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where the Right Whale is often chased.





But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at

all reminded one of mowers.  Seen from the mast-heads, especially

when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black

forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else.

And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger

at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent

elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare,

blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for

the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.

And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude renders

it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth

can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life

that lives in a dog or a horse.



Indeed.  in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures

of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore.

For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures

of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad

general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming

to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish

that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?

The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear

comparative analogy to him.



But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas

have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling;

though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita,

so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover

his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most

terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately

befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon

the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach that,

however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much,

in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment;

yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult

and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate

he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these

very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness

of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.



The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese

vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow.

That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships

of last year.  Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided;

two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.



Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon

one is not a miracle upon the other?  Preternatural terrors

rested upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his

company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for ever;

yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner

the live sea swallows up ships and crews.



But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien

to it, but it is also a fiend to its own off-spring;

worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests;

sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned.

Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her

own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against

the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split

wrecks of ships.  No mercy, no power but its own controls it.

Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost

its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.



Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded

creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part,

and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.

Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of

its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape

of many species of sharks.  Consider once more, the universal

cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other,

carrying on eternal war since the world began.



Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most

docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land;

and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul

of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy,

but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.

God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!





CHAPTER 59



Squid





Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still

held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java;

a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding

serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved

to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain.

And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,

alluring jet would be seen.



But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost

preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any

stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters

seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy;

when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on;

in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre

was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.



In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher

and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed

before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills.

Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank.

Then once more arose, and silently gleamed.  It seemed not a whale;

and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo.  Again the phantom

went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like

cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled

out--"There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead!

The White Whale, the White Whale!"



Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time

the bees rush to the boughs.  Bare-headed in the sultry sun,

Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind

in readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager