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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
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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.
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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--
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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-"
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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,
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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?"
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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
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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;
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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
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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,
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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?"
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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!
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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?
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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.)
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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;
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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
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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.
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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,
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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!
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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
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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
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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,
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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.
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"'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
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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.
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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.
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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:"--
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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?
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"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?--
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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.
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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.
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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
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"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?"
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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,
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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,
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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;
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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."
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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
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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?
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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,
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"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
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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?
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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
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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,
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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
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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?"
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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!
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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
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