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MOBY-DICK;
OR,
THE WHALE.
HERMAN MELVILLE,
AUTHOR OF
NEW YORK:
HARPER c BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY.
1851.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S51, by
HERMAN MELVILLE,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southorn District of New York.
IN TOKEN
OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENI
U^
€jris %nk is Snstrihi
TO
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
CONTENTS.
Chap.
Page
Chap.
Page
I.
— Loomings . .
1
XL.
— Forecastle. — Mid-
II.-
—The Carpet Bag.
7
night ....
189
III.
— The Spouter-Inn
11
XLI.
—Moby Dick . . .
196
IV.
— The Counterpane
28
XLII.
— The Whiteness of
T.
— Breakfast . . .
32
the Whale . .
207
VI.
—The Street . .
35
XLIII.
-Hark! . . . .
217
VII.
—The Chapel . .
37
XLIV.
—The Chart . . .
218
VIII.-
—The Pulpit . .
41
XLV.
—The Affidavit . .
224
IX.
— The Sermon . .
44
XL VI.
— Surmises ....
231
X.
— A Bosom Friend
54
XLVII.
—The Mat-Maker .
237
XI.
— Nightgown .
58
XLVIII
— The First Lowering
240
XII.-
— Biographical .
61
XLIX.
— The Hyena . . .
252
XIII.-
— Wheelbarrow .
63
L.-
— Ahab's Boat and
XIV.
— Nantucket . .
69
Crew — Fedallah.
255
XV.
— Chowder . . .
71
LI.-
—The Spirit-Spout .
258
XVI.
—The Ship . . .
75
LII.-
— The Pequod meets
XVII.-
—The Ramadan .
. 91
the Albatross. .
262
XVIII-
—His Mark . . .
97
LIII.-
—The Gam. . . .
264
XIX.-
—The Prophet . .
102
LIV.
—The Town Ho's
XX.
—All Astir . . .-
106
Story ....
269
XXI.
— Going Aboard .
108
LV.
— Monstrous Pictures
XXII.-
—Merry Christmas
112
of Whales. . .
292
XXIII.-
—The Lee Shore .
117
LVI.
— Less Erroneous Pic-
XXIV.
— The Advocate .
118
tures of Whales .
298
XXV.
— Postscript. . .
124
LVII.-
—Of Whales in Paint,
XXVI.-
— Knights and Squires
125
in Teeth, &c.
302
XXVII.
— Knights and Squires
128
LVIII.-
—Brit
305
XXVIII.-
-Ahab ....
133
LIX.-
308
XXIX.-
—Enter Ahab ; to him
LX.-
—The Line. . . .
311
Stubb . . .
137
LXI.-
-Stubb kills a Whale.
315
XXX.-
—The Pipe . . .
141
LXII.
—The Dart. .
321
XXXI.-
—Queen Mab . . .
142
LXIII.-
—The Crotch . . .
322
XXXII.
— Cetology . . .
144
LXIV.-
— Stubb's Supper . .
324
XXXIII.
— The Specksynder
159
LXV.-
-The Whale as a
XXXIV.-
—The Cabin Table
162
Dish ....
333
XXXV.
—The Mast-Head.
169
LXVI.
—The Shark Mas-
XXXVI.
— The Quarter-Deck
sacre ....
336
Ahab and all.
176
LXVII.-
— Cutting In . . .
33S
XXXVII.-
185
LXVIII.-
—The Blanket . .
340
XXXVIII.-
—Dusk ....
186
LXIX.-
-The Funeral. . .
343
XXXIX.-
—First Night- Watch
188
LXX.-
—The Sphynx. . .
345
VI
CONTENTS.
Chap.
Page
Chap.
Page
LXXI.
— The Pequod meets
CII.
— A Bovver in the Ar-
the Jeroboam.
sacides. . . .
498
Her Story . .
348
cm.
— Measurement of the
LXXII.
— The Monkey-rope
355
Whale's Skeleton
503
LXXIII.
— Stubb & Flask kill
CIV.
—The Fossil Whale.
506
a Right Whale.
360
cv.
—Does the Whale Di-
LXXIV.
— The SpermWhale's
minish 1 . . .
510
Head . . .
366
CVI.
— Ahab's Leg . . .
515
LXXV.
—The Right Whale's
CVII.
— The Carpenter . .
518
Head. . . .
371
CVIII.
—The Deck. Ahab
LXXVI.-
— The BatteringRam
374
and the Carpenter
521
LXXVII.
—The Great Heidel-
CIX.
—The Cabin. Ahab
burgh Tun . .
377
and Starbuck .
526
LXXVIII.
— Cistern and Buck-
ex.
— Queequeg in his
ets ... .
379
Coffin ....
529
LXXIX.-
—The Praire . . .
384
CXI.
—The Pacific . . .
535
LXXX.-
—The Nut . . .
387
CXII.
—The Blacksmith .
537
LXXXI.-
—The Pequod meets
CXIII.
—The Forge . . .
540
the Virgin . .
390
CXIV.
—The Gilder . . .
544
LXXXII.-
—The Honor and
cxv.-
—The Pequod meets
Glory of Whal-
the Bachelor
546
ing ... .
402
CXVI.-
—The Dying Whale.
549
LXXXIII.-
—Jonah Historically
CXVII.-
-The Whale- Watch.
550
Regarded . .
406
CXVIII.-
—The Quadrant . .
552
LXXXIV.
— Pitchpoling. . .
408
CXIX.-
-The Candles. . .
555
LXXXV.-
—The Fountain . .
411
cxx.-
-The Deck . . .
562
LXXXVI.-
-The Tail . . .
417
CXXI.-
—Midnight, on the
LXXXVII.
— The Grand Arma-
Forecastle . .
563
da
422
CXXII.-
—Midnight, Aloft. .
565
LXXXVIII.-
—Schools & School-
CXXIII.
—The Musket. . .
565
masters . . .
436
CXXIV.-
—The Needle . . .
569
LXXXIX.-
—Fast Fish and
exxv.
— The Log and Line.
573
Loose Fish . .
440
CXXVI.-
—The Life-Buoy . .
577
xc.
— Heads or Tails .
444
CXXVII.-
—Ahab and the Car-
XCI.-
— The Pequod meet3
penter ....
581
the Rose Bud .
447
CXXVIII.
— The Pequod meets
XCII.
— Ambergris . . .
455
the Rachel . .
583
XCIII.-
—The Castaway. .
458
CXXIX.-
-The Cabin. Ahab
XCIV.-
— A Squeeze of the
and Pip . . .
587
Hand. . . .
463
exxx.-
—The Hat . . . .
589
xcv.-
—The Cassock . .
467
CXXXI.
—The Pequod meets
XCVI.-
—The Try- Works .
468
the Delight . .
594
XCVII.-
—The Lamp . . .
474
CXXXII.-
—The Symphony. .
590
XCVIII.
— Stowing Down &
CXXXIII.
—The Chase. First
Clearing Up .
474
Day ....
601
XCIX.-
—The Doubloon. .
478
CXXXIV.-
— The Chase. Second
c.
— The Pequod meets
Day ....
611
the Samuel En-
exxxv.
—The Chase. Third
derby of London.
485
Day ....
621
CI.
— The Decanter . .
493
Epilogue .
IOBY-DICK;
OR,
THE WHALE
ETYMOLOGY.
(supplies by a late consumptive usher to a
grammar school.)
The pale Usher — threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain ; I see him
now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a
queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all
the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars ;
it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.
ETYMOLOGY
" While you take in hand to school others, and to teach
them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue,
leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost
alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that
which is not true." Hackluyt.
"WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal
is named from roundness or rolling ; for in Dan. hvalt is arched
or vaulted." Webster's Dictionary.
" WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the
Dut. and Ger. Wallen ; a.s. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow."
Richardson's Dictionary.
V,
Hebrew.
xr)<rog,
Greek.
CETUS,
Latin.
WHCEL,
Anglo-Saxon.
HVALT,
Danish.
WAL,
Dutch.
HWAL,
Swedish.
WHALE,
Icelandic.
WHALE,
English.
BALEINE,
French.
BALLENA,
Spanish.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,
Fegee.
PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE,
Erromangoan,
EXTRACTS.
(£uppltrtJ J>a a £u&*£u6=1Lttitatfatt.)
It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm
of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long
Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random
allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever,
sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the
higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts,
for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient
authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts
are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's eye
view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung
of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own.
So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I
am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of
this world will ever warm ; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be
too rosy -strong ; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel
poor-devilish, too ; and grow convivial upon tears ; and say to them
bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether
unpleasant sadness — Give it up, Sub-Subs ! For by how much the 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 !
A*
EXTEAOTS.
" And God created great whales."
Genesis.
" Leviathan maketh a path to shin-5 after him ;
One would think the deep t< be hoary."
Job.
"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up
Jonah." . Jonah.
" There go the ships ; there is that Leviathan whom thou
hast made to play therein." Psalms.
" In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong
sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even
Leviathan that crooked serpent ; and he shall slay the dragon
that is in the sea." Isaiah.
" And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of
this monster's mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes
all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in
the bottomless gulf of his paunch."
Holland's Plutarch's Morals.
" The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes
that are : among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called
Balsene, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of
land." Holland's Pliny.
EXTRACTS.
" Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when
about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the
sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous
size. * * This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the
waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a
foam." Tooke's Lucian.
" The True History:"
" He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-
whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of
which he brought some to the king. * * * The best
whales were catched in his own country, of which some were
forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of
six who had killed sixty in two days."
Other or 0 ether's verbal narrative taken down
from his mouth by King Alfred. A. D. 890.
" And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel,
that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's)
mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon
retires into it in great security, and there sleeps."
Montaigne. — Apology for Raimond Sebond.
"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not
Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of
patient Job." Rabelais.
" This whale's liver was two cart-loads."
Stowe's Annals.
" The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like
boiling pan." Lord Bacon's Version of the Psalms.
" Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have
received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch
that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one
whale." Ibid " History of Life and Death."
EXTRACTS
" The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward
bruise." King Henry.
" Very like a whale." Hamlet.
" Which to secure, no skill of leach's art
Mote him availle, but to returne againe
To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart,
Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine,
Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the
maine." The Fairie Queen.
" Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can
in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil."
Sir William Davenant. Preface to Gondibert.
"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the
learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly,
Nescio quid sit."
Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the
Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E.
" Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.
*****
Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,
And on his back a grove of pikes appears."
Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands.
" By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Common-
wealth or State — (in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial
man." Opening sentence of Hoboes'1 s Leviathan.
" Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had
been a sprat in the mouth of a whale."
Pilgrim's Progress.
EXTRACTS
" That sea beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream."
Paradise Lost.
" There Leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, in the deep
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land ; and at his gills
Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea."
Ibid.
"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and
have a sea of oil swimming in them."
Fuller's Profane and Holy State.
" So close behind some promontory lie
The huge Leviathans to attend their prey,
And give no chace, but swallow in the fry,
Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."
Dryderis Annus Mirabilis.
" While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they
cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it
will come ; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet
water."
Thomas Edge's Ten Voyages to Spitsbergen, in Purchass.
" In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean,
and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and
vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders."
Sir T. Herbert'' s Voyages into Asia and Africa.
Harris Coll.
" Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were
forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they
should run their ship upon them."
Schouten's Sixth Circumnavigation.
EXTRACTS.
" We set sail from the Elbe, wind N. E. in tlie ship called
The Jonas-in-the-Whale. * * *
Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a
fable. * * *
They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can
see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains-***
I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a
barrel of -herrings in his belly. * * *
One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale
in Spitzbergen that was white all over."
A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671.
Harris Coll.
" Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife).
Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind
came in, which, (as I was informed) besides a vast quantity of
oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a
gate in the garden of Pitferren."
SibbalcVs Fife and Kinross.
" Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill
this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that
sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and
swiftness."
Richard Strafford 's Letter from the Bermudas.
Phil. Trans. A. D. 1668.
" Whales in the sea
God's voice obey."
N. E. Primer.
" We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more
in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one ;
than we have to the northward of us."
Captain Cowley's Voyage round the Globe. A. B. 1729.
•a * -u * * u an(j t;he breath of the whale is frequently
attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a
disorder of the brain."
UUoa's South America.
EXTRACTS.
" To fifty chosen sylphs of special note,
We trust the important charge, the petticoat.
Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,-
Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale."
Rape of the Lock.
" If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with
those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they
will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is
doubtless the largest animal in creation."
Goldsmith, Nat. His.
" If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make
them speak like great whales."
Goldsmith to Johnson.
"In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock,
but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had
killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor
to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being
seen by us." Cook's Voyages.
" The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They
stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea
they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung,
lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same
nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too
near approach."
TJno Von TroiVs Letters on Banks's and
Solander's Voyage to Iceland in 1772.
"The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an
active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in
the fishermen."
Thomas Jefferson's Whale Memorial to the
French minister in 1778.
" And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it V
Edmund Burke's reference in Parliament
to the Nantucket Whale- Fishery.
EXTRACTS.
" Spain a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe."
Edmund Burke, {somewhere.)
" A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be
grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting
the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish,
which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown
ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king."
Blackstone.
" Soon to the sport of death the crews repair :
Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and eveiy turn attends."
Falconer's Shipwreck.
" Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,
And rockets blew self driven,
To hang their momentary fire
Around the vault of heaven.
" So fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves on high,
Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy."
Cowper, on the Queen's Visit to London.
" Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart
at a stroke, with immense velocity."
John Hunter's account of the dissection
of a whale. (A small sized one.)
" The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main
pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roar-
ing in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and
velocity to the blood gushing from the whale's heart."
Paley's Theology.
" The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet."
Baron Cuvier.
EXTRACTS.
" In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did
not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered
with them."
Colnetfs Voyage for the Purpose of
Extending the Spermacetti Whale Finery.
. " In the free element beneath me swam,
Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle,
Fishes of every color, form, and kind ;
Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Had never seen ; from dread Leviathan
To insect millions peopling every wave :
Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands,
Led by mysterious instincts through that waste
And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,
Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw.
With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs."
Montgomery's World before the Flood.
" Io ! Paean ! Io ! sing,
To the finny people's king.
Not a mightier whale than this
In the vast Atlantic is ;
Not a fatter fish than he,
Flounders round the Polar Sea."
Charles Lamb's Triumph of the Whale.
"In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observ-
ing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when
one observed ; there — pointing to the sea — is a green pasture
where our children's grand-children will go for bread."
Obed Macy's History of Nantucket.
" I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway
in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw
bones." Hawthorne's Tioice Told Tales.
" She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who
had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than
forty years ago." Ibid.
EXTRACTS,
" No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom ; " I saw his
spout ; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian
would wish to look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow ! "
Cooper's Pilot.
"The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin
Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there."
Eckermanrfs Conversations with Goethe.
" My God ! Mr. Chace, what is the matter ?" I answered, " we
have been stove by a whale."
"Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship
Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and
finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale
in the Pacific Ocean. By Owen Chace of
Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New
York. 1821.
" A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,
The wind was piping free ;
Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,
And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,
As it floundered in the sea."
Elizabeth Oakes Smith.
"The quantity of line withdrawn from the different boats
engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether
to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles." * * *
" Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air,
which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three
or four miles." Scoresby.
" Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks,
the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over ; he rears his
enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everv-
thing around him ; he rushes at the boats with his head ; they
are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes
utterly destroyed.
* * * It is a matter of great astonishment that the con-
sideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial
EXTRACTS.
point of view, of so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale)
should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited
so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them com-
petent observers, that of late years must have possessed the
most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of
witnessing their habitudes."
Thomas Beetle's History of the Sperm Whale, 1839.
" The Cachalot " (Sperm Whale) " is not only better armed
than the True Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) " in pos-
sessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but
also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these
weapons offensively, and in a manner at once so artful, bold,
and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most
dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe."
Frederick Debell Bennetts Whaling
Voyage Round the Globe. 1840.
October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the
mast-head.
" Where away ?" demanded the captain.
" Three points off the lee bow, sir."
" Raise up your wheel. Steady !"
" Steady, sir."
" Mast-head ahoy ! Do you see that whale now ?"
" Ay ay, sir ! A shoal of Sperm Whales ! There she blows !
There she breaches !"
" Sing out ! sing out every time !"
" Ay ay, sir ! There she blows ! there — there — thar she
blows — bowes — bo-o-o-s !"
"How far off?"
" Two miles and a half."
" Thunder and lightning ! so near ! Call all hands !"
J. Ross Browne's Etchings
of a Whaling Cruize. 1846.
" The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred
the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the
island of Nantucket."
"Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by
Lay and Hussey survivors. A. D. 1828.
EXTRACTS.
" Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he
parried the assault for some time with a lance ; but the furious
monster at length rushed on the boat ; himself and comrades
only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw
the onset was inevitable."
Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett.
" Nantucket itself," said Mr. "Webster, " is a very striking and
peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population
of eight or nine thousand persons, living here in the sea, adding
largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and
most persevering industry."
Report of Daniel Webster's Speech in the
U. S. Senate, on the application for the
Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket.
1828.
" The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him
in a moment."
" The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman's
Adventures and the Whale's Biography, gathered
on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore
Preble." By Rev. Henry T. Cheever.
" If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel,
" I will send you to hell."
Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his
brother, William Comstock. Another Ver-
sion of tke whale-ship Globe narrative.
" The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern
Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to
India, though they failed of their main object, laid open the
haunts of the whale."
McCulloctts Commercial Dictionary.
" These things are reciprocal ; the ball rebounds, only to
bound forward again ; for now in laying open the haunts of
the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new
clews to that same mystic North-West Passage."
From " Something " unpublished.
EXTRACTS
" It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without
being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short
sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the
wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from
those engaged in a regular voyage."
Currents and Whaling. JJ. S. Ex. Ex.
" Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may
recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth,
either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves,
and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs
of whales." Tales of a Whale Voyager
to the Arctic Ocean.
" It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these
whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of
the savages enrolled among the crew."
Newspaper Account of the Taking and
Retaking of the Whale-ship Hobomack.
" It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling
vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of
which they departed." Cruise in a Whale Boat.
" Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot
up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale."
Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman.
" The Whale is harpooned to be sure ; but bethink you, how
you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere
appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail."
A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks.
" On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) pro-
bably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other,
within less than a stone's throw of the shore " (Terra Del Fu-
ego), " over which the beech tree extended its branches."
Danvin's Voyage of a Naturalist.
" ' Stern all !' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head,
he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the
EXTRACT'S
head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction ; —
' Stern all, for your lives !' "
Wharton the Whale Kilter.
" So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail,
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale !"
Nantucket Song,
" Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale
In his ocean home will be
A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea."
Whale Sony.^
CHAPTER I.
L00MINGS.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long
precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about
a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have
of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. When-
ever I find myself growing grim about the mouth ; whenever it
is a damp, drizzly November in my soul ; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up
the rear of every funeral I meet ; and especially whenever my
hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong
moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into
the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off — then, I
account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my
substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish
Cato throws himself upon his sword ; I quietly take to the
ship. There is nothing surprising^in this. If they but knew it,
almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very
nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted
round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs — commerce sur-
rounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you
waterward. Its extreme down-town is the battery, where that
noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which
a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the
crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon.
Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by
1
L O O M I N G S .
Whitehall, northward. What do you see ? — Posted like silent
sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands
of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the
spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads ; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging,
as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are
all landsmen ; of week days pent up in lath and plaster — tied
to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then
is this ? Are the green fields gone ? What do they here ?
But look ! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the
water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange ! Nothing
will content them but the extremest limit of the land ; loitering
under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No.
They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can
without falling in. And there they stand — miles of them —
leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
and avenues — north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all
unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the
compasses of all those ships attract them thither ?
Once more. Saj, you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one
it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in
the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded
of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on
his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to
water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be
athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your
caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor.
Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dream-
iest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic land-
scape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element
he employs ? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk,
LOO MINGS
as if a hermit and a crucifix were within ; and here sleeps his
meadow, and there sleep his cattle ; and up from yonder cottage
goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a
mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed
in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus
tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like
leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the
shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him.
Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of
miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies — what is the
one charm wanting ? — Water — there is not a drop of water
there ! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you
travel your thousand miles to see it ? Why did the poor poet,
of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver,
deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly
needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway
Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a
robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go
to sea ? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you
yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you
and your ship were now out of sight of land ? Why did the
old Persians hold the sea holy ? Why did the Greeks give it
a separate deity, and own brother of Jove ? Surely all this is
not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that
story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the torment-
ing, 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
LOOMINGS
you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick —
grow quarrelsome — don't sleep of nights — do not enjoy them-
selves much, as a general thing ; — no, I never go as a passen-
ger ; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever
go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I aban-
don 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 bake-houses the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before
the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the
royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and
make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a
May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant
enough. It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you
come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensse-
laers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all,
if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have
been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest
boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I
assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and
bear it. But even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to
L O O M I N G S
get a broom and sweep down the decks ? What does that
indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New
Testament ? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks any-
thing the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey
that old hunks in that particular instance ? "Who aint a slave ?
Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains ma)'
order me about — however they may thump and punch me
about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right ;
that everybody else is one way or other served in much the
same way — either in a physical or metaphysical point of view,
that is ; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all
hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be con-
tent.
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make
a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay
passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the con-
trary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the
difference in the world between paying and being paid. The
act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that
the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, —
what will compare with it ? The urbane activity with which a
man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so
earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and
that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah ! how
cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition !
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the whole-
some exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in
this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from
astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so
for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his
atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle.
He thinks he breathes it first ; but not so. In much the same
way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other
things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
LOOMINGS
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a
whaling voyage ; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who
has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and
influences me in some unaccountable way— he can better answer
than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling
voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that
was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief
interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take
it that this part of the bill must have run something like this :
" Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
" WHALING- VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage
managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a
whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent
parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel
comedies, and jolly parts in farces — though I cannot tell why
this was exactly ; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I
think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being
cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me
to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into
the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased
freewill and discriminating judgment.
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the
great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster
roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where
he rolled his island bulk ; the undeliverable, nameless perils of
the whale ; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand
Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish.
With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been
inducements ; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlast-
ing itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and
THE CARPET-BAG,
land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am
quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it
— would they let me — since it is but well to be on friendly
terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was wel-
come ; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open,
and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two
and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions
of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phan-
tom, like a snow hill in the air.
CHAPTER II.
THE CARPET-BAG.
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it
under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific.
Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New
Bedford. It was on a Saturday night in December. Much
was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for
Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that
place would offer, till the following Monday.
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of
whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on
their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no
idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no
other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous
something about everything connected with that famous old
island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New
Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business
of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is
now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original —
THE CARPET-BAG
the Tyre of this Carthage ; — the place where the first dead
American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket
did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in
canoes to give chase to the Leviathan ? And where but from
Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth,
partly laden with imported cobble-stones — so goes the story —
to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were
nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit ?
Now having a night, a day, and still another night following
before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined
port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat
and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a
very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew
no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded
my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver, — So,
wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the
middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing
the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the
south — wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge
for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price,
and don't be too particular.
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of
"The Crossed Harpoons" — but it looked too expensive and
jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the
" Sword-Fish Inn," there came such fervent rays, that it seemed
to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house,
for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a
hard, asphaltic pavement, — rather weary for me, when I struck
my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard,
remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,
pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and
hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on,
Ishmael, said I at last ; don't you hear ? get away from before
THE CARPET-BAG,
the door ; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I
went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me
waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the
cheeriest inns.
Such dreary streets ! blocks of blackness, not houses, on
either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving
about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day
of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted.
But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low,
wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had
a careless look, as if it wei'e meant for the uses of the public ;
so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-
box in the porch. Ha ! thought I, ha, as the flying particles
almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city,
Gomorrah ? But " The Crossed Harpoons,'' and " The Sword-
Fish ?" — this, then, must needs be the sign of " The Trap."
However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within,
pushed on and opened a second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A
hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer ; and
beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a
pulpit. It was a negro church ; and the preacher's text was
about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing
and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing
out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of " The Trap !"
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from
the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air ; and looking
up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting
upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray,
and these words underneath — " The Spouter-Inn : — Peter Coffin."
Coffin ? — Spouter ? — Rather ominous in that particular con-
nexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket,
they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there.
As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked
1*
10 THE CARPET-BAG.
quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked
as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt
district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of
creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap
lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.
It was a queer sort of place — a gable-ended old house, one
side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a
sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon
kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's
tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant
zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly
toasting for bed. " In judging of that tempestuous wind called
Euroclydon," says an old writer — of whose works I possess the
only copy extant — " it maketh a marvellous difference, whether
thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all
on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless
window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the
wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, thought I, as
this passage occurred to my mind — old black-letter, thou reason-
est well. Yes, these eyes are Avindows, and this body of mine
is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and
the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there.
But it's too late to make any improvements now. The universe
is finished ; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off
a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth
against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters
with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and
put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out
the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon ! says old Dives, in
his red silken wrapper — (he had a redder one afterwards) pooh,
pooh ! What a fine frosty night ; how Orion glitters ; what
northern lights ! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes
of everlasting conservatories ; give me the privilege of making
my own summer with my own coals.
THE SPOUTER-INN. 11
But what thinks Lazarus ? Can he warm his blue hands by
holding them up to the grand northern lights ? Would not
Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here ? Would he not far
rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator ;
yea, ye gods ! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep
out this frost ?
Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone
before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an
iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives
himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen
sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only
drinks the tepid tears of orphans.
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a- whaling,
and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice
from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this " Spouter''
may be.
CHAPTER IE.
THE SPOUTER-INN.
Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself
in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots,
reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft-
On one side hung a very large oil-painting so thoroughly be-
smoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal cross-lights
by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a
series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neigh-
bors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its
purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows,
that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist,
in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to deli-
neate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest
12 THE SPOUTER-INN.
contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by
throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry,
you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however
wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long,
limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the
centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines
floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture
truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was
there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity
about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an
oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting
meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would
dart you through. — It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale. — It's
the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. — It's a
blasted heath. — It's a Hyperborean winter scene. — It's the
breaking-up of the ice-bound stream of Time. But at last all
these fancies yielded to that one portenfams something in the
picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were
plain. But stop ; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a
gigantic fish ? even the great leviathan himself?
In fact, the artist's design seemed this : a final theory of my
own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged
persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture
represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane ; the half-foun-
dered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts
alone visible ; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring
clean over the craft, is in the enormous.act of impaling himself
upon the three mast-heads.
The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a
heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were
thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws ; others
were tufted with knots of human hair ; and one was sickle-shaped,
with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in
THE SPOUTER-INN. 13
the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You shuddered
as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and
savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a
hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty
old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed.
Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now
wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen
whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon — so
like a corkscrew now — was flung in Javan seas, and run away
with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco.
The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle
sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and
at last was found imbedded in the hump.
Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched
way — cut through what in old times must have been a great
central chimney with fire-places all round — you enter the public
room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous
beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you
would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, espe-
cially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old
ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-
like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty
rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Pro-
jecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-
looking den — the bar — a rude attempt at a right whale's head.
Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the
whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it.
Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters,
bottles, flasks ; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like ano-
ther cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him),
bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly
sells the sailors deliriums and death.
Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.
Though true cylinders without — within, the villanous green
14 THE SPOUTER-INN.
goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating
bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, sur-
round these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your
charge is but a penny ; to this a penny more ; and so on to the
full glass — the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulph down
for a shilling.
Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen
gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers speci-
mens of slcrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him
I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer
that his house was full — not a bed unoccupied. " But avast,"
he added, tapping his forehead, " you haint no objections to
sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye ? I s'pose you are goin'
a whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing."
I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed ; that if I
should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer
might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other
place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objection-
able, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so
bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man's
blanket.
" I thought so. All right ; take a seat. Supper ? — you
want supper ? Supper '11 be ready directly."
I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like
a bench on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still
further adorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and dili-
gently working away at the space between his legs. He was
trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn't make
much headway, I thought.
At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal
in an adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland — no fire at all
— the landlord said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal
tallow candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to but-
ton up our monkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding
THE SPOUTER-INN. 15
tea with our half frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most
substantial kind — not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings ;
good heavens ! dumplings for supper ! One young fellow in a
green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most
direful manner.
" My boy," said the landlord, " you'll have the nightmare
to a dead sartainty."
" Landlord," I whispered, " that aint the harpooneer, is it ?"
" Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, " the
harpooner is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dump-
lings, he don't — he eats nothing but steaks, and likes 'em
rare."
" The devil he does," says I. " Where is that harpooneer ? Is
he here ?"
" He'll be here afore long," was the answer.
I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this
" dark complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my
mind that if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he
must undress and get into bed before I did.
Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when,
knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the
rest of the evening as a looker on.
Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up,
the landlord cried, " That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her
reported in the offing this morning ; a three years' voyage, and
a full ship. Hurrah, boys ; now we'll have the latest news from
the Feegees."
A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry ; the door
was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough.
Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads
muffled in woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and
their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears
from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, and this
was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they
16 THE SPOUTER-INN.
made a straight wake for the whale's mouth — the bar — when
the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured
them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold
in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of
gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for
all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how longstand-
ing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the wea-
ther side of an ice-island.
The liquor soon mounted into their heads,as it generally does
even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they
began capering about most obstreperously.
I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof,
and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his
shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained
from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested
me at once ; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should
soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one,
so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a
little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with
noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom
seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and
burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast ; while
in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that
did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once
.announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature,
I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the
Alleganian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry of his compa-
nions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unob-
served, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade
on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his
shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favorite
with them, they raised a cry of" Bulkington ! Bulkington ! where 's
Bulkington ?" and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.
It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost
THE SPOUTER-INN. 17
supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate
myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous
to the entrance of the seamen.
No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a
good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't
know how it is, but people like to be private when they are
sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown
stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger
a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor
was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two
in a bed, more than anybody else ; for sailors no more sleep
two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be
sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have
your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own
blanket, and sleep in your own skin.
The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I
abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to
presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the
case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the
finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late,
and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bed-
wards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight
— how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming ?
" Landlord ! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.
— I shan't sleep with him. I'll try the bench here."
" Just as you please ; I'm sorry I cant spare ye a table-
cloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here" —
feeling of the knots and notches. " But wait a bit, Skrimshander ;
I've got a carpenter's plane there in the bar — wait, I say, and
I'll make ye snug enough." So saying he procured the plane ;
and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench,
vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning
like an ape. The shavings flew right and left ; till at last the
plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The
18 THESPOUTER-INN.
landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for
heaven's sake to quit — the bed was soft enough to suit me, and
I did not know how all the planing in the world could make
eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with
another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the
middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in
a brown study.
I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was
a foot too short ; but that could be mended with a chair. But
it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was
about four inches higher than the planed one — so there was no
yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along
the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval
between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that
there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the
sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all,
especially as another current from the rickety door met the
one from the window, and both together formed a series of
small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I
had thought to spend the night.
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't
I steal a march on him — bolt his door inside, and jump into
his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings ? It
seemed no bad idea ; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it.
For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I
popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in
the entry, all ready to knock me down !
Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance
of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed,
I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrant-
able prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I,
I'll wait awhile ; he must be dropping in before long. I'll have
a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly
good bedfellows after all — there's no telling.
THE SPOUTER-INN. 19
But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos,
and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.
" Landlord !" said I, " what sort of a chap is he — does he
always keep such late hours 2" It was now hard upon twelve
o'clock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and
seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my com-
pi-ehension. " No," he answered, " generally he's an early
bird — airley to bed and airley to rise — yes, he's the bird what
catches the worm. — But to-night he went out a peddling, you
see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may
be, he can't sell his head."
" Can't sell his head ? — What sort of a bamboozingly story
is this you are telling me V getting into a towering rage. " Do
you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually
engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning,
in peddling his head around this town ?"
" That's precisely it," said the landlord, " and I told him he
couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked."
" With what ?" shouted I.
" With heads to be sure ; ain't there too many heads in the
world ?"
" I tell you what it is, landlord," said I, quite calmly, " you'd
better stop spinning that yarn to me — I'm not green."
" May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick,
a but I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpoon-
eer hears you a slanderin' his head."
" I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again
at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. .
" It's broke a'ready," said he.
" Broke," said I — " broke, do you mean ? "
" Sartain, and that's the veiy reason he can't sell it, I guess."
" Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in
a snow storm, — "landlord, stop whittling. You and I must
20 THESPOUTER-INN.
understand one another, and that too without delay. I come
to your house and want a bed ; you tell me you can only give
me half a one,; that the other half belongs to a certain har-
pooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet
seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exaspe-
rating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling
towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow — a sort of
connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one
in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and
tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be
in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the
first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about sell-
ing his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this
harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a
madman ; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying
to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself
liable to a criminal prosecution."
" Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, " that's a
purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then.
But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin'
you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up
a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know),
and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell
to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be
sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to
churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just
as he was goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a
string, for all the airth like a string of inions."
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery,
and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fool-
ing me — but at the same time what could I think of a harpoon-
eer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sab-
bath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads
of dead idolaters ?
THE SPOUTER-INN. 21
" Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous
man."
" He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. " But come, it's getting
dreadful late, you had better be turning flukes — it's a nice bed :
Sail and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced.
There's plenty room for two to kick about in that bed ; it's an
almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to
put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a
dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got
pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter
that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a
glim in a jiffy ;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it
towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute ;
when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed " I vum it's
Sunday — you won't see that harpooneer to-night ; he's come to
anchor somewhere — come along then ; do come ; worCt ye
come ? "
I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we
went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and
furnished, sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big
enough indeed for any four harpooneers to sleep abreast.
" There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy
old sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre
table ; " there, make yourself comfortable now, and good night
to ye." I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disap-
peared.
Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed.
Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny
tolerably well. I then glanced round the room ; and besides
the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture be-
longing to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a
papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of
things not properly belonging to the room, there was a ham-
mock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner ; also
22 THE S POUTER-INN.
a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no
doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of
outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and
a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed.
But what is this on the chest ? I took it up, and held it
close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every
way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concern-
ing if. I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat,
ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like
the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There
was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same
in South American ponchos. But could it be possible that any
sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the
streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise ? I put it on,
to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncom-
monly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though
this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day.
I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never
saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a
hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck.
I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking
about this head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After
thinking some time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my
monkey jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room think-
ing. I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my
shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, half un-
dressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said
about the harpooneer's not coming home at all that night, it being
so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my panta-
loons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into
bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven.
Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs 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
THE SP0UTER-1NN. 23
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 JSTew Zealand head in the
other, the stranger entered the room, and without looking
towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on
the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the
knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the
room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it
averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag's
mouth. This accomplished, however, he turned round — when,
good heavens ! what a sight ! Such a face ! It was of a dark,
purplish, yellow color, here and there stuck over with large,
blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a
terrible bedfellow ; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and
here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he
chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw
they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on
his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first
I knew not what to make of this ; but soon an inkling of the
truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man
— a whaleman too — who, falling among the cannibals, had been
tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the
course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar
adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all ! It's only his
outside ; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then,
what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I
mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the
squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a
good coat of tropical tanning ; but I never heard of a hot sun's
tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I
24 THE SP OUTER-INN/
had never been in the South Seas ; and perhaps the sun there
produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while
all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this har-
pooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty
having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and pre-
sently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet
with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle
of the room, he then took the New Zealand head — a ghastly
thing enough — and crammed it down into the bag. He now
took off his hat — a new beaver hat — when I came nigh singing
out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head — none
to speak of at least — nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up
on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all
the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger stood
between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker
than ever I bolted a dinner.
Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the
window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward,
but what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether
passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and
being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger,
I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil
himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of
night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game
enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory
answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.
Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at
last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts
of him were checkered with the same squares as his face ; his
back, too, was all over the same dark squares ; he seemed to
have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with
a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked,
as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks
of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some
THE SPOUTER-INN. 25
abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in
the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian countiy. I
quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too — perhaps the
heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mine —
heavens ! look at that tomahawk !
But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage
went about something that completely fascinated my attention,
and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going
to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had
previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and pro-
duced at length a curious little deformed image with a hu nch
on its back, and exactly the color of a three days' old Congo
baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost
thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved
in some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all
limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I
concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which
indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the
empty fire-place, and removing- the papered fire-board, sets up
this little hunchbacked image, like a tenpin, between the
andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were
very sooty, so that I thought this fire-place made a very appro-
priate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.
I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image,
feeling but ill at ease meantime — to see what was next to
follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out
of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol ;
then laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame
from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze.
Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still
hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be
scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the
biscuit ; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a
polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not
2
26 THE SPOUTER-INN.
seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all ; he never moved his
lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still
stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be
praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or
other, during which his face twitched about in the most
unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the
idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego
pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead
woodcock.
All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness,
and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding
his business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I
thought it was high time, now or never, before the tight was put
out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound.
But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a
fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he
examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it to
the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great
clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light was
extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his
teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help
it now ; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began
feeling me.
Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away
from him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or
whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and
light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me
at once that he but ill comprehended my meaning.
" Who-e debel you ?" — he at last said — " you no speak-e,
dam-me, I kill-e." And so saying the lighted tomahawk began
flourishing about me in the dark.
" Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin !" shouted I. " Land-
lord ! Watch ! Coffin ! Angels ! save me !"
" Speak-e ! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e !" again
THESPOUTER-INN. 27
growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the
tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I
thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at
that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand,
and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.
" Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again. " Queequeg
here wouldn't harm a hair of your head."
" Stop your grinning," shouted I, " and why didn't you tell
me that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal ?''
" I thought ye know'd it ; — didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin'
heads around town ? — but turn flukes again and go to sleep.
Queequeg, look here — you sabbee me, I sabbee you — this man
sleepe you — you sabbee ?" —
" Me sabbee plenty" — grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his
pipe and sitting up in bed.
" You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his toma-
hawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this
in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I
stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was
on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What's all this
fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself — the man's
a human being just as I am : he has just as much reason to
fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a
sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
" Landlord," said I, " tell him to stash his tomahawk there,
or pipe, or whatever you call it ; tell him to stop smoking, in
short, and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a
man smoking in bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I aint
insured."
This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again
politely motioned me to get into bed — rolling over to one side
as much as to say — I wont touch a leg of ye.
" Good night, landlord," said I, " you may go."
I turned in, and never slept better in my life.
28 THE COUNTERPANE.
CHAPTER IV.
THE COUNTERPANE.
Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Quee-
queg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate
manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The
counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored
squares and triangles ; and this arm of his tattooed all over with
an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of
which were of one precise shade — owing I suppose to his keep-
ing his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt
sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times — this same arm of
his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same
patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did
when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they
so blended their hues together ; and it was only by the sense
of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was
hugging me.
My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them.
When I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar cir-
cumstance that befell me ; whether it was a reality or a dream,
I never could entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I
had been cutting up some caper or other — I think it was
trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do
a few days previous ; and my stepmother who, somehow or
other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed
supperless, — my mother dragged me by the legs out of the
chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two
o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in
the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was
no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the third
THE COUNTERPANE. 29
floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time,
and with a bitter sigb got between the sheets.
I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must
elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in
bed ! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was
so light too ; the sun shining in at the window, and a great
rattling of coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices
all over the house. I felt worse and worse — at last I got up,
dressed, and softly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out
my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseech-
ing her as a particular favor to give me a good slippering for
my misbehavior ; anything indeed but condemning me to he abed
such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and
most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my
room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a
great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the
greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen
into a troubled nightmare of a doze ; and slowly waking from
it — half steeped in dreams — I opened my eyes, and the before
sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I
felt a shock running through all my frame ; nothing was to be
seen, and nothing was to be heard ; but a supernatural hand
seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane,
and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to
which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bed-
side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen
with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand ;
yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the
horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this conscious-
ness at last glided away from me ; but waking in the morning,
I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and
months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to
explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle
myself with it.
30 THE COUNTERPANE.
Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling
the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strange-
ness, to those which I experienced on waking up and seeing
Queequeg's pagan arm thrown round me. But at length all
the past night's events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed
reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament.
For though I tried to move his arm — unlock his bridegroom
clasp — yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as
though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to
rouse him — " Queequeg !" — but his only answer was a snore. I
then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar ;
and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counter-
pane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as
if it were a hatchet- faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought
I ; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a canni-
bal and a tomahawk ! " Queequeg ! — in the name of goodness,
Queequeg, wake ! " At length, by dint of much wriggling, and
loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of
his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I
succeeded in extracting a grunt ; and presently, he drew back his
arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from
the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me,
and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how
I came to be there, though a dim consciousness of knowing
something about me seemed slowly dawning over him. Mean-
while, 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 apart-
ment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances,
this is a very civilized overture ; but, the truth is, these savages
THE COUNTERPANE. 31
have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will ; it is mar-
vellous 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 ;
staling at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette mo-
tions ; for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breed-
ing. Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't see every
day, he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding.
He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a
very tall one, by the by, and then — still minus his trowsers — he
hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I
cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himself — boots
in hand, and hat on — under the bed ; when, from sundry violent
gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hard at work booting
himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of, is
any man required to be private when putting on his boots. But
Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state —
neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized
to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner.
His education was not yet completed. He was an undergradu-
ate. If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very pro-
bably would not have troubled himself with boots at all ; but
then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have
dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he
emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over
his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if,
not being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled
cowhide ones — probably not made to order either — rather
pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold
morning.
Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and
that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded
a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the
indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little
32 BREAKFAST
else but his hat and boots on ; I begged him as well as I could,
to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his
pantaloons as soon as possible. He complied, and then pro-
ceeded to wash himself. At that time in the morning any-
Christian would have washed his face ; but Queequeg, to my
amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to
his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and
taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre-table,
dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was
watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he
takes the harpoon from the^tfed corner, slips out the long wooden
stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and
striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigor-
ous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I,
Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance.
Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to
know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how
exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept.
The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly
marched out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey
jacket, and sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.
CHAPTER V.
BREAKFAST.
I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room
accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no
malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not
a little in the matter of my bedfellow.
However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather
too scarce a good thing ; the more's the pity. So, if any one
BREAKFAST. 33
man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to
anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow
himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that
has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is
more in that man than you perhaps think for.
The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been
dropping in, the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had
a good look at. They were nearly all whalemen ; chief mates,
and second mates, and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea
coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keep-
ers ; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards ; an
unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning
gowns.
You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been
ashore. This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted
pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky ; he can-
not have been three days landed from his Indian voyage. That
man next him looks a few shades lighter ; you might say a
touch of satin wood is in him. In the complexion of a third
still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal; he
doubtless has tamed 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, con-
trasting 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 —
o*
it
34 BREAKFAST.
this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of
attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort
of thing is to be had anywhere.
These reflections iust here are occasioned by the circumstance
that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing
to hear some good stories about whaling ; to my no small sur-
prise, nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And
not only that., but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a
set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness
had boarded great whales on the high seas — entire strangers to
them — and duelled them dead without winking ; and yet, here
they sat at a social breakfast table — all of the same calling, all of
kindred tastes — looking round as sheepishly at each other as
though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold
among the Green Mountains. A curious sight ; these bashful
bears, these timid warrior whalemen !
But as for Queequeg — why, Queequeg sat there among
them — at the head of the table, too, it so chanced ; as cool as
an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His
greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing
his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without
ceremony ; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent
jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards
him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every
one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything
coolly is to do it genteelly.
We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here ; how
he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided
attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when break-
fast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room,
lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digest-
ing and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied
out for a stroll.
THE STREET. 35
CHAPTER VI.
THE STREET.
If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so
outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the
polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon
departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the
streets of New Bedford.
In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport
will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts
from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets,
Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted
ladies. Regent street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays ;
and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often
scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water street
and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only
sailors ; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at
street corners ; savages outright ; many of whom yet carry on
their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.
But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatabooarrs, Erromanggoans,
Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens
of the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you
will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical.
There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and
New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the
fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows
who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and
snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green
Mountains whence they came. In some things you would
think them but a few hours old. Look there ! that chap strut-
ting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-
36 THE STREET.
tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here
comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one —
I mean a downright bumpkin dandy — a fellow that, in the
dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of
tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes
it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins
the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he
does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea-outfit,
he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvas
trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed ! how bitterly will burst those
straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps,
buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.
But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers,
cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still
New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whale-
men, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as
howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of
her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony.
The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all
New England. It is a land of oil, true enough : but not like
Canaan ; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not
run with milk ; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with
fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will
you find more patrician-like houses ; parks and gardens more
opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how
planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country ?
Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round
yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered.
Yes ; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were
harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.
Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that ?
In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to
BLUE. 37
their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises
a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wed-
ding ; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house,
and eveiy night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti
candles.
In summer time, the town is sweet to see ; full of fine
maples — long avenues of green and gold. And in August,
high in ah, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, cande-
labra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of
congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art ; which in many
a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of
flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's
final day.
And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own
red roses. But roses only bloom in summer ; whereas the fine
carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh
heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot,
save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such
musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as
though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of
the Puritanic sands.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHAPEL.
Ik this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's
Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for
the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to
the spot. I am sure that I did not.
Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out
upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear,
sunny cold, to driving gleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my
38 THE CHAPEL.
shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way
against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered
congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muf-
fled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the
storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart
from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incom-
municable. The chaplain had not yet arrived ; and there these
silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several
marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall ^n
either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the
following, but I do not pretend to quote : —
SACRED
2To tfje jfttemorj}
OF
JOHN TALBOT,
Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard,
Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia,
November 1st, 1836.
THIS TABLET
Is erected to his Memory
BY HIS SISTER.
SACRED
So tfje £&emor£
OF
ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY,
NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY,
AND SAMUEL GLEIG,
Forming one of the boats' crews
o F
THE SHIP ELIZA,
Who were towed out of sight by a Whale,
On the Off-shore Ground in the
PACIFIC,
December 31st, 1839.
THIS MARBLE
Is here placed by their surviving
Shipmates.
THE CHAPEL. 39
SACKED
Wo tjje ittemors
OF
The late
CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY,
Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a
Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan,
August 3d, 1833.
THIS TABLET
Is erected to his Memory
BY
HIS WIDOW.
Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I
seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised
to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the
scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in
his countenance. This savage was the only person present who
seemed to notice my entrance ; because he was the only one
who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid
inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the
seamen whose names appeared there were now among the con-
gregation, I knew not ; but so many are the unrecorded
accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women
present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some
unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were
assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those
bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed
afresh.
Oh ! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass ; who
standing among flowers can say — here, here lies my beloved ;
ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these.
What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover
no ashes ! What despair in those immovable inscriptions !
What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that
«eem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the
40 THE CHAPEL.
beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well
might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.
In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are
included ; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that
they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the
Goodwin Sands ; how it is that to his name who yesterday
departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel
a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for
the remotest Indies of this living earth ; why the Life
Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals ; in
what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet
lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago ; how it
is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we
nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss ; why
all the living so strive to hush all the dead ; wherefore but the
rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All
these things are not without their meanings.
But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even
from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of
a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the
murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the
whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same
fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again.
Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it
seems — aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet.
Yes, there is death in this business of whaling — a speechlessly
quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then ?
Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and
Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on
earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things
spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun
through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest
of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being.
THE PULPIT. 41
In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And
therefore three cheers for Nantucket ; and come a stove boat
and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself
cannot.
CHAPTER VUI.
THE PULPIT.
I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain vene-
rable robustness entered ; immediately as the storm-pelted door
flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him
by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old
man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple,
so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great
favorite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth,
but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry.
At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy
winter of a healthy old age ; that sort of old age which seems
merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures
of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly
developing bloom — the spring verdure peeping forth even
beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard his
history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without
the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical
peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime
fife he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried
no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carnage, for his
tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot
cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the
weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat
and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a
42 THE PULPIT.
little space in an adjacent corner ; -when, arrayed in a decent
suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.
Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and
since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle
with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the
chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of
Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substi-
tuting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting
a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had
provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-
ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and
stained with a mahogany color, the whole contrivance, consider-
ing what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad
taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with
both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes,
Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-
like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the
steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.
The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the
case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the
rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint.
At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that
however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present
instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see
Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and
stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by
step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregna-
ble in his little Quebec.
I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason
for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for
sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting
notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I,
there must be some sober reason for this thing ; furthermore,
it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, then, that by
THE PULPIT. 43
that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal
for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions ?
Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the
faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing strong-
hold— a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water
within the walls.
But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the
place, borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between
the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall
which formed its back was adorned with a large painting repre-
senting a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee
coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the
flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of
sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face ; and this
bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's
tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into
the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. " Ah, noble ship," the
angel seemed to say, " beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and
bear a hardy helm ; for lo ! the sun is breaking through ; the
clouds are rolling off — serenest azure is at hand."
Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste
that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled
front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy
Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after
a ship's fiddle-headed beak.
What could be more full of meaning ? — for the pulpit is ever
this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear;
the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of
God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the
earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul
is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on
its passage out, and not a voyage complete ; and the pulpit
is its prow.
44 THE SERMON.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SERMON.'
Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming
authority ordered the scattered people to condense. " Starboard
gangway, there ! side away to larboard — larboard gangway to
starboard ! Midships ! midships ! "
There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the
benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all
was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.
He paused a little ; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded
his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes,
and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling
and praying at the bottom of the sea.
This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual toll-
ing of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog — in such
tones he commenced reading the following hymn ; but changing
his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a
pealing exultation and joy —
" The ribs and terrors in the whale,
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.
" I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there ;
Which none but they that feel can tell —
Oh, I was plunging to despair.
" In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints —
No more the whale did me confine.
THE SERMON. 45
" With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne ;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.
" My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour ;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power."
Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high
above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued ; the
preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last,
folding his hand down upon the proper page, said : " Beloved
shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah —
" And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah."
" Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters — four
yarns — is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the
Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea-
line sound ! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet ! "What
a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly ! How billow-
like and boisterously grand ! We feel the floods surging over us ;
we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters ; sea-weed
and all the slime of the sea is about us ! But what is this les-
son that the book of Jonah teaches ? Shipmates, it is a two-
stranded lesson ; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a
lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is
a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-hearted-
ness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repent-
ance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As
with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was
in his wilful disobedience of the command of God — never mind
now what that command was, or how conveyed — which he
found a hard command. But all the things that God would
have us do are hard for us to do — remember that — and hence,
he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if
46 THE SERMON.
we obey God, we must disobey ourselves ; and it is in this
disobeying ourselves, wberein the hardness of obeying God con-
sists.
" With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts
at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship
made by men, will carry him into countries where God does
not reign, but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks
about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for
Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning
here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city
than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men.
And where is Cadiz, shipmates ? Cadiz is in Spain ; as far by
water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those
ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea.
Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most
easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian ; and Tarshish
or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from
that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then,
shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God ?
Miserable man ! Oh ! most contemptible and worthy of all
scorn ; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his
God ; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hasten-
ing to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his
look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on
the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere
he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive ! no baggage,
not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag, — no friends accompany
him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much
dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last
items of her cargo ; and as he steps on board to see its Captain
in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting
in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees
this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence;
in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the
THE SERMON. 47
man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their
gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other —
' Jack, he's robbed a widow ;' or, ' Joe, do you mark him ;
he's a bigamist ;' or, ' Harry lad, I guess he's the adulterer
that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing
murderers from Sodom.' Another runs to read the bill that's
stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is
moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of
a parricide, and containing a description of his person. He
reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill ; while all his sympa-
thetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their
hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all
his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward.
He will not confess himself suspected ; but that itself is strong
suspicion. So he makes the best of it ; and when the sailors
find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him
pass, and he descends into the cabin.
' Who's there V cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly
making out his papers for the Customs — ' Who's there ?'
Oh ! how that harmless question mangles Jonah ! For the
instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. ' I seek
a passage in this ship to Tarshish ; how soon sail ye, sir V
Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, though
the man now stands before him ; but no sooner does he hear
that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. ' We
sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still
intently eyeing him. ' No sooner, sir ?' — ' Soon enough for
any honest man that goes a passenger.' Ha ! Jonah, that's
another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that
scent. ' I'll sail with ye,' — he says, — ' the passage money,
how much is that ? — I'll pay now.' For it is particularly
written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in
this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof ere the craft
did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.
48 THE SERMON.
Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment
detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the
penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can
travel freely, and without a passport ; whereas Virtue, if a
pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain pre-
pares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him
openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's as-
sented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive ;
but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear
with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent
suspicions still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find
a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters ; and Jonah
is put down for his passage. ' Point out my state-room, Sir,'
says Jonah now, ' I'm travel-weary ; I need sleep.' ' Thou
look'st like it,' says the Captain, ' there's thy room.' Jonah
enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key.
Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly
to himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts'
cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and
dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds
the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The
air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole,
sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the herald-
ing presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold
him in the smallest of his bowel's wards.
" Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly
oscillates in Jonah's room ; and the ship, heeling over towards the
wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame
and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obli-
quity with reference to the room ; though, in truth, infallibly
straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among
which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah ; as lying in
his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far
successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that
THE SERMON. 49
contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor,
the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ' Oh ! so my conscience
hangs in me !' he groans, ' straight upward, so it burns ; but
the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness !'
" Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his
bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the
plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more
strike his steel tags into him ; as one who in that miserable
plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for
annihilation until the fit be passed ; and at last amid the whirl
of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the
man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and
there's naught to staunch it ; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth,
Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning
down to sleep.
" And now the time of tide has come ; the ship casts off her
cables ; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for
Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends,
was the first of recorded smugglers ! the contraband was Jonah.
But the sea rebels ; he will not bear the wicked burden. A
dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now
when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her ; when boxes,
bales, and jars are clattering overboard ; when the wind is
shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders
with trampling feet right over Jonah's head ; in all this raging
tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky
and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he
or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now
with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye,
shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship —
a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep.
But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his
dead ear, ' What meanest thou, 0 sleeper ! arise !' Startled
from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his
3
50 THE SERMON.
feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out
upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a
panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave
thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs
roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning
while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her
affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead,
aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit j)ointing high upward,
but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep.
" Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all
his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly
known. The sailors mark him ; more and more certain grow
their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by
referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting
lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them.
The lot is Jonah's ; that discovered, then how furiously they
mob him with their questions. ' What is thine occupation ?
Whence comest thou ? Thy country ? What people V But
mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The
eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from ;
whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but
likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the
unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand 01
God that is upon him.
" ' I am a Hebrew,' he cries — and then — ' I fear the Lord the
God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land !'
Fear him, 0 Jonah ? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord
God then ! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full con-
fession ; whereupon the mariners became more and more
appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet sup-
plicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the dark-
ness of his deserts, — when wretched Jonah cries out to them to
take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for
his sake this great tempest was upon them ; they mercifully
THE SERMON. 51
turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But
all in vain ; the indignant gale howls louder ; then, with one
hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unre-
luctantly lay hold of Jonah.
And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped
into the sea ; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from
the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale
with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the
whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce
heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning
jaws awaiting him ; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory
teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah
prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his
prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah
does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that
his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliver-
ance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his
pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple.
And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance ; not cla-
morous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how
pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the
eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Ship-
mates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin
but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin
not ; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah."
While he was speaking these words, the howling of the
shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to
the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed
tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a
ground-swell ; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at
work ; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy
brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple
hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to
them.
52 THE SERMON.
There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over
the leaves of the Book once more ; and, at last, standing
motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed commun-
ing with God and himself.
But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing
his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest
humility, he spake these words :
" Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you ; both his
hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light
may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners ; and
therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner
than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this
mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and
listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other
and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of
the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or
speaker of true tbings, and bidden by the Lord to sound those
unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah,
appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission,
and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at
Joppa. But God is everywhere ; Tarshish he never reached.
As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swal-
lowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slant-
ings tore him along ' into the midst of the seas,' where the
eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and
'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery
world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the
reach of any plummet — 'out of the belly of hell' — when the
whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God
heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then
God spake unto the fish ; and from the shuddering cold and
blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the
warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth ;
and ' vomited out Jonah upon the dry land ;' when the word of
THE SERMON. 53
the Lord came a second time ; and Jonah, bruised and beaten
— his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of
the ocean — Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was
that, shipmates ? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood !
That was it !
"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that
pilot of the living God who slights it. "Woe to him whom this
world charms from Gospel duty ! Woe to him who seeks to
pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a
gale ! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal !
"Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness !
Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor ! Woe to
him who would not be true, even though to be false were salva-
tion ! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it,
while preaching to others is himself a castaway !"
He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment ; then
lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as
he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm, — " But oh ! shipmates !
on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight ; and
higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is
deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low ? De-
light is to him — a far, far upward, and inward delight — who
against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands
forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms
yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world
has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no
quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin
though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and
Judges. Delight, — top-gallant delight is to him, who acknow-
ledges 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 de-
liciousness will be his, who coming to lay hira down, can say
54 A BOSOM FRIEND.
with his final breath — 0 Father ! — chiefly known to me by Thy
rod — mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be
Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is
nothing ; I leave eternity to Thee ; for what is man that he
should live out the lifetime of his God ?"
He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered
his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the
people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.
CHAPTER X.
A BOSOM FRIEND.
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found
Queequeg there quite alone ; he having left the Chapel before
the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before
the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was
holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his ; peering
hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away
at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish
way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image ; and pretty
soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and
placing it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate
regularity ; at every fiftieth page — as I fancied — stopping a
moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to
a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then
begin again at the next fifty ; seeming to commence at number
one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty,
and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found
together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was
excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he
A BOSOM FRIEND. 55
was, and hideously marred about the face — at least to my
taste — his countenance yet had a something in it which was by
no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through
all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a
simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and
bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand
devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing
about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not alto-
gether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed
and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his
head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and
brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise
would, this I will not venture to decide ; but certain it was his
head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridi-
culous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as
seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long
regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which
were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly
wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibal-
istically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending
meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement,
he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so
much as a single glance ; but appeared wholly occupied with
counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how
sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and
especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown
over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indiffer-
ence of his very strange. But savages are strange beings ; at
times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first
they are overawing ; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity
seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg
never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen
in the inn. He made no advances whatever ; appeared to have
56 A BOSOM FRIEND.
no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this
struck me as mighty singular ; yet, upon second thoughts,
there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man
some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape
Horn, that is — which was the only way he could get there —
thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in
the planet Jupiter ; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease ;
preserving the utmost serenity ; content with his own compa-
nionship ; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of
fine philosophy ; though no doubt he had never heard there was
such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we
mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So
soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a
philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he
must have " broken his digester."
As I sat there in that now lonely room ; the fire burning
low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has
warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at ; the evening
shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peer-
ing in upon us silent, solitary twain ; the storm booming without
in solemn swells ; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I
felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and mad-
dened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This
soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indif-
ference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized
hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was ; a very sight of
sights to see ; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn
towards him. And those same things that would have repelled
most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me.
I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has
proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and
made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with
him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these advances ; but
presently, upon my referring to his last night's hospitalities, he
A BOSOM FRIEND. 57
made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows.
I told him yes ; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps
a little complimented.
We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored
to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning
of the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his
interest ; and from that we went to jabbering the best wo
could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous
town. Soon I proposed a social smoke ; and, producing his
pouch and tomahawk, be quietly offered me a puff. And then
we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping
it regularly passing between us.
If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the
Pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed
it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as
naturally and unbiddenly as I to him ; and when our smoke
was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me
round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married ;
meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends ;
he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a country-
man, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far
too premature, a thing to be much distrusted ; but in this simple
savage those old rules would not apply.
After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to
our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed
head ; took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under
the tobacco, drew put some thirty dollars in silver; then
spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them
into two equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and
said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate ; but he silenced
me by pouring them into my browsers pockets. I let them stay.
He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and
removed the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms,
I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him ; but well
3*
58 NIGHTGOWN.
knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether,
in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise.
I was a good Christian ; born and bred in the bosom of the
infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with
this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood ? But what
is worship ? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the
magnanimous God of heaven and earth — pagans and all in-
cluded— can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black
wood ? Impossible ! But what is worship ? — to do the will of
God — that is worship. And what is the will of God ? — to do
to my fellow man what I would have my feUow man to do to
me- — that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow
man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to
me ? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form
of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his ;
ergo, 1 must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings ; helped
prop up the innocent little idol ; offered him burnt biscuit with
Queequeg ; salamed before him twice or thrice ; kissed his nose ;
and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with
our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to
sleep without some little chat.
How it is I know not ; but there is no place like a bed for
confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they
say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other ;
and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till
nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I
and Queequeg — a cosy, loving pair.
CHAPTER XL
NIGHTGOWN.
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short
intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing
NIGHTGOWN 59
his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back ;
so entirely sociable and free and easy were we ; when, at last,
by reason of our confabulations, what little nappislmess remained
in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again,
though day-break was yet some way down the future.
Yes, we became very wakeful ; so much so that our recum-
bent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little
wre found ourselves sitting up ; the clothes well tucked around
us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn
up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if
our knee-pans were Avarming-pans. We felt very nice and snug,
the more so since it was so chilly out of doors ; indeed out of
bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The
more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some
small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this
world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists
in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfort-
able, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to
be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the
bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly
chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel
most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a
sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which
is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height
of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket
between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.
Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an
arctic crystal.
We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time,
when all at once I thought I would open my eyes ; for when
between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep
or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order
the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because
no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be
60 NIGHTGOWN
closed ; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our
essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.
Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleas-
ant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer
gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, 1 experi-
enced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the
hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light,
seeing that we were so wide awake ; and besides he felt a strong
desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it
said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smok-
ing in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff pre-
judices grow when love once comes to bend them. For now
I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me,
even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene house-
hold joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the land-
lord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed
confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with
a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our
shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other,
till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke,
illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp.
Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage
away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his
native island ; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to
go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I
but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent
disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken
phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as
it Jiay prove in the mere skeleton I give.
BIOGRAPHICAL. 61
CHAPTER XII.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to
the West and South. It is not down in any map ; true places
never are.
When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native
woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if
he were a green sapling ; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious
soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom
than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief,
a King ; his uncle a High Priest ; and on the maternal side he
boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors.
There was excellent blood in his veins — royal stuff ; though
sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished
in his untutored youth.
A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg
sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her
full complement of seamen, spurned his suit ; and not all the
King his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg
vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant
strait, Avhich he knew the ship must pass through when she
quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other
a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that
grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among
these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern,
paddle low in hand ; and when the ship was gliding by, like a
flash he darted out ; gained her side ; with one backward dash
of his foot capsized and sank his canoe ; climbed up the chains ;
and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a
62 BIOGRAPHICAL.
ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in
pieces.
In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard ;
suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists ; Queequeg was the
son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his
desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom,
the captain at last relented, and told him he might make him-
self at home. But this fine young savage — this sea Prince of
Wales, never saw the captain's cabin. They put him down
among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like
Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities,
Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might
happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored country-
men. For at bottom — so he told me — he was actuated by a
profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby
to make his people still happier than they were ; and more than
that, still better than they were. But, alas ! the practices of
whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be
both miserable and wicked ; infinitely more so, than all his
father's heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor ; and seeing
what the sailors did there ; and then going on to Nantucket,
and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor
Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world
in all meridians ; I'll die a pagan.
And thus an old idolater at heart, he yet lived among these
Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish.
Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from
home.
By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going
back, and having a coronation ; since he might now consider
his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the
last accounts. He answered no, not yet ; and added that he
was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him
fur ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan
WHEELBARROW. 63
Kings before Mm. But by and by, he said, he would return, — as
soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however,
he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four
oceans. They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed
iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.
I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching
his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his
old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own
design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of
Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous
whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany
me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same
watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share
my every hap ; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the
Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously assented ; for
besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an
experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of
great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of
the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea,
as known to merchant seamen.
His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff,
Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and
blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way
and that, and very soon were sleeping.
CHAPTER XIIL
WHEELBARROW.
/ Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head
to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill ;
using, however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord,
as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden
64 WHEELBARROW.
friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg —
especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories about him had
previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person
whom I now companied with.
We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, in-
cluding my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack
and hammock, away we went down to " the Moss," the little
Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were
going along the people stared ; not at Queequeg so much —
for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets,
— but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms.
But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by
turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the
sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried
such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all
whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in
substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true
enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon,
because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal
combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short,
like many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the
farmers' meadows armed with their own scythes — though in no
wise obliged to furnish them — even so, Queequeg, for his own
private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.
Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny
story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in
Sag Harbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him
one, in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house.
Not to seem ignorant about the thing — though in truth he was
entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the
barrow — Queequeg puts his chest upon it ; lashes it fast ; and
then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. "Why,"
said I, " Queequeg, you might have known better than that,
one would think. Didn't the people laugh ?"
WHEELBARROW. 65
Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his
island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding- feasts express
the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained
calabash like a punchbowl ; and this punchbowl always
forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the
feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched
at Rokovoko, and its commander — from all accounts, a very
stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain — this
commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's
sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well ; when
all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo
cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the post
of honor, placed himself over against the punchbowl, and be-
tween the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg's
father. Grace being said, — for those people have their grace
as well as we — though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who
at such times look downwards to our platters, they, on the
contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver
of all feasts — Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens
the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island ; that is,
dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the
bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself
placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking
himself — being Captain of a ship — as having plain precedence
over a-mere island King, especially in the King's own house —
the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punch
bowl ; — taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. " Now,"
said Queequeg, " what you tink now ? — Didn't our people
laugh ?"
At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board
the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet
river. On one side, New Bedford' rose in terraces of streets,
their ice-covered trees all glittering in the cleai', cold air.
Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her
66 WHEELBARROW.
wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships
lay silent and safely moored at last ; while from others came
a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires
and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new
cruises were on the start ; that one most perilous and long
voyage ended, only begins a second ; and a second ended, only
begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the
endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed
fresh ; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as
a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air !
— how I spurned that turnpike earth ! — that common highway
all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs ; and
turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will
permit no records.
At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and
reel with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart ; he showed
his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew ; and our offing
gained, the Moss did homage to the blast ; ducked and dived
her brows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning,
we sideways darted ; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire ; the
two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So
full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging
bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances
of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that
two fellow beings should be so companionable ; as though a
white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed
negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who,
by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and
centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young
saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bump-
kin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the
brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost mira-
culous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the
WHEELBARROW. 67
ail- ; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow
landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turn-
ing his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed
it to me for a puff.
" Capting ! Capting !" yelled the bumpkin, running towards
that officer ; " Capting, Capting, here's the devil."
" Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea,
stalking up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean
by that ? Don't you know you might have killed that chap ?"
"What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned
to me.
" He say," said I, " that you came near kill-e that man there,"
pointing to the still shivering greenhorn.
" Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an
unearthly expression of disdain, " ah ! him bevy small-e fish-e ;
Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e ; Queequeg kill-e big
whale!"
" Look you," roared the Captain, " I'll kill-e you, you canni-
bal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here ; so mind
your eye."
But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the
Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the
main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous
boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping
the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom
Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard ; all
hands were in a panic ; and to attempt snatching at the boom
to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back
again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed
on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and
nothing seemed capable of being done ; those on deck rushed
towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the
lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this con-
sternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling
68 WHEELBARROW.
under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured
one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso,
caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the
next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The
schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were
clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist,
darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three
minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing
his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing
his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked
at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved.
The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpen-
dicularly from the water, Queequeg now took an instant's
glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters were,
dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he
rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other drag-
ging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor
bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble
trump ; the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I
clove to Queequeg like a barnacle ; yea, till poor Queequeg took
his last long dive.
Was there ever such unconsciousness ? He did not seem to
think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and
Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water — fresh water
— something to wipe the brine off ; that done, he put on dry
clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and
mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to himself
— " It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. "We can-
nibals must help these Christians."
NANTUCKET. 69
CHAPTER XIV.
NANTUCKET.
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the men-
tioning ; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
Nantucket ! Take out your map and look at it. See what a
real corner of the world it occupies ; how it stands there, away
off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at
it — a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a
background. There is more sand there than you would use in
twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some
gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds
there, they don't grow naturally ; that they import Canada
thistles ; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop
a leak in an oil cask ; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are
carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome ; that people
there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the
shade in summer time ; that one blade of grass makes an
oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie ; that they
wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-
shoes ; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way
inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean,
that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes
be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these
extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this
island was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In
olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England
coast, and carried off an infant Indian in his talons. With loud
lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the
70 NANTUCKET.
wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction.
Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they dis-
covered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,
— the poor little Indian's skeleton.
What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, bom on a
beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood ! They first caught
crabs and quohogs in the sand ; grown bolder, they waded out
with nets for mackerel ; more experienced, they pushed off in
boats and captured cod ; and at last, launching a navy of great
ships on the sea, explored this watery world ; put an incessant
belt of circumnavigations round it ; peeped in at Bhering's Straits ;
and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with
the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood ; most
monstrous and most mountainous ! That Himmalehan, salt-sea
Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious
power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his
most fearless and malicious assaults !
And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits,
issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered
the wateiy world like so many Alexanders ; parcelling out
among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the
three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to
Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada ; let the English overswarm
all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun ; two
thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the
sea is his ; he owns it, as Emperors own empires ; other seamen
having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but
extension bridges ; armed ones but floating forts ; even pirates
and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the
road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land
like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the
bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and
riots on the sea ; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it
in ships ; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.
CHOWDER. 71
There is his home ; there lies his business, which a Noah's
flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions
in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie ;
he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters
climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land ; so that
when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more
strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the
landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to
sleep between billows ; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of
sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while
under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.
CHAPTER XV.
CHOWDER.
It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came
snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore ; so we could
attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and
a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us
to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to
be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket,
and moreover he had assured us that cousin Hosea, as he called
him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted
that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the
Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a
yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white
church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard
hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and
that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was :
these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first,
especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow-
warehouse — our first point of departure — must be left on the lar-
72 CHOWDER,
board hand, whereas I Lad 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 sensi-
tive to such imj3ressions at the time, but I could not help staring
at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in
my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns ; yes, two of
them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks
I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling
port ; .tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel ; and
here a gallows ! and a pair of prodigious black pots too ! Are
these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet ?
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled
woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the
porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that
looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scold-
ing with a man in a purple woollen shirt.
" Get along with ye," said she to the man, " or I'll be comb-
ing ye ! "
" Come on, Queequeg," said I, " all right. There's Mrs.
Hussey."
And so it turned out ; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home,
but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his
affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a
bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present,
ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread
with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us
and said—" Clam or Cod ? "
CHOWDER. 73
" What's that about Cods, ma'am ?" said I, with much politeness.
" Clam or Cod ? " she repeated.
" A clam for supper ? a cold clam ; is that what you mean,
Mi's. Hussey ? " says I ; " but that's a rather cold and clammy
reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey ? "
But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the
purple shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming
to hear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried
towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out
" clam for two," disappeared.
" Queequeg," said I, " do you think that we can make out a'
supper for us both on one clam ? "
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to
belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when
that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully
explained. Oh, sweet friends ! hearken to me. It was made of
small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with
pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes ;
the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with
pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty
voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favorite fishing
food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we
despatched it with great expedition : when leaning back a
moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod an-
nouncement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping
to the kitchen door, I uttered the word " cod " with great em-
phasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savory
steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good
time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.
We resumed business ; and while plying our spoons in the
bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect
on the head ? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-
headed people ? " But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in
your bowl ? Where's your harpoon ?"
4
74 CHOWDER.
Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well
deserved its name ; for the pots there were always boiling
chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and
chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming
through your clothes. The area before the house was paved
with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of
codfish vertebra ; and Hosea Hussey had his account books
bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to
the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morn-
ing happening to take a stroll along the beach among some
fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish
remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's
decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, I assure ye.
Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from
Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed ; but, as
Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady
reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon ; she allowed
no harpoon in her chambers. "Why not?" said I ; "every
true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon — but why not?''
" Because it's dangerous," says she. " Ever since young Stiggs
coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone
four years and a half, with only three barrels of He, was found
dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side ; ever
since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons
in* their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for she had learned
his name), "I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you
till morning. But the chowder ; clam or cod to-morrow for
breakfast, men ?"
" Both," says I ; " and let's have a couple of smoked herring
by way of variety."
THE SHIP. 75
CHAPTER XVI.
In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my
surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to under-
stand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo — the name
of his black little god — and Yojo had told him two or three
times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead
of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and
in concert selecting our craft ; instead of this, I say, Yojo
earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest
wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us ;
and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel,
which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon,
for all the world as though it had turned out by chance ; and
in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present
irrespective of Queequeg.
I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg
placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment
and surprising forecast of things ; and cherished Yojo with consi-
derable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant
well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in
his benevolent designs.
Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the se-
lection of our craft ; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a
little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler
best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my
remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged
to acquiesce ; and accordingly prepared to set about this business
with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should
76 THE SHIP,
quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early,
leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bedroom — for
it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of
fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that
day ; how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied
myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and
XXXIX Articles — leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his
tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire
of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much
prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that
there were three ships up for three-years' voyages — The Devil-
dam, the Tit-bit. and the Pequod. Devil-Dam, I do not know
the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious ; Pequod, you will no doubt
remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts
Indians, now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed
about the Devil-Dam ; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit ; and,
finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a
moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us.
You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for
aught I know ; — square-toed luggers ; mountainous Japanese
junks ; butter-box galliots, and what not ; but take my word for
it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old
Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if any-
thing ; with an old fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long
seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all
four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French
grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her vene-
rable bows looked bearded. Her masts — cut somewhere on the
coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in
a gale — her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the
three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and
wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury
Cathedral where Beckett bled. But to all these her old anti-
quities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to
THE SHIP. 77
the wild business that for more than half a century she had
followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before
he commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired
seaman, and one of the principal owners of the Pequod, — this
old Peleg, during the term of his chief-mateship, had built
upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a
quaintness both of material and device, unmatched by anything
except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She
was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck
heavy with pendants of polished ivoiy. She was a thing of
trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the
chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open
bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long
sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to
fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran
not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled
over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her
reverend helm, she sported there a tiller ; and that tiller was in
one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of
her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller
in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery
steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most
melancholy ! All noble things are touched with that.
Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one
having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for
the voyage, at first I saw nobody ; but I could not well over-
look a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little
behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection
used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high ;
consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken
from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-
whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of
these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other,
and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy
78 THE SHIP.
fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowot-
taraie Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the
bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete
view forward.
And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found
one who by his aspect seemed to have authority ; and who, it
being noon, and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying
respite from the burden of command. He was seated on
an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious
carving ; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout
interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was
constructed.
There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the
appearance of the elderly man I saw ; he was brown and
brawny, like most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue
pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style ; only there was a fine and
almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing
round his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sail-
ings in many hard gales, and always looking to windward ; —
for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed
together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.
" Is this the Captain of the Pequod ?" said I, advancing to
the door of the tent.
" Supposing it be the Captain of the Pequod, what dost thou
want of him ?" he demanded.
" I was thinking of shipping."
" Thou wast, wast thou ? I see thou art no Nantucketer —
ever been in a stove boat ?"
" No, Sir, I never have."
" Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say — eh ?"
" Nothing, Sir ; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn.
I've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think
that "
" Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me.
THE SHIP. 79
Dost see that leg ? — I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if
ever thou talkest of the marchant service to me again. Mar-
chant service indeed ! I suppose now ye feel considerable
proud of having served in those marchant ships. But flukes !
man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh ? — it looks a
little suspicious, don't it, eh ? — Hast not been a pirate, hast
thou ? — Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou ? — Dost not
think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea ?"
I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under
the mask of these half humorous inuendoes, this old seaman,
as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular
prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed
from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.
" But what takes thee a-whaling ? I want to know that before
I think of shipping ye."
. " Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the
world."
" Want to see what whaling is, eh ? Have ye clapped eye
on Captain Ahab ? "
" Who is Captain Ahab, sir ? "
" Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of
this ship."
" I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the
Captain himself."
" Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg — that's who ye are
speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad
to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with
all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents.
But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whal-
ing is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it
out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye
on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has
only one leg."
" What do you mean, sir ? Was the other one lost by a whale ?"
80 THE SHIP.
" Lost by a whale ! Young man, come nearer to me : it was
devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty
that ever chipped a boat ! — ah, ah ! "
I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little
touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but
said as calmly as I could, " What you say is no doubt true
enough, sir ; but how could I know there was any peculiar
ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have
inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.''
" Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye
see ; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea
before now ; sure of that ? "
" Sir," said I, " I thought I told you that I had been four
voyages in the merchant "
" Hard down out of that ! Mind what I said about the mar-
chant service — don't aggravate me — I won't have it. But let
us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what
whaling is ; do ye yet feel inclined for it ?"
" I do, sir."
" Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon
down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it ? Answer,
quick !"
" I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so ;
not to be got rid of, that is ; which I don't take to be the fact. "
" Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-
whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also
want to go in order to see the world ? Was not that what ye
said ? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and
take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back to me and
tell me what ye see there."
For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request,
not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in
earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl,
Captain Peleg started me on the errand.
THE SHIP. 81
Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I per-
ceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide,
was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The
prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and for-
bidding ; not the slightest variety that I could see.
" Well, what's the report ? " said Peleg when I came back ;
" what did ye see ? "
" Not much," I replied — " nothing but water ; considerable
horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think."
" Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world ? Do
ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh ?
Can't ye see the world where you stand ? "
I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I
would ; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any — I thought
the best — and all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so
determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me.
"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he
added — " come along with ye." And so saying, he led the way
below deck into the cabin.
Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most
uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain
Bildad, who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest
owners of the vessel ; the other shares, as is sometimes the case
in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants ;
widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards ; each owning
about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail
or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in
whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved
state stocks bringing in good interest.
Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucket-
ers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by
that sect ; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in
an uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only
variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien
82 THE SHIP.
and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the
most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are
fighting Quakers ; they are Quakers with a vengeance.
So that there are instances among them of men, who, named
with Scripture names — a singularly common fashion on the
island — and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic
thee and thou of the Quaker idiom ; still, from the audacious,
daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives,
strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand
bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king,
or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a
man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain
and a ponderous heart ; who has also by the stillness and seclu-
sion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and
beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to
think untraditionally and independently ; receiving all nature's
sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary
and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help
from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language — that man makes one in a whole nation's census — a
mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will
it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by
birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful
over-ruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all
men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness.
Be sure of this, 0 young ambition, all mortal greatness is but
disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but
with quite another ; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it
only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified
by individual circumstances.
Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired
whaleman. But unlike Captain Peieg — who cared not a rush
for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those
self-same serious things the veriest of all trifles — Captain Bildad
THE SHIP. 83
had not only been originally educated according to the strictest
sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life,
and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the
Horn — all that had not moved this native born Quaker one
single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest.
Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common
consistency about worthy Captain Pel eg. Though refusing, from
conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet
himself had inimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific ; and
though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-
bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How
now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad
reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know ; but
it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had
long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's
religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another.
This world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in
short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad
shad-bellied waistcoat ; from that becoming boat-header, chief-
mate, and captain, and finally a ship-owner ; Bildad, as I
hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly
retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicat-
ing 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 cer-
tainly 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 quan-
tity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When
84 THE SHIP.
Biklad 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. Indo-
lence and idleness perished from before him. His own person
was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his
long, gaunt body, he earned no spare flesh, no superfluous
beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn
nap of his broad-brimmed hat.
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom
when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space
between the decks was small ; and there, bolt-upright, sat old
Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his
coat tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him ; his legs
were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to
his chin ; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in read-
ing from a ponderous volume.
" Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, " at it again, Bildad, eh ?
Ye have been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty
years, to my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad ?"
As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,
Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked
up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.
" He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, u he wants
to ship."
" Dost thee ?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning
round to me.
" I dost" said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.
"What do ye think of him, Bildad F said Peleg.
" He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spell-
ing away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, espe-
cially as Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blus-
terer. But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply.
THE SHIP. 85
Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth the ship's
articles, placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a
little table. I began to think it was high time to settle with
myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voy-
age. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid
no wages ; but all hands, including the captain, received certain
shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were pro-
portioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respec-
tive duties of the ship's company. I was also aware that being
a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be very large ;
but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship,
splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had
heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay — that is, the
275th part of the clear nett proceeds of the voyage, whatever
that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay
was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than
nothing ; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly
pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my
three years' beef and board, for which I would not have to pay
one stiver.
It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate
a princely fortune — and so it was, a very poor way indeed.
But I am one of those that never take on about princely for-
tunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and
lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the
Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th
lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been
surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a
broad-shouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful
about receiving a generous share of the profits was this :
Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his
unaccountable old crony Bildad ; how that they being the principal
proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsi-
86 THE SHIP.
derable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management
of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know but what
the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about
shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the
Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible
as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying
to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small
surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in
these proceedings ; Bildad never heeded us, but went on
mumbling to himself out of his book, " Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth — "
" Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, " what d'ye say,
what lay shall we give this young man ?"
" Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, " the seven
hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it ? —
' where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay — ' "
Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay ! the seven hundred
and seventy-seventh ! Well, old Bildad, you are determined
that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where
moth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay
that, indeed ; and though from the magnitude of the figure it
might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest considera-
tion will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven is a
pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of
it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-
seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven
hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons ; and so I thought at
the time.
" Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, " thou dost not
want to swindle this young man ! he must have more than
that."
" Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad,
without lifting his eyes ; and then went on mumbling — " fof
where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
THE SHIP. 8?
"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,"
said Peleg, " do ye hear that, Bildad ! The three hundredth
lay, I say."
Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him
said, " Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart ; but thou
must consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this
ship — widows and orphans, many of them — and that if we too
abundantly reward the labors of this young man, we may be
taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The
seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg."
" Thou Bildad !" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering
about the cabin. " Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed
thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience
to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest
ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn."
" Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, " thy conscience may
be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell ;
but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly
fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one ; and will in the
end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.''
" Fiery pit ! fiery pit ! ye insult me, man ; past all natural
bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any
human creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames !
Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but
I'll — I'll — yes, I'll swallow a live goat with all his hair and
horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a
wooden gun — a straight wake with ye !"
As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with
a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time
eluded him.
Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal
and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to
give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and
temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give
88 THE SHIP.
egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to
vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my
astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly,
and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing.
He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As
for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no
more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he
twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. " Whew !" he
whistled at last — " the squall's gone off to leeward, I think
Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that
pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That's
he ; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael's
thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here,
Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay."
" Captain Peleg," said I, " I have a friend with me who
wants to ship too — shall I bring him down to-morrow ?"
" To be sure," said Peleg. " Fetch him along, and we'll
look at him."
" What lay does he want ?" groaned Bildad, glancing up
from the book in which he had again been burying himself.
" Oh ! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg.
" Has he ever whaled it any ?" turning to me.
" Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg."
" Well, bring him along then."
And, after signing the papers, off I went ; nothing doubting
but that I had done a good morning's work, and that the
Pequod was the identical ship that Yojo had provided to cany
Queequeg and me round the Cape.
But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me
that the captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen
by me ; though, indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be
completely fitted out, and receive all her crew on board, ere the
captain makes himself visible by arriving to take command ; for
sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore inter-
THE SHIP. 89
vals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have a
family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not
trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her
to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as
well to have a look at him before irrevocably committing your-
self into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg,
inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found.
"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab ? It's all right
enough ; thou art shipped."
" Yes, but I should like to see him."
" But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't
know exactly what's the matter with him ; but he keeps close
inside the house ; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In
fact, he ain't sick ; but no, he isn't well either. Any how,
young man, he won't always see me, so I don't suppose he will
thee. He's a queer man, Captain Ahab — so some think — but
a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well enough ; no fear, no
fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab ;
doesn't speak much ; but, when he does speak, then you may
well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned ; Ahab's above the com-
mon ; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals ;
been used to deeper wonders than the waves ; fixed his fiery
lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance ! aye,
the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle ! Oh ! he
ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's
Ahab, boy ; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned
king!"
" And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain,
the dogs, did they not lick his blood ?"
" Come hither to me — hither, hither," said Peleg, with a
significance in his eye that almost startled me. " Look ye, lad ;
never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere.
Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant
whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only
90 THE SHIP.
a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gay-
head, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic.
And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I
wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know Captain Ahab well ;
I've sailed with him as mate years ago ; I know what he is —
a good man — not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a
swearing good man — something like me — only there's a good
deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very
jolly ; and I know that on the passage home, he was a little
out of his mind for a spell ; but it was the sharp shooting pains
in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one
might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last
voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of moody —
desperate moody, and savage sometimes ; but that will all pass
off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young
man, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laugh-
ing bad one. So good-bye to thee — and wrong not Captain
Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name. Besides,
my boy, he has a wife — not three voyages wedded — a sweet,
resigned girl. Think of that ; by that sweet girl that old man
has a child : hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless
harm in Ahab ? No, no, my lad ; stricken, blasted, if he be,
Ahab has his humanities !"
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness ; what had
been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me
with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him.
And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for
him, but for I don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of
his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him ; but that
sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe ;
I do not know what it was. But I felt it ; and it did not disin-
cline me towards him ; though I felt impatience at what seemed
like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.
However, my thoughts were at length carried in other direc-
tions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
THERAMADAN. 91
CHAPTER XVII.
THE RAMADAN.
As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to
continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards
night-fall ; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's
religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not
find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of
ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in
certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism
quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the
torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account
of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.
I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable
in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to
other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy
conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly
entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Rama-
dan ; — but what of that ? Queequeg thought he knew what
he was about, I suppose ; he seemed to be content ; and there
let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail ; let
him be, I say : and Heaven have mercy on us all — Presbyte-
rians and Pagans alike — for we are all somehow dreadfully
cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his perform-
ances and rituals must be over, I went up to his room and
knocked at the door ; but no answer. I tried to open it, but it
was fastened inside. "Queequeg," said I softly through the
key-hole : — all silent. " I say, Queequeg ! why don't you
speak? It's I — Ishmael." But all remained still as before. I
92 THE RAMADAN.
began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant
time ; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked
through the key-hole ; but the door opening into an odd corner
of the room, the key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister
one. I could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a
line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold
resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon,
which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, be-
fore our mounting to the chamber. That's strange, thought I ;
but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom
or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here,
and no possible mistake.
" Queequeg ! — Queequeg !" — all still. Something must
have happened. Apoplexy ! I tried to burst open the door ;
but it stubbornly resisted. Running down stairs, I quickly
stated my suspicions to the first person I met — the chamber-
maid. " La ! La !" she cried, " I thought something must be the
matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door
was locked ; and not a mouse to be heard ; and it's been just
so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, you had both
gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La !
La, ma'am! — Mistress ! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy !" —
and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I following.
Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand
and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from
the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her
little black boy meantime.
" Wood-house !" cried I, " which way to it ? Run for God's
sake, and fetch something to pry open the door — the axe ! —
the axe ! — he's had a stroke ; depend upon it !" — and so saying
I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed,
when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-
cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance.
" What's the matter with you, young man ?"
THE RAMADAN. 93
" Get the axe ! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some
one, while I pry it open !"
"Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down the
vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free ; " look here ; are
you talking about prying open any of my doors ?" — and with
that she seized my arm. "What's the matter with you?
What's the matter with you, shipmate ?"
In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to un-
derstand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-
cruet to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant;
then exclaimed — " No ! I haven't seen it since I put it there."
Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs,
she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon
was missing. " He's killed himself," she cried. "It's unfort'-
nate Stiggs done over again — there goes another counterpane —
God pity his poor mother ! — it will be the ruin of my house.
Has the poor lad a sister ? Where's that girl ? — there, Betty, go
to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with —
' no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor ;' —
might as well kill both birds at once. Kill ? The Lord be merciful
to his ghost ! What's that noise there ? You, young man,
avast there !"
And running up after me, she caught me as I was again
trying to force open the door.
" I won't allow it ; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go
for the locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But
avast !" putting her hand in her side-pocket, " here's a key
that'll fit, I guess ; let's see." And with that, she turned it in the
lock ; but, alas ! Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwith-
drawn within.
" Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the
entry a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me,
again vowing I should not break down her premises ; but I tore
from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full
against the mark.
94 THE RAMADAN.
With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knot
slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling ;
and there, good heavens ! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool
and self-collected ; right in the middle of the room ; squatting
on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He
looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat like a carved
image with scarce a sign of active life.
" Queequeg," said I, going up to him, " Queequeg, what's the
matter with you ?"
" He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he ?" said the
landlady.
But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him ; I
almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position,
for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unna-
turally 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 part of his creed, I suj>pose ;
well, then, let him rest ; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt.
It can't last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes
once a year ; and I don't believe it's very punctual then.
I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to
the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a
plum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whaling-
voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the line,
THE RAMADAN. D5
in the Atlantic Ocean only) ; after listening to these plum-
puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went up stairs to go to
bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly
have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no ; there
he was just where I had left him ; he had not stirred an inch.
I began to grow vexed with him ; it seemed so downright
senseless and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night
on his hams in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his
head.
" For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself;
get up and have some supper. You'll starve ; you'll kill your-
self, Queequeg." But not a word did he reply.
Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and
to sleep ; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow
me. But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin
jacket, and threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold
night ; and he had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on.
For some time, do all I would, I could not get into the faintest
doze. I had blown out the candle ; and the mere thought of
Queequeg — not four feet off — sitting there in that uneasy posi-
tion, stark alone in the cold and dark ; this made me really
wretched. Think of it ; sleeping all night in the same room with
a wide awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccounta-
ble Ramadan !
But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more
till break of day ; when, looking over the bedside, there
squatted Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the
floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the
window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but with a
cheerful look ; limped towards me where I lay ; pressed his
forehead again against mine ; and said his Ramadan was
over.
Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's
religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill
96 THE RAMADAN.
or insult any other person, because that other person don't
believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really
frantic ; when it is a positive torment to him ; and, in fine,
makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in ; then
I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the
j>oint with him.
And just so I now did with Queequeg. " Queequeg," said
I, " get into bed now, and he and listen to me." I then went
on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive reli-
gions, and coming down to the various religions of the present
time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all
these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold,
cheerless rooms were stark nonsense ; bad for the health ; useless
for the soul ; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene
and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other
things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it
pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably
foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued
I, fasting makes the body cave in ; hence the spirit caves in ;
and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved.
This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish
such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word,
Queequeg, said I, rather digressively ; hell is an idea first bora
on an undigested apple-dumpling ; and since then perpetuated
through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.
I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled
with dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he
could take it in. He said no ; only upon one memorable occa-
sion. It was after a great feast given by his father the king,
on the gaining of a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had
been killed by about two o'clock in the afternoon, and all
cooked and eaten that very evening.
" No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering ; " that will do ;"
for I knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I
HIS MARK. 97
had seen a sailor who had visited that very island, and he told
me that it was the custom, when a great battle had been gained
there, to barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the
victor ; and then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden
trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit
and cocoanuts ; and with some parsley in their mouths, were
sent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just
as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.
After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion
made much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first
place, he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important
Bubject, unless considered from his own point of view ; and, in
the second place, he did not more than one third understand
me, couch my ideas simply as I would ; and, finally, he no
doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true
religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of conde-
scending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a
great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hope-
lessly lost to evangelical pagan piety.
At last we rose and dressed ; and Queequeg, taking a prodi-
giously hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the
landlady should not make much profit by reason of his Rama-
dan, we sallied out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and
picking our teeth with halibut bones.
CHAPTER XVII.
As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the
ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his
gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had
5
98 HIS MARK
not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore
announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless
they previously produced their papers.
" What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg ?" said I, now
jumping on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on
the wharf.
" I mean," he replied, " he must show his papers."
" Yea," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his
head from behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. " He must show
that he's converted. Son of darkness," he added, turning to
Queequeg, "art thou at present in communion with any
christian church ?"
" Why," said I, " he's a member of the first Congregational
Church." Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing
in Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the
churches.
" First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, " what ! that
worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house ?"
and so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with
his great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on
very carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly
over the bulwarks, took a good long look at Queequeg.
" How long hath he been a member ?" he then said, turning
to me ; " not very long, I rather guess, young man."
"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either,
or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face."
" Do tell, now," cried Bildad, " is this Philistine a regular
member of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting ? I never saw him
going there, and I pass it every Lord's day."
" I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his
meeting," said I, " all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born
member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon
himself, Queequeg is."
" Young man," said Bildad sternly, " thou art skylarking
HIS MARK. 99
with me — explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church
dost thee mean ? answer me."
Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. " I mean, sir,
the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and
Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and
every mother's son and soul of us belong ; the great and ever-
lasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world ;
we all belong to that ; only some of us cherish some queer
crotchets noways touching the grand belief ; in that we all join
hands."
" Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawing
nearer. " Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary,
instead of a fore-mast hand ; I never heard a better sermon.
Deacon Deuteronomy — why Father Mapple himself couldn't
beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come
aboard ; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog
there — what's that you call him ? tell Quohog to step along.
By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there ! looks like
good stuff that ; and he handles it about right. I say,
Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the
head of a whale-boat ? did you ever strike a fish ?"
Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way,
jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of
the whale-boats hanging to the side ; and then bracing his left
knee, and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as
this : —
" Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere ? You
see him ? well, spose him one whale eye, well, den !" and
taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron right over old
Bildad's broad brim, clean across the ship's decks, and struck
the glistening tar spot out of sight.
" Now," said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, " spos-ee
him whale-e eye ; why, dad whale dead."
" Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the
100 HIS MARK.
close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the
cabin gangway. " Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's
papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in
one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth
lay, and that's more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of
Nantucket."
So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy
Queequeg was soon enrolled among the same ship's company
to which I myself belonged.
When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got every-
thing ready for signing, he turned to me and said, " I guess,
Quohog there don't know how to write, does he ? I say, Quohog,
blast ye ! dost thou sign thy name or make thy mark V
But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice
before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed ;
but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the pro-
per place, an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which
was tattooed upon his arm ; so that through Captain Peleg's
obstinate mistake touching his appellative, it stood something
like this : —
Quohog.
his »J« mark.
Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly
eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in
the huge pockets of his broad-skirted drab coat, took out a
bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled " The Latter Day
Coming ; or No Time to Lose," placed it in Queequeg's hands,
and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked
earnestly into his eyes, and said, " Son of darkness, I must do
my duty by thee ; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned
for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy
Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not
for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the
HIS MARK. 101
hideous dragon ; turn from the wrath to come ; mind thine
eye, I say ; oh ! goodness gracious ! steer clear of the fiery
pit !".
Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's
language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic
phrases.
" Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our
harpooneer," cried Peleg. " Pious harpooneers never make
good voyagers — it takes the shark out of 'em ; no harpooneer
is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. There was young
Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all Nantucket
and the Vineyard ; he joined the meeting, and never came to
good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he
shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps,
in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones."
" Peleg ! Peleg !" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands,
"thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time;
thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death ; how,
then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou behest
thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here
had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that
same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st
thou not think of Death and the Judgment then ?"
" Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the
cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets, —
" hear lnm, all of ye: Think of that! When every moment we
thought the ship would sink ! Death and the Judgment
then ? What ? With all three masts making such an ever-
lasting thundering against the side ; and every sea breaking
over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then?
No ! no time to think about Death then. Life was what
Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all
hands — how to rig jury-masts — how to get into the nearest
port ; that was what I was thinking of."
102 THE PROPHET.
Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on
deck, where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly
overlooking some sail-makers who were mending a top-sail in
the waist. Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch,
or save an end of the tarred twine, which otherwise might have
been wasted.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE PROPHET.
" Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship ?"
Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were
sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied
with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us
by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive fore-
finger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparel-
led in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black
handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had
in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the
complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters
have been dried up.
" Have ye shipped in her ?" he repeated.
" You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,'' said I, trying to
gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him.
" Aye, the Pequod — that ship there," he said, drawing back
his whole arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from
him, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at
the object.
" Yes," said I, " we have just signed the articles."
" Anything down there about your souls ?"
" About what ?"
"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No
THE PROPHET. 103
matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any, — good
luck to 'em ; and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a
sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."
" What are you jabbering about, shipmate ?" said I.
" He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of
that sort in other chaps," abruptly said the sti'anger, placing a
nervous emphasis upon the word he.
" Queequeg," said I, " let's go ; this fellow has broken loose
from somewhere ; he's talking about something and somebody
we don't know.''
" Stop !" cried the stranger. " Ye said true — ye hav'n't seen
Old Thunder yet, have ye ?"
" Who's Old Thunder ?" said I, again riveted with the in-
sane earnestness of his manner.
"Captain Ahab."
" What ! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?"
" Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that
name. Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye V
" No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better,
and will be all right again before long."
" All right again before long !" laughed the strangei-, with a
solemnly derisive sort of laugh. " Look ye ; when captain
Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right ;
not before."
" What do you know about him ?"
" What did they tell you about him ? Say that !"
" They didn't tell much of anything about him ; only I've
heard that he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his
crew."
" That's true, that's true — yes, both true enough. But you
must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl ; growl
and go — that's the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing
about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long
ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights ;
nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore
104 THE PROPHET
the altar in Santa ? — heard nothing about that, eh ?■ Nothing
about the silver calabash he spat into ? And nothing about his
losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't ye
hear a word about them matters and something more, eh ? No,
I don't think ye did ; how could ye ? Who knows it ? Not
all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard
tell about the leg, and how he lost it ; aye, ye have heard of
that, I dare say. Oh yes, that every one knows a'most — I
mean they know he's only one leg ; and that a parmacetti took
the other off."
" My friend," said I, " what all this gibberish of yours is about,
I don't know, and I don't much care ; for it seems to me that
you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are
speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then
let me tell you, that I know all about the los3 of his leg."
" All about it, eh — sure you do ? — all ?''
" Pretty sure."
With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the
beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie ;
then starting a little, turned and said : — " Ye've shipped, have
ye ? Names down on the papers ? Well, well, what's signed,
is signed ; and what's to be, will be ; and then again, perhaps
it wont be, after all. Any how, it's all fixed and arranged
a'ready ; and some sailors or other must go with him, I
suppose ; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em !
Morning to ye, shipmates, morning ; the ineffable heavens bless
ye ; I'm sorry I stopped ye."
" Look here, friend," said I, " if you have anything impor-
tant to tell us, out with it ; but if you are only trying to bam-
boozle us, you are mistaken in your game ; that's all I have to
say."
" And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up
that way ; you are just the man for him — the likes of ye.
Morning to ye, shipmates, morning ! Oh ! when ye get there,
tell 'em I've concluded not to make one of 'em."
THE PROPHET. 105
" Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way — you can't
fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look
as if he had a great secret in him.''
" Morning to ye, shipmates, morning."
" Morning it is," said I. " Come along, Queequeg, let's
leave this crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you ?
" Elijah."
Elijah ! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting,
after each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor ;
and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a
bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred
yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and looking back as I
did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, though at a
distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said
nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with
my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn
the same corner that we did. He did ; and then it seemed
to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could
not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with
his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of
talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-
apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod ; and Cap-
tain Ahab ; and the leg he had lost ; and the Cape Horn fit ;
and the silver calabash ; and what Captain Peleg had said of
him, when I left the ship the day previous ; and the prediction
of the squaw Tistig ; and the voyage we had bound ourselves
to sail ; and a hundred other shadowy things.
I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah
was really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the
way with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps.
But Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This
relieved me ; and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I
pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.
5*
106 ALL ASTIR
CHAPTER XX.
ALL ASTIR.
A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the
Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new
sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of
rigging ; in short, everything betokened that the ship's prepara-
tions were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never
went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out
upon the hands : Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at
the stores ; and the men employed in the hold and on the rig-
ging were working till long after night-fall.
On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word
was given at all the inns where the ship's company were stop-
ping, that their chests must be on board before night, for there
was no telling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So
Queequeg and I got down our traps, resolving, however, to
sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they always give very
long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for several
days. But no wonder ; there was a good deal to be done, and
there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before
the Pequod was fully equipped.
Every one knows what a multitude of things — beds, sauce-
pans, knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers,
and what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeep-
ing. Just so with whaling, which necessitates a three-years'
housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, coster-
mongers, doctors, bakers, and- bankers. And though this also
holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means to the
same extent as with whalemen. For- besides the great length
of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the
ALL ASTIR. 107
prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them
at the remote harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered,
that of all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to acci-
dents of all kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of
the very things upon which the success of the voyage most
depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spare, and spare lines
and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Cap-
tain and duplicate ship.
At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest stor-
age of the Pequod had been almost completed ; comprising her
beef, bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before
hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying
on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small.
Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was
Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined
and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed
resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found want-
ing in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time
she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the steward's
pantry ; another time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate's
desk, where he kept his log ; a third time with a roll of flannel
for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did any
woman better deserve her name, which was Charity — Aunt
Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity
did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither,
ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to
yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in
which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which
she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars.
But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress
coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle
in one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor
was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for
Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles
108 GOING ABOARD.
needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite
that article upon the paper. Every once and a while Peleg came
hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down
the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and
then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam.
During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited
the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how
he was, and when he was going to come on board his ship. To
these questions they would answer, that he was getting better
and better, and was expected aboard every day ; meantime, the
two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to everything
necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been down-
right honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart
that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a
voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be
the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the
open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes
happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensi-
bly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And
much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to
think nothing.
At last it was given out that some time next day the ship
would certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a
very early start.
CHAPTER XXI.
GOING ABOARD.
It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty
dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf.
" There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,"
GOING ABOARD. 109
said I to Queequeg, " it can't be shadows ; she's off by sunrise,
I guess ; come on !''
" Avast !" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time
coming close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders,
and then insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward
a little, in the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Quee-
queg to me. It was Elijah.
" Going aboard ?"
" Hands off, will you," said I.
" Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, " go 'way !"
" Aint going aboard, then ?"
" Yes, we are," said I, " but what business is that of yours ?
Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little imper-
tinent ?"
" No, no, no ; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly
and wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most
unaccountable glances.
" Elijah," said I, " you will oblige my friend and me by with-
drawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and
would prefer not to be detained."
" Ye be, be ye ? Coming back afore breakfast ?"
" He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, " come on."
" Holloa !" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had
removed a few paces.
" Never mind him," said I, " Queequeg, come on."
But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand
on my shoulder, said — " Did ye see anything looking like men
going towards that ship a while ago f '
Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, say-
ing " Yes, I thought I did see four or five men ; but it was
too dim to be sure."
"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye."
Once more we quitted him ; but once more he came softly
after us ; and touching my shoulder again, said, " See if you
can find 'em now, will ye V
110 GOING ABOARD.
"Find who?"
" Morning to ye ! morning to ye !" he rejoined, again
moving off. " Oh ! I was going to warn ye against — hut never
mind, never mind — it's all one, all in the family too ; — sharp
frost this morning, ain't it ? Good hye to ye. Shan't see ye
again very soon, I guess ; unless it's before the Grand Jury."
And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me,
for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impu-
dence.
At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything
in profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was
locked within ; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils
of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide
of the scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found
only an old rigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket.
He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his face down-
wards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slum-
ber slept upon him.
" Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone
to ?" said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed
that, when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what
I now alluded to ; hence I would have thought myself to have
been optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah's
otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down ;
and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg
that perhaps we had best sit up with the body ; telling him to
establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the
sleeper's rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough ; and
then, without more ado, sat quietly down there.
" Gracious ! Queequeg, don't sit there," -said I.
" Oh ! perry dood seat," said Queequeg, " my country way ;
won't hurt him face."
" Face !" said I, " call that his face ? very benevolent coun-
tenance then ; but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself;
get off, Queequeg, you are heaw, it's grinding the face
GOING ABOARD. Ill
of the poor. Get off, Queequeg ! Look, he'll twitch you
off soon. I wonder he don't wake."
Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the
sleeper, and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet.
We kept the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the
other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion,
Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, owing
to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king,
chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fatten-
ing some of the lower orders for ottomans ; and to furnish
a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up
eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and
alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion ;
much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible
into walking-sticks ; upon occasion, a chief calling his attend-
ant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a
spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place.
While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received
the tomahawk from me, he nourished the hatchet-side of it
over the sleeper's head.
" What's that for, Queequeg ?"
" Perry easy, kill-e ; oh ! perry easy !"
He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his
tomahawk-pipe, which, it seemed, had in its two uses both
brained his foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly
attracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now com-
pletely filling the contracted hole, it began to tell upon him.
He breathed with a sort of muffiedness ; then seemed troubled
in the nose ; then revolved over once or twice ; then sat up and
rubbed his eyes.
" Holloa !" he breathed at last, " who be ye smokers ?"
" Shipped men," answered I, " when does she sail ?"
" Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye ? She sails to-day.
The Captain came aboard last night."
112 MERRY CHRISTMAS.
" What Captain ?— Ahab ?"
" Who but him indeed ?"
I was going to ask him some further questions concerning
Ahab, when we heard a noise on deck.
1 " Holloa ! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. " He's a lively
chief mate, that ; good man, and a pious ; but all alive now,
I must turn to." And so saying he went on deck, and we
followed.
It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in
twos and threes ; the riggers bestirred themselves ; the mates
were actively engaged ; and several of the shore people were
busy in bringing various last things on board. Meanwhile
Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin.
CHAPTER XXII.
MERRY CHRISTMAS.
At length, towai'ds noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's
riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the
wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a
whaleboat, with her last gift — a night-cap for Stubb, the second
mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward —
after all this, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from
the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg said :
" Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right ?
Captain Ahab is all ready — just spoke to him — nothing more to
be got from shore, eh ? Well, call all hands, then. Muster
'em aft here — blast 'em ! "
" No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,"
said Bildad, " but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our
bidding."
How now ! Here upon the very point of starting for the
MERRY CHRISTMAS. 113
voyage, Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with
a high hand on the quarter-deck, just as if they were to be
joint-commanders at sea, as well as to all appearances in port.
And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of him was yet to be seen ;
only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, the idea was,
that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the ship
under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that
was not at all his proper business, but the pilot's ; and as he was
not yet completely recovered — so they said — therefore, Captain
Ahab stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough ;
especially as in the merchant service many captains never show
themselves on deck for a considerable time after heaving up the
anchor, but remain over the cabin table, having a farewell
merry-making with their shore friends, before they quit the ship
for good with the pilot.
But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for
Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of
the talking and commanding, and not Bildad.
"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors
lingered at the main-mast. " Mr. Starbuck, drive 'em aft."
" Strike the tent there ! " — was the next order. As I hinted
before, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in
port ; and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to
strike the tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving
up the anchor.
" Man the capstan ! Blood and thunder ! — jump ! " — was the
next command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes.
Now, in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied
by the pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad,
who, with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other offices,
was one of the licensed pilots of the port — he being suspected
to have got himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket
pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned in, for he never
piloted any other craft— Bildad, I say, might now be seenac-
114 MERRY CHRISTMAS.
tively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching
anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of
psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth
some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with
hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad
had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board
the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh ; and Charity,
his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each
seaman's berth.
Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain
Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner.
I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could
be got up ; involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told
Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran,
in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was
comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious
Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hun-
dred and seventy-seventh lay ; when I felt a sudden sharp poke
in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of
Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my im-
mediate vicinity. That was my first kick.
" Is that the way they heave in the marchant service ? " he
roared. " Spring, thou sheep-head ; spring, and break thy back-
bone ! Why don't ye spring, I say, all of ye — spring ! Quo-
hag ! spring, thou chap with the red whiskers ; spring there,
Scotch-cap ; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I say, all of ye,
and spring your eyes out ! " And so saying, he moved along
the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while im-
perturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks
I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.
At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we
glided. It was a short, cold Christmas ; and as the short northern
day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon
the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in
MERRY CHRISTMAS 115
polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks
glistened in the moonlight ; and like the white ivory tusks of
some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the
bows.
Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and
anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent
the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the
cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, —
" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green.
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between."
Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than
then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this
frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet
feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me,
many a pleasant haven in store ; and meads and glades so
eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden,
unwilted, remains at midsummer.
At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were
needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied
us began ranging alongside.
It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad
were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For
loath to depart, yet ; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound
on so long and perilous a voyage — beyond both stormy Capes ;
a ship in which some thousands of his hard earned 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
eveiy way brimful of every intei-est to him, — poor old Bildad
lingered long ; paced the deck with anxious strides ; ran down j'
into the cabin to speak another farewell word there ; again came
116 MERRY CHRISTMAS.
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, me-
chanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively grasped stout
Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a moment
stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, "Never-
theless, friend Peleg, I can stand it ; yes, I can."
As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher ; but
for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye,
when the lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little
run from 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 main-yard there ! Boat ahoy 1 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," mur-
mured old Bildad, almost incoherently. " I hope ye'll have fine
weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among
ye — a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them
in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates.
Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers ; good white
cedar plank is raised full three per cent, within the year. Don't
forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper
don't waste the spare staves. Oh ! the sail-needles are in the green
locker ! Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men ; but
don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good
gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it wa?.
a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mi . Flask,
THELEESHORE. 117
beware of fornication. Good-bye, good-bye ! Don't keep that
cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. Starbuck ; it'll spoil.
Be careful with the butter — twenty cents the pound it was, and
mind ye, if — "
"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering, — away!"
and with that, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt
into the boat. i
Ship and boat diverged ; the cold, damp night breeze blew
between ; a screaming gull flew overhead ; the two hulls
wildly rolled ; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly
plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LEE SHORE.
Some chapters back, one Bulkirgton was spoken of, a tall,
new-landed 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,
118 THE ADVOCATE.
is that ship's direst jeopardy ; she must fly all hospitality ; one
touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her
shudder through and through. With all her might she
crowds all sail off shore ; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very
winds that fain would blow her homeward ; seeks all the lashed
sea's landlessness again ; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into
peril ; her only friend her bitterest foe !
Know ye, now, Bulkington ? Glimpses do ye seem to see of
that mortally intolerable truth ; that all deep, earnest thinking
is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independ-
ence of her sea ; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth
conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore ?
But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shore-
less, indefinite as God — so, better is it to perish in that howl-
ing infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if
that were safety ! For worm-like, then, oh ! who would craven
crawl to land ! Terrors of the terrible ! is all this agony so
vain ? Take heart, take heart, 0 Bulkington ! Bear thee
grimly, demigod ! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing —
straight up, leaps thy apotheosis !
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ADVOCATE.
As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business
of whaling ; and as this business of whaling has somehow come
to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and dis-
reputable pursuit ; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye,
ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of
whales.
In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to
THE ADVOCATE. IJ9
establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of
whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the
liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any
miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance
the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the
company as a harpooneer, say ; and if in emulation of the
naval officers he should append the initials S. W. F. (Sperm
"Whale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would
be deemed pre-eminently presuming and ridiculous.
Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honor-
ing us whalemen, is this : they think that, at best, our vocation
amounts to a butchering sort of business ; and that when actively -
engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements.
Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers
of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders
whom the world invariably delights to honor. And as for the
matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall
soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally
unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant
the sperm whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of
this tidy earth. But even granting the charge in question to
be true; what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are
comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields
from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies'
plaudits ? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the
popular conceit of the soldier's profession; let me assure ye
that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery,
would quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale's
vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what
are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the inter-
linked terrors and wonders of God !
But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does
it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage ; yea, an all-
abounding adoration ! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and
120 THE ADVOCATE.
candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many
shrines, to our glory !
But look at this matter in other lights ; weigh it in all sorts
of scales ; see what we whalemen are, and have been.
Why did the Dutch in Pe Witt's time have admirals of their
whaling fleets ? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own
personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and
politely invite to that town some score or two of families from
our own island of Nantucket ?. Why did Britain between the
years 1750 and 1*788 pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards
of £1,000,000 ? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of
America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen
in the world ; sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels ;
manned by eighteen thousand men ; yearly consuming 4,000,000
of dollars ; the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000 ;
and eveiy year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest
of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not something
puissant in whaling ?
But this is not the. half; look again.
. I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for
his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the
last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole
broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty
business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events
so remarkable in themselves, and so continuously momentous in
their sequential issues, that whaling may well be regarded as
that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant
from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to
catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many
years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out
the remotest and least known parts of the. earth. She has
explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where
no Cook or Vancouver had .ever, sailed. If American and
European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage
THE ADVOCATE. 121
harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and the glory of the
whale-ship, which originally showed them, the way, and first in-
terpreted 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 Cap-
tains 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 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 dedi-
cates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of
being set down in the ship's common log. Ah, the wrorld ! Oh,
the world !
Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce
but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried
on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish
provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first
broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching
those colonies ; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly
shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the libera-
tion of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain,
and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.
That great America on the other side of the sphere, Aus-
tralia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman.
After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other
ships long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous ; but
the whale-ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true
mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy
of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several
times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the
6
122 THE ADVOCATE.
whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The
uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and
do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way
for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried
the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that
douhle-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the
whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due ; for already
she is on the threshold.
But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling
has no assthetically noble associations connected with it, then am
I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you
with a split helmet every time.
The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous
chronicler, you will say.
The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chro-
nicler ? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan ? Who
but mighty Job ! And who composed the first narrative of a
whaling-voyage ? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the
Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from
Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times ! And who
pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament ? Who, but
Edmund Burke !
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils ;
they have no good blood in their veins.
No good blood in their veins ? They have something better
than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Frank-
lin was Mary Morrel ; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger,
one of the .old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a
.Jong line of Folgers and harpooneers — all kith and kin to noble
Benjamin — 1jhis day darting th.e barbed iron from one side of
the world to the other.
Good again; but then all .confess ,th# somehow whaling is
not respectable. —
Whaling not respectable ? Whaling is imperial ! By
THE ADVOCATE. 123
old English statutory law, the whale is declared "a royal
fish."*
Oh, that's only nominal ! The whale himself has never
figured in any grand imposing way.
The whale never figured in any grand imposing way ? In
one of the mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon
his entering the world's capital, the bones of a whale, brought
all the way from the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous
object in the cymballed procession.*
Grant it, since you cite it ; but, say what you will, there is
no real dignity in whaling.
JVo dignity in whaling ? The dignity of our calling the
very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South ! No
more ! Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and
take it off to Queequeg ! No more ! I know a man that, in his
lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account
that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity
who boasted of taking as many walled towns.
And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me ; if I shall ever deserve any real
repute in that small but high hushed world which I might
not be unreasonably ambitious of ; if hereafter I shall do any-
thing that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done
than to have left undone ; if, at my death, my executors, or
more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk,
then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory
to whaling ; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my
Harvard.
* See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.
124 POSTSCRIPT
CHAPTER XXV.
POSTSCRIPT.
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance
naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts,
an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable
surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause — such an
advocate, would he not be blameworthy ?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,
even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them
for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state,
so called, and there may be a caster of state. How they use
the salt, precisely — who knows ? Certain I am, however, that
a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head
of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of
making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery ? Much
might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of
this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly
and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably
smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses
hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy
spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to
much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here, is this — what kind
of oil is used at coronations ? Certainly it cannot be olive oil,
nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor
cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in
its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils ?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons ! we whalemen supply your
kings and queens with coronation stuff !
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES. 125
CHAPTER XXVI.
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of
Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest
man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to
endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked
biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not
spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time
of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days
for which his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers
had he seen ; those summers had dried up all his physical
superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed
no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it
seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely
the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking ;
quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit ;
and closely Wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health
and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed pre-
pared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always,
as now ; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent
chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in
all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there
the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had
calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose
life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not
a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and
fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times
affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all
the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued
126 KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
•with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his
life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition ; but to
that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems
rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from igno-
rance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.
And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul,
much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young
Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from
the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further
to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men,
restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others
in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. " I will have no
man in my boat," said Starbuck, " who is not afraid of a whale."
By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable
and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estima-
tion of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man
is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
" Aye, aye,'' said Stubb, the second mate, " Starbuck, there,
is as careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery."
But we shall ere long see what that word " careful'' precisely
means when used by a man like Stbub, or almost any other
whale hunter.
Starbuck was no crusader after perils ; in him courage was
not a sentiment ; but a thing simply useful to him, and always
at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he
thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was
one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her
bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no
fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down ; nor for persisting
in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him.
For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill
whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs ;
and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well
knew. What doom was his own father's ? Where, in
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES. 127
the bottomless deeps, could lie find the torn limbs of his
brother ?
With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a
certain superstitiousness, as has been said ; the courage of this
Starbuck which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed
have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that
a man so organized, and with such terrible experiences and
remembrances as he had ; it was not in nature that these
things should fail in latently engendering an element in him,
which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its
confinement, and burn all his corn-age up. And brave as he
might be. it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some
intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict
with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational
horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific,
because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you
from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man.
But were the coming narrative to reveal, in any instance, the
complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might
I have the heart to write it ; for it is a thing most sorrowful,
nay shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men
may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations ;
knaves, fools, and murderers there may be ; men may have
mean and meagre faces ; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and
so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any
ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw
their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within
ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the
outer character seem gone ; bleeds with keenest anguish at the
undraped spectacle of a valor-rained man. Nor can piety itself,
at such a shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings
against the permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat
of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding
dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it
128 KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike ; that
democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end
from God ; Himself ! The great God absolute ! The centre
and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our
divine equality !
If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I
shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark ; weave round
them tragic graces ; if even the most mournful, perchance the
most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the
exalted mounts ; if I shall touch that workman's arm with some
ethereal light ; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous
set of sun ; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou
just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of
humanity over all my kind ! Bear me out in it, thou great
democratic God ! who didst not refuse to the swart convict,
Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with
doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and pau-
pered arm of old Cervantes ; Thou who didst pick up Andrew
Jackson from the pebbles ; who didst hurl him upon a war-
horse ; who didst thunder him higher than a throne ! Thou
who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy
selectest champions from the kingly commons ; bear me out in
it, 0 God !
CHAPTER XXVII.
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod ;
and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man.
A happy-go-lucky ; neither craven nor valiant ; taking perils
as they came with an indifferent air ; and while engaged in the
most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and col-
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES. 129
lected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-
humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whale-boat as
if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew
all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable
arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is
about the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in
the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance
coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He
would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with
the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb,
converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he
thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever
thought of it at all, might be a question ; but, if he ever did
chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner,
no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of
the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about
something which he would find out when he obeyed the order,
and not sooner.
What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-
going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden
of fife in a world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground
with their packs ; what helped to bring about that almost impious
good-humor of his ; that thing must have been his pipe. For,
like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular
features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected
him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe.
He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a
rack, within easy reach of his hand ; and, whenever he turned
in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from the
other to the end of the chapter ; then loading them again to be
in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first
putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his
mouth.
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at
6*
130 KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
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 ex-
haling it ; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about
with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths ; so, likewise,
against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might
have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.
The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's
Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious
concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the
great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him ;
and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to de-
stroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to
all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic
bulk and mystic ways ; and so dead to anything like an appre-
hension of any possible danger from encountering them ; that in
his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of mag-
nified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little cir-
cumvention and some small application of time and trouble in
order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness
of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales ; he
followed these fish for the fun of it ; and a three years' voyage
round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length
of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought nails
and cut nails ; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little
Flask was one of the wrought ones ; made to clinch tight and
last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod ;
because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square
(imber known by that name in Arctic whalers ; and which by
She means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves
.o brace the ship against the icy concussions of those batter-
ing seas.
Now these three mates — Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were
momentous men. They it was who by universal prescription
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES. 131
commanded three of the Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that
grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably
marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three heads-
men were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with
their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of
lancers ; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.
And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman,
like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-
steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him
with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted,
or elbowed in the assault ; and moreover, as there generally sub-
sists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness ; it is
therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pe-
quod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them
belonged.
First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate,
had selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the
most westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there
still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has
long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many
of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go
by the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean,
sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes — for
an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their glit-
tering expression — all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inhe-
ritor of the un vitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who,
in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in
hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer snuff-
ing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego
now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea ; the
unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow
of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky
limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some
132 KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES.
of the earlier Puritans, and half believed this wild Indian to be
a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was
Stubb the second mate's squire.
Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-
black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread — an Ahasuerus to be-
hold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large
that the sailors called them ring-bolts, and would talk of secur-
ing the top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had
voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay
on his native coast. And never having been anywhere in the
world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors
most frequented by whalemen ; and having now led for many
years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncom-
monly heedful of what manner of men they shipped ; Daggoo
retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved
about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks.
There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him ; and a
white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg
truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Aha-
suerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a
chess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's
company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of
the many thousand men before the mast employed in the Ame-
rican whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all
the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American
whale fishery as with the American army and military and
merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the
construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The
same, I say, because in all these cases the native American libe-
rally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously
supplying the muscles. No small number of these whaling
seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nan-
tucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the
hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the
A H A B . 133
Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the
Shetland Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew.
Upon the passage homewards, they drop them there again. How
it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best
whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes
too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men,
but each Isolalo living on a separate continent of his own. Yet
now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were !
An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and
all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod
to lay the world's grievances before that bar from which not veiy
many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip — he never
did — oh, no ! he went before. Poor Alabama boy ! On the
grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his
tambourine ; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to
the gi'eat quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels,
and beat his tambourine in glory ; called a coward here, hailed
a hero there !
CHAPTER XXVIH.
For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing abore
hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly
relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be
seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders
of the ship ; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with
orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they
but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dic-
tator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not per-
mitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.
134 A H A B .
Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I
instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible ; for
my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now
in the seclusion of the sea, became almost a perturbation. This
was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's dia-
bolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle
energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could
I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready
to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet
of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or
uneasiness — to call it so — which I felt, yet whenever I came to
look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to
cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the
great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish,
and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies
which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with,
still I ascribed this — and rightly ascribed it — to the fierce
uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation
in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was espe-
cially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates,
which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorless mis-
givings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every present-
ment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers and
men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found,
and they were every one of them Americans ; a Nantucketer, a
Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the
ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting
Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to
the southward ; and by every degree and minute of latitude
which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and
all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less
lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the
transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through
the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy
AHAB. 135
rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the fore-
noon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail.
foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension ;
Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.
There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him,
nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away
from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the
limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from
their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form,
seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable
mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from
among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his
tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his cloth-
ing? y°u saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It
resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the
straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning
tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig,
peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running
off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded.
Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the
scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.
By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allu-
sion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tash-
tego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,
superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old
did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon
him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental
strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived,
by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man,
who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere
this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-
traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old
Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that
no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if
J36 AHAB.
ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out — whicb might
hardly come to pass, so he muttered — then, whoever should dc
that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him
from crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me,
and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few
moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing
grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he
partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg
had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm
whale's jaw. " Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old
Gay-Head Indian once ; " but like his dismasted craft, he shipped
another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of
'em."
I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon
each side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the
mizen 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, unsur-
renderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedica-
tion 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, con-
sciousness 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 ; cither standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory
stool he had ; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew
less gloomy ; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became
ENTER AHAB. 137
still less and less a recluse ; as if, when the ship had sailed from
home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had
then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass,
that he was almost continually in the air ; but, as yet, for all
that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck,
he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the
Pequod was only making a passage now ; not regularly cruis-
ing ; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the
mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing,
out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase
away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer
were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest
peaks to pile themselves upon.
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of
the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to
charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked,
dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misan-
thropic woods ; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven
old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to wel-
come such glad-hearted visitants ; so Ahab did, in the end, a little
respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than
once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in
any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ENTER AHAB j TO HIM, STUBB.
Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the
Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring,
which, at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the
eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing,
perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets
138 ENTER AHAB.
of Persian sherbet, heaped up — flaked up, with rose-water
snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in
jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory
of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns !
For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome
days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that
unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and poten-
cies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul,
especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then,
memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noise-
less twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more
they wrought on Ahab's texture.
Old age is always wakeful ; as if, the longer linked with life, the
less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among
sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths
to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab ; only
that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air,
that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from
the cabin to the planks. " It feels like going down into one's
tomb," — he would mutter to himself, — " for an old captain like
me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug
berth."
So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the
night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers
of the band below ; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon
the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day,
but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place, for fear of dis-
turbing their slumbering shipmates ; when this sort of steady
quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman
would watch the cabin-scuttle ; and ere long the old man would
emerge, griping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way.
Some considerating 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
ENTER AHAB. 139
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 odd 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 did'st not know Ahab then.
" Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, " that thou
wouldst wad me that fashion ? But go thy ways ; I had forgot.
Below to thy nightly grave ; where such as ye sleep between
shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last. — Down, dog, and
kennel!"
Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation of the so
suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment ;
then said excitedly, " I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir ;
I do but less than half like it, sir."
" Avast !" gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently
moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.
" No, sir ; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, " I will not tamely
be called a dog, sir."
" Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass,
and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee !"
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such over-
bearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.
" I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for
it," muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-
scuttle. "It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I
don't well know whether to go back and strike him, or — what's
that ? — down here on my knees and pray for him ? Yes, that
140 ENTER AHAB
was the thought coming up in me ; but it would be the first
time I ever did pray. It's queer ; very queer ; and he's queer
too ; aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old
man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me ! — his eyes
like powder-pans ! is he mad ? Anyway there's something on
his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when
it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three
hours out of the twenty-four ; and he don't sleep then. Didn't
that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he
always finds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and
tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid
almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as
though a baked brick had been on it ? A hot old man ! I
guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience ; it's a
kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say — worse nor a toothache. Well,
well ; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me from
catching it. He's full of riddles ; I wonder what he goes into
the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he sus-
pects ; what's that for, I should like to know ? Who's made ap-
pointments with him in the hold ? Ain't that queer, now ? But
there's no telling, it's the old game — Here goes for a snooze.
Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world,
if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's
about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too.
Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But
that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh com-
mandment ; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth — So here
goes again. But how's that ? didn't he call me a dog ? blazes !
he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on
top of that ! He might as well have kicked me, and done with
it. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, 1 was so
taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a
bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me ? I don't
stand right on my legs. Coining afoul of that old man has a
THE PIPE. 141
sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have
been dreaming, though — How ? how ? how ? — but the only
way's to stash it ; so here goes to hammock again ; and in the
morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by day-
light."
CHAPTER XXX.
THE PIPE.
When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning
over the bulwarks ; and then, as had been usual with him of
late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for
his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the
binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the
deck, he sat and smoked.
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings
were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale.
How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod
of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized ?
For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great;
lord of Leviathans was Ahab.
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from;,
his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into
his face. " How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the.
tube, " this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe ! hard
must it go with me if thy charm be gone ! Here have I been
unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring, — aye, and ignorantly
smoking to windward all the while ; to windward, and with
such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets
were the strongest- and fullest of trouble. What business have
I with this pipe ? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to
send up mild white vapors among mild white hail's, not
142 QUEEN MAB.
among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no
more — "
He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed
in the waves ; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the
sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced
the planks.
CHAPTER XXXI.
QUEEN MAB.
Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.
" Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know
the old man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it ;
and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I
kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a
pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what
was still more curious, Flask — *you know how curious all dreams
are — through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to
be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an in-
sult, that kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row?
It's not a real leg, only a false leg.' And there's a mighty dif-
ference between a living thump and a dead thump. That's
what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times more savage
to bear than a blow from a cane. The living member — that
makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to myself
all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against
that cursed pyramid — so confoundedly contradictory was it all,
all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, ' what's his leg
now, but a cane — a whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was
only a playful cudgelling — in fact, only a whaleboning that he
gave me — not a base kick. Besides,' thinks I, ' look at it once ;
why, the end of it — the foot part — what a small sort of end it
QUEEN MAB. 143
is ; whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devil-
ish broad insult. But this .insult is whittled down to a point
only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask.
While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of badger-
haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the
shoulders, and slews me round. ' What are you 'bout ?' says
he. Slid! man, but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But,
somehow, next moment I was over the flight. ' What am I
about ?' says I at last. ' And what business is that of yours, I
should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?'
By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned
round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of sea-
weed he had for a clout — what do you think, I saw ? — why
thunder alive, man, his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with
the points out. Says I, on second thoughts, ' I guess I won't
kick you, old fellow.' ' Wise Stubb,' said he, ' wise Stubb ;' and
kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of his own gums
like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying
over his ' wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall
to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my
foot for it, when he roared out, ' Stop that kicking !' ' Halloa,
says I, ' what's the matter now, old fellow ?' ' Look ye here,'
says he ; ' let's argue the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye,
didn't he ?' ' Yes, he did,' says I — ' right here it was.' ' Very
good,' says he — ' he used his ivory leg, didn't he ?' ' Yes, he
did,' says I. ' Well then,' says he, \ wise Stubb, what have you
to complain of ? Didn't he kick with right good will ? it wasn't
a common piteh pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were
kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb.
It's an honor ; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In
old England the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped
by a queen, and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast,
Stubb, that ye were kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man
of. Remember what I say; be kicked by him; account his
144 CETOLOGY.
kicks honors ; and on no account kick back ; for you can't help
yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid V With
that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion,
to swim off into the air. I snored ; rolled over ; and there I
was in my hammock ! Now, what do you think of that dream,
Flask ?"
" I don't know ; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho'."
" May be ; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask.
D'ye see Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern ?
"Well, the best thing you can do, Flask, is to let that old man
alone ; never speak to him, whatever he says. Halloa ! what's
that he shouts ? Hark !"
" Mast-head, there ! Look sharp, all of ye ! There are
whales hereabouts ! If ye see a white one, split your lungs for
him!"
" What d'ye think of that now, Flask ? ain't there a small
drop of something queer about that, eh ? A white whale — did
ye mark that, man ? Look ye — there's something special in the
wind. Stand by for it, Flask. Ahab has that that's bloody on
his mind. But, mum ; he comes this way."
CHAPTER XXXII.
_: CETOLOGY.
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep ; but soon
we shall be lost in its unshored, harborless immensities. Ere
that come to pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side
by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan ; at the outset
it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to
a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special
leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to
follow.
C E T O L 0 G Y . 145
It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad
genera, that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy
task. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing
less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest author-
ities have laid down.
" No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is
entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A. D. 1820.
u It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into
the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into
groups and families. * * * Utter confusion exists among
the historians of this animal" (sperm whale), says Surgeon
Beale, A. D. 1839.
" Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable
waters." " Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the
cetacea." " A field strewn with thorns." " All these incom-
plete indications but serve to torture us naturalists."
Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter,
and Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Never-
theless, though of real knowledge there be little, yet of books
there are a plenty ; and so in some small degree, with cetology,
or the science of whales. Many are the men, small and great,
old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at large or in
little, written of the whale. Run over a few : — The Authors of
the Bible ; Aristotle ; Pliny ; Aldrovandi ; Sir Thomas Browne ;
Gesner ; Ray ; Linnaeus ; Rondeletius ; Willoughby ; Green ;
Artedi ; Sibbald ; Brisson ; Marten ; Lacepede ; Bonneterre ;
Desmarest ; Baron Cuvier ; Frederick Cuvier ; John Hunter ;
Owen ; Scoresby ; Beale ; Bennett ; J. Ross Browne ; the Au-
thor of Miriam Coffin ; 01 instead ; and the Rev. T. Cheever.
But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have writ-
ten, the above cited extracts will show.
Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those follow-
ing Owen ever saw living whales ; and but one of them was a
real professional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain
1
146 CETOLOGY.
Scoresby. On the separate subject of the Greenland or right-
whale, be is tbe best existing authority. But Scoresby knew
nothing and says nothing of the great sperm whale, compared
with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy mention-
ing. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is
an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any
means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long
priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which, till
some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly
unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day
still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports ;
this usurpation has been every wa}7 complete. Reference
to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past
days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one
rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has
at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross ;
hear ye ! good people all, — the Greenland whale is deposed, —
the great sperm whale now reigneth !
There are only two books in being which at all pretend to
put the living sperm whale before you, and at the same time,
in the remotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books
are Beale's and Bennett's ; both in their time surgeons to
English South-Sea whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men.
The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found in
their volumes is necessarily small ; but so far as it goes, it is of
excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific des-
cription. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or
poetic, lives not complete in any literature. Far above all
other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life.
Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular
comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for
the present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by sub-
sequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this
matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I
CETOLOGY. 147
promise nothing complete ; because any human thing supposed
to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.
I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the
various species, or — in this place at least — to much of any
description. My object here is simply to project the draught of
a system atization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.
But it is a ponderous task ; no ordinary letter-sorter in the
Post-office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the
sea after them ; to have one's hands among the unspeakable
foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world ; this is a fearful
thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this
leviathan ! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me.
" Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee ? Behold
the hope of him is vain !" But I have swam through libraries
and sailed through oceans ; I have had to do with whales with
these visible hands ; I am in earnest ; and I will try. There are
some preliminaries to settle.
First : The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Ce-
tology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some
quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a
fish. In his System of Nature, A. D. 1776, Linnaeus declares,
" I hereby separate the whales from the fish." But of my own
knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and
shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaaus's express edict, were
still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the
Leviathan.
The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished
the whales from the waters, he states as follows : " On account
of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids,
their hollow ears, penemintrantem feminam mammis lactantem,"
and finally, "ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all
this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of
Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and
they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were
148 CETOLOGY,
altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were
humbug.
Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old
fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy
Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next
point is, in what internal respect does the Avhale differ from
other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in
brief, they are these : lungs and warm blood ; whereas, all
other fish are lungless and cold blooded.
Next : how shall we define the whale, by his obvious ex-
ternals, so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come ?
To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal
tail. There you have him. However contracted, that defini-
tion is the result of expanded meditation. A walrus spouts
much like a whale, but the walrus is not a fish, because he is
amphibious. But the last term of the definition is still more
cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have
noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat,
but a vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting
fish the tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably
assumes a horizontal position.
By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means
exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature
hitherto identified with the whale by the best informed
Nantucketers ; nor, on the other hand, link with it any fish
hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien* Hence, all the
smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be included in
* I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins
and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are
included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish
are a nosy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and
feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their
credentials as whales ; and have presented them with their passports to
quit the Kingdom of Cetology.
CETOLOGY. 149
this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the grand
divisions of the entire whale host.
First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into
three primary BOOKS (subdivisible into Chapters), and
these shall comprehend them all, both small and large.
I. The Folio Whale ; II. the Octavo Whale ; III. the
Duodecimo Whale.
As the type of the Folio I present the Sperm Whale ; of
the Octavo, the Grampus ; of the Duodecimo, the Porpoise.
FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chap-
ters : — I. The Sperm Whale ; II. the Bight Whale ; III. the
Fin Back Whale ; IV. the Hump-bached Wliale ; V. the
Bazor Back Whale ; VI. the Sulphur Bottom Whale.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter I. (Sperm Whale).— This whale,
among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa
whale, and the Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is
the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottsfich of the
Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is,
without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe ; the most
formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in
aspect ; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce ; he
being the only creature from which that valuable substance,
spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many
other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name
that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd.
Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was almost wholly
unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was
only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish ; in those
days spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be
derived from a creature identical with the one then known in
England as the Greenland or Right Wliale. It was the idea
also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of
the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word
literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was ex-
150 CETOLOGY.
ceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an oint-
ment and medicament. It was only to be had from the
druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When,
as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti
became known, its original name was still retained by the
dealers ; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely
significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at last
have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this
spermaceti was really derived.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter II. (Right Whale).— In one re-
spect this is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one
first regularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly
known as whalebone or baleen ; and the oil specially known as
" whale oil," an inferior article in commerce. Among the fish-
ermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the following
titles : The Whale ; the Greenland Whale ; the Black Whale ;
the Great Whale ; the True Whale ; the Right Whale. There
is a deal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus
multitudinously baptized. What then is the whale, which I
include in the second species of my Folios ? It is the Great
Mysticetus of the English naturalists ; the Greenland Whale of
the English whalemen ; the Baliene Ordinaire of the French
whalemen ; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the
whale which for more than two centuries past has been hunted
by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas ; it is the whale
which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian
ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' West Coast, and
various other parts of the world, designated by them Right
Whale Cruising Grounds.
Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland
whale of the English and the right whale of the Americans.
But they precisely agree in all their grand features ; nor has
there yet been presented a single determinate fact upon which
to ground a radical distinction. It is by endless subdivisions
CETOLOGY. 151
based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some depart-
ments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The
right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with
reference to elucidating the sperm whale.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter hi. (Fin-Back). — Under this
head I reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-
Back, Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in eveiy
sea and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often
descried by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York
packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the
Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth,
and a lighter color, approaching to olive. His great lips present
a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of
large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from
which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This
fin is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the
hinder part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very
sharp pointed end. Even if not the slightest other part of the
creature be visible, this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly
projecting from the surface. When the sea is moderately calm,
and slightly marked with spherical ripples, and this gnomon-
like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled surface,
it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrcnmding it
somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines
graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back.
The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some
men are man-haters. Very shy ; always going solitary; unex-
pectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen
waters ; his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall mis-
anthropic spear upon a barren plain ; gifted with such wondrous
power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit
from man ; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquera-
ble Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his
back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is
152 CE TO LOGY.
sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic
species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with
baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there would
seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little
known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales ; pike-headed
whales ; bunched whales ; under-jawed whales and rostrated
whales, are the fishermen's names for a few sorts.
In connexion with this appellative of " Whalebone whales,"
it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomen-
clature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind
of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification
of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or
fin, or teeth ; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features
very obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a
regular system of Cetology than any other detached bodily
distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then ?
The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth ; these are things whose
peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of
whales, without any regard to what may be the nature of their
structure in other and more essential particulars. Thus, the
sperm whale and the humpbacked whale, each has a hump ;
but there the similitude ceases. Then, this same humpbacked
whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen ; but
there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with
the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales,
they form such irregular combinations ; or, in the case of any
one of them detached, such an irregular isolation ; as utterly to
defy all general methodization formed upon such a basis. On
this rock every one of the whale-naturalists has split.
But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts
of the whale, in his anatomy — there, at least, we shall be able
to hit the right classification. Nay ; what thing, for example,
is there in the Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than
his baleen ? Yet we have seen that by his baleen it . is impos-
CETOLOGY. 153
sible correctly to classify the Greenland whale. And if you
descend into the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you
will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available to the
systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. What
then remains ? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily,
in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way.
And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted ; and it is
the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable.
To proceed.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter iv. (Hump Back). — This whale
is often seen on the northern American coast. He has been
frequently captured there, and towed into harbor. He has a
great pack on him like a peddler ; or you might call him the
Elephant and. Castle whale. At any rate, the popular name for
him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm whale
also has a hump, though a smaller one. His oil is not very valu-
able. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-
hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white
water generally than any other of them.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter v. (Razor Bach). — Of this whale
little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance
off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters
and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown
any part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge.
Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter vi. (Sulphur Bottom). — An-
other 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 awoy with rope-walks of fine. Prodigies are told
of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom ! I can say nothing more that
is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. ?.
154 CETOLOGY.
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.
BOOK II. (Octavo), Chapter i. (Grampus). — Though this
fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has
furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of
the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But
possessing all the grand distinctive features of the leviathan,
most naturalists have recognised him for one. He is of mode-
rate 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 ad-
vance 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 inex-
pressive, 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 circum-
stance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, ho
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 show-
* Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very
plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those
of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them
in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its diminished form does
not. preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.
CETOLOGY. 155
ing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something
like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the
sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to
keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment — as
some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite
alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous
wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales
will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.
BOOK II. (Octavo), Chapter hi. {Narwhale), that is, Nos-
tril whale. — Another instance of a curiously named whale, so
named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mis-
taken for a peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in
length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed
ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn
is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a
little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found on the
sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner something
analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What
precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be
hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the
sword-fish and bill-fish ; though some sailors tell me that the
Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of
the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-
piercer ; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea,
and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so
breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these surmises
to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided
horn may really be used by the Narwhale — however that may
be — it would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in
reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the
Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicom whale. He
is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in
almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain clois-
tered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's
156 C E T 0 L 0 G Y .
horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against
poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices.
It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same
way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into
hartshorn. Originally it was in itself accounted an object of
great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher
on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly
wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich
Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames ; " when Sir
Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on
bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long
horn of the ISarwhale, which for a long period after hung in the
castle at Windsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl of Lei-
cester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness
another horn, pertaining to a land beast of- the unicorn nature.
The ISTarwhale 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 circum polar seas.
BOOK II. (Octavo), Chapter IV. (Killer).— Of this whale
little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all
to the professed naturalist. 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 some-
times 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 gentle-
man is famous for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing
his foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims,
CETOLOGY. 157
he works his passage by flogging him ; as some schoolmasters
get along in the world by a similar process. Still less is known
of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in
the lawless seas.
Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III.
(Duodecimo.)
DUODECIMOES.— These include the smaller whales. I.
The Huzza Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The
Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.
To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject,
it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding
four or five feet should be marshalled among WHALES — a
word, which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of
hugeness. But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes
are infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a
whale is — i. e a spouting fish, with a horizontal tail.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), Chapter I. (Huzza Porpoise). —
This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe.
The name is of my own bestowal ; for there are more than one
sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish
them. I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious
shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to
heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance
is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine
spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to wind-
ward. They are the lads that always live before the wind.
They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can with-
stand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven
help ye ; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A
well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon
of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his
jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among jewellers
and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise
meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred
CETOLOGY.
to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small
that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you
have a chance, watch him ; and you will then see the great
Sperm whale himself in miniature.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), Chapter II. {Algerine Porpoise).
A pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the
Pacific. He is somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but
much of the same general make. Provoke him, and he will
buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but
never yet saw him captured.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), Chapter III. {Mealy-mouthed
Porpoise). — The largest kind of Porpoise ; and only found in
the Pacific, so far as it is known. The only English name, by
which he has hitherto been designated, is that of the fishers —
Right-Whale Porpoise, from the circumstance that he is chiefly
found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs in
some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund
and jolly girth ; indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-
like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other porpoises
have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a
hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils all. Though his entire
back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary
line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the " bright
waist," that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two sepa-
rate colors, black above and white below. The white comprises
part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes
him look as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a
meal-bag. ' A most mean and mealy aspect ! His oil is much
like that of the common porpoise.
* * * * * *
Beyond the Duodecimo, this system does not proceed, inas-
much as the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you
have all the Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of un-
certain, fugitive, half-fabulous whales, which, as an American
THESPECKSYNDER. 159
whaleman, I know by reputation, but not personally. I shall
enumerate them by their forecastle appellations ; for possibly
such a list may be valuable to future investigators, who may
complete what I have here but begun. If any of the following
whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then he can read-
ily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, Oc-
tavo, or Duodecimo magnitude : — The Bottle-Nose Whale ; the
Junk Whale ; the Pudding-Headed Whale ; the Cape Whale ;
the Leading Whale ; the Cannon Whale ; the Scragg Whale ;
the Coppered Whale ; the Elephant Whale ; the Iceberg
Whale ; the Quog Whale ; the Blue Whale ; <fcc. From Ice-
landic, Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted
other lists of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of un-
couth names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete ; and can
hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathan-
ism, but signifying nothing.
Finally : It was stated at the outset, that this system would
not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly
see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological
System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral
of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top
of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished
by their first architects ; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the
copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing
anything. This whole book is but a draught — nay, but the
draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience !
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SPECESYNDER.
Concerning the officers of the whale- craft, this seems as good
a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-
160 THESPECKSYNDER.
board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of offi-
cers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the
whale- fleet.
The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is
evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery,
two centuries and more ago, the command of a whale ship was
not wholly lodged in the person now called the captain, but was
divided between him and an officer called the Specksynder.
Literally this word means Fat-Cutter ; usage, however, in time
made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the
captain's authority was restricted to the navigation and general
management of the vessel : while over the whale-hunting de-
partment and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief Har-
pooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery,
under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official
is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At
present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer ; and as such, is
but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns. Nevertheless,
as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a
whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the American
Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, but un-
der certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground)
the command of the ship's deck is also his ; therefore the grand
political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally
live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way
distinguished as their professional superior ; though always, by
them, familiarly regarded as their social equal.
Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at
sea, is this — the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in
whale-ships and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quar-
ters with the captain ; and so, too, in most of the American
whalers the harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship.
That is to say, they take their meals in the captains cabin, and
sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it.
THE SPECKSYNDER. 161
Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far
the longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the
peculiar perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing
among a company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their
profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck,
together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work ;
though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less
rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally ; yet, never
mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whale-
men may, in some primitive instances, live together ; for all
that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are
seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. In-
deed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the
skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur not
surpassed in any military navy ; nay, extorting almost as much
outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the
shabbiest of pilot-cloth.
And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was
the least given to that sort of shallowest assumption ; and
though the only homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instan-
taneous obedience ; though he required no man to remove the
shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the quarter-deck ; and
though there were times when, owing to peculiar circumstances
connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he addressed
them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or in terrorem,
or otherwise ; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means
unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea.
Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that be-
hind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked
himself; incidentally making use of them for other and more
private ends than they were legitimately intended to subserve.
That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a
good degree remained unmanifested ; through those forms that
same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship.
162 THE CABIN TABLE.
For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will, it can never
assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, with-
out the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments,
always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is,
that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the
world's hustings ; and leaves the highest honors that this air
can give, to those men who become famous more through their
infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine
Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead
level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks in these small
things when extreme political superstitions invest them, that in
some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have impart-
ed potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar,
the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial
brain ; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tre-
mendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who
would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and di-
rect swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his
art, as the one now alluded to.
But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nan-
tucket grimness and shagginess ; and in this episode touching
Emperors and Bangs, I must not conceal that I have only to do
with a poor old whale-hunter like him ; and, therefore, all out-
ward majestical trappings and housings are denied me. Oh,
Ahab ! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked
at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the
unbodied air!
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE CABIN-TABLE.
It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his
j>ale loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner
THE CABIN TABLE. 163
to his lord and master ; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has
just been taking an observation of the sun ; and is now mutely
reckoning the latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet,
reserved for that daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory
leg. From his complete inattention to the tidings, you would
think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But pre-
sently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself
to the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying,
" Dinner, Mr. Starbuck," disappears into the cabin.
When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and
Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he
is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few
turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle,
says, with some touch of pleasantness, " Dinner, Mr. Stubb,"
and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the
rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see
whether it be all right with that important rope, he likewise takes
up the old burden, and with a rapid " Dinner, Mr. Flask," fol-
lows after his predecessors.
But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the
quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint ;
for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions,
and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless
squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head ; and
then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizen-
top for a shelf, he goes down rollicking, so far at least as he
remains visible from the deck, reversing all other processions,
by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into the
cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether,
and, then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's
presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.
It is not the least among the strange things bred by the
intense artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air i
of the deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves
164 THE CABIN TABLE.
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 mar-
vellous, 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 cour-
teously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mun-
dane grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelli-
gent spirit presides over his own private dinner-table of invited
guests, that man's unchallenged power and dominion of indivi-
dual influence for the time ; that man's royalty of state
transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest.
Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to
be Csesar. It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no
withstanding. Now, if to this consideration you superadd the
official supremacy of a ship-master, then, by inference, you will
derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.
Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute,
maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-
like but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each
officer waited to be served. They were as little children before
Ahab ; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest
social arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened
upon the old man's knife, as he carved the chief dish before
him. I do not suppose that for the world they would have pro-
faned that moment with the slightest observation, even upon so
neutral a topic as the weather. No ! And when reaching out
his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked,
Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the
mate received his meat as though receiving alms ; and cut it
tenderly ; and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazed
against the plate ; and chewed it noiselessly ; and swallowed it,
THE CABIN TABLE. 165
not without circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet
at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly dines with
the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were somehow
solemn meals, eaten in awful silence ; and yet at table old Ahab
forbade not conversation ; only he himself was dumb. What a
relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket
in the hold below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest
son, and little boy of this weary family party. His were the shin-
bones of the saline beef; his would have been the drumsticks.
For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed
to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had he
helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have
been able to hold his head up in this honest world ; neverthe-
less, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask
helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much
as noticed it. Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself
to butter. Whether he thought the owners of the ship denied
it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, sunny complexion ;
or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such
marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was
not for him, a subaltern ; however it was, Flask, alas ! was a
butterless man !
Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the din-
ner, and Flask is the first man up. Consider ! For hereby
Flask's dinner was badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck
and Stubb both had the start of him ; and yet they also have
the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb even, who is
but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small
appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast,
then Flask must bestir himself, he will not get more than three
mouthfuls that day ; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to
precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once
admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity .
of an officer, from that moment he had never known what
166 THE CABIN TABLE.
it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what
he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immor-
tal in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have
for ever departed from my stomach. I am an officer ; but, how
I wish I could fist a bit of old-fashioned beef in the forecastle,
as I used to when I was before tbe mast. Tbere's the fruits of
promotion now ; there's the vanity of glory : there's the
insanity of life ! Besides, if it were so that any mere sailor of
the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official capa-
city, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample
vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at
Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfound-
ered before awful Ahab.
Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called
the first table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure,
taking place in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth
was cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by
the pallid steward. And then the three harpooneers were
bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees. They
made a sort of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty
cabin.
In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and
nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the
entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy
of those inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters,
the mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their
own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food with such a
relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords ;
they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with
spices. Such portentous appetites bad Queequeg and
Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by the previous
repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great
baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox.
And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a nim-
THE CABIN TABLE. 167
ble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly
way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-
wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor,
assisted Dough-Boy's memory by snatching him up bodily, and
thrusting his head into a great empty wooden trencher, while
Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the circle prelimi-
nary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous,
shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward ; the
progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what
with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the
periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages, Dough-
Boy's whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly,
after seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they
demanded, he would escape from their clutches into his little
pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through
the blinds of its door, till all was over.
It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,
opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's : crosswise to them,
Daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought
his hearse-plumed head to the low carlines ; at every motion
of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake,
as when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for
all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say
dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively
small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through
so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this
noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding ele-
ment of air ; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sub-
lime 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 Avould hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself,
168 THE CABIN TABLE.
that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted Steward all
but shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by
his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the
harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other
weapons ; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would
ostentatiously sharpen then- knives ; that grating sound did not
at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he for-
get that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly
have been guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions.
Alas ! Dough-Boy ! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon
cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm, but a
buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, the three
salt-sea warriors would rise and depart ; to his credulous, fable-
mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every
step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.
But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nomi-
nally lived there ; still, being anything but sedentary in their
habits, they were scarcely ever in it except at meal-times, and
just before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their
own peculiar quarters.
In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most Ame-
rican whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion
that by rights the ship's cabin belongs to them ; and that
it is by courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, per-
mitted there. So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers
of the Pequod might more properly be said to have lived out
of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it was
something as a street-door enters a house ; turning inwards for
a moment, only to be turned out the next ; and, as a permanent
thing, residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby ;
in the cabin was no companionship ; socially, Ahab was inac-
cessible. Though nominally included in the census of Christen-
dom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as the
last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when
THE MAST-HEAD. 169
Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the
woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the
winter there, sucking his own paws ; so, in his inclement, howling
old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body,
there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom !
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE MAST-HEAD.
It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation
with the other seamen my first mast-head came round.
In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned al-
most simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port ; even
though she may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail
ere reaching her proper cruising ground. And if, after a three,
four, or five years' voyage she is drawing nigh home with any-
thing empty in her — say, an empty vial even — then, her mast-
heads are kept manned to the last ; and not till her skysail-
poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether
relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.
Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat,
is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure ex-
patiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads
were the old Egyptians ; because, in all my researches, I find
none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders
of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear
the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, or Africa either ; yet (ere the
final truck was put to it ) as that great stone mast of theirs may
be said to have gone by the board, in the dread gale of God's
wrath ; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority
over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of
170 THE MAST-HEAD.
mast-head standees, is an assertion based upon the general
belief among archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded
for astronomical purposes : a theory singularly supported by the
peculiar stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices ;
whereby, with prodigious long uphftings of their legs, those old
astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for
new stars ; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for
a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the
famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty
stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of
his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a
tackle ; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless
stander-of-mast-heads ; who was not to be driven from his place
by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet ; but valiantly facing every-
thing out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern
standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set ; mere stone,
iron, and bronze men ; who, though well capable of facing out a
stiff gale, are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing
out upon discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon ;
who, upon the top of the column of Vendome, stands with arms
folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air ; careless, now,
who rules the decks below ; whether Louis Philippe, Louis
Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high
aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of
Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of human gran-
deur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also,
on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar
Square ; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke,
token is yet given that a hidden hero is there ; for where there
is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor
Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below,
however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the dis-
tracted decks upon which they gaze ; however it may be sur-
mised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of tiie
THE MAST-HEAD. 171
future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be
shunned.
It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the
mast-head standers of the land with those of the sea ; but that
in truth it is not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which
Obed Macy, the sole historian of Nantucket, stands accountable.
The worthy Obed tells us, that in the early times of the whale
fishery, ere ships were regularly launched in pursuit of the game,
the people of that island erected lofty spars along the sea-coast,
to which the look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats,
something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few years
ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New
Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the
ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now
become obsolete ; turn we then to the one proper mast-head,
that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads are kept
manned from sun-rise to sun-set ; the seamen taking their regu-
lar turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two
hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly
pleasant the mast-head ; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is
delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent
decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic
stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were,
swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed
between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There
you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing
ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls ; the
drowsy trade winds blow ; everything resolves you into languor.
For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime unevent-
fulness invests you ; you hear no news ; read no gazettes ; extras
with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into
unnecessary excitements ; you hear of no domestic afflictions ;
bankrupt securities ; fall of stocks ; are never troubled with the
thought of what you shall have for dinner — for all your meals
172 THE MAST-HEAD
for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your
bill of fare is immutable.
In one of those southern whalemen, on a long three or four
years' voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours
you spend at the mast-head would amount to several entire
months. And it is much to be deplored that the place to which
you devote so considerable a portion of the whole term of your
natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching
to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable
localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a
hearse, a sentiy box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those
small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate
themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of the
t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks
(almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t' gallant cross-trees.
Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as
cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, in
cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the
shape of a watch-coat ; but properly speaking the thickest
watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body ; for as
the soul is glued inside of its fleshly tabernacle, and cannot freely
move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running
great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the
snowy Alps in winter) ; so a watch-coat is not so much of a house
as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You
cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no
more can you make a convenient closet of your watch-coat.
Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-
heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those envi-
able little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the look-
outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement
weather of the frozen seas. In the fire-side narrative of Captain
Sleet, entitled " A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the
Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the
THE MAST-HEAD. 173
Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland ; " in this admirable
volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charm-
ingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-
nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good"
craft. He called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself;
he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all
ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own
children after our own names (we fathers being the original
inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after
ourselves any other apparatus we may beget. In shape, the
Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large tierce or pipe ; it is
open above, however, where it is furnished with a movable
side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale.
Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it
through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or
side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a
locker underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In
front is a leather rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet,
pipe, telescope, and other nautical conveniences. When Captain
Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this crow's nest of his, he
tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the
rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of
popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infest-
iiig those waters ; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from
the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down
upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a
labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the
little detailed conveniences of his crow's-nest ; but though he so
enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a
very scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest,
with a small compass he kept there for the purpose of counter-
acting the errors resulting from what is called the " local attrac-
tion " of all binnacle magnets ; an error ascribable to the horizontal
vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's
174 THE MAST-HEAD.
case, perhaps, to there having heen so many broken-down black-
smiths among her crew ; I say, that though the Captain is very
discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned " binnacle
deviations," " azimuth compass observations," and " approxi-
mate errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was
not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations,
as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well reple-
nished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his
crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the
whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and
learned Captain ; yet I take it very ill of him that he should
so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend and
comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and
hooded head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in
that bird's nest within three or four perches of the pole.
But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed
aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenland-men were ; yet that
disadvantage is greatly counterbalanced by the widely contrast-
ing serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers
mostly float. For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very
leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queeqxieg, or
any one else off duty whom I might find there ; then ascending
a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail
yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at
last mount to my ultimate destination.
Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit
that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the
universe revolving in me, how could I — being left completely to
myself at such a thought-engendering altitude, — how could I
but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whale-ships'
standing orders, " Keep your weather eye open, and sing out
every time."
And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-
owners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant
THE MAST-HEAD. 175
fisheries any lad with lean brow and hollow eye ; given to tin-
seasonable meditativeness ; and who offers to ship with the
Phsedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an
one, I say : your whales must be seen before they can be killed ;
and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten
wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm
the richer. JSTor are these monitions at all unneeded. For now-
adays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many
romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted
with the carking cares of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar
and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself
upon the mast-head .of some luckless disappointed whale-ship,
and in moody phrase ejaculates : —
" Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll !
Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain."
Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-
minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not
feeling sufficient " interest" in the voyage ; half-hinting that
they are so hopelessly lost to'all honorable ambition, as that in
their secret souls they would rather not see whales than other-
wise. But all in vain ; those young Platonists have; a notion
that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted* what use,
then, to strain the visual nerve ? They have left their opera-
glasses at home.
" Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these
lads, " we've been cruising now hard upon three years,
and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce
as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they
were ; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the
far horizon ; but lulled into such an opium-like listl'essness of
vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the
blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses
his identity ; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible '
176 THE QUARTER-DECK.
image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind
and nature ; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing
that eludes him ; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some
undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those
elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting
through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to
whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space;
like Cranmer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last
a part of every shore the round globe over.
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life impart-
ed by a gently rolling ship ; by her, borrowed from the sea ;
by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this
sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch ;
slip your hold at all ; and your identity comes back in horror.
Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day,
in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop
through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to
rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists !
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE QUARTER-DECK.
(Enter Ahdb : Then, all.)
It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one
morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended
the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually
walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal,
take a few turns in the garden.
Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced
his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they
were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar
THE QUARTER-DECK. 177
mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed
and dented brow ; there also, you would see still stranger foot-
prints— the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.
But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even
as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so
full of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that
he made, now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you
could almost see that thought turn in him as he turned, and
pace in him as he paced ; so completely possessing him, indeed,
that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer move-
ment. ^
" D'ye mark him, Flask ?" whispered Stubb ; " the chick
that's in him pecks the shell. T'will soon be out."
The hours wore on ; — Ahab now shut up within his cabin ;
anon, pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose
in his aspect.
It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt
by the bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole
there, and with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Star-
buck to send everybody aft.
" Sir !" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never
given on ship-board except in some extraordinary case.
" Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. " Mast-heads, there !
come down !"
When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with
curious arid not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him,
for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is
coming up, Ahab, after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks,
and then darting his eyes among the crew, started from his stand-
point ; and as though not a soul were nigh him resumed his
heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched
hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whisper-
ing among the men ; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask,
that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of
178 THE QUARTER-DECK.
witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Ve-
hemently pausing, he cried : —
" What do ye do when ye see a whale, men ?"
" Sing out for him !" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score
of clubbed voices.
" Good !" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones ; ob-
serving the hearty animation into which his unexpected question
had so magnetically thrown them.
" And what do ye next, men ?"
" Lower away, and after him !"
" And what tune is it ye pull to, men ?"
"A dead whale or a stove boat !".
More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving,
grew the countenance of the old man at every shout ; while the
mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling
how it was that they themselves became so excited at such
seemingly purposeless questions.
But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolv-
ing in his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud,
and tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them
thus : —
" All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders
about a white whale. Look ye ! d'ye see this Spanish ounce
of gold ?"— holding up a broad bright coin to the sun — " it is
a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it ? Mr. Starbuck, hand
me yon top-maul."
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without
speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts
of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any
words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a
sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the
mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.
Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards
the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, ex-
THE QUARTER-DECK. 179
hibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice
exclaiming : " Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale
with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw ; whosoever of ye
raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in
his starboard fluke — look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that
same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys !"
" Huzza ! huzza !" cried the seamen, as with swinging tar-
paulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.
" It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down
the top-maul ; " a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men ;
look sharp for white water ; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."
All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked
on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest,
and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they
had started as if each was separately touched by. some specific
recollection.
" Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, " that white whale must be
the same that some call Moby Dick.'"
" Moby Dick ?" shouted Ahab. " Do ye know the white
whale then, Tash ?"
" Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down ?"
said the Gay-Header deliberately.
" And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, " very
bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain
Ahab?"
" And he have one, two, tree — oh ! good many iron in him
hide, too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, " all twiske-
tee be-twisk, like him — him — " faltering hard for a word, and
screwing his hand round and rourd as though uncorking a bot-
tle— " like him — him — "
" Corkscrew !" cried Ahab, " aye, Queequeg, the harpoons he
all twisted and wrenched in him ; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a
big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our
Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye,
180 THE QUARTER-DECK.
Taslitego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death
and devils ! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen — Moby Dick
—Moby Dick!"
" Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask,
had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing sur-
prise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat
explained all the wonder. " Captain Ahab, I have heard of
Moby Dick — but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg ?"
" Who told thee that ?" cried Ahab ; then pausing, "Aye,
Starbuck ; aye, my hearties all round ; it was Moby Dick tha
dismasted me ; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump
I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, ani-
mal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose ; " Aye, aye ! it was
that accursed white whale that razeed me ; made a poor pegging
lubber of me for ever and a day !" Then tossing both arms, with
measureless imprecations he shouted out : " Aye, aye ! and I'll
chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round
the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I
give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men ! to
chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides
of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say
ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now ? I think ye do look
brave."
" Aye, aye !" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running
closer to the excited old man : " A sharp eye for the White
Whale ; a sharp lance for Moby Dick !"
" God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout.
" God bless ye, men. Steward ! go draw the great measure of
grog. But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck ; wilt
thou not chase the white whale ? art not game for Moby
Dick ?"
" I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death
too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business
we follow ; but I came here to hunt whales, not my command-
THE QUARTER-DECK. 181
er's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield
thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab ? it will not fetch thee
much in our Nantucket market."
" Nantucket market ! Hoot ! But come closer, Starbuck ;
thou requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the
measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great
counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to
every three parts of an inch ; then, let me tell thee, that my
vengeance will fetch a great premium here /"
" He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, " what's that for ?
methinks it rings most vast, but hollow."
" Vengeance on a dumb brute !" cried Starbuck, " that simply
smote thee from blindest instinct ! Madness ! To be enraged
with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."
" Hark ye yet again, — the little lower layer. All visible ob-
jects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event —
in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown
but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings' of its features
from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike
through the mask ! How can the prisoner reach outside except
by thrusting through the wall ? To me, the white whale is
that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's
naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me ; he heaps me ;
I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice
sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate ; and
be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will
wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy,
man ; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do
that, then could I do the other ; since there is ever a sort of fair
play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my
master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me ? Truth
hath no confines. Take off thine eye ! more intolerable than
fiends' glarings is a doltish stare ! So, so ; thou reddenest and
palest ; my heat has melted thee to anger-gloAV. But look ye,
182 THE QUARTER-DECK.
Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There
are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant
not to incense thee. Let it go. Look ! see yonder Turkish
cheeks of spotted tawn — living, breathing pictures painted by
the sun. The Pagan leopards — the unrecking and unwor-
shipping things, that live ; and seek, and give no reasons for the
torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they
not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale ? See
Stubb ! he laughs ! See yonder Chilian ! he snorts to think of it.
Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling can-
not, Starbuck ! And what is it ? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help
strike a fin ; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more ?
From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all
Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-
hand has clutched a whetstone ? Ah ! constrainings seize thee ;
I see ! the billow lifts thee ! Speak, but speak ! — Aye, aye ! thy
silence, then, that voices thee. {Aside) Something shot from
my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck
now is mine ; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion."
" God keep me ! — keep us all !" murmured Starbuck, lowly.
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the
mate, Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation ; nor yet the
low laugh from the hold ; nor yet the presaging vibrations of
the winds in the cordage ; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails
against the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For
again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornness
of life ; the subterranean laugh died away ; the winds blew on ;
the sails filled out ; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah,
ye admonitions and warnings ! why stay ye not when ye come ?
But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows ! Yet
not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the
foregoing things within. For with little external to constrain
us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.
" The measure ! the measure !" cried Ahab.
THE QUARTER-DECK. 183
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the har-
pooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then
ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons
in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their
lances, and the rest of the ship's company formed a circle round
the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every
man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot
eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he
rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison ; but, alas !
only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.
" Drink and pass !" he cried, handing the heavy charged
flagon to the nearest seaman. " The crew alone now drink.
Round with it, round ! Short draughts — long swallows, men ;
'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so ; it goes round excellently. It
spiralizes in ye ; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well
done ; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes.
Hand it me — here's a hollow ! Men, ye seem the years ; so
brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill !
" Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this
capstan ; and ye mates, flank me with your lances ; and ye
harpooneers, stand there with your irons ; and ye, stout mari-
ners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom
of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you will yet see
that Ha ! boy, come back ? bad pennies come not sooner.
Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again,
wer't not thou St. Vitus' imp — away, thou ague !
"Advance, ye mates ! Cross your lances full before me.
Well done ! Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended
arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed
centre ; while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them ;
meanwhile, glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb ; from
Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless,
interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same
fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own
184 THE QUARTER-DECK.
magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sus-
tained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways
from him ; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright.
" In vain !" cried Ahab ; " but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye
three but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric
thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too,
it would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not.
Down lances ! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cup-
bearers to my three pagan kinsmen there — yon three most
honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers.
Disdain the task ? What, when the great Pope washes the feet
of beggars, using his tiara for ewer ? Oh, my sweet cardinals !
your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not
order ye ; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye
harpooneers !''
Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood
with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet
long, held, barbs up, before him.
" Stab me not with that keen steel ! Cant them ; cant them
over ! know ye not the goblet end ? Turn up the socket ! So,
so ; now, ye cup-bearers, advance. The irons ! take them ; hold
them while I fill !" Forthwith, slowly going from one officer
to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery
waters from the pewter.
"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous
chalices ! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this
indissoluble league. Ha ! Starbuck ! but the deed is done !
Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye har-
pooneers ! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful
whaleboat's bow — Death to Moby Dick ! God hunt us all, if
we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death !" The long, barbed
steel goblets were lifted ; and to cries and maledictions against
the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down
with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once
SUNSET. 185
more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds
among the frantic crew ; when, waving his free hand to them,
they all dispersed ; and Ahab retired within his cabin.
. CHAPTER XXXVII.
SUNSET.
The cabin ; by the stern windows ; Ahab sitting alone, and
gazing out.
I leave a white and turbid wake ; pale waters, paler cheeks,
where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm
my track ; let them ; but first I pass.
Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves
blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver
sun — slow dived from noon, — goes down ; my soul mounts up !
she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too
heavy that I wear ? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it
bright with many a gem ; I, the wearer, see not its far flash-
ings ; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly con-
founds. 'Tis iron — that I know — not gold. 'Tis split, too —
that I feel ; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to
beat against the solid metal ; aye, steel skull, mine ; the sort
that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight !
Dry heat upon my brow ? Oh ! time was, when as the
sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more.
This lovely light, it lights not me ; all loveliness is anguish to
me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I
lack the low, enjoying power ; damned, most subtly and
most malignantly ! damned in the midst of Paradise ! Good
night — good night ! (waving his hand, he moves from the
window.)
186 DUSK.
'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stuhborn, at
the least ; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various
wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills
of powder, they all stand before me ; and I their match. Oh,
hard ! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be
wasting ! What I've dared, I've willed ; and what I've willed,
I'll do! They think me mad — Starbuck does; but I'm
demoniac, I am madness maddened ! That wild madness that's
only calm to comprehend itself ! The prophecy was that I
should be dismembered ; and — Aye ! I lost this leg. I now
prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then,
be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye
great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-
players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes !
I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies, — Take some one of
your own size ; don't pommel me / No, ye've knocked me
down, and I am up again ; but ye have run and hidden. Come
forth from behind your cotton bags ! I have no long gun to
reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye ; come and see if
ye can swerve me. Swerve me ? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves ! man has ye there. Swerve me ? The path
to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is
grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled
hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way I
CHAPTER XXXVm. •• . •
DUSK.
By the Mainmast ; Starbuck leaning against.it:-
My soul is more than matched-; she's overmanned; and by
a madman ! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms
DUSK. 187
on such a field ! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my
reason out of me ! I think I see his impious end ; but feel that
I must help him to it. "Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has
tied me to him ; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut.
Horrible old man ! Who's over him, he cries ; — aye, he would
be a democrat to all above ; look, how he lords it over all below !
Oh ! I plainly see my miserable office, — to obey, rebelling ; and
worse yet, to hate with touch of pity ! For in his eyes I read
some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there
hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the
round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its
glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge
aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole
clock's run down ; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no
key to lift again.
[A burst of revelry from the forecastle.
Oh, God ! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small
touch of human mothers in them ! Whelped somewhere by the
sharkish sea. The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark !
the infernal orgies ! that revelry is forward ! mark the unfalter-
ing silence aft ! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost through the
sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but
only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his
sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and
further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl
thrills me through ! Peace ! ye revellers, and set the watch !
Oh, life ! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held
to knowledge, — as wild, untutored things are forced to feed — Oh,
life ! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee ! but 'tis not me !
that horror's out of me ! and with the soft feeling of the human
in me, yet will I tiy to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures !
Stand by me, hold me, bind me, 0 ye blessed influences !
188 FIRST NIGHT-WATCH.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
FIRST NIGHT-WATCH.
F0KE-T0P.
(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)
Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! hem ! clear my throat ! — I've been think-
ing over it ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence.
Why so ? Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all
that's queer ; and come what will, one comfort's always left —
that unfailing comfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all
his talk with Starbuck ; but to my poor eye Starbuck then
looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old
Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it ; had had the
gift, might readily have prophesied it — for when I clapped my
eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb — that's
my title — well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb ? Here's a carcase. I
know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go
to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your
horribles ! I feel funny. Fa, la ! lirra, skirra ! What's my
juicy little pear at home doing now ? Crying its eyes out ? —
Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say,
gay as a frigate's pennant, and so am I — fa, la ! lirra, skirra !
Oh—
We'll drink to-night with hearts as light,
To love, as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.
A brave stave that — who calls ? Mr. Starbuck ? Aye, aye,
sir — (Aside) he's my superior , he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.
— Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job — coming.
MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE. 189
CHAPTER XL.
MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE.
HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.
(Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging,
leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)
Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies !
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain !
Our captain's commanded. —
1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR.
Oh, boys, don't be sentimental ; it's bad for the digestion !
Take a tonic, follow me !
(Sings, and all follow.)
Our captain stood upon the deck,
A spy-glass in his hand,
A viewing of those gallant whales
That blew at every strand.
Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,
And by your braces stand,
And we'll have one of those fine whales,
Hand, boys, over hand !
So, be cheery, my lads ! may your hearts never fail !
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale !
mate's voice from the quarter-deck.
Eight bells there, forward !
2d NANTUCKET SAILOR.
Avast the chorus! Eight bells there ! d'ye hear, bell-boy?
Strike the bell eight, thou Pip ! thou blackling ! and let me call
the watch. I've the sort of mouth for that — the hogshead
mouth. So, so, (thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star — bo-
1- o o n-s, a-h-o-y ! Eight bells there below ! Tumble up !
190 MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE.
DUTCH SAILOR.
Grand snoozing to-night, maty ; fat night for that. I mark
this in our old Mogul's wine ; it's quite as deadening to some
as filliping to others. "We sing ; they sleep — aye, lie down
there, like ground-tier butts. At 'em again ! There, take this
copper-pump, and hail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast
dreaming of their lasses. 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 tam-
bourine !
pip.
(Sulky and sleepy!)
Don't know where it is.
FRENCH SAILOR.
Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say ;
merry's the word ; hurrah ! Damn me, won't you dance ?
Form, now, Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle?
Throw yourselves ! Legs ! legs !
ICELAND SAILOR.
I don't like your floor, maty ; it's too springy to my taste.
I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the
subject ; but excuse me.
MALTESE SAILOR.
Me too ; where's your girls ? Who but a fool would take his
left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do ? Part-
ners ! I must have partners !
MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE. 191
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
come's the music ; now for it !
AZORE SAILOR.
(Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle!)
Here you are, Pip ; and there's the windlass-bitts ; 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.y
AZORE SAILOR.
(Dancing!)
Go it, Pip ! Bang it, bell-boy ! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,
bell-boy ! Make fire-flies ; break the jinglers !
pip.
Jinglers, you say ? — there goes another, dropped off ; I pound
it so.
CHINA SAILOR.
Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away ; make a pagoda of
thyself.
FRENCH SAILOR.
Merry-mad ! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through
it ! Split jibs ! tear yourselves !
TASHTEGO.
(Quietly smoking!)
That's a white man ; he calls that fun : humph ! I save my
sweat.
192 MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE.
OLD MANX SAILOB.
I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they
are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will — that's
the Htterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds
round corners. O Christ ! to think of the green navies and the
green-skulled crews ! Well, well ; belike the whole world's a
ball, as you scholars have it ; and so 'tis right to make one
ball-room of it. Dance on, lads, you're young ; I was once.
3D NANTUCKET SAILOR.
Spell oh ! — whew ! this is worse than pulling after whales in
a calm — give us a whiff, Tash.
{They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the
shy darkens — the wind rises.)
LASCAR SAILOR.
By Brahma ! boys, it '11 be douse sail soon. The sky-born,
high-tide Ganges turned to wind ! Thou showest thy black
brow, Seeva!
MALTESE SAILOR.
(Reclining and shaking his cap.)
It's the waves — the snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll
shake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women,
then I'd go drown, and chassee with them evermore ! There's
naught so sweet on earth — heaven may not match it ! — as those
swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the
over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.
SICILIAN SAILOR.
(Reclining)
Tell me not of it ! Hark ye, lad — fleet interlacings of the
limbs — lithe swayirigs — coyings — flutterings ! lip ! heart ! hip !
all graze : unceasing touch and go ! not taste, observe ye, else
come satiety. Eh, Pagan ? (Nudging)
MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE. 193
TAHITAN SAILOR.
(Reclining on a mat.)
Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls ! — the Heeva-Heeva !
Ah ! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti ! I still rest me on thy mat,
but the soft soil has shd ! I saw thee woven in the wood, my
mat ! green the first day I brought ye thence ; now worn and
wilted quite. Ah me ! — not thou nor I can bear the change !
How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roar-
ing streams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap
down the crags and drown the villages ? — The blast ! the blast !
Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.)
PORTUGUESE SAILOR.
How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side ! Stand by for
reefing, hearties ! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell
they'll go lunging presently.
DANISH SAILOR.
Crack, crack, old ship ! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest !
Well done ! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no
more afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the
Baltic with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes !
4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR.
He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him
he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a water-
spout with a pistol — fire your ship right into it !
ENGLISH SAILOR.
Blood ! but that old man's a grand old cove ! We are the
lads to hunt him up his whale !
ALL.
Aye ! aye !
• OLD -MANX SAILOR. -
How the three pines shake ! Pines are the hardest sort of
9
194 MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE.
tree to live when shifted to any other soil, ana here there's none
but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman ! steady. This
is the sort of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and
keeled hulls split at sea. Our captain has his birth-mark ;
look yonder, boys, there's another in the sky — lurid-like, ye see,
all else pitch black.
DAGGOO.
What of that ? Who's afraid of black's afraid of mc ! I'm
quarried out of it !
SPANISH SAILOR.
(Aside.) He wants to bully, ah ! — the old grudge makes mc
touchy. (Advancing?) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the unde-
niable dark side of mankind — devilish dark at that. No
offence.
daggoo (grimly).
None.
ST. JAGO'S SAILOR.
That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in
his one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in
working.
5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR.
What's that I saw — lightning ? Yes.
SPANISH SAILOR.
No ; Daggoo showing his teeth.
daggoo (springing).
Swallow thine, mannikin ! White skin, white liver !
Spanish sailor (meeting him).
Knife thee heartily ! big frame, small spirit !
ALL.
A row ! a row ! a row !
tashtego (with a whiff).
A row a'low, and a row aloft — Gods and men — both brawl-
ers ! Humph !
MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE. 195
BELFAST SAILOR.
A row ! arrah a row ! The Virgin be blessed, a row ! Plunge
in with ye !
ENGLISH SAILOR.
Fair play ! Snatch the Spaniard's knife ! A ring, a ring !
OLD MANX SAILOR.
Ready formed. There ! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain
struck Abel. Sweet work, right work ! No ? Why then, God,
niad'st thou the ring ?
mate's voice from the quarter deck.
Hands by the halyards ! in top-gallant sails ! Stand by t&
reef topsails !
ALL.
The squall ! the squall ! jump, my jollies ! {They scatter!)
pip {shrinking under the ivindlass).
Jollies ? Lord help such jollies ! Crish, crash ! there goes
the jib-stay ! Blang-whang ! God ! Duck lower, Pip, here
comes the royal yard ! It's worse than being in the whirled
woods, the last day of the year ! Who'd go climbing after
chestnuts now? But there they go, all cursing, and here I
don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're on the road to heaven.
Hold on hard ! Jimmini, what a squall ! But those chaps
there are worse yet — they are your white squalls, they. White
squalls ? white whale, shirr ! shirr ! Here have I heard all
their chat just now, and- the white whale — shirr ! shirr ! — but
spoken of once ! and only this evening — it makes me jingle
all over like my tambourine — that anaconda of an old man
swore 'em in to hunt him ! Oh, thou big white God aloft
there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small
black boy down here ; preserve him from all men that have no
bowels to feel fear !
1D6 MOBY DICK.
CHAPTER XLI.
MOBY DICK.
I, Ishmael, was one of that crew ; my shouts had gone up
with the rest ; my oath had been welded with theirs ; and
stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath,
because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympatheti-
cal feeling was in me ; Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine.
With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous
monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths
of violence and revenge.
For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompa-
nied, secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas
mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all
of them knew of his existence ; only a few of them, compara-
tively, had knowingly seen him ; while the number who as yet
had actually and knowingly given battle to him, was small in-
deed. For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers ; the
disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery cir-
cumference, mkay of them adventurously pushing their quest
along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole
twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-
telling sail of any sort ; the inordinate length of each separate
voyage ; the irregularity of the times of sailing from home ; all
these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect, long ob-
structed the spread through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet
of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick. It
was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have
encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meri-
dian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity,
MOBY DICK. 197
which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had
completely escaped them ; to some minds it was not an unfair
presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no
other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm "Whale
fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances
of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked ;
therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave
battle to Moby Dick ; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part,
were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it
were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at largo, than to
the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous
encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popu-
larly regarded.
And as for those who, previously hearing of the "White
"Whale, by chance caught sight of him ; in the beginning of the
thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fear-
lessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that species.
But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaults — not
restricted to sprained wrists and ancles, broken limbs, or
devouring amputations — but fatal to the last degree of fatality ;
those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling
their terrors upon Moby Dick ; those things had gone far to
shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of
the "White "Whale had eventually come.
Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still
the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters.
For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very
body of all surprising terrible events, — as the smitten tree gives
birth to its fungi ; but, in maritime life, far more than in that
of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any ade-
quate reality for them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the
land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other
sort of maritime life, in the wonderf ulness and fearfulness of the
rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are
198 MOBY DICK.
whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and su-
perstitiousness hereditary to all sailors ; but of all sailors, they
are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with
whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea ; face to face they
not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle
to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you
sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you
would not come to any chiselled hearthstone, or aught hospita-
ble beneath that part of the sun ; in such latitudes and longi-
tudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is
wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant
with many a mighty birth.
No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere
transit over the widest watery spaces, the outbLown rumors of
the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all
manner of morbid hints, and half-formed fcetal suggestions of
supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick
with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears.'
So that in many cases such a panic did he finally strike, that
few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White
Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils
of his jaw.
But there were still other and more vital practical influences
at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige
of the Sperm Whale, as fearfnlly distinguished from all other
species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen
as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though
intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the
Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps — either from profes-
sional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a con-
test with the Sperm Whale ; at any rate, there are plenty of
whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing
under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered
the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is
MOBY DICK. 199
restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the
North ; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a
childish fire-side interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of
Southern whaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of
the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended,
than on board of those prows which stem him.
And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former
legendary times thrown its shadow before it ; we find some
book naturalists — Olassen and Povelson — declaring the Sperm
Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in
the sea, but also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to
be athirst for human blood. Nor even down to so late a time
as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar impressions effaced.
For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at
sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are " struck
with the most lively terrors," and " often in the precipitancy of
their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence
as to cause instantaneous death.'' And however the general ex-
periences in the fishery may amend such reports as these ; yet
in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povel-
son, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of
their vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.
So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning
him, not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby
Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was
oftentimes hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to
embark in the j>erils of this new and daring warfare ; such
men protesting that although other leviathans might be hope-
fully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an appari-
tion as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to
attempt it, Avould be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity.
On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may
be consulted.
Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these
200 MOBY DICK.
things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick ; and a still greater
number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely,
without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without
superstitious accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee
from the battle if offered.
One of the wild suggestings referred to, as at last coming to
be linked with the White Whale in the minds of the super-
stitiously inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick
was ubiquitous ; that he had actually been encountered in
opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time.
Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this con-
ceit altogether without some faint show of superstitious proba-
bility. For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never
yet been divulged, even to the most erudite research ; so the
hidden ways of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface re-
main, in great part, unaccountable to his pursuers ; and from
time to time have originated the most curious and contradictory
speculations regarding them, especially concerning the mystic
modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports
himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant
points.
It is a thing well known to both American and English
whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative
record years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been
captured far north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been
found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor
is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has been
declared that the interval of time between the two assaults
could not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference,
it has been believed by some whalemen, that the Nor' West
Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the
whale. So that here, in the real living experience of living
men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello
mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a
MOBY DICK. 201
lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface) ;
and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain
near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the
Holy Land by an underground passage) ; these fabulous nar-
rations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the whale-
man.
Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as \hese ;
and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White
Whale had escaped alive ; it cannot be much matter of surprise
that some whalemen should go still further in their supersti-
tions ; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal
(for immortality is but ubiquity in time) ; that though groves of
spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away
unharmed ; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick
blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception ; for again
in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsul-
lied jet would once more be seen.
But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was
enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the
monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For,
it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distin-
guished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere
thrown out — a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a
high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent
features ; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted
seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who
knew him.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and
marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he
had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale ; a
name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen
gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-
way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.
Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable
9*
202 MOBY DICK.
hue, nor yet Lis deformed lower jaw, that so much invested
the whale with natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent
malignity which, according to specific accounts, he had over
and over again evinced in his assaults. More than all, his
treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught
else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with
every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been
known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them,
either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back in con-
sternation to their ship.
Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though
similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no
means unusual in the fishery ; yet, in most instances, such
seemed the White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that
every dismembering or death . that he caused, was not wholly
regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.
Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the
minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid
the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn com-
rades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale's direful
wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as
if at a birth or a bridal.
His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both
whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from
his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas
duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach
the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab.
And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped
lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's
leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. JSTo turbaned
Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with
more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt,
then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had
cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more
MOBY DICK. 203
fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to
identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his in-
tellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam
before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those mali-
cious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till
they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That
intangible malignity which has been from the beginning ; to
Avhose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of
the worlds ; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced
in their statue devil ; — Ahab did not fall down and worship it
like them ; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred
white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All
that most maddens and torments ; all that stirs up the lees of
things ; all truth with malice in it ; all that cracks the sinews
and cakes the brain ; all the subtle demonisms of life and
thought ; all evil-, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and
made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the
whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate
felt by his whole race from Adam down ; and then, as if his
chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.
It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant
rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then,
in darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose
to a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity ; and when he
received the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the ago-
nizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this
collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of
days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in
one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling
Patagonian Cape ; then it was, that his torn body and gashed
soul bled into one another ; and so interfusing, made him mad.
That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the en-
counter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but
certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he
204 MOBY DICK.
was a raving lunatic ; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such
vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was more-
over intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to
lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock.
In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales.
And, when running into more suffer able latitudes, the ship,
with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics,
and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left
behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth
from his dark den into the blessed light and air ; even then,
when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued
his calm orders once again ; and his mates thanked God the
direful madness was now gone ; even then, Ahab, in his hidden
self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and
most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but
become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full
lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted ; like the una-
bated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but
unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his
narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad mad-
ness had been left behind ; so in that broad madness, not one
jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before
living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a
furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general
sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon
its own mad mark ; so that far from having lost his strength,
Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more
potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any
one reasonable object.
This is much ; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains
unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is
profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of
this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand — however grand
and wonderful, now quit it ; — and take your way, ye nobler,
MOBY DICK. 205
sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes ; where far
beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root of
grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state ; an
antique buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes ! So
with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king ;
so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on his frozen
brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye
prouder, sadder souls ! question that proud, sad king ! A
family likeness ! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royal-
ties ; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret
come.
Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely :
all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet
without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact ; he likewise
knew that to mankind he did long dissemble ; in some sort, did
still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to
his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so
well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory
leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him other-
wise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the
terrible casualty which had overtaken him.
The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise
popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the
added moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of
sailing in the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on
his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, that far from distrusting
his fitness for another whaling voyage, on account of such dark
symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent isle were in-
clined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he was
all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of
rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed
within and scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting
fangs of some incurable idea ; such an one, could he be found,
would seem the very man to dart his iron and lift his lance
206 MOBY DICK.
against the most appalling of all brutes. Or, if for any reason
thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one
would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his
underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is,
that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and
keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voy-
age with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the
White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore
but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon
would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship
from such a fiendish man ! They were bent on profitable cruises,
the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He
was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural re-
venge.
Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing
with curses a Job's whale round the world, at the head of a
crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and casta-
ways, and cannibals — morally enfeebled also, by the incom-
petence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Star-
buck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness
in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew,
so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infer-
nal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it
was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man's he —
by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his
hate seemed almost theirs ; the White Whale as much their in-
sufferable foe as his ; how all this came to be — what the White
Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings,
also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the
gliding great demon of the seas of life, — all this to explain,
would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean
miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his
shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick ? Who
does not feel the irresistible arm drag ? What skiff in tow of
WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. 207
a seventy-four can stand still ? For one, I gave myself up to
the abandonment of the time and the place ; but while yet
all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute
but the deadliest ill.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted ; what,
at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.
Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby
Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's
soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague,
nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity
completely overpowered all the rest ; and yet so mystical and
well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in
a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that
above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain
myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain my-
self I must, else all these chapters might be naught.
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly en-
hances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own,
as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls ; and though various
nations have in some way recognised a certain royal pre-eminence
in this hue ; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing
the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other
magniloquent ascriptions of dominion ; and the modern kings
of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal
standard ; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a
snow-white charger ; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian,
heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the
same imperial hue ; and though this pre-eminence in it applies
208 WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership
over every dusky tribe ; and though, besides all this, whiteness
has been even made significant of gladness, for among the
Romans a white stone marked a joyful day ; and though in
other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is
made the emblem of many touching, noble things — the inno-
cence of brides, the benignity of age ; though among the Red
Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was
the deepest pledge of honor ; though in many climes, whiteness
typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and
contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by
milk-white steeds ; though even in the higher mysteries of the
most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine
spotlessness and power ; by the Persian fire worshippers, the
white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar ; and in
the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incar-
nate in a snow-white bull ; and though to the noble Iroquois,
the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the
holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature
being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit
with the annual tidings of their own fidelity ; and though
directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests de-
rive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or
tunic, worn beneath the cassock ; and though among the holy
pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the
celebration of the Passion of our Lord ; though in the Vision
of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the
four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great
white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like
wool ; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever
is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive
something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes
more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in
blood.
WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. 209
This elusive quality it is, which, causes the thought of white-
ness, when divorced. from more kindly associations, and coupled
with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the
furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the
white shark of the tropics ; what but their smooth, flaky white-
ness makes them the transcendent horrors they are ? That
ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mild-
ness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating
of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his
heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear
or shark.*
Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of
spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white
phantom sails in all imaginations ? Not Coleridge first threw
that spell ; but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature.*
* With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him
who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the white-
ness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of
that brute ; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said,
only arises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of
the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love ;
and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds,
the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even as-
suming all this to be true ; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would
not have that intensified terror.
As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that
creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the
same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly
hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish
mass for the dead begins with " Requiem eternam" (eternal rest), whence
Requiem denominating the mass itself, and any other funereal music.
Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and
the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin.
* I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged
gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch
below, I ascended to the overclouded deck ; and there, dashed upon the
210 WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is
that of the White Steed of the Praries ; a magnificent milk-
white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with
the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning
carriage. He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild
horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the
main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and
with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast
archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings
and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as
some king's ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible,
strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As
Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so
white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the
miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed
at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that
darted through me then. But at last I awoke ; and turning, asked a sailor
what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney ! I never had heard
that name before ; is it conceivable that this glorious thing is utterly un-
known to men ashore ! never ! But some time after, I learned that goney
was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no possibility could
Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those mystical im-
pressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For
neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross.
Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble
merit of the poem and the poet.
I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly
lurks the secret of the spell ; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a
solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses ; and these I
have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the
Antarctic fowl.
But how had the mystic thing been caught ? Whisper it not, and I
will tell ; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the
sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it ; tying a lettered,
leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place ; and then
letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man,
was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-fold-
ing, the invoking, and adoring cherubim !
WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. 211
Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At their flaming head
he westward trooped it like that chosen star which every even-
ing leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his
mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings
more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have fur-
nished him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of
that unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trap-
pers and hunters revived the glories of those primeval times
when Adam walked majestic as a god, bluff-bowed and fearless
as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid his aides and
marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly streamed
it over the plains, like an Ohio ; or whether with his circumambi-
ent subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White
Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening
through his cool milkiness ; in whatever aspect he presented
himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object of
trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from
what stands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was
his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with di-
vineness ; and that this divineness had that in it which, though
commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain name-
less terror.
But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all
that accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White
Steed and Albatross.
What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and
often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his
own kith and kin ! It is that whiteness which invests him, a
thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well
made as other men — has no substantive deformity — and yet
this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more
strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this
be so ?
212 WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable
but not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her
forces this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy-
aspect, the gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been
denominated the White Squall. Nor, in some historic in-
stances, has the art of human malice omitted so potent an aux-
iliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of that passage in
Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their faction,
the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the
market-place !
Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience
of all mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of
this hue. It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quali-
ty in the aspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the
marble pallor lingering there ; as if indeed that pallor were as
much like the badge of consternation in the other world, as of
mortal trepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we
borrow the expressive hue of the shroud in which we wrap them.
Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to throw the same
snowy mantle round our phantoms ; all ghosts rising in a milk-
white fog — Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that
even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist,
rides on his pallid horse.
Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or
gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in
its profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar appari-
tion to the soul.
But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal
man to account for it ? To analyse it, would seem impossible.
Can we, then, by the citation of some of those instances where-
in this thing of whiteness — though for the time either wholly
or in great part stripped of all direct associations calculated to
impart to it aught fearful, but, nevertheless, is found to exert
WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. 213
over us the same sorcery, however modified ; — can we thus
hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us to the hid-
den cause we seek ?
Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to
subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another
into these halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of the
imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been
shared by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of
them at the time, and therefore may not be able to recall them
now.
Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be
but loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day,
does the bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such
long, dreary, speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims,
down-cast and hooded with new-fallen snow ? Or, to the unread,
unsophisticated Protestant of the Middle American States, why
does the passing mention of a White Friar or a White Nun,
evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul ?
Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned war-
riors and kings (which will not wholly account for it) that
makes the White Tower of London tell so much more strongly
on the imagination of an untravelled American, than those other
storied structures, its neighbors — the By ward Tower, or even the
Bloody ? And those sublimer towers, the White Mountains of
New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, comes that gigantic
ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of that name
while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft, dewy,
distant dreaminess ? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and
longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spec-
tralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us
with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the
waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets ? Or,
to choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the
fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does
214 WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
"the tall pale man" of the Hartz forests, whose changeless
pallor unrustlingly glides through the green of the groves — why
is this phantom more terrible than all the whooping imps of the
Blocksburg ?
Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-
toppling earthquakes ; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas :
nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain ; nor the sight
of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and
crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets) ; and
her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other,
as a tossed pack of cards ; — it is not these things alone which
make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see-
For Lima has taken the white veil ; and there is a higher horror
in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness
keeps her ruins for ever new ; admits not the cheerful
greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ram-
parts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own
distortions.
I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon
of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exag-
gerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible ; nor to the un-
imaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances
whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this
one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at
all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean by
these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by
the following examples.
First : The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign
lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigi-
lance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his
faculties ; but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be
called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a
midnight sea of milky whiteness — as if from encircling head-
lands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round him,
WHITENESS OF THE WHALE. 215
then he feels a silent, superstitious dread ; the shrouded phantom
of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost ; in
vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings ; heart and
helm they both go down ; he never rests till blue water is undev
him again. Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, " Sir,
it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear
of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me ?"
Second : To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of
the snow-howdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except,
perhaps, in the mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness
reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what
a tearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman soli-
tudes. Much the same is it with the backwoodsman of the
West, who with comparative indifference views an unbounded
prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig to
break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, behold-
ing the scenery of the Antarctic seas ; where at times, by some
infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he,
shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking
hope and solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless
church-yard grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and
splintered crosses.
But thou sayest, methinks this white-lead chapter about
whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul ; thou
surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael.
Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some
peaceful valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey —
why is it that upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh
buffalo robe behind him, so that he cannot even see it, but
only smells its wild animal muskiness — why will he start, snort,
and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies of affright ?
There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild crea-
tures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness
he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the ex-
216 WHITENESS OF THE WHALE.
perience of former perils ; for what knows he, this New England
colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon ?
No : but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the. in-
stinct of the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Thouo-h
thousands of miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage
musk, the rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the
deserted wild foal of the prairies, which this instant they may
be trampling into dust.
Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak
rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains ; the desolate
shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies ; all these, to Ishmael,
are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt !
Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which
the mystic sign gives forth such hints ; yet with me, as with the
colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of
its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible
spheres were formed in fright.
But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness,
and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul ; and
more strange and far more portentous — why, as we have seen,
it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay,
the very veil of the Christian's Deity ; and yet should be as it
is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to man-
kind.
Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless
voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from
behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the
white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence
whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color,
and at the same time the concrete of all colore ; is it for these
reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in
a wide landscape of snows — a colorless, all-color of atheism
from which we shrink? And when we consider that other
theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues —
HARK! 217
every stately or lovely emblazoning — the sweet tinges of sunset
skies and woods ; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the
butterfly cheeks of young girls ; all these are but subtile deceits,
not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from with-
out ; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot,
whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within ;
and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical
cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great prin-
ciple of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if
operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects,
even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge — pondering all
this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper ; and like wilful
travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring
glasses upon then- eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself
blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the pros-
pect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale
was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt ?
CHAPTER XLIH.
hark!
" Hist ! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco V
It was the middle-watch : a fair moonlight ; the seamen were
standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water
butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this
manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Stand-
ing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-
deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From
hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only
broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of
the unceasingly advancing keel.
10
218 THE CHART.
It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the
cordon, whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his
neighbor, a Cholo, the words above.
" Hist ! did you hear that noise, Cabaco ?"
" Take the bucket, will ye, Archy ? what noise d'ye mean ? "
" There it is again — under the hatches — don't you hear it —
a cough — it sounded like a cough."
" Cough be damned ! Pass along that return bucket."
" There again — there it is ! — it sounds like two or three
sleepers turning over, now ! "
" Caramba ! have done, shipmate, will ye ? It's the three
soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye —
nothing else. Look to the bucket ! ''
" Say what ye will, shipmate ; I've sharp eai*s."
"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the
old Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nan-
tucket ; you're the chap."
" Grin away ; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco,
there is somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been
seen on deck ; and I suspect our old Mogul knows something
of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that
there was something of that sort in the wind."
"Tish! the bucket!"
CHAPTER XUV.
THE CHART.
Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after
the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild
ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen
him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large
THE CHART. 219
wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him
on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before it, you
would have seen him intently study the various lines and
shadings which there met his eye ; and with slow but steady
pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were
blank. At intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books
beside him, wherein were set down the seasons and places in
which, on various former voyages of various ships, sperm whales
had been captured or seen.
While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in
chains over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the
ship, and for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines
upon his wrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he
himself was marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled
charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses
upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.
But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of
his cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every
night they were brought out ; almost every night some pencil
marks were effaced, and others were substituted. For with the
charts of all four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a
maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain
accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.
Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the
leviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek
out one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet.
But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides
and cm-rents ; and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm
whale's food ; and, also, calling to mind the regular, ascertained
seasons for hunting him in particular latitudes ; could arrive at
reasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concern-
ing the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search
of his prey.
So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalnesa
220 THE CHART.
of the sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many-
hunters helieve that, could he be closely observed and studied
throughout the world ; were the logs for one voyage of the entire
whale fleet carefully collated, then the migrations of the sperm
whale would be found to correspond in invariability to those of
the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows. On this hint,
attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory
charts of the sperm whale.*
Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to
another, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct —
say, rather, secret intelligence from the Deity — mostly swim in
veins, as they are called ; continuing their way along a given
ocean-line with such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever
sailed her course, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous
precision. Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one
whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel, and though the line of
advance be strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight
wake, yet the arbitrary vein in which at these times he
is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width
(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract) ;
but never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship's
mast-heads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone.
The sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and
* Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by
an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observa-
tory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it appears that
precisely such a chart is in course of completion ; and portions of it are
presented in the circular. " This chart divides the ocean into districts ol
five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude ; perpendicularly
through* each of which districts are twelve columns for the twelve
months ; and horizontally through each of which districts are three lines ;
one to show the number of days that have been spent in each month in
every district, and the two others to show the number of days in which
whales, sperm or right, have been seen."
THE CHART. 221
along that path, migrating whales may with great confidence
he looked for.
And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known se-
parate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey ;
but incrossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds
he could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as
even then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting.
There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to en-
tangle his delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in
the reality, perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have
their regular seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you
cannot conclude that the herds which haunted such and such a
latitude or longitude this year, say, will turn out to be identi-
cally the same with those that were found there the preceding
season ; though there ai-e peculiar and unquestionable instances
where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the
same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solita-
ries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So
that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for ex-
ample, on what is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian
ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast ; yet it did not
follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of those spots at any
subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter
him there. So, too, with some other feeding grounds, where he
had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his
casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places
of prolonged abode. And where Ahab's chances of ac-
complishing his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion
has only been made to whatever way-side, antecedent, extra
prospects were his, ere a particular set- time or place were at-
tained, when all possibilities would become probabilities, and,
as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next thing to a
certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined in
the one technical phrase — the Season-on-the-Line. For there
222 THECHART.
and then, for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been
periodically descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the
sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any
one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the
deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place ; there
the waves were storied with his deeds ; there also was that tragic
spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful mo-
tive to his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness
and unloitering vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding
soul into this unfaltering hunt, he would not permit himself to
rest all his hopes upon the one crowning fact above mentioned,
however flattering it might be to those hopes ; nor in the sleep-
lessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his unquiet heart as
to postpone all intervening quest.
Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very be-
ginning of the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then
could enable her commander to make the great passage south-
wards, double Cape Horn, and then running down sixty degrees
of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time to cruise there.
Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season. Yet the
premature hour of the Pequod's sailing had, perhaps, been cor-
rectly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of
things. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixty-five
days and nights was before him ; an interval which, instead of
impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous
hunt ; if by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in
seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds, should turn
up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal
Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his race.
So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor- Westers, Harmattans, Trades ;
any wind but the Levanter and Simoom, might blow Moby Dick
into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavi-
gating wake.
But granting all this ; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly,
THE CHART. 223
seems it not but a mad idea, this ; that in the broad boundless
ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought
capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a
white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constanti-
nople ? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick,
and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable. And
have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as
after poring over his charts till long after midnight he would
throw himself back in reveries — tallied him, and shall he
escape ? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a
lost sheep's ear ! And here, his mad mind would run on in a
breathless race ; till a weariness and faintness of pondering
came over him ; and in the open air of the deck he would seek
to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments
does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved re-
vengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands ; and wakes
with his own bloody nails in his palms.
Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and
intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own
intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clash-
ing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his
blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became
insufferable anguish ; and when, as was sometimes the case,
these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base,
and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames
and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to
leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned
beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship ; and
with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as
though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, per-
haps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent
weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens
of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming,
unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale ; this Ahab
224 THE AFFIDAVIT.
that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused
him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal,
living principle or soul in him ; and in sleep, being for the time
dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times
employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously
sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic
thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But
as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, there-
fore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his
thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose ; that purpose,
by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods
and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of
its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common
vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the
unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented
spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab
rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a
formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure,
but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in
itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a
creature in thee ; and he whose intense thinking thus makes
him a Prometheus ; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever ;
that vulture the very creature he creates.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE AFFIDAVIT.
So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book ; and,
indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and
curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing
chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be
THE AFFIDAVIT. 225
found in this volume ; but the leading matter of it requires to
be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to
be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any in-
credulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may
induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main
points of this affair.
I care not to perform this part of my task methodically ; but
shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate
citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a
whaleman ; and from these citations, I take it — the conclusion
aimed at will naturally follow of itself.
First: I have personally known three instances where a
( whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape ;
and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been
again struck by the same hand, and slain ; when the two irons,
both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from
the body. In the instance where three years intervened
between the flinging of the two harpoons ; and I think it may
have been something more than that; the man who darted
them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a
voyage to Africa, went ashore thei'e, 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 inci-
dent to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Mean-
while, 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
10*
226 THE AFFIDAVIT.
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 pre-
vious. 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 popu-
larly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was
not altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as
distinguished from other whales ; for however peculiar in that
respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his
peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a pecu-
liarly valuable oil. No : the reason was this : that from the
fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of
perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo
Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to recog-
nise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be
discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cul-
tivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils
ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they make
distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they
pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summaiy
thump for their presumption.
But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great
individual celebrity — nay, you may call it an ocean- wide 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, privi-
leges, and distinctions of a name ; had as much a name indeed as
Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom ! thou famed
THE AFFIDAVIT. 227
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, 0 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 dif-
ferent vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted
out, chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved
up their anchors with that express object as much in view, as
in setting out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain
Butler of old had it in his mind to capture that notorious mur-
derous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the Indian
King Philip.
I do not know where I can find a better place than just here,
to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem
important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the rea-
sonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more es-
pecially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening
instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error.
So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and
most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints
touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery,
they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still
worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.
First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the
general perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a
fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency with
228 THE AFFIDAVIT.
■which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty
of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery,
ever finds a public record at home, however transient and imme-
diately forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor
fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-
line off the coast of New Guinea, is. being carried down to the
bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan— do you suppose
that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obi-
tuary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast ? No : because
the mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In
fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct
or indirect from New Guinea ? Yet I tell you that upon one
particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many
others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had
had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and
three that had each lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be eco-
nomical with your lamps and candles ! not a gallon you burn,
but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.
Secondly : People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea
that a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power ; but I
have ever found that when narrating to them some specific ex-
ample of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly
complimented me upon my facetiousness ; when, I declare upon
my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses,
when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.
But fortunately the special point I here seek can be
established upon testimony entirely independent of my own.
That point is this : The Sperm Whale is in some cases suffi-
ciently powerful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with
direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and sink a large
ship ; and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it.
First : In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of
Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she
saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shqaj of
THE AFFIDAVIT. 229
sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded ;
when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats,
issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship.
Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that
in less than " ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not
a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest
exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats.
Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed
for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods ship-
wrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers ; for the
second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing
the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain
Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace,
who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy ;
I have read his plain and faithful narrative ; I have conversed
with his son ; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the
catastrophe.*
* The following are extracts from Chaee's narrative : " Every fact
eeemed to warrant me in concluding that it wag anything but chance
which directed his operations ; he made two several attacks upon the
ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their
direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead,
and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock ; to
effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His
aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He
came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which
we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their suf-
ferings." Again : " At all events, the whole circumstances taken together,
all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions
in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale
(many of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satis-
fied that I am correct in my opinion."
Here are his reflections sometime after quitting the ship, during a black
night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable
shore. " The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing ; the fears of
being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden
230 THE AFFIDAVIT.
Secondly : The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the
year 180*7 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the
authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced
to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and
then heard casual allusions to it.
Thirdly : Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore
J then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first
class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains,
on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich
Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore
was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength
ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He
peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his
stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimble-
ful. Very good ; but there is more coming. Some weeks
after, the commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Val-
paraiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm
whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business with
him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's
craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made
straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am
not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview with
that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted
from unbelief by a similar fright ? I tell you, the sperm whale
will stand no nonsense.
rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation,
seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought ; the dismal looking
wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed
my reflections, until day again made its appearance."
In another place — p. 45, — he speaks of " the mysterious and mortal
attack of the animal."
***** ** *
*#*** ** *
THE AFFIDAVIT. 231
I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little cir-
cumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof.
Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the
Russian Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in
the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus
begins his seventeenth chapter.
" By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and
the next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to
Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolera-
bly cold that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For
some days we had very little wind ; it was not till the nine-
teenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An
uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the
ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not
perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship,
which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was im-
possible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus
placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic ci-eature,
setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the
water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we
who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding
that we had struck upon some rock ; instead of this we saw the
monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity.
Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine
whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the
shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely
uninjured."
Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding
the ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life
of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the
village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being
a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concern-
ing this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word.
The ship, however, was by no means a large one : a Russian
232 THE AFFIDAVIT.
craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle
after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.
In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure,
so full, too, of honest wonders — the voyage of Lionel Wafer,
one of ancient Dampier's old chums — I found a little matter
set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot
forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be
needed.
Lionel, it seems, was on his way to " John Ferdinando," as
he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. " In our way thither," he
says, " about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about
one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America,
our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such con-
sternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what
to think ; but every one began to prepare for death. And,
indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it
for granted the ship had struck against a rock ; but when the
amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but
found no ground. *****
The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their
carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their ham-
mocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was
thrown out of his cabin !" Lionel then goes on to impute the
shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputa-
tion by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that
time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land.
But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early
hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an un-
seen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.
I might proceed with several more examples, one way or
another known to me, of the great power and malice at times
of the sperm whale. In more than one instance, he has been
known, not only to chase the assailing boats back to their ships,
but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand all the lances
THE AFFIDAVIT. 233
hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall
can tell a story on that head ; and, as for his strength, let me
say, that there have heen examples where the lines attached to
a running sperm whale have, in a calm, heen transferred to the
ship, and secured there ; the whale towing her great hull
through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it
is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is
allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage,
as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers ;
nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his cha-
racter, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his
mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecu-
tive 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 pre-
sently to be mentioned.
Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during
the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster
was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora,
after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a
period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in sub-
stantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any
234 SURMISES.
reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster
was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as
for other reasons, he must have been a whale ; and I am
strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you
why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had
been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters
connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not,
and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things,
a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investiga-
tions have recently proved to me, that in modern times there
have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm
whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority,
that on the Barbaiy coast, a Commodore Davis of the British
navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel
of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm
whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean
into the Propontis.
In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar
substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right
whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of
the sperm whale — squid or cuttle-fish — lurks at the bottom of
that sea, because large creatures, but by no means the largest of
that sort, have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly
put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you
will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning,
Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships
of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm
whale.
CHAPTER XLVL
SURMISES.
Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in
all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate cap-
SURMISES. 935
ture of Moby Dick ; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all
mortal interests to that one passion ; nevertheless it may have
been that he was by nature and long habituation far too wedded
to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether to abandon the collateral
prosecution of the Voyage. Or at least if this were otherwise,
there were not wanting other motives much more influential
with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even con-
sidering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards
the White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some
degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew
by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each sub-
sequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one
he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable
there were still additional considerations which, though not so
strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet
were by no means incapable of swaying him.
To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools ; and of all
tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get
out of order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his
ascendency in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that as-
cendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any more
than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership ;
for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a sort of
corporeal relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will
were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's
brain ; still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul,
abhorred his captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully dis-
integrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that
a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen.
During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall
into open relapses of rebellion against his captain's leadership,
unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were
brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle in-
sanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more signifi-
236 SURMISES,
cantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness
in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way
be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which natur-
ally invested it ; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept
withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men's courage
is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved by action) ;
that when they stood their- long night watches, his officers and
men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick.
For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had
hailed the announcement of his quest ; yet all sailors of all
sorts afe more or less capricious and unreliable — they live in
the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness — and
when retained for any object remote and blank in the pur-
suit, however promissory of fife and passion in the end, it is
above all things requisite that temporary interests and employ-
ments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for
the final dash.
Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of
strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations ; but such
times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition
of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Grant-
ing that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my
savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a cer-
tain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of
it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for
their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted
and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to tra-
verse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre,
without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining
other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held
to their one final and romantic object — that final and romantic
object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will
not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash — aye,
cash. They may scorn cash now ; but let some months go by,
THE MAT-MAKER. 237
and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same
quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash
would soon cashier Ahab.
Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive
more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is
probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime
but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now en-
tirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself
open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation ; and with perfect
impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to
that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him,
and even violently wrest from him the command. From even
the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible
consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground,
Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself.
That protection could only consist in his own predominating
brain and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculat-
ing attention to every minute atmospheric influence which it was
possible for his crew to be subjected to.
For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to
be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still
in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose
of the Pequod's voyage ; observe all customary usages ; and not
only that, but force himself to evince all his well known pas-
sionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing
the three mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright
look-out, and not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigi-
lance was not long without reward.
CHAPTER XLVH.
THE MAT-MAKER.
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon ; the seamon were lazily
238 THE MAT-MAKER.
lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-
colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weav-
ing what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our
boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all
the scene, and such an incantation of revery 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 mechanic-
ally weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed
threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, un-
changing 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, in-
different sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or
crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be ; and by
this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding
contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric ; this
savage's sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions
both warp and woof ; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance —
aye, chance, free will, and necessity — no wise incompatible —
all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of ne-
cessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course — its every
alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that ; free will still
THE MAT- MAKER. 239
free to ply her shuttle between given threads ; and chance, though
restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and
sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus pre-
scribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the
last featuring blow at events.
* * * * * *
Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at
a sound so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and un-
earthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I
stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped
like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was that mad Gay-
Header, Tashtego. His Dody was reaching eagerly forward, his
hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he
continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very
moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds
of whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air ; but
from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have
derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the
Indian's.
As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so
wildly and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have
thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of
Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming.
" There she blows ! there ! there ! there ! she blows ! she
blows !"
" Where-away ?"
" On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them !"
Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same
undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen
distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus.
" There go flukes !" was now the cry from Tashtego ; and
the whales disappeared.
" Quick, steward ! cried Ahab. " Time ! time !"
U40 THE FIRST LOWERING.
Dough-Boy turned below, glanced at the watch, and reported
the exact minute to Ahab.
The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went
gently rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had
gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them
again directly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft
at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his
head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath
the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the opposite
quarter — this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action ;
for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tash-
tego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of
our vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers — that is,
those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian
at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had
come down ; the fine tubs were fixed in their places ; the cranes
were thrust out ; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats
swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung
to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gun-
wale. So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to
throw themselves on board an enemy's ship.
But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard
that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared
at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms
that seemed fresh formed out of air.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE FIRST LOWERING.
The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the
other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were
THE FIRST LOWERING. 241
casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung
there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare
boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its
hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood
by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly pro-
truding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of
black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of
the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a
glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled
round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the
companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow com-
plexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Ma-
nillas ; — a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and
by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies
and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their
lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.
While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon
these strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man
at their head, " All ready there, Fedallah ? " .
" Ready," was the half-hissed reply.
" Lower away then ; d'ye hear ?" shouting across the deck.
" Lower away there, I say."
Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amaze-
ment the men sprang over the rail ; the sheaves whirled round
in the blocks ; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the
sea ; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in
any other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling
ship's side into the tossed boats below.
Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when
a fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round
under the stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab,
who, standing erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb,
and Flask, to spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large ex-
panse of water. But with all their eyes again riveted upon the
11
242 THE FIRST LOWERING.
swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other boats
obeyed not the command.
" Captain Ahab ? — '' said Starbuck.
" Spread yourselves," cried Ahab ; " give way, all four boats.
Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward ! "
"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping
round his great steering oar. " Lay back !" addressing his crew.
" There ! — there ! — there again ! There she blows right ahead,
boys ! — lay back !"
" Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy."
" Oh, I don't mind 'em, sir, ' said Archy ; " I knew it all
before now. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold ? And didn't I tell
Cabaco here of it? What say ye, Cabaco ? They are stowa-
ways, 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 brim-
stone— devils are good fellows enough. So, so ; there you are
now ; that's the stroke for a thousand pounds ; that's the stroke
to sweep the stakes ! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil,
my heroes ! Three cheers, men — all hearts alive ! Easy, easy ;
don't be in a hurry — don't be in a hurry. Why don't you
snap your oars, you rascals ? Bite something, you dogs ! So,
so, so, then ; — softly, softly ! That's it — that's it ! long and
strong. Give way there, give way ! The devil fetch ye, ye
ragamuffin rapscallions ; ye are all asleep. Stop snoring, ye
sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye ? pull, can't ye ? pull, won't
ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger- cakes don't ye
pull? — pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes
out ! Here ! " whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle ;
THE FIRST LOWERING. 243
" every mother's son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the
blade between his teeth. That's it — that's it. Now ye do
something ; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her — start
her, my silver-spoons ! 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 com-
pounded 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 some-
times so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their
guard in the matter of obeying them.
In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling
obliquely across Stubb's bow ; and when for a minute or so the
two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the
mate.
" Mr. Starbuck ! larboard boat there, ahoy ! a word with ye,
sir, if ye please !''
" Halloa !" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch
as he spoke ; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew ;
his face set like a flint from Stubb's.
" What think ye of those yellow boys, sir !"
"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed.
(Strong, strong, boys !") in a whisper to his crew, then speak-
244 THE FIRST LOWERING.
ing out loud again : " A sad business, Mr. Stubb ! (seethe her,
seethe her, my lads !) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the
best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what will, (Spring,
my men, spring !) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr.
Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys !) Sperm,
sperm's the play ! This at least is duty ; duty and profit hand
in hand!"
" Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when
the boats diverged, " as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought
so. Aye, and that's what he went into the after hold for, so
often, as Dough-Boy long suspected. They were hidden down
there. The White "Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well,
so be it ! Can't be helped ! All right ! Give way, men ! It
ain't the White Whale to-day ! Give way !"
Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a criti-
cal instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had
not unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement
in some of the ship's company ; but Archy's fancied discovery
having some time previous got abroad among them, though
indeed not credited then, this had in some small measure pre-
pared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge of their
wonder ; and so what with all this and Stubb's confident way
of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed
from superstitious surmisings ; though the affair still left abun-
dant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's
precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, I
silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on
board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as
the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.
Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided
the furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other
boats ; a circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling
him. Those tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and
whalebone ; like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regu-
THE FIRST LOWERING. 245
lar strokes of strength, which periodically started the boat along
the water like a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi
steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer
oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and displayed his na-
ked chest with the whole part of his body above the gunwale,
clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery
horizon ; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm,
like a fencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to coun-
terbalance any tendency to trip ; Ahab was seen steadily ma-
naging his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings ere
the White Whale had torn him. All at once the out-
stretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed,
while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked.
Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three
spread boats in the rear paused on their way. The whales had
irregularly settled bodily down into the blue, thus giving no dis-
tantly discernible token of the movement, though from his closer
vicinity Ahab had observed it.
" Every man look out along his oars !" cried Starbuck. " Thou,
Queequeg, stand up !"
Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow,
the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed
off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried.
Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also
triangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck him-
self was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking
tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue
eye of the sea.
Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly
still ; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the
loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising
some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used
for catching turns with the whale fine. Its top is not more
spacious than the palm of a man's hand, and standing upon
246 THE FIRST LOWERING.
such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the mast-head of
some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little
King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-
Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this logger-
head stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.
" I Can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me
on to that."
Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to
steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volun-
teered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal.
" Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount ?"
" That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow ; only
I wish you fifty feet taller."
Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite
planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, present-
ed his flat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand
on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he him-
self should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man
high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now stand-
ing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breast-
band to lean against and steady himself by.
At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what
wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will main-
tain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by
the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more
strange to see him giddily perched upon the loggerhead itself,
under such circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mount-
ed upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious ; for sustaining
himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric ma-
jesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled
his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a
snow-flake. The bearer looked noble]" than the rider. Though
truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now
and then stamp with impatience ; but not one added heave did
THE FIRST LOWERING. 247
he thereby give to the negro's lordly chest. So have I seen
Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth,
but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that.
Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing
solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular
soundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright ; and if that
were the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was
resolved to solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He
withdrew it from his hatband, where he always wore it aslant
like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed home the loading
with his thumb-end ; but hardly had he ignited his match
across the rough sand-paper of his hand, when Tashtegq, his
harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two
fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude
to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, " Down, down
all, and give way ! — there they are !"
To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would
have been visible at that moment ; nothing but a troubled bit
of greenish white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor
hovering over it, and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the
confused scud from white rolling billows. The air around
suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it were, like the air over
intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this atmospheric
waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of water,
also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the
other indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their
forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders.
All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of
troubled water and air. But it bade far to outstrip them ; it
flew on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down
a rapid stream from the hills.
" Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest
possible but intensest concentrated whisper to his men ; while
the sharp fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of
248 THE FIRST LOWERING.
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 planta-
tion, boys ; including wife and children, boys. Lay me on — lay
me on ! O Lord, Lord ! but I shall go stark, staring mad :
See ! see that white water !" And so shouting, he pulled his hat
from his head, and stamped up and down on it ; then picking
it up, flirted it far off upon the sea ; and finally fell to rearing
and plunging in the boat's stern like a crazed colt from the
prairie.
"Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb,
who, with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained
between his teeth, at a short distance, followed after — "He's got
fits, that Flask has. Fits ? yes, give him fits — that's the very
word— pitch fits into 'em. Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pud-
ding for supper, you know ; — merry's the word. Pull, babes
— pull, sucklings — pull, all. But what the devil are you hurry-
ing about ? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull,
and keep pulling ; nothing more. Crack all your backbones,
and bite your knives in two — that's all. Take it easy — why
don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your livers and
lungs ! " •
But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-
yellow crew of his — these were words best omitted here ; for
you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land. Only
the infidel sharks in the audacious seas may give ear to such
words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of red murdei*, and
foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.
THE FIRST LOWERING, 249
Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allu-
sions of Flask to " that whale," as he called the fictitious
monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his
boat's bow with its tail — these allusions of his were at times
so vivid and life-like, that they would cause some one or two of
his men to snatch a fearful look over the shoulder. But this
was against all rule ; for the oarsmen must put out their eyes,
and ram a skewer through their necks ; usage pronouncing that
they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but arms, in
these critical moments.
It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe ! The vast
swells of the omnipotent sea ; the surging, hollow roar they
made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic
bowls in a boundless bowling-green ; the brief suspended agony
of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge
of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut
it in two ; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and
hollows ; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the
opposite hill ; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other
side ; — all these, with the cries of the headsmen and har-
pooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the
wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her
boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming
brood ; — all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching
from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle ;
not the dead man's ghost encountering the first unknown
phantom in the other world ; — neither of these can feel stranger
and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first
time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of
the hunted sperm whale.
The dancing white water made by the chase was now becom-
ing more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of
the dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor
no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left ; the
11*
250 THE FIRST LOWERING.
whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled
more apart ; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running
dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still
rising wind, we rushed along ; the boat going with such mad-
ness through the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be
worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the row-locks.
Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist ;
neither ship nor boat to be seen.
" Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further
aft the sheet of his sail ; " there is time to kill a fish yet before
the squall comes. There's white water again ! — close to !
Spring !"
Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us
denoted that the other boats had got fast ; but hardly were
they overheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper
Starbuck said : " Stand up !" and Queequeg, harpoon in hand,
sprang to his feet.
Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and
death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the
intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they
knew that the imminent instant had come ; they heard, too, an
enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their
litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist,
the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests
of enraged serpents.
" That's his hump. There, there, give it to him !" whispered
Starbuck.
A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat ; it was the
darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion
came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat
seemed striking on a ledge ; the sail collapsed and exploded ; a
gush of scalding vapor shot up near by ; something rolled and
tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were
half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the white
THE FIRST LOWERING. 251
curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had
all blended together ; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron,
escaped.
Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed.
Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing
them across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There
we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib
and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes the suspended
craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of
the ocean.
The wind increased to a howl ; the waves dashed their bucklers
together ; the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around
us like a white fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we
were burning ; immortal in these jaws of death ! In vain we
hailed the other boats ; as well roar to the live coals down the
chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm.
Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew darker with the
shadows of night ; no sign of the ship could be seen. The ris-
ing sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars
were useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-pre-
servers. So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg,
after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the
lantern ; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Quee-
queg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then,
he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that al-
mighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol
of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst
of despair.
Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of
ship or boat, we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The
mist still spread over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in
the bottom of the boat. Suddenly Queequeg started to his
feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. We all heard a faint creak-
ing, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by the storm. The
252 THE HYENA,
sound came nearer and nearer ; the thick mists were dimly part-
ed by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the
sea as the ship at last loomed into view, hearing light down
upon us within a distance of not much more than its length.
Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one
instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip
at the base of a cataract ; and then the vast hull rolled over it»
and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern.
Again we swam for it, were dashed against it by the seas, and
were at last taken up and safely landed on board. Ere the
squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from their
fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given
us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some
token of our perishing, — an oar or a lance pole.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE HYENA.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange
mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe
for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly
discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's
expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing
seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all
creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and
invisible, never mind how knobby ; as an ostrich of potent di-
gestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small
difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of
life and limb ; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly,
good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by
the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of way-
ward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some
THE HYENA. 253
time of extreme tribulation ; it comes in the very midst of his
earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him
a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general
joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this
free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy ; and with it
I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great
White Whale its object.
" Queequeg,'' said I, when they had dragged me, the last man,
to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling
off the water ; " Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of
thing often happen ?" Without much emotion, though soaked
through just like me, he gave me to understand that such things
did often happen.
"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up
in his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain ;
" Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen
you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most
careful and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a
flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of
a whaleman's discretion ?"
" Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a
gale off Cape Horn."
" Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was
standing close by ; " you are experienced in these things, and I
am not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in
this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back
pulling himself back-foremost into death's jaws ?"
" Can't you twist that smaller ?" said Flask. " Yes, that's the
law. I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a
whale face foremost. Ha, ha ! the whale would give them squint
for squint, mind that !"
Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate
statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls
and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the
254 THE HYENA.
deep, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life ;
considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on
to the whale I must resign my life into the hands of him who
steered the boat — oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment
is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with
his own frantic stampings ; considering that the particular disas-
ter to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Star-
buck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall,
and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for
his great heedfulness in the fishery ; considering that I belonged
to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat ; and finally consi-
dering in what a devil's chase I was implicated, touching the
White Whale : taking all things together, I say, I thought I
might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.
"Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my lawyer,
executor, and legatee."
It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinker-
ing at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in
the world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth
time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing. After
the ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt
all the easier ; a stone was rolled away from my heart. Be-
sides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the
days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection ; a supplementary
clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be.
I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my
chest. I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a
quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bare of a
snug family vault.
Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of
my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and de-
struction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.
FEDALLAH. 255
CHAPTER L.
AHAB's BOAT AND CREW. FEDALLAH.
" Who would have thought it, Flask !" cried Stubb ; " if I
had hut one leg you would not catch rne in a boat, unless maybe
to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh ! he's a wonder-
ful old man !"
" I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account," said
Flask. " If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a
different thing. That would disable him ; but he has one knee,
and good part of the other left, you know."
" I don't know that, my little man ; I never yet saw him
kneel."
* * * * * *
Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether,
considering the paramount importance of his life to the success
of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize
that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's sol-
diers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invalu-
able life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight.
But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Con-
sidering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all
times of danger; considering that the pursuit of whales is
always under great and extraordinary difficulties ; that every in-
dividual moment, indeed, then comprises a peril ; under these
circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a whale-
boat in the hunt ? As a general thing, the joint-owners of the
Pequod must have plainly thought not.
Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would
think little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively
harmless vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the
256 FEDALLAH.
scene of action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain
Ahab to have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular
headsman in the hunt — above all for Captain Ahab to be sup-
plied with five extra men, as that same boat's crew, he well
knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the
owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat's
crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that
head. Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own
touching all that matter. Until Cabaco's published discovery,
the sailors had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after
being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the cus-
tomary business of fitting the whaleboats for service ; when
some time after this Ahab was now and then found bestir-
ring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own
hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and
even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when
the line is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow :
when all this was observed in him, and particularly his solici-
tude in having an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the
boat, as if to make it better withstand the pointed pressure of
his ivory limb ; and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shap-
ing the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called,
the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the knee
against in darting or stabbing at the whale ; when it was ob-
served how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee
fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the
carpenter's chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a
little there ; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest
and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that
this particular preparative needfulness in Ahab must only be
with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick ; for he had
already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster
in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve
the remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to
that boat.
FEDALLAH. 257
Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained
soon waned away ; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Be-
sides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange
nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the
earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers ; and the ships
themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found
tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, oars, whale-
boats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not ; that
Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into
the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any
unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.
But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordi-
nate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though
still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-tur-
baned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence
he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unac-
countable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's
peculiar fortunes ; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-
hinted influence ; Heaven knows, but it might have been even
authority over him ; all this none knew. But one cannot sus-
tain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a
creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only
see in their dreams, and that but dimly ; but the like of whom
now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communi-
ties, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent —
those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even
in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly abori-
ginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the
first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants,
unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms,
and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and
to what end ; when though, according to Genesis, the angels in-
deed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add
the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.
I
258 THE SPIRIT-SPOUT.
CHAPTER LI.
THE SPIRIT-SPOUT.
Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod
had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds ; that off
the Azores ; off the Cape de Verdes ; on the Plate (so called),
being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata ; and the Carrol
Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St.
Helena.
It was while gliding through these latter waters that one
serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like
scrolls of silver ; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made
what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude : on such a silent
night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles
at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial ; seemed
some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedal-
lah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it
was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a
look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day.
And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one
whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them.
You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld
this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours ; his
turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after
spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights
without uttering a single sound ; when, after all this silence,
his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit
jet, every reclining mariner started to his . feet as if some
winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal
crew. " There she blows !" Had the trump of judgment
THE SPIRIT-SPOUT. 259
blown, they could not have quivered more ; yet still they felt
no terror ; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted
hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting,
that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.
Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab
commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every
stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm .
Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled
down before the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of
the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the
buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet ; while still
she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were strug-
gling in her — one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive
yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched
Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him
also two different things were warring. While his one live leg
made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead
limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man
walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from
every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet
was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it
once, but not a second time.
This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing,
when, some days after, lo ! at the same silent hour, it was again
announced : again it was descried by all ; but upon making sail
to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been.
And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but
to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight,
or starlight, as the case might be ; disappearing again for one
whole day, or two days, or three ; and somehow seeming at
every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and
further in our van, this solitary jet seemed • for ever alluring
us on.
Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in
260 THE SPIRIT- SPOUT.
accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in
many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of
the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried ;
at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and
longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same
whale ; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned,
too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it
were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the
monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the
remotest and most savage seas.
These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful,
derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the
weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought
there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged
along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space,
in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of
life before our urn-like prow.
But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds
began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long,
troubled seas that are there ; when the ivory-tusked Pequod
sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in
her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-
flakes flew over her bulwarks ; then all this desolate vacuity
of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than
before.
Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither
and thither before us ; while thick in our rear flew the inscru-
table sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays,
rows of these birds were seen ; and spite of our hootings, for a
long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they
deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing
appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their
homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly
heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience ; and
THE SPIRIT-SPOUT. 261
the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the
long sin and suffering it had bred.
Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye ? Rather Cape Tor-
mentoto, as called of yore ; for long allured by the perfidious
silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves
launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings trans-
formed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned
to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat
that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and
unvarying ; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky ;
still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at
times be descried.
During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though
assuming for the time the almost continual command of the
drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve ;
and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestu-
ous times like these, after everything above and aloft has been
secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the
issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical
fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed
hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for
hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while
an occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his
very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the
forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly
broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in the
waist ; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each
man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the
rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words
were spoken ; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted
sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift mad-
ness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same
muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed ;
still in silence the men swung in the bowlines ; still wordless
262 THE ALBATROSS.
Ahab stood uj) to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed
demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his ham-
mock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when
one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer
stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-
screwed chair ; the rain, and half-melted sleet of the storm from
which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping
from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him
lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which
have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung fr6m his
tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the heafl.
was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed towards
the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceil-
ing.*
Terrible old man ! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping
in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.
CHAPTER LII.
THE ALBATROSS.
South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a
good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed
ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew
nigh, from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good
view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean
fisheries — a whaler at sea, and long absent from home.
As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like
the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this
* The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to
the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of
the course of the ship.
THEALBATROSS. 263
spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened
rust, while all her spare and her rigging were like the thick
branches of trees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower
sails were set. A wild sight it was to see her long-bearded
look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed clad in the
skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had
survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops
nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless
sea ; and though, when the ship slowly glided close under our
stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to each other that we
might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship to
those of the other ; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly
eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own look-
outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below.
" Ship ahoy ! Have ye seen the White Whale ? "
But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks,
was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow
fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising
amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it.
Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between.
While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were
evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first
mere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship,
Ahab for a moment paused ; it almost seemed as though he
would have lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the
threatening wind forbade. But taking advantage of his wind-
ward position, he again seized his trumpet, and knowing by her
aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly
bound home, he loudly hailed — " Ahoy there ! This is the
Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all
future letters to the Pacific ocean ! and this time three years, if
I am not at home, tell them to address them to "
At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and
instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals
264 THE GAM.
of small harmless fish, that for some days hefore had been
placidly swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed
shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the
stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyag-
ings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet,
to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry
meanings.
" Swim away from me, do ye ? " murmured Ahab, gazing
over into the water. There seemed but little in the words, but
the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane
old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman,
who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish
her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice, — " Up helm !
Keep her off round the world ! "
Round the world ! There is much in that sound to inspire
proud feelings ; but whereto does all that circumnavigation con-
duct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence
we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the
time before us.
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward
we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more
sweet, and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solo-
mon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit
of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase
of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before
all human hearts ; while chasing such over this round globe, they
either lead us on in ban-en mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
CHAPTER LIE.
THE GAM.
The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the
whaler we had spoken was this : the wind and sea betokened
THE GAM. 265
storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not
after all, perhaps, have boarded her — judging by his subsequent
conduct on similar occasions — if so it had been that, by the
process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the
question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not
to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain,
except he could contribute some of that information he so
absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately
estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages
of whaling-vessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and
especially on a common cruising-ground.
If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York
State, or the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England ; if
casually encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds,
these twain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual
salutation ; and stopping for a moment to interchange the news ;
and, perbaps, sitting down for a while and resting in concert :
then, how much more natural that upon the illimitable Pine
Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels
descrying each other at the ends of the earth — off lone Fan-
ning's Island, or the far away King's Mills ; how much more
natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships should
not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more
friendly and sociable contact. And especially would this seem to
be a matter of course, in the case of vessels owned in one sea-
port, and whose captains, officers, and not a few of the men are
personally known to each other ; and consequently, have all sorts
of dear domestic things to talk about.
For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has
letters on board ; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have
some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on
her blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that
courtesy, the outward-bound ship would receive the latest whal-
ing intelligence from the cruising-ground to which she may be
12
266 THE GAM,
destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And in de-
gree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing
each other's track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they
are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have
received a transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote
vessel ; and some of those letters may be for the people of the
ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whal-
ing news, and have an agreeable chat. For not only would
they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all
the peculiar congenialities arising from a common pursuit and
mutually shared privations and perils.
Nor would difference of country make any very essential dif-
ference ; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as
is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure,
from the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not
very often occur, and when they do occur there is too apt to be
a sort of shyness between them ; for your Englishman is rather
reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing
in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers some-
times affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the Ameri-
can whalers ; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his
nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where
this superiority in the English whalemen does really consist, it
would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day,
collectively, kill more whales than all the English, collectively, in
ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in the English whale-
hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart ;
probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself.
So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea,
the whalers have most reason to be sociable — and they are so.
Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the
mid- Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a sin-
gle word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the
high seas, like a brace of dandies in Broadway ; and all the
THE GAM. 267
time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other's
rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea,
they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrap-
ings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be
much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly love about it
at all. . As touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such
a prodigious huny, they run away from each other as soon as
possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each
other's cross-bones, the first hail is — " How many skulls ? " — ■
the same way that whalers hail — " How many barrels ? " And
that question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for
they are infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see
overmuch of each other's villanous likenesses.
But look at the godly,, honest, unostentatious, hospitable,
sociable, free-and-easy whaler ! What does the whaler do when
she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather ? She
has a " Gam" a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships
that they never heard of the name even; and if by chance
they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and repeat game-
some stuff about " spouters " and " blubber-boilers," and such
like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen,
and also all Pirates and Man-of- War's men, and Slave-ship
sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships ;
this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the
case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profes-
sion of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes
ends in uncommon elevation, indeed ; but only at the gallows.
And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has
no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I con-
clude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whale-
man, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.
But what is a Gam ? You might wear out your index-finger
running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never
find the word. Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition j
268 THE GAM.
Noah Webster's ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same
expressive word has now for many years been in constant use
among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it
needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon.
With that view, let me learnedly define it.
GAM. Noun — A social meeting of two (or more) Whale-
ships, generally on a cruising-ground ; when, after exchanging
hails, they exchange visits by boats'1 crews : the two captains
remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two
chief mates on the other.
There is another little item about Gamming which must not
be forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiari-
ties of detail ; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-
war, or slave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his
boat, he always sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, some-
times cushioned seat there, and often steers himself with a
pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with gay cords and rib-
bons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of that
sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whal-
ing captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty
old aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-
boat never admits of any such effeminacy ; and therefore as in
gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence
as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordi-
nate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having
no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine
tree. And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes
of the whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the
two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the importance
of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this
any very easy matter ; for in his rear is the immense projecting
steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back,
the after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He
is thus completely wedged before and behind, and can only ex-
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 269
pand himself sideways by settling down on his stretched legs ;
but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will often go far to topple
him, because length of foundation is nothing without correspond-
ing breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles, and
you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in
plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say,
for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the
slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands ;
indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he gene-
rally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets ; but perhaps be-
ing generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for
ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authen-
ticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an
uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say —
to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there
like grim death.
CHAPTER LIV.
THE TOWN-HO's^TORT.
(As told at the Golden Inn.)
The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round
about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great
highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part.
It was not very long after speaking the Coney that another
homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered.
She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam
that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some
the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly height-
* The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-
head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.
270 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
ened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's - stoiy, which seemed
obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, invert-
ed visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which
at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circum-
stance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what
may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrat-
ed, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates.
For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of
the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three
confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems,
communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secresy,
but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and re-
vealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened
he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an
influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod
who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange
delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that
they kept the secret among themselves so that it never trans-
pired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper
place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on
the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put
on lasting record.
For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I
once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish
friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza
of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons,
Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and
hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which
are duly answered at the time.
" Some two years prior to my first learning the events which
I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm
"Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very
many days' sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden
Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 271
morning upon handling the pumps, according to daily usage, it
was observed that she made more water in her hold than com-
mon. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen.
But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that
rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes ; and therefore
being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then
considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find
it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather
heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the ma-
riners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals ; but
no good luck came ; more days went by, and not only was the
leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so,
that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood
away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have
his hull hove out and repaired.
" Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the com-
monest chance favored, he did not at all fear that his ship would
founder by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and
being periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of
his could easily keep the ship free ; never mind if the leak should
double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage
being attended by very prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had
all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without
the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutal
overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly
provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado
from Buffalo."
" ' Lakeman ! — Buffalo ! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where
is Buffalo V said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of
grass.
" On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don ; but — I crave your
courtesy — may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,
gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nigh
as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to
272 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
far Manilla ; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our Ameri-
ca, had yet heen nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting im-
pressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their
interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,
— Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan, —
possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's no-
blest traits ; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of
climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles,
even as the Polynesian waters do ; in large part, are shored by
two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is ; they furnish
long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies
from the East, dotted all round their banks ; here and there are
frowned upon by batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of
lofty Mackinaw ; they have heard the fleet thunderings of naval
victories ; at intervals, they yield then- beaches to wild barba-
rians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wig-
wams ; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and
unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines
of kings in Gothic genealogies ; those same woods harboring
wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported
furs give robes to Tartar Emperors ; they mirror the paved
capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago
villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the
armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe ;
they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any
that lash the salted wave ; they know what shipwrecks are, for
out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full
many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gen-
tlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and
Avild-ocean nurtured ; as much of an audacious mariner as any.
And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him
down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea ;
though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic
and your contemplative Pacific ; yet was he quite as vengeful
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 273
and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh
from the latitudes of buck-horn handled Bowie-knives. Yet
was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits ; and
this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed,
might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common
decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's
right ; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harm-
less and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far ; but
Eadney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt — but, gentle-
men, you shall hear.
" It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after point-
ing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leak
seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or
more at the pumps every day. You must know that in a set-
tled and civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some
skippers think little of pumping their whole way across it;
though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen
to forget his duty in that respect, the probability would be that
he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on ac-
count of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. # Nor in the
solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentle-
men, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their
pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable
length ; that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if
any other reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when
a leaky vessel is in some very out of the way part of those
waters, some really landless latitude, that her captain begins to
feel a little anxious.
" Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho ; so when her
leak was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small
concern manifested by several of her company ; especially by
Radney the mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well
hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way expanded to the
breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a coward,
12*
274 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehonsiveness
touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on
land or on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen.
Therefore when he betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the
ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only on account
of his being a part owner in her. So when they were working
that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small
gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with
their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water ;
clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen — that bubbling from
the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady
spouts at the lee scupper-holes.
" Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this con-
ventional world of ours — watery or otherwise ; that when a
person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of
them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of
manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an uncon-
querable dislike and bitterness ; and if he have a chance he
will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and make
a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may,
gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal
with a head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the
tasseled housings of your last viceroy's snorting charger ; and a
brain, and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made
Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne's
father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule ; yet as
hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt,
and Steelkilt knew it.
" Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump
with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but inl-
awed, went on with his gay banterings.
" ' Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this ; hold a
cannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's
worth bottling ! I tell ye what, men, old Rad's investment
THE TO WN-HO'S STORY. 275
must go for it ! he had best cut away his part of the hull and
tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish only began the
job ; he's come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters,
saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not ; and the whole posse of
'em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom ;
making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now,
I'd tell him to jump overboard and scatter 'em. They're play-
ing the devil with his estate, I can tell him. But he's a simple
old soul, — Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they say the rest of
his property is invested in looking-glasses. I wonder if he'd
give a poor devil like me the model of his nose."
" ' Damn your eyes ! what's that pump stopping for ?' roared
Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. ' Thun-
der away at it !'
" ' Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ' Lively,
boys, lively, now !' And with that the pump clanged like
fifty fire-engines ; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere
long that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes
the fullest tension of life's utmost energies.
" Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the
Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on
the windlass ; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping
the profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend
it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a
man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not ; but so it
happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate com-
manded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and
also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent
upon allowing a pig to run at large.
" Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of
household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly
attended to eveiy evening ; it has been known to be done in the
case of ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen,
is the inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neat-
276 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
noss in seamen ; some of whom would not willingly drown with-
out first washing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business
is the prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard.
Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had been
divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps ; and being the
most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly
assigned captain of one of the gangs ; consequently he should
have been freed from any trivial business not connected with
truly nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades.
I mention all these particulars so that you may understand ex-
actly how this affair stood between the two men.
" But there was more than this : the order about the
shovel was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt,
as though Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has
gone sailor in a whale-ship will understand this ; and all this
and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended
when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for a
moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant
eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him
and the slow-match silently burning along towards them ; as he
instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwilling-
ness to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful
being — a repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant
men even when aggrieved — this nameless phantom feeling, gen-
tlemen, stole over Steelkilt.
" Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the
bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him
saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he
would not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel,
he pointed to three lads as the customary sweepers ; who, not
being billeted at the pumps, had done little or nothing all day.
To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a most domineering and
outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command ;
meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an
THE TOWN- HO' S STORY. 277
uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a
cask near by.
" Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the
pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the
sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate ;
but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him,
without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till
at last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few
inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding.
" Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, stead-
ily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberate-
ly repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his
forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and un-
speakable intimation with bis twisted hand he warned off the
foolish and infatuated man ; but it was to no purpose. And in
this way the two went once slowly round the windlass ; when,
resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he
had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the
Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer :
" ' Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away,
or look to yourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still
closer to him, where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the
heavy hammer within an inch of his teeth ; meanwhile repeat-
ing a string of insufferable maledictions. Retreating not the
thousandth part of an inch ; stabbing him in the eye with the
unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his right
hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his per-
secutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt)
would murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded
for the slaughter by the gods. Immediately the hammer
touched the cheek ; the next instant the lower jaw of the mate
was stove in his head ; he fell on the hatch spouting blood like
a whale.
" Ere the ciy could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the
278 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
backstays leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were
standing their mast-heads. They were both Canallers.
' " Canallers !' cried Don Pedro. " ' We have seen many whale-
ships in our harbors, but never heard of your Canallers. Par-
don : who and what are they ?'
" ' Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand
Erie Canal. You must have heard of it.'
" ' Nay, Senor ; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and
hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North.'
" ' Aye ? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very
fine ; and ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canal-
lers are ; for such information may throw side-light upon my
story.'
" For three hundred and sixty miles , gentlemen, through the
entire breadth of the state of New York ; through numerous
populous cities and most thriving villages ; through long, dismal,
uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for
fertility ; by billiard-room and bar-room ; through the holy-of-
holies of great forests ; on Roman arches over Indian rivers ;
through sun and shade ; by happy hearts or broken ; through
all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk coun-
ties ; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose
spires stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream
of Venetianly corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true
Ashantee, gentlemen ; there howl your pagans ; where you
ever find them, next door to you ; under the long-flung shadow,
and the snug patronizing lee of churches. For by some curious
fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters
that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners,
gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.
" ' Is that a friar passing ?' said Don Pedro, looking down-
wards into the crowded piazza, with humorous concern.
" ' Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisi-
tion wanes in Lima,' laughed Don Sebastian. ' Proceed, Senor.'
THE TOWN-HOS STORY. 279
"'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company.
" ' In the name of all us Limeese, I but desire to express to you,
sir sailor, that we have by no means overlooked your delicacy
in not substituting present Lima for distant Venice in your cor-
rupt comparison. Oh ! do not bow and look surprised ; you
know the proverb all along this coast — " Corrupt as Lima." It
but bears out your saying, too ; churches more plentiful than
billiard-tables, and for ever open — and " Corrupt as Lima." So,
too, Venice ; I have been there ; the holy city of the blessed
evangelist, St. Mark ! — St. Dominic, purge it ! Your cup !
Thanks : here I refill ; now, you pour out again.'
" Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Ca-
naller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and pic-
turesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days
along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly
toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot
thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is
dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly
sports ; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand
features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages
through which he floats ; his swart visage and bold swagger
are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own
canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers ; I
thank him heartily ; would fain be not ungrateful ; but it is often
one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence,
that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in
a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what
the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this ;
that our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished
graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney
men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor
does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to
many thousands of our rural boys and young meii born along
its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the
280 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field,
and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas."
" ' I see ! I see !' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling
his chicha upon his silvery ruffles. ' No need to travel ! The
world's one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate
North the generations were cold and holy as the hills. — But the
story.'
" I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the back-
stay. Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the
three junior mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded
him to the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets,
the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag
their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors
joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued ;
while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced
up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to
manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to
the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving
border of the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his
pike, sought to prick out the object of his resentment. But
Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them all ; they
succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing
about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass,
these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade."
" ' Come out of that, ye pirates !' roared the captain, now
menacing them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him
by the steward. ' Come out of that, ye cut-throats !'
" Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down
there, defied the worst the pistols could do ; but gave the cap-
tain to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would
be the signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands.
Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the cap-
tain a little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents instantly
to return to their duty.
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 281
"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do V 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 f 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
bung 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 flog-
ging us, we don't do a hand's turn.'
282 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
" ' Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye
there till ye're sick of it. Down ye go.'
" ' Shall we V 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 disappear-
ing, like bears into a cave.
" As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks,
the Captain and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly
drawing over the slide of the scuttle, planted their group of hands
upon it, and loudly called for the steward to bring the heavy
brass padlock belonging to the companion-way. Then opening
the slide a little, the Captain whispered something down the
crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them — ten in num-
ber— leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had
remained neutral.
" All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, for-
ward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatch-
way ; at which last place it was feared the insurgents might
emerge, after breaking through the bulkhead below. But the
hours of darkness passed in peace ; the men who still remained
at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinking and
clanking at intervals through the dreary night dismally resounded
through the ship.
" At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the
deck, summoned the prisoners to work ; but with a yell they re-
fused. "Water was then lowered down to them, and a couple
of handfuls of biscuit were tossed after it ; when again turning
the key upon them and pocketing it, the Captain returned to the
quarter-deck. Twice every day for three days this was repeated ;
but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and then a
scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered ;
and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they
were ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a
famishing diet, united perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribu-
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 283
tion, had constrained them to surrender at discretion. Embold-
ened by this, the Captain reiterated his demand to the rest, but
Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to stop his babbling
and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth morning
three others of the mutineers bolted up into the ah' from the
desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three
were left.
" ' Better turn to, now ?' said the Captain with a heartless
jeer.
" ' Shut us up again, will ye !' cried Steelkilt.
" ' Oh ! certainly,' -said the Captain, and the key clicked.
" It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection
of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking
voice that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long
entombment in a place as black as the bowels of despair ; it
was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two Canallers, thus far
apparently of one mind with him, to burst out of their hole at
the next summoning of the garrison ; and armed with their
keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with
a handle at each end) run a muck from the bowsprit to the
taffrail ; and if by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize
the ship. For himself, he would do this, he said, whether they
joined him or not. That was the last night he should spend in
that den. But the scheme met with no opposition on the part of
the other two ; they swore they were ready for that, or for any
other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. And
what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on
deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But to
this their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority for
himself ; particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the
one to the othei1, in the matter ; and both of them could not be
first, for the ladder would but admit one man at a time. And
here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants must come
out
284 THE TOWN-HO*S STORY.
" Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his
own separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon
the same piece of treachery, namely : to be foremost in break-
ing out, in order to be the first of the three, though the last of
the ten, to surrender ; and thereby secure whatever small chance
of pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made
known his determination still to lead them to the last, they in
some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their be-
fore secret treacheries together ; and when their leader fell into
a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three
sentences ; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged
him with cords ; and shrieked out for the Captain at mid-
night.
" Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the
blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for
the forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and,
bound hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved
up into the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the
honor of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder.
But all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like
dead cattle ; and, side by side, were seized up into the mizen
rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till
morning. ' Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro
before them, ' the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains !'
"At sunrise he summoned all hands ; and separating those
who had rebelled from those who had taken no part in the
mutiny, he told the former that he had a good mind to flog
them all round — thought, upon the whole, he would do so —
he ought to — justice demanded it ; but for the present, con-
sidering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a
reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacu-
lar.
" ' 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
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 285
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 Cap-
tain drew off with the rope to strike.
" ' Best not,' hissed the Lakeman.
" ' But I must,' — and the rope was once more drawn back for
the stroke.
" Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the
Captain ; who, to the amazement of all hands, started back,
paced the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly
throwing down his rope, said, 1 1 won't do it — let him go — cut
him down : d'ye hear ?'
But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order,
a pale man, with a bandaged head, arrested them — Radney the
chief mate. Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth ; but
that morning, hearing the tumult on . the deck, he had crept
out, and thus far had watched the whole scene. Such was the
state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak ; but mumbling
something about his being willing and able, to do what the
captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced
to his pinioned foe.
" ' You are a coward !' hissed the Lakeman.
" ' So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of
striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused :
286 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
and then pausing no more, made good his word, spite of Steel-
kilt's threat, -whatever that might have been. The three men
were then cut down, all hands were turned to, and, sullenly-
worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as before.
" Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below,
a clamor was heard in the forecastle ; and the two trembling
traitors running up, besieged the cabin door, saying they durst
not consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could
not drive them back, so at their own instance they were put
down in the ship's run for salvation. Still, no sign of mutiny
reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, that
mainly at Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain
the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when
the ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to
insure the speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to ano-
ther thing — namely, not to sing out for whales, in case any
should be discovered. For, spite of her leak, and spite of all
her other perils, the Town-Ho still maintained her mast-heads,
and her captain was just as willing to lower for a fish that
moment, as on the day his craft first struck the cruising ground ;
and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his berth
for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death
the vital jaw of the whale.
" But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt
this sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own coun-
sel (at least till all was over) concerning his own proper and
piivate revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ven-
tricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief mate's watch ;
and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than half way
to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted,
against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the
head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other
circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the r>lan of his
revenge.
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 287
"During the night, Raclney had an unseamanlike way of sitting
on the bulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon
the gunwale of the boat which was hoisted up there, a little
above the ship's side. In this attitude, it was well known, he
sometimes dozed. There was a considerable vacancy between
the boat and the ship, and down between this was the sea.
Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next trick at the
helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the
third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his
leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something veiy
carefully in his watches below.
" ' What are you making there V said a shipmate.
" ' What do you think ? what does it look like ?'
" ' Like a lanyard for your bag ; but it's an odd one, seems to
me.'
" ' Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's
length before him ; " but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I
haven't enough twine, — have you any V
" But there was none in the forecastle.
" 'Then I must get some from old Rad ;' and he rose to go aft.
" ' You don't mean to go a begging to him /' said a sailor.
" 'Why not ? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's
to help himself in the end, shipmate ?' and going to the mate,
he looked at him quietly, and asked him for some twine to
mend his hammock. It was given him — neither twine nor lan-
yard were seen again ; but the next night an iron ball, closely
netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the Lakeman's monkey
jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for a pil-
low. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm —
nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always
ready dug to the seaman's hand — that fatal hour was then to
come ; and in the fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was
already stark and stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed
288 THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
"But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the
bloody deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had,
and without being the avenger. For by a mysterious fatality,
Heaven itself seemed to step in to take out of his hands into its
own the damning thing he would have done.
" It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of
the second day, when they were washing down the decks, that
a stupid Teneriffe man, drawing water in the main-chains, all at
once shouted out, ' There she rolls ! there she rolls !' Jesu,
what a whale ! It was Moby Dick.
" ' Moby Dick !? cried Don Sebastian ; ' St. Dominic ! Sir
sailor, but do whales have christenings ? Whom call you Moby
Dick?'
" ' A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal
monster, Don ; — but that would be too long a story.'
" ' How ? how ? ' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding.
" ' Nay, Dons, Dons — nay, nay ! I cannot rehearse that now,
Let me get more into the ah', Sirs.'
" ' The chicha ! the chicha !' cried Don Pedro ; ' our vigorous
friend looks faint ; — fill up up his empty glass !'
" No need, gentlemen ; one moment, and I proceed. — Now.
gentlemen, so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty
yards of the ship — forgetful of the compact among the crew —
in the excitement of the moment, the Teneriffe man had in-
stinctively and involuntarily lifted his voice for the monster
though for some little time past it had been plainly beheld
from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy. • The
White Whale — the White Whale ! ' was the cry from captain,
mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumors, were
all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish ; while the
dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling
beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal
spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the
blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 289
whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out before the
world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of
the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next
him, while Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and
haul in or slacken the line, at the word of command. More-
over, when the four boats were lowered, the mate's got the start ;
and none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt,
as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer
got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. He
was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his
bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back.
Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a
blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a
sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling
over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on
the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed
aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the sea,
on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the
spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil,
wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick.
But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom ; seized
the swimmer between his jaws ; and rearing high up with him,
plunged headlong again, and went down.
" Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lake-
man had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirl-
pool ; calmly looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But
a sudden, terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly
brought his knife to the line. He cut it ; and the whale was
free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose again, with some
tatters of Radney's red woollen shirt, caught in the teeth that
had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again ; but the
whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.
" In good time, the Town -Ho reached her port — a savage,
solitary place — where no civilized creature resided. There,
13
290 ' THE TOWN-HO'S STORY.
headed by the Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremast-men
deliberately deserted among the palms ; eventually, as it turned
out, seizing a large double war-canoe of the savages, and setting
sail for some other harbor.
" The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the
captain called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious
business of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to
such unresting vigilance over their dangerous allies was this
small band of whites necessitated, both by night and by day,
and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, that upon
the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a weak-
ened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in
so heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he
anchored the ship as far off shore as possible ; loaded and ran
out his two cannon from the bows ; stacked his muskets on the
poop ; and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at
their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his
best whaleboat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five
hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew.
" On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried,
which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He
steered away from it ; but the savage craft bore down on him ;
and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he
would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol.
"With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the
Lakeman laughed him to scorn ; assuring him that if the pistol
so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles
and foam.
" 'What do you want of me ? ' cried the captain.
" ' Where are you bound ? and for what are you bound V
demanded Steelkilt ; ' no lies.'
" ' I am bound to Tahiti for more men.'
" ' Very good. Let me board you a moment — I come in
peace.' With that he leaped from the canoe, swam to the
THE TOWN-HO'S STORY. 291
boat ; and climbing the gunwale, stood face to face with the
captain.
" ' Cross your arms, sir ; throw back your head. Now, repeat
after me. As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this
boat on yonder island, and remain there six days. If I do not,
may lightnings strike me !'
" ' A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. ' Adios, Sen or !'
and leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades.
"Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up
to the roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again,
and in due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination.
There, luck befriended him ; two ships were about to sail for
France, and were providentially in want of precisely that num-
ber of men which the sailor headed. They embarked ; and so
for ever got the start of their former captain, had he been at all
minded to work them legal retribution.
" Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat
arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more
civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea.
Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to
his vessel ; and finding all right there, again resumed his
cruisings.
" Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know ; but upon
the island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the
sea which refuses to give up its dead ; still in dreams sees the
awful white whale that destroyed him. * * * *
" ' Are you through ?' said Don Sebastian, quietly.
" ' I am, Don.'
" ' Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own con-
victions, this your story is in substance really true ? It is so
passing wonderful ! Did you get it from an unquestionable
source ? Bear with me if I seem to press.'
' " Also bear with all of us, sir sailor ; for we all join in Don
Sebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest.
292 MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES.
' " Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn,
gentlemen?'
" ' Nay,' said Don Sebastian ; ' but I know a worthy priest
near by, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it ; but
are you well advised ? this may grow too serious.'
" ' Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don ?'
" ' Though there are no Auto-da-Fes in Lima now,' said one
of the company to another ; ' I fear our sailor friend runs risk
of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moon-
light. I see no need of this.'
" ' Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian ; but may
I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest
sized Evangelists you can.'
* * * * * *
" ' This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said
Don Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.
" ' Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into
the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch
it.'
" ' So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told
ye, gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know
it to be true ; it happened on this ball ; I trod the ship ; I knew
the crew ; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death
of Radney.' "
CHAPTER LV.
OF THE MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES.
I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without can-
vas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually ap-
pears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body
the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship so that he can be
MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES. 293
fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore,
previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him
which even down to the present day confidently challenge the
faith of the landsman. It is time to set the world right in this
matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong.
It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delu-
sions will be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and
Grecian sculptures. For ever since those inventive but unscru-
pulous times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pe-
destals of statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and coins,
the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin's,
and a helmeted head like St. George's ; ever since then has
something of the same sort of license prevailed, not only in
most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific pre-
sentations of him.
Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways
purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous ca-
vern-pagoda of Elephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain
that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pago-
da, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of
man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came
into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble pro-
fession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The
Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of
the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of
leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though
this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the
tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong.
It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the
broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes.
But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian
painter's portrait of this fish ; for he succeeds no better than the
antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing
Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido
294 MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES.
get the model of such a strange creature as that ? Nor does
Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his own " Perseus De-
scending," make out one whit better. The huge corpulence of
that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely
drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its
back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows
are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from
the Thames by water into the Tower. Then, there are the
Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale,
as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old pri-
mers. What shall be said of these ? As for the book-binder's
whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descend-
ing anchor — as stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages
of many books both old and new — that is a very picturesque
but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like
figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated a
dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an at-
tempt at a whale ; because it was so intended when the device
was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian pub-
lisher somewhere about the 15 th century, during the Revival of
Learning ; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively
late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of
the Leviathan.
In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient
books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the
whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and
cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his
unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the original edition of
the " Advancement of Learning" you will find some curious
whales.
But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance
at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific
delineations, by those who know. In old Harris's collection of
voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch
MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES. 295
book of voyages, A. D. 1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to
Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of
Friesland, master." In one of those plates the whales, like
great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, with
white bears running over their living backs. In another plate,
the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with
perpendicular flukes.
Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Cap-
tain 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, 1*793, 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 accompany-
ing 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 His-
tory for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same
heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work " Gold-
smith'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 Levia-
296 MONSTROUS. PICTURES OF WHALES.
than. All these are not only incorrect, but the picture of the
Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say, the Eight whale),
even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching that spe-
cies, declares not to have its counterpart in nature.
But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering busi-
ness was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to
the famous Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History
of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a picture of the
Sperm Whale. Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer,
you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket.
In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale,
but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whal-
ing voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived
that picture, who can tell ? Perhaps he got it as his scientific
predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authen-
tic abortions ; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort
of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups
and saucers inform us.
As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging
over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them ? They
are generally Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and
very savage ; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is
whaleboats full of mariners : their deformities floundering in
seas of blood and blue paint.
But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so
very surprising after all. Consider ! Most of the scientific draw-
ings have been taken from the stranded fish ; and these are
about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken
back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its
undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have
stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet
fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his
full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in un-
fathomable waters ; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of
MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES. 297
sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship ; and out of that ele-
ment it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist
him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells
and undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable
difference of contour between a young sucking whale and a full-
grown Platonian Leviathan ; yet, even in the case of one of
those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such is
then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him,
that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch.
But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the
stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true
form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things
about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of
his general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which
hangs for candelabra in the library of one of his executors,
correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old
gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteris-
tics ; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any levia-
than's articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the
mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully
invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis
that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly
evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be inci-
dentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side
fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the
human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular
bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all
these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the
human fingers in an artificial covering. " However recklessly
the whale may sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one
day, " he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens."
For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you
must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one crea-
ture in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.
13*
298 LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES.
True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another,
but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exact-
ness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what
the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you
can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by
going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small
risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it
seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity
touching this Leviathan.
CHAPTER LVI.
4
OF THE LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES OF WHALES, AND THE TRUE
PICTURES OF WHALING SCENES.
In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am
strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous
stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both
ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt,
Harris, Cuvier, &c. But I pass that matter by.
I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm
Whale ; Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's.
In the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred
to. Huggins's is far better than theirs ; but, by great odds,Beale's
is the best. All Beale's drawings of this whale are good, except-
ing the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various atti-
tudes, capping his second chapter. His frontispiece, boats
attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the
civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and
life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale
drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour ; but
they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.
LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES. 2i)9
Of the Right Whale, the hest outline pictures are in Scoresby ;
but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable
impression. He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is
a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all
well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of
the living whale as seen by his living hunters.
But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some
details not the most correct, presentations of whales and
whaling scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French en-
gravings, well executed, and taken from paintings by one
Garnery. Respectively, they represent attacks on the Sperm
and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble Sperm Whale
is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat
from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air
upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The
prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balanc-
ing upon the monster's spine ; and standing in that prow, for
that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an oars-
man, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale,
and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of
the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The half-
emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea ; the wooden poles
of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it ; the heads of the
swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting ex-
pressions of affright ; while in the black stormy distance the ship
is bearing down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found
with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass ;
since, for the life of me, I could not draw so good a one.
In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing
alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale,
that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-
slide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and
black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the
chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking
300 LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES.
in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small
crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the
Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all
the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the
deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and
causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught
nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the fore-
ground is all raging commotion ; but behind, in admirable
artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the droop-
ing unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of
a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture
lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my
life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject,
or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman.
The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon
all the paintings of Europe, and where will you find such a
gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in
that triumphal hall at Versailles ; where the beholder fights his
way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France ;
where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and
the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge
of crowned centaurs ? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that
gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.
The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesque-
ness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings
and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not
one tenth of England's experience in the fishery, and not the
thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have neverthe-
less furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all
capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. For
the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen
seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of
things, such as the vacant profile of the whale ; which, so far as
LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES. 301
picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to
sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly
renowned Right -whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of
the Greenland whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of
narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engrav-
ings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels ; and with
the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the in-
spection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified
Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the ex-
cellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so important
a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for
every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice
of the Peace.
In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are
two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who
subscribes himself " H. Durand.'' One of them, though not
precisely adapted to our present purpose, nevertheless deserves
mention on other accounts. It is a quiet noon-scene among
the isles of the Pacific ; a French whaler anchored, inshore, in
a calm, and lazily taking water on board ; the loosened sails of
the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background,
both drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very
fine, when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy
fishermen under one of their few aspects of oriental repose.
The other engraving is quite a different affair : the ship hove-to
upon the open sea, and in the very heart of the Leviathanic
life, with a Right Whale alongside ; the vessel (in the act of
cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a quay ; and a
boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is about
giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and
lances lie levelled for use ; three oarsmen are just setting the
mast in its hole ; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little
craft stands half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse.
From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale
302 WHALES VARIOUSLY REPRESENTED.
is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies ; and to
windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and
rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.
CHAPTER LVII.
OF WHALES IN PAINT J IN TEETH ; IN WOOD ; IN SHEET-IRON ;
I«T STONE ; IN MOUNTAINS J IN STARS.
On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you
may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say)
holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic
scene in which he lost his leg. There are three whales and
three boats ; and one of the boats (presumed to contain the
missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by
the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years,
they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited
that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justi-
fication has now come. His three whales are as good whales
as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate ; and his
stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the
western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump,
never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make ; but, with
downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputa-
tion.
Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New
Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches
of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen them-
selves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of
the Right Whale-bone, and other like skrimshander articles, as
the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances
they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours
of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes of dentistical-
WHALES VARIOUSLY REPRESENTED. 303
looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering
business. But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone ;
and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will
turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's
fancy.
Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably
restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i. e.
what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a
savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no alle-
giance but to the King of the Cannibals ; and ready at any
moment to rebel against him.
Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his
domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An
ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multipli-
city and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human
perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken
sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden
net-work has been achieved ; and it has cost steady years of
steady application.
As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-
savage. With the same marvellous patience, and with the
same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will
carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike,
but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek
►savage, Achilles's shield ; and full of barbaric spirit and suggest-
iveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert
Durer.
Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small
dark slabs of the noble South Sea war- wood, are frequently met
with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them
are done with much accuracy.
At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see
brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side t
door. When the porter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale
304 WHALES VARIOUSLY REPRESENTED.
would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom remark-
able as faithful essays. On the spires of some old-fashioned
churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for weather-
cocks ; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all in-
tents and purposes so labelled with " Hands off!" you cannot
examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit.
In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high
broken cliffs masses of rock he strewn in fantastic groupings
upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified
forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy
day breaks against them in a surf of green surges.
Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is
continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights ; here and there
from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses
of the profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges.
But you must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights ;
and not only that, but if you wish to return to such a sight
again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude
and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are
such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-
point would require a laborious re-discovery ; like the Soloma
islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed
Mend anna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.
Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to
trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pur-
suit of them ; as when long filled with thoughts of war the
Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds.
Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round
the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first de-
fined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies
I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against
the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and
the Flying Fish.
With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of har-
BRIT. 305
poons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the
topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their
countless tents really he encamped beyond my mortal sight !
CHAPTER LVIII.
BRIT.
Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with
vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which
the Right "Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it
undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through
boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat.
On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen,
who, secure from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the
Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit,
which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian
blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the
water that escaped at the lip.
As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly
advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy
meads ; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy,
cutting sound ; and leaving behind them endless swaths of
blue upon the yellow sea.*
But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit
which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-
heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a
* That part of the sea known among whalemen as the " Brazil Banks"
does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because
of there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remark-
able meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually
floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.
306 BRIT.
while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of
rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting
countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes
pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowmg them
to be such, taking* them for bare, blackened elevations of the
soil ; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds
this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even when re-
cognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard
really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can
possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that
lives in a dog or a horse.
Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures
of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the
shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that
all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea ; and
though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very
well be ; yet coming to specialities, where, for example, does the
ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the
sagacious kindness of the dog ? The accursed shark alone can
in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to
him.
But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of
the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably
unsocial and repelling ; though we know the sea to be an ever-
lasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over number-
less unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one ;
though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters
have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and
hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the
waters ; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that
however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and
however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may
augment ; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the
sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize tho stateliest,
BRIT. 307
stiffest frigate lie can make; nevertheless, by the continual
repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of
the full awfulness of the sea -which aboriginally belongs to it.
The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with
Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without
leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now ;
that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year.
Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided ; two
thirds of the fair world it yet covers.
Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one
is not a miracle upon the other ? Preternatural terrors rested
upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company
the five ground opened and swallowed them up for ever ; yet
not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner
the five sea swallows up ships and crews.
But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to
it, but it is also a fiend to its own offspring ; worse than the
Persian host who murdered his own guests ; sparing not the
creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress
that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea
dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves
them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No
mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting
like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless
ocean overruns the globe.
Consider the subtleness of the sea ; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, un apparent for the most part, and
treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Con-
sider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most
remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many
species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibal-
ism of the sea ; all whose creatures prey upon each other,
carrying on eternal war since the world began.
, Consider all this ; and then turn to this green, gentle, and
308 SQUID.
most docile earth ; consider them both, the sea and the land ;
and do you not find a strange analogy to something in
yourself? For as this appalhng ocean surrounds the verdant
land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of
peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half
known life. God keep thee ! Push not off from that isle,
thou canst never return !
CHAPTER LIX.
SQUID.
Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod
still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java ;
a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding
serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved to that
languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain. And still, at
wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, alluring jet would
be seen.
But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost
preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any
stagnant calm ; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters
seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secresy ;
when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran
on ; in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre
was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.
In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising
higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at
last gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from
the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided,
and sank. Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It
seemed not a whale ; and yet is this Moby Dick ? thought
Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing
SQUID. 309
once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from
his nod, the negro yelled out — " There ! there again ! there she
breaches ! right ahead ! The White Whale, the White Whale !"
Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarm-
ing-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the
sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand
pushed far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the helms-
man, cast his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the
outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.
Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary
jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now pre-
pared to connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first
sight of the particular whale he pursued ; however this was, or
whether his eagerness betrayed him ; whichever way it might
have been, no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass,
than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders for low-
ering.
The four boats were soon on the water ; Ahab's in advance,
and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and
while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance,
lo ! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose.
Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick,
we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the
secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy
mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color,
lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating
from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacon-
das, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach.
No perceptible face or front did it have ; no conceivable token
of either sensation or instinct ; but undulated there on the bil-
lows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again,
Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk,
with a wild voice exclaimed — " Almost rather had I seen Moby
310 SQUID.
Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white
ghost !"
" What was it, Sir ?" said Flask.
" The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever
beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it."
But Ahab said nothing ; turning his boat, he sailed back to
the vessel ; the rest as silently following.
Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have
connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a
glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone
far to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that
though one and all of them declare it to be the largest ani-
mated thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but
the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form ;
notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale
his only food. For though other species of whales find their
food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feed-
ing, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown
zones below the surface ; and only by inference is it that any
one can tell of what, precisely, that food consists. At times,
when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be
the detached arms of the squid ; some of them thus exhibited
exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that
the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by
them to the bed of the ocean ; and that the sperm whale, unlike
other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.
There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken
of Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid.
The manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately ris-
ing and sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all
this the two correspond. But much abatement is necessary
with respect to the incredible bulk he assigns it.
By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the
mysterious creature, hei'e spoken of, it is included among the
THE LINE. 311
class of cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects
it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.
CHAPTER LX.
THE LINE.
With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described,
as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes else-
where presented, I have here to speak of the magical, some-
times horrible whale-line.
The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp,
slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the
case of ordinary ropes ; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes
the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the
rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use ;
yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the
whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected ;
but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no
means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much
it may give it compactness and gloss.
Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery
almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines ;
for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more
soft and elastic ; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in
all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat,
than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian ;
but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold.
The whale line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness.
At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is.
By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight
of one hundred and twenty pounds ; so that the whole rope will
bear a strain nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common
312 THE LINE.
sperm whale-line measures something over two hundred fa-
thoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally coiled away
in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so as
to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded
"sheaves," or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any
hollow but the " heart," or minute vertical tube formed at the
axis of the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling
would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm, leg, or
entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the
line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire
morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then
reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in
the act of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists.
In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one ; the
same line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is
some advantage in this ; because these twin-tubs being so small
they fit more readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much ;
whereas, the American tub, nearly three feet in diameter and
of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a
craft whose planks are but one half-inch in thickness ; for the
bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up
a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a con-
centrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on
the American line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off
with a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.
Both ends of the line are exposed ; the lower end terminat-
ing in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against
the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely dis-
engaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end
is necessary on two accounts. First : In order to facilitate the
fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in
case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten
to carry off the entire line originally attached to the har-
poon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like
THE LINE. 313
a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other ;
though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort.
Second : This arrangement is indispensable for common safety's
sake ; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached
to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the
end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does,
he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly
be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea ;
and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.
Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the
line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the logger-
head there, is again earned forward the entire length of the
boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's
oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing ; and also passing
between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gun-
wales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed
prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a
common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks
it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed
inside the boat again ; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called
box-fine) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues
its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then
attached to the short-warp — the rope which is immediately con-
nected with the harpoon ; but previous to that connexion, the
short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to
detail.
Thus the whale-fine folds the whole boat in its complicated
coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction.
All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions ; so
that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian
jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their
limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time,
seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining
his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown
14
314 THE LINE.
instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible con-
tortion be put in play like ringed lightnings ; he cannot be thus
circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow
in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit —
strange thing ! what cannot habit accomplish ? — Gayer sallies,
more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you
never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the
half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus hung in
hangman's nooses ; and, like the six burghers of Calais before
King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the
jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may
say.
Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account
for those repeated whaling disasters — some few of which are
casually chronicled — of this man or that man being taken out
of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting
out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the
midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play,
when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you.
It is worse ; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these
perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are
pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning ;
and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneous-
ness of volition and action, can you escape being made a
Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun him-
self could never pierce you out.
Again : as the profound calm which only apparently precedes
and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the
6torm 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 explo-
sion ; 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
STUBB KILLS A WHALE. 315
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, ever-present
perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in
the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of
terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a
poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.
CHAPTER LXI.
STUBB KILLS A WHALE.
If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of
portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object.
" When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his
harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, " then you quick see
him 'parm whale."
The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with
nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly
resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this
part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging
is not what whalemen call a lively ground ; that is, it affords
fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other
vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio
de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.
It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head ; and with my
shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and
fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolu-
tion could withstand it ; in that dreamy mood losing all con-
sciousness, at last my soul went out of my body ; though my
body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the
power which first moved it is withdrawn.
316 STUBB KILLS A WHALE.
Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that
the seamen at the main and mizen mast-heads were already
drowsy. So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from
the spars, and for every swing that we made there was a nod
from below from the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too,
nodded their indolent crests ; and across the wide trance of the
sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.
Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes ;
like vices my hands grasped the shrouds ; some invisible, gracious
agency preserved me ; with a shock I came back to life. And
lo ! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm
"Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate,
his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the
sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of
the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet,
the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a
warm afternoon. But that pipe', poor whale, was thy last. As
if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and eveiy
sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness ; and more than
a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with
the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as
the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine
into the air.
"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying
his own order, he 'dashed the helm down before the helmsman
could handle the spokes.
The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the
whale ;• and ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he
swam away to the leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity,
and making so few ripples as he swam, that thinking after all
he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an
oar should be used, and no man must speak but in whispers.
So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we
swiftly but silently paddled along ; the calm not admitting of
STUBB KILLS A WHALE. 317
the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in
chase, the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into
the ah, and then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.
" There go flukes !" was the cry, an announcement immedi-
ately followed by Stubb's producing his match and igniting his
pipe, for now a respite was granted. After the full interval
of his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being
now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much nearer to it
than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honor of the
capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length be-
come aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was
therefore no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars
came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb
cheered on his crew to the assault.
Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to
his jeopardy, he was going " head out ;" that part obliquely pro-
jecting from the mad yeast which he brewed.*
" Start her, start her, my men ! Don't hurry yourselves ; take
plenty of time — but start her ; start her like thunder-claps, that's
all," cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. " Start
her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego.
Start her, Tash, my boy — start her, all ; but keep cool, keep
cool — cucumbers is the word — easy, easy — only start her like
grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead per-
pendicular out of their graves, boys — that's all. Start her !"
* It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance
the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though
apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about
him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does so
when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the
upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water for-
mation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby
may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into
a sharp-pointed New York pilot-boat.
318 STUBB KILLS A WHALE.
" Woo-hoo ! Wa-hee !" screamed the Gay-Header in reply,
raising some old war-whoop to the skies ; as every oarsman in
the strained boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one
tremendous leading stroke which the eager Indian gave.
But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild.
" Kee-hee ! Kee-hee !'' yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and
backwards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage.
" Ka-la ! Koo-loo !" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his
lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars
and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his
place in the van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all' the
while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they
tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard —
" Stand up, Tashtego ! — give it to him !" The harpoon was
hurled. " Stern all !" The oarsmen backed water ; the same
moment something went hot and hissing along every one of their
wrists. It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had
swiftly caught two additional turns with it round the logger-
head, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings, a
hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady
fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the
loggerhead ; so also, just before reaching that point, it blister-
ingly passed through and through both of Stubb's bands, from
which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes
worn at these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like
holding an enemy's sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and
that enemy all the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch.
" Wet the line ! wet the line !" cried Stubb to the tub oars-
man (him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat,
dashed the sea-water into it.* More turns were taken, so that
* Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be
stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running
line with water ; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set
apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most convenient.
STUBB KILLS A WHALE. 319
the line began holding its place. The boat now flew through
the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here
changed places — stem for stern — a staggering business truly in
that rocking commotion.
From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the
upper part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than
a harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keels —
one cleaving the water, the other the air — as the boat churned
on through both opposing elements at once. A continual cas-
cade played at the bows ; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake ;
and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little
finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic
gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed ; each man with
might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to
the foam ; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar
crouching almost double, in order to bring down his centre of
gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifies seemed passed as they
shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened
his flight.
" Haul in — haul in ! " cried Stubb to the bowsman ! and,
facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the
boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon
ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the
clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying fish; at
the word of command, the boat alternately sterning out of
the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging up
for another fling.
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like
brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine
but in blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in
their wake. The slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond
in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they
all glowed to each other like red men. And all the while, jet
after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle
320 STUBB KILLS A WHALE.
of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of
the excited headsman ; as at every dart, hauling in upon his
crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it
again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then
again and again sent it into the whale.
" Pull up — pull up ! " he now cried to the bowsman, as the
waning whale relaxed in his wrath. " Pull up ! — close to ! **
and the boat ranged along the fish's flank. When reaching far
over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the
fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if
cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale
might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking
ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was
the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck ; for, start-
ing from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his
"flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, over-
wrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that
the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado
blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the
clear air of the day.
And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled
out into view ; surging from side to side ; spasmodically dilat-
ing and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, ago-
nized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore,
as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the
frighted air ; and falling back again, ran dripping down his
motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst I
" He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.
" Yes ; both pipes smoked out !" and withdrawing his own
from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water ;
and, for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he
had made.
THE DART. 321
CHAPTER LXE.
THE DART.
A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.
According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-
boat pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-
killer as temporary steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-
fastener pulling the foremost oar, the one known as the
harpoon eer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous arm to strike
the first iron into the fish ; for often, in what is called a long
dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of
twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting
the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile
to the uttermost ; indeed, he is expected to set an example of
superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing,
but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations ; and what it is
to keep shouting at the top of one's compass, while all the other
muscles are strained and half started — what that is none
know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl
very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same
time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to
the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting
cry — " Stand up, and give it to him !'' He now has to drop
and secure his oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his
harpoon from the crotch, and with what little strength may
remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No
wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out
of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful ; no wonder
that, so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and dis-
rated ; no wonder that some of them actually burst their blood-
14*
322 THE CROTCH.
vessels in the boat ; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are
absent four years with four barrels ; no wonder that to many-
ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern ; for it is the
harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath
out of his body how can you expect to find it there when most
wanted !
Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical
instant, that is, when the whale starts to run, the boat-header
and harpooneer likewise start to running fore and aft, to the im-
minent jeopardy of themselves and every one else. It is then
they change places ; and the headsman, the chief officer of the
little craft, takes his proper station in the bows of the boat.
Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is
both foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in
the bows from first to last ; he should both dart the harpoon
and the lance, and no rowing whatever should be expected of
him, except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman. I
know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in
the chase ; but long experience in various whalemen of more
than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of
failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much
the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the
harpooneer that has caused them.
To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers
of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and
not from out of toil.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE CROTCH.
Out of the trunk, the branches grow ; out of them, the
twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.
THE CROTCH. 323
The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves inde-
pendent mention. It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some
two feet in length, which is perpendicularly inserted into the
starboard gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of furnishing a
rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoon, whose other
naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow. Thereby
the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it up
as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from
the wall. It is customary to "have two harpoons reposing in the
crotch, respectively called the first and second irons.
But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both con-
nected with the line ; the object being this : to dart them both,
if possible, one instantly after the other into the same whale ;
so that if, in the coming drag, one should draw out, the other
may still retain a hold. It is a doubling of the chances. But
it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous, violent,
convulsive running tof the whale upon receiving the first iron, it
becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in
his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless,
as the second iron is already connected with the line, and the line
is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be antici-
patingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere ; else
the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled
into the water, it accordingly is in such cases ; the spare coils of
box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in
most instances, prudently practicable. But this critical act is
not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casual-
ties.
Furthermore : you must know that when the second iron is
thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-
edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale,
-entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious
sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to
secure it agam until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse.
324 STUBB'S SUPPER.
Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all
engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale ;
when owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand
concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten
loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him.
For, of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend
on to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted with-
out recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here,
as they will not fail to elucidate several most important, how-
ever intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted.
CHAPTER LXIV.
stubb's supper.
Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship.
It was a calm ; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we com-
menced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod.
And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one
hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after
hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea ; and it seemed
hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals ; good evidence
was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we
moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever
they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will
draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour ; but
this grand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden
with pig-lead in bulk.
Darkness came on ; but three lights up and down in the Pe-
quod's main-rigging dimly guided our way ; till drawing nearer
we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the
bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment,
he issued the usual orders for securing it for the night, and then
STUB B'S SUPPER. 325
handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way into the cahin,
and did not come forward again until morning.
Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab
had evinced his customary activity, to call it so ; yet now that
the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience,
or despair, seemed working in him ; as if the sight of that dead
body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain ; and
though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all
that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object.
Very soon you would have thought from the sound on the
Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in
the deep ; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck,
and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clank
ing links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored.
Tied by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the
whale now lies with its black hull close to the vessel's, and seen
through the darkness of the night, which obscured the spars
and rigging aloft, the two — ship and whale, seemed yoked
together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while the
other remains standing.*
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as
could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with
*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most
reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,
is by the flukes or tail ; and as from its greater density that part is rela-
tively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even
in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface ; so that with the hand
you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it.
But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome : a small, strong line is pre-
pared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle,
while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the
wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now
having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit ; and
being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest
part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
326 STUBB'S SUPPER.
conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excite-
ment. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Star-
buck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the timo
the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of
all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest.
Stubb was a high liver ; he was somewhat intemperately fond
of the whale as a fiavorish thing to his palate.
" A steak, a steak, ere I sleep ! You, Daggoo ! overboard
you go, and cut me one from his small !"
Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not,
as a general thing, and according to the great military maxim,
make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at
least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and
then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine
relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale desig-
nated by Stubb ; comprising the tapering extremity of the
body.
About midnight that steak was cut and cooked ; and lighted
by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his sper-
maceti supper at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a
sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale's
flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mas-
tications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round
the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The
few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the
sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches
of the sleepers' hearts. Peering over the side you could just
see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen,
black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped
out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human
head. This particular feat of the shark seems all but miracu-
lous. How, at such an apparently unassailable surface, they
contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a
part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they
STUBB'S SUPPER. 327
thus leave on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow
made by a carpenter in countersinking for a screw.
Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-
fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's
decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being
carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to
them ; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-
table are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with
carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with
their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under
the table at the dead meat ; and though, were you to turn the
whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same
thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for
all parties ; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders
of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting
alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere,
or a dead slave to be decently buried ; and though one or two
other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms,
places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate,
and most hilariously feast ; yet is there no conceivable time or
occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and
in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale,
moored by night to a whale-ship at sea. If you have never
seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety
of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.
But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet
that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded
the smacking of his own epicurean lips.
" Cook, cook ! — where's that old Fleece ?" he cried at length,
widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base
for his supper ; and, at the same time darting his fork into the
dish, as if stabbing with his lance ; " cook, you cook ! — sail this
way, cook !"
The old black, not in any very high glee at having been pre-
328 STUBB'S SUPPER.
viously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable
hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old
blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pans,
which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans ; this old
Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along,
assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion,
were made of straightened iron hoops ; this old Ebony floun-
dered 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 ai-e wel-
come 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," snatch-
ing one from his sideboard; "now then, go and preach to
'em !"
Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across
the deck to the bulwarks ; and then, with one hand dropping
his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his con-
gregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs,
and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began ad-
dressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, over-
heard 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
STUBB'S SUPPER. 329
de lip ! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up
to de hatchings, but by Gor ! you must stop dat dam racket !"
" Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with
a sudden slap on the shoulder, — " Cook ! why, damn your eyes,
you mustn't swear that way when you're preaching. That's no
way to convert sinners, Cook !"
" Who dat ? Den preach to him yourself" sullenly turning
to go.
" No, Cook ; go on, go on."
" Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters : " —
" Right !" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, " coax 'em to it ;
try that," and Fleece continued.
" Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I
zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness— 'top dat dam
slappin' ob de tail ! How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up
such a dam slappin' and bitin' dare ?"
" Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, " I wont have that swear-
ing. Talk to 'em gentlemanly."
Once more the sermon proceeded.
"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so
much for ; dat is natur, and can't be helped ; but to gobern dat
wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin ; but if you
gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel ; for all angel is
not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. JSTow, look here,
bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yoursebls from
dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neigh-
bour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as todev
to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right
to dat whale; dat whale belong. to some one else. I know
some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders ; but den
de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies ; so dat de brig-
ness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but to bite off de blubber
for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help
demselves."
330 STUBB'S SUPPER.
"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity;
go on."
" No use goin' on ; de dam willains will keep a scrougin' and
slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb ; dey don't hear one word ; no
use a-preachin' to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare
bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless ; and when dey do
get em full, dey wont hear you den ; for den dey sink in de sea,
go fast to sleep on de coral, and can't hear not'ing at all, no more,
for eber and eber."
" Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion ; so give
the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to my supper."
Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob,
raised his shrill voice, and cried —
" Cussed fellow-critters ! Kick up de damndest row as ever
you can ; fill your dam' bellies 'till dey bust — and den die."
" Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan ;
" Stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and
pay particular attention."
"All dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his
tongs in the desired position.
" Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile ; " I
shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first
place, how old are you, cook ? "
" What dat do wid de 'teak," said the old black, testily.
" Silence ! How old are you, cook ? "
" 'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered.
" And have you lived in this world hard upon one hundred
years, cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak ? "
rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that that
morsel seemed a continuation of the question. " Where were
you born, cook ? "
"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke.''
"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to
know what country you were born in, cook ?"
STUBB'S SUPPER. 331
" Didn't I say de Eoanoke 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, cook ; — here, hand me those tongs ; — now take
that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak
cooked as it should be ? Take it, I say" — holding the tongs
towards him — " take it, and taste it."
Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the
old negro muttered, " Best cooked 'teak I eber taste ; joosy,
berry joosy."
" Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more ; " do you
belong to the church ? "
"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sul-
lenly.
" And you have once in your life passed a holy church in
Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson
addressing his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you,
cook ! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful
lie as you did just now, eh ?" said Stubb. " Where do you
expect to go to, cook ? "
" Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled,, half-turning as he
spoke.
" Avast ! heave to ! I mean when you die, cook. It's an
awful question. Now what's your answer ? "
"When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly,
changing his whole air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go
nowhere ; but some bressed angel will come and fetch him."
" Fetch him ? How ? In a coach and four, as they fetched
Elijah ? And fetch him where ?"
" Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his
head, and keeping It there very solemnly.
332 STUBB'S SUPPER.
" So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you,
cook, when you are dead ? But don't you know the higher
you climb, the colder it gets ? Main-top eh ? "
" Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks.
" You said up there, didn't you ? and now look yourself, and
see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect
to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole,
cook ; but, no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the
regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but
must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in
heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do
ye hear ? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top
of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What ! that
your heart, there ? — that's your gizzard ! Aloft ! aloft ! — that's
it — now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention."
"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as
desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both
ears in front at one and the same time.
"Well. then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so
very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible ;
you see that, don't you ? Well, for the future, when you cook
another whale-steak for my private table here, the capstan,
I'll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold
the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other ;
that done, dish it ; d'ye • hear ? And now to-morrow, cook,
when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get the
tips of his fins ; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of
the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go."
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off", when he was
recalled.
" Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the
mid- watch. D'ye hear? away you sail, then. — Halloa! stop!
make a bow before you go. — Avast heaving again ! Whale-
balls for breakfast — don't forget."
i
THE WHALE AS A DISH. 333
" Wish, by gov ! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm
bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,"
muttered the old man, limping away ; with which sage ejacu-
lation he went to his hammock.
CHAPTER LXV.
THE WHALE AS A DISH.
That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds
his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may
say ; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go
a little into the history and philosophy of it.
It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the
Eight Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and
commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VHIth's
time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward
for inventing an admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued
porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of whale. Por-
poises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The meat
is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being
well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or
veal balls. The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of
them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown.
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would
by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much
of him ; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie
nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only
the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of
cooked whales ; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidions. We
all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages
of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous
334 THEWHALEASADISH.
doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being ex-
ceedingly juicy and nourishing. And tbis reminds me tbat
certain Englisbmen, wbo long ago were accidentally left in
Greenland by a whaling vessel — that these men actually lived
for several months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had
been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among the
Dutch whalemen these scraps are called " fritters ;" which,
indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and
smelling something like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts
or oly-cooks, when fresh. They have such an eatable look that
the most self-denying stranger can hardly keep his hands off.
But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is
his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too
fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be
as fine eating as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish),
were it not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti
itself, how bland and creamy that is ; like the transparent, half-
jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its
growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter. Ne-
vertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into
some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long
try watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to
dip their ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry
there awhile. Many a good supper have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted
a fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an
axe, and the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (pre-
cisely resembling two large puddings), they are then mixed with
flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor some-
what resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some
epicures ; and every one knows that some young bucks among
the epicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and
by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to
tell a calf 's head from their own heads ; which, indeed, requires
THE WHALE AS A DISH. 335
uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young
buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is some-
how one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a
sort of reproachfully at him, with an " Et tu Brute !" expression.
It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively
unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with
abhorrence ; that appears to result, in some way, from the con-
sideration before mentioned : i. e. that a man should eat a newly
murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light.
But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was
regarded as a murderer ; perhaps he was hung ; and if he had
been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been ; and
he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-
market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds
staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not
that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's jaw ? Cannibals ?
who is not a cannibal ? I tell you it will be more tolerable for
the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against
a coming famine ; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fe-
jee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and
enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and
feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.
But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he ? and
that is adding insult to injury, is it ? Look at your knife-han-
dle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off
that roast beef, what is that handle made of? — what but the
bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating ? And
what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat
goose ? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what
quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of
Cruelty to Ganders formally indite his circulars ? It is only
within the last month or two that that society passed a resolu-
tion to patronize nothing but steel pens.
336 THE SHARK MASSACRE
CHAPTER LXVI.
THE SHARK MASSACRE.
When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale,
after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it
is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once
to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an
exceedingly laborious one ; is not veiy soon completed ; and
requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the common
usage is to take in all sail ; lash the helm a'lee ; and then send
every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reserva-
tion that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept ; that
is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation
shall mount the deck to see that all goes well.
But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this
plan will not answer at all ; because such incalculable hosts of
sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so
for six hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton
would be visible by morning. In most other parts of the
ocean, however, where these fish do not so largely abound, their
wondrous voracity can be at times considerably diminished, by
vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a pro-
cedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to
tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in
the present case with the Pequod's sharks ; though, to be sure,
any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her
side that night, would have almost thought the whole round
sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.
Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his
supper was concluded ; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and
THE SHARK MASSACRE. 337
a forecastle seaman came on deck, no small excitement was
created among the sharks ; for immediately suspending the
cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so
that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these
two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an
incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel
deep into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in
the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the
marksmen could not always hit their mark ; and this brought
about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe.
They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowel-
ments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own ;
till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the
same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor
was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and
ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic
vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what
might be called the individual life had departed. Killed and
hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one of these sharks
almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried to shut
down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.
" Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the
savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and down ; " wedder
Fejee god or Nantucket god ; but de god wat made shark must
be one dam Ingin."
* The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best
steel ; is about the bigness of a man's spread hand ; and in general shape,
corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named ; only its
sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the
lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible ; and when
being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a
stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.
15
338 CUTTING IN
CHAPTER LXVII.
CUTTING IN.
It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed !
Ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen.
The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble ;
every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were
offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.
In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other
ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally paint-
ed green, and which no single man can possibly lift — this vast
bunch of grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly
lashed to the lower mast-head, the strongest point anywhere
above a ship's deck. The end of the hawser-like rope winding
through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass,
and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the
whale ; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some
one hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in
stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed
with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the
insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-
fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the
hole, the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew strik-
ing up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in one dense
crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship careens
over on her side ; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads of
an old house in frosty weather ; she trembles, quivers, and nods
her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans
over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is
answered by a helping heave from the billows ; till at last, a
swift, startling snap is heard ; with a great swash the ship rolls
CUTTING IN. 339
upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle
rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular
end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes
the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped
off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped
by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the
windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in
the water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off
along the line called the " scarf,'' simultaneously cut by the
spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates ; and just as fast as
it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is
all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper
end grazes the main-top ; the men at the windlass then cease
heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious blood-dripping
mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and every
one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings,
else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.
One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long,
keen weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance
he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part
of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second
alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold
upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Where-
upon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand
off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a
few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in
twain ; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long
upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready
for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and
while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the
whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first
strip through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfur-
nished parlor called the blubber-room. Into this twilight apart-
ment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-
340 THE BLANKET.
piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. And
thus the work proceeds ; the two tackles hoisting and lowering
simultaneously ; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers
singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing,
the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way
of assuaging the general friction.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE BLANKET.
I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject,
the skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it with
experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore.
My original opinion remains unchanged ; but it is only an
opinion.
The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale ?
Already you know what his blubber is. That blubber is some-
thing of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher,
more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to
twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.
Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of
any creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and
thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against
such a presumption ; because you cannot raise any other dense
enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber ;
and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably
dense, what can that be but the skin ? True, from the unmarred
dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand
an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling
the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and
soft as satin ; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only
THE BLANKET. 34)
contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I
have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-
books. It is transparent, as I said before ; and being laid upon
the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancy-
ing it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant
to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may
say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infi-
nitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the
entire body of the whale, is not so much to be regarded as the
skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak ; for it
were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tre-
mendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a
new-born child. But no more of this.
Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale ; then,
when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale,
will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil ; and, when it
is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its
expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire sub-
stance of the coat ; some idea may hence be had of the enor-
mousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere
integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning
ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of
only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.
In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least
among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is
all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight
marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian
line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed
upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be
seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself.
Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye,
those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the
ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical ;
that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of
342 THE BLANKET.
pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in
the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hiero-
glyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much
struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chi-
selled 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 pre-
sents, 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 sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of
violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs — I should
say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale
in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in
the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other
whales ; for I have most remarked them in the large, full-
grown bulls of the species.
A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or
blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript
from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-
terms, this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is
indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counter-
pane ; or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and
skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing
of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comforta-
ble in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would
become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy
seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout ? True,
other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean
waters ; but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lung-
less fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that
THE FUNERAL. 343
warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in
winter would bask before an inn fire ; whereas, like man, the
whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he
dies. How wonderful is it then — except after explanation —
that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indis-
pensable as it is to man ; how wonderful that he should be
found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic
waters ! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes
found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts
of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more
surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that
the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo
negro in summer.
It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a
strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls,
and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man ! admire
and model thyself after the whale ! Do thou, too, remain
warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without
uling of it. Be cool at the equator ; keep thy blood fluid at
the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the
great whale, retain, O man ! in all seasons a temperature of
thine own.
But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things !
Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's ! of creatures,
how few vast as the whale !
CHAPTER LXIX.
THE FUNERAL.
" Haul in the chains ! Let the carcase go astern !"
The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled
white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepul-
344 THE FUNERAL
ehre ; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost any-
thing in bulk. It is still colossal. Slowly it floats more and
more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insati-
ate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of
screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poni-
ards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats
further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats,
what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls,
augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the
almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the
unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the plea-
sant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass of death
floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives.
There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral ! The sea-
vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously
in black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped
the whale, I ween, if perad venture he had needed it ; but upon
the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. '-Oh.
hjQKrible_ vultureism^pf earth !.. from which not the mightiest
whale is free.
Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful
ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some
timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar,
when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless
still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white
spray heaving high against it ; straightway the whale's un-
harming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log —
shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts : betoare ! And for
years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place ; leaping over it
as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader < igi-
nally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your L of
precedents ; there's your utility of traditions ; there's the story
of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the
earth, and now not even hovering in the air ! There's orthodoxy !
THE SPHYNX. 345
Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a
real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a power-
less panic to a world.
Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend ? There are other
ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doc-
tor Johnson who believe in them.
CHAPTER LXX.
THE SPHYNX.
It should not have been omitted that previous to completely
stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now,
the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical
feat, upon which experienced whale surgeons very much pride
themselves : and not without reason.
Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be
called a neck ; on the contrary, where his head and body seem
to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him.
Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above,
some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject,
and that subject almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and
oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too,
that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many
feet deep in the flesh ; and in that subterraneous manner, with-
out so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contract-
ing gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adja-
cent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical
point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel,
ther, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to
behead a sperm whale ?
When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there
15*
346 THE S PHY NX.
by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to
a small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed
of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible ; for the
sperm whale's head embraces nearly one third of his entire
bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even
by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing
as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales.
The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped,
the head was hoisted against the ship's side — about half way out
of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by
its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply
leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag
from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side
projecting like a crane over the waves ; there, that blood-drip-
ping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant Holofernes's
from the girdle of Judith.
When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the
seamen went .below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the
before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper
calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfold-
ing its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came
Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-
deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into
the main-chains he took Stubb's long spade — still remaining
there after the whale's decapitation — and striking it into the
lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end
crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eves
attentively fixed on this head.
It was a black and hooded head ; and hanging there in the
midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the de-
sert. " Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab,
"which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there
lookest hoary with mosses ; speak, mighty head, and tell us the
THESPHYNX. 347
secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the
deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams,
has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded
names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot ; where
in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones
of millions of the drowned ; there, in that awful water-land,
there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell
or diver never went ; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where
sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down.
Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming
ship ; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave ; true
to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st
the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck ;
for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw ;
and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift light-
nings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a
righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head!
thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel
of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine !''
" Sail ho !" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-
head.
" Aye ? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly,
erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from
his brow. " That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost
convert a better man. — Where away ?"
" Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down
her breeze to us !''
" Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come
along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze ! O
Nature, and O soul of man ! how far beyond all utterance are
your linked analogies ! not the smallest atom stirs or lives on
matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind."
THE JEROBOAM'S. STORY.
CHAPTER LXXI. . •
the jeroboam's story.
Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on ; but the breeze
came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.
By and by, through the glass the strangers' boats and
manned mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was
so far to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a pas-
sage to some other ground, the Pequod could not hope to
reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be
made.
Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the
ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal ;
all which signals being collected in a book with the names of
the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with
it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise
each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distances, and
with no small facility.
The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stran-
ger's setting her own ; which proved the ship to be the Jero-
boam of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down,
ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat ; it
soon drew nigh ; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged by
Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stran-
ger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token
of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out
that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and
that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's
company. For, though himself and boat's crew remained un-
tainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an
THE JEROBOAM'S STORY. 349
incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between ; yet con-
scientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he
peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the
Pequod.
But this did, by no means prevent all communication. Pre-
serving an' interval of some few yards between itself and the ship,
the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived
to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through
the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-top-
sail aback ; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a
large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead ;
but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings
again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now
and then, a conversation was sustained between the two par-
ties ; but at intervals not without still another interruption of a
very different sort.
Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a sin-
gular appearance, even in that wild whaling life where indivi-
dual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short,
youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and
wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-
cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him ; the overlap-
ping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep,
settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had ex-
claimed— " That's he ! that's he !— the long-togged scaramouch
the Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to
a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among
her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the
Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subse-
quently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in question had
gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the
Jeroboam. His story was this :
He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of
350 THE JEROBOAM'S STORY.
Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet ; in
their cracked, secret meetings having several times descended
from heaven by the way of a trap-door, announcing the speedy
opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket ;
but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to
be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having
seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with
that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, com-
mon sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candi-
date for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him ;
but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his
insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the
archangel Gabriel, and commanded the captain to jump over-
board. He published his manifesto, whereby he set himself
forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicar-general
of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he
declared these things ; — the dark, daring play of his sleepless,
excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real
delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the ma-
jority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness.
Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however,
was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he
refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous cap-
tain 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
THE JEROBOAM'S STORY. 351
ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared
little or nothing for the captain and mates ; and since the epi-
demic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever ;
declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole com-
mand ; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleas-
ure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of
them fawned before him ; in obedience to his instructions, some-
times rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such
things may seem incredible ; but, however wondrous, they are
true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect
to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his
measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.
But it is time to return to the Pequod.
" I fear not thy epidemic, man,'' said Ahab from the bul-
warks, to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern;
" come on board."
But now Gabriel started to his feet.
" Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious ! Beware
of the horrible plague !"
" Gabriel, Gabriel !" cried Captain Mayhew ; " thou must
either — " But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far
ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.
" Hast thou seen the White Whale ?" demanded Ahab, when
the boat drifted back.
" Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk ! Beware
of the horrible tail !"
"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that — " But again the boat
tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some
moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which
by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling,
not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head
jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it
with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature
seemed to warrant.
359 THE JEROBOAM'S STORY.
When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark
story concerning Moby Dick ; not, however, without frequent
interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned,
and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.
It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when
upon speaking a, whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised
of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.
Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned
the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the
monster should be seen ; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing
the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God
incarnated ; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some
year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the
mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardor to en-
counter him ; and the captain himself being not unwilling to
let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel's denun-
ciations and fore warnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five
men to man his boat. With them he pushed off ; and, after
much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he
at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel,
ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm
in frantic gestures, and hurling forth "prophecies of speedy doom
to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey,
the mate, was standing up in his "boat's bow, and with all the
reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations
upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised
lance, lo ! a broad white shadow rose from the sea ; by its quick,
fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies
of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of
furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a
long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about
fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of
any oarsman's head ; but the mate for ever sank.
Tt is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in
THE JEROBOAM'S STORY. 353
the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as fre-
quent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who
is thus annihilated ; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or
the thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its
place and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the
circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body
has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible ;
the man being stark dead.
The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was
plainly descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek —
" The vial ! the vial !" Gabriel called off the terror-stricken
crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible
event clothed the archangel with added influence ; because his
credulous disciples believed that he had specifically fore-
announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which
any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of
many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a name-
less terror to the ship.
Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such
questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear
inquiring whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if oppor-
tunity should offer. To which Ahab answered — "Aye."
Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring
upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward
pointed finger — " Think, think of the blasphemer — dead, and
down there ! — beware of the blasphemer's end !"
Ahab stolidly turned aside ; then said to Mayhew, " Captain, I
have just bethought me of my letter-bag ; there is a letter for
one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the
bag."
Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for
various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may
be addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering
them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their
354 THE JEROBOAM'S STORY.
mark ; and many are only received after attaining an age of
two or three years or more.
Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was
sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green
mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the
cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been
the post-boy.
" Can'st not read it ?" cried Ahab. " Give it me, man. Aye,
aye, it's but a dim scrawl ; — what's this ?" As he was studying
it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his
knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in
that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to
the ship.
Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, " Mr. Har —
yes, Mr. Harry — (a woman's pinny hand, — the man's wife, I'll
wager) — Aye — Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam ; — why it's
Macey, and he's dead !''
" Poor fellow ! poor fellow ! and from his wife," sighed
Mayhew ; " but let me have it."
" Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab ; " thou art
soon going that way."
" Curses throttle thee !" yelled Ahab. " Captain Mayhew,
stand by now to receive it ;'' and taking the fatal missive from
Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and
reached it over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oars-
men expectantly desisted from rowing ; the boat drifted a little
towards the ship's stern ; so that, as if by magic, the letter sud-
denly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it
in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it,
sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet.
Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with
their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot
away from the Pequod.
As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon
THE MONKEY-ROPE. 355
the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in
reference to this wild affair.
CHAPTER LXXE.
THE MONKEY-ROPE.
In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a
whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the
crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are
wanted there. There is no staying in any one place ; for at one
and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It
is much the same with him who endeavors the description of
the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was men-
tioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the
blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by
the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty
a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole ? It was
inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it
was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster's back for the
special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circum-
stances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale
till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The
whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting
the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten
feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders
about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast
mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion
in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume — a shirt
and socks — in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to un-
common advantage ; and no one had a better chance to observe
him, as will presently be seen.
Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled
356 THE MONKEY-ROPE.
the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was
my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-
scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back. You have seen
Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord.
Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down
there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a
monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round
his waist.
It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For,
before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope
was fast at both ends ; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt,
and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for
worse, we two, for the time, were wedded ; and should poor
Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor
demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me
down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature
united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother ;
nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which
the hempen bond entailed.
So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situa-
tion then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed
distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now
merged in a joint stock company of two : that my free will had
received a mortal wound ; and that another's mistake or mis-
fortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and
death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interreguum in
Providence ; for its even-handed equity never could have sanc-
tioned so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering —
while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and
the ship, which would threaten to jam him — still further pon-
dering, 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
THE MONKEY-ROPE. 357
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 needfully as I would,
sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding over-
board. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I
only had the management of one end of it.*
I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from
between the whale and the ship — where he would occasionally
fall, from the incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this
was not the only jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unap-
palled by the massacre made upon them during the night, the
sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent
blood which began to flow from the carcase — the rabid crea-
tures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive.
And right in among those sharks was Queequeg ; who often
pushed them aside with his floundering feet. A thing alto-
gether incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a
dead whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will
seldom touch a man.
Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have
such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look
sharp to them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with
which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too close a
vicinity to the maw of what seemed a peculiarly fero-
cious shark — he was provided with still another protection.
Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and
Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen
* The moukey-rope is found in all whalers ; but it was only in the
Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This
improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man
than Stubb, in order to afford to the imperilled harpooneer the strongest
possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope
holder.
358 THE MONKEY-ROPE.
whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as
they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was
very disinterested and benevolent of them. They meant Quee-
queg's best happiness, I admit ; but in their hasty zeal to be-
friend him, and from the circumstance that both he and the
sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-mudded water,
those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating
a leg than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and
gasping there with that great iron hook — poor Queequeg, 1
suppose, only prayed to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the
hands of his gods.
Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as
I drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the
sea — what matters it, after all ? Are you not the precious
image of each and all of us men in this whaling world ? That
unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life ; those sharks, your foes ;
those- spades, your friends ; and what between sharks and
spades you are in a sad pickle and^peril, poor lad.
But courage ! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg.
For now, as with blue lips and bloodshot eyes the exhausted
savage at last climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and
involuntarily trembling over the sMe ; the steward advances,
and with a benevolent, consolatory glance hands him — what ?
Some hot Cogniac ? No ! hands him, ye gods ! hands him a
cup of tepid ginger and water !
" Ginger ? Do I smell ginger ?" suspiciously asked Stubb,
coming near. " Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as
yet untasted cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while,
he calmly walked towards the astonished steward slowly say-
ing, " Ginger ? ginger ? and will you have the goodness to tell
me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger ? Ginger !
is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-Boy, to kindle a fire
in this shivering cannibal ? Ginger ! — what the devil is gin-
ger ?— sea-coal ? — fire-wood ? — lucifer matches ? — tinder ? — gun-
THE MONKEY-ROPE. 359
powder ? — what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this
cup to our poor Queequeg here ?"
" There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement
about this business," he suddenly added, now approaching Star-
buck, who had just come from forward. " Will you look at
that kannakin, sir : smell of it, if you please." Then watch-
ing the mate's countenance, he added : " The steward, Mr.
Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to Quee-
queg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an
apothecary, sir ? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bit-
ters by which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man ?"
" I trust not," said Starbuck, " it is poor stuff enough."
" Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, " we'll teach you to drug a
harpooneer ; none of your apothecary's medicine here ; you
want to poison us, do ye ? You have got out insurances on our
lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do
Je
?"
"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity
that brought the ginger on board ; and bade me never give the
harpooneers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub — so she call-
ed it." .
" Ginger-jub ! you gingerly rascal ! take that ! and run along
with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do
no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's orders — grog for
the harpooneer on a whale."
" Enough," replied Starbuck, " only don't hit him again,
but—"
" Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or
something of that sort ; and this fellow's a weazel. What were
you about saying, sir ?"
" Only this : go down with him, and get what thou wantest
thyself."
When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one
hand, and a sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained
360 A RIGHT WHALE KILLED.
strong spirits, and was handed to Queequeg ; the second was
Aunt Charity's gift, and that was freely given to the waves.
CHAPTER LXXHL
6TUBB AND FLASK KILL A RIGHT WHALE; AND THEN HAVE A
TALK OVER HIM.
It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm
Whale's prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But
we must let it continue hanging there a while till we can get a
chance to attend to it. For the present other matters press, and
the best we can do now for the head, is to pray heaven the
tackles may hold.
Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had
gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of
yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales,
a species of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this
particular time lurking anywhere near. And though all hands
commonly disdained the capture of those inferior creatures ; and
though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them at
all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts
without lowering a boat ; yet now that a Sperm Whale had
been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the
announcement was made that a Right Whale should be cap-
tured that day, if opportunity offered.
Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward ;
and two boats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit.
Pulling further and further away, they at last became almost
invisible to the men at the mast-head. But suddenly in the
distance, they saw a great heap of tumultuous white water, and
soon after news came from aloft that one or both the boats must
A RIGHT WHALE KILLED. 3fil
be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight,
in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the tow-
ing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at
first it seemed as if he meant it malice ; but suddenly going
down in a maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he
wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the keel.
"Cut, cut!" was the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for
one instant, seemed on the point of being brought with a deadly
dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty of line yet
in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they paid
out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all
their might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes
the struggle was intensely critical ; for while they still slacked
out the tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars
in another, the contending strain threatened to take them under.
But it was only a few feet advance they sought to gain. And
they stuck to it till they did gain it ; when instantly, a swift
tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel, as the
strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view
under her bows, snapping and quivering ; and so flinging off its
drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the
water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more
the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his
speed, and blindly altering his course, went round the stern
of "the ship towing the two boats after him, so that they per-
formed a complete circuit. ' •
Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till
close flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with
lance for lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the
battle went, while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum
round the Sperm Whale's body, rushed to the fresh blood that,
was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash, as the eager
Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured from the
emitten rock.
16
36Si A RIGHT WHALE KILLED.
At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and
vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse.
While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords
to his flukes, and in other ways getting the mass in readiness
for towing, some conversation ensued between them.
" I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,"
said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having
to do with so ignoble a leviathan.
" Wants with it ?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the
boat's bow, " did you never hear that the ship which but once
has a Sperm Whale's head hoisted on her starboard side, and
at the same time a Right Whale's on the larboard ; did you
never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never afterwards capsize ?"
" Why not ?"
" I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah
saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I
sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I
don't half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that
tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb ?"
" Sink him ! I never look at him at all ; but if ever I get a
chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks,
and no one by ; look down there, Flask " — pointing into the sea
with a peculiar motion of both hands — " Aye, will I ! Flask, I
take that Fedallah to be the devil in disguise. Do you believe
that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on
board ship ? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you don't
see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight ; he carries it
coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him ! now that I
think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes
of his boots."
" He sleeps in his boots, don't he ? He hasn't got any ham-
mock ; but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rig-
ging."
A RIGHT WHALE KILLED. 363
" No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail ; lie coils it
down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging."
" What's the old man have so much to do with him for ?"
" Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose."
" Bargain ?— about what ?"
" Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White
Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and
get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something
of that sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick."
" Pooh ! Stubb, you are skylarking ; how can Fedallah do
that?"
" I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a
wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a saun-
tering 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
— aint 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
364 A RIGHT WHALE KILLED.
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 port-hole ? Tell me that,
Mr. Flask ?"
" How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb ?"
" Do you see that mainmast there ?" pointing to the ship ;
" well, that's the figure one ; now take all the hoops in the
Pequod's hold, and string 'em along in a row with that mast,
for oughts, do you see ; well, that wouldn't begin to be Fedal-
lah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops
enough to make oughts enough."
"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just
now, that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a
good chance. Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours
come to, and if he is going to live for ever, what good will it do
to pitch him overboard — tell me that ?"
" Give him a good ducking, anyhow."
" But he'd crawl back."
" Duck him again ; and keep ducking him."
"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you,
though — yes, and drown you — what then ?"
" I should like to see him try it ; I'd give him such a pair of
black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admi-
ral's cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop
there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where
he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask ; do you suppose
I'm afraid of the devil ? Who's afraid of him, except the old
governor who daresn't catch him and put him in double-darbies,
as he deserves, but let's him go about kidnapping people ; aye,
A RIGHT WHALE KILLED. 365
and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil kid-
napped, he'd roast for him ? There's a governor !"
" Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab ?"
" Do I suppose it ? You'll know it before long, Flask. But
I am going now to keep a sharp look-out on him ; and if I see
anything very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the
nape of his neck, and say — Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do
it ; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into
his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such
a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short off at the
stump — do you see ; and then, I rather guess when he finds
himself docked in that queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the
poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs."
" And what will you do with the tail, Stubb ?"
" Do with it ? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home ; —
what else ?"
" Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all
along, Stubb ?"
" Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship."
The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard
side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already pre-
pared for securing him.
" Didn't I tell you so ?" said Flask ; " yes, you'll soon see this
right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's."
In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the
Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale's head,
now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even
keel ; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when
on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way ;
but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back
again ; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever
keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish ! throw all these thunder-
heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.
In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought
366 THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD.
alongside the ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly
take place as in the case of a sperm whale ; only, in the latter
instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the former the lips
and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with
all the well known black bone attached to what is called the
crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case, had
been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern ;
and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying
a pair of overburdening panniers.
Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head,
and ever and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the
lines in his own hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that
the Parsee occupied his shadow ; while, if the Parsee's shadow
was there at all it seemed only to blend with, and lengthen
Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish speculations were
bandied among them, concerning all these passing things.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD CONTRASTED VIEW.
Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together ; ■
let us join them, and lay together our own.
Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and
the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the
only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer,
they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the
whale. As the external difference between them is mainly
observable in their heads ; and as a head of each is this moment
hanging from the Pequod's side ; and as we may freely go from
one to the other, by merely stepping across the deck : — where,
I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to study
practical cetology than here ?
THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD. 367
In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast
between these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience ;
but there is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm
Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is more
character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold it, you
involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point
of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity
is heightened by the pepper and salt color of his head at the
summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience.
In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a "grey-
headed whale."
Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads —
namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear.
Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle
of either whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see
a lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye ;
so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head.
Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes,
it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead,
no more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the posi-
tion of the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears ;
and you may fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you,
did you sideways survey objects through your ears. You would
find that you could only command some thirty degrees of vision
in advance of the straight side-line of sight ; and about thirty
more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking straight
towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not
be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you
from behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to
speak ; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts) : for
what is it that makes the front of a man — what, indeed, but his
eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think
of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual
power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain ;
368 THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD.
the peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as
they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between
them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys ; this,
of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each
independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see
one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct picture on
that side ; while all between must be profound darkness and
nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on
the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his
window. But with the whale, these two sashes are separately
inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the
view. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is a thing always to
be borne in mind in the fishery ; and to be remembered by the
reader in some subsequent scenes.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started con-
cerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I
must be content with a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open
in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary ; that is, he cannot
then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him.
Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him, that though he
can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance,
it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to
examine any two things — however large or however small — at
one and the same instant of time ; never mind if they He side
by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate
these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound
darkness ; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner
as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly
excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it,
then, with the whale ? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must
simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehen-
sive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same
moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one
on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direc-
THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD. 369
tion ? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if
a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstra-
tions of two distinct prohlems in Euclid. Nor, strictly inves-
tigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison.
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me,
that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by
some whales when beset by three or four boats ; the timidity
and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales ; I think
that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of
volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite
powers of vision must involve them.
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you
are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these
two heads for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear
has no external leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you
can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is
lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this
important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale
and the right. While the ear of the former has an external
opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over
with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should
see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder
through an ear which is smaller than a hare's ? But if his eyes
were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope ; and his
ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals ; would that make
him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing ? Not at all. —
Why then do you try to " enlarge " your mind ? . Subtilize it.
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have
at hand, cant over the sperm whale's head, so that it may lie
bottom up ; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a
peep down the mouth ; and were it not that the body is now
completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend
into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But
16*
370 THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD.
let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we
are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth ! from
floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white
membrane, glossy as bridal satins.
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw,
which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box,
with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it
up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it
seems a terrific portcullis ; and such, alas ! it proves to many a
poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with im-
paling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when
fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating
there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long,
hanging straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the
world like a ship's jib-boom. This whale is not dead ; he is
only dispirited ; out of sorts, perhaps ; hypochondriac ; and so
supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him
there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe,
who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.
In most cases this lower jaw — being easily unhinged by a
practised artist — is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the pur-
pose of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of
that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion
all sorts of curious articles, including canes, umbrella-stocks,
and handles to riding-whips.
With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it
were an anchor ; and when the proper time comes — some few
days after the other work — Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego,
being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With
a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums ; then the jaw
is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from
aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps
of old oaks out of wild wood-lands. There are generally forty-
two teeth in all ; in old whales, much worn down, but unde-
THE RIGHT WHALE'S HEAD. 371
cayed ; nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is after-
wards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building
houses.
CHAPTER LXXV.
THE EIGHT WHALE'S HEAD. CONTRASTED VIEW.
Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the
Right Whale's head.
As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be
compared to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it
is so broadly rounded) ; so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's
head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-
toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager
likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last. And in this
same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with the
swarming brood, might veiy comfortably be lodged, she and
all her progeny.
But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to
assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If
you stand on its summit and look at these two /-shaped spout-
holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-
viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board.
Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested,
comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass — this green,
barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call tbe "crown,"
and the Southern fishers the " bonnet" of the Right Whale ;
fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for the
trunk of some huge oak, with a bird's nest in its crotch. At
any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on
this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you ;
unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term
372 THE RIGHT WHALE'S HEAD.
" crown" also bestowed upon it ; in which case you will take
great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a
diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put
together for him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale
be a king, he is a veiy sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem.
Look at that hanging lower lip ! what a huge sulk and pout is
there ! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's measurement, about
twenty feet long and five feet deep ; a sulk and pout that will
yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.
A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be
hare-lipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the
mother during an important interval was sailing down the
Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape.
Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the
mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take
this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord ! is
this the road that Jonah went ? The roof is about twelve feet
high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regu-
lar ridge-pole there ; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides,
present us with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped
slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side, which depend-
ing 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 open-mouthed he
goes through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central
blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are
certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some
whalemen calculate the creature's age, as the age of an oak by
its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far
from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical proba-
bility. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far
THE RIGHT WHALE'S HEAD. 373
greater age to the Eight Whale than at first glance will seem
reasonable.
In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious
fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls
them the wondrous " whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth ;*
another, " hogs' bristles ;" a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses
the following elegant language : " There are about two hundred
and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch
over his tongue on each side of his mouth."
As every one knows, these same "hogs' bristles," "fins,"
" whiskers," " blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the la-
dies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this
particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in
Queen Anne's time that the bone was in its glory, the farthin-
gale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames
moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you
may say ; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do
we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection ; the um-
brella being a tent spread over the same bone.
But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment,
and, standing in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you
afresh. Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically
ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great
Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes ? For a
carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest Turkey — the
tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the mouth.
It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting it
on deck. This particular tongue now before us ; at a passing
glance I should say it was a six-barreler ; that is, it will yield
you about that amount of oil.
* This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker,
ur rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the
upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts im-
part a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn countenance.
374 THE BATTERING-RAM.
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 Eight
Whale's there is no great well of sperm ; no ivory teeth at all ;
no long, slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's.
Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone ;
no huge lower lip ; and scarcely anything of a tongue. Again,
the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale
only one.
Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while
they yet lie together ; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the
sea ; the other will not be very long in following.
Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there ?
It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in
the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to
be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indiffe-
rence as to death. But mark the other head's expression. See
that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's
side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head
seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing
death ? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic ; the
Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza
in his latter years.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
THE BATTERING-RAM.
Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would
have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply — particularly remark
its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would
have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to
THE BATTERING-RAM. 375
yourself some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever
battering-ram power may be lodged there. Here is a vital
point ; for you must either satisfactorily settle this matter with
yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of the most
appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be
found in all recorded history.
You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the
Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly
vertical plane to the water ; you observe that the lower part of
that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more
of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boom-like
lower jaw ; you observe that the mouth is entirely under the
head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own
mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe
that the whale has no external nose ; and that what nose he
has — his spout hole — is on the top of his head ; you observe that
his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third
of his entire length from the front. Wherefore, you must now
have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a
dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender prominence
of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider
that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the
front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone ; and
not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come
to the full cranial development. So that this whole enormous
boneless mass is as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be
revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil ; yet,
you are now to be apprised of the nature of the substance
which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. In
some previous place I have described to you how the blubber
wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange.
Just so with the head ; but with this difference : about the
head this envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless tough- .
ness, inestimable by any man who has not handled it. The
376 THE BATTERING-RAM.
severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the
strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as
though ' the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with
horses' hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it.
Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large,
loaded Indiamen chance to crowd and crush towards each other
in the docks, what do the sailors do ? They do not suspend be-
tween them, at the point of coming contact, any merely hard
substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold there a large,
round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and
toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the
jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes
and iron crow-bars. By itself this sufficiently illustrates the
obvious fact I drive at. But supplementary to this, it has
hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess what
is called a swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of dis-
tension or contraction ; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as T
know, has no such provision in him ; considering, too, the
otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his
head altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it
high elevated out of the water ; considering the unobstructed
elasticity of its envelop ; considering the unique interior of his
head ; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those
mystical lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some
hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with the outer
air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and con-
traction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might,
to which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements
contributes.
Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable,
uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within ; there
swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be ade-
quately estimated as piled wood is — by the cord; and all
obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I
THE GREAT HEIDELBURGH TUN. 377
shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations
of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster ; when
I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining
feats ; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity,
and be ready to abide by this ; .that though the Sperm Whale
stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the
Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of
your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a
provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a
thing for salamander giants only to encounter ; how small the
chances for the provincials then ? What befel the weakling
youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais ?
CHAPTER LXXVII.
THE GREAT HEIDELBURGH TUN.
Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it
aright, you must know something of the curious internal struc-
ture of the thing operated upon.
Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you
may, on an inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,*
whereof the lower is the bony structure, forming the cranium
and jaws, and the upper an unctuous mass wholly free from
bones ; its broad forward end forming the expanded vertical
apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the forehead
horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two
* Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical
mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a
solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the
steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both sides.
378 THE GREAT HEIDELBURGH TUN.
almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an
internal wall of a thick tendinous substance.
The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense
honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and re-crossing, into
ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres
throughout its whole extent. The upper part, known as the
Case, may be regarded as the great Heidelburgh Tun of the
Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is mystically
carved in front, so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms innu-
merable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his
wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always
replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish
valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by far the most pre-
cious of all his oily vintages ; namely, the highly-prized sper-
maceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous state.
Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed in any other part
of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet,
upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete ;
sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin
delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale's case
generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though
from unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled,
leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the
ticklish business of securing what you can.
I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidel-
burgh Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that
coating could not possibly have compared with the silken pearl-
colored membrane, like the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the
inner surface of the Sperm Whale's case.
It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm
Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head ;
and since — as has been elsewhere set forth — the head embraces
one third of the whole length of the creature, then setting that
length down at eighty feet for a good sized whale, you have more
CISTERN AND BUCKETS. 379
than twenty-six feet for the depth of the tun, when it is length-
wise hoisted up and down against a ship's side.
As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is
brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently
forced into the spermaceti magazine ; he has, therefore, to be
uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should
invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable con-
tents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which is at
last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by
the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on
one side, make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.
Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that mar-
vellous and — in this particular instance — almost fata, operation
whereby the Sperm "Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.
CHAPTER LXXVIH.
CISTERN AND BUCKETS.
Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft ; and without altering
his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging main-
yard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted
Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip,
consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved
block. Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the
yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it is caught and
firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down
the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously
he lands on the summit of the head. There — still high elevated
above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries —
he seems some Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to
prayers from the top of a tower. A short-handled sharp spade
380 CISTERN AND BUCKETS.
being sent up to him, he diligently searches for the proper place
to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business he proceeds
very needfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, sound-
ing the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time
this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely
like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip ;
while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there
held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the
bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has
reached up a veiy long pole. Inserting this pole into the
bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun,
till it entirely disappears ; then giving the word to the seamen
at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a
dairy-maid's pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its
height, the full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand,
and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then re-mounting aloft,
it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern
will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his
long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the
Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down.
Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time
in this way ; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm ;
when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was
that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless
as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great
cabled tackles suspending the head ; or whether the place where
he stood was so treacherous and oozy ; or whether the Evil One
himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particu-
lar reasons ; how it was exactly, there is no telling now ; but,
on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly
up — my God ! poor Tashtego — like the twin reciprocating
bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this
great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling,
went clean out of sight !
CISTERN AND BUCKETS. 381
" Man overboard !" cried Daggoo, who amid the general con-
sternation first came to his senses. " Swing the bucket this
way ! " and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure
his slippery hand-hold on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him
high up to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could
have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a
terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before life-
less head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the
sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea ;
whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by
those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk.
At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head,
was clearing the whip — which had somehow got foul of the
great cutting tackles — a sharp cracking noise was heard ; and to
the unspeakable horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks sus-
pending the head tore out, and with a vast vibration the enor-
mous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook
as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, upon
which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to
be on the point of giving way ; an event still more likely from
the violent motions of the head.
" Come down, come down ! " yelled the seamen to Daggoo,
but with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if
the head should drop, he would still remain suspended ; the
negro having cleared the foul line, rammed down the bucket
into the now collapsed well, meaning that the buried harpooneer
should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.
" In heaven's name, man," cried Stubb, " are you ramming
home a cartridge there ? — Avast ! How will that help him ;
jamming that iron-bound bucket on top of his head ? Avast,
will ye!"
" Stand clear of the tackle ! " cried a voice like the bursting
of a rocket.
Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enor-
382 CISTERN AND BUCKETS.
mous mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into
the whirlpool ; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it,
to far down her glittering copper ; and all caught their breath,
as half swinging — now over the sailors' heads, and now over the
water — Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly
beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-
alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the
sea ! But hardly had the blinding vapor cleared away, when a
naked figure with a boarding-sword in its hand, was for one
swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a
loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to
the rescue. One packed rush was made to the side, and every
eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and no
sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some
hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off
from the ship.
" Ha ! ha !" cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet,
swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the
side, we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves ; a
sight strange to see, as an arm thrust forth from the grass over
a grave.
" Both ! both ! — it is both !" — cried Daggoo again with a
joyful shout ; and soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly strik-
ing out with one hand, and with the other clutching the long
hair of the Indian. Drawn into the waiting boat, they were
quickly brought to the deck ; but Tashtego was long in coming
to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk.
Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished ? Why,
diving after the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his
keen sword had made side lunges near its bottom, so as to
scuttle a large hole there ; then dropping his sword, had thrust
his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out our
poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first thrusting
in for him, a leg was presented ; but well knowing that that
CISTERN AND BUCKETS. 383
was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble ; —
he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss,
had wrought a somerset upon the Indian ; so that with the
next trial, he came forth in the good old way — head foremost.
As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be
expected.
And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics
of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego,
was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most
untoward and apparently hopeless impediments ; which is a
lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be
taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and
rowing. %
I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will
be sure to seem incredible to some landsmen, though they
themselves may have either seen or heard of some one's falling
into a cistern ashore ; an accident which not seldom happens,
and with much less reason too than the Indian's, considering
the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale's
well.
But, perad venture, it may be sagaciously urged, how is
this ? We thought the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm
Whale, was the lightest and most corky part about him ; and
yet thou makest it sink in an element of a far greater specific
gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at all, but I
have ye ; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been
nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the
dense tendinous wall of the well — a double welded, hammered
substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea
water, and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost. But
the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance was in the pre-
sent instance materially counteracted by the other parts of the
head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank very slowly
and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for
384 THE PR AIRE.
performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say.
Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was.
Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very
precious perishing ; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest
of fragrant spermaceti ; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the
secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale.
Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled — the delicious
death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the
crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that
leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died em-
balmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's
honey head, and sweetly perished there ?
CHAPTER LXXIX.
THE PRAIRE.
To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the
head of this Leviathan ; this is a thing which no Physiognomist
or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise'
would seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized
the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have
mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the Pantheon.
Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats of the
various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of
. horses, birds, serpents, and fish ; and dwells in' detail upon the
modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall
and his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touch-
ing the phrenological characteristics of other beings than man.
Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the ap-
plication of these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my
endeavor. I try all things ; I achieve what I can.
THE PR AIRE. 385
Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an
anomalous creature. He has no proper nose. And since the
nose is the central and most conspicuous of the features ; and
since it perhaps most modifies and finally controls their combined
expression ; hence it would seem that its entire absence, as an
external appendage, must very largely affect the countenance
of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, cupola,
monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensa-
ble to the completion of the scene ; so no face can be physiog-
nomically in keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of
the nose. Dash the nose from Phidias's marble Jove, and what
a sorry remainder ! Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a
magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that the same de-
ficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is
no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A nose to
the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiog-
nomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly-boat,
your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflec-
tion that he has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which
so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the
mightiest royal beadle on his throne.
In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiog-
nomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full
front of his head. This aspect is sublime.
In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when
troubled with the morning. In the repose of the pasture, the
curled brow of the bull has a touch of the grand in it. Push-
ing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the elephant's brow is
majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as that great
golden seal affixed by the German emperors to their decrees.
It signifies — " God : done this day by my hand." But in most
creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a
mere strip of alpine land lying along the snow line. Few are
the foreheads which like Shakspeare's or Melancthon's rise so
17
386 THE PR A I RE,
high, and descend so low, that the eyes themselves seem clear,
eternal, tideless mountain lakes ; and all above them in the
forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered thoughts
descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the
snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this
high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so
immensely amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view,
you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in
beholding any other object in living nature. For you see no
one point precisely ; not one distinct feature is revealed ; no
nose, eyes, ears, or mouth ; no face ; he has none, proper ; nothing
but that one broad firmament • of a forehead, pleated with
riddles ; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships,
and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish ;
though that way viewed, its grandeur does not domineer upon
you so. In profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-
crescentic depression in the forehead's middle, which, in man, is
Lavater's mark of genius.
But how ? Genius in the Sperm Whale ? Has the Sperm
Whale ever written a book, spoken a speech ? No, his great
genius is declared in his doing nothing particular to prove it.
It is moreover declared in his pyramidical silence. And this
reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale been known to
the young Orient World, he would have been deified by their
child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile,
because the crocodile is tongueless ; and the Sperm Whale has
no tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be inca-
pable of protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical
nation shall lure back to their birth-right, the merry May-day
gods of old ; and livingly enthrone them again in the now
egotistical sky ; in the now unhaunted hill ; then be sure, ex-
alted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it.
Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics.
But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every
THE NUT. 387
man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other
human science, is but a passing fable. If then, Sir William
Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest
peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how
may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the
Sperm Whale's brow ? I but put that brow before you. Read
it if you can.
CHAPTER LXXX.
THE NUT.
If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the
phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is
impossible to square.
In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least
twenty feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side
view of this skull is as the side view of a moderately inclined
plane resting throughout on a level base. But in life — as we
have elsewhere seen — this inclined plane is angularly filled up,
and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of
the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater
to bed that part of the mass ; while under the long floor of this
crater — in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length
and as many in depth — reposes the mere handful of this mon-
ster's brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent
forehead in life ; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like
the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of
Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I
have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the
Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance
of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying
in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehen-
388 THE NUT.
sions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his general
might to regard that mystic part pf him as the seat of his intel-
ligence.
It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Levia-
than, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion.
As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor
feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a
false bow to the common world.
If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a
rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be
struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the
same situation, and from the same point of view. Indeed, place
this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude)
among a plate of men's skulls, and you would involuntarily con-
found it with them ; and remarking the depressions on one
part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say —
This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those
negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his pro-
digious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the
truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the
most exalted potency is.
But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper
brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then
I have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost
any quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance
of its vertebra? to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bear-
ing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German
conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls.
But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were
not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out
to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae
of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked
prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have
omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations
THE NUT. 3P9
from the cerebellum through, the spinal canal. For I believe
that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his
backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull,
whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a
full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm auda-
cious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.
Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm "Whale.
His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra ;
and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure
ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular
figure with the base downwards. As it passes through the
remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but for a consider-
able distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this
canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance —
the spinal cord — as the brain ; and directly communicates with
the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerg-
ing from the brain's cavity, the spinal cord remains of an unde-
creasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all
these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and
map out the whale's spine phrenologically ? For, viewed in this
light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper
is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magni-
tude of his spinal cord.
But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phreno-
logists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment,
in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump,
if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebra?, and is,
therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its
relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ
of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that
the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to
know.
390 THE VIRGIN.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
THE PEQUQD MEETS THE VIRGIN".
The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the snip
Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen.
At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the
Dutch and Germans are now among the least ; but here and
there at very wide intervals of latitude and longitude, you still
occasionally meet with their flag in the Pacific.
For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay
her respects. While yet some distance from the Pequod, she
rounded to, and dropping a boat, her captain was impelled
towards us, impatiently standing in the bows instead of the
stern.
" What has he in his hand there ?" cried Starbuck, pointing
to something wavingly held by the German. " Impossible ! —
a lamp-feeder !"
" Not that," said Stubb, " no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr. Star-
buck ; he's coming on0 to make us our coffee, is the Yarman ;
don't you see that big tin can there alongside of him ? — that's
his boiling water. Oh ! he's all right, is the Yarman."
" Go along with you," cried Flask, " it's a lamp-feeder and
an oil-can. He's out of oil, and has come a-begging."
However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing
oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly
contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle,
yet sometimes such a thing really happens ; and in the present
case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-
feeder as Flask did declare.
As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, with-
out at all heeding what he had in his hand ; but in his broken
THE VIRGIN. 391
lingo, the German soon evinced his complete ignorance of the
White Whale ; immediately turning the conversation to his
lamp-feeder and oil can, with some remarks touching his hav-
ing to turn into his hammock at night in profound darkness —
his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a single flying-
fish yet captured to supply the deficiency ; concluding by
hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is techni-
cally called a clean one (that is, an empty one), well deserving
the name of Jungfrau or the Virgin.
His necessities supplied, Derick departed ; but he had not
gained his ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously
raised from the mast-heads of both vessels ; and so eager for
the chase was Derick, that without pausing to put his oil-can
and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed round his boat and made
after the leviathan lamp-feeders.
Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other
three German boats that soon followed him, had considerably
the start of the Pequod's keels. There were eight whales, an
average pod. Aware of their danger, they were going all
abreast with great speed straight before the wind, rubbing
their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness.
They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a
great wide parchment upon the sea.
Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam
a huge, humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow
progress, as well as by the unusual yellowish incrustations over-
growing him, seemed afflicted with the jaundice, or some other
infii-mity. Whether this whale belonged to the pod in
advance, seemed questionable ; for it is not customary for such
venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck
to their wake, though indeed their back water must have
retarded him, because the white-bone or swell at his broad
muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hos-
tile currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious ;
392 THE VIRGIN.
coining forth with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself
in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean commotions in
him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried extremity,
causing the waters behind him to upbubble.
" Who's got some paregoric ?" said Stubb, " he has the
stomach-ache, I'm afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre
of stomach-ache ! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas
in him, boys. It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow from
astern ; but look, did ever whale yaw so before ? it must be, he's
lost his tiller."
As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan
coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries,
rolls, and wallows on her way ; so did this old whale heave his
aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cum-
brous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the
unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost
that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to
say.
" Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that
wounded arm," cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line
near him.
" Mind he don't sling thee with it," cried Starbuck. " Give
way, or the German will have him."
With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed
for this one fish, because not only was he the largest, and there-
fore the most valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and
the other whales were going with such great velocity, moreover,
as almost to defy pursuit for the time. At this juncture, the
Pequod's keels had shot by the three German boats last low-
ered ; but from the great start he had had, Derick's boat still
led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign
rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being
already so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his
iron before they could completely overtake and pass him. As
THE VIRGIN. 393
for Derick, he seemed quite confident that this would be the
case, and occasionally with a deriding gesture shook his lamp-
feeder at the other boats.
" The ungracious and ungrateful dog ! " cried Starbuck ; " he
mocks and dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not
five minutes ago ! " — then in his old intense whisper — " give
way, greyhounds ! Dog to it ! "
" I tell ye what it is, men" — cried Stubb to his crew — " It's
against my religion to get mad ; but I'd like to eat that villa-
nous Yarman — Pull — wont ye ? Are ye going to let that rascal
beat ye ? Do ye love brandy ? A hogshead of brandy, then,
to the best man. Come, why don't some of ye burst a blood-
vessel ? Who's that been dropj>ing an anchor overboard — we
don't budge an inch — we're becalmed. Halloo, here's grass
growing in the boat's bottom — and by the Lord, the mast
there's budding. This won't do, boys. Look at that Yarman !
The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not ? "
" Oh ! see the suds he makes ! " cried Flask, dancing up and
down — " What a hump — Oh, do pile on the beef — lays like a
log ! Oh ! my lads, do spring — slap-jacks and quohogs for sup-
per, you know, my lads — baked clams and muffins — oh, do, do,
spring — he's a hundred barreler — don't lose him now — don't,
oh, don't ! — see that Yarman — Oh ! won't ye pull for your duff,
my lads — such a sog ! such a sogger ! Don't ye love sperm ?
There goes three thousand dollars, men ! — a bank ! — a whole
bank ! The bank of England ! — Oh, do, do, do ! — What's that
Yarman about now ? "
At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-
feeder at the advancing boats, and also his oil-can ; perhaps with
the double view of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time
economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus
of the backward toss.
" The unmannerly Dutch dogger ! " cried Stubb. " Pull now,
men, like fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired
17*
394 THE VIRGIN.
devils. What d'ye say, Tashtego ; are you the man to snap
your spine in two-and-twenty pieces for the honor of old Gay-
head ? What d'ye say ? "
" I say, pull like god-dam," — cried the Indian.
Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the
Pequod's three boats now began ranging almost abreast ; and, so
disposed, momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chival-
rous attitude of the headsman when drawing near to his prey,
the three mates stood up proudly, occasionally backing the after
oarsman with an exhilarating cry of, " There she slides, now !
Hurrah for the white-ash breeze ! Down with the Yarman !
Sail over him ! "
But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite
of all their gallantry, he would have proved th } victor in this
race, had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a
crab which caught the blade of his midship oarsman. While
this clumsy lubber was striving to free his white-ash, and while,
in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to capsizing, and he
thundering away at his men in a mighty rage ; — that was a
good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they
took a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the
German's quarter. An instant more, and all four boats were
diagonically in the whale's immediate wake, while stretching
from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made.
It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The
whale was now going head out, and sending his spout' before
him in a continual tormented jet ; while his one poor fin beat
his side in an agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that,
he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every billow that he
broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled
towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with
clipped wing, making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly
striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a
voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear ; but
THE VIRGIN. 395
the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and
euchanted in him ; he had no voice, save that choking respira-
tion through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him
unspeakably pitiable ; while still, in his amazing bulk, portcul-
lis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to appal the
stoutest man who so pitied.
Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give
the Pequod's boats the advantage, and rather than be thus
foiled of his game, Derick chose to hazard what to him must
have seemed a most unusually long dart, ere the last chance
would for ever escape.
But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke,
than all three tigers — Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo — instinc-
tively sprang to their feet, and standing in a diagonal row,
simultaneously pointed their barbs ; and darted over the head of
the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket irons entered the
whale. Blinding vapors of foam and white-fire ! The three
boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped the
German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his
baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three
flying keels.
" Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes," cried Stubb, casting a
passing glance upon them as he shot by ; " ye'U be picked up
presently — all right — I saw some sharks astern — St. Bernard's
dogs, you know — relieve distressed travellers. Hurrah ! this is
the way to sail now. Every keel a sun-beam ! Hurrah ! —
Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar !
This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury
on a plain — makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten
to him that way ; and there's danger of being pitched out too,
when you strike a hill. Hurrah ! this is the way a fellow feels
when he's going to Davy Jones — all a rush down an endless
inclined plane ! Hurrah ! this whale carries the everlasting
mail!"
396 THE VIRGIN.
Eut the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden
gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the
three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to
gouge deep grooves in them ; while so fearful were the harpoon-
eers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that
using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking
turns with the rope to hold on ; till at last — owing to the per-
pendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence
the three ropes went straight down into the blue — the gunwales
of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three
sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to
sound, for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of
expending more line, though the position was a little ticklish.
But though boats have been taken down and lost in this way,
yet it is this " holding on," as it is called ; this hooking up by
the sharp barbs of his live flesh from the back ; this it is that
often torments the Leviathan into soon rising again to meet the
sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril of the
thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the best ;
for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken
whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because,
owing to the enormous surface of him — in a full grown sperm
whale something less than 2000 square feet — the pressure of the
water is immense. We all know what an astonishing atmo-
spheric weight we ourselves stand up under ; even here, above-
ground, in the air ; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bear-
ing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean !
It must at least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One
whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty line-of-battle
ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on board.
As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing
down into its eternal blue noon ; and as not' a single groan or
cry of any sorf, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came
up from its depths ; what landsman would have thought, that
THE VIRGIN. 397
beneath all that silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the
seas was writhing and wrenching in agony! Not eight inches
of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. Seems it credi-
ble that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan was
suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Sus-
pended ? and to what ? To three bits of board. Is this the
creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said — " Canst
thou fill bis skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-
spears ? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold,
the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon : he esteemeth iron as
straw ; the arrow cannot make him flee ; darts are counted as
stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!" This the
creature ? this he ? Oh ! that unfulfilments should follow the
prophets. For with the strength of a thousand thighs in his
tail, Leviathan had run his head under the mountains of the
sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fish-spears !
In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three
boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long
enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who
can tell how appalling to the wounded whale must have been
such huge phantoms flitting over his head !
" Stand by, men ; he stirs," cried Starbuck, as the three lines
suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards
to them, as by magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the
whale, so that every oarsman felt them in his seat. The next
moment, relieved in great part from the downward strain at the
bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a small ice-
field will, when a dense herd of white bears are scared from it
into the sea.
" Haul in ! Haul in !" cried Starbuck again ; " he's rising."
The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's
breadth could have been gained, were now in long quick coils
flung back all dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke
water within two ship's lengths of the hunters.
398 THE VIRGIN.
His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In
most land animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many
of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some
degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so
with the whale ; one of whose peculiarities it is, to have an
entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when
pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadlj* drain is
at once begun upon his whole arterial system ; and when this is
heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great
distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him
in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in
him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he
will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period ;
even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-
springs of far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when
the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his
swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were
followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept
continually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was
only at intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture
into the air. From this last vent no blood yet came, because
no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life, as they
significantly call it, was untouched.
As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole
upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily sub-
merged, was plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places
where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown
masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when pros-
trate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once
occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see.
But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm,
and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in
order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men,
and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach uncon-
THE VIRGIN. 399
ditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rolling in his blood,
at last he partially disclosed a strangely discolored bunch or
protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank.
"A nice spot," cried Flask; "just let me prick hirn there
once."
" Avast !" cried Starbuck, " there's no need of that !"
But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the
dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by
it into more than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting
thick blood, with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespat-
tering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of
gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the bows. It was his
death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by loss of
blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had
made ; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his
stumped fin, then over and over slowly revolved like a waning
world ; turned up the white secrets of his belly ; lay like a log,
and died. It was most piteous, that last expiring spout. As
when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from
some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gur-
glings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground — so
the last long dying spout of the whale.
Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship,
the body showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures
unrifled. Immediately, by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured
to it at different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy ;
the sunken whale being suspended a few inches beneath them
by the cords. By very heedful management, when the ship
drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was
strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was
plain that unless artificially upheld, the body would at once
sink to the bottom.
It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with
the spade, the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found
400 THE VIRGIN.
imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before de-
scribed. But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found
in the dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly
healed around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote
their place ; therefore, there must needs have been some other
unknown reason in the present case fully to account for the
ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a
lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried
iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that
stone lance ? And when ? It might have been darted by some
Nor' West Indian long before America was discovered.
What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this
monstrous cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was
put to further discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly
dragged over sideways to the sea, owing to the body's im-
mensely increasing tendency to sink. However, Starbuck, who
had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the last ; hung on
to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship would
have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the
body ; then, when the command was given to break clear from
it, such was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to
which the fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was im-
possible to cast them off. Meantime everything in the Pequod
was aslant. To cross to the other side of the deck was like
walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship groaned
and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and
cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural disloca-
tion. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon
the immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timber-
heads ; and so low had the whale now settled that the sub-
merged 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,
THE VIRGIN. 401
" don't be in such a devil of a hurry to sink ! By thunder,
men, we must do something or go for it. No use prying
there ; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run one of ye
for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains."
"Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the
carpenter's heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and
steel to iron, began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a
few strokes, full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain
effected the rest. With a terrific snap, every fastening went
adrift ; the ship righted, the carcase sank.
Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed
Sperm Whale is a very curious thing ; nor has any fisherman
yet adequately accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm
Whale floats with great buoyancy, with its side or belly con-
siderably elevated above the surface. If the only whales that
thus sank were old, meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their
pads of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic ;
then you might with some reason assert that this sinking is
caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so sinking,
consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But
it is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and
swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm
flush and May of life, with all their panting lard about them ;
even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.
Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable
to this accident than any other species. Where one of that
sort go down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the
species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater
quantity of bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds
alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this in-
cumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are
instances where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the
sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the
reason of this is obvious. Gases are generated in him ; he
402 THE HONOR AND GLORY OF WHALING.
swells to a prodigious magnitude ; becomes a sort of animal
balloon. A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him under
then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays
of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking,
they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope ; so that when
the body has gone down, they know where to look for it when
it shall have ascended again. '
It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was
heard from the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the
Jungfrau was again lowering her boats ; though the only spout
in sight was that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of
uncapturable whales, because of its incredible power of swim-
ming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's spout is so similar to the
Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken
for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in
valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding
all sail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all dis-
appeared far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.
Oh ! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my
friend.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
THE HONOE AND GLORY OF WHALING.
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
is the true method.
The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my
researches up to the very spring-head of it, so much the more
am I impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity ; and
especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes,
prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinc-
tion upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself
THE HONOR AND GLORY OF WHALING. 403
belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fra-
ternity.
The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman ;
and to the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first
whale attacked by our brotherhood Avas not killed with any
sordid intent. Those wrere the knightly days of our profession,
when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill
men's lamp-feeders. Every one knows the fine story of Perseus
and Andromeda ; how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of
a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as Leviathan
was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince of
whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and
delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic
exploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present
day ; inasmuch as this Leviathan was slain at the very first
dart. And let no man doubt this Arkite story ; for in the
ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of the
Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of
a whale, which the city's legends and all the inhabitants assert-
ed to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew.
When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried
to Italy in triumph. What seems most singular and suggest-
ively important in this story, is this : it was from Joppa that
Jonah set sail.
Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda — indeed,
by some supposed to be indirectly derived from it — is that
famous story of St. George and the Dragon ; which dragon I
maintain to have been a whale ; for in many old chronicles
whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and often
stand for each other. " Thou art as a lion of the waters, and
as a dragon of the sea," saith Ezekiel ; hereby, plainly meaning
a whale ; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word
itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the 5
exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of
404 THE HONOR AND GLORY OF WHALING.
the land, instead of doing battle with, the great monster of the
deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St.
George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to
a whale.
Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us ; for
though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of
old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though
the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet
considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true
form of the whale was unknown to artists ; and considering
that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have crawled
up out of the sea on the beach ; and considering that the ani-
mal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or
sea-horse ; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether
incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts
of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon no other than the
great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before the strict and
piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and
fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name ; who being
planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the
palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or
fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble
stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England ;
and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be
enrolled in the most noble order of St. George. And there-
fore, let not the knights of that honorable company (none of
whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a whale like
their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with dis-
dain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are
much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they.
Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I
long remained dubious : for though according to the Greek my-
thologies, that antique Crockett and Kit Carson — that brawny
doer of rejoicing good deeds, was swallowed down and thrown
THE HONOR AND GLORY OF WHALING. 405
up by a whale ; still, whether that strictly makes a whaleman
of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere appears that he
ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside.
Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whale-
man ; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the
whale. I claim him for one of our clan.
But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story
of Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the
still more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale ; and
vice versa ; certainly they are very similar. If I claim the
demi-god then, why not the prophet ?
Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise
the whole roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be
named ; for like royal kings of old times, we find the head-
waters of our fraternity in nothing short of the great gods
themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now to be
rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo,
one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos ; gives
us this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord ; — Vishnoo, who,
by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart
and sanctified the whale. When Bramha, or the God of Gods,
saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its
periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside
over the work ; but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal
would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before be-
ginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained
something in the shape of practical hints to young architects,
these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters ; so Vish-
noo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him
to the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not
this Vishnoo a whaleman, then ? even as a man who rides a
horse is called a horseman ?
Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo ! there's
a member-roll for you ! What club but the . whaleman's can
head off like that ?
406 JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED.
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED.
Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and
the whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers
rather distrust this historical stoiy of Jonah and the whale.
But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who,
standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally-
doubted the stoiy of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the
dolphin ; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make
those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.
One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning
the Hebrew story was this : — He had one of those quaint old-
fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates ;
one of which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his
head — a peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the
Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order),
concerning which the fishermen have this saying, " A penny roll
would choke him ;" his swallow is so veiy small. But, to this,
Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary,
hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the
whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his
mouth. And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop.
For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a
couple of whist-tables, and comfortably seat all the players.
Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow
tooth ; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.
Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name)
urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was
something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and
JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED. 407
the whale's gastric juices. But this objection likewise falls to
the ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must
have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead whale — even
as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their
dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has
been divined by other continental commentators, that when
Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straight-
way effected his escape to another vessel near by, some vessel
with a whale for a figure-head ; and, I would add, possibly
called " The Whale," as some craft are nowadays christened the
"Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle." Nor have there been
wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale men-
tioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver — an
inflated bag of wind — which the endangered prophet swam to,
and so was saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor,
therefore, seems worsted all round. But he had still another
reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I remember right :
Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea,
and after three days he was vomited up somewhere within three
days' journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more
than three days' journey across from the nearest point of the
Mediterranean coast. How is that ?
But was there no other way for the whale to land the pro-
phet within that short distance of Nineveh ? Yes. He might
have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.
But not to speak of the passage through the whole length of the
Mediterranean, and another passage up the Persian Gulf and
Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete circum-
navigation 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.
408 PITCHPOLING.
But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only
evinced his foolish pride of reason — a thing still more reprehen-
sible 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 rebel-
lion against the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese Catholic
priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via the
Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of
the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the
highly enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story
of Jonah. And some three centuries ago, an English traveller
in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in
honor of Jonah, in which mosque was a miraculous lamp that
burnt without any oil.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
PITCHPOLING.
To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages
are anointed ; and for much the same purpose, some whalers
perform an analogous operation upon their boat ; they grease
the bottom. Nor is it to be doubted that as such a procedure
can do no harm, it may possibly be of no contemptible advan-
tage ; considering that oil and water are hostile ; that oil is a
sliding thing, and that the object in view is to make the boat
slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing his
boat, and one morning not long after the Gerrnan ship Jung-
frau disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occu-
pation ; crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side,
and rubbing in the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to
insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel. He seemed to
PITCHPOLING. 409
be working in obedience to some particular presentiment. Nor
did it remain unwarranted by the event.
Towards noon whales were raised ; but so soon as the ship
sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipi-
tancy ; a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.
Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost.
By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one
iron ; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, stiU con-
tinued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness. Such unin-
termitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or later
inevitably extract it. It became imperative to lance the flying
whale, or be content to lose him. But to haul the boat up to
his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and furious. T/hat
then remained ?
Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of
hand and countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman
is so often forced, none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the
lance called pitchpoling. Small sword, or broad sword, in all
its exercises boasts nothing like it. It is only indispensable with
an inveterate running whale ; its grand fact and feature is the
wonderful distance to which the long lance is accurately darted
from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme headway.
Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve
feet in length ; the staff is much slighter than that of the har-
poon, and also of a lighter material — pine. It is furnished with
a small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it
can be hauled back to the hand after darting.
But before going further, it is important to mention here,
that though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way
with the lance, yet it is seldom done ; and when done, is still
less frequently successful, on account of the greater weight and
inferior length of the harpoon as compared with the lance,
which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a general thing,
18
410 PITCHPOLING,
therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any pitch-
poling comes into play.
Look now at Stubb ; a man who from his humorous, de-
liberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was
specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him ; he
stands upright in the tossed bow of the flying boat ; wrapt in fleecy
foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long
lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if
it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of
the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his grasp,
leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full
before his waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale ; when,
cover, ng him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his
hand, thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly
balanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you
somewhat of a juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin.
Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty
arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in
the fife spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water, he now
spouts red blood.
" That drove the spigot out of him !" cries Stubb. " 'Tis
July's immortal Fourth ; all fountains must run wine to-day !
Would now, it were old Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or un-
speakable old Monongahela ! Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye
hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink round it ! Yea,
verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch in the spread of
his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the
living stuff!"
Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart
is repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound
held in skilful leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry ;
the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern,
folds his hands, and mutely watches the monster die.
THE FOUNTAIN. 411
CHAPTER LXXXV.
THE FOUNTAIN.
That for six thousand years — and no one knows now many
millions of ages before — the great whales' should have been
spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the
gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying
pots ; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters
should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching
these sprinklings and .spoutings — that all this should be, and
yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter
minutes past one o'clock p.m. of this sixteenth day of December,
a.d. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these
spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor — this
is surely a noteworthy thing.
Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting
items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cun-
ning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air
which at all times is combined with the element in which they
swim ; hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and
never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his
marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a
human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disen-
gaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for
his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any
degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude,
the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath
the surface ; and what is still more, his windpipe has no con-
nexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle
alone ; and this is on the top of his head.
412 THE FOUNTAIN.
If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function
indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air
a certain element, which being subsequently brought into con-
tact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle,
I do not think I shall err ; though I may possibly use some
superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if
all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he
might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a con-
siderable time. That is to say, he would then live without
breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the
case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his
full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a
single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of
air ; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this ? Between
his ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a
remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels,
which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely dis-
tended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a
thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vita-
lity in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries
a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four supplemen-
tary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indis-
putable ; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable
and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the
otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his
spoutings out, as the fishermon phrase it. This is what I mean.
If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will
continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his
other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and
jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths ; then when-
ever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths
over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths
you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging
up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not
THE FOUNTAIN. 413
till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to
stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that in differ-
ent individuals these rates are different ; but in any one they are
alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his
spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere
descending for good ? How obvious is it, too, that this neces-
sity for the whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards
of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast levia-
than be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the
sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, 0 hunter, as the great
necessities that strike the victory to thee !
In man, breathing is incessantly going on — one breath only
serving for two or three pulsations ; so that whatever other busi-
ness he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must,
or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one
seventh or Sunday of his time.
It has been said that the whale only breathes through his
spout-hole ; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are
mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with
the reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him ; for
the only thing about him that at all answers to his nose is that
identical spout-hole ; and being so clogged with two elements,
it could not be expected to have the power of smelling. But
owing to the mystery of the spout — whether it be water or
Avhether it be vapor — no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived
at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale
has no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them ?
No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.
Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his
spouting canal, and as that long canal — like the grand Erie Canal
— is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the
downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water,
therefore the whale has no voice ; unless you insult him by saying,
that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But
414 THE FOUNTAIN.
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 in-
tended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet
laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his
head, and a little to one side ; this curious canal is very much
like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street. But
the question returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe ;
in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the
mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled
breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and dis-
charged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth
indirectly communicates with the spouting canal ; but it cannot
be proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water
through the spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so
doing would seem to be, when in feeding he accidentally takes
in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the sur-
face, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if
you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch,
you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating
rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods
of respiration.
But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject ?
Speak out ! You have seen him spout ; then declare what the
spout is ; can you not tell water from air ? My dear sir, in this
world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever
found your plain things' the knottiest of all. And as for this
whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided
as to what it is precisely.
The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist
enveloping it ; and how can you certainly tell whether any water
THE FOUNTAIN. 415
falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a
whale to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious
commotion, the water cascading all around him. And if at
such times you should think that you really perceived drops of
moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are not
merely condensed from its vapor ; or how do you know that
they are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the
spout-hole fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the
whale's head ? For even when tranquilly swimming through
the mid-day sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried as
a dromedary's in the desert ; even then, the whale always car-
ries a small basin of water on his head, as under a blazing sun
you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with rain.
Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious
touching the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do
for him to be peering into it, and putting his face in it. You
cannot go with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and
bring it away. For even when coming into slight contact with
the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, ■
your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing
so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer
contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in
view, or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his
cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is
deemed poisonous; they try to evade it. Another thing; I
have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet
is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. The' wisest
thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let this
deadly spout alone.
Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and
establish. My hypothesis is this : that the spout is nothing but
mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am im-
pelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and
sublimity of the Sperm Whale ; I account him no common,
416 THE FOUNTAIN.
shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is
never found on soundings, or near shores ; all other whales some-
times are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am
convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings,
such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on,
there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the
act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little
treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before
me ; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved
worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The
invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought,
after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August
noon ; this seems an additional argument for the above supposi-
tion.
And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty
monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical
sea ; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, en-
gendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that
vapor — as you will sometimes see it — glorified by a rainbow, as
if Heaven itself bad put its seal upon his thoughts. For, d'ye
see, rainbows do not visit the clear air ; they only irradiate
vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts
in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling
my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God ; for
all have doubts ; many deny ; but doubts or denials, few along
with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and
intuitions of some things heavenly ; this combination makes
neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them
both with equal eye.
THE TAIL. 417
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
' THE TAIL.
Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the
antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights ;
less celestial, I celebrate a tail.
Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin
at that point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of
a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at
least fifty square feet. The compact round body of its root
expands into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually
shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. At the crotch
or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede
from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between.
In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely
defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its
utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will con-
siderably exceed twenty feet across.
The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded
sinews ; but cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata com-
pose it : — upper, middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and
lower layers, are long and horizontal ; those of the middle one,
very short, and running crosswise between the outside layers.
This triune structure, as much as anything else, imparts power to
the tail. To the student of old Roman walls, the middle layer
will furnish a curious parallel to the thin course of tiles always
alternating with the stone in those wonderful relics of the
antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the great
strength of the masonry.
But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not
18*
418 THE TAIL.
enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a
warp and woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing
on either side the loins and running down into the flukes, insen-
sibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might ;
so that in the tail "the confluent measureless force of the whole
whale seems concentrated tq a point. Could annihilation
occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.
Nor does this — its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple
the graceful flexion of its motions ; where infantileness of ease
undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary,
those motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real
strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows
it ; and iu everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much
to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over
seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its
charm would be gone. As devout Eckerrnan lifted the linen
sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed
with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman
triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the Father
in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever
they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled,
hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been
most successfully embodied ; these pictures, so destitute as they
are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere
negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on
all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his
teachings.
Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that
whether wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever
be the mood it be in, its flexions are invariably marked by ex-
ceeding grace. Therein no fairy's arm can transcend it.
Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as
a fin for progression ; Second, when used as a mace in battle ;
THE TAIL. 419
Third, in sweeping ; Fourth, in lobtailing ; Fifth, in peaking
flukes.
First : Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail
acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea crea-
tures. It never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign
of inferiority. To the whale, his tail is the sole means of pro-
pulsion. Scroll-wise coiled forwards beneath the body, and then
rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular
darting, leaping motion to the monster when furiously swim-
ming. His side-fins only serve to steer by.
Second : It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale
only fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw,
nevertheless, in his conflicts with man, he chiefly and contempt-
uously uses his tail. In striking at a boat, he swiftly curves
away his flukes from it, and the blow is only inflicted by the
recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed air, especially if it
descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply irresistible. No
ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only salvation lies
in eluding it ; but if it comes sideways through the opposing
water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale-
boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed
plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most
serious result. These submerged side blows are so often
received in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child's
play. Some one strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped.
Third : I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in
the whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail ; for
in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the
daintiness of the elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly
evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness
the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes
from side to side upon the surface of the sea ; and if he feel
Wt a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all.
What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch S Had this
420 THE TAIL.
tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of
Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and
with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then
caressed their zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is
that the whale does not possess this prehensile virtue in his
tail; for I have heard of yet another elephant, that when
wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk and extracted the
dart.
Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied
security of the middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent
from the vast corpulence of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays
on the ocean as if it were a hearth. But still you see his power
in his play. The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into
the air ; then smiting the surface, the thunderous concussion
resounds for miles. You would almost think a great gun had
been discharged ; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapor
from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that
that was the smoke from the touch-hole.
Fifth : As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan
the flukes lie considerably below the level of his back, they are
then completely out of sight beneath the surface ; but when he
is about to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at
least thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so
remain vibrating a moment, till they downwards shoot out of
view. Excepting the sublime breach — somewhere else to be
described — this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the
grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of
the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically
snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen
majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from
the flame Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes, it is all
in all what mood you are in ; if in the Dantean, the devils will
occur to you ; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at
the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned
THE TAIL. 421
sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all
heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in con-
cert with peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such
a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld,
even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy
Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of
the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings.
For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity
often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the pro-
foundest silence.
The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale
and the elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one
and the trunk of the other are concerned, should not tend to
place those two opposite organs on an equality, much less the
creatures to which they respectively belong. For as the might-
iest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so, compared with
Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily. The most
direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as the playful tap
of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash of the
sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances
have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars
and creAvs into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses
his balls.*
The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore
my inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it,
which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain
wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occa-
* Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the
whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular
the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog
does to the elephant ; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of
curious similitude ; among these is the spout. It is well known that the
elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating
it, jet it forth in a stream.
422 THE GRAND ARMADA.
sionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters
who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols ;
that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed
with the world. Nor are there wanting other motions of the
whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccounta-
ble 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.
a.
CHAPTER LXXXVII.
THE GRAND ARMADA.
The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending
south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the most
southerly point of all Asia. In a continuous line from that
peninsula stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and
Timor ; which, with many others, form a vast mole, or rampart,
lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and dividing the long
unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded oriental archi-
pelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports for the
convenience of ships and whales ; conspicuous among which are
the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda,
chiefly, vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the
China seas.
Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java;
and standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed
THE GRAND-ARMADA. 423
by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head ;
they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into
some vast walled empire : and considering the inexhaustible
wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with
which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it
seems a significant provision of nature, that such treasures, by
the very formation of the land, should at least bear the appear-
ance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping
western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsup-
plied with those domineering fortresses which guard the entran-
ces to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike
the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage
of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships before
the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have
passed between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with
the costliest cargoes of the east. But while they freely waive a
ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce their claim
to more solid tribute.
Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking
among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied
out upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demand-
ing tribute at the point of their spears. Though by the
repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands
of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late
been somewhat repressed ; yet, even at the present day, we
occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in
those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.
With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh
to these straits ; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the
Javan sea, and. thence, cruising northwards, over waters known
to be frequented here and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep
inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan,
in time for the great whaling season there. By these means,
the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known
424 . THE GRAND ARMADA.
Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descend-
ing upon the Line in the Pacific ; where Ahab, though every-
where else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving
battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent ;
and at a season when he might most reasonably be presumed
to be haunting it.
But how now ? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land ?
does his crew drink air ? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay.
For a long time, now, the circus-running sun has raced within
his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in himself.
So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the whaler. While other hulls
are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign
wharves ; the world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but
herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a
whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted
with utilities ; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and
kentledge. She carries years' water in her. Clear old prime
Nantucket water ; which, when three years afloat, the Nantuck-
eter, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but
yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams.
Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China
from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports,
the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one
grain of soil ; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen
like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that
another flood had come ; they would only answer — " Well, boys,
here's the ark !"
Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the
western coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda ;
indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recog-
nised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising ; there-
fore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head,
the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep
wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the land
THE GRAND ARMADA. 425
soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils
the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet
was descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with
any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits,
when the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere
long a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us.
But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity
with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans,
the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small
detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met
with in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multi-
tude, that it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them
had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance
and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into
such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that
even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail
for weeks and months together, without being greeted by a
single spout ; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes
seems thousands on thousands.
Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three
miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the
level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing
and sparkling in the noon-day ah. Unlike the straight perpen-
dicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall
over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow,
the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents
a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling
away to leeward.
Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a
high hill of the sea, this host of vapoiy spouts, individually curl-
ing up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere
of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of
some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning,
by some horseman on a height.
426 THE GRAND ARMADA.
As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the
mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that
perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in compa-
rative security upon the plain ; even so did this vast fleet of
whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits;
gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swim-
ming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.
Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them ; the
harpooneers handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from
the heads of their yet suspended boats. If the wind only held,
little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda,
the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness
the capture of not a few of their number. And who could tell
whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might
not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped white-
elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese ! So with
stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these
leviathans before us ; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego
was heard, loudly directing attention to something in our wake.
Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another
in our rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising
and falling something like the spouts of the whales ; only they
did not so completely come and go ; for they constantly hovered,
without finally disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight,
Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, " Aloft there,
. and rig whips and buckets to wet the sails ; — Malays, sir, and
after us !" .
As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod
should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were
now in hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay.
But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was
herself in hot chase ; how very kind of these tawny philanthro-
pists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit, —
mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were. As with
THE GRAND ARMADA. 427
glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck ; in his forward
turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one
the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him ; some such fancy as the
above seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls
of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and
bethought him that through that gate lay the route to hi3
vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same gate he was
now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end ; and not
only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman
atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their
curses ; — when all these conceits had passed through his brain,
Ahab's brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand
beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being
able to drag the firm thing from its place.
But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew ;
and when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern,
the Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on
the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the broad waters
beyond ; then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the
swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice
that the ship had so victoriously gained upon the Malays. But
still driving on in the wake of the whales, at length they seemed
abating their speed ; gradually the ship neared them ; and the
wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats.
But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct
of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that
were after them, — though as yet a mile in their rear, — than
they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions,
so that their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked
bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.
Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-
ash, and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to
renounce the chase, when a general pausing commotion among
the whales gave animating token that they were now at last
428 THE GRAND ARMADA.
under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolu-
tion, 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' ele-
phants 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 dis-
traction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced by
those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were,
helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea.
Had these leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued
over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly
have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional
timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though
banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes
of the West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness,
too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheep-
fold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire,
rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming,
and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, therefore,
withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before
us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not
infinitely outdone by the madness of men.
Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent
motion, yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither
advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place.
As is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated, each
making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal.
In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung;
the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then
running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart
of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the
THE GRAND ARMADA. 429
whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unpre-
cedented ; and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated ;
yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the
fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper
into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only
exist in a deli nous throb.
As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer
power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had
fastened to him ; as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on
all sides menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and
fro rushing about us ; our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by
ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer through their com-
plicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it
may be locked in and crushed.
But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully ; now
sheering off from this monster directly across our route in ad-
vance ; now edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were
suspended overhead, while all the time, Starbuck stood up in
the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever
whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time to
make long ones. 'Nov were the oarsmen quite idle, though
their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They
chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business. " Out
of the way, Commodore!" cried one, to a great dromedary that
of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threat-
ened to swamp us. " Hard down with your tail, there !" cried
a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly
cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity.
All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally
invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick
squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so
that they cross each other's grain at right angles ; a line of con-
siderable length is then attached to the middle of this block, and
the other end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be
430 THE GRAND ARMADA.
fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly among gallied whales that
this drugg is used. For then, more whales are close round you
than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm whales are
not every day encountered ; while you may, then, you must kill
all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must
wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure.
Hence it is, that at times like these the drugg comes into
requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The
first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales
staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong
resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like male-
factors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in
the act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught
under one of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out
and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom
as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea came in
at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and
shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time.
It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-har-
poons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our
whale's way greatly diminished ; moreover, that as we went still
further and further from the circumference of commotion, the
direful disorders seemed waning. So that when at last the
jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways van-
ished ; 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 be-
tween 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 com-
motion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the
THE GRAND ARMADA. 431
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 pos-
sible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must
watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in ; the
wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up. Keep-
ing at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by
small tame cows and calves ; the women and children of this
routed host.
Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the
revolving outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the
various pods in any one of those circles, the entire area at this
juncture, embraced by the whole multitude, must have contained
at least two or three square miles. At any rate — though indeed
such a test at such a time might be deceptive — spoutings might
be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost
from the rim of the horizon. I mention this circumstance,
because, as if the cows and calves had been pui-posely locked up
in this innermost fold ; and as if the wide extent of the herd
had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of
its stopping ; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and
every way innocent and inexperienced ; however it may have
been, these smaller whales — now and then visiting our becalmed
boat from the margin of the lake — evinced a wondrous fearless-
ness and confidence, or else a still becharmed panic which it
was impossible not to marvei at. Like household dogs they
came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching
them ; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly
domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Star-
432 THE GRAND ARMADA.
buck scratched their backs with his lance ; but fearful of the
consequences, for the time refrained from darting it.
But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface,
another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over
the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the
forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by
their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The
lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly
transparent ; and as human infants while suckling will calmly
and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two differ-
ent lives at the time ; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment,
be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence ; —
even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards
us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their
new-born sight. Floating on their sides, the mothers also
seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little infants, that from
certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have
measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in
girth. He was a little frisky ; though as yet his body seemed
scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately
occupied in the maternal reticule ; where, tail to head, and all
ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a
Tartar's bow. The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes,
still freshly retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's
ears newly arrived from foreign parts.
" Line ! line !" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale ;
" him fast ! him fast ! — Who line him ! Who struck ? — Two
whale ; one big, one little !"
" What ails ye, man ?" cried Starbuck.
" Look-e here," said Queequeg pointing down.
As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out
hundreds of fathoms of rope ; as, after deep sounding, he floats
up again, and shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising
THE GRAND ARMADA. 433
and spiralling towards the air ; so now, Star buck saw long coils
of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young
cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid
vicisitudes of the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end
loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub
is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas
seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young
Leviathan amours in the deep.*
And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of conster-
nations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the
centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments ;
yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so,
amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for
ever centrally disport in mute calm ; and while ponderous planets
of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland
there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.
Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden
frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the
other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier
of the host ; or possibly carrying on the war within the first
circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats
were afforded them. But the sight of the enraged drugged
whales now and then blindly darting to and fro across the
circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is some-
* The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but
unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons ; after a gesta-
tion which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at
a time ; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and
Jacob : — a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously
situated, one on each side of the anus ; but the breasts themselves extend
upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a nursing
whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood
rivallingly discolor the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich ; it
has been tasted by man ; it might do well with strawberries. When over-
flowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute more hominum.
19
434 THE GRAND ARMADA.
times the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly
powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by
sundering or maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by
darting a short-handled cutting-spade, to which is attached a
rope for hauling it back again. A whale wounded (as we after-
wards learned) in this part, but not effectually, as it seemed,
had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half
of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the
wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the
lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, car-
rying dismay wherever he went.
But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appal-
ling spectacle enough, any way ; yet the peculiar horror with
which he seemed to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to
a cause which at first the intervening distance obscured from us.
But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable
accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the
harpoon-line that he towed ; he had also run away with the
cutting-spade in him ; and while the free end of the rope attached
to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the har-
poon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked
loose from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was
now churning through the water, violently flailing with his flex-
ible tail, and tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and
murdering his own comrades.
This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their
stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our
lake began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as
if lifted by half spent billows from afar ; then the lake itself
began faintly to heave and swell ; the submarine bridal-chambers
and nurseries vanished ; in more and more contracting orbits the
whales in the more central circles began to swim in thickening
clusters. Yes, the long calm was departing. A low advancing
hum was soon heard ; and then like to the tumultuous masses
THE GRAND ARMADA. 435
of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in Spring,
the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre,
as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly
Starbuck and Queequeg changed places ; Starbuck taking the
stern.
" Oars ! Oars !" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm —
" gripe your oars, and clutch your souls, now ! My God, men,
stand by ! Shove him off, you Queequeg — the whale there !
— prick him ! — hit him ! Stand up — stand up, and stay so !
Spring, men — pull, men ; never mind their backs — scrape them !
— scrape away !"
The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black
bulks, leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.
But by desperate endeavor we at last shot into a temporary
opening ; then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly
watching for another outlet. After many similar hair-breadth
escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had just been one
of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales, all
violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was
cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while
standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat
taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden
tossing of a pair of broad flukes close by.
Eiotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was,
it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement ;
for having clumped together at last in one dense body, they then
renewed their onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further
pursuit was useless ; but the boats still lingered in their wake to
pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and
likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed. The
waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by
every boat ; and which, when additional game is at hand, are
inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to
436 SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession,
should the boats of any other ship draw near.
The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that
sagacious saying in the Fishery, — the more whales the less fish.
Of all the drugged whales only one was captured. The rest
contrived to escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will
hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or
herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the pro-
bable cause inducing those vast aggregations.
Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet,
as must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached
bands are occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty
individuals each. Such bands are known as schools. They
generally are of two sorts ; those composed almost entirely of
females, and those mustering none but young vigorous males,
or bulls, as they are familiarly designated.
In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you inva-
riably see a male of full grown magnitude, but not old ; who,
upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and
covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a
luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world,
surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments
of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his con-
cubines is striking ; because, while he is always of the largest
leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not
more than one third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 437
are comparatively delicate, indeed ; I dare say, not to exceed
half a dozen yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be
denied, that upon the whole they are hereditarily entitled to
en bon point.
It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their
indolent ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on
the move in leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the
Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season,
having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the
Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant
weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up
and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for
the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and
so evade the other excessive temperature of the year.
When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any
strange suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary
eye on his interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert
young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confiden-
tially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the
Bashaw assails him, and chases him away ! High times, in-
deed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to
invade the sanctity of domestic bliss ; though do what the
Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out
of his bed ; for, alas ! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the
ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival ad-
mirers ; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly
battle, and all for love. They fence with their long lower jaws,
sometimes locking them together, and so striving for the supre-
macy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a
few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters, —
furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins ; and in some in-
stances, wrenched and dislocated mouths.
But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake him-
self away at the first rush of the harem's, lord, then is it very
438 SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
diverting to watch that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk
among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing
vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worship-
ping among his thousand concubines. Granting other whales
to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give chase to one of
these Grand Turks ; for these Grand Turks are too lavish of their
strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the
sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daugh-
ters must take care of themselves ; at least, with only the ma-
ternal help. For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers
that might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the
nursery, however much for the bower ; and so, being a great
traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the
world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless,
as the ardor of youth declines ; as years and dumps in-
crease ; as reflection lends her solemn pauses ; in short, as a
general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk ; then a love of ease
and virtue supplants the love for maidens ; our Ottoman enters
upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, for-
swears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky
old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels
saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his
amorous errors.
Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a
school, so is the lord and master of that school technically known
as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, how-
ever admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, ho
should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there,
but the folly of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally
seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself,
but some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled
this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of
Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-school-
master that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and
SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 439
what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into
some of his pupils.
The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster
whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged
Sperm Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale — as a solitary
Leviathan is called — proves an ancient one. Like venerable
moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but
Nature herself ; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of
waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many
moody secrets.
The schools composing none but young and vigorous males,
previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools.
For while those female whales are characteristically timid, the
young males, or forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far
the most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the
most dangerous to encounter ; excepting those wondrous grey-
headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight
you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.
The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem
schools. Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight,
fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reck-
less, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure
them any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard.
They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about
three fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest
of settlements, that is, harems.
Another point of difference between the male and female
schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike
a Forty-barrel-bull — poor devil ! all his comrades quit him. But
strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim
around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so
near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.
440 FAST-FISH AND LOOSE-FISH.
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
FAST-FISH AND LOOSE-FISH.
The allusion to the waife and waif-poles in the last chapter
but one, necessitates some account of the laws and regulations
of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the
grand symbol and badge.
It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in
company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape,
and be finally killed and captured by another vessel ; and herein
are indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking
of this one grand feature. For example, — after a weary and
perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose
from the ship by reason of a violent storm ; and drifting far
away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a
calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus
the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise
between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwrit-
ten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legisla-
tive enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the
States-General in A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has
ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen
have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter.
They have provided a system which for terse comprehensive-
ness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the
Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other
People's Business. Yes ; these laws might be engraven on a
Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn
round the neck, so small are they.
FAST- FISH AND LOOSE-FISH. 441
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest
catch it.
But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the
admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of com-
mentaries to expound it.
First : What is a Fast-Fish ? Alive or dead a fish is techni-
cally fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat,
by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occu-
pants,— a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a
strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is techni-
cally fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognised symbol
of possession ; so long as the party waifing it plainly evince their
ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their inten-
tion so to do.
These are scientific commentaries ; but the commentaries of
the whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and
harder knocks — the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True,
among the more upright and honorable whalemen allowances
are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an outra-
geous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a
whale previously chased or killed by another party. But others
are by no means so scrupulous. <
Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover
litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a
hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas ; and when indeed
they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish ; they
were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not
only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants
(the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck,
killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes ol
the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated
with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth,
and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had
19*
442 FAST -FISH AND LOOSE- FISH.
done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which
had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure-
Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the
value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.
Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants ; Lord Ellen-
borough was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty
Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a
recent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying
to bridle his wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon
the seas of life ; but in the course of years, repenting of that
step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her. Ers-
kine was on the other side ; and he then supported it by saying,
that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady,
and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great
stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her ;
yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish ; and
therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the
lady then became that subsequent gentleman's property, along
with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in
her.
Now in the present case Erskine contended that the exam-
ples of the whale and the lady were' reciprocally illustrative
of 'each other.
These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard,
the veiy learned judge in set terms decided, to wit, — That as
for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had
merely abandoned it to save their lives ; but that with regard to
the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the
defendants ; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time
of the final capture ; and the harpoons and line because when
the fish made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in
those articles ; and hence anybody who afterwards took the
fish had a right to them. Now the plaintiffs afterwards took
the fish ; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.
FAST -FISH AND LOOSE-FISH. 443
A common man looking at this decision of the very learned
Judge, might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the
primary rock of the matter, the two great principles laid down
in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and
elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case ; these
two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on
reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurispru-'
dence ; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture,
the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has
but two props to stand on.
Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of
the law : that is, regardless of how the thing came into pos-
session ? But often possession is the whole of the law. What
are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves
but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law ?
"What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a
Fast-Fish ? What is yonder undetected villain's marble
mansion with a door-plate for a waif ; what is that but a Fast-
Fish ? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the
broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to
keep Woebegone's family from starvation ; what is that ruinous
discount but a Fast-Fish ? What is the Archbishop of Save-
soul's income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread and
cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all
sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that
globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish ? What are the Duke of
Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish ? What
to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a '
Fast-Fish ? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan,
is Texas but a Fast-Fish ? And concerning all these, is not
Possession the whole of the law ?
But if the doctrine of Fast- Fish be pretty generally applica-
ble, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.
That is internationally and universally applicable.
444 HEADS OR TAILS.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which
Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waiting it
for his royal master and mistress ? What was Poland to the
Czar ? What Greece to the Turk ? What India to England ?
What at last will Mexico be to the United States ? All Loose-
Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World
but Loose-Fish ? What all men's minds and opinions but
Loose-Fish ? What is the principle of religious belief in them
but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling
verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish ? What
is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish ? And what are you,
reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too ?
CHAPTER XC.
HEADS OR TAILS.
" De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam."
Br acton, I. 3, c. 3.
Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken
along with the context, means, that of all whales captured by
anybody on the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary
Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, and the Queen be
respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, in. the
whale, is much like halving an apple ; there is no intermediate
remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this
day in force in England; and as it offers in. various respects a
strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-
Fish, it is here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same
courteous principle that prompts the English railways to be at
the expense of a separate car, specially reserved for the accommo-
dation of royalty. In the first place, in curious proof of the
HEADS OR TAILS. 445
fact that the above-mentioned law is still in force, I proceed to
lay before you a circumstance that happened within the last
two years.
It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or
some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded
in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally
descried afar off from the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially
or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle,
called a Lord Warden. Holding the office directly from the
crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque
Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers
this office is called a sinecure. But not so. Because the Lord
"Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his perquisites ;
which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of them.
Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and
with their trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wear-
ily hauled their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a
good £150 from the precious oil and bone; and in fantasy
sipping rare tea with their wives, and good ale with their
cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares ; up steps a
very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with
a copy of Blackstone under his arm ; and laying it upon the
whale's head, he says — " Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a
Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's." Upon this the
poor mariners in their respectful consternation — so truly English
— knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their
heads all round ; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale
to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at
all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the
copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratch-
ing about for his ideas, made bold to speak.
" Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden ?"
" The Duke."
" But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish ?"
446 HEADS OR TAILS.
" It is his."
" We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some
expense, and is all that to go to the Duke's benefit ; we getting
nothing at all for our pains but our blisters ?"
" It is his."
" Is the Duke so veiy poor as to be forced to this desperate
mode of getting a livelihood V
" It is his."
" I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of
my share of this whale."
" It is his."
" Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?"
" It is his."
In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the
Duke of Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed
in some particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in
some small degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather
hard one, an honest clergyman of the town respectfully ad-
dressed a note to his Grace, begging him to take the case of
those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To which my
Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published)
that he had already done so, and received the money, and
would be obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he
(the reverend gentleman) would decline meddling with other
people's business. Is this the still militant old man, standing
at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms
of beggars ?
It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of
the Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign.
We must needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is
originally invested with that right. The law itself has already
been set forth. But Plowdon gives us the reason for it. Says
Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to the King and
Queen, " because of its superior excellence. " And by the
THE ROSE-BUD. 447
soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argu-
ment in such matters.
But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the
tail ? A reason for that, ye lawyers !
In his treatise on " Queen-Gold," or Queen-pinmoney, an old
King's Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth :
" Ye tail is ye Queen's, that ye Queen's warbrobe may be sup-
plied with ye whalebone.'' Now this was written at a time
when the black limber -bone of the Greenland or Right whale
was largely used in ladies' bodices. But this same bone is not
in the tail ; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a saga-
cious lawyer like Piynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be
presented with a tail ? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.
There are two royal fish so styled by the English law
writers — the whale and the sturgeon ; both royal property under
certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch
of the crown's ordinary revenue. I know not that any other
author has hinted of the matter ; but by inference it seems to
me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same way as the
whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head
peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly
be humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality.
And thus there seems a reason in all things, even in law.
CHAPTER XCI.
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RQSE-BUD.
* In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan,
insufferable fetor denying not inquiry."
Sir T. Browne, V. E.
It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted,
and when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day
448 THE ROSE-BUD.
sea, that the many noses on the Pequod's deck proved more
vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A
peculiar and not very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea.
"I will bet something now," said Stubb, "that somewhere
hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled the
other day. I thought they would keel up before long."
Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside ; and there in the
distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort
of whale must be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger
showed French colore from his peak ; and by the eddying cloud
of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped
around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what
the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has
died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated
corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such
a mass must exhale ; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague,
when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolera-
ble indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could per-
suade them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who
will still do it ; notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained
from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means
of the nature of attar-of-rose.
Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the
Frenchman had a second whale alongside ; and this second
whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the first. In truth,
it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem
to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indi-
gestion ; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt
of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall
see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up his nose at
such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted whales
in general.
The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb
vowed he recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the
THE ROSE-BUD. 449
lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these
whales.
" There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed,
standing in the ship's bows, " there's a jackal for ye ! I well
know that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in
the fishery ; sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mis-
taking them for Sperm Whale spouts ; yes, and sometimes sail-
ing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow
candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they
will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into ; ■ aye,
we all know these things ; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is
content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean ;
aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that
other precious fish he has there. Poor devil ! I say, pass round
a hat, some one, and let's make him a present of a little oil for
dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from that drugged
whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail ; no, not in a con-
demned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to
get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts
of ours, than he'll get from that bundle of bones ; though, now
that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal
more than oil ; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man
has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, I'm in for it ;''
and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.
By this time the faint air had become a complete calm ; so
that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the
smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up
again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's
crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow,
he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French taste,
the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a
huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had
copper spikes projecting from it here and there ; the whole
.terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red color*
450 THE ROSE-BUD.
Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read " Bouton
de Rose," — Rose-button, or Rose-bud ; and this was the romantic
name of this aromatic ship.
Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of the
inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous figure-head put
together, sufficiently explained the whole to him.
" A wooden rose-bud, eh ?" he cried with his hand to his nose,
" that will do very well ; but how like all creation it smells !"
Now in order to hold direct communication with the
people on deck, he had to pull round the bows to the starboard
side, and thus come close to the blasted whale ; and so talk
over it.
Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he
bawled — " Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy ! are there any of you Bou-
ton-de-Roses that speak English ?"
"Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who
turned out to be the chief-mate.
"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the
White Whale ?"
" What whale r
" The White Whale — a Sperm Whale — Moby Dick, have ye
seen him ?"
" Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche ! White
Whale — no."
" Very good, then ; good bye now, and I'll call again in a
minute."
Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing
Ahab leaning over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he
moulded his two hands into a trumpet and shouted — " No, Sir !
No !" Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the
Frenchman.
He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got
into the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his
nose in a sort of ba^.
THE ROSE-BUD. 451
"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb.
"Broke it?"
" I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all !"
answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job
he was at very much. "But what are you holding yours for?"
" Oh, nothing ! It's a wax nose ; I have to hold it on. Fine
day, aint it ? Air rather gardenny, I should say ; throw us a
bunch of posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose ?"
" What in the devil's name do you want here ?" roared the
Guernsey-man, flying into a sudden passion.
" Oh ! keep cool — cool ? yes, that's the word ; why don't you
pack those whales in ice while you're working at 'em ? But
joking aside, though ; do you know, Rose-bud, that it's all non-
sense trying to get any oil out of such whales ? As for that
dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his whole carcase."
"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain
here won't believe it ; this is his first voyage ; he was a Cologne
manufacturer before. But come aboard, and mayhap he'll be-
lieve you, if he won't me ; and so I'll get out of this dirty
scrape."
" Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow," re-
joined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck.
There a queer scene presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled
caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness
for the whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very
fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their
noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-
booms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work,
and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some think-
ing they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and
at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the
stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously
puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfacto- 1
ries.
452 THE ROSE-BUD.
Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas pro-
ceeding from the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in
that direction saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which
was held ajar from within. This was the tormented surgeon,
who, after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of the
day, had betaken himself to the Captain's round-house {cabinet
he called it) to avoid the pest ; but still, could not help yelling
out his entreaties and indignations at times.
Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turn-
ing to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during
which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Cap-
tain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so
unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully,
Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the
slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held
his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and con-
fidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little
plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without
his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to
this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an
interpreter's office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but
as coming from Stubb ; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any
nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the inter-
view.
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
THE ROSE-BUD. 453
. *
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 bad brought
alongside." i
Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know
more.
" What now ?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.
" Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have
eyed him carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit
to command a whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell
him from me he's a baboon."
" He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the
dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one ; in fine,
Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from
these fish."
Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice com-
manded his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and
at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to
the ship.
" What now ?" said the Guernsey-man, when the captain had
returned to them.
" Why, let me see ; yes, you may as well tell him now that
— that — in fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to him-
self) perhaps somebody else."
" He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been
of any service to us."
Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful
parties (meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting
Stubb down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.
" He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the
interpreter.
454 THE ROSE-BUD.
" Thank him heartily ; but tell him it's against my prin-
ciples to drink with the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him
I must go."
" He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his
drinking ; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to
drink, then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the
ship away from these whales, for it's so calm they won't
drift."
By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into
his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect, — that having a
long tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help
them, by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the
ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged
in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at
his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most
unusually long tow-line.
Presently a breeze sprang up ; Stubb feigned to cast off from
the whale ; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased
his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's
whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body,
and hailing the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once
proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Seizing
his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the body,
a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he
was digging a cellar there in the sea ; and when at length
his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning
up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam.
His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping
their chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters.
And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking,
and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb
was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible
nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of
this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed
AMBERGRIS. 455
through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as
one river will flow into and then along with another, withont
at all blending with it for a time.
" I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking
something in the subterranean regions, " a purse ! a purse !"
Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out
handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap,
or rich mottled old cheese ; very unctuous and savory withal.
You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue
between yellow and ash color. And this, good friends, is amber-
gris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six
handfuls were obtained ; but more was unavoidably lost in the
sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not
for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come
on board, else the ship would bid them good bye.
CHAPTER XCII.
AMBERGRIS.
Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so
important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain
Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the
English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time,
and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of
ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned.
Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for
grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For
amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in
some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except
upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle,
odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads
and ornaments ; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fra-
456 • AMBERGRIS.
grant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles,
precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it
in cooking, and also cany it to Mecca, for the same purpose that
frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some wine mer-
chants 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 labor-
ers do in blasting rocks.
I have forgotten to say that there were found in this amber-
gris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb
thought might be sailors' trousers buttons ; but it afterwards
turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small
squid bones embalmed in that manner.
Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris
■should be found in the heart of such decay ; is this nothing?
Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about
corruption and incorruption ; how that we are sown in dishonor,
but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying
of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also
forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-
water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.
I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal,
but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made
against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already
biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by
what has been said of the Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere
in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that
the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy
business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that
AMBERGRIS. 457
all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma
originate ?
I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the
Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries
ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now,
try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done ;
but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through
the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that man-
ner ; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sud-
den «and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding
any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into
the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the
Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that
arising from excavating an old city grave-yard, for the founda-
tions of a Lying-in Hospital.
I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers
may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Green-
land, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh
or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the
learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-
book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat ; berg,
to put up ), this village was founded in order to afford a place
for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, with-
out being taken home to Holland for that purpose.' It was a
collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds ; and when the
works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very
pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea
Sperm Whaler ; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after
completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume
fifty days in the business of boiling out ; and in the state that
it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living
or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no
means creatures of ill odor ; nor can whalemen be recognised,
as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the
20
458 THE CASTAWAY.
company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be
otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such
high health ; taking abundance of exercise ; always out of
doors ; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that
the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a
perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a
warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to
for fragrance, considering his magnitude ? Must it not be to
that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with
myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do hont>r to
Alexander the Great ?
CHAPTER XCin.
THE CASTAWAY.
It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman,
that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the
Pequod's crew ; an event most lamentable ; and which ended in
providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft
with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever
shattered sequel might prove her own.
Now, in the whale ship, it is not eveiy one that goes in the
boats. Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose
province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing
the whale. As a general thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy
fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there
happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in
the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It
was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name,
Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip ! ye have heard of him before ;
ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight,
so gloomy-jolly.
THE CASTAWAY. 459
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a
black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of
dissimilar color, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless
Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip,
though over tender-hearted, was at bottom veiy bright, with
that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe ; a
tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer,
freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar
should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of
Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that
this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy ;
behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But
Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities ; so that the
panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccounta-
bly become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness ;
though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily sub-
dued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by
strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times
the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in
Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on
the green ; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha !
had turned the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine.
So, though in the clear air of day, suspended against a blue-
veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop wiH healthful
glow ; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the
diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a
gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by
some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgenees,
infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the
divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel
stolen from the Bang of Hell. But let us to the story.
It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-
oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become
quite maimed ; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.
4G0 THE CASTAWAY.
The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much
nervousness ; bul happily, for that time, escaped close contact
with the whale ; and therefore came off not altogether dis-
creditably ; though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards,
to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for
he might often find it needful.
Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the
whale ; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its
customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right
under poor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternation of the
moment caused him to leap, paddle in .hand, out of the boat ;
and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming
against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to
become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water.
That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line
swiftly straightened ; and presto ! poor Pip came all foaming
up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by
the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and
neck.
Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the
hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-
knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line,
and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, " Cut ?"
Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's
sake ! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, this
entire thing happened. .
" Damn him, cut !" roared Stubb ; and so the whale was
lost and Pip was saved.
So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was
assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly
permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in
a plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed
Pip officially ; and that done, unofficially gave him much
wholesome advice. The substance was, Never jump from a
THE CASTAWAY. 461
boat, Pip, except — but all the rest was indefinite, as the
soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is
your true motto in whaling ; but cases will sometimes happen
when Leap from the boat, is still better. Moreover, as if
perceiving at last that if he should give undiluted conscientious
advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too wide a margin to
jump in for the future ; Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and
concluded with a peremptory command, "Stick to the boat,
Pip, or by the Lord, I wont pick you up if you jump ; mind
that. We can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you ; a
whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in
Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don't jump any more."
Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved
his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity
too often interferes with his benevolence.
But we are all in the hands of the Gods ; and Pip jumped
again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first
performance ; but this time he did not breast out the line ; and
hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on
the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. Alas ! Stubb was but
too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day ;
the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all
round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to
the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon
head showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted
when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb's inexorable back was
turned upon him ; and the whale was winged. In three
minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and
Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his
crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway,
though the loftiest and the brightest.
Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy
to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.
462 THE CASTAWAY.
But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concen-
tration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my
God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead
calm bathe in the open sea — mark how closely they hug their
ship and only coast along her sides.
But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his
fate ? No ; he did not mean to, at least. Because there were
two boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they
would of course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up ;
though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized
through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the
hunters in all similar instances ; and such instances not unfre-
quently occur ; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so
called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to
military navies and armies.
But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip,
suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and
gave chase ; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and
all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon
began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance
the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that horn- the
little negro went about the deck an idiot ; such, at least, they
said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but
drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though.
Bather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange
shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before
his passive eyes ; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his
hoarded heaps ; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile
eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral
insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal
orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and
spoke it ; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So
■nan's insanity is heaven's sense ; and wandering from all mortal
A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND. 463
reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to
reason, is absurd and frantic ; and weal or woe, feels then
uncompromised, indifferent as his God.
For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is
common in that fishery ; and in the sequel of the narrative, it
will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.
CHAPTER XCIV.
A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND.
That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought
to the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting opera-
tions previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to
the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.
While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were
employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled
with the sperm ; and when the proper time arrived, this same
sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of
which anon.
It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when,
with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath
of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there
rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze
these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty ! No
wonder that in old times this sperm was such a favorite cos-
metic. Such a clearer ! such a sweetener ! such a softener !
such a delicious mollifier ! After having my hands in it for only
a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were,
to serpentine and spiralize.
As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck ; after the
bitter exertion at the windlass ; under a blue tranquil sky ; the
464 A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND.
ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as
I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infil-
trated tissues, woven almost within the hour ; as they richly
broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like
fully ripe grapes their wine ; as I snuffed up that uncontami-
nated aroma, — literally and truly, like the smell of spring
violets ; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a
musky meadow ; I forgot all about our horrible oath ; in that
inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it ; I
almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that
sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger : while
bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or
petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.
Squeeze ! squeeze ! squeeze ! all the morning long ; I squeezed
that sperm till I myself almost melted into it ; I squeezed that
sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me ; and I found
myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mis-
taking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding,
affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget ;
that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking
up into their eyes sentimentally ; as much as to say, — Oh ! my
dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social
acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy ! Come ;
let us squeeze hands all round ; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves
into each other ; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the
very milk and sperm of kindness.
Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever ! For
now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have
perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at
least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity ; not placing it any-
where in the intellect or the fancy ; but in the wife, the heart,
the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country ; now
that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eter-
nally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rowa
A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND. 465
of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of sper-
maceti.
*********
Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of
other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm
whale for the try-works.
First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from
the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions
of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons — a wad of
muscle — but still contains some oil. After being severed from
the whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere
going to the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire
marble.
Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmen-
tary parts of the whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the
blanket of blubber, and often participating to a considerable
degree in its unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial,
beautiful object to behold. As its name imports, it is of an**
exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and
golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and
purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of
reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess,
that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted some-
thing as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of
Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been
killed the first day after the venison season, and that particular
venison season contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of
the vineyards of Champagne.
There is another substance, and a very singular one, which
turns Up in the course of this business, but which I feel it to be
very puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion ;
an appellation original with the whalemen, and even so is the
nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair,
most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged
20*
466 A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND.
squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the won-
drously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing.
Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whale-
men, but sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen.
It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped
off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of
which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that
ignoble Leviathan.
Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's
vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A
whaleman's nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut
from the tapering part of Leviathan's tail : it averages an inch
in thickness, and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part
of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like
a leathern squilgee ; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic,
allures along with it all impurities.
But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way
is at once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long
talk with its inmates. This place has previously been mentioned
as the receptacle for the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted
from the whale. When the proper time arrives for cutting up
its contents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros,
especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull lantern, a space
has been left clear for the workmen. They generally go in
pairs, — a pike-and-gaff-man and a spade-man. The whaling-
pike is similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name.
The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the
gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it
from slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Mean-
while, the spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly
chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp
as hone can make it ; the spademan's feet are shoeless ; the
thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from
him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one
THE CASSOCK. 467
of his assistants', would you be very much astonished ? Toes
are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.
CHAPTER XCV.
THE CASSOCK. '
Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture
of this post-mortemizing of the whale ; and had you strolled
forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would
have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enig-
matical object, which you would have seen there, lying along
lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in
the whale's huge head ; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower
jaw ; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail ; none of these
would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable
cone, — longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter
at the base, and jet:black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg.
And an idol, indeed, it is ; or, rather, in old times, its likeness
was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen
Maachah in Judea ; and for worshipping which, king Asa, her
son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an
abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the
15 th chapter of the first book of Kings.
Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along,
and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as
the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off
with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from
the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now pro-
ceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter
the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like
a pantaloon leg ; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to
468 THE TRY-WORKS.
double its diameter ; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the
rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down ; when removing
some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then
cutting two slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise
slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you
invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all
his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him,
while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.
That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber
for the pots ; an operation which is conducted at a curious
wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with
a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop,
fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's desk. Arrayed in decent
black ; occupying a conspicuous pulpit ; intent on bible leaves ;
what a candidate for an archbishoprick, what a lad for a Pope
were this mincer !*
CHAPTER XCVI.
THE TRY-WORKS.
Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly
distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious
anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp
in constituting the completed ship. It is as if from the open
field a brick-kiln were transported to her planks.
The try-works are planted between the foremast and main-
mast, the most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath
*' Bible leaves ! Bible leaves ! This is the invariable cry from the
mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into
as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling
out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased,
besides perhaps improving it in quality.
THE TRY-WORKS. 469
are of a peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an
almost solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight
square, and five in height. The foundation does not penetrate
the deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by
ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it
down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased with wood, and
at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened hatch-
way. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two
in number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in
use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are
polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like
silver punch-bowls. During the night-watches some cynical
old sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away there
for a nap. While employed in polishing them — one man in
each pot, side by side — many confidential communications are
carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound
mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of
the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling round me,
that I was first indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that
in geometiy all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone
for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same
time.
Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the
bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two
iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots.
These mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron. The intense
heat of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the
deck, by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the
entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inserted at
the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as
it evaporates. There are no external chimneys ; they open
direct from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a
moment.
It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works
470 THE TRY-WORKS.
were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb
to oversee the business.
"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You
cook, fire the works." This was an easy thing, for the carpen-
ter had been thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout
the passage. Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first
fire in the try-works has to be fed for a time with wood. After
that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to
the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp,
shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains
considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the
flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming
misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and
burns by his own body. "Would that he consumed his own
smoke ! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you
must, and not only that, but you must five in it for the time.
It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may
lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left
wing of the day of judgment ; it is an argument for the pit.
By midnight the works were in full operation. We were
clear from the carcase ; sail had been made ; the wind was
freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that
darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals
forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty
rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning
ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some venge-
ful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold
Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with
broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish
frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.
The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded
a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the
Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-
ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing
THE TRY-WORKS. 471
masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up tbe fires
beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors
to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen
heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the
boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces.
Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the
wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-
sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed,
looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched
in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with
smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting
barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely
revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works'. As they
narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of
terror told in words of mirth ; as their uncivilized laughter
forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace ;
as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated
with their huge pronged forks and dippers ; as the wind howled
on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and
yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the
blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the
white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all
sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and
laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that
blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her
monomaniac commander's soul.
So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long
hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea.
Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better
saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The
continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in
smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my
soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsi-
ness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.
472 THE TRY-WORKS.
But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inex-
plicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing
sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong.
The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it ; in
my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in
the wind ; I thought my eyes were open ; I was half conscious
of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching
them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no
compass before me to steer by ; though it seemed but a minute
since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle
lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet
gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness.
Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing
thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead
as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling,
as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped
the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, some-
how, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God ! what is the
matter with me ? thought I. Lo ! in my brief sleep I had
turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with
my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced
back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into
the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and
how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the
night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee !
Look not too long in the face of the fire, 0 man ! Never
dream with thy hand on the helm ! Turn not thy back to the
compass ; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller ; believe
not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look
ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be
bright ; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the
morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious,
golden, glad sun, the only true lamp — all others but Hal's !
Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp,
THE TRY-WORKS. 473
nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the
millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon.
The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this
earth, and winch is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore,
that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him,
that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or undeveloped.
With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of
Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesi-
astes is the fine hammered steel of woe. " All is vanity." All.
This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's
wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks
fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas than
hell ; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of
sick men ; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabe-
lais as j>assing wise, and therefore jolly ; — not that man is fitted
to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould
with unfa thorn ably wondrous Solomon.
But even Solomon, he says, " the man that wandereth out
of the way of understanding shall remain" (i. e. even while
living) " in the congregation of the dead." Give not thyself
up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee ; as for the
time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe ; but there is
a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some
souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and
soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces.
And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in
the mountains ; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain
eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though
they soar.
474 THE LAMP.
CHAPTER XCVI1.
THE LAMP.
Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the
Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for
one single moment you would have almost thought you were
standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and
counsellors. There they lay in then* triangular oaken vaults,
each mariner a chiselled muteness ; a score of lamps flashing
upon his hooded eyes.
In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the
milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and
stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the
whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light.
He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in
it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship's black hull still
houses an illumination.
See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his hand-
ful of lamps — often but old bottles and vials, though — to the
copper cooler at the try-works, and replenishes them there, as
mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its
unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state ; a fluid un-
known to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is
sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for
his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even
as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.
STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP. 475
CHAPTER XCVm.
STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP.
Already lias it been related how the great leviathan is afar
off descried from the mast-head ; how he is chased over the
watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep ; how
he is then towed alongside and beheaded ; and how (on the
principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments
in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout
becomes the property of his executioner ; how, in due time, he
is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadracb, Meshach, and
Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through
the fire ; — but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of
this part of the description by rehearsing — singing, if I may —
the romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks
and striking them down into the hold, where once again levia-
than returns to his native profundities, sliding along beneath
the surface as before ; but, alas ! never more to rise and blow.
While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks ; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and
rolling this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous
casks are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and some-
times perilously scoot across the slippery deck, like so many
land slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their course ;
and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can
play upon them, for now, ex officio, eveiy sailor is a cooper.
At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then
the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are
thrown open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the
sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically
closed, like a closet walled up.
476 STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP.
In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remark-
able incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the
planks stream with freshets of blood and oil ; on the sacred
quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely
piled ; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard ; the smoke
from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks ; the mariners
go about suffused with unctuousness ; the entire ship seems
great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening.
But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your
ears in this self-same ship ; and were it not for the tell-tale boats
and try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent
merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander.
The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing
virtue. This is the reason why the decks never look so white
as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, from the
ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent ley is readily
made ; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the
whale remains clinging to the side, that ley quickly exterminates
it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets
of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot
is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous imple-
ments which have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed
and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon
the try-works, completely hiding the pots ; every cask is out of
sight ; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks ; and when by the
combined and simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's
company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last con-
cluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablu-
tions ; shift themselves from top to toe ; and finally issue to the
immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-
leaped from out the daintiest Holland.
Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and
threes, and humorousl}r discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and
fine cambrics ; propose to mat the deck ; think of having hang-
STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP. 477
ings to the top ; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the
piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of
oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They
know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and bring
us napkins !
But mark : aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three
men intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infalli-
bly will again soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one
small grease-spot somewhere. Yes ; and many is the time,
when, after the severest uninterrupted labors, which know no
night ;* continuing straight through for ninety-six hours ; when
from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day
rowing on the Line, — they only step to the deck to carry vast chains,
and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in
their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the com-
bined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works ;
when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves
to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it ; many
is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their
clean frocks, are startled by the cry of " There she blows !" and
away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole
weary thing again. Oh ! my friends, but this is man-killing !
Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings
extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable
sperm ; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from
its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of
the soul ; hardly is this done, when — There she blows ! — the
ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other
world, and go through young life's old routine again.
Oh ! the metempsychosis ! Oh ! Pythagoras, that in bright
Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so
mild ; I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage
— and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to
Bplice a rope !
478** THE DOUBLOON.
CHAPTER XCIX.
THE DOUBLOON.
Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his
quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle
and mainmast ; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring
narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these
walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause
in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the par-
ticular object before him. When he halted before the binnacle,
with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass,
that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his
purpose ; and when resuming his walk he again paused before
the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon
the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of
nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if not
hopefulness.
But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed
to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions
stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to
interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever signi-
ficance might lurk in them. And some certain significance
lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round
world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the .cartload,
as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the
Milky Way.
Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked some-
where out of the heart of gorgeous 'hills, whence, east and west,
over golden sands, the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows.
And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts
THE DOUBLOON. 479
and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and imma-
culate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor,
though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed
by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded
with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach,
nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset
left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-
striking end ; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and
all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman.
Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night,
wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would
ever live to spend it.
Now those noble golden coins of South America are as
medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms,
alpacas, and volcanoes ; sun's disks and stars ; ecliptics, horns-
of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion
stamped ; so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an
added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through
those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most
wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore
the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR : QUITO. So
this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of
the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it ;
and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning
clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw
the likeness of three Andes' summits ; from one a flame ; a tower
on another ; on the third a crowing cock ; while arching over
all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked
with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the
equinoctial point at Libra.
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others,
was now pausing.
"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and
480 THE DOUBLOON
towers, and all other grand and lofty things ; look here, — three
peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab ; the
volcano, that is Ahab ; the courageous, the undaunted, and
victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab ; all are Ahab ; and this
round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, Avhich, like
a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors
back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for
those who ask the world to solve them ; it cannot solve itself.
Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face ; but see !
aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox ! and but six
months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries !
From storm to storm ! So be it, then. Born in throes, 'tis fit
that man should live in pains and die in pangs ! So be it, then !
Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then."
" No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws
must have left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured
Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The oil-
man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never
marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below ; let me read.
A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that
almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in
this vale of Death, God girds us round ; and over all our gloom,
the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If
we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil ;
but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way,
to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture ; and if, at mid-
night, 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 some-
where within nine fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece
THE DOUBLOON. 481
of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's
Hook, I'd v ot look at it very long ere spending it. Humph ! in my
poor, insigniticant 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 quar-
ter joes. What then should there be in this doubloon of the
Equator that is so killing wonderful ? By Golconda ! let me
read it once. Halloa ! here's signs and wonders truly ! That,
now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and
what my almanack below calls ditto. I'll get the almanack
and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arith-
metic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queei
curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar. Here's the
book. Let's see now. Signs and wonders ; and the sun, he's
always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem ; here they are — here
they go — all alive : — Aries, or the Ram ; Taurus, or the Bull
and Jimimi ! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well ; the
sun he wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just
crossing the threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all
in a ring. Book ! you lie there ; the fact is, you books must
know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and
facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That's my small
experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch 's
navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders,
eh ? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant
in wonders ! There's a clue somewhere ; wait a bit ; hist — -
hark ! By Jove, I have it ! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac
here is the life of man in one round chapter ; and now I'll read
it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack ! To begin :
there's Aries, or the Ram — lecherous dog, he begets us ; then,
Taurus, or the Bull — he bumps us the first thing ; then Gemini,
or the Twins — that is, Virtue and Vice ; we try to reach Vir-
21
482 THE DOUBLOON.
tue, when lo ! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back ; and
here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path —
he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw ; we
escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin ! that's our first love ; we
marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or
the Scales — happiness weighed and found wanting ; and while
we are very sad about that, Lord ! how we suddenly jump, as
Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear ; we are curing the
wound, when whang come the arrows all round ; Sagittarius, or
the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts,
stand aside ! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the
Goat ; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed ;
when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge
and drowns us ; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we
sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun
goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive
and hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and
trouble ; and so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the
word for aye ! Adieu, Doubloon ! But stop ; here comes little
King-Post ; dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear
what he'll have to say. There ; he's before it ; he'll out with
something presently. So, so ; he's beginning."
" I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and
whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.
So, what's all this staring been about ? It is worth sixteen
dollars, that's true ; and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hun-
dred and sixty cigars. I wont smoke dirty pipes like Stubb,
but I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and sixty of them ;
so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out."
" Shall I call that wise or foolish, now ; if it be really wise it
has a foolish look to it ; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a
sort of wiseish look to it. But, avast ; here comes our old
Manxman — the old hearse-driver, he must have been, that is,
before he took to the sea. He luffs up before the doubloon ;
THE DOUBLOON. 483
halloa, and goes round on the other side of the mast ; why,
there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side ; and now he's back
again ; what does that mean ? Hark ! he's muttering — voice
like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen !"
" If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and
a day, when the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've
studied signs, and know their marks ; they were taught me two
score years ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen. Now, in
what sign will the sun then be ? The horse-shoe sign ; for there
it is, right opposite the gold. And what's the horse-shoe sign ?
The lion is the horse-shoe sign — the roaring and devouring
Hon. Ship, old ship ! my old head shakes to think of thee."
" There's another rendering now ; but still one text. All sorts
of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again ! here
comes Queequeg — all tattooing — looks like the signs of the
Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal ? As I live he's com-
paring notes ; looking at his thigh bone ; thinks the sun is in
the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old
women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country. And by
Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh — I
guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No : he don't know what
to make of the doubloon ; he takes it for an old button off some
king's trowsers. But, aside again ! here comes that ghost- devil,
Fedallah ; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of
his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of
his ? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself ;
there is a sun on the coin — fire worshipper, depend upon it.
Ho ! more and more. This way comes Pip — poor boy ! would
he had died, or I ; he's half horrible to me. He too has been
watching all of these interpreters — myself included — and look
now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand
away again and hear him. Hark !
" I look, you look, he looks ; we look, ye look, they look."
"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar!
484 THE DOUBLOON.
Improving his mind, poor fellow ! But what's that he says
now — hist!"
" I look, you look, he looks ; we look, ye look, they look."
" Why, he's getting it by heart — hist ! again."
" I look, you look, he looks ; we look, ye look, they look."
" Well, that's funny."
" And I, you, and he ; and we, ye, and they, are all hats ; and
I'm a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here.
Caw ! caw ! caw ! caw ! caw ! caw ! Ain't I a crow ? And
where's the scare-crow ? There he stands ; two bones stuck
into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves
of an old jacket."
" Wonder if he means me ? — complimentary ! — poor lad ! —
I could go hang myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit
Pip's vicinity. I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits ;
but he's too crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I leave him
muttering."
" Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all
on 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 '11 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 !"
LEG AND ARM. 485
CHAPTER 0.
LEG AND ARM.
THE PEQUOD, OF NANTUCKET, MEETS THE SAMUEL ENDERBY, OS
LONDON.
" Ship, ahoy ! Hast seen the White Whale ?"
So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English
colors, bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the
old man was standing in his hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg
plainly revealed to the stranger captain, who was carelessly
reclining in his own boat's bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly,
good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed
in a spacious roundabout, t*hat hung round him in festoons of
blue pilot-cloth ; and one empty arm of this jacket streamed
behind him like the broidered arm of a huzzar's surcoat.
" Hast seen the White Whale ?"
" See you this ?" and withdrawing it from the folds that had
hidden it, he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, termi-
nating in a wooden head like a mallet.
" Man my boat !" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing ahout
the oars near him — " Stand by to lower !"
In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and
his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside
of the stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself.
In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since
the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any
vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an inge-
nious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the
Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other
486 LEG AND ARM.
vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter
for anybody — except those who are almost hourly used to it,
like whalemen — to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the
open sea ; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards
the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down
to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship
of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention,
Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman
again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he
could hardly hope to attain.
It has before been hinted, perhaps, that eveiy little untoward
circumstance that befel him, and which indirectly sprang from
his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated
Ahab. And in the present instance, all this was heightened
by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over
the side, by the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and
swinging towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-
ropes ; for at first they did not se5m to bethink them that a
one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea
bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, be-
cause the strange captain, observing at a glance how affaire
stood, cried out, " I see, I see ! — avast heaving there ! Jump,
boys, and swing over the cutting-tackle."
As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside
a day or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and
the massive curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still
attached to the end. This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who
at once comprehending it all, slid his solitary thigh into the
curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the fluke of an anchor,
or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the word, held
himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his own
weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running
parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the
high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head.
LEGANDARM. 487
With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other
captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and
crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) cried out in
his walrus way, " Aye, aye, hearty ! let us shake bones together !
— an arm and a leg ! — an arm that never can shrink, d'ye see ;
and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the
White Whale ? — how long ago ?"
"The White Whale," said the Englishman, pointing his
ivory arm towards the East, and taking a rueful sight along it,
as if it had been a telescope ; " There I saw him, on the Line,
last season."
" And he took that arm off, did he ?" asked Ahab, now slid-
ing down from the capstan, and resting on the Englishman's
shoulder, as he did so.
" Aye, he was the cause of it, at least ; and that leg, too ?"
" Spin me the yarn," said Ahab ; " how was it ?"
"It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the
Line," began the Englishman. " I was ignorant of the White
Whale at that time. Well, one day we lowered for a pod of
four or five whales, and my boat fastened to one of them ; a
regular circus horse he was, too, that went milling and milling
round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish, by sitting
all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches
from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a
milky-white head and hump, all crows' feet and wrinkles."
" It was he, it was he !" cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his
suspended breath.
" And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin."
" Aye, aye — they were mine — my irons," cried Ahab, exult-
ingly — " but on !"
" Give me a chance, then," said the Englishman, gootl-
humoredly. " Well, this old great-grandfather, with the white
head and hump, runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to
snapping furiously at my fast-line."
488 LEG AND ARM
" Aye, I see ! — wanted to part it ; free the fast-fish — an old
trick — I know him."
" How it was exactly," continued the one-armed commander,
" I do not know ; but in biting, the fine, it got foul of his teeth,
caught there somehow ; but we didn't know it then ; so that
when we afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came
plump on to his hump ! instead of the other whale's that went
off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and
what a noble great whale it was — the noblest and biggest I
ever saw, sir, in my life — I resolved to capture him, spite of the
boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard
line would get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to migbt draw
(for I have a devil of a boat's crew for a pull on a whale-line) ;
seeing all this, I say, I jumped into my first mate's boat — Mr.
Mounttop's here (by the way, Captain — Mounttop ; Mounttop
— the captain) ; — as I was saying, I jumped into Mounttop's
boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with mine,
then ; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old great-grand-
father have it. But, Lord, look you, sir — hearts and souls alive,
man — the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat — both
eyes out — all befogged and bedeadened with black foam — the
whale's tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the
air, like a marble steeple. No use sterning all, then ; but as I
was groping at midday, with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels ;
as I was groping, I say, after the second iron, to toss it over-
board— down comes the tail like a Lima tower, cutting my boat
in two, leaving each half in splinters ; and, flukes first, the white
hump backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips.
We all struck out. To escape his terrible Sailings, I seized
hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment
clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me
off, and at the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart for-
wards, went down like a flash ; and the barb of that cursed
second iron towing along near me caught me here" (clapping
LEGANDARM. 489
his hand just below his shoulder) ; " yes, caught rue just here,
I say, and bore roe down to Hell's flames, I was thinking ; when,
when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript its
way along the flesh — clear along the whole length of my arm
— came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated ; — and that gentle-
man there will tell you the rest (by the way, captain — Dr.
Bunger, ship's surgeon: Bunger, my lad, — the captain). Now,
Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn."
The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had
been all the time standing near them, with nothing specific
visible, to denote his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was
an exceedingly round but sober one ; he was dressed in a faded
blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched trowsers ; and had thus
far been dividing his attention between a marlingspike he held
in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, occasionally cast-
ing a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two crippled
captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab,
he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's
bidding.
" It was a shocking bad wound," began the whale-surgeon ;
" and, taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old
Sammy — "
" Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship," interrupted the
one-armed captain, addressing Ahab ; " go on, boy."
" Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of
the blazing hot weather there on the Line. But it was no use
— I did all I could ; sat up with him nights ; was very severe
with him in the matter of diet — "
" Oh, very severe !" chimed in the patient himself ; then
suddenly altering his voice, " Drinking hot rum toddies with me
every night, till he couldn't see to put on the bandages ; and
sending me to bed, half seas over, about three o'clock in the
morning. Oh, ye stars ! he sat up with me indeed, and was
very severe in my diet. Oh ! a great watcher, and very dieteti-
21*
490 LEG AND ARM,
cally severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you clog, laugh out !
why don't ye ? You know you're a precious jolly rascal.) But,
heave ahead, boy, I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive
by any other man."
" My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected
sir" — said the imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bow-
ing to Ahab — " is apt to be facetious at times ; he spins us
many clever things of that sort. But I may as well say — en
passant, as the French remark — that I myself — that is to say,
Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy — am a strict total
abstinence man ; I never drink — "
" Water !" cried the captain ; " he never drinks it ; it's a sort
of fits to him ; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia ;
but go on — go on with the arm story."
" Yes, I may as well," said the surgeon, coolly. " I was about
observing, sir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption,
that spite of my best and severest endeavors, the wound kept
getting worse and worse ; the truth was, sir, it was as ugly
gaping wound as surgeon ever saw ; more tban two feet and
several inches long. I measured it with the lead line. In short,
it grew black ; I knew what was threatened, and off it came.
But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there ; that
thing is against all rule" — pointing at it with the marlingspike
— " that is the captain's work, not mine ; he ordered the car-
penter to make it ; he had that club-hammer there put to the
end, to knock some one's brains out with, I suppose, as he tried
mine once. He flies into diabolical passions sometimes. Do
ye see this dent, sir" — removing his hat, and brushing aside his
hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull, but which
bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever having
been a wound — " Well, the captain there will tell you how that
came here ; he knows."
" No, I don't," said the captain, " but his mother did ; he
was bora with it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you — you Bunger !
LEGANDARM. 491
was there ever such another Bunger in the watery world ?
Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog;
you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal."
" What became of the White Whale ?" now cried Ahab, who
thus far had been impatiently listening to this bye-play between
the two Englishmen.
" Oh !" cried the one-armed captain, " Oh, yes ! Well ; after
he sounded, we didn't see him again for some time ; in fact, as
I before hinted, I didn't then know what whale it was that had
served me such a trick, till some time afterwards, when coming
back to the Line, we heard about Moby Dick — as some call
him — and then I knew it was he."
" Did'st thou cross his wake again V
"Twice."
"But could not fasten?"
" Didn't want to try to : ain't one limb enough ? What
should I do without this other arm ? And I'm thinking Moby
Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows.''
" Well, then," interrupted Bunger, " give him your left arm
for bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen" — very
gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succes-
sion— " Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of
the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence,
that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even
a man's arm ? And he knows it too. So that what you take
for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he
never means to swallow a single limb ; he only thinks to terrify
by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow,
formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swal-
low jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good
earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more ; when I
gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye
see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and
fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Cap-
492 LEG AND ARM.
tain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind
to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent
burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours ; only let
the whale have another chance at you shortly, that's all."
" No, thank ye, Bunger," said the English Captain, " he's
welcome to the arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't
know him then; but not to another one. No more White
Whales for me ; I've lowered for him once, and that has satis-j
fied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know
that ; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but,
hark ye, he's best let alone ; don't you think so, Captain ?" —
glancing at the ivoiy leg.
" He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is
best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures.
He's all a magnet ! How long since thou saw'st him last ?
Which way heading ?"
" Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's," cried Bunger,
stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely
snuffing; "this man's blood — bring the thermometer ! — it's at
the boiling point ! — his pulse makes these planks beat ! — sir !" —
taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's
arm.
" Avast !" roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks —
" Man the boat ! Which way heading ?"
" Good God !" cried the English Captain, to whom the ques-
tion was put. " What's the matter ? He was heading east, I
think. — Is your Captain crazy ?" whispering Fedallah.
But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bul-
warks to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the
cutting-tackle towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to
stand by to lower.
In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the
Manilla men were springing to their oars. In vain the English
Captain hailed him. With back to the stranger ship, and face
THE DECANTER. 493
set like a flint to his own, Ahab stood upright till alongside of
the Pequod.
CHAPTER CI.
THE DECANTER.
Eke the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here,
that she hailed from London, and was named after the late
Samuel Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the
famous whaling house of Enderby & Sons ; a house which in
my poor whaleman's opinion, comes not far behind the united
royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of real his-
torical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord 17*75,
this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous fish-
documents do not make plain ; but in that year (1775) it fitted
out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm
Whale ; though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726)
our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard
had in large fleets pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North
and South Atlantic : not elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded
here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to
harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale ; and that
for half a century they were the only people of the whole
globe who so harpooned him.
In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express
purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys,
boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations
to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea. The
voyage was a skilful and lucky one ; and returning to her berth
with her hold full of the precious sperm, the Amelia's example
was soon followed by other ships, English and American,
and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were
494 THE DECANTER.
thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the inde-
fatigable house again bestirred itself : Samuel and all his Sons —
how many, their mother only knows — -and under their imme-
diate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British
government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a
whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded
by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of
it, and did some service ; how much does not appear. But this
is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery
whale ship of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote
waters of Japan. That ship — well called the " Syren " — made
a noble experimental cruise ; and it was thus that the great
Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. The
Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain
Coffin, a Nantucketer.
All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think,
exists to the present day ; though doubtless the original Samuel
must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea
of the other world.
The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a
very fast sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once
at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank
good flip down in the forecastle. It was a fine gam we had,
and they were all trumps — every soul on board. A short life
to them, and a jolly death. And that fine gam I had — long,
very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory
heel — it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that
ship ; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember
me, if I ever lose sight of it. Flip ? Did I say we had flip ?
Yes, and we flipped it af 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 DECANTER. 495
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 bye 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 to my taste.
The beef was fine — tough, but with body in it. They said
it was bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but
I do not know, for certain, how that was. They had dumplings
too; small, but substantial, symmetrically globular, and inde-
structible dumplings. I fancied that you could feel them,
and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. If you
stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out of
you like billiard-balls. The bread — but that couldn't be helped ;
besides, it was an anti-scorbutic ; in short, the bread contained
the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very
light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner
when you ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm,
considering the dimensions of the cook's boilers, including his
own live parchment boilers ; fore and aft, 1 say, the Samuel
Enderby was a jolly ship ; of good fare and plenty ; fine flip
and strong ; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to
hat-band.
But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and
some other English whalers I know of — not all though — were
such famous, hospitable ships ; that passed round the beef, and
the bread, and the can, and the joke ; and were not soon weary
of eating, and drinking, and laughing ? I will tell you. The
abounding good cheer of these English whalers is matter for
historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of historical
whale research, when it has seemed needed.
The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hol-
landers, Zealanders, and Danes ; from whom they derived many
terms still extant in the fishery ; and what is yet more, their
496 THE DECANTER.
fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a
general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew ; but
not so the English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing
of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental
and particular ; and, therefore, must have some special origin,
which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.
During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled
upon an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling
smell of it, I knew must be about whalers. The title was,
" Dan Coopman," wherefore I concluded that this must be the
invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery,
as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was reinforced in
this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one " Fitz
Swackhammer." But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned
man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college
of Santa Claus and St. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for
translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his trouble —
this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured
me that " Dan Coopman" did not mean " The Cooper,'* but
"The Merchant." In short, this ancient and learned Low
Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland ; and, among
other subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale
fishery. And in this chapter it was, headed " Smeer," or " Fat,"
that I found a long detailed list of the outfits for the larders
and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as
translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following :
400,000 lbs. of beef.
60,000 lbs. Friesland pork.
150,000 lbs. of stock fish.
550,000 lbs. of biscuit.
72,000 lbs. of soft bread.
2,800 firkins of butter.
20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese.
144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article).
THE DECANTER. 497
550 ankers of Geneva.
10,800 barrels of beer.
Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in tbe reading ; not
so in tbe present case, bowever, where tbe reader is flooded
witb wbole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and
good cbeer.
At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting
of all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound
thoughts were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcen-
dental and Platonic application ; and, furthermore, I compiled
supplementary tables of my own, touching the probable quan-
tity of stock-fish, <fec, consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer
in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery. In
the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden
cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their
naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous
by the nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing
their game in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of
that Esquimaux country where the convivial natives pledge
each other in bumpers of train oil.
The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now,
as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short
summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these
Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the
'Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and
reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have
5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all ; therefore, I say, we have pre-
cisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' allowance,
exclusive of bis fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. Now,
whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one
might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to
stand up in a boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales ;
this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at
them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it
498 A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES.
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 CII.
A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES.
Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I
have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or
separately and in detail upon some few interior structural
features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension
of him, it behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and
untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and
casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his inner-
most bones, set him before you in his ultimatum ; that is to
say, in his unconditional skeleton.
But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oars-
man in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subter-
ranean parts of the whale ? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon
your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea ;
and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibi-
tion ? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown
whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-
pig ? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been,
A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES. 499
Ishinael ; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah
alone ; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams ;
the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up
the frame-work of leviathan ; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-
rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels.
I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated
very far beneath the skin of the adult whale ; nevertheless, I
have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in minia-
ture. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was
once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make
sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the
lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my
boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading
all the contents of that young cub ?
And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan
in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare know-
ledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranquo, king
of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years
ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was
invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord
of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella ; a sea-side glen
not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town,
his capital.
Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo,
being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertii,
had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more
ingenious of his people could invent ; chiefly carved woods of
wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles,
aromatic canoes ; and all these distributed among whatever
natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves
had cast upon his shores.
Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which,
after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and
stranded, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-
500 A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES.
like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast
body had at last been stripped of its fathom-deep enfoldings,
and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton
was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand
temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.
The ribs were hung with trophies ; the vertebrae were carved
with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics ; in the skull,
the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that
the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout ; while, sus-
pended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the
devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damocles.
It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of
the Icy Glen ; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their
living sap ; the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's
loom, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine
tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the living flowers the
figures. All the trees, with all their laden branches ; all the
shrubs, and ferns, and grasses ; the message-carrying ah* ; all
these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves,
the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied ver-
dure. Oh, busy weaver ! unseen weaver ! — pause ! — one word ! —
whither flows the fabric ? what palace may it deck ? wherefore
all these ceaseless toilings ? Speak, weaver ! — stay thy hand !
— but one single word with thee ! Nay — the shuttle flies — the
figures float from forth the loom ; the freshet-rushing carpet for
ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that
weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice ; and by
that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened;
and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices
that speak through it. For even so it is in all material facto-
ries. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying
spindles ; those same words are plainly heard without the walls,
bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villanies
been detected. Ah, mortal ! then, be heedful ; for so, in all
A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES. 501
this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may
be overheard afar.
Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean
wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging — a
gigantic idler ! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof
intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed
the cunning weaver ; himself all woven over with the vines ;
every month assuming greener, fresher verdure ; but himself a
skeleton. Life folded Death ; Death trellised Life ; the grim god
wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.
Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous
whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke
ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that
the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertu. He
laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests should swear
that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced before
this skeleton — brushed the vines aside — broke through the ribs
— and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long
amid its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbors. But
soon my line was out ; and following it back, I emerged from
the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within ;
naught was there but bones.
Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived
within the skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the
priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib. " How
now !" they shouted ; " Dar'st thou measure this our god !
That's for us." " Aye, priests — well, how long do ye make
him, then ?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them,
concerning feet and inches ; they cracked each other's sconces
with their yard-sticks — the great skull echoed — and seizing that
lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements.
These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But
first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter
any fancied measurement I please. Because there are skeleton
502 A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES.
authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a
Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the
whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine speci-
mens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I have heard
that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they
have what the proprietors call " the only perfect specimen of a
Greenland or River Whale in the United States." Moreover,
at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a
certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton
of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the full-
grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's.
In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skele-
tons belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon
similar grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted
it ; and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of
those parts. Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated through-
out ; so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and
shut him, in all his bony cavities — spread out his ribs like a
gigantic fan — and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks
are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters ; and a
footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at
his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at
the whispering gallery in the spinal column ; threepence to hear
the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum ; and sixpence for the
unrivalled view from his forehead.
The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are
copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed ;
as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other
secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was
crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to
remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing — at
least, what untattooed parts might remain — I did not trouble
myself with the odd inches ; nor, indeed, should inches at all
enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.
THE WHALE'S SKELE10N. 503
CHAPTER Cm.
MEASUREMENT OF THE WHALE's SKELETON.
In the first place, I wish to lay Defore you a particular, plain
statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose
skeleton we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove
useful here.
According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I
partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons
for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length ;
according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of
the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in
length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circum-
ference, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons ; so that,
reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably out-
weigh the combined population of a whole village of one thou-
sand one hundred inhabitants.
Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be
put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any lands-
man's imagination ?
'Having already in various ways put before you his skull,
spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts,
I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the
general bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the colossal
skull embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent
of the skeleton ; as it is by far the most complicated part ; and
as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you
must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as
we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of
the general structure we are about to view.
504 THE WHALE'S SKELETON.
In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured
seventy-two feet ; so that when fully invested and extended in
life, he must have been ninety feet long ; for in the whale, the
skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living
body. Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised
some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain back-bone.
Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of
its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once
enclosed his vitals.
To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved
sj>ine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little
resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks,
when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted,
and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected
timber.
The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the
neck, was nearly six feet long ; the second, third, and fourth
were each successively longer, till you came to the climax of the
fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and
some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished,
till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches.
In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to
their length. The middle ribs were the most arched. In some
of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay foot-
path bridges over small streams.
In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with
the circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the
skeleton of the whale is by no means the mould of his invested
form. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones,
occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in depth.
Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this particular
whale must have been at least sixteen feet ; whereas, the cor-
responding rib measured but little more than eight feet. So
that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the living
THE WHALE'S SKELETON. 505
magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now
saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round
with tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still
more, for the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints ;
and in place of the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes,
an utter blank !
How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled
man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by
merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in
this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quickest perils ;
only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes ; only on the
profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly
and livingly found out.
But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is,
with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy
enterprise. But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's
Pillar.
There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton
are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knob-
bed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy
masonry. The largest, a middle one, is in width something
less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The small-
est, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches
in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball. I was
told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost
by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had
stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the
spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into
simple child's play.
22
506 THE FOSSIL WHALE
CHAPTER CIV.
»
THE FOSSIL WHALE.
From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme
whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would
you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should
only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his
furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about
the waist ; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines,
where they lie in him like great cables and hausers coiled away
in the subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.
Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it
behoves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the
enterprise ; not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his
blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels.
Having already described him in most of his present habitatory
and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in
an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.
Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan — to an ant
or a flea — such portly terms might justly be deemed unwar-
rantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the
case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the
weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that
whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of
these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition
of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose ; because that
famous lexicographer's uncommon personal bulk more fitted
him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me.
One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their sub-
ject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then,
THE FOSSIL WHALE. 507
with me, writing of this Leviathan ? Unconsciously m}' chiro-
graphy expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill !
Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand ! Friends, hold my
arms ! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this
Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their out-
reaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the
whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales,
and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all
the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout
the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so
magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme ! We
expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must
choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can
ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried
it.
Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my
credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous
time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of"
ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all
sorts. Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the
reader, that while in the earlier geological strata there are
found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct ;
the subsequent relics discovered in what are called the Tertiary
formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted
links, between the anachronical creatures, and those whose
remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark ; all the
Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period,
which is the last preceding the superficial formations. And
though none of them precisely answer to any known species of
the present time, they are yet sufficiently akin to them in general
respects, to justify their taking rank as Cetacean fossils.
Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of
their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at
various intervals, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lom-
508 THE FOSSIL WHALE.
bardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Among the more curious
of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year lWO was
disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street open-
ing almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries ; and bones
disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napo-
leon's time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged
to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species.
But by far the most wonderful of all cetacean relics was the
almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in
the year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama.
The awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the
bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors
declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of
Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being taken
across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out
that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species.
A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated
in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little
clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen re-
christened the monster Zeuglodon ; and in his paper read before
the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one
of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the
globe have blotted out of existence.
When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons,
skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial
resemblances to the existing breeds of sea- monsters ; but at the
same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the
annihilated anachronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors ;
I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time
itself can be said to have begun ; for time began with man.
Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shud-
dering glimpses into those Polar eternities ; when wedged
bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics ;
THE FOSSIL WHALE. 509
and in all the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference, not an
inhabitable hand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole
world was the whale's ; and, king of creation, he left his wake
along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who
can show a pedigree like Leviathan ? Ahab's harpoon had shed
older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems a school-
boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-
struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable
terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must
needs exist after all humane ages are over.
But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces
in the stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl
bequeathed his ancient bust ; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose
antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous charac-
ter, we find the unmistakable print of his fin. In an apartment
of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was
discovered upon the granite ceiling a sculptured and painted
planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar
to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the moderns.
Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore ; was there
swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was
cradled.
Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the
antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality,
as set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary travel-
ler.
" Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters
and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones ; for Whales
of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore.
The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed
by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without imme-
diate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either side
of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the
Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They
510 WILL HE PERISH?
keep a Whale's Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which
lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes
an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon
a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have layn
there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians affirm,
that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this
Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet
Jonas was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Tem-
ple."
In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and
if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently wor-
ship there.
CHAPTER CV.
DOES THE WHALE'S MAGNITUDE DIMINISH ? — WILL HE PERISH ?
Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down
upon us from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly
inquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not
degenerated from the original bulk of his sires.
But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales
of the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil
remains are found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct
geological period prior to man), but of the whales found in that
Tertiary system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in
size those of its earlier ones.
Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest
is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was
less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we
have already seen, that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet
for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And I have
WILL HE PERISH? 511
heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been
captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture.
But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour
are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geolo-
gical periods ; may it not be, that since Adam's time they have
degenerated ?
Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the
accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient natural-
ists generally. For Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres
of living bulk, and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight
hundred feet in length — Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of
Whales ! And even in the days of Banks and Solander, Cooke's
naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences
setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrink-
led Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards ; that is, three
hundred and sixty feet. And Lacepede, the French naturalist,
in his elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his
work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred
metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work
was published so late as A. D. 1825.
But will any whaleman believe these stories? JSTo. The
whale of to-day is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And
if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was),
will make bold to tell him so. Because I cannot understand
how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried
thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure
so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks ;
and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest
Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in
which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred,
stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed
in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine ; in the face of
all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone
should have degenerated.
512 WILL HE PERISH?
But still another inquiry remains ; one often agitated by the
more recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost
omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now
penetrating even through Behring's straits, and into the remotest
secret drawers and lockers of the world ; and the thousand har-
poons and lances darted along* all continental coasts ; the moot
point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase,
and so remorseless a havoc ; whether he must not at last be
exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last
man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the
final puff.
Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped
herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens
of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook
their iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows
upon the sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite
broker sells you land at a dollar an inch ; in such a comparison
an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that
the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction.
But you must look at this matter in every light. Though
so short a period ago — not a good life-time — the census of the
buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London,
and though at the present day not one horn or hoof of them
remains in all that region ; and though the cause of this
wondrous extermination was the spear of man ; yet the far
different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so
inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship
hunting the Sperm Whale for forty-eight months think they
have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry
home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old
Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when
the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness
and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the
tj.ime number of months, mounted on horse instead of sailing
WILL HE PERISH? 513
in ships, would have slain not forty, but forty thousand and
more buffaloes ; a fact that, if need were, could be statistically
stated.
Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favor
of the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that
in former years (the latter part of the last century, say) these
Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much oftener than
at present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so
prolonged, and were also much more remunerative. Because,
as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by
some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans,
so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and
pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into
vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all.
And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the
so-called whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in
former years abounding with them, hence that species also
is declining. For they are only being driven from promontory
to cape ; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets,
then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very
recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.
Furthermore : concerning these last mentioned Leviathans,
they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability,
will for ever remain impregnable. And as upon the invasion
of their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their
mountains ; so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the
middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their
Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers
and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes ; and in a
charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all
pursuit from man.
But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are
harpooned for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle
have concluded that this positive havoc has already very
22*
514 WILL PIE PERISH?
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 % to be somewhat incredulous concerning the
populousness of j&e more enormous creatures of the globe,
yet what shall wej^fiy to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he
tells us that at;£>ae hunting the King of Siam took 4000
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 a d Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the sea
combined.
Moreover : we are to consider, that from the presumed great
longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a
century and more, therefore at any one period of time, several
distinct adult generations must be contemporary. And what
that is, we may soon gain some idea of, by imagining all the
grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of creation yielding
up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children who
were alive seventy-five years ago ; and adding this countless
host to the present human population of the globe.
Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale
immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality.
He swam the seas before the continents broke water ; he once
swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and
the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he despised Noah's Ark ; and
AHAB'SLEG. 515
if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands,
to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive, and
rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout
his frothed defiance to the skies.
CHAPTER CVL
ahab's leg. "'"%
The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted
the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with
some small violence to his own person. He had lighted with
such energy upon a thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had
received a half-splintering shock. And when after gaining his
own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently
wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it
was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly
enough) ; then, the already shaken ivory received such an addi-
tional twist and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and
to all appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely
trustworthy.
And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all
his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful
heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly
stood. For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's
sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying
prone upon the ground, and insensible ; by some unknown, and
seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb
having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise
smitten, and all but pierced his groin ; nor was it without
extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.
Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind,
that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the
516 AHAB'S LEG,
direct issue of a former woe ; and he too plainly seemed to see,
that as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his
Lind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove ; so,
equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturallv
beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab ; since
hath the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the
ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this : that it
is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some
natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them fur
the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the
joy-childlessness of all hell's despair ; whereas, some guilty mor-
tal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally
progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave ; not at all to hint
of this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of
the thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly
felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in
them, but, at bottom, all heart-woes, a mystic significance, and,
in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent
tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the
genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last
among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods ; so that, in
the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft-cymballing,
round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this : that the
gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad
birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in
the signers.
Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps
might more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before.
With many other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it
remained a mystery to some, why it was, that for a certain
period, both before and after the sailing of the Pequod, he had
hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness ;
and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were,
among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited
AHAB'S LEG. 517
reason for this thing appeared by no means adequate ; though,
indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation par-
took more of significant darkness than of explanatory light.
But, in the end, it all came out ; this one matter did, at least.
That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluse-
ness. And not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping
circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed the privilege of a
less banned approach to him ; to that timid circle the above
hinted casualty — remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for
by Ahab — invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived
from the land of spirits and of wails. So that, through their
zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them lay, to
muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others ; and hence
it was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it
transpire upon the Pequod's decks.
But be all this as it may ; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in
the air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to
do or not with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his
leg, he took plain practical procedures ; — he called the
carpenter.
And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade
him without delay set about making a new leg, and directed
the mates to see him supplied with all the studs and joists of
jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus far been accumulated
on the voyage, in order that a careful selection of the stoutest,
clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, the carpenter
received orders to have the leg completed that night ; and to
provide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to
the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's forge was
ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold ;
and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to
proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances
might be needed.
518 THE CARPENTER.
CHAPTER CVII.
THE CARPENTER.
Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and
take high abstracted man alone ; and he seems a wonder, a
grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind
in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary
duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. But most hum-
ble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the
high, humane abstraction ; the Pequod's carpenter was no
duplicate ; hence, he now comes in person on this stage.
Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those
belonging to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed,
practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and call-
ings collateral to his own ; the carpenter's pursuit being the
ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts
which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary mate-
rial. But, besides the application to him of the generic remark
above, this carpenter of the. Pequod was singularly efficient in
those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually
recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in
uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readi-
ness in ordinary duties : — repairing stove boats, sprung spars,
reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes
in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks, and other
miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special
business ; he -was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner
of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious.
The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts
so manifold, was his vice-bench ; a long rude ponderous table
furnished with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron
THE CARPENTER. 519
and of wood. At all times except when whales were alongside,
this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of
the Try-works.
A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into
its hole : the carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices,
and straightway files it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange
plumage strays on board, and is made a captive : out of clean
shaved rods of right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm
whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it.
An oarsman sprains his wrist : the carpenter concocts a soothing
lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon the
blade of his every oar ; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood,
the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor
takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings : the carpenter drills
his ears. Another has the toothache : the carpenter out pincers,
and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there ;
but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded
operation ; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the
carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have
him draw the tooth.
Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike in-
different and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits
of ivory ; heads he deemed but top-blocks ; men themselves he
lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field
thus variously accomplished, and with such liveliness of expert-
ness in him, too ; all this would seem to argue some uncommon
vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was
this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity
as it were ; impersonal, I say ; for it so shaded off into the sur-
rounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general
stolidity discernible in the whole visible world ; which while
pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its
peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathe-
drals. Yet was this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too,
520 THE CARPENTER.
as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness ; — yet was it oddly
dashed at times, with, an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing
humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain
grizzled wittiness ; such as might have served to pass the time
during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's
ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long wan-
derer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered
no moss ; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small
outward clingings might have originally pertained to him ?
He was a stript abstract ; an unfractioned integral ; uncompro-
mised as a new-born babe ; living without premeditated reference
to this world or the next. You might almost say, that this
strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of unintelli-
gence ; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so
much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been
tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven ;
but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal
process. He was a pure manipulator ; his brain, if he had ever
had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his
fingers. He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly
useful, multum m parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the
exterior — though a little swelled — of a common pocket knife ;
but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-
drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, coun-
tersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for
a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of
him, and the screw was fast : or if for tweezers, take him up by
the legs, and there they were.
Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut
carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If
he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle some-
thing that somehow anomalously did its duty. What that was,
whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there
is no telling. But there it was ; and there it had abided for
AHAB AND THE CARPENTER. 521
now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same
unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him ; this it was, that
kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing ; but only like
an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes ; or
rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard
there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake.
CHAPTER CVIII.
AHAB AND THE CARPENTER.
THE DECK FIRST NIGHT WATCH.
{Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of
two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which
joist is firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather
straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying
about the bench. Forward, the red flame of the forge is
seen, where the blacksmith is at work.)
Drat the file, and drat the bone ! That is hard which should
be soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who
file old jaws and shinbones. Let's tiy another. Aye, now,
this works better {sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is {sneezes)
— why it's {sneezes) — yes it's {sneezes) — bless my soul, it won't
let me speak ! This is what an old fellow gets now for working
in dead lumber. Saw a. live tree, and you don't get this dust ;
amputate a live bone, and you don't get it {sneezes). Come,
come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have that
ferule and buckle-screw ; I'll- be ready for them presently.
Lucky now {sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make ; that might
puzzle a little ; but a mere shinbone — why it's easy as making
hop-poles ; only I should like to put a good finish on. Time,
time ; if I but only had the time, I coiild turn him out as neat
522 AHAB AND THE CARPENTER.
a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those
buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows
wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do ; and of'
course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with
washes and lotions, just like live legs. There ; before I saw it
off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the
length will be all right ; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha !
that's the heel ; we are in luck ; here he comes, or it's some-
body else, that's certain.
Ahab (advancing).
\ (JDuring the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at
■)£ times.)
Well, manmaker !
Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the
length. Let me measure, sir.
Measured for a leg ! good. Well, it's not the first time.
About it ! There ; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent
vice thou hast here, carpenter ; let me feel its grip once. So,
so ; it does pinch some.
Oh, sir, it will break bones — beware, beware !
No fear ; I like a good grip ; I like to feel something in this
slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about
there ? — the blacksmith, I mean — what's he about ?
He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.
Eight. It's a partnership ; he supplies the muscle part.
He makes a fierce red flame there !
Aye, sir ; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine
work.
Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning
thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they
say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with
fire; for what's made in fire must properly belong to fire;
and so hell's probable. How the soot flies ! This must be the
remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, when
AHAB AND THE CARPENTER. 523
he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel
shoulder-blades ; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.
Sir?
Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete
man after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his
socks ; then, chest modelled after tbe Thames Tunnel ; then,
legs with roots to 'em, to stay in one place ; then, arms three
feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and
about a quarter of an acre of fine brains ; and let me see — shall
I order eyes to see outwards % No, but put a sky-light on top
of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and
away.
Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I
should like to know ? Shall I keep standing here ? (aside.)
'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome ; here's
one. No, no, no ; I must have a lantern.
Ho, ho ! That's it, hey ? Here are two, sir ; one will serve
my turn.
What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for,
man ? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.
I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.
Carpenter ? why that's — but no ; — a very tidy, and, I may
say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here,
carpenter ; — or would'st thou rather work in clay ?
Sir ? — Clay ? clay, sir ? That's mud ; we leave clay to
ditchers, sir.
The fellow's impious ! "What art thou sneezing about ?
Bone is rather dusty, sir.
Take the hint, then ; and when thou art dead, never bury
thyself under living people's noses.
Sir ? — oh ! ah ! — I guess so ; — 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
524 AHAB AND THE CARPENTER.
thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same
identical place with it ; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg ; the
flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old
Adam away ?
Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I
have heard something curious on that score, sir ; how that a
dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar,
but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask
if it be really so, sir ?
It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where
mine once was ; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye,
yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life ; there,
exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle ?
I should humbly call it a poser, sir.
Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living,
thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly
standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing
there in thy spite ? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou
not fear eavesdroppers ? Hold, don't speak ! And if I still
feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dis-.
solved ; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains /
of hell for ever, and without a body ? Hah !
Good Lord ! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate
over again ; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.
Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises. — How
long before the leg is done ?
Perhaps an hour, sir.
Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me {turns to go).
Oh, Life ! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing
debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on ! Cursed be
that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with
ledgers. I would be free as air ; and I'm down in the whole
world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid
with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman
AHAB AND THE CARPENTER. 525
empire (which was the world's) ; and yet I owe for the flesh
in the tongue I brag with. By heavens ! I'll get a crucible, and
into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious
vertebra. So.
carpenter {resuming Ms work).
Well, well, well ! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb
always says he's queer ; says nothing but that one sufficient
little word queer ; he's queer, says Stubb ; he's queer — queer,
queer ; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time — queer,
sir — queer, queer, very queer. And here's his leg ! Yes, uow
that I think of it, here's his bedfellow ! has a stick of whale's
jaw-bone for a wife ! And this is his leg ; he'll stand on this.
What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and
all three places standing in one hell — how was that ? Oh ! I
don't wonder he looked so scornful at me ! I'm a sort of
strange-thoughted sometimes, they say ; but that's only hap-
hazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me, should
never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, heron-
built captains ; the water chucks you under the chin pretty
quick, and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the
heron's leg ! long and slim, sure enough ! Now, for most folks
one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they
use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-
poly old coach-horses. But Ahab ; oh he's a hard driver.
Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life,
and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you
Smut ! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it
before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for
all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round collecting old
beer barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It
looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core ;
he'll be standing on this to-morrow ; he'll be taking altitudes
on it. Halloa ! I almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed
526 AHAB AND STARBUCK IN THE CABIN.
ivory, where lie figures up the latitude. So, so ; chisel, file, and
sand-paper, now !
CHAPTER CIX.
AHAB AND STARBUCK IK THE CABIN.
According to usage they were pumping the ship next
morning ; and lo ! no inconsiderable oil came up with the water ;
the casks below must have sprung a bad leak. Much concern
was shown ; and Starbuck went down into the cabin to report
this unfavorable affair.*
N/ow, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing
nigh to Formosa and the Bashee Isles, between which lies one
of the tropical outlets from the China waters into the Pacific.
And so Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of the
oriental archipelagoes spread before him ; and another separate
one representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islands —
Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new
ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with
a long pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous
old man, with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his
brow, and tracing his old courses again.
" Who's there ?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not
turning round to it. " On deck ! Begone !"
" Captain Ahab mistakes ; it is I. The oil in the hold is
leaking, sir. We must up Burtons and break out."
* In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board,
it is a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and
drench the casks with sea-water ; which afterwards, at varying intervals,
is removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to bo
kept damply tight ; while by the changed character of the withdrawn
water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious
cargo.
AHAB AND STARBUCK IN THE CABIN. 527
" Up Burtons and break out ? Now that jve are nearirtg
Japan ; heave-to here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops ?"
" Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we
may make good in a year. What we come twenty thousand
miles to get is worth saving, sir."
" So it is, so it is ; if we get it."
" I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir."
" And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Be-
gone ! Let it leak ! I'm all aleak myself. Aye ! leaks in
leaks ! not only full of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in
a leaky ship ; and that's a far worse plight than the Pequod's,
man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak ; for who can find it in
the deep-loaded hull ; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in
this life's howling gale ? Starbuck ! I'll not have the Burtons
hoisted."
" What will the owners say, sir ?"
" Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the
Typhoons. What cai^es Ahab ? Owners, owners ? Thou art
always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as
if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real
owner of anything is its commander ; and hark ye, my con-
science is in this ship's keel. — On deck !"
" Captain Ahab,'' said the reddening mate, moving further
into the cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious
that it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the
slightest outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed
more than half distrustful of itself; " A better man than I might
well pass over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a
younger man ; aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab."
" Devils ! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think
of me ?— On deck !"
" Nay, sir, not yet ; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir — to be
forbearing ! Shall we not understand each other better than
hitherto, Captain Ahab ?"
528 AHAB AND STARBUCK IN THE CABIN.
Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of
most South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards
Starbuck, exclaimed : " There is one God that is Lord over the
earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod. — On
deck !"
For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery
cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really
received the blaze of the levelled tube. But, mastering his
emotion, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused
for an instant and said: "Thou hast outraged, not insulted
me, sir ; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck ; thou
wouldst but laugh ; but let Ahab beware of Ahab ; beware
of thyself, old man."
" He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys ; most careful
bravery that !" murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared.
" What's that he said — Ahab beware of Ahab — there's some-
thing there !" Then unconsciously using the musket for a staff,
with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little cabin ; but
presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and returning
the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.
" Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," he said lowly
to the mate ; then raising his voice to the crew : " Furl the
t'gallant-sails, and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft ; back the
main-yard ; up Burtons, and break out in the main-hold."
It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as
respecting Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a
flash of honesty in him ; or mere prudential policy which, under
the circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of
open disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer
of his ship. However it was, his orders were executed ; and the
Burtons were hoisted.
QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN. 521)
CHAPTER CX.
QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN. i
Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into
the hold were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further
off. So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and
deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts ;
and from that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into
the daylight above. So deep did they go ; and so ancient, and
corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons,
that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask
containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted
placards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.
Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks
of staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at
last the piled decks were hard to get about ; and the hollow
hull echoed under foot, as if you were treacling over empty
catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted
demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with
all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons did
not visit them then.
Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and
fast bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which
brought him nigh to his endless end.
Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are un-
known ; dignity and danger go hand in* hand ; till you get to
be Captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil. So with
poor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer, must not only face all the
rage of the living whale, but — as we have elsewhere seen — mount
his dead back in a rolling sea ; and finally descend into the gloom
23
530 QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN.
of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that subterraneous
confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see to
their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers
are the holders, so called.
Poor Queequeg ! when the ship was about half disembowelled,
you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down
upon him there ; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tat-
tooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness and slime,
like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well. And a well,
or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan ; where,
strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he caught a ter-
rible chill which lapsed into a fever ; and at last, after some
days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of
the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those
few long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him
but his frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and
his cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed
growing fuller and fuller ; they became of a strange softness of
lustre ; and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his
sickness, a wondrous testimony to that immortal health in
him which could not die, or be weakened. And like circles on
the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand ; so his eyes
seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An
awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by
the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his
face, as any beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died.
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet
was put into words or books. And the drawing near of Death,
which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation,
which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. So
that — let us say it again — no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher
and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you
saw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay
in his swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently
QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN. 531
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 Quee-
queg himself, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown
by a curious favor he asked. He called one to him in the grey
morning watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his
hand, said that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see cer-
tain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his
native isle ; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whale-
men who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark
canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased
him ; for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who,
after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe,
and so left him to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes ;
for not only do they believe that the stare are isles, but that far
beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas,
interflow with the blue heavens ; and so form the white breakers
of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the thought
of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual sea-cus-
tom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks.
No : he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more
congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat
these coffin-canoes were without a keel ; though that involved
but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim
Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the
carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding,
whatever it might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-
colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage,
had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands,
and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be
made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than
taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude
of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took Quee-
532 QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN.
queg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Quee-
queg's person as he shifted the rule.
" Ah ! poor fellow ! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the
Long Island sailor.
Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake
and general reference, now transferringly measured on it the
exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer
permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities. This done,
he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.
When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and
fitted, he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it,
inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction.
Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with
which the people on deck began to drive the coffin away,
Queequeg, to every one's consternation, commanded that the
thing should be instantly brought to him, nor was there any
denying him ; seeing that, of all mortals, some dying men are
the most tyrannical ; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble
us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.
Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the
coffin with an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon,
had the wooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part
placed in the coffin along with one of the paddles of his boat.
All by his own request, also, biscuits were then ranged round
the sides within : a flask of fresh water was placed at the head,
and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the
foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow,
Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his .final bed, that he
might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without
moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring
out his little god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast
with Yojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called
it) to be placed over him. The head part turned over with a
leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg in his coffin with little
QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN. 533
but his composed countenance in view. " Rarmai " (it will do ;
it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced in
his hammock.
But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering
near by all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with
soft sobbings, took him by the hand ; in the other, holding his
tambourine.
" Poor rover ! will ye never have done with all this weary
roving ? where go ye now ? But if the currents carry ye to
those sweet Antilles where the beaches are only beat with
water-lilies, will ye do one little errand for me ? Seek out one
Pip, who's now been missing long : I think he's in those far
Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him ; for he must be
very sad ; for look ! he's left his tambourine behind ; — I found it.
Rig-a-dig, dig, dig ! Now, Queequeg, die ; and I'll beat ye your
dying march."
"I have heard,'' murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle,
" that in violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient
tongues ; and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out
always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those ancient
tongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty
scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange
sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our
heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there ? — Hark !
he speaks again : but more wildly now."
" Form two and two ! Let's make a General of him ! Ho,
where's his harpoon ? Lay it across here. — Rig-a-dig, dig, dig !
huzza ! Oh for a game cock now to sit upon his head and crow !
Queequeg dies game ! — mind ye that ; Queequeg dies game ! —
take ye good heed of that ; Queequeg dies game ! I say ; game,
game, game ! but base little Pip, he died a coward ; died all
a'shiver ; — out upon Pip ! Hark ye ; if ye find Pip, tell all the
Antilles he's a runaway ; a coward, a coward, a coward ! Tell
them he jumped from a whale-boat ! I'd never beat my
534 QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN.
tambourine over base Pip, and bail him General, if be were
once more dying here. No, no ! shame upon all cowards —
shame upon them ! Let 'em go drown bke Pip, that jumped
from a whale-boat. Shame ! shame !"
During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a
dream. Pip was led away, and the sick man was replaced in
his hammock.
But now that he had apparently made every preparation for
death ; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg
suddenly rallied ; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's
box : and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted sur-
prise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden
convalescence was this; — at a critical moment, he had just
recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone ; and
therefore had changed his mind about dying : he could not die
yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to five or die
was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He
answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit,
that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not
kill him : nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent,
ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.
Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and
civilized ; that while a sick, civilized man may be six months
convalescing, generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-
well again in a day. So, in good time my Queequeg gained
strength ; and at length after sitting on the windlass for a few
indolent days (but eating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenly
leaped to his feet, threw out arms and legs, gave himself a good
stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head
of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself
fit for a fight.
With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-
chest ; and emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them
in order there. Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid
THE PACIFIC. 535
with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings ; and it
seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy
parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. And this tattooing,
had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island,
who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body
a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical
treatise on the art of attaining truth ; so that Queequeg in his
own proper person was a riddle to unfold ; a wondrous work in
one volume ; but whose mysteries not even himself could read,
though his own live heart beat against them ; and these myste-
ries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with
the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be
unsolved to the last. And this thought it must have been
which suggested to Abab that wild exclamation of his, when
one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg —
" Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods !"
CHAPTER CXI.
THE PACIFIC.
When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon
the great "South Sea; were it not for other things, I could
have greeted my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now
the long supplication of my youth was answered ; that serene
ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue.
There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea,
whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul
beneath ; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod
over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over
these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters'
Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and
536 THE PACIFIC.
ebb and flow unceasingly ; for here, millions of mixed shades
and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries ; all
that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still;
tossing like slumberers in their beds ; the ever-rolling waves
but made so by their restlessness.
To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once
beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the
midmost waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic
being but its arms. The same waves wash the moles of the
new-built Californian towns, but yesterday planted by the
recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still gorgeous
skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all
between float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless,
unknown Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this
mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about ;
makes all coasts one bay to it ; seems the tide-beating heart of
earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the
seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.
But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing
like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen
rigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary
musk from the Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers
must be walking), and with the other consciously inhaled the
salt breath of the new found sea ; that sea in which the hated
White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at
length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the
Japanese cruising-ground, the old man's purpose intensified
itself. His firm lips met like the lips of a vice ; the Delta of
his forehead's veins swelled like overladen brooks ; in his very
sleep, his ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, "Stern
all 1 the White Whale spouts thick blood !"
THE BLACKSMITH.. 537
CHAPTER CXH.
THE BLACKSMITH.
Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool -weather that
now reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation for the
peculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the
begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his
portable forge to the hold again, after concluding his contribu-
tory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained it on deck, fast
lashed to ringbolts by the foremast ; being now almost inces-
santly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen
to do some little job for them ; altering, or repairing, or new
shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. Often he
would be surrounded by an eager circle, all waiting to be
sei'ved ; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, harpoons, and lances,
and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled.
Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded by
a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulence did
come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn ; bowing over still
further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil
were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the
heavy beating of his heart. And so it was. — Most miserable !
A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful
appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the
voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the
importunity of their persisted questionings he had finally given
in ; and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shame-
ful story of his wretched fate.
Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on
the road running between two countiy towns, the blacksmith
538 THE BLACKSMITH.
half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and
sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was,
the loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of this revelation,
part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and
the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief
of his life's drama.
He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had
postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals
called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and
with plenty to do ; owned a house and garden ; embraced a
youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy
children ; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church,
planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness,
and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a
desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them
all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith him-
self did iguorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart.
It was the Bottle Conjuror ! Upon the opening of that fatal
cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now,
for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's
shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate
entrance to it ; so that always had the young and loving
healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with
vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed
old husband's hammer ; whose reverberations, muffled by passing
through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in
her nursery ; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the black-
smith's infants were rocked to slumber.
Oh, woe on woe ! Oh, Death, why canst thou not some-
times be timely ? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to
thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young
widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable,
legendary sire to dream of in their after years ; and all of them
a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some
THE BLACKSMITH. 539
virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung
the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse
than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should
make him easier to harvest.
Why tell the whole ? The blows of the basement hammer
every day grew more and more between ; and each blow
every day grew fainter than the last ; the wife sat frozen at the
window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping
faces of her children ; the bellows fell ; the forge choked up
with cinders ; the house was sold ; the mother dived down into
the long church-yard grass ; her children twice followed her
thither ; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a
vagabond in crape ; his every woe unreverenced ; his grey
head a scorn to flaxen curls !
Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this ;
but Death is only a launching into the region of the strange
Untried ; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the
immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored ; there-
fore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left
in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the
all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth
his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful,
new-life adventures ; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifies,
the thousand mermaids sing to them — " Come hither, broken-
hearted ; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate
death ; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them.
Come hither ! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally
abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than
death. Come hither ! put up thy grave-stone, too, within the
churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee !"
Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sun-rise,
and by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I
come ! And so Perth went a-whaling.
540 THE FORGE.
CHAPTER CXni.
THE FORGE.
With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin
apron, about mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge
and anvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one
hand holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his
forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came along, carrying in his
hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. "While yet a little
distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused ; till at last, Perth,
withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon
the anvil — the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hover-
ing flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.
" Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth ? they are
always flying in thy wake ; birds of good omen, too, but not to
all ; — look here, they burn ; but thou — thou liv'st among them
without a scorch."
" Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab," answered
Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer ; " I am past
scorching ; not easily can'st thou scorch a scar."
" Well, well ; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly,
sanely woful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of
all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad,
blacksmith ; say, why dost thou not go mad ? How can'st thou
endure without being mad ? Do the heavens yet hate thee,
that thou can'st not go mad ? — What wert thou making there ?"
" Welding an old pike-head, sir ; there were seams and dents
in it."
" And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after
such hard usage as it had V
THE FORGE. 541
" I think so, sir.''
" And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and
dents ; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith ?"
" Aye, sir, I think I can ; all seams and dents but one."
" Look ye here, then," cried Ahab, passionately advancing,
and leaning with both hands on Perth's shoulders ; " look ye
here — here — can ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,"
sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow ; "if thou could 'st,
blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil,
and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. Answer !
Can'st thou smoothe this seam ?"
" Oh ! that is the one, sir ! Said I not all seams and dents
but one ?"
" Aye, blacksmith, it is the one ; aye, man, it is unsmooth-
able ; for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has
worked down into the bone of my skull — that is all wrinkles !
But, away with child's play ; no more gaffs and pikes to-day.
Look ye here !" jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of
gold coins. " I, too, want a harpoon made ; one that a thou-
sand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth ; something that will
stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff," fling-
ing the pouch upon the anvil. " Look ye, blacksmith, these
are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses."
"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast
here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever
work."
" I know it, old man ; these stubbs will weld together like
glue from the melted bones of murderers. Quick ! forge me
the harpoon. And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank ;
then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together like
the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll blow the
fire."
When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them,
one by one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a
542 THEFORGE
long, heavy iron bolt. "A flaw!" rejecting the last one.
" Work that over again, Perth."
This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into
one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his
own iron. As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered
on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after
the other, and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense
straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and bowing over his
head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some
blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.
"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?"
muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. " That Parsee
smells fire like a fusee ; and smells of it himself, like a hot
musket's powder-pan."
At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat ;
and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask
of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent
face.
" Would'st thou brand me, Perth ?" wincing for a moment
with the pain ; " have I been but forging my own branding-
iron, then?"
" Pray God, not that ; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab.
Is not this harpoon for the White Whale ?"
" For the white fiend ! But now for the barbs ; thou must
make them thyself, man. Here are my razors — the best of
steel ; here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the
Icy Sea."
For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though
he would fain not use them.
" Take them, man, I have no need for them ; for I now
neither shave, sup, nor pray till but here — to work !"
Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth
to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron ; and
as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat,
THE FORGE. 543
prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-
cask near.
" No, no — no water for that ; I want it of the true death-
temper. Ahoy, there ! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo ! What
say ye, pagans ! "Will ye give me as much blood as will cover
this barb ?" holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied,
Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the
White Whale's barbs were then tempered.
" Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine
diaboli !" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron
scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.
Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one
of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end
to the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then
unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and
stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the
rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it,
and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, " Good ! and now
for the seizings."
At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate
spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of
the harpoon ; the pole was then driven hard up into the socket ;
from the lower end the rope was traced half way along the pole's
length, and firmly secured so, with intertwistings of twine. This
done, pole, iron, and rope — like the Three Fates — remained
inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon ;
the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole,
both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered
his cabin, a light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous
sound was heard. Oh, Pip ! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but
unresting eye ; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly
blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and
mocked it !
544 THE GILDER.
CHAPTER CXIV.
THE GILDER.
Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese
cruising ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery.
Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and
twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the hoats,
steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an
interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their
uprising ; though with hut small success for their pains.
At such times, under an abated sun ; afloat all day upon
smooth, slow heaving swells ; seated in his boat, light as a birch
canoe ; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves,
that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale ; these
are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil
beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger
heart that pants beneath it ; and would not willingly remember,
that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly
feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea ;
that he regards it as so much flowery earth ; and the distant
ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling for-
ward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass
of a rolling prairie : as when the western emigrants' horses only
show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade
through the amazing verdure.
The long-drawn virgin vales ; the mild blue hill-sides ; as
over these there steals the hush, the hum ; you almost swear
that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in
some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked.
And all this mixes with your most mystic mood ; so that fact
THE GILDER. 545
and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seam-
less whole.
JSTor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at
least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden
keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries,
yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.
Oh, grassy glades ! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul ;
in ye, — though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy
life, — in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning
clover ; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of
the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms
would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven
by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every
calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life ; we
do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one
pause : — through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thought-
less faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepti-
cism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering
repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again ;
and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies
the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more ? In what rapt
ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary ?
•Where is the foundling's father hidden ? Our souls are like those
orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them : the
secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to
learn it.
And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side
into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured : —
" Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young
bride's eye ! — Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy
kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact ; let fancy oust
memory ; I look deep down and do believe."
And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that
same golden light : —
546 THE PEQUOD MEETS THE BACHELOR.
" I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history ; but here Stubb
takes oaths that he has always been jolly !"
CHAPTER CXV.
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE BACHELOR.
And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came
bearing down' before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's
harpoon had been welded.
It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged
in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches ;
and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though some-
what vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated
ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.
The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of nar-
row red bunting at their hats ; from the stern, a whale-boat
was suspended, bottom down ; and hanging captive from the
bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they
had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colors were flying
from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of
her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm ; above which,
in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same
precious fluid ; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen
lamp.
As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the
most surprising success ; all the more wonderful, for that while
cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone
entire months without securing a single fish. Not only had
barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for
the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks
had been bartered for, from the ships she had met ; and these
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE BACHELOR. 547
were stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers'
state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into
kindling-wood ; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head
of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. In the
forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their
chests, and filled them ; it was humorously added, that the cook
had clapped ahead on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the
steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled it ; that the.
harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled
them ; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the
captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust
his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satis-
faction.
As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody
Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her
forecastle ; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were
seen standing round her huge try-pots, which, covered with the
parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth
a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew.
On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing
with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the
Polynesian Isles ; while suspended in an ornamented boat,
firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three
Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory,
were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the
ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the
try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed. You
would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed
Bastile, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick
and mortar were being hurled into the sea.
Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect
on the ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing
drama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for ,
his own individual diversion.
548 THE PEQUOD MEETS THE BACHELOR.
And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy
and black, with a stubborn gloom ; and as the two ships crossed
each other's wakes — one all jubilations for things passed, the
other all forebodings as to things to come — their two captains
in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the
scene.
" Come aboard, come aboard !" cried the gay Bachelor's com-
mander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air.
" Hast seen the White Whale ?" gritted Ahab in reply.
" No ; only heard of him ; but don't believe in him at all,"
said the other good-humoredly. " Come aboard !"
" Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any
men ?"
" Not enough to speak of — two islanders, that's all ; — but
come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black
from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play) ; a
full ship and homeward-bound."
" How wondrous familiar is a fool !" muttered Ahab ; then
aloud, " Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst ;
well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go
thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there ! Set all sail, and
keep her to the wind-!"
And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze,
the other stubbornly fought against it ; and so the two vessels
parted ; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering
glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's
men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were
in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the home-
ward-bound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand,
and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby
bringing two remote associations together, for that Anal was filled
with Nantucket soundings.
THE DYING WHALE. 549
CHAPTER CXVL
THE DYING WHALE.
Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's
favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch
somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging
sails fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day
after encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four
were slain ; and one of them by Ahab.
It was far down the afternoon ; and when all the spearings of
the crimson fight were done : and floating in the lovely sunset
sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together ; then, such
a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons
curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over
from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the
Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea,
freighted with these vesper hymns.
Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who
had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final
wanings from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle
observable in all sperm whales dying — the turning sunwards of
the head, and so expiring — that strange spectacle, beheld of
such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrous-
ness unknown before.
" He turns and turns him to it, — how slowly, but how stead-
fastly, his homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his
last dying motions. He too worships fire ; most faithful, broad,
baronial vassal of the sun ! — Oh that these too-favoring eyes
6hould see these too-favoring sights. Look ! here, far water-
locked ; beyond all hum of human weal or woe ; in these most
candid and impartial seas ; where to traditions no rocks furnish
550 THE WHALE WATCH.
tablets ; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled
on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the
Niger's unknown source ; here, too, life dies sunwards full of
faith ; but see ! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the
corpse, and it heads some other way. —
" Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones
hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of
these unverdured seas ; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too
truly speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the
hushed burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sun-
wards turned his dying head, and then gone round again, with-
out a lesson to me.
" Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power ? Oh, high aspir-
ing, rainbowed jet ! — that one strivest, this one jettest all in
vain ! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon
all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not
again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if
a darker faith. All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath
me here ; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled
as air, but water now.
" Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the
wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the
sea ; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my
foster-brothers !"
CHAPTER CXVn.
-N THE WHALE WATCH.
The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart ; one,
far to windward ; one, less distant, to leeward ; one ahead ; one
astem. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall ;
but the windward one could not be reached till morning ; and
THE WHALE WATCH. 551
the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night ; and that
boat was Ahab's.
The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's
spout-hole ; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled
flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon
the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank,
like soft surf upon a beach.
Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee ;
who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spec-
trally played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks
with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over
Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering
through the air.
Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee ;
and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the
last men in a flooded world. "I have dreamed it again,"
said he.
" Of the hearses ? Have I not said, old man, that neither
hearse nor coffin can be thine ?"
" And who are hearsed that die on the sea ?"
" But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage,
two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea ; the first not
•made by mortal hands ; and the visible wood of the last one must
be grown in America."
" Aye, aye ! a strange sight that, Parsee : — a hearse and its
plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-
bearers. Ha ! Such a sight we shall not soon see."
" Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man."
" And what was that saying about thyself ?"
" Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy
pilot."
" And when thou art so gone before — if that ever befall — then
ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me
still ? — Was it not so ? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh
552 THE QUADRANT.
my pilot ! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby
Dick and survive it.''
" Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes
lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom — " Hemp only can kill
thee."
" The gallows, ye mean. — I am immortal then, on land and
on sea,'' cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision ; — " Immortal on
land and on sea !"
Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came
on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and
ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.
CHAPTER CXVIH.
THE QUADRANT.
The season for the Line at length drew near ; and every day
when Ahab, coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the
vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and
the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand
there with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon ;
impatient for the order to point the ship's prow for the equator.
In good time the order came. It was hard upon high noon ;
and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was
about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to deter-
mine his latitude.
Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as fresh-
ets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems
the blazing focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-
glass. The sky looks lacquered ; clouds there are none ; the
horizon floats ; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as
the insufferable splendors of God's throne. Well that Ahab's
THE QUADRANT. 553
quadrant was furnished with colored glasses, through which to
take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form to
the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument
placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some
moments to catch the precise instant when the sun should gain
its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention was
absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's
deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, was eyeing the
same sun with him ; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their
orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionless-
ness. . At length the desired observation was taken ; and with
his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his
latitude must be at that precise instant. Then falling into a
moment's revery, he again looked up towards the sun and mur-
mured to himself : " Thou sea-mark ! thou high and mighty Pilot !
thou tellest me truly where I am — but canst thou cast the least
hint where I shall be ? Or canst thou tell where some other
thing besides me is this moment living ? Where is Moby
Dick ? This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of
mine look into the very eye that is even now beholding him ;
aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding the
objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun !"
. Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the
other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again,
and muttered : " Foolish toy ! babies' plaything of haughty
Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains ; the world brags of
thee, of thy cunning and might ; but what after all canst thou
do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest
to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee : no !
not one jot more ! Thou canst not tell where one drop of
water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon ; and yet
with thy impotence thou insultest the sun ! Science ! Curse
thee, thou vain toy ; and cursed be all the things that cast
man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but
24
554 THE QUADRANT.
scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy
light, 0 sun ! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the
glances of man's eyes ; not shot from the crown of his head, as
if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee,
thou quadrant !" dashing it to the deck, " no longer will I
guide my earthly way by thee ; the level ship's compass, and
the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line ; these shall con-
duct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye,'' lighting
from the boat to the deck, " thus I trample on thee, thou paltry
thing that feebly pointest on high ; thus I split and destroy
thee!"
As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with
his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant
for Ahab, and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for him-
self— these passed over the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Un-
observed he rose and glided away ; while, awestruck by the
aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on the
forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out —
" To the braces ! Up helm ! — square in !"
In an instant the yards swung round ; and as the ship half-
wheeled upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts
erectly poised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three
Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient steed.
Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the
Pequod's tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching
along the deck.
" I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all
aglow, full of its tormented flaming life ; and I have seen it wane
at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans ! of
all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one
little heap of ashes !"
" Aye," cried Stubb, " but sea-coal ashes — mind ye that, Mr.
Starbuck — sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well ; I
heard Ahab mutter, ' Here some one thrusts these cards into
THE CANDLES. 555
these old hands of mine ; swears that I must play them, and no
others.' And damn me, Ahab, but' thou actest right ; live in
the game, and die it !"
CHAPTER CXIX.
''--THE CANDLES.
Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs : the tiger of
Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies
the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders : gorgeous
Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.
So, too, it is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mari-
ner encounters the direst of all storms, the Typhoon. It will
sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding
bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.
Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her
canvas, and bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had
struck her directly ahead. When darkness came on, sky and
sea roared and split with the thunder, and blazed with the
lightning, that showed the disabled masts fluttering here and
there with the rags which the first fury of the tempest had left
for its after sport.
Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-
deck ; at every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what
additional disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper
there ; while Stubb and Flask were directing the men in the
higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the boats. But all their
pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very top of the
cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape.
A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's
high tetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and
left it again, all dripping through like a sieve.
556 THE CANDLES.
" Bad work, bad work ! Mr. Starbuck," said Stubb, regarding
the wreck, " but tbe sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't
fight it. You see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long
start before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes
the spring ! But as for me, all the start I have to meet it, is
just across the deck here. But never mind ; it's all in fun : so
the old song says ;" — (sings.)
Oh ! jolly is the gale,
And a joker is the whale,
A' flourishin' his tail, —
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh !
The scud all a flyin',
That's his flip only foamin' ;
When he stirs in the spicin', —
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh !
Thunder splits the ships,
But he only smacks his lips,
A tastin' of this flip, —
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh !
" Avast Stubb," cried Starbuck, " let the Typhoon sing, and
strike his harp here in our rigging ; but if thou art a brave man
thou wilt hold thy peace."
" But I am not a brave man ; never said I was a brave man ;
I am a coward ; and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell
you what it is, Mr. Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing
in this world but to cut my throat. And when that's done,
ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a wind-up."
" Madman ! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine
own."
" What ! how can you see better of a dark night than any-
body else, never mind how foolish ?''
" Here !" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and
THE CANDLES. 557
pointing his hand towards the weather bow, " markest thou not
that the gale comes from the eastward, the very course Ahab
is to run for Moby Dick ? the veiy course he swung to this day
noon ? now mark his boat there ; where is that stove ? In the
stern-sheets, man ; where he is wont to stand — his stand-point is
stove, man ! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou must !"
" I don't half understand ye : what's in the wind ?"
Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the sbortest way
to Nantucket," soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of
Stubb's question. " The gale that now hammers at us to stave
us, we can turn it into a fair wind that will drive us towards
home. Yonder, to windward, all is blackness of doom ; but to
leeward, homeward — I see it lightens up there ; but not with the
lightning."
At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness,
following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side ; and almost
at the same instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.
"Who's there?"
"Old Thunder!" said Ahab, groping his way along the
bulwarks to his pivot-hole ; but suddenly finding his path made
plain to him by elbowed lances of fire.
Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to
carry off the perilous fluid into the soil ; so the kindred rod
which at sea some ships carry to each mast, is intended to con-
duct it into the water. But as this conductor must descend to
considerable depth, that its end may avoid all contact with tho
hull ; and as moreover, if kept constantly towing there, it would
be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with
some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the vessel's wray
in the water ; because of all this, the lower parts of a ship's
lightning-rods are not always overboard ; but are generally
made in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled
up into the chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as
occasion may require.
558 THE CANDLES.
" The rods ! the rods !" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly
admonished to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just
been darting flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. " Are they
overboard ? drop them over, fore and aft. Quick !"
" Avast !" cried Ahab ; " let's have fair play here, though we
be the weaker side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the
Himmalehs and Andes, that all the world may be secured ; but
out on privileges ! Let them be, sir."
" Look aloft !" cried Starbuck. " The corpusants ! the cor-
pusants !"
All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire ; and touched
at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white
flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that
sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar.
" Blast the boat ! let it go !" cried Stubb at this instant, as a
swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its
gunwale violently jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing.
" Blast it !" — but slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted
eyes caught the flames ; and immediately shifting his tone, he
cried — " The corpusants have mercy on us all !"
To sailors' oaths are household words ; they will swear in the
trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest ; they will
imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they
teter over to a seething sea ; but in all my voyagings, seldom
have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has
been laid on the ship ; when His " Mene, Mene, Tekel Uphar-
sin" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.
While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were
heard from the enchanted crew ; who in one thick cluster stood
on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphor-
escence, like a far away constellation of stare. Relieved against
the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to
thrice his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which
the thunder had come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed
THE CANDLES. 559
his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too
had been tipped by corpusants ; while lit up by the preter-
natural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue
flames on his body.
The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft ; and
once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were
wrapped in a pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck,
going forward, pushed against some one. It was Stubb. " What
thinkest thou now, man ; I heard thy cry ; it was not the same
in the song."
" No, no, it wasn't ; I said the corpusants have mercy on us
all ; and I hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy
on long faces ? — have they no bowels for a laugh ? And look
ye, Mr. Starbuck — but it's too dark too look. Hear me, then :
I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign of good luck ; for
those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be chock a'
block with sperm-oil, d'ye see ; and so, all that sperm will work
up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will
yet be as three spermaceti candles — that's the good promise we
saw."
At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly
beginning to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried :
" See ! see !" and once more the high tapering flames were
beheld with what seemed redoubled supernaturalness in their
pallor.
" The corpusants have mercy on us all," cried Stubb, again.
At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and
the flame, the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his
head bowed away from him ; while near by, from the arched and
overhanging rigging, where they had just been engaged secur-
ing a spar, a number of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now
cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a knot of numbed
wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted
attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in
560 THE CANDLES.
Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck ; but all their
eyes upcast.
" Aye, aye, men !" cried Ahab. " Look up at it ; mark it well ;
the white flame but lights the way to the White Whale !
Hand me those main-mast links there ; I would fain feel this
pulse, and let mine beat against it ; blood against fire ! So."
Then turning — the last link held fast in his left hand, he put
his foot upon the Parsee ; and with fixed upward eye, and high-
fiung right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed
trinity of flames.
" Oh ! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as
Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned
by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar ; I now know thee,
thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is
defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind ; and
e'en for hate thou canst but kill ; and all are killed. No fear-
loss fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless
power ; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute
its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of
the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though
but a point at best ; whencesoe'er I came ; wheresoe'er I go ;
yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality fives in me, and
feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come
in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee ; but
at thy highest, come as mere supernal power ; and though thou
launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that
still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou
madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee."
[Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning ; the nine flames leap
lengthwise to thrice their previous height ; Ahab, with the rest,
closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them.]
" I own thy speechless, placeless power ; said I not so ? Nor
was it wrung from me ; nor do I now drop these links. Thou
THE CANDLES. 561
canst blind ; but I can then grope. Thou canst consume ; but
I can then be ashes. Take the homage of these poor eyes, and
shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning flashes
through my skull ; mine eye-balls ache and ache ; my whole
beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning
ground. Oh, oh ! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light
though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness ; but I am dark-
ness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee ! The javelins
cease ; open eyes ; see, or not ? There burn the flames ! Oh,
thou magnanimous ! now I do glory in my genealogy. But
thou art but my fiery father ; my sweet mother, I know not.
Oh, cruel ! what hast thou done with her ? There lies my
puzzle ; but thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye,
hence callest thyself unbegotten ; certainly knowest not thy
beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me,
which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There
is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom
all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical.
Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see
it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too
hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here
again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap ! leap up, and
lick the sky ! I leap with thee ; I burn with thee ; would fain
be welded with thee ; defyingly I worship thee !"
" The boat ! the boat !" cried Starbuck, " look at thy boat,
old man !"
Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained
firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected
beyond his whale-boat's bow ; but the sea that had stove its
bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to drop off ; and
from the keen steel barb there now came a levelled flame of
pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there like a
serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm — " God,
God is against thee, old man ; forbear ! t' is an ill voyage ! ill
24*
562 THE DECK.
begun, ill continued ; let me square the yards, while we may,
old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go on a bet-
ter voyage than this."
Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran
to the braces — though not a sail was left aloft. For the
moment all the aghast mate's thoughts seemed theirs ; they raised
a half mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to
the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it
like a torch among them ; swearing to transfix with it the first
sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. Petrified by his aspect,
and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the
men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke : —
" All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as
mine ; and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is
bound. And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats ;
look ye here ; thus I blow out the last fear !" And with one
blast of his breath he extinguished the flame.
As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neigh-
borhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and
strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so
much the more a mark for thunderbolts ; so at those last words
of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him in a terror
of dismay.
CHAPTER CXX.
THE DECK TOWARDS THE END OF THE FIRST NIGHT WATCH.
Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him.
" We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band
is working loose, and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike
it, sir?"
" Strike nothing ; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway
them up now."
MIDNIGHT. 563
" Sir ?— in God's name !— sir ?"
" Well."
" The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard ?''
" Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The
wind rises, but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick,
and see to it. — By masts and keels ! he takes me for the hunch-
backed skipper of some coasting smack. Send down my main-
top-sail yard ! Ho, gluepots ! Loftiest trucks were made for
wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the
cloud-scud. Shall I strike that ? Oh, none but cowards send
down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh
aloft there ! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know
that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take
medicine !"
CHAPTER CXXI.
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
desh since that time, why not my mind ? Besides, supposing
we are loaded with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward;
5(54 MIDNIGHT.
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-hearer, Flask ; might fill pitchers at your coat collar.
Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine In-
surance companies have extra guarantees ? Here are hydrants,
Flask. But hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing.
First take your leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though,
so I can pass the rope ; now listen. What's the mighty differ-
ence between holding a mast's lightning-rod in the storm, and
standing close by a mast that hasn't got any lightning-rod at
all in a storm ? Don't you see, you timber-head, that no harm
can come to theh older of the rod, unless the mast is first struck ?
What are you talking about, then ? Not one ship in a hundred
carries rods, and Ahab, — aye, man, and all of us, — were in no
more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten
thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you,
I suppose you would have every man in the world go about
with a small lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat,
like a militia officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind like
his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask ? it's easy to be sensi-
ble ; why don't ye, then ? any man with half an eye can be
sensible."
" I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather
hard."
" Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensi-
ble, that's a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray.
Never mind ; catch the turn there, and pass it. Seems to me
we are lashing down these anchors now as if they were never
going to be used again. Tying these two anchors here, Flask,
seems like tying a man's hands behind him. And what big
generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists,
hey ? What a hold they have, too ! I wonder, Flask, whether
the world is anchored anywhere ; if she is, she swings with an
THE MUSKET. 565
uncommon long cable, though. There, hammer that knot
down, and we've done. So ; next to touching land, lighting on
deck is the most satisfactoiy. I say, just wring out my jacket
skirts, will ye ? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs so, Flask ;
but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always to be worn in all
storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry
off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats ; the cocks form
gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monke}^-jackets and
tarpaulins for me ; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down
a beaver ; so. Halloa ! whew ! there goes my tarpaulin over-
board ; Lord, Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should
be so unmannerly ! This is a nasty night, lad."
CHAPTER CXXH.
MIDNIGHT ALOFT. THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.
The Main-top-sail yard. — Tashtego passing new lashings
around it.
"Um, urn, um, Stop that thunder! Plenty too much
thunder up here. What's the use of thunder? Um, um, um.
We don't want thunder ; we want rum ; give us a glass of rum.
Um, um, um !"
CHAPTER CXXIH.
THE MUSKET.
During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at
the Pequod's jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly
hurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions, even though pre-
566 THE MUSKET.
venter tackles had been attached to it — for they were slack —
because some play to the tiller was indispensable.
In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttle-
cock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles
in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was
thus with the Pequod's ; at almost every shock the helmsman
had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they
revolved upon the cards ; it is a sight that hardly any one can
behold without some sort of unwonted emotion.
Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that
through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb — one
engaged forward and the other aft — the shivered remnants of
the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars,
and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an alba-
tross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-
tossed bird is on the wing.
The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed,
and a storm-trysail was set further aft ; so that the ship soon
went through the water with some precision again ; and the
course — for the present, East-south-east — which he was to steer,
if practicable, was once more given to the helmsman. For
during the violence of the gale, he had only steered according
to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the ship as
near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile,
lo ! a good sign ! the wind seemed coming round astern ; aye,
the foul breeze became fair !
Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of " Ho !
the fair wind ! oh-he-yo, cheerly, men /" the crew singing for
joy, that so promising an event should so soon have falsified
the evil portents preceding it.
In compliance with the standing order of his commander —
to report immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours,
any decided change in the affairs of the deck, — Starbuck had
no sooner trimmed the yards to the breeze — however reluctantly
THE MUSKET. 5G7
and gloomily^ — than he mechanically went below to apprise
Captain Ahab of the circumstance.
Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused
before it a moment. The cabin lamp — taking long swings this
way and that — was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows
upon the old man's bolted door, — a thin one, with fixed blinds
inserted, in place of upper panels. The isolated subterraneousness
of the cabin made a certain humming silence to reign there,
though it was hooped round by all the roar of the elements.
The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck
was an honest, upright man ; but out of Starbuck's heart,
at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangely
evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or
good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for
itself.
" He would have shot me once," he murmured, " yes, there's
the very musket that he pointed at me ; — that one with the stud-
ded stock ; let me touch it — lift it. Strange, that I, who have han-
dled 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
568 THE MUSKET.
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 he his. Ha ! is he muttering in his sleep ? Yes, just there,
— in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping ? aye, but still alive, and
soon awake again. I can't withstand thee, then, old man.
Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou
hearken to ; all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own
flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the
men have vow'd thy vow ; say'st all of us are Ahabs. Great
God forbid ! — But is there no other way ? no lawful way ? —
Make him a prisoner to be taken home ? What ! hope to wrest
this old man's living power from his own living hands ? Only
a fool would try it. Say he were pinioned even ; knotted all
over with ropes and hawsers ; chained down to ring-bolts on
this cabin floor ; he would be more hideous than a caged tiger,
then. I could not endure the sight ; could not possibly fly his
howlings ; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would
leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains ?
The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the
nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans
and a whole continent between me and law. — Aye, aye, 'tis so.
■ — Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be
murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together ? — And
would I be a murderer, then, if" and slowly, stealthily,
and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end
against the door.
"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head
this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife
and child again. — Oh Mary ! Mary ! — boy ! boy ! boy ! — But
if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what
unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may sink, with
THE NEEDLE. 569
all the crew ! Great God, -where art thou ? Shall I ? shall
I? The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the
fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads her
course ."
" Stern all ! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last !"
Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the
old man's tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the
long dumb dream to speak.
The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against
the panel ; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel ; but turn-
ing from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left
the place.
"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and
wake him, and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou
know'st what to say."
CHAPTER CXXIV.
THE NEEDLE.
Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow
billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling
track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread. The strong,
unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast
outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind.
Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only
known by the spread intensity of his place ; where his bayonet
rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Baby-
lonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was
as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light
and heat.
Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart ;
and every time the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her
570 THE NEEDLE.
bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced
ahead ; and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he
turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how the
same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.
" Ha, ha, my ship ! thou mightest well be taken now for the
sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho ! all ye nations before my prow,
I bring the sun to ye ! Yoke on the further billows ; hallo !
a tandem, I drive the sea !"
But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hur-
ried towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was
heading.
"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman.
" Thou liest !" smiting him with his clenched fist. " Heading
East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern ?"
Upon this every soul was confounded ; for the phenomenon
just then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every
one else ; but its veiy blinding palpableness must have been
the cause.
Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught
one glimpse of the compasses ; his uplifted arm slowly fell ; for
a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him
Starbuck looked, and lo ! the two compasses pointed East, and
the Pequod was as infallibly going West.
But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the
crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, " I have it !
It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder
turned our compasses — that's all. Thou hast before now heard
of such a thing, I take it."
" Aye ; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said
the pale mate, gloomily.
Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in
more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The
magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all
know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven ;
THE NEEDLE. 571
hence it is not to be much marvelled at, that such things should
be. In instances where the lightning has actually struck the
vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and rigging, the
effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal ; all its
loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic
steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle.
But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the
original virtue thus marred or lost ; and if the binnacle com-
passes be affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may
be in the ship ; even were the lowermost one inserted into the
kelson.
Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the
transported compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his
extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and
satisfied that the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his
orders for the ship's course to be changed accordingly. The
yards were hard up ; and once more the Pequod thrust her
undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed
fair one had only been juggling her.
Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck
said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders ; while
Stubb and Flask — who in some small degree seemed then to
be sharing his feelings — likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As
for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of
Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before,
the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed ;
or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into
their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.
For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries.
But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed
copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the clay before
dashed to the deck.
" Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot ! yesterday
i wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would feign have
572 THE NEEDLE,
wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level load-
stone yet. Mr. Starbuck — a lance without the pole ; a top-
maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. Quick !"
Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was
now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose ob-
ject might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a
stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of
the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that
to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable,
was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, with-
out some shudderings and evil portents.
" Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate
handed him the things he had demanded, "my men, the
thunder turned old Ahab's needles ; but out of this bit of
steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as
any."
Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by
the sailors, as this was said ; and with fascinated eyes they
awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked
away.
With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel
head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron
rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching
the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper
end of this iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the
top of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the
mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some
small strange motions with it — whether indispensable to the
magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the
awe of the crew, is uncertain — he called for linen thread ; and
moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles
there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle,
over one of the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round
and round, quivering and vibrating at either end ; but at last
THE LOG AND LINE. 573
it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently
watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle,
and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed, — " Look
ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level load-
stone ! The sun is East, and that compass swears it !"
One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own
eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after
another they slunk away.
In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab
in all his fatal pride.
CHAPTER CXXV.
THE LOG AND LINE.
While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this
voyage, the log and line had but veiy seldom been in use.
Owing to a confident reliance upon other means of determining
the vessel's place, some merchantmen, and many whalemen,
especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the log ;
. though at the same time, and frequently more for form's sake
than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary
slate the course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed
average rate of progression every hour. It had been thus with
the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log attached hung,
long untouched, just beneath the railing of the after bulwarks.
Rains and spray had damped it ; sun and wind had warped it ;
all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly.
But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he happened
to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet
scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and
recalled his frantic oath about the level log and line. The
ship was sailing plungingly ; astern the billows rolled in riots.
574 THE LOG AND LINE.
" Forward, there ! Heave the log !"
Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the
grizzly Manxman. " Take the reel, one of ye, I'll heave."
They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side,
where the deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now
almost dipping into the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.
The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the
projecting handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool
of line revolved, so stood with the angular log hanging down-
wards, till Ahab advanced to him.
Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some
thirty or forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss
overboard, when the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing
both him and the line, made bold to speak.
" Sir, I mistrust it ; this line looks far gone, long heat and
wet have spoiled it.''
" 'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they
spoiled thee ? Thou seem'st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life
holds thee ; not thou it."
" I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With
these grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing,
'specially with a superior, who'll ne'er confess."
" What's that ? There now's a patched professor in Queen
Nature's granite-founded College ; but methinks he's too sub-
servient. Where wert thou born ?"
" In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir."
"Excellent ! Thou'st hit the world by that."
" I know not, sir, but I was born there."
" In the Isle of Man, hey ? Well, the other way, it's good.
Here's a man from Man ; a man born in once independent
Man, and now unmanned of Man ; which is sucked in — by
what? Up with the reel ! The dead, blind wall butts all
inquiring heads at last. Up with it ! So."
The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened
THELOGANDLINE. 575
out in a long dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel
began to whirl. In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the
rolling billows, the towing resistance of the log caused the old
reelman to stagger strangely.
"Hold hard!"
Snap ! the overstrained line sagged down in one long
festoon ; the tugging log was gone.
" I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and
now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all.
Haul in here, Tahitian ; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let
the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line. See
to it."
" There he goes now ; to him nothing's happened ; but to
me, the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.
Haul in, haul in, Tahitian ! These lines run whole, and whirling
out : come in broken, and dragging slow. Ha, Pip ? come to
help ; eh, Pip ?"
" Pip ? whom call ye Pip ? Pip jumped from the whale-
boat. Pip's missing. Let's see now if ye haven't fished him
up here, fisherman. It drags hard ; I guess he's holding on.
Jerk him, Tahiti ! Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here.
Ho ! there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet ! a
hatchet ! cut it off — we haul in no cowards here. Captain
Ahab ! sir, sir ! here's Pip, trying to get on board again."
" Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman, seizing him
by the arm. " Away from the quarter-deck !"
" The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," muttered Ahab,
advancing. " Hands off from that holiness ! Where sayest
thou Pip was, boy 1"
" Astern there, sir, astern ! Lo, lo !"
" And who art thou, boy ? I see not my reflection in the
vacant pupils of thy eyes. Oh God ! that man should be a
thing for immortal souls to sieve through ! Who art thou,
boy ?"
576 THE LOG AND LINE.
" Bell-boy, sir ; ship's-crier ; ding, dong, ding ! Pip ! Pip !
Pip ! One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip ; five feet
high — looks cowardly — quickest known by that ! Ding, dong,
ding ! Who's seen Pip the coward ?"
" There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen
heavens ! look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child,
and have abandoned him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy ;
Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home henceforth, while Ahab lives.
Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy ; thou art tied to me by
cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down."
" What's this ? here's velvet shark-skin," intenting gazing at
Ahab's hand, and feeling it. " Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt
so kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne'er been lost ! This
seems to me, sir, as a man-rope ; something that weak souls
may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet
these two hands together ; the black one with the white, for I
will not let this go."
" Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee
to worse horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin.
Lo ! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo
you ! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man ; and
man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of
the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come ! I feel prouder
leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an
Emperor's !"
" There go two daft ones now," muttered the old Manxman.
" One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But
here's the end of the rotten line — all dripping, too. Mend it,
eh ? I think we had best have a new line altogether. I'll see
Mr. Stubb about it."
THE LIFE-BUOY. 577
CHAPTER CXXVI.
THE LIFE-BUOY. .
f
Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and
her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line ; the
Pequod held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long
a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships,
and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over
waves monotonously mild ; all these seemed the strange calm
things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.
At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were,
of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that
goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets ;
the watch — then headed by Flask — was startled by a cry so
plaintively wild and unearthly — like half-articulated wailings of
the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents — that one and
all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some
moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like
the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within
hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it
was mermaids, and shuddered ; but the pagan harpooneers
remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman — the oldest
mariner of all — declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were
heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea.
Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey
dawn, when he came to the deck ; it was then recounted to him
by Flask, not unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He
hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder.
Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of
great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their
25
578 THE LIFE-BUOY.
dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen
nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing
with their human sort of wail. But this only the more affected
some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious
feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones
when in distress, but also from the human look of their round
heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the
water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals
have more than once been mistaken for men.
But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most
plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that
morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his
mast-head at the fore ; and whether it was that he was not yet
half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in
a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is
now no telling ; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at
his perch, when a cry was heard — a cry and a rushing — and
looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air ; and looking
down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the
sea.
The life-buoy — a long slender cask — was dropped from the
stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring ; but
no hand rose to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this
cask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and the parched
wood also filled at its every pore ; and the studded iron-bound
cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his
pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.
And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast
to look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own
peculiar groiind ; that man was swallowed up in the deep. But
few, perhaps, thought of that at the time. Indeed, in some
sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent ;
for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil in the future,
but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They de-
THE LIFE-BUOY. 579
clared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they
had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said
nay.
The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced ; Starbuck was
directed to see to it ; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could
be found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed
the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient
of any toil but what was directly connected with its final end,
whatever that might prove to be ; therefore, they were going to
leave the ship's stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain
strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concern-
ing his coffin.
" A life-buoy of a coffin !" cried Starbuck, starting.
"Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb.
" It will make a good enough one," said Flask, " the carpenter
here can arrange it easily."
" Bring it up ; there's nothing else for it," said Starbuck,
after a melancholy pause. " Eig it, carpenter ; do not look at
me so — the coffin, I mean. Dost thou hear me ? Rig it."
"And shall I nail down the lid, sir ?" moving his hand as with
a hammer.
"Aye."
" And shall I caulk the seams, sir ?" moving his hand as with a
caulking-iron.
" Aye."
" And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir ?" mov-
ing his hand as with a pitch-pot.
" Away ! what possesses thee to this ? Make a life-buoy of
the coffin, and no more. — Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward
with me."
" He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure ; at the
parts he baulks. Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Cap-
tain Ahab, and he wears it like a gentleman ; but I make a
bandbox for Queequeg, and he wont put his head into it. Are
580 THE LIFE-BUOY.
all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin ? And now I'm
ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It's like turning an old coat ;
going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like
this cobbling sort of business — I don't like it at all ; its undigni-
fied ; it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings ; we
are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin,
fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly be-
gins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and
comes to an end at the conclusion ; not a cobbler's job, that's
at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end. It's
the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord ! what
an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old
woman of sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young
tinker once. And that's the reason I never would work for
lonely widow old women ashore, when I kept my job-shop in
the Vineyard ; they might have taken it into their lonely old
heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho ! there are no caps at
sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk
the seams ; pay over the same with pitch ; batten them down
tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern.
Were ever such things done before with a coffin ? Some super-
stitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging,
ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty Aroostook
hemlock ; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin ! Sailing
about with a grave-yard tray ! But never mind. We workers
in woods make bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as
coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or by the job, or
by the profit ; not for us to ask the why and wherefore of our
work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it
if we can. Hem ! I'll do the job, now, tenderly. I'll have me
— let's see — how many in the ship's company, all told ? But
I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-
headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the
coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fel-
THE DECK. 581
lows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often
beneath the sun ! Come hammer, calking-iron, pitch-pot, and
marling-spike ! Let's to it."
CHAPTER CXXVn.
THE DECK.
The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and
the open hatchway ; the Carpenter calking its seams ; the
string of twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll
of it placed in the bosom of his frock. — Ahab comes slowly
from the cabin-gangway, aud hears Pip following him.
" Back, lad ; I will be with ye again presently. He goes !
Not this hand complies with my humor more genially than that
boy. — Middle aisle of a church ! "What's here ?"
" Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir ! Be-
ware the hatchway !"
" Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault."
" Sir ? The hatchway ? oh ! So it does, sir, so it does."
" Art not thou the leg-maker ? Look, did not this stump
come from thy shop ?"
" I believe it did, sir ; does the ferrule stand, sir ?"
" Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker ?"
" Aye, sir ; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Quee-
queg; but they've set me now to turning it into something
else."
" Then tell me ; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-
meddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day
making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet
again life-buoys out of those same coffins ? Thou art as un-
principled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades."
582 THE DECK
" But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do."
" The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working
about a coffin ? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when
chipping out the craters for volcanoes ; and the grave-digger in
the play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou never ?"
" Sing, sir ? Do I sing ? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir,
for that; hut the reason why the grave-digger made music
must have been because there was none in his spade, sir. But
the calking mallet is full of it. Hark to it."
" Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board ;
and what in all things makes the sounding-board is this —
there's naught beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it
rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped
carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against the church-
yard gate, going in ?"
" Faith, sir, I've "
"Faith? What's that?"
" Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation -like — that's
all, sir."
" iJm, um ; go on.''
" I was about to say, sir, that "
" Art thou a silk-worm ? Dost thou spin thy own shroud
out of thyself ? Look at thy bosom ! Despatch ! and get
these traps out of sight."
"He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come
sudden in hot latitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albemarle,
one of the Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle.
Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right
in his middle. He's always under the Line — fiery hot, I tell ye !
He's looking this way — come, oakum ; quick. Here we go
again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'm the professor
of musical glasses — tap, tap !"
(Ahab to himself.)
" There's a sight ! There's a sound ! The greyheaded wood-
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL. 583
pecker tapping the hollow tree ! Blind and dumb might well
be envied now. See ! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of
tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat ! So
man's seconds tick ! Oh ! how immaterial are all materials !
What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts ? Here
now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap,
made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most
endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin ! Does it go further ?
Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but
an immortality -preserver ! I'll think of that. But no. So far
gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the
theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me. Will
ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed sound ? I
vo below ; let me not see that thing here when I return again.
Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over ; I do suck most wondrous
philosophies from thee ! Some unknown conduits from the
unknown worlds must empty into thee !"
CHAPTER CXXVHI.
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL.
Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing
directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering
with men. At the time the Pequod was making good speed
through the water ; but as the broad-winged windward stranger
shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all fell together as blank
bladders that are burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull.
" Bad news ; she brings bad news," muttered the old Manx-
man. But ere her commander, who, with trumpet to mouth,
stood up in his boat ; ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab 's voice
was heard.
584 THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL.
" Hast seen the White Whale ?"
" Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift ?"
Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected
question ; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when
the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel's way,
was seen descending her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-
hook soon clinched the Pequod's main-chains, and he sprang
to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by Ahab for a
Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged.
" Where was he ? — not killed ! — not killed !" cried Ahab,
closely advancing. " How was it 2"
It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day
previous, while three of the stranger's boats were engaged with
a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles
from the ship ; and while they were yet in swift chase to wind-
ward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly
loomed up out of the blue water, not very far to leeward ;
whereupon, the fourth rigged boat — a reserved one — had been
instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind,
this fourth boat — the swiftest keeled of all — seemed to have
succeeded in fastening — at least, as well as the man at the mast-
head could tell anything about it. In the distance he saw the
diminished dotted boat ; and then a swift gleam of bubbling
white water ; and after that nothing more ; whence it was con-
cluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away
with his pursuers, as often happens. There was some appre-
hension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were
placed in the rigging : darkness came on ; and forced to pick up
her three far to windward boats — ere going in quest of the
fourth one in the precisely opposite direction — the ship had not
only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till near
midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance from it.
But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded
all sail — stunsail on stunsail — after the missing boat ; kindling a
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL. 585
fire in her try-pots for a beacon ; and every other man aloft on
the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient
distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when
last seen ; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to
pull all around her; and not finding anything, had again
dashed on ; again paused, and lowered her boats ; and though
she had thus continued doing till day light ; yet not the least
glimpse of the missing keel had been seen.
The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to
reveal his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship
to unite with his own in tbe search ; by sailing over the sea
some four or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping
a double horizon, as it were.
" I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask,
" that some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain's
best coat ; mayhap, his watch — he's so cursed anxious to get it
back. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after
one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season ?
See, Flask, only see how pale he looks — pale in the very but-
tons of his eyes — look — it wasn't the coat — it must have been
the—"
" My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake — I
beg, I conjure" — here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab,
who thus far had but icily received his petition. " For eight-
and-forty hours let me charter your ship — I will gladly pay for
it, and roundly pay for it — if there be no other way — for eight-
and-forty hours only — only that — you must, oh, you must, and
you shall do this thing."
" His son !" cried Stubb, " oh, it's his son he's lost ! I take
back the coat and watch — what says Ahab ? We must save
that boy."
" He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night," said the old
Manx sailor standing behind them ; " I heard ; all of ye heard
their spirits."
25*
586 THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL.
Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of
the Rachel's the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that
not only was one of the Captain's sons among the number of
the missing boat's crew ; but among the number of the other
boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other hand, separated
from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had
been still another son ; as that for a time, the wretched father
was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity ; which
was only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopt-
ing the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies,
that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats,
always to pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some
unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning
all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab's iciness did he allude
to his one yet missing boy ; a little lad, but twelve years old,
whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a
Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate
him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially
the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that
Nantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away
from them, for a protracted three or four years' voyage in some
other ship than their own ; so that their first knowledge of a
whaleman's career shall be unenervated by any chance display
of a father's natural but untimely partiality, or undue appre-
hensiveness 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."
THE CABIN. 587
" Avast," cried Ahab — " touch not a rope-yarn ;" then in a
voice that prolongingly moulded every word — " Captain Gardi-
ner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time. Good bye, good
bye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must
go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three
minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers : then
brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before."
Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his
cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional
and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his
enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried to the side ; more fell
than stepped into his boat, and returned to his ship.
Soon the two ships diverged their wakes ; and long as the
strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and
thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This
way and that her yards were swung round ; starboard and
larboard, she continued to tack ; now she beat against a head
sea ; and again it pushed her before it ; while all the while, her
masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall
cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.
But by her still halting course and winding, woful way, you
plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained
without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children,
because they were not.
CHAPTER CXXIX.
THE CABIK.
(Ahab moving to go on deck ; Pip catches him by the hand to
follow.)
" Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The
hour is coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet
588 THE CABIN.
would not have thee by him. There is that in thee, poor lad,
which I feel too curing to rny malady. Like cures like ; and
for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health. Do
thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if thou
wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own
screwed chair ; another screw to it, thou must be."
" No, no, no ! ye have not a whole body, sir ; do ye but use
poor me for your one lost leg ; only tread upon me, sir ; I ask
no more, so I remain a part of ye."
" Oh ! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the
fadeless fidelity of man ! — and a black ! and crazy ! — but me-
thinks like-cures-like applies to him too ; he grows so sane
again."
" They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip,
whose drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of
his living skin. But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did
him. Sir, I must go with ye."
" If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose
keels up in him. I tell thee no ; it cannot be."
" Oh good master, master, master !"
" Weep so, and I will murder thee ! have a care, for Ahab
too is mad. Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon
the deck, and still know that I am there. And now I quit thee.
Thy hand ! — Met ! True art thou, lad, as the circumference
to its centre. So : God for ever bless thee ; and if it come to
that, — God for ever save thee, let what will befall."
[Ahab goes ; Pip steps one step forward?)
" Here he this instant stood ; I stand in his air, — but I'm
alone. Now were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but
he's missing. Pip ! Pip ! Ding, dong, ding ! Who's seen Pip ?
He must be up here ; let's try the door. What ? neither lock,
nor bolt, nor bar ; and yet there's no opening it. It must be
the spell ; he told me to stay here : Aye, and told me this
THE HAT. 589
screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I'll seat me, against the
transom, in the ship's full middle, all her keel and her three
masts before me. Here, our old sailors say, in their black
seventy-fours great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it
over rows of captains and lieutenants. Ha ! what's this ? epau-
lets ! epaulets ! the epaulets all come crowding ! Pass round the
decanters ; glad to see ye ; fill up, monsieurs ! "What an odd
feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men with gold
lace upon their coats ! — Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip ? — a
little negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly !
Jumped from a whale-boat once ; — seen him ? No ! Well
then, fill up again, captains, and let's drink shame upon all
cowards ! I name no names. Shame upon them ! Put one
foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards. — Hist ! above
there, I hear ivory — Oh, master ! master ! I am indeed down-
hearted when you walk over me. But here I'll stay, though
this stern strikes rocks ; and they bulge through ; and oysters
come to join me."
CHAPTER CXXX.
And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and
wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab, — all other whaling waters
swept — seemed to have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay
him the more securely there ; now, that he found himself hard
by the very latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound
had been inflicted ; now that a vessel had been spoken which
on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby
Dick ; — and now that all his successive meetings with various
ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indiffer-
ence with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether
590 THE HAT.
sinning or sinned against ; now it was that there lurked a
something in the old man's eyes, which it was hardly sufferable
for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star, which
through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its
piercing, steady, central gaze ; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly
gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew.
It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts,
misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and
not sprout forth a single spear or leaf.
In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natu-
ral, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile ; Starbuck
no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and
fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time,
in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines,
they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old
man's despot eye was on them.
But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential
hours ; when he thought no glance but one was on him ; then
you would have seen that even as Ahab's eyes so awed the
crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance awed his ; or somehow,
at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. Such an added,
gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now ;
such ceaseless shudderings shook him ; that the men looked
dubious at him ; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed
he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast
upon the deck by some unseen being's body. And that shadow
was always hovering there. For not by night, even, had Fe-
dallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below. Ho
would stand still for hours : but never sat or leaned ; his wan
but wondrous eyes did plainly say — We two watchmen never
rest.
Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now
step upon the deck, unless Ahab was before them ; either stand-
ing in his pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks between two
THE HAT. 591
undeviatiug limits, — the main-mast and the mizen ; or else they
saw him standing in the cahin-scuttle, — his living foot advanced
upon the deck, as if to step ; his hat slouched heavily over his
eyes ; so that however motionless he stood, however the days
and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his ham-
mock ; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never
tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed
at times : or whether he was still intently scanning them ; no
matter, though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on
the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads of
dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The clothes that the
night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him ; and
so, day after day, and night after night ; he went no more
beneath the planks ; whatever he wanted from the cabin that
thing he sent for.
He ate in the same open air ; that is, his two only meals, —
breakfast and dinner : supper he never touched ; nor reaped
his beard ; which darkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots
of trees blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base,
though perished in the upper verdure. But though his whole
life was now become one watch on deck ; and though the
Parsee's mystic watch was without intermission as his own ;
yet these two never seemed to speak — one man to the other —
unless at long intervals some passing unmomentous matter
made it necessary. Though such a potent spell seemed secretly
to join the twain ; openly, and to the awe-struck crew, they
seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak
one word ; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned
the slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours,
without a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight ;
Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast ; but still
fixedly gazing upon each other ; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw
his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned sub-
stance.
592 THE HAT.
And yet, somehow, did Ahab — in his own proper self, as
daily, hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his
subordinates, — Ahab seemed an independent lord ; the Parsee
but his slave. Still again both seemed yoked together, and an
unseen tyrant driving them ; the lean shade siding the solid
rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel was solid
Ahab.
At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice
was heard from aft — " Man the mast-heads !" — and all through
the day, till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every
hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard —
" What d'ye see ? — sharp ! sharp !"
But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the
children-seeking Rachel ; and no spout had yet been seen ;
the monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew's
fidelity ; at least, of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers ;
he seemed to doubt, even, whether Stubb and Flask might not
willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if these suspicions
were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing
them, however his actions might seem to hint them.
" I will have the first sight of the whale myself," — he said.
" Aye ! Ahab must have the doubloon !" and with his own
hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines ; and sending a
hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the main-
mast head, he received the two ends of the downward-reeved
rope ; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for the
other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that
end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round
upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other ; pausing his
glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego ; but shunning
Fedallah ; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief
mate, said, — " Take the rope, sir — I give it into thy hands,
Starbuck." Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave
the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being
THE HAT. 593
the one who secured the rope at last ; and afterwards stood
near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the royal
mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles, — ■
ahead, astern, this side, and that, — within the wide expanded
circle commanded at so great a height.
"When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated
place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the
sailor at sea is hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by
the rope ; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck
is always given in strict charge to some one man who has the
special watch of it. Because in such a wilderness of running
rigging, whose various different relations aloft cannot always be
infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck ; and
when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes
cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality,
if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor
should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall
all swooping to the sea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter
were not unusual ; the only strange thing about them seemed
to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever
ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree
approaching to decision — one of those too, whose faithfulness on
the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat ; — it was strange,
that this was the very man he should select for his watchman ;
freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted
person's hands.
Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft ; ere he had
been there ten minutes ; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks
which so often fly incommodiously close round the manned
mast-heads of whalemen in these latitudes ; one of these birds
came wheeling and screaming round his head in a maze of un-
trackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet straight
up into the air ; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying
again round his head.
594 THE PEQUOD MEETS THE DELIGHT.
But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon,
Ahab seemed not to mark this wild bird ; nor, indeed, would
any one else have marked it much, it being no uncommon cir-
cumstance ; only now almost the least heedful eye seemed to
see some sort of cunning meaning in almost eveiy sight.
" Your hat, your hat, sir !" suddenly cried the Sicilian sea-
man, who being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly
behind Ahab, though somewhat lower than his level, and with a
deep gulf of air dividing them.
But already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes ;
the long hooked bill at his head : with a scream, the black
hawk darted away with his prize.
An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap
to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that
Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing
of the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab's hat was
never restored ; the wild hawk flew on and on with it ; far in
advance of the prow : and at last disappeared ; while from the
point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly dis-
cerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.
CHAPTER CXXXL
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE DELIGHT.
The intense Pequod sailed on ; the rolling waves and days
went by ; the life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung ; and another
ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried. As
she drew nigh, all eyes were fixed upom her broad beams, called
shears, which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at
the height of eight or nine feet ; serving to carry the spare,
unrigged, or disabled boats.
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE DELIGHT. 595
Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white
ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a
whale-boat ; but you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as
you see through the peeled, half-unhinged, and bleaching skele-
ton of a horse.
" Hast seen the White Whale ?"
'* Look !" replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail ;
and with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck.
"Hast killed him?"
" The harpoon is not yet forged that will ever do that,"
answered the other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock
on the deck, whose gathered sides some noiseless sailors were
busy in sewing together.
" Not forged !" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the
crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming — " Look ye, Nantucketer ;
here in this hand I hold his death ! Tempered in blood, and
tempered by lightning are these barbs ; and I swear to temper
them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White
Whale most feels his accursed life !"
"Then God keep thee, old man — see'st thou that" — point-
ing to the hammock — " I bury but one of five stout men, who
were alive only yesterday ; but were dead ere night. Only that
one I bury ; the rest were buried before they died ; you sail upon
their tomb." Then turning to his crew — " Are ye ready there ?
place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body ; so, then —
Oh ! God" — advancing towards the hammock with uplifted
hands — " may the resurrection and the life "
" Brace forward ! Up helm !" cried Ahab like lightning to
his men.
But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to
escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it
struck the sea ; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying
bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly bap- j
tism.
596 THE SYMPHONY.
As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange
life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous
relief.
" Ha ! yonder ! look yonder, men !" cried a foreboding voice
in her wake. " In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial ;
ye but turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin !"
CHAPTER CXXXII.
THE SYMPHONY.
It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea
were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the
pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's
look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long,
strong, fingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep.
Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of
small, unspeckled birds ; these were the gentle thoughts of the
feminine air ; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bot-
tomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks ;
and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the
masculine sea.
But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in
shades and shadows without ; those two seemed one ; it was
only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.
Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this
gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to
groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tre-
mulous motion — most seen here at the equator — denoted the fond,
throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride
gave her bosom away.
Tied up and twisted ; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles ;
haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals,
THE SYMPHONY. 597
that still glow in the ashes of ruin ; untottering Ahab stood
forth in the clearness of the morn ; lifting his splintered helmet
of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven.
Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure ! Invisible
winged creatures that frolic all round us ! Sweet childhood
of air and sky ! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled
woe 1 But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-
eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire ; sporting
with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of
that burnt-out crater of his brain.
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over
the side, and watched how his shadow in the water sank and
sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce
the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air
did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in
his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last
stroke and caress him ; the step-mother world, so long cruel —
forbidding — now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn
neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one,
that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her
heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat
Ahab dropped a tear into the sea ; nor did all the Pacific con-
tain such wealth as that one wee drop.
Starbuck saw the old man ; saw him, how he heavily leaned
over the side ; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the
measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity
around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he
yet drew near to him, and stood there.
Ahab turned.
" Starbuck !"
, "Sir."
" Oh, Starbuck ! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking
sky. On such a day — veiy much such a sweetness as this — I
struck my first whale — a boy-harpooneer of eighteen ! Forty —
598 THE SYMPHONY.
forty — forty years ago ! — ago ! Forty years of continual whal-
ing ! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time ! forty
years on the pitiless sea ! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the
peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the
deep ! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have
not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led ; the
desolation of solitude it has been ; the masoned, walled-town of
a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to
any sympathy from the green country without — oh, weariness !
heaviness ! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command ! — when
I think of all this ; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to
me before — and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted
fare — fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul ! — when
the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and
broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts — away,
whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past
fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one
dent in my marriage pillow — wife? wife? — rather a widow with
her husband alive ! Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I
married her, Starbuck ; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the
boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand
lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey —
more a demon than a man ! — aye, aye ! what a forty years'
fool — fool — old fool, has old Ahab been ! Why this strife of
the chase ? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the
iron, and the lance ? how the richer or better is Ahab now ?
Behold. Oh, Starbuck ! is it not hard, that with this weary load
I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me ?
Here, brush this old hair aside ; it blinds me, that I seem to
weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some
ashes ! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck ?
I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were
Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise.
God ! God ! God ! — crack my heart ! — stave my brain ! — mock-
THE SYMPHONY. 599
ery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I
lived enough joy to wear ye ; and seem and feel thus intolerably
old ? Close ! stand close to me, Starbuck ; let me look into a
human eye ; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky ; better
than to gaze upon God. By the green land ; by the bright
hearth-stone ! this is the magic glass, man ; I see my wife and
my child in thine eye. No, no ; stay on board, on board ! —
lower not when I do ; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby
Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no ! not with the
far away home I see in that eye !"
" Oh, my Captain ! my Captain ! noble soul ! grand old heart,
after all ! why should any one give chase to that hated fish !
Away with me ! let us fly these deadly waters ! let us home !
Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's — wife and child of his
brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth ; even as thine, sir, are the
wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age ! Away !
let us away ! — this instant let me alter the course ! How
cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on
our way to see old Nantucket again ! I think, sir, they have
some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket."
" They have, they have. I have seen them — some summer
days in the morning. About this time — yes, it is his noon nap
now — the boy vivaciously wakes ; sits up in bed ; and his
"mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me ; how I am abroad
upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again."
" Tis my Mary, my Mary herself ! She promised that my
boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the
first glimpse of his father's sail ! Yes, yes ! no more ! it is
done ! we head for Nantucket ! Come, my Captain, study out
the course, and let us away ! See, see ! the boy's face from
the window ! the boy's hand on the hill !"
But Ahab's glance was averted ; like a blighted fruit tree he
shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.
" What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it ;
600 THE SYMPHONY.
what cozzening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless
emperor commands me ; that against all natural lovings and
longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself
on all the time ; recklessly making me ready to do what in my
own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare ? Is
Ahab, Ahab ? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm ?
But if the great sun move not of himself ; but is as an errand-
boy in heaven ; nor one single star can revolve, but by some
invisible power ; how then can this one small heart beat ; this
one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beat-
ing, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven,
man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder
windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo ! that
smiling sky, and this unsounded sea ! Look ! see yon Albicore !
who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish ? Where
do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge
himself is dragged to the bar ? But it is a mild, mild wind,
and a mild looking sky ; and the airs smells now, as if it blew
from a far-away meadow ; they have been making hay some-
where under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mow-
ers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping ? Aye,
toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep ?
Aye, and rust amid greenness ; as last year's scythes flung down,
and left in the half-cut swaths — Starbuck !"
But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had
stolen away.
Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side ; but
started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedal-
lah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
THE CHASE — FIRST DAY. 601
CHAPTER CXXXIII.
THE CHASE FIRST DAY.
That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man — as his
wont at intervals — stepped forth from the scuttle in which
he leaned, and went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out
his face fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship's
clog will, in drawing nigh to some barbarous isle. He declared
that a whale must be near. Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes
to a great distance given forth by the living sperm whale, was
palpable to all the watch ; nor was any mariner surprised when,
after inspecting the compass, and then the dog- vane, and then
ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as pos-
sible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly
altered, and the sail to be shortened.
The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently
vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea
directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in
the pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-
like marks of some swift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid
stream.
" Man the mast-heads ! Call all hands !"
Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on
the forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judg-
ment claps that they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so
instantaneously did they appear with their clothes in their
hands.
"What d'ye see?" cried Ahab, flattening his face to the
sky.
" Nothing, nothing, sir !" was the sound hailing down in
reply.
26
602 THE CHASE— FIRST DAY.
" T'gallant sails ! — stunsails ! alow and aloft, and on both
sides !"
All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for
swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few
moments they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two
thirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahead through the
horizontal vacancy between the main-top-sail and top-gallant-
sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the air, " There she blows ! —
there she blows ! A hump like a snow-hill ! It is Moby
Dick !"
Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by
the three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging
to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing.
Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feet above the other
look-outs, Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the
top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's head was almost on a
level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale was now
seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing
his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout
into the air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same
silent spout they had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic
and Indian Oceans.
" And did none of ye see it before ?" cried Ahab; hailing the
perched men all around him.
"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab
did, and I cried out," said Tashtego.
" Not the same instant ; not the same — no, the doubloon is
mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. / only ; none of ye
could have raised the White Whale first. There she blows !
there she blows !• — there she blows ! There again ! — there
again !" he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic tones,
attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible
jets. " He's going to sound ! In stunsails ! Down top-
gallant-sails ! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember,
THE CHASE — FIRST DAY. 603
stay on board, and keep the ship. Helm there ! Luff, luff
a point ! So ; steady, man, steady ! There go flukes ! No,
no ; only black water ! All ready the boats there ? Stand
by, stand by ! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck ; lower, lower, — quick,
quicker !" and he slid through the air to the deck.
" He is heading straight to leeward, sir," cried Stubb, " right
away from us ; cannot have seen the ship yet."
" Be dumb, man ! Stand by the braces ! Hard down the
helm ! — brace up ! Shiver her ! — shiver her ! So ; well that !
Boats, boats !"
Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped; all the
boat-sails set — all the paddles plying ; with rippling swiftness,
shooting to leeward ; and Ahab heading the onset. A paVs,
death-glimmer lit up Fedallah's sunken eyes ; a hideous motion
gnawed his mouth.
Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through
the sea ; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared
him, the ocean grew still more smooth ; seemed drawing a
carpet over its waves ; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it
spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his
seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was
distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing,
and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish
foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly pro-
jecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-
rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his
broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompany-
ing the shade ; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably
flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake ; and on
either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But
these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay
fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight;
and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an
argosy, the tall but sbattei'ed pole of a recent lance projected
604 THE CHASE — FIRST DAY.
from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud
of soft-toed fowels hovering, and to and fro skimming like
a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole,
the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.
A gentle joyousness — a mighty mildness of repose in swift-
ness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter
swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful
horns ; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid ;
with smooth bewitching fieetness, rippling straight for the nup-
tial bower in Crete ; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme !
did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.
On each soft side — coincident with the parted swell, that but
once leaving him, then flowed so wide away — on each bright side,
the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some
among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured
by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it ; but had fatally
found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm,
enticing calm, oh, whale ! thou glidest on, to all who for the
first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way
thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before.
And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea,
among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceed-
ing rapture, Moby Dick moved on, still withholding from sight
the full terrors of his submerged trunk, entirely hiding the
wrenched hideousness of his jaw. But soon the fore part of
him slowly rose from the water ; for an instant his whole mar-
ble! zed body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge,
and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand
god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hover-
ingly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls long-
ingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left.
With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails
adrift, the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's
reappearance.
THE CHASE — FIRST DAY. 605
" An hour," said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern ;
and he gazed beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue
spaces and wide wooing vacancies to leeward. It was only an
instant ; for again his eyes seemed whirling round in his head as
he swept the watery circle. The breeze now freshened ; the
sea began to swell.
" The birds !— the birds !" cried Tashtego.
In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white
birds were now all flying towards Ahab's boat ; and when
within a few yards began fluttering over the water there, wheel-
ing round and round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their
vision was keener than man's ; Ahab could discover no sign
in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into
its deptbs, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than
a white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnify-
ing as it rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed
two long crooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up
from the undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick's open
mouth and scrolled jaw ; his vast, shadowed bulk still half
blending with the blue of the sea. The glittering mouth
yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb ;
and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab
whirled the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then,
calling upon Fedallah to change places with him, went forward
to the bows, and seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew
to grasp their oars and stand by to stern.
Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat
upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the
whale's head while yet under water. But as if perceiving this
stratagem, Moby Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed
to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant,
shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat.
Through and through ; through every plank and each rib, it
thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in
606 THE CHASE— FIRST DAY.
the manner of a biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its
bows full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled
lower jaw curled high up into the open air, and one of the teeth
caught in a row-lock. The bluish pearl-white of the inside of
the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's head, and reached
higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale now shook
the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With unasto-
nished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms ; but the tiger-
yellow crew were tumbling over each other's heads to gain the
uttermost stern.
And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and
out, as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish
way ; and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he
could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost
inside of him, as it were ; and while the other boats involun-
tarily paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand,
then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantaliz-
ing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless
in the very jaws he hated ; frenzied with all this, he seized the
long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it
from its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped
from him ; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped,
as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit
the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again
in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These
floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-
wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to. hold fast to the
oars to lash them across.
At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped,
Ahab, the first to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty up-
raising of his head, a movement that loosed his hold for the
time ; at that moment his hand had made one final effort to
push the boat out of the bite. But only slipping further into the
whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat
THE CHASE — FIRST DAY. 607
had shaken off his hold on the jaw ; spilled him out of it, as he
leaned to the push ; and so he fell fiat-faced upon the sea.
Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Mohy Dick now lay
at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head
up and down in the billows ; and at the same time slowly
revolving his whole spindled body ; so that when his vast
wrinkled forehead rose — some twenty or more feet out of the
water — the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves,
dazzlingly broke against it ; vindictively tossing their shivered
spray still higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half
baffled Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddy-
stone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud.
But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam
swiftly round and round the wrecked crew ; sideways churning
the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still
another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered
boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mul-
berries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Macca-
bees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the
whale's insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim, — though
he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool
as that ; helpless Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble
which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat's
fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyed him ;
the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not succor
him ; more than enough was it for them to look to themselves.
For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and
so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that
he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the
* This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designa-
tion (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-
down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, pre-
viously described. By this motion the whale must best and most
comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him.
608 THE CHASE — FIRST DAY.
other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by ; still they dared
not pull into the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal
for the instant destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab
and all ; nor in that case could they themselves hope to escape.
With straining eyes, then, they remained on the outer edge
of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old man's
head.
Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from
the ship's mast heads ; and squaring her yards, she had borne
down upon the scene ; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the
water hailed her ; — " Sail on the" — but that moment a breaking
sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the
time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing to rise on
a towering crest, he shouted, — " Sail on the whale ! — Drive him
off!"
The Pequod's prows were pointed ; and breaking up the
charmed circle, she effectually parted the white whale from his
victim. As he sullenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue.
Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the
white brine caking in his wrinkles ; the long tension of Ahab's
bodily strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's
doom : for a time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's
boat, like one trodden under foot of herds of elephants. Far
inland, nameless wails came from him, as desolate sounds from
out ravines.
But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much
the more abbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts
sometimes condense to one deep pang, the sum total of those
shallow pains kindly diffused through feebler men's whole lives.
And so, such hearts, though summary in each one suffering ;
still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time aggregate a whole
age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous intensities ; for
even in their pointless centres, those noble natures contain the
entire circumferences of inferior souls.
THE CHASE — FIRST DAY. 609
'• The harpoon," said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly
leaning on one bended arm — " is it safe ?"
" Aye, sir, for it was not darted ; this is it," said Stubb,
showing it.
" Lay it before me ; — any missing men ?"
" One, two, three, four, five ; — there were five oars, sir, and
here are five men."
" That's good. — Help me, man ; I wish to stand. So, so,
I see him ! there ! there ! going to leeward still ; what a leaping
spout ! — Hands off from me ! The eternal sap runs up in
Ahab's bones again ! Set the sail ; out oars ; the helm !"
It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being
picked up by another boat, help to work that second boat ; and
the chase is thus continued with what is called double-banked
oars. It was thus now. But the added power of the boat did
not equal the added power of the whale, for he seemed to have
treble-banked his every fin ; swimming with a velocity which
plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances, pushed
on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a
hopeless one ; nor could any crew endure for so long a period,
such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing
barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship
' itself, then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising
intermediate means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the
boats now made for her, and were soon swayed up to their
cranes — the two parts of the wrecked boat having been
previously secured by her — and then hoisting everything to her
side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretch-
ing it with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an
albatross ; the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-
Dick. At the well known, methodic intervals, the whale's
glittering spout was regularly announced from the manned
mast-heads ; and when he would be reported as just gone down,
Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnacle-
26*
610 THE CHASE — FIRST DAY.
watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour
expired, his voice was heard. — " Whose is the doubloon now ?
D'ye see him ?" and if the reply was, No, sir ! straightway he
commanded them to lift him to his perch. In this way the
day wore on ; Ahab, noAV aloft and motionless ; anon, unrestingly
pacing the planks.
As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail
the men aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to
spread one to a still greater breadth — thus to and fro pacing,
beneath his slouched hat, at eveiy turn he passed his own
wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon the quarter-deck,
and lay there reversed ; broken bow to shattered stern. At last
he paused before it ; and as in an already over-clouded sky
fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old
man's face there now stole some such added gloom as this.
Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly,
though, to evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up
a valiant place in his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing
the wreck exclaimed — " The thistle the ass refused ; it pricked
his mouth too keenly, sir ; ha ! ha !"
" What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck ?
Man, man ! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as
mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor
laugh should be heard before a wreck."
" Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, " 'tis a solemn sight ;
an omen, and an ill one."
" Omen ? omen ? — the dictionary ! If the gods think to
speak outright to man, they will honorably speak outright ; not
shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint. —
Begone ! Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing ; Starbuck
is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck ; and ye two are all
mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the
peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors ! Cold,
cold — I shiver ! — Hoav now ? Aloft there ! D'ye see him ?
THE CHASE — SECOND DAY. 611
Sing out for every spout, though he spout ten times a
second !"
The day was nearly done ; only the hem of his golden robe
was rustling. Soon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men
still remained unset.
" Can't see the spout now, sir ; — too dark " — cried a voice
from the air.
" How heading when last seen ?"
" As before, sir, — straight to leeward."
" Good ! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals
and top-gallant stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over
him before morning ; he's making a passage now, and may
heave-to a while. Helm there ! keep her full before the wind !
— Aloft ! come down ! — Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the
fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning." — Then
advancing towards the doubloon in the main-mast — " Men, this
gold is mine, for I earned it ; but I shall let it abide here till
the White Whale is dead ; and then, whosoever of ye first raises
him, upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man's ;
and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its
sum shall be divided among all of ye ! Away now ! — the deck
is thine, sir."
And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle,
and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at
intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on.
CHAPTER CXXXIV.
THE CHASE SECOND DAY.
At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned
afresh.
f!12 THE CHASE — SECOND DAY.
" D'ye see him ?" cried Ahab, after allowing a little space for
the light to spread.
"See nothing, sir."
" Turn up all hands and make sail ! he travels faster than 1
thought for ; — the top-gallant sails ! — aye, they should have
been kept on her all night. But no matter — 'tis but resting
for the rush.''
Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particu-
lar whale, continued through day into night, and through night
into day, is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South
sea fishery. For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of
experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great
natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders ; that from
the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they will,
under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell
both the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time,
while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of progression
during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot,
when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he
well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again,
but at some further point ; like as this pilot stands by his com-
pass, and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible,
in order the more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen
headland, eventually to be visited : so does the fisherman, at
his compass, with the whale ; for after being chased, and dili-
gently 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
THE CHASE — SECOND DAY. 613
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 Nan-
tucketers 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 acutenass 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 windbound marine]' is
the skill that assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and
a quarter from his port ? Inferable from these statements, are
many collateral subtile matters touching the chase of whales.
The ship tore on ; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when
a cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the
level field.
" By salt and hemp !" cried Stubb, " but this swift motion of
the deck creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This
ship and I are two brave fellows ! — Ha ! ha ! Some one take
me up, and launch me, spine-wise, on the sea, — for by live-oaks !
my spine's a keel. Ha, ha ! we go the gait that leaves no dust
behind !"
" There she blows — she blows ! — she blows ! — right ahead !"
was now the mast-head cry.
" Aye, aye !" cried Stubb, " I knew it — ye can't escape — blow
on and split your spout, O whale ! the mad fiend himself is
after ye ! blow your trump — blister your lungs ! — Ahab will
dam off your blood, as a miller shuts his water-gate upon the
stream !"
And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew.
The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bub-
blingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears
and forebodings some of them might have felt before ; these
were not only now kept out of sight through the growing aAve
614 THE CHASE — SECOND DAY.
of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as
timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The
hand of Fate had snatched all their souls ; and by the stirring
perils of the previous day ; the rack of the past night's suspense ;
the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft
went plunging towards its flying mark ; by all these things,
their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great
bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible
as irresistible ; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency
which so enslaved them to the race.
They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that
held them all ; though it was put together of all contrasting
things — oak, and maple, and pine wood ; iron, and pitch, and
hemp — yet all these ran into each other in the one concrete
hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the
long central keel ; even so, all the individualities of the crew,
this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all
varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to
that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point
to.
The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall
palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Cling-
ing to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with
impatient wavings ; others, shading their eyes from the vivid
sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards ; all the spars in full
bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah ! how they
still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing
that might destroy them !
" Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him ?" cried Ahab,
when, after the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no
more had been heard. "Sway me up, men; ye have been
deceived ; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet that way, and then
disappears/'
It was even so ; in their headlong eagerness, the men had
THE CHASE — SECOND DAY. 615
mistaken some other thing for the whale-spout, as the event
itself soon jjroved ; for hardly bad Ahab reached his perch ;
hardly was the rope belayed to its pin on deck, when he struck
tbe key-note to an orchestra, that made the air vibrate as with
the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant halloo of
thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as — much nearer to the ship
than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead —
Moby Dick bodily burst into view ! For not by any calm and
indolent spoutings ; not by the peaceable gush of that mystic
fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal his vici-
nity ; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching.
Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the
Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element
of air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his
place to the distance of seven miles and more. In those
moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his
mane ; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance.
" There she breaches ! there she breaches !" was the cry, as
in his immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself
salmon-like to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of
the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky,
the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered
and glared like a glacier ; and stood there gradually fading and
fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim misti-
ness of an advancing shower in a vale.
" Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick !" cried Ahab,
" thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand ! — Down ! down all
of ye, but one man at the fore. The boats ! — stand by !"
Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the
men, like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated back-
stays and halyards ; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly
was dropped from his perch.
" Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat
— a spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. " Mr. Starbuck,
616 THE CHASE — SECOND DAY.
the ship is thine — keep away from the boats, but keep near
them. Lower, all !"
As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being
the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now
coming for the three crews. Ahab's boat was central; and
cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-
and-head, — that is, pull straight up to his forehead, — a not
uncommon thing ; for when within a certain limit, such a course
excludes the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision.
But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three
boats were plain as the ship's three masts to his eye ; the White
Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant
as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a
lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side ; and heedless
of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent
on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were
made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like
trained chargers in the field ; the boats for a while eluded him ;
though, at times, but by a plank's breadth ; while all the time,
Ahab's unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.
But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so
crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the
slack of the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened,
and, of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the
planted irons in him ; though now for a moment the whale
drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more tremendous charge.
Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more line : and
then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again — hoping
that way to disencumber it of some snarls — when lo ! — a sight
more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks !
Caught and twisted — corkscrewed in the mazes of the line,
loose harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and
points, came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows
of Ahab's boat. Only one thing could be done. Seizing the
THE CHASE — SECOND DAY. 617
boat-knife, he critically reached -within — through — and then,
without — the rays of steel ; dragged in the line beyond, passed
it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sundering the rope
near the chocks — dropped the intercepted fagot of steel into
the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White
Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the
other lines ; by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved
boats of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes ; dashed them
together like two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach, and
then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling mael-
strom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the
wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a
swiftly stirred bowl of punch.
While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching
out after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture,
while aslope' little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty
vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of
sharks ; and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle
him up ; and while the old man's line — now parting — admitted
of his pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he could ; —
in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils,
. — Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven
by invisible wires, — as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from
the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against
its bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air ; till
it fell again — gunwale downwards — and Ahab and his men
struggled out from under it, like seals from a sea-side cave.
The first uprising momentum of the whale — modifying its
direction as he struck the surface — involuntarily launched him
along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction
he had made ; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment
slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side ; and whenever
a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats
touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways
618 THE CHASE — SECOND DAY.
smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that
time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the
ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued
his leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace.
As 'before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight,
again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat,
picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else
could be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks. Some
sprained shoulders, wrists, and ankles ; livid contusions ; wrenched
harpoons and lances ; inextricable intricacies of rope ; shattered
oars and planks ; all these were there ; but no fatal or even
serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As with Fedallah
the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to his
boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float ;
nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap.
But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened
upon him ; as instead of standing by himself he still half-hitng
upon the shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the fore-
most to assist him. His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving
but one short sharp splinter.
"Aye aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the
leaner who he will ; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener
than he has."
"The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now
coming up ; " I put good work into that leg."
"But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true
concern.
" Aye ! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb ! — d'ye see it. — But
even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched ; and I account
no living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one
that's lost. Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much
as graze old Ahab in his own proper and inaccessible being
Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof ? —
Aloft there ! which way ?"
THE CHASE — SECOND DAY. 619
" Dead to leeward, sir."
" Up helm, then ; pile on the sail again, ship keepers ! down
the rest of the spare boats and rig them — Mr. Starbuck away>
and muster the boat's crews."
" Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir."
" Oh, oh, oh ! how this splinter gores me now ! Accursed
fate ! that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have
such a craven mate !"
"Sir?"
" My body, man, not thee. Uive me something for a cane — ■
there, that shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I
have not seen him yet. By hoaven it cannot be ! — missing ? —
quick ! call them all." - „
The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering
the company, the Parsee wa.-: not there.
" The Parsee !" cried Stubb — " he must have been caught
" The black vomit wrenclj thee ! — run all of ye above, alow,
cabin, forecastle — find him — not gone — not gone !"
But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the
Parsee was nowhere to be found.
" Aye, sir," said Stubb — " caught among the tangles of your
line — I thought I saw him dragging under."
" My line ! my line ? Gone ? — gone ? What means that
little word ? — What death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes
as if he were the belfry. The harpoon, too ! — toss over the
litter there, — d'ye see it ? — the forged iron, men, the white
whale's — no, no, no, — blistered fool ! this hand did dart it ! — 'tis
in the fish ! — Aloft there ! Keep him nailed — Quick ! — all
hands to the rigging of the boats — collect the oars — harpooneers !
the irons, the irons ! — hoist the royals higher — a pull on all the
sheets ! — helm there ! steady, steady for your life ! I'll ten
times girdle the unmeasured globe ; yea and dive straight
through it, but I'll slay him yet !"
fi20 THE CHASE — SECOND DAY.
" Great God ! but for one single instant show thyself," cried
Starbuck ; " never, never wilt thou capture him, old man — In
Jesus' name no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness.
Two days chased ; twice stove to splinters ; thy very leg once
more snatched from under thee ; thy evil shadow gone — all
good angels mobbing thee with warnings : — what more wouldst
thou have ? — Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till
he swamps the last man ? Shall we be dragged by him to
the bottom of the sea ? Shall we be towed by him to the
infernal world ? Oh, oh, — Impiety and blasphemy to hunt
him more !"
" Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee ; ever
since that hour we both saw — thou know'st what, in one another's
eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy
face to me as the palm of this hand — a lipless, unfeatured blank.
Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably de-
creed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before
this ocean rolled. Fool ! I am the Fates' lieutenant ; I act under
orders. Look thou, underling ! that thou obeyest mine. — Stand
round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump ;
leaning on a shivered lance ; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis
Ahab — his body's part ; but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that
moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half stranded, as
ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale ; and I may look so.
But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack ; and till ye hear that,
know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye,
men, in the things called omens ? Then laugh aloud, and cry
encore ! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise
to the surface ; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with
Moby Dick — two days he's floated — to-morrow will be the third.
Aye, men, he'll rise once more, — but only to spout his last !
D'ye feel brave men, brave ?"
" As fearless fire," cried Stubb.
"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men
THE CHASE— THIRD DAY. 621
went forward, he muttered on : — " The things called omens !
And yesterday I talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning
my broken boat. Oh ! how valiantly I seek to drive out of
others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine ! — The Parsee —
the Parsee ! — gone, gone ? and he was to go before : — but still
was to be seen again ere I could perish — How's that ? — There's
a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts
of the whole line of judges : — like a hawk's beak it pecks my
brain. Til, Til solve it, though !"
"When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.
So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed
nearly as on the previous night ; only, the sound of hammers,
and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight,
as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful rig-
ging of the spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons for
the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked
craft the carpenter made him another leg ; while still as on the
night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle ; his
hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial ;
sat due eastward for the earliest sun.
CHAPTER CXXXV.
THE CHASE. THIRD DAY.
The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and
once more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was
relieved by crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every
mast and almost every spar.
" D'ye see him ?" cried Ahab ; but the whale was not yet in
sight.
" In his infallible wake, though ; but follow that wake, that's
622 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
all. Helm there ; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going.
What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and
made for a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the
first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn
upon that world. Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to
think ; but Ahab never thinks ; he only feels, feels, feels ; that's
tingling enough for mortal man ! to think's audacity. God
only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be,
a coolness and a calmness ; and our poor hearts throb, and our
poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I've sometimes
thought my brain was very calm — frozen calm, this old skull
cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and
shiver it. And still this hair is growing now ; this moment
growing, and heat must breed it ; but no, it's like that sort
of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy
clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild
winds blow it ; they whip it about me as the torn shreds
of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind
that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and
cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now
comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it ! —
it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a
wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and
slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind !
who ever conquered it ? In every fight it has the last and
bitterest blow. Kun 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 cun-
ning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I say again,
and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and gra-
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 623
cious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in
the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast,
vigorous mildness ; and veer not from their mark, however the
baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest
Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain
where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles ! these same
Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or
something like them — something so unchangeable, and full as
strong, blow my keeled soul along ! To it ! Aloft there !
What d'ye see ?"
" Nothing, sir."
" Nothing ! and noon at hand ! The doubloon goes a-beg-
ging ! See the sun ! Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed
him. How, got the start ? Aye, he's chasing me now ; not
I, him — that's bad ; I might have known it, too- Fool ! the
lines — the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him
by last night. About ! about ! Come down, all of ye, but the
regular look outs ! Man the braces !"
Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat
on the Pequod's quarter, so that now being r>ointed in the
reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze
as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.
" Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," mur-
mured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-
brace upon the rail. " God keep us, but already my bones feel
damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I mis-
doubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him !"
" Stand by to sway me up !" cried Ahab, advancing to the
hempen basket. " We should meet him soon."
" Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bid-
ding, and once more Ahab swung on high.
A whole hour now passed ; gold-beaten out to ages. Time
itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last,
some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout
024 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
again, and instantly from the three mast-heads three shrieks
went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.
" Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby-
Dick ! On deck there ! — brace sharper up ; crowd her into
the wind's eye. He's too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck.
The sails shake ! Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul !
So, so ; he travels fast, and I must down. But let me have
one more good round look aloft here at the sea ; there's time
for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young ; aye,
and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the
sand-hills of Nantucket ! The same ! — the same ! — the same to
Noah as to me. There's a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely
leewardings ! They must lead somewhere — to something else
than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward !
the white whale goes that way ; look to windward, then ; the
better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old
mast-head ! What's this ? — green ? aye, tiny mosses in these
warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab's head !
There's the difference now between man's old age and matter's.
But aye, old mast, we both grow old together ; sound in our
hulls, though, are we not, my ship ? Aye, minus a leg, that's all.
By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every
way. I can't compare with it ; and I've known some ships
made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the
most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said ? he
should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen
again ? But where ? Will I have eyes at the bottom of
the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs ? and all
night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink
to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told'st direful truth as
touching thyself, O Parsee ; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell
short. Good by, mast-head — keep a good eye upon the whale,
the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night,
when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail."
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 625
He gave the word ; and still gazing round him, was steadily
lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.
In due time the boats were lowered ; but as standing in his
shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent,
he waved to the mate, — who held one of the tackle-ropes on
deck — and bade him pause.
"Starbuck!"
"Sir?"
" For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage,
Starbuck."
"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so."
" Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are
missing, Starbuck !"
" Truth, sir : saddest truth."
" Some men die at ebb tide ; some at low water ; some at
the full of the flood ; — and I feel now like a billow that's all one
crested comb, Starbuck. I am old ; — shake hands with me, man."
Their hands met ; their eyes fastened ; Starbuck's tears the
glue.
"Oh, my captain, my captain! — noble heart — go not — go
not ! — see, it's a brave man that weeps ; how great the agony
of the .persuasion then !"
" Lower away !" — cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from
him. " Stand by the crew !"
In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.
" The sharks ! the sharks !" cried a voice from the low cabin-
window there ; " O master, my master, come back !"
But Ahab heard nothing ; for his own voice was high-lifted
then ; and the boat leaped on.
Yet the voice spake true ; for scarce had he pushed from the
ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the
dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blade «
of the oars, every time they dipped in the water ; and in thk
way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not
27
626 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming
seas ; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same
prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching
regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had
been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been
first descried ; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all
such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more
musky to the senses of the sharks — a matter sometimes well
known to affect them, — however it was, they seemed to follow
that one boat without molesting the others.
" Heart of wrought steel !" murmured Starbuck gazing over
the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat — " canst
thou yet ring boldly to that sight ? — lowering thy keel among
ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the
chase ; and this the critical third day ? — For when three days flow
together in one continuous intense pursuit ; be sure the first is
the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening
and the end of that thing — be that end what it may. Oh ! my
God ! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so
deadly calm, yet expectant, — fixed at the top of a shudder !
Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skele-
tons ; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl ! thou
fadest in pale glories behind me ; boy ! I seem to see but thy
eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem
clearing ; but clouds sweep between — Is my journey's end
coming ? My legs feel faint ; like his who has footed it all day.
Feel thy heart, — beats it yet ? — Stir thyself, Starbuck ! — stave it
off — move, move ! speak aloud ! — Mast-head there ! See ye
my boy's hand on the hill ? — Crazed ; — aloft there ! — keep thy
keenest eye upon the boats : — mark well the whale ! — Ho !
again ! — drive off that hawk ! see ! he pecks — he tears the
vane" — pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck —
" Ha ! he soars away with it ! — Where's the old man now ?
sees't thou that sight, oh Ahab ! — shudder, shudder !"
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 627
The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the
mast-heads — a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale
had sounded ; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he
held on his way a little sideways from the vessel ; the becharmed
crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves
hammered and hammered against the opposing bow.
" Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves ! to their uttermost
heads drive them in ! ye but strike a thing without a lid ; and
no coffin and no hearse can be mine : — and hemp only can kill
me ! Ha ! ha !"
Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad
circles ; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a
submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low
rumbling sound was heard ; a subterraneous hum ; and then all
held their breaths ; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and har-
poons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely
from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it
hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air ; and then fell swamp-
ing back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the
waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly
sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface ci*eamed
like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.
" Give way !" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted
forward to the attack ; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons
that corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed
by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of
welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath
the transparent skin, looked knitted together ; as head on, he
came churning his tail among the boats ; and once more flailed
them apart ; spilling out the irons and lances from the two
mates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their
bows, but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar.
While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained
planks ; and as the whale swimming out from them, turned,
628 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
and showed one entire flank as he shot by them again ; at that
moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round and round to the
fish's back ; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during
the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines
around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen ; his
sable raiment frayed to shreds ; his distended eyes turned full
upon old Ahab.
The harpoon dropped from his hand.
" Befooled, befooled I" — drawing in a long lean breath — "Aye,
Parsee ! I see thee again. — Aye, and thou goest before ; and
this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold
thee to the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hearse ?
Away, mates, to the ship ! those boats are useless now ; repair
them if ye can in time, and return to me ; if not, Ahab is
enough to die — Down, men ! the first thing that but offers to
jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are
not other men, but my arms and my legs ; and so obey me. —
"Where's the whale ? gone down again ?"
But he looked too nigh the boat ; for as if bent upon escaping
with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the
last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby
Dick was now again steadily swimming forward ; and had
almost passed the ship, — which thus far had been sailing in the
contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway
had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost
velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight
path in the sea.
" Oh ! Ahab," cried Starbuck, " not too late is it, even now,
the third day, to desist. See ! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It
is thou, thou, that madly seekest him !"
Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly
impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last
when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to dis-
tinguish Starbuck's face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 629
him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly,
at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he saw Tashtego,
Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-
heads ; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats
which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at
work in repairing them. One after the other, through the port-
holes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and
Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons
and lances. As he saw all this ; as he heard the hammers in
the broken boats ; far other hammers seemed driving a nail into
his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or
flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tash-
tego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for
another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.
Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the
resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore ; or
whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him :
whichever was true, the White Whale's way now began to abate,
as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more ;
though indeed the whale's last start had not been so long a one
as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying
sharks . accompanied him ; and so pertinaciously stuck to the
boat ; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades
became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea,
at almost every dip.
" Heed them not ! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your
oars. Pull on ! 'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the
yielding water."
" But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and
smaller !"
" They will last long enough ! pull on ! — But who can tell" —
he muttered — " whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale
or on Ahab ? — But pull on ! Aye, all alive, now — we near him.
The helm ! take the helm ; let me pass," — and so saying, two
630 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying
boat.
At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging
along with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely
oblivious of its advance — as the whale sometimes will — and
Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which,
thrown off from the whale's spout, curled round his great,
Monadnock hump ; he was even thus close to him ; when, with
body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the
poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the
hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if
sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed ; spasmodi-
cally rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving
a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not
been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then
clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea.
As it was, three of the oarsmen — who foreknew not the precise
instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects —
these were flung out ; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them
clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing
wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again ; the third man
helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming.
Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungradu-
ated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through
the weltering sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman
to take new turns with the line, and hold it so ; and commanded
the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the boat up to
the mark; the moment the treacherous line felt that double
strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air !
" What breaks in me ? Some sinew cracks ! — 'tis whole
again ; oars ! oars ! Burst in upon him !"
Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the
whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay ; but
in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 631
ship ; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions ;
bethinking it — it may be — a larger and nobler foe ; of a sud-
den, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws
amid fiery showers of foam.
Ahab staggered ; his hand smote his forehead. " I grow
blind ; hands ! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my
way. Is't night ?"
" The whale ! The ship !" cried the cringing oarsmen.
" Oars ! oars ! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that
ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time
upon his mark ! I see : the ship ! the ship ! Dash on, my men !
Will ye not save my ship ?"
But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the
sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of
two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the tempo-
rarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves ; its half-
wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out
the pouring water.
Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-
head hammer remained suspended in his hand ; and the red
flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself
straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart ; while
Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught
sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he.
" The whale, the whale ! Up helm, up helm ! Oh, all ye
sweet powers of air, now hug me close ! Let not Starbuck die,
if die he must, in a woman's fainting fit Up helm, I say — ye
fools, the jaw ! the jaw ! Is this the end of all my bursting
prayers ? all my life-long fidelities ? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy
work. Steady ! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay ! Up helm
again ! He turns to meet us ! Oh, his unappeasable brow
drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.
My God, stand by me now !"
" Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are
632 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
that will now help Stubb ; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at
thee, thou grinning whale ! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb
awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye ? And now poor Stubb
goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft ; would it were
stuffed with brushwood ! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale !
Look ye, sun, moon, and stars ! I call ye assassins of as good
a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would
yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup ! Oh, oh !
oh, oh ! thou grinning whale, but there '11 be plenty of gulping
soon ! Why fly ye not, O Ahab ! For me, off shoes and
jacket to it ; let Stubb die in his drawers ! A most mouldy and
over salted death, though ; — cherries ! cherries ! cherries ! Oh,
Flask, for one red cherry ere we die !"
" Cherries ? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh,
Stubb, I hope my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this ;
if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up."
From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung
inactive ; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mecha-
nically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their
various employments ; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the
whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predesti-
nating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular fuam
before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal
malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man
could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the
ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell
flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the
harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the
breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a
flume.
" The ship ! The hearse ! — the second hearse !" cried Ahab
from the boat ; " its wood could only be American !"
Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering
along its keel ; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the sur-
THE CHASE — THIRD DAY. 633
face again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of
Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent.
" I turn rny body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego ! let
me hear thy hammer. Oh ! ye three unsurrendered spires of
mine ; thou uncracked keel ; and only god-bullied hull ; thou
firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow, — death-
glorious ship ! must ye then perish, and without me ? Am I
cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked cap-
tains ? Oh, lonely death on lonely life ! Oh, now I feel my
topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho ! from all
your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my
whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death !
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale ;
to the last I grapple with thee ; from hell's heart I stab at
thee ; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all
coffins and all hearses to one common pool ! and since neither
can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee,
though tied to thee, thou damned whale ! Thus, I give up the
spear !"
The harpoon was darted ; the stricken whale flew forward ;
with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove ; — ran
foul. Ahab stooped to clear it ; he did clear it ; but the flying
turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish
mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere
the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-
splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub,
knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in
its depths.
For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then
turned. " The ship ? Great God, where is the ship ?" Soon
they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fad-
ing phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana ; only the upper-
most masts out of water ; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity,
or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still
21*
634 THE CHASE — THIRD DAY.
maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, con-
centric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and
each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate
and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the
smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight.
But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves
over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a
few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long
streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with
ironical coinci dings, over the destroying billows they almost
touched ; — at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered
backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the
flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk
that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from
its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and
incommoding Tashtego there ; this bird now chanced to inter-
cept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the
wood ; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the sub-
merged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer
frozen there ; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks,
and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive
form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship,
which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged
a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself
with it.
Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf;
a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides ; then all collapsed,
and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thou-
sand years ago.
EPILOGUE.
"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE."
Job.
The drama 's done. Why then here does any one step forth ?
— Because one did survive the wreck.
It so chanced, that after the Par see's disappearance, I was
he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of AhaUs bows-
man, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post ; the same,
who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out
the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, floating on the
margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the
half-spent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but
slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it,
it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then,
and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the
axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did
revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble
upward burst ; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning
spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force,
the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and
floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one
whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main.
The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on
their mouths / the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks.
On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up
at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her
retracing search after her missing children, only found another
orphan.
TINIS.
One Volume, l2mo, Paper, $1 00 ; Muslin, $1 25.
White-Jacket will find (since it deserves to find) many animated and interested
readers. Mr. Melville stands as far apart from any past or present marine painter
in pen and ink as Turner does from Vandervelde. We can not recall another nov-
elist or sketcher who has given the poetry of the ship, her voyages, and her crew,
in a manner at all resembling his. — London Athenaum.
The characters brought upon the stage are admirable life-pictures, exhibiting by
the magic effect of a few masterly touches each man in the complete individuality
of his person and his office, from the commodore, who, as he paces the quarter-deck,
covers up his deficiency in the qualities necessary for command by the unblending
starchness of official etiquette, down to the meanest specimen of the genus loblolly-
boy. — John Bull.
Had not Mr. Melville already appeared before the world with productions which,
by their powerful energy and general worth, have won both attention and admira-
tion, this work would be sufficient to establish him as a substantial favorite for the
future. Whatever he writes upon, he writes on it well, and throughout his pages,
open them where you may, will be found, amid a host of beauties and singularities,
the strongest evidence of an untiring spirit, great vigor, lofty imagination, and a pure
style of writing. The perusal of it has caused us so much real and sterling pleasure,
that we feel it a duty we owe both to its author and the public to recommend it to
the latter in the strongest manner. — London Morning Post.
Many of the wonders of the world of a man-of-war are now revealed to us for the
first time. The whole narrative is marked by all the sobriety of truth, and, though
enlivened by the sparkling and racy style which characterizes the author in his hap-
piest moments, is full of those details which bear with them the conviction that the
scene is sketched from the life. — London Atlas.
Varied as are the pictures which Herman Melville here presents to us, the same
natural delineation of a master-hand is visible in them all, and few who have fol-
lowed its momentous career will arrive without regret at the chapter which records
" the end of the Jacket." — London Sun.
We have called Mr. Melville a common sailor, but he is a very uncommon com-
mon sailor, even for America, whose mariners are better educated than our own.
His descriptions of scenery are life-like and vigorous, sometimes masterly, and his
style throughout is rather that of an educated literary man than of a working sea-
man.— London Times.
Brilliant and dashingly spirited descriptions abound in this volume. It is writ-
ten in the author's best style ; and no modern author ranks higher as a marine
painter. The mysteries of life on ship-board are revealed, and the abuses of the
service freely commented on. — Baltimore American.
It is full of humor and keen satire, and it ought to have a good effect in reforming
some of the abuses in our navy. — Norfolk Democrat.
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
IY H1RMAN MIIiVILLl.
One Volume, 12mo, Muslin, $1 25; Paper, $1 00.
After the pungent and admirably written narrative of that accomplished, able sea-
man, Herman Melville, few books of the same class but must appear flat and unprof-
itable. Omoo would have found readers at any time ; and that although twenty pub-
lishers had combined with fifty authors to deluge the public with the Pacific Ocean
during the five previous years. — Blackwood's notice of Coulter's Cruise.
Let Mr. Melville write as much as he will, provided always he writes as well as
now, and he shall find us greedy devourers of his productions. He has a rare pen
for the delineation of character ; an eye for the humorous and grotesque which is
worth a Jew's ; for the description of natural scenery he is not to be beaten, either
on this side of the Atlantic or the other. His pencil is most distinct, the coloring
beautiful and rich. As for invention, he will bear comparison with the most cun-
ning of the modern French school. * * * At the last page of his second work, Mr.
Melville is as fresh and vigorous as at the first line of the book which preceded it.
Lkie his reader, he leaves oft" with an appetite. — London Times.
Unlike most sequels, Omoo is equal to its predecessor. The character of the com-
position is clear, fresh, vivacious, and full of matter. — London Spectator.
The adventures are depicted with force and humor. — London Athenaum.
Some of the scenes are like cabinet pictures. — London Critic.
Written in a style worthy of Philip Quarles or Robinson Crusoe. — Lon. Lit. Gaz.
It would be difficult to imagine a man better fitted to describe the impressions such
a life and such scenes are calculated to call forth, than the auther of Omoo. Every
variety of character, and scene, and incident, he studies and describes with equal
gusto. — London People's Journal.
A stirring narrative of very pleasant reading. It possesses much of the charm that
has made Robinson Crusoe immortal — lite-like description. It commands attention,
as if old interest were created by the narratives—
"Of Raleigh, Frobisher, and Drake —
Adventurous Hearts, who bartered bold
Their English steel for Spanish gold."
The history is one of comparatively new lands and new people. His account of the
natives corresponds with that of Kotzebue and others. — Douglas Jerrold's Paper.
Mr. Melville has more than sustained his widely-spread reputation in these vol-
umes. Omoo and Typee are actually delightful romances of real life, embellished
with powers of description, and a graphic skill of hitting off characters, little inferi-
or to the highest order of novel and romance writers. — Albion.
A curious and fascinating narrative. — Anglo American.
These volumes contain a vast amount of exceedingly entertaining and interesting
matter. — Philadelphia Courier.
Omoo is characterized by all the animation, picturesqueness, and felicity of style
which commended the author's first writings to a second reading, even after curios-
ity is satisfied by tracing out the singularity of the story. — Literary World.
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
2 Volumes, 12mo, Muslin, $1 75; Paper, $1 50.
A work such as was never heard of before. You might accumulate upon it all
the epithets which Madame de Sevignfi affectionated. Fancy Daphnis and Chloe
dancing I know not what strange gavotte with Aristotle and Spinoza, escorted by
Gargantua and Gargamelle. Mardi is the modern political world. This part is the
most piquant of the book. The colossal machine invented by Mr. Melville might
be compared to the American Panorama now placarded on the walls of London iu
these terms : " Gigantic original American Panorama, now on exhibition in the great
American Hall; the prodigious moving Panorama of the Gulf of Mexico, the Falls of
St. Anthony, and of the Mississippi, covering an extent of canvass four miles long, and
representing more than 4000 miles of scenery." Translated from the "Revue de Deux
Mondes."
From the first chapter of the book to the last, where the hero is swept from orur
sight in a cloud of spray, the book is a magnificent drama. — Bentley's Miscellany
Mardi is a purely original invention, an extraordinary book. It is a species of Uto-
pia, or, rather, a sea voyage in which we discover human nature. There is a world
of poetical, thoughtful, ingenious, moral writing in it, exhibiting the most various re-
flection and reading. Is it not significant that we should soon be swept beyond the
current of the isles into this world of high discourse — revolving the conditions, the
duties, and destinies of men? — New York Literary World.
Mardi has posed us. It has struck our head like one of those blows which set
every thing dancing and glancing before your eyes like splintered sun's rays. The
images are brilliant ; the adventures superb. — London Literary Gazette.
Full of pictures from the under world.— London Athenmum.
Mardi is full of all Oriental delights. — Home Journal.
The reader who has business in Mardi will find it rich in wisdom and brilliant with
beauty. It is a magnJrcent allegory, wherein the world is seen as in a mirror. The
germ of the oak is not more surely hid in the acorn than Melville's fame in this book.
— Chronotype.
An extraordinary production. Mardi is the world. — Musical Times.
There is strange interest, at times replete with power of a peculiar and uncommon
kind. — Blackwood.
A sort of retina picture, or inverted view of the world, under the name of Mardi.
Typee and Omoo are to this work as a seven-by-nine sketch of a sylvan lake with a
lone hunter, or a boy fishing, compared with the cartoons of Raphael. — Dem. Rev.
A wonderful book ; at once enthusiastic and epigrammatic ; it burns at one and
the same time with an intense and richly colored glow of poetic ardor, and the more
glittering, but paler fires of an artful rhetoric. — London Morning Chronicle.
Charles Lamb might have imagined such a party as Mr. Melville imagines at Pluto's
table — London Examiner.
The public will discover in him, at least, a capital essayist, in addition to the fasci.
nating novelist and painter of sea life. — Literary World.
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
One Volume, \2mo, Muslin, 87£ cents ; Paper, 75 cents.
"Why I never chanced upon Mr. Melville's work before, is one of the inscrutable
mysteries of my fate. While luxuriating in its perusal, I looked back upon myself
in my ante-Typee-cal existence, with positive commiseration. There are those, I
am aware, who doubt the authenticity of this charming narrative. ■ Oh, ye of little
faith !' I have a solemn conviction of its truth — a pertinacious belief in the entire
work — an humble, unquestioning reliance on the word of the narrator." — Corre-
spondence of " Grace Greenwood" to the Home Journal.
Chateaubriand's Atala is of no softer or more romantic tone — Anacharsis scarce
presents us with images more classically exquisite. — New York Mirror.
Typee is a happy hit, whichever way you look at it — whether as travels, romance,
poetry, or humor. The bonhommie of the book is remarkable. It appears as genial
and natural as the spontaneous fruits of the island. — Morning News.
The air of freshness and romance which characterizes Typee, gives it the appear-
ance of an improved edition of our- old favorites, Peter Wilkins and Gulliver. — Rich-
mond Republican.
A charming book — full of talent, composed with singular elegance, and as musical
as Washington Irving's Columbus — Western Continent.
Enviable Herman ! A happier dog it is impossible to imagine than Herman in
the Typee valley. — London Times.
Some of these pictures but require us to call the savages celestials, to have sup-
posed Mr. Melville to have dropped from the clouds, and to fancy some Ovidian
grace added to the narrative in order to become scenes of classic mythology. — Lon-
don Spectator.
Such is life in the valley of the Typees ; and surely Rasselas, if he had had the good
luck to stumble on it, would not have gone further in his search after happiness.—
Douglas Jerrold's Magazine.
The whole narrative is most simple, most affecting, and most romantic. Ah I thou
gentle and too enchanting Fayaway, what has become of thee ? — Lon. Gent's. Mag.
Since the joyous moment when we first read Robinson Crusoe, and believed it all,
and wondered all the more because we believed, we have not met with so bewitch-
ing a work as this narrative of Herman Melville's. — London John Bull.
A book full of fresh and richly -colored matter. — London Alhenceum.
Thi9 is really a very curious book. The happy valley of our dear Rasselas was
not a more romantic or enchanting scene. — London Examiner.
This is a most entertaining and refreshing book. The writer, though filling the
post of a common sailor, is certainly no common man. — London Critic.
The style is racy and pointed, and there is a romantic interest thrown around the
adventure, which to most readers will be highly charming. — American Review.
It bears the unexhausted characteristics of talent. — National Intelligencer.
The story is eventful — wonderful ; some of the deeds performed by the author
and his companion almost surpass belief. — Cincinnati Herald.
~^v\A^^"^ ^^^~—
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
One Volume, \2rno, Muslin, SI 00 ; Paper, 75 cents.
Ships and the sea, and those who plow it, with their belongings on shore — these
subjects are identified with Herman Melville's name, for he has most unquestiona-
bly made them his own. No writer, not even Marryat himself, has observed them
more closely or pictured them more impressively. — Albion.
A delightful book. A quiet vein of humor runs through it that will better repay
the exploring than many of the veins will gold-digging. — Courier.
It is unquestionably a work of genius, and quite as interesting aa it is unique ; and
we know not where a better idea of sailor life can be found than in its pages. —
Natiorial Intelligencer.
As perfect a specimen of the naval yarn as we ever read, and displays much va-
rious talent and power. The characters are exceedingly well drawn. — London Lit-
erary Gazette.
This book is intensely interesting. The great charm of the work ia its realness.
It seems to be fact, word for word. The tale is told simply and without the least pre-
tension ; and yet, within its bounds, are flashes of genuine humor, strokes of pure
pathos and real and original characters. — Boston Post.
The life-like manner in which every event is brought to the reader is astonishing.
— Home Journal.
This book is in the old vein. It is written for the million, and the million will
doubtless be delighted with its racy descriptions of the life of a young sailor. — Noah's
Times and Messenger.
Redburn is a clever book. * * * All who have read " Omoo" will remember that
the author is an adept in the sketching of beautiful originals. — Blackwood's Magazine.
The freshness and rich coloring of his writings, with his easy and pointed style,
his humor and descriptions of scenery and character, have earned for him the name
of the Defoe of the Sea. — Baltimore American.
Redburn will prove a most readable book. — Richmond Whig.
The style of the book is exceedingly attractive. In our view it has higher merits
than any other volume from the same pen. — Hartford Republican.
Redburn is no ordinary book. If an imaginary narrative, it is the most life-like,
natural fiction since Robinson Crusoe. — Southern Literary Messenger.
In the filling up there is a simplicity, an ease, which may win the attention of a
child, and there is a reflection which may stir the profoundest depths of manhood.
— Literary World.
Herman Melville is one of the few who has made a distinct mark on the litera
ture of his time. — Philadelphia North American.
The author of this volume needs no commendation. He has already found his
audience, and it is not wanting in numbers, in taste, in discrimination. No writer
plans better than he ; no one uses better materials, or gives them better workman-
ship ; no one puts on a more exquisite finish. — Worcester Palladium.
Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.
CHOICE WORKS FOR LIBRARIES,
JUST PUBLISHED
BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
The Magazine will contain all the continuous Tales of Dickens,
Bulwer, Croly, Lever, Warren, and other distinguished contrib-
utors to British periodicals : Critical Notices of the Publica-
tions of the day : Speeches and Addresses of distinguished Men
upon Topics of universal Interest : articles from Punch and other
well known humorous publications, and some of the master-pieces
of classical English literature, illustrated in a style of unequaled
elegance and beauty ; notices of Events, in Science, Literature,
and Art, in which the people at large have an interest, &c., &c.
Special regard will be had to such Articles as relate to the Econ-
omy of Social Life, or tend to promote in any way the well-being
of those who are engaged in any department of Productive Act-
ivity. A carefully prepared Fashion Plate and other Pictorial Il-
lustrations will aceempany each Number. Every Number of the
Magazine will contain 144 octavo pages, in double columns. The
volumes of a single Year, therefore, will present nearly 2000
Pages of the choicest of the Miscellaneous Literature of the Age.
Terms. — $3 00 a year, or 25 cents a Number. Bound volumes,
comprising the Numbers for Six Months, Muslin, $2 00.
Strickland's (Miss) Lives of the Queens of
Scotland, and English Princesses connected with the Regal Suc-
cession of Great Britain. 6 vols. 12mo, Muslin, $1 00 per Vol.
Mayhew's Treatise on Popular Education :
For the Use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of
both Sexes. Prepared and Published in accordance with a Res-
olution of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State
of Michigan. J2mo, Muslin, $1 00.
Hildreth's History of the United States,
From the first Settlement of the Country to the Organization of
Government under the Federal Constitution. 3 vols. 8vo. Mus-
lin, f 6 00 ; Sheep, $6 75 ; half Calf, f 7 50.
Hildreth's History of the United States, contin-
ued : from the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the End
of the Sixteenth Congress. 3 vols. 8vo, Muslin, $6 00 j Sheep,
$6 75 ; half Calf, $7 50.
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