein."

  --PSALMS.



  "In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword,

shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that

crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

  --ISAIAH



  "And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this

monster's mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all

incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the

bottomless gulf of his paunch."

  --HOLLAND'S PLUTARCH'S MORALS.



  "The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are:

among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much

in length as four acres or arpens of land."

  --HOLLAND'S PLINY.



  "Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a

great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the

former, one was of a most monstrous size. ... This came towards us,

open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea

before him into a foam."

  --TOOKE'S LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY."



  "He visited this country also with a view of catching

horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth,

of which he brought some to the king. ... The best whales were

catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty

yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two

days."

  --OTHER OR OCTHER'S VERBAL NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN FROM

HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D. 890.



  "And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that

enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are

immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

  "What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned

Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid

sit."

  --SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. E.



    "Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail

    He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.

      ...

    Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,

    And on his back a grove of pikes appears."

  --WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.



  "By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or

State--(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man."

  --OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.



  "Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a

sprat in the mouth of a whale."

  --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.



            "That sea beast

    Leviathan, which God of all his works

    Created hugest that swim the ocean stream."

  --PARADISE LOST.



            "There Leviathan,

    Hugest of living creatures, in the deep

    Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,

    And seems a moving land; and at his gills

    Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea."

  --IBID.



  "The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of

oil swimming in them."

  --FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE.



    "So close behind some promontory lie

      The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,

    And give no chance, but swallow in the fry,

      Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."

  --DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS.



  "While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut

off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will

come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water."

  --THOMAS EDGE'S TEN VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN, IN PURCHAS.



  "In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in

wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which

nature has placed on their shoulders."

  --SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO ASIA AND AFRICA.  HARRIS COLL.



  "Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced

to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their

ship upon them."

  --SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION.



  "We set sail from the Elbe, wind N. E. in the ship called The

Jonas-in-the-Whale. ...

  Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable. ...

  They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a

whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains. ...

  I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel

of herrings in his belly. ...

  One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in

Spitzbergen that was white all over."

  --A VOYAGE TO GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS COLL.



  "Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one

eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I

was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight

of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of

Pitferren."

  --SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS.



  "Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this

Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was

killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness."

  --RICHARD STRAFFORD'S LETTER FROM THE BERMUDAS. PHIL.  TRANS. A.D. 1668.



     "Whales in the sea

     God's voice obey."

  --N. E. PRIMER.



  "We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those

southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to

the northward of us."

  --CAPTAIN COWLEY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, A.D. 1729.



  "... and the breath of the whale is frequendy attended with

such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain."

  --ULLOA'S SOUTH AMERICA.



    "To fifty chosen sylphs of special note,

    We trust the important charge, the petticoat.

    Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,

    Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale."

  --RAPE OF THE LOCK.



  "If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that

take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear

contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest

animal in creation."

  --GOLDSMITH, NAT. HIST.



  "If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make

them speak like great wales."

  --GOLDSMITH TO JOHNSON.



  "In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it

was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were

then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves

behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us."

  --COOK'S VOYAGES.



  "The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in

so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid

to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood,

and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to

terrify and prevent their too near approach."