App-PigLatin

 view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

"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?"

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an

advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods;

may it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated?



Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts

of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally.

For Pliny tells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk,

and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length--

Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales!  And even in the days

of Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member

of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales

(reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards;

that is, three hundred and sixty feet.  And Lacepede,

the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales,

in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale

at one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet.

And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.



But will any whaleman believe these stories?  No. The whale

of to-day is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time.