_ __
| | / /
| |/ / _ __ ___ __ _ ___ _ __
| \| '__/ _ \ / _` |/ _ \ '__|
| |\ \ | | (_) | (_| | __/ |
\_| \_/_| \___/ \__, |\___|_|
__/ |
|___/ (R)
1234 FAKESON ST
555-834-2931
Your cashier was CHEC 502
STO ROSEMARY 2.49 F
STO THYME 2.49 F
STO ROSEMARY 2.49 F
STO THYME 2.49 F
STO MINT 2.49 F
STO MINT 2.49 F
SUSHI BOX 9.99 F
KROGER PLUS CUSTOMER *******6654
SC Fuel Points
TAX 0.00
*** BALANCE 24.93
Debit Purchase
***********6818 - C
REF: 01493 TOTAL: 24.93
PURCHASE: 24.92 CASHBACK: 0.00
AID: A0000000042288
TC:: 9282FA472C8E36287
VERIFIED BY PIN
DEBIT 24.93
CHANGE 0.00
TOTAL NUMBER OF ITEMS SOLD = 7
10/25/23 06:29pm 915 482 392 999999208
**************************************
Annual Card Savings $103.27
*************************************
Fuel Points Earned Today: 25
Total Oct Fuel Points: 349
*************************************
Remaining Sept Fuel Points: 347
**************************************
GAIMING POINTS REWARDS PLUS
Every $40 Spent on participating
items earns Rewards Points.
Visit www.pointsrewardsplus.com
to redeem for rewards.
Your rewards spending: 0.84
Expires on 1/2/2024
**************************************
Apply Now
Earn up to 5% CASH BACK and get a
FREE Next-Day Delivery
Boost Membership* when you
apply and get approved for the
Kroger Rewards World Elite Mastercard
APPLY TODAY!
www.KrogerMastercard.com/82465
*Restrictions apply, see website
for details.
**************************************
Fresh opportunity awaits
Join our team today!
#ER#
jobs.kroger.com
www.kroger.com
**************************************
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
( in the deep forest green )
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
( Tracing of sparrow on )
( snow-crested ground )
Without no seams nor needle work
( Bedclothes the child )
( of the mountain )
Then she'll be a true love of mine
( Sleeps unaware of the clarion call )
Tell her to find me an acre of land
( A sprinkling of leaves )
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Washes the grave with silvery tears)
Between the salt water
and the sea strands
( And polishes a gun )
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Tell her to reap it with
a sickle of leather
( Blazing in scarlet battalions )
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
( Generals order )
( their soldiers to kill )
And gather it all
in a bunch of heather
( A cause )
( they've long ago forgotten )
Then she'll be a true love of mine
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
**************************************
Mint Choc Chip
I
can still
remember
the excitement I
felt, thirty-odd years ago,
when my sister announced
that the mint choc chip ice cream
she'd made was now ready to eat. It
was delicious, atop the bland shop-
bought cones that out mum had
somehow managed to get us.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We ate every last bit of it,
savouring each sweet,
creamy mouthful,
and then I dined
on the last of the
choc chips, the
survivors, still
clinging to
the plastic
tub. And
when it
was all
truly
done,
how
sad
was
I.
Marija Smits
**************************************
MOBY-DICK;
or, THE WHALE.
By Herman Melville
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
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. Whenever
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 surrounds
it with her surf. Right and left,
the streets take you waterward. Its
extreme downtown 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 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. Say you are in the
country; in some high land of
lakes. Take almost any path you
please, and ten to one it carries
you down in a dale, and leaves you
there by a pool in the stream. There
is magic in it. Let the most
absent-minded of men be plunged
in his deepest reveries—stand
that man on his legs, set his feet
a-going, and he will infallibly lead
you to water, if water there be in
all that region. Should you ever
be athirst in the great American
desert, try this experiment, if
your caravan happen to be supplied
with a metaphysical professor. Yes,
as every one knows, meditation and
water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to
paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,
quietest, most enchanting bit
of romantic landscape in all the
valley of the Saco. What is the chief
element he employs? There stand his
trees, each with a hollow trunk,
as if a hermit and a crucifix were
within; and here sleeps his meadow,
and there sleep his cattle; and up
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy
smoke. Deep into distant woodlands
winds a mazy way, reaching to
overlapping spurs of mountains bathed
in their hill-side blue. But though
the picture lies thus tranced, and
though this pine-tree shakes down
its sighs like leaves upon this
shepherd’s head, yet all were
vain, unless the shepherd’s eye
were fixed upon the magic stream
before him. Go visit the Prairies
in June, when for scores on scores
of miles you wade knee-deep among
Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm
wanting?—Water—there is not a
drop of water there! Were Niagara but
a cataract of sand, would you travel
your thousand miles to see it? Why
did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
suddenly receiving two handfuls of
silver, deliberate whether to buy
him a coat, which he sadly needed,
or invest his money in a pedestrian
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is
almost every robust healthy boy
with a robust healthy soul in him,
at some time or other crazy to go
to sea? Why upon your first voyage
as a passenger, did you yourself feel
such a mystical vibration, when first
told that you and your ship were now
out of sight of land? Why did the old
Persians hold the sea holy? Why did
the Greeks give it a separate deity,
and own brother of Jove? Surely all
this is not without meaning. And
still deeper the meaning of that
story of Narcissus, who because
he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain,
plunged into it and was drowned. But
that same image, we ourselves see
in all rivers and oceans. It is the
image of the ungraspable phantom of
life; and this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the
habit of going to sea whenever I
begin to grow hazy about the eyes,
and begin to be over conscious of
my lungs, I do not mean to have it
inferred that I ever go to sea as a
passenger. For to go as a passenger
you must needs have a purse, and
a purse is but a rag unless you
have something in it. Besides,
passengers get sea-sick—grow
quarrelsome—don’t sleep of
nights—do not enjoy themselves
much, as a general thing;—no,
I never go as a passenger; nor,
though I am something of a salt, do
I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or
a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the
glory and distinction of such offices
to those who like them. For my part,
I abominate all honorable respectable
toils, trials, and tribulations of
every kind whatsoever. It is quite
as much as I can do to take care
of myself, without taking care of
ships, barques, brigs, schooners,
and what not. And as for going
as cook,—though I confess there
is considerable glory in that,
a cook being a sort of officer on
ship-board—yet, somehow, I never
fancied broiling fowls;—though
once broiled, judiciously buttered,
and judgmatically salted and
peppered, there is no one who will
speak more respectfully, not to say
reverentially, of a broiled fowl than
I will. It is out of the idolatrous
dotings of the old Egyptians upon
broiled ibis and roasted river horse,
that you see the mummies of those
creatures in their huge 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 Rensselaers, or Randolphs,
or Hardicanutes. And more than all,
if just previous to putting your
hand into the tar-pot, you have been
lording it as a country schoolmaster,
making the tallest boys stand in awe
of you. The transition is a keen one,
I assure you, from a schoolmaster
to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to
enable you to grin and bear it. But
even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of
a sea-captain orders me to get a
broom and sweep down the decks? What
does that indignity amount to,
weighed, I mean, in the scales of
the New Testament? Do you think the
archangel Gabriel thinks anything
the less of me, because I promptly
and respectfully obey that old hunks
in that particular instance? Who
ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well,
then, however the old sea-captains
may order me about—however they
may thump and punch me about, I have
the satisfaction of knowing that it
is all right; that everybody else
is one way or other served in much
the same way—either in a physical
or metaphysical point of view, that
is; and so the universal thump is
passed round, and all hands should
rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
and be content.
Again, I always go to sea as
a sailor, because they make a
point of paying me for my trouble,
whereas they never pay passengers
a single penny that I ever heard
of. On the contrary, passengers
themselves must pay. And there is
all the difference in the world
between paying and being paid. The
act of paying is perhaps the most
uncomfortable infliction that the
two orchard thieves entailed upon
us. But _being paid_,—what will
compare with it? The urbane activity
with which a man receives money
is really marvellous, considering
that we so earnestly believe money
to be the root of all earthly ills,
and that on no account can a monied
man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully
we consign ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a
sailor, because of the wholesome
exercise and pure air of the
fore-castle deck. For as in this
world, head winds are far more
prevalent than winds from astern
(that is, if you never violate
the Pythagorean maxim), so for
the most part the Commodore on the
quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at
second hand from the sailors on the
forecastle. He thinks he breathes
it first; but not so. In much the
same way do the commonalty lead their
leaders in many other things, at the
same time that the leaders little
suspect it. But wherefore it was that
after having repeatedly smelt the
sea as a merchant sailor, I should
now take it into my head to go on a
whaling voyage; this the invisible
police officer of the Fates, who
has the constant surveillance of me,
and secretly dogs me, and influences
me in some unaccountable way—he can
better answer than any one else. And,
doubtless, 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 everlasting
itch for things remote. I love to
sail forbidden seas, and 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 welcome; 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 phantom, like a snow hill in
the air.
CHAPTER 2. 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 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 monopolising
the business of whaling, and though
in this matter poor old Nantucket is
now much behind her, yet Nantucket
was her great original—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
cobblestones—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 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 were 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 connexion,
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
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
reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are
windows, 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.
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 3. 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 oilpainting
so thoroughly besmoked, and every
way defaced, that in the unequal
crosslights by which you viewed it,
it was only by diligent study and a
series of systematic visits to it,
and careful inquiry of the neighbors,
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 delineate chaos
bewitched. But by dint of much
and earnest 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 icebound stream of Time. But at
last all these fancies yielded to
that one portentous 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-foundered 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 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
fireplaces 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,
especially 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. Projecting 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 another 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 goggling glasses
deceitfully tapered downwards
to a cheating bottom. Parallel
meridians rudely pecked into the
glass, surround 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 gulp 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 specimens of _skrimshander_. 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 objectionable,
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’ll 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 diligently 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 button up our monkey
jackets, and hold to our lips cups
of scalding 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
harpooneer is a dark complexioned
chap. He never eats dumplings, he
don’t—he eats nothing but steaks,
and he 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 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 long standing, or whether
caught off the coast of Labrador, or
on the weather 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
Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When
the revelry of his companions had
mounted to its height, this man
slipped away unobserved, 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 favourite
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
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 bedwards. 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 can’t spare ye a tablecloth 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 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 unwarrantable
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.
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?" 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 comprehension. "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?" 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,
"but I rayther guess you’ll be
done _brown_ if that ere harpooneer
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
very 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
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 harpooneer. And about this
harpooneer, whom I have not yet
seen, you persist in telling me the
most mystifying and exasperating
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 selling 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 fooling me—but at
the same time what could I think
of a harpooneer who stayed out of a
Saturday night clean into the holy
Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal
business as selling the heads of
dead idolators?
"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; Sal and me slept in that ere bed
the night we were spliced. There’s
plenty of 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; _won’t_ 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 disappeared.
Folding back the counterpane, I
stooped over the bed. Though none
of the most elegant, it yet stood
the scrutiny tolerably well. I
then glanced round the room;
and besides the bedstead and
centre table, could see no other
furniture belonging to the place,
but a rude shelf, the four walls,
and a papered fireboard representing
a man striking a whale. Of things not
properly belonging to the room, there
was a hammock lashed up, and thrown
upon the floor in one corner; also a
large seaman’s bag, containing the
harpooneer’s wardrobe, no doubt
in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise,
there was a parcel of outlandish
bone fish hooks on the shelf over
the fire-place, and a tall harpoon
standing at the head of the bed.
But what is this on the chest? I
took it up, and held it close to
the light, and felt it, and smelt
it, and tried every way possible
to arrive at some satisfactory
conclusion concerning it. I can
compare it to nothing but a large
door mat, ornamented at the edges
with little tinkling tags something
like the stained porcupine quills
round an Indian moccasin. There was
a hole or slit in the middle of this
mat, as you see the same in South
American ponchos. But could it be
possible that any sober harpooneer
would get into a door mat, and parade
the streets of any Christian town in
that sort of guise? I put it on, to
try it, and it weighed me down like a
hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and
thick, and I thought a little damp,
as though this mysterious harpooneer
had been wearing it of a rainy day. I
went up in it to a bit of glass
stuck against the wall, and I never
saw such a sight in my life. I tore
myself out of it in such a hurry that
I gave myself a kink in the neck.
I sat down on the side of the bed,
and commenced thinking about this
head-peddling harpooneer, and his
door mat. After thinking some time on
the bed-side, I got up and took off
my monkey jacket, and then stood in
the middle of the room thinking. I
then took off my coat, and thought a
little more in my shirt sleeves. But
beginning to feel very cold now, half
undressed as I was, and remembering
what the landlord said about the
harpooneer’s not coming home at all
that night, it being so very late,
I made no more ado, but jumped out
of my pantaloons and boots, and then
blowing out the light tumbled into
bed, and commended myself to the care
of heaven.
Whether that mattress was stuffed
with 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 doze, and had pretty
nearly made a good offing towards the
land of Nod, when I heard a heavy
footfall in the passage, and saw a
glimmer of light come into the room
from under the door.
Lord save me, thinks I, that must
be the harpooneer, the infernal
head-peddler. But I lay perfectly
still, and resolved not to say a
word till spoken to. Holding a light
in one hand, and that identical
New Zealand head in the other,
the stranger entered the room, and
without looking towards the bed,
placed his candle a good way off
from me on the floor in one corner,
and then began working away at
the knotted cords of the large bag
I before spoke of as being in the
room. I was all eagerness to see his
face, but he kept it averted for some
time while employed in unlacing the
bag’s mouth. This accomplished,
however, he turned round—when,
good heavens! what a sight! Such a
face! It was of a dark, purplish,
yellow colour, here and there
stuck over with large blackish
looking squares. Yes, it’s just
as I thought, he’s a terrible
bedfellow; he’s been in a fight,
got dreadfully cut, and here he is,
just from the surgeon. But at that
moment he chanced to turn his face so
towards the light, that I plainly saw
they could not be sticking-plasters
at all, those black squares on his
cheeks. They were stains of some
sort or other. At first I knew
not what to make of this; but soon
an inkling of the truth occurred
to me. I remembered a story of a
white man—a whaleman too—who,
falling among the cannibals, had been
tattooed by them. I concluded that
this harpooneer, in the course of his
distant voyages, must have met with
a similar adventure. And what is it,
thought I, after all! It’s only
his outside; a man can be honest in
any sort of skin. But then, what to
make of his unearthly complexion,
that part of it, I mean, lying round
about, and completely independent of
the squares of tattooing. To be sure,
it might be nothing but a good coat
of tropical tanning; but I never
heard of a hot sun’s tanning a
white man into a purplish yellow
one. However, I had never been in
the South Seas; and perhaps the sun
there produced these extraordinary
effects upon the skin. Now, while
all these ideas were passing through
me like lightning, this harpooneer
never noticed me at all. But, after
some difficulty having opened his
bag, he commenced fumbling in it,
and presently pulled out a sort of
tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet
with the hair on. Placing these on
the old chest in the middle of the
room, he then took the New Zealand
head—a ghastly thing enough—and
crammed it down into the bag. He
now took off his hat—a new beaver
hat—when I came nigh singing out
with fresh surprise. There was
no hair on his head—none to
speak of at least—nothing but a
small scalp-knot twisted up on his
forehead. His bald purplish head
now looked for all the world like a
mildewed skull. Had not the stranger
stood between me and the door, I
would have bolted out of it quicker
than ever I bolted a dinner.
Even as it was, I thought something
of slipping out of the window,
but it was the second floor back. I
am no coward, but what to make of
this 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 abominable savage or
other shipped aboard of a whaleman
in the South Seas, and so landed
in this Christian country. 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 produced at length a
curious little deformed image with
a hunch on its back, and exactly
the colour 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
hunch-backed 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 appropriate
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 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 light 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. "Landlord! Watch!
Coffin! Angels! save me!"
"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be,
or dam-me, I kill-e!" again
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 tomahawk,
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 ain’t 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 won’t touch
a leg of ye."
"Good night, landlord," said I,
"you may go."
I turned in, and never slept better
in my life.
CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.
Upon waking next morning about
daylight, I found Queequeg’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-coloured
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 keeping 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 circumstance 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 floor, undressed myself
as slowly as possible so as to kill
time, and with a bitter sigh 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, beseeching her
as a particular favour to give me a
good slippering for my misbehaviour;
anything indeed but condemning me
to lie abed such an unendurable
length of time. But she was the
best and most conscientious of
stepmothers, and back I had to go
to my room. For several hours I
lay there broad awake, feeling a
great deal worse than I have ever
done since, even from the greatest
subsequent misfortunes. At last I
must have fallen into a troubled
nightmare of a doze; and slowly
waking from it—half steeped in
dreams—I opened my eyes, and the
before 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 consciousness at last glided
away from me; but waking in the
morning, I shudderingly remembered
it all, and for days and weeks and
months afterwards I lost myself in
confounding attempts to explain the
mystery. Nay, to this very hour,
I often puzzle myself with it.
Now, take away the awful fear,
and my sensations at feeling the
supernatural hand in mine were very
similar, in their strangeness, to
those which I experienced on waking
up and seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm
thrown round me. But at length all
the past night’s events soberly
recurred, one by one, in fixed
reality, and then I lay only alive to
the comical predicament. For though
I tried to move his arm—unlock his
bridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as
he was, he still hugged me tightly,
as though naught but death should
part us twain. I now strove to rouse
him—"Queequeg!"—but his only
answer was a snore. I then rolled
over, my neck feeling as if it were
in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt
a slight scratch. Throwing aside the
counterpane, there lay the tomahawk
sleeping by the savage’s side, as
if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A
pretty pickle, truly, thought I;
abed here in a strange house in the
broad day, with a cannibal and a
tomahawk! "Queequeg!—in the name
of goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At
length, by dint of much wriggling,
and loud and incessant expostulations
upon the unbecomingness of his
hugging a fellow male in that
matrimonial sort of style, I
succeeded in extracting a grunt;
and presently, he drew back his
arm, shook himself all over like
a Newfoundland dog just from the
water, and sat up in bed, stiff as
a pike-staff, looking at me, and
rubbing his eyes as if he did not
altogether remember how I came to
be there, though a dim consciousness
of knowing something about me seemed
slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile,
I lay quietly eyeing him, having
no serious misgivings now, and bent
upon narrowly observing so curious
a creature. When, at last, his mind
seemed made up touching the character
of his bedfellow, and he became,
as it were, reconciled to the fact;
he jumped out upon the floor, and by
certain signs and sounds gave me to
understand that, if it pleased me,
he would dress first and then leave
me to dress afterwards, leaving the
whole apartment to myself. Thinks I,
Queequeg, under the circumstances,
this is a very civilized overture;
but, the truth is, these savages
have an innate sense of delicacy,
say what you will; it is marvellous
how essentially polite they are. I
pay this particular compliment to
Queequeg, because he treated me with
so much civility and consideration,
while I was guilty of great rudeness;
staring at him from the bed, and
watching all his toilette motions;
for the time my curiosity getting the
better of my breeding. Nevertheless,
a man like Queequeg you don’t see
every day, he and his ways were well
worth unusual regarding.
He commenced dressing at top by
donning his beaver hat, a very tall
one, by the by, and then—still
minus his trowsers—he hunted up
his boots. What under the heavens
he did it for, I cannot tell,
but his next movement was to crush
himself—boots in hand, and hat
on—under the bed; when, from sundry
violent gaspings and strainings,
I inferred he was hard at work
booting himself; though by no law
of propriety that I ever heard of,
is any man required to be private
when putting on his boots. But
Queequeg, do you see, was a creature
in the transition stage—neither
caterpillar nor butterfly. He was
just enough civilized to show off
his outlandishness in the strangest
possible manners. His education
was not yet completed. He was an
undergraduate. If he had not been
a small degree civilized, he very
probably would not have troubled
himself with boots at all; but then,
if he had not been still a savage,
he never would have dreamt of
getting under the bed to put them
on. At last, he emerged with his hat
very much dented and crushed down
over his eyes, and began creaking
and limping about the room, as if,
not being much accustomed to boots,
his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide
ones—probably not made to order
either—rather pinched and tormented
him at the first go off of a bitter
cold morning.
Seeing, now, that there were no
curtains to the window, and that the
street being very narrow, the house
opposite commanded a plain view
into the room, and observing more
and more the indecorous figure that
Queequeg made, staving about with
little else but his hat and boots
on; I begged him as well as I could,
to accelerate his toilet somewhat,
and particularly to get into his
pantaloons as soon as possible. He
complied, and then proceeded to wash
himself. At that time in the morning
any Christian would have washed his
face; but Queequeg, to my amazement,
contented himself with restricting
his ablutions to his chest, arms, and
hands. He then donned his waistcoat,
and taking up a piece of hard soap
on the wash-stand centre table,
dipped it into water and commenced
lathering his face. I was watching
to see where he kept his razor, when
lo and behold, he takes the harpoon
from the bed corner, slips out the
long wooden stock, unsheathes the
head, whets it a little on his boot,
and striding up to the bit of mirror
against the wall, begins a vigorous
scraping, or rather harpooning of
his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this
is using Rogers’s best cutlery with
a vengeance. Afterwards I wondered
the less at this operation when I
came to know of what fine steel the
head of a harpoon is made, and how
exceedingly sharp the long straight
edges are always kept.
The rest of his toilet was soon
achieved, and he proudly marched out
of the room, wrapped up in his great
pilot monkey jacket, and sporting
his harpoon like a marshal’s baton.
CHAPTER 5. Breakfast.
I quickly followed suit, and
descending into the bar-room
accosted the grinning landlord very
pleasantly. I cherished no malice
towards him, though he had been
skylarking with me not a little in
the matter of my bedfellow.
However, a good laugh is a mighty
good thing, and rather too scarce
a good thing; the more’s the
pity. So, if any one man, in his
own proper person, afford stuff for
a good joke to anybody, let him not
be backward, but let him cheerfully
allow himself to spend and be spent
in that way. And the man that has
anything bountifully laughable about
him, be sure there is more in that
man than you perhaps think for.
The bar-room was now full of the
boarders who had been dropping in the
night previous, and whom I had not
as yet had a good look at. They were
nearly all whalemen; chief mates,
and second mates, and third mates,
and sea carpenters, and sea coopers,
and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers,
and ship keepers; a brown and
brawny company, with bosky beards;
an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing
monkey jackets for morning gowns.
You could pretty plainly tell how
long each one had been ashore. This
young fellow’s healthy cheek is
like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and
would seem to smell almost as musky;
he cannot have been three days landed
from his Indian voyage. That man
next him looks a few shades lighter;
you might say a touch of satin
wood is in him. In the complexion
of a third still lingers a tropic
tawn, but slightly bleached withal;
_he_ doubtless has tarried whole
weeks ashore. But who could show a
cheek like Queequeg? which, barred
with various tints, seemed like the
Andes’ western slope, to show forth
in one array, contrasting climates,
zone by zone.
"Grub, ho!" now cried the
landlord, flinging open a door,
and in we went to breakfast.
They say that men who have seen the
world, thereby become quite at ease
in manner, quite self-possessed in
company. Not always, though: Ledyard,
the great New England traveller,
and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of
all men, they possessed the least
assurance in the parlor. But perhaps
the mere crossing of Siberia in a
sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did,
or the taking a long solitary walk on
an empty stomach, in the negro heart
of Africa, which was the sum of poor
Mungo’s performances—this kind
of travel, I say, may not be the
very best mode of attaining a high
social polish. Still, for the most
part, that sort of thing is to be
had anywhere.
These reflections just here are
occasioned by the circumstance that
after we were all seated at the
table, and I was preparing to hear
some good stories about whaling;
to my no small surprise, nearly
every man maintained a profound
silence. And not only that, but
they looked embarrassed. Yes,
here were a set of sea-dogs, many
of whom without the slightest
bashfulness had boarded great
whales on the high seas—entire
strangers to them—and duelled
them dead without winking; and yet,
here they sat at a social breakfast
table—all of the same calling,
all of kindred tastes—looking
round as sheepishly at each other as
though they had never been out of
sight of some sheepfold among the
Green Mountains. A curious sight;
these bashful bears, these timid
warrior whalemen!
But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg
sat there among them—at the head
of the table, too, it so chanced;
as cool as an icicle. To be sure I
cannot say much for his breeding. His
greatest admirer could not have
cordially justified his bringing
his harpoon into breakfast with him,
and using it there without ceremony;
reaching over the table with it,
to the imminent jeopardy of many
heads, and grappling the beefsteaks
towards him. But _that_ was certainly
very coolly done by him, and every
one knows that in most people’s
estimation, to do anything coolly is
to do it genteelly.
We will not speak of all Queequeg’s
peculiarities here; how he eschewed
coffee and hot rolls, and applied his
undivided attention to beefsteaks,
done rare. Enough, that when
breakfast was over he withdrew
like the rest into the public room,
lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was
sitting there quietly digesting and
smoking with his inseparable hat on,
when I sallied out for a stroll.
CHAPTER 6. The Street.
If I had been astonished at first
catching a glimpse of so outlandish
an individual as Queequeg circulating
among the polite society of a
civilized town, that astonishment
soon departed upon taking my first
daylight stroll through the streets
of New Bedford.
In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any
considerable seaport will frequently
offer to view the queerest looking
nondescripts from foreign parts. Even
in Broadway and Chestnut streets,
Mediterranean mariners will sometimes
jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent
Street is not unknown to Lascars and
Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo
Green, live Yankees have often scared
the natives. But New Bedford beats
all Water Street and Wapping. In
these last-mentioned haunts you see
only sailors; but in New Bedford,
actual cannibals stand chatting at
street corners; savages outright;
many of whom yet carry on their
bones unholy flesh. It makes a
stranger stare.
But, besides the Feegeeans,
Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans,
Pannangians, and Brighggians, and,
besides the wild specimens of the
whaling-craft which unheeded reel
about the streets, you will see
other sights still more curious,
certainly more comical. There weekly
arrive in this town scores of green
Vermonters and New Hampshire men,
all athirst for gain and glory
in the fishery. They are mostly
young, of stalwart frames; fellows
who have felled forests, and now
seek to drop the axe and snatch the
whale-lance. Many are as green as the
Green Mountains whence they came. In
some things you would think them but
a few hours old. Look there! that
chap strutting round the corner. He
wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed
coat, girdled with a sailor-belt
and 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
whalemen, 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 their
daughters, and portion off their
nieces with a few porpoises a-piece.
You must go to New Bedford to see
a brilliant wedding; for, they say,
they have reservoirs of oil in every
house, and every 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 air, the beautiful
and bountiful horse-chestnuts,
candelabra-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 7. The Chapel.
In 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
sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in
my 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 muffled 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 incommunicable. 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 on either
side the pulpit. Three of them ran
something like the following, but I
do not pretend to quote:—
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT,
Who, at the age of eighteen, was
lost overboard, Near the Isle of
Desolation, off Patagonia, _November_
1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected
to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG,
WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER
CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG,
Forming one of the boats’ crews OF
THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of
sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore
Ground in the PACIFIC, _December_
31_st_, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is here
placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY 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_ 3_d_, 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 congregation, 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 seem to gnaw upon
all Faith, and refuse resurrections
to the 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. 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 8. The Pulpit.
I had not been seated very long
ere a man of a certain venerable
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 favourite. 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 life he had
led. When he entered I observed that
he carried no umbrella, and certainly
had not come in his carriage, 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
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,
substituting 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 colour,
the whole contrivance, considering
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 impregnable 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 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
stronghold—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 representing 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 favourable winds.
Yes, the world’s a ship on its
passage out, and not a voyage
complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
CHAPTER 9. 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 tolling 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.
"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 sealine 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 lesson 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-heartedness,
suddenly awakened fears, the swift
punishment, repentance, 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 we obey God, we
must disobey ourselves; and it is in
this disobeying ourselves, wherein
the hardness of obeying God consists.
"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 hastening 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 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 sympathetic 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?’ 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?’ 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.
"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 prepares to test the length
of Jonah’s purse, ere he judge
him openly. He charges him thrice
the usual sum; and it’s assented
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 lookest
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 heralding
presentiment of that stifling hour,
when the whale shall hold him in the
smallest of his bowels’ 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 obliquity
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 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 upwards, 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,
O, sleeper! arise!’ Startled
from his lethargy by that direful
cry, Jonah staggers to his 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 pointing
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? 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 of 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,
O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear
the Lord God _then!_ Straightway,
he now goes on to make a full
confession; whereupon the mariners
became more and more appalled, but
still are pitiful. For when Jonah,
not yet supplicating God for mercy,
since he but too well knew the
darkness 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 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 unreluctantly 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 deliverance 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 clamorous 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. Shipmates, 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.
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
communing 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 things, and bidden by the Lord
to sound those unwelcome truths in
the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah,
appalled at the hostility he should
raise, fled from his mission, and
sought to escape his duty and his
God by taking ship at Joppa. But
God is everywhere; Tarshish he
never reached. As we have seen,
God came upon him in the whale, and
swallowed him down to living gulfs
of doom, and with swift slantings
tore him along ‘into the midst of
the seas,’ where the eddying depths
sucked him ten thousand fathoms down,
and ‘the weeds were wrapped about
his head,’ and all the watery
world of woe bowled over him. Yet
even then beyond the reach of any
plummet—‘out of the belly of
hell’—when the whale grounded
upon the ocean’s utmost bones,
even then, God heard the engulphed,
repenting prophet when he cried. Then
God spake unto the fish; and from
the shuddering cold and blackness of
the sea, the whale came breeching up
towards the warm and pleasant sun,
and all the delights of air and
earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon
the dry land;’ when the word of the
Lord came a second time; and Jonah,
bruised and beaten—his ears, like
two sea-shells, still multitudinously
murmuring of the ocean—Jonah did
the Almighty’s bidding. And what
was that, shipmates? To preach the
Truth to the face of Falsehood! That
was it!
"This, shipmates, this is that
other lesson; and woe to that pilot
of the living God who slights it. Woe
to him whom this world charms from
Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks
to pour oil upon the waters when God
has brewed them into a gale! Woe to
him who seeks to please rather than
to appal! Woe to him whose good name
is more to him than goodness! Woe
to him who, in this world, courts
not dishonor! Woe to him who would
not be true, even though to be false
were salvation! Yea, woe to him who,
as the great Pilot Paul has it,
while preaching to others is himself
a castaway!"
He dropped and fell away from himself
for a moment; then lifting his face
to them again, showed a deep joy
in his eyes, as he cried out with
a heavenly enthusiasm,—"But
oh! shipmates! on the starboard
hand of every woe, there is a sure
delight; and higher the top of that
delight, than the bottom of the woe
is deep. Is not the main-truck higher
than the kelson is low? Delight is to
him—a far, far upward, and inward
delight—who against the proud
gods and commodores of this earth,
ever stands forth his own inexorable
self. Delight is to him whose strong
arms yet support him, when the ship
of this base treacherous world has
gone down beneath him. Delight is
to him, who gives no quarter in
the truth, and kills, burns, and
destroys all sin though he pluck it
out from under the robes of Senators
and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant
delight is to him, who acknowledges
no law or lord, but the Lord his
God, and is only a patriot to
heaven. Delight is to him, whom
all the waves of the billows of
the seas of the boisterous mob can
never shake from this sure Keel of
the Ages. And eternal delight and
deliciousness will be his, who coming
to lay him down, can say with his
final breath—O Father!—chiefly
known to me by Thy rod—mortal or
immortal, here I die. I have striven
to be Thine, more than to be this
world’s, or mine own. Yet this is
nothing: I leave eternity to Thee;
for what is man that he should live
out the lifetime of his God?"
He said no more, but slowly waving
a benediction, covered his face with
his hands, and so remained kneeling,
till all the people had departed,
and he was left alone in the place.
CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the
Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite
alone; he having left the Chapel
before the benediction some time. He
was sitting on a bench before the
fire, with his feet on the stove
hearth, and in one hand was holding
close up to his face that little
negro idol of his; peering hard
into its face, and with a jack-knife
gently whittling away at its nose,
meanwhile humming to himself in his
heathenish way.
But being now interrupted, he put
up the image; and pretty soon,
going to the table, took up a
large book there, and placing
it on his lap began counting the
pages with deliberate regularity;
at every fiftieth page—as
I fancied—stopping a moment,
looking vacantly around him, and
giving utterance to a long-drawn
gurgling whistle of astonishment. He
would then begin again at the next
fifty; seeming to commence at number
one each time, as though he could
not count more than fifty, and it
was only by such a large number of
fifties being found together, that
his astonishment at the multitude of
pages was excited.
With much interest I sat watching
him. Savage though he was, and
hideously marred about the face—at
least to my taste—his countenance
yet had a something in it which
was by no means disagreeable. You
cannot hide the soul. Through all
his unearthly tattooings, I thought
I saw the traces of a simple honest
heart; and in his large, deep eyes,
fiery black and bold, there seemed
tokens of a spirit that would dare
a thousand devils. And besides all
this, there was a certain lofty
bearing about the Pagan, which
even his uncouthness could not
altogether maim. He looked like a
man who had never cringed and never
had had a creditor. Whether it was,
too, that his head being shaved,
his forehead was drawn out in freer
and brighter relief, and looked more
expansive than it otherwise would,
this I will not venture to decide;
but certain it was his head was
phrenologically an excellent one. It
may seem ridiculous, but it reminded
me of General Washington’s head,
as seen in the popular busts of
him. It had the same long regularly
graded retreating slope from above
the brows, which were likewise
very projecting, like two long
promontories thickly wooded on
top. Queequeg was George Washington
cannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning
him, half-pretending meanwhile to
be looking out at the storm from
the casement, he never heeded my
presence, never troubled himself
with so much as a single glance;
but appeared wholly occupied with
counting the pages of the marvellous
book. Considering how sociably we
had been sleeping together the night
previous, and especially considering
the affectionate arm I had found
thrown over me upon waking in the
morning, I thought this indifference
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 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 companionship;
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 peering
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
maddened hand were turned against
the wolfish world. This soothing
savage had redeemed it. There
he sat, his very indifference
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 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 we 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,
he 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 countryman, 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 out 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 trowsers’ 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 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 included—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 fellow 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, I 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 11. Nightgown.
We had lain thus in bed, chatting
and napping at short intervals, and
Queequeg now and then affectionately
throwing 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
nappishness 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 recumbent position began
to grow wearisome, and by little and
little we 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 kneepans were
warming-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 comfortable,
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 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 pleasant and self-created
darkness into the imposed and coarse
outer gloom of the unilluminated
twelve-o’clock-at-night,
I experienced 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 smoking in the bed the night
before, yet see how elastic our
stiff prejudices 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
household joy then. I no more felt
unduly concerned for the landlord’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 may prove in the mere skeleton
I give.
CHAPTER 12. Biographical.
Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko,
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, which 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 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
himself 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
countrymen. 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 idolator 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 for ascending the
pure and undefiled throne of thirty
pagan Kings before him. 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 13. 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 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, including 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?"
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 between 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
punchbowl;—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 clear,
cold air. Huge hills and mountains
of casks on casks were piled upon
her 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 bows 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 bumpkin’s
hour of doom was come. Dropping his
harpoon, the brawny savage caught
him in his arms, and by an almost
miraculous dexterity and strength,
sent him high up bodily into the air;
then slightly tapping his stern in
mid-somerset, the fellow landed with
bursting lungs upon his feet, while
Queequeg, turning 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 cannibal,
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 consternation,
Queequeg dropped deftly to his
knees, and crawling 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
perpendicularly 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 dragging 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 cannibals must help
these Christians."
CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.
Nothing more happened on the passage
worthy the mentioning; 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 wide
waters. They resolved to follow
in the same direction. Setting out
in their canoes, after a perilous
passage they discovered the island,
and there they found an empty ivory
casket,—the poor little Indian’s
skeleton.
What wonder, then, that these
Nantucketers, born 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 Behring’s Straits; and in
all seasons and all oceans declared
everlasting war with the mightiest
animated mass that has survived
the flood; most monstrous and
most mountainous! That Himmalehan,
salt-sea Mastodon, clothed with such
portentousness of unconscious power,
that his very panics are more to be
dreaded than his most fearless and
malicious assaults!
And thus have these naked
Nantucketers, these sea hermits,
issuing from their ant-hill in
the sea, overrun and conquered
the watery world like so many
Alexanders; parcelling out among
them the Atlantic, Pacific, and
Indian oceans, as the three pirate
powers did Poland. Let America add
Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon
Canada; let the English overswarm all
India, and hang out their blazing
banner from the sun; two thirds
of this terraqueous globe are the
Nantucketer’s. For the sea is his;
he owns it, as Emperors own empires;
other seamen having but a right of
way through it. Merchant ships are
but extension bridges; armed ones
but floating forts; even pirates
and privateers, though following the
sea as highwaymen the road, they but
plunder other ships, other fragments
of the land like themselves, without
seeking to draw their living from
the bottomless deep itself. The
Nantucketer, he alone resides and
riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible
language, goes down to it in ships;
to and fro ploughing it as his own
special plantation. _There_ is his
home; _there_ lies his business,
which a Noah’s flood would not
interrupt, though it overwhelmed
all the millions in China. He lives
on the sea, as prairie cocks in the
prairie; he hides among the waves,
he climbs them as chamois hunters
climb the Alps. For years he knows
not the land; so that when he comes
to it at last, it smells like another
world, more strangely than the moon
would to an Earthsman. With the
landless gull, that at sunset folds
her wings and is rocked to sleep
between billows; so at nightfall, the
Nantucketer, out of sight of land,
furls his sails, and lays him to his
rest, while under his very pillow
rush herds of walruses and whales.
CHAPTER 15. Chowder.
It was quite late in the evening
when the little Moss came snugly
to anchor, and Queequeg and I went
ashore; so we could attend to no
business that day, at least none
but a supper and a bed. The landlord
of the Spouter-Inn had recommended
us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of
the Try Pots, whom he asserted to
be the proprietor of one of the
best kept hotels in all Nantucket,
and moreover he had assured us that
Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was
famous for his chowders. In short,
he plainly hinted that we could not
possibly do better than try pot-luck
at the Try Pots. But the directions
he had given us about keeping a
yellow warehouse on our starboard
hand till we opened a white church to
the larboard, and then keeping that
on the larboard hand till we made a
corner three points to the starboard,
and that done, then ask the first
man we met where the place was: these
crooked directions of his very much
puzzled us at first, especially as,
at the outset, Queequeg insisted
that the yellow warehouse—our
first point of departure—must be
left on the larboard hand, whereas I
had understood Peter Coffin to say
it was on the starboard. However,
by dint of beating about a little in
the dark, and now and then knocking
up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire
the way, we at last came to something
which there was no mistaking.
Two enormous wooden pots painted
black, and suspended by asses’
ears, swung from the cross-trees of
an old top-mast, planted in front
of an old doorway. The horns of the
cross-trees were sawed off on the
other side, so that this old top-mast
looked not a little like a gallows.
Perhaps I was over sensitive to such
impressions at the time, but I could
not help staring at this gallows
with a vague misgiving. A sort of
crick was in my neck as I gazed up to
the two remaining horns; yes, _two_
of them, one for Queequeg, and one
for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A
Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in
my first whaling port; tombstones
staring at me in the whalemen’s
chapel; and here a gallows! and a
pair of prodigious black pots
too! Are these last throwing out
oblique hints touching Tophet?
I was called from these reflections
by the sight of a freckled woman
with yellow hair and a yellow gown,
standing in the porch of the inn,
under a dull red lamp swinging there,
that looked much like an injured eye,
and carrying on a brisk scolding with
a man in a purple woollen shirt.
"Get along with ye," said she
to the man, "or I’ll be combing
ye!"
"Come on, Queequeg," said
I, "all right. There’s
Mrs. Hussey."
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea
Hussey being from home, but leaving
Mrs. Hussey entirely competent
to attend to all his affairs. Upon
making known our desires for a supper
and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing
further scolding for the present,
ushered us into a little room, and
seating us at a table spread with
the relics of a recently concluded
repast, turned round to us and
said—"Clam or Cod?"
"What’s that about Cods,
ma’am?" said I, with much
politeness.
"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.
"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is
_that_ what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?"
says I, "but that’s a rather cold
and clammy reception in the winter
time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?"
But being in a great hurry to resume
scolding the man in the purple Shirt,
who was waiting for it in the entry,
and seeming to hear nothing but the
word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried
towards an open door leading to the
kitchen, and bawling out "clam for
two," disappeared.
"Queequeg," said I, "do you
think that we can make out a supper
for us both on one clam?"
However, a warm savory steam from
the kitchen served to belie the
apparently cheerless prospect
before us. But when that smoking
chowder came in, the mystery
was delightfully explained. Oh,
sweet friends! hearken to me. It
was made of small juicy clams,
scarcely bigger than hazel nuts,
mixed with pounded ship 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
favourite 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
announcement, I thought I would
try a little experiment. Stepping
to the kitchen door, I uttered the
word "cod" with great emphasis,
and resumed my seat. In a few moments
the savoury 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?"
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 morning
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 _ile_, 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."
CHAPTER 16. The Ship.
In bed we concocted our plans for
the morrow. But to my surprise and
no small concern, Queequeg now gave
me to understand, 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 considerable 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
selection 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 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
anything; 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 venerable
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 Becket bled. But to all
these her old antiquities, were
added new and marvellous features,
pertaining to 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 ivory. 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 overlook 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 fibres
waved to and fro like the top-knot
on some old Pottowottamie 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 sailings 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. Dost see
that leg?—I’ll take that leg
away from thy stern, if ever thou
talkest of the marchant service to
me again. Marchant service indeed! I
suppose now ye feel considerable
proud of having served in those
marchant ships. But flukes! man,
what makes thee want to go a whaling,
eh?—it looks a little suspicious,
don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a
pirate, hast thou?—Didst not rob
thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost
not think of murdering the officers
when thou gettest to sea?"
I protested my innocence of these
things. I saw that under the mask of
these half humorous innuendoes, this
old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish
Nantucketer, was full of his insular
prejudices, and rather distrustful
of all aliens, unless they hailed
from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.
"But what takes thee a-whaling? I
want to know that before I think of
shipping ye."
"Well, sir, I want to see what
whaling is. I want to see the
world."
"Want to see what whaling is,
eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain
Ahab?"
"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"
"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain
Ahab is the Captain of this ship."
"I am mistaken then. I thought
I was speaking to the Captain
himself."
"Thou art speaking to Captain
Peleg—that’s who ye are speaking
to, young man. It belongs to me
and Captain Bildad to see the
Pequod fitted out for the voyage,
and supplied with all her needs,
including crew. We are part owners
and agents. But as I was going to
say, if thou wantest to know what
whaling is, as thou tellest ye do,
I can put ye in a way of finding it
out before ye bind yourself to it,
past backing out. Clap eye on Captain
Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find
that he has only one leg."
"What do you mean, sir? Was the
other one lost by a whale?"
"Lost by a whale! Young man, come
nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed
up, crunched by the monstrousest
parmacetty that ever chipped a
boat!—ah, ah!"
I was a little alarmed by his energy,
perhaps also a little touched at
the hearty grief in his concluding
exclamation, but said as calmly
as I could, "What you say is no
doubt true enough, sir; but how
could I know there was any peculiar
ferocity in that particular whale,
though indeed I might have inferred
as much from the simple fact of
the accident."
"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs
are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou
dost not talk shark a bit. _Sure_,
ye’ve been to sea before now;
sure of that?"
"Sir," said I, "I thought I
told you that I had been four voyages
in the merchant—"
"Hard down out of that! Mind
what I said about the marchant
service—don’t aggravate
me—I won’t have it. But let us
understand each other. I have given
thee a hint about what whaling is;
do ye yet feel inclined for it?"
"I do, sir."
"Very good. Now, art thou the
man to pitch a harpoon down a live
whale’s throat, and then jump after
it? Answer, quick!"
"I am, sir, if it should be
positively indispensable to do so;
not to be got rid of, that is; which
I don’t take to be the fact."
"Good again. Now then, thou not
only wantest to go a-whaling, to find
out by experience what whaling is,
but ye also want to go in order to
see the world? Was not that what
ye said? I thought so. Well then,
just step forward there, and take
a peep over the weather-bow, and
then back to me and tell me what ye
see there."
For a moment I stood a little
puzzled by this curious request,
not knowing exactly how to take it,
whether humorously or in earnest. But
concentrating all his crow’s feet
into one scowl, Captain Peleg started
me on the errand.
Going forward and glancing over
the weather bow, I perceived that
the ship swinging to her anchor
with the flood-tide, was now
obliquely pointing towards the open
ocean. The prospect was unlimited,
but exceedingly monotonous and
forbidding; not the slightest variety
that I could see.
"Well, what’s the report?" said
Peleg when I came back; "what did
ye see?"
"Not much," I
replied—"nothing but water;
considerable horizon though,
and there’s a squall coming up,
I think."
"Well, what does 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 Nantucketers, 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 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 seclusion
of many long night-watches in
the remotest waters, and beneath
constellations never seen here
at the north, been led to think
untraditionally and independently;
receiving all nature’s sweet or
savage impressions fresh from her
own virgin voluntary and confiding
breast, and thereby chiefly, but with
some help from accidental advantages,
to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language—that man makes one
in a whole nation’s census—a
mighty pageant creature, formed
for noble tragedies. Nor will it at
all detract from him, dramatically
regarded, if either by birth or other
circumstances, he have what seems a
half wilful overruling morbidness at
the bottom of his nature. For all men
tragically great are made so through
a certain morbidness. Be sure of
this, O young ambition, all mortal
greatness is but disease. But,
as yet we have not to do with such
an one, but with quite another; and
still a man, who, if indeed peculiar,
it only results again from another
phase of the Quaker, modified by
individual circumstances.
Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad
was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.
But unlike Captain Peleg—who
cared not a rush for what are called
serious things, and indeed deemed
those self-same serious things the
veriest of all trifles—Captain
Bildad had not only been originally
educated according to the strictest
sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but
all his subsequent ocean life,
and the sight of many unclad,
lovely island creatures, round the
Horn—all that had not moved this
native born Quaker one single jot,
had not so much as altered one angle
of his vest. Still, for all this
immutableness, was there some lack
of common consistency about worthy
Captain Bildad. Though refusing,
from conscientious scruples, to
bear arms against land invaders,
yet himself had illimitably invaded
the Atlantic and Pacific; and though
a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet
had he in his straight-bodied coat,
spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan
gore. How now in the contemplative
evening of his days, the pious
Bildad reconciled these things in
the reminiscence, I do not know;
but it did not seem to concern him
much, and very probably he had long
since come to the sage and sensible
conclusion that a man’s religion
is one thing, and this practical
world quite another. This world pays
dividends. Rising from a little
cabin-boy in short clothes of the
drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in
a broad shad-bellied waistcoat;
from that becoming boat-header,
chief-mate, and captain, and finally
a 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
dedicating his remaining days to the
quiet receiving of his well-earned
income.
Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say,
had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in
his sea-going days, a bitter,
hard task-master. They told me in
Nantucket, though it certainly seems
a curious story, that when he sailed
the old Categut whaleman, his crew,
upon arriving home, were mostly
all carried ashore to the hospital,
sore exhausted and worn out. For a
pious man, especially for a Quaker,
he was certainly rather hard-hearted,
to say the least. He never used to
swear, though, at his men, they said;
but somehow he got an inordinate
quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard
work out of them. When Bildad was a
chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured
eye intently looking at you, made you
feel completely nervous, till you
could clutch something—a hammer
or a marling-spike, and go to work
like mad, at something or other,
never mind what. Indolence and
idleness perished before him. His
own person was the exact embodiment
of his utilitarian character. On
his long, gaunt body, he carried no
spare flesh, no superfluous beard,
his chin having a soft, economical
nap to it, like the worn nap of his
broad-brimmed hat.
Such, then, was the person that
I saw seated on the transom when
I followed Captain Peleg down
into the cabin. The space between
the decks was small; and there,
bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who
always sat so, and never leaned,
and this to save his coat tails. His
broad-brim was placed beside him;
his legs were stiffly crossed;
his drab vesture was buttoned up to
his chin; and spectacles on nose,
he seemed absorbed in reading from
a ponderous volume.
"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg,
"at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have
been studying those Scriptures, now,
for the last thirty years, to my
certain knowledge. How far ye got,
Bildad?"
As if long habituated to such
profane talk from his old shipmate,
Bildad, without noticing his present
irreverence, quietly looked up, and
seeing me, glanced again inquiringly
towards Peleg.
"He says he’s our man, Bildad,"
said Peleg, "he wants to ship."
"Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a
hollow tone, and turning round to me.
"I _dost_," said I unconsciously,
he was so intense a Quaker.
"What do ye think of him,
Bildad?" said Peleg.
"He’ll do," said Bildad,
eyeing me, and then went on spelling
away at his book in a mumbling tone
quite audible.
I thought him the queerest old Quaker
I ever saw, especially as Peleg,
his friend and old shipmate, seemed
such a blusterer. But I said nothing,
only looking round me sharply. Peleg
now threw open a chest, and drawing
forth the ship’s articles,
placed pen and ink before him, and
seated himself at a little table. I
began to think it was high time to
settle with myself at what terms I
would be willing to engage for the
voyage. I was already aware that in
the whaling business they paid no
wages; but all hands, including the
captain, received certain shares of
the profits called _lays_, and that
these lays were proportioned to the
degree of importance pertaining
to the respective duties of the
ship’s company. I was also aware
that being a green hand at whaling,
my own lay would not be very large;
but considering that I was used to
the sea, could steer a ship, splice
a rope, and all that, I made no doubt
that from all I had heard I should be
offered at least the 275th lay—that
is, the 275th part of the clear net
proceeds of the voyage, whatever
that might eventually amount to. And
though the 275th lay was what they
call a rather _long lay_, yet it was
better than nothing; and if we had
a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly
pay for the clothing I would wear
out on it, not to speak of my three
years’ beef and board, for which
I would not have to pay one stiver.
It might be thought that this was
a poor way to accumulate a princely
fortune—and so it was, a very poor
way indeed. But I am one of those
that never take on about princely
fortunes, and am quite content if the
world is ready to board and lodge me,
while I am putting up at this grim
sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the
whole, I thought that the 275th lay
would be about the fair thing, but
would not have been surprised had I
been offered the 200th, considering
I was of a broad-shouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that
made me a little distrustful about
receiving a generous share of the
profits was this: Ashore, I had heard
something of both Captain Peleg and
his unaccountable old crony Bildad;
how that they being the principal
proprietors of the Pequod, therefore
the other and more inconsiderable
and scattered owners, left nearly
the whole management of the ship’s
affairs to these two. And I did not
know but what the stingy old Bildad
might have a mighty deal to say
about shipping hands, especially as
I now found him on board the Pequod,
quite at home there in the cabin,
and reading his Bible as if at his
own fireside. Now while Peleg was
vainly trying to mend a pen with
his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no
small surprise, considering that he
was such an interested party in these
proceedings; Bildad never heeded us,
but went on mumbling to himself out
of his book, "_Lay_ not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth—"
"Well, Captain Bildad,"
interrupted Peleg, "what d’ye
say, what lay shall we give this
young man?"
"Thou knowest best," was the
sepulchral reply, "the seven
hundred and seventy-seventh
wouldn’t be too much, would
it?—‘where moth and rust do
corrupt, but _lay_—’"
_Lay_, indeed, thought I, and
such a lay! the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad,
you are determined that I, for one,
shall not _lay_ up many _lays_
here below, where moth and rust
do corrupt. It was an exceedingly
_long lay_ that, indeed; and though
from the magnitude of the figure it
might at first deceive a landsman,
yet the slightest consideration
will show that though seven hundred
and seventy-seven is a pretty large
number, yet, when you come to make a
_teenth_ of it, you will then see,
I say, that the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh part of a farthing is
a good deal less than seven hundred
and seventy-seven gold doubloons;
and so I thought at the time.
"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,"
cried Peleg, "thou dost not want
to swindle this young man! he must
have more than that."
"Seven hundred and
seventy-seventh," again said
Bildad, without lifting his eyes;
and then went on mumbling—"for
where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also."
"I am going to put him down for
the three hundredth," said Peleg,
"do ye hear that, Bildad! The three
hundredth lay, I say."
Bildad laid down his book, and
turning solemnly towards him said,
"Captain Peleg, thou hast a
generous heart; but thou must
consider the duty thou owest to the
other owners of this ship—widows
and orphans, many of them—and
that if we too abundantly reward
the labors of this young man, we
may be taking the bread from those
widows and those orphans. The seven
hundred and seventy-seventh lay,
Captain Peleg."
"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg,
starting up and clattering about the
cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad,
if I had followed thy advice in
these matters, I would afore now
had a conscience to lug about that
would be heavy enough to founder the
largest ship that ever sailed round
Cape Horn."
"Captain Peleg," said Bildad
steadily, "thy conscience may
be drawing ten inches of water,
or ten fathoms, I can’t tell;
but as thou art still an impenitent
man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear
lest thy conscience be but a leaky
one; and will in the end sink thee
foundering down to the fiery pit,
Captain Peleg."
"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult
me, man; past all natural bearing,
ye insult me. It’s an all-fired
outrage to tell any human creature
that he’s bound to hell. Flukes
and flames! Bildad, say that again
to me, and start my 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-coloured son of a
wooden gun—a straight wake with
ye!"
As he thundered out this he made a
rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous
oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad
for that time eluded him.
Alarmed at this terrible outburst
between the two principal and
responsible owners of the ship,
and feeling half a mind to give up
all idea of sailing in a vessel so
questionably owned and temporarily
commanded, I stepped aside from the
door to give egress to Bildad, who,
I made no doubt, was all eagerness to
vanish from before the awakened wrath
of Peleg. But to my astonishment,
he sat down again on the transom
very quietly, and seemed to have
not the slightest intention of
withdrawing. He seemed quite used to
impenitent Peleg and his ways. As
for Peleg, after letting off his
rage as he had, there seemed no more
left in him, and he, too, sat down
like a lamb, though he twitched
a little as if still nervously
agitated. "Whew!" he whistled at
last—"the squall’s gone off to
leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used
to be good at sharpening a lance,
mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife
here needs the grindstone. That’s
he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my
young man, Ishmael’s thy name,
didn’t ye say? Well then, down
ye go here, Ishmael, for the three
hundredth lay."
"Captain Peleg," said I, "I
have a friend with me who wants to
ship too—shall I bring him down
to-morrow?"
"To be sure," said
Peleg. "Fetch him along, and
we’ll look at him."
"What lay does he want?" groaned
Bildad, glancing up from the book
in which he had again been burying
himself.
"Oh! never thee mind about that,
Bildad," said Peleg. "Has he ever
whaled it any?" turning to me.
"Killed more whales than I can
count, Captain Peleg."
"Well, bring him along then."
And, after signing the papers, off
I went; nothing doubting but that
I had done a good morning’s work,
and that the Pequod was the identical
ship that Yojo had provided to carry
Queequeg and me round the Cape.
But I had not proceeded far, when
I began to bethink me that the
Captain with whom I was to sail
yet remained unseen by me; though,
indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship
will be completely fitted out, and
receive all her crew on board, ere
the captain makes himself visible
by arriving to take command; for
sometimes these voyages are so
prolonged, and the shore intervals
at home so exceedingly brief, that
if the captain have a family, or any
absorbing concernment of that sort,
he does not trouble himself much
about his ship in port, but leaves
her to the owners till all is ready
for sea. However, it is always as
well to have a look at him before
irrevocably committing yourself into
his hands. Turning back I accosted
Captain Peleg, inquiring where
Captain Ahab was to be found.
"And what dost thou want of Captain
Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou
art shipped."
"Yes, but I should like to see
him."
"But I don’t think thou wilt be
able to at present. I don’t know
exactly what’s the matter with him;
but he keeps close inside the house;
a sort of sick, and yet he don’t
look so. In fact, he ain’t sick;
but no, he isn’t well either. Any
how, young man, he won’t always
see me, so I don’t suppose he will
thee. He’s a queer man, Captain
Ahab—so some think—but a good
one. Oh, thou’lt like him well
enough; no fear, no fear. He’s
a grand, ungodly, god-like man,
Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much;
but, when he does speak, then you may
well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned;
Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s
been in colleges, as well as ’mong
the cannibals; been used to deeper
wonders than the waves; fixed his
fiery lance in mightier, stranger
foes than whales. His lance! aye,
the keenest and the surest that
out of all our isle! Oh! he ain’t
Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t
Captain Peleg; _he’s Ahab_, boy;
and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was
a crowned king!"
"And a very vile one. When that
wicked king was slain, the dogs,
did they not lick his blood?"
"Come hither to me—hither,
hither," said Peleg, with a
significance in his eye that almost
startled me. "Look ye, lad; never
say that on board the Pequod. Never
say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did
not name himself. ’Twas a foolish,
ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed
mother, who died when he was only
a twelvemonth old. And yet the
old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said
that the name would somehow prove
prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools
like her may tell thee the same. I
wish to warn thee. It’s a lie. I
know Captain Ahab well; I’ve
sailed with him as mate years ago;
I know what he is—a good man—not
a pious, good man, like Bildad,
but a swearing good man—something
like me—only there’s a good
deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know
that he was never very jolly; and
I know that on the passage home,
he was a little out of his mind
for a spell; but it was the sharp
shooting pains in his bleeding stump
that brought that about, as any one
might see. I know, too, that ever
since he lost his leg last voyage
by that accursed whale, he’s been
a kind of moody—desperate moody,
and savage sometimes; but that will
all pass off. And once for all,
let me tell thee and assure thee,
young man, it’s better to sail
with a moody good captain than a
laughing bad one. So good-bye to
thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab,
because he happens to have a wicked
name. Besides, my boy, he has a
wife—not three voyages wedded—a
sweet, resigned girl. Think of that;
by that sweet girl that old man 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
disincline me towards him; though I
felt impatience at what seemed like
mystery in him, so imperfectly as
he was known to me then. However,
my thoughts were at length carried
in other directions, so that for the
present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.
As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting
and Humiliation, was to continue all
day, I did not choose to disturb
him till towards night-fall; for
I cherish the greatest respect
towards everybody’s religious
obligations, never mind how comical,
and could not find it in my heart
to undervalue even a congregation
of ants worshipping a toad-stool;
or those other creatures in certain
parts of our earth, who with a degree
of footmanism quite unprecedented in
other planets, bow down before the
torso of a deceased landed proprietor
merely on account of the inordinate
possessions yet owned and rented in
his name.
I say, we good Presbyterian
Christians should be charitable in
these things, and not fancy ourselves
so vastly superior to other mortals,
pagans and what not, because of
their half-crazy conceits on these
subjects. There was Queequeg, now,
certainly entertaining the most
absurd notions about Yojo and his
Ramadan;—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—Presbyterians 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 performances
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 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, before
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?"
"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 understand
the whole case. Unconsciously
clapping the vinegar-cruet to one
side of her nose, she ruminated for
an instant; then exclaimed—"No! I
haven’t seen it since I put it
there." Running to a little closet
under the landing of the stairs,
she glanced in, and returning, told
me that Queequeg’s harpoon was
missing. "He’s killed himself,"
she cried. "It’s unfort’nate
Stiggs done over again—there
goes another counterpane—God
pity his poor mother!—it will
be the ruin of my house. Has the
poor lad a sister? Where’s that
girl?—there, Betty, go to Snarles
the Painter, and tell him to paint
me a sign, with—"no suicides
permitted here, and no smoking in
the parlor;"—might as well kill
both birds at once. Kill? The Lord
be merciful to his ghost! What’s
that noise there? You, young man,
avast there!"
And running up after me, she caught
me as I was again trying to force
open the door.
"I don’t allow it; I won’t
have my premises spoiled. Go for
the locksmith, there’s one about
a mile from here. But avast!"
putting her hand in her side-pocket,
"here’s a key that’ll fit,
I guess; let’s see." And with
that, she turned it in the lock; but,
alas! Queequeg’s supplemental bolt
remained unwithdrawn within.
"Have to burst it open," said
I, and was running down the entry
a little, for a good start, when
the landlady caught at me, again
vowing I should not break down her
premises; but I tore from her, and
with a sudden bodily rush dashed
myself full against the mark.
With a prodigious noise the door
flew open, and the knob slamming
against the wall, sent the plaster
to the ceiling; and there, good
heavens! there sat Queequeg,
altogether cool and self-collected;
right in the middle of the room;
squatting on his hams, and holding
Yojo on top of his head. He looked
neither one way nor the other way,
but sat like a carved image with
scarce a sign of active life.
"Queequeg," said I, going up to
him, "Queequeg, what’s the matter
with you?"
"He hain’t been a sittin’
so all day, has he?" said the
landlady.
But all we said, not a word could we
drag out of him; I almost felt like
pushing him over, so as to change
his position, for it was almost
intolerable, it seemed so painfully
and unnaturally constrained;
especially, as in all probability he
had been sitting so for upwards of
eight or ten hours, going too without
his regular meals.
"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he’s
_alive_ at all events; so leave us,
if you please, and I will see to this
strange affair myself."
Closing the door upon the landlady,
I endeavored to prevail upon Queequeg
to take a chair; but in vain. There
he sat; and all he could do—for all
my polite arts and blandishments—he
would not move a peg, nor say a
single word, nor even look at me,
nor notice my presence in 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
suppose; well, then, let him rest;
he’ll get up sooner or later,
no doubt. It can’t last for ever,
thank God, and his Ramadan only comes
once a year; and I don’t believe
it’s very punctual then.
I went down to supper. After sitting
a long time listening to the long
stories of some sailors who had just
come from a plum-pudding voyage,
as they called it (that is, a short
whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig,
confined to the north of the line,
in the Atlantic Ocean only); after
listening to these plum-puddingers
till nearly eleven o’clock, I
went up stairs to go to bed, feeling
quite sure by this time Queequeg must
certainly have brought his Ramadan
to a termination. But no; there
he was just where I had left him;
he had not stirred an inch. I began
to grow vexed with him; it seemed so
downright senseless and insane to be
sitting there all day and half the
night on his hams in a cold room,
holding a piece of wood on his head.
"For heaven’s sake, Queequeg,
get up and shake yourself; get up and
have some supper. You’ll starve;
you’ll kill yourself, Queequeg."
But not a word did he reply.
Despairing of him, therefore, I
determined to go to bed and to sleep;
and no doubt, before a great while,
he would follow me. But previous
to turning in, I took my heavy
bearskin jacket, and threw it over
him, as it promised to be a very
cold night; and he had nothing but
his ordinary round jacket on. For
some time, do all I would, I could
not get into the faintest doze. I
had blown out the candle; and the
mere thought of Queequeg—not four
feet off—sitting there in that
uneasy position, stark alone in the
cold and dark; this made me really
wretched. Think of it; sleeping all
night in the same room with a wide
awake pagan on his hams in this
dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!
But somehow I dropped off at last,
and knew nothing more till break of
day; when, looking over the bedside,
there squatted Queequeg, as if he had
been screwed down to the floor. But
as soon as the first glimpse of sun
entered the window, up he got, with
stiff and grating joints, but with
a cheerful look; limped towards me
where I lay; pressed his forehead
again against mine; and said his
Ramadan was over.
Now, as I before hinted, I have no
objection to any person’s religion,
be it what it may, so long as that
person does not kill or insult any
other person, because that other
person don’t believe it also. But
when a man’s religion becomes
really frantic; when it is a positive
torment to him; and, in fine, makes
this earth of ours an uncomfortable
inn to lodge in; then I think it high
time to take that individual aside
and argue the point with him.
And just so I now did with
Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I,
"get into bed now, and lie and
listen to me." I then went on,
beginning with the rise and progress
of the primitive religions, and
coming down to the various religions
of the present time, during which
time I labored to show Queequeg
that all these Lents, Ramadans, and
prolonged ham-squattings in cold,
cheerless rooms were stark nonsense;
bad for the health; 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 born 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 occasion. 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 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
subject, 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
condescending concern and compassion,
as though he thought it a great pity
that such a sensible young man should
be so hopelessly lost to evangelical
pagan piety.
At last we rose and dressed; and
Queequeg, taking a prodigiously
hearty breakfast of chowders of all
sorts, so that the landlady should
not make much profit by reason of his
Ramadan, we sallied out to board the
Pequod, sauntering along, and picking
our teeth with halibut bones.
CHAPTER 18. His Mark.
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 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."
"Yes," 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 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 everlasting
First Congregation of this whole
worshipping world; we all belong to
that; only some of us cherish some
queer crotchets no ways 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 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 everything 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?"
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 proper
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 X 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 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 beliest
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 him, 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
everlasting 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."
Bildad said no more, but buttoning up
his coat, stalked on deck, where we
followed him. There he stood, very
quietly overlooking some sailmakers
who were mending a top-sail in the
waist. Now and then he stooped to
pick up a patch, or save an end of
tarred twine, which otherwise might
have been wasted.
CHAPTER 19. 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 forefinger at
the vessel in question. He was but
shabbily apparelled 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
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 stranger, 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 insane
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?"
"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 stranger, 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 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 loss 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 won’t be, after all. Anyhow,
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 important to
tell us, out with it; but if you are
only trying to bamboozle 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."
"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 Captain 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.
CHAPTER 20. 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 preparations 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 rigging 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 stopping, 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
housekeeping. Just so with whaling,
which necessitates a three-years’
housekeeping upon the wide ocean,
far from all grocers, costermongers,
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 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 accidents
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 spars, and spare lines
and harpoons, and spare everythings,
almost, but a spare Captain and
duplicate ship.
At the period of our arrival at the
Island, the heaviest storage 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 wanting 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 needed, and
at every fresh arrival, down went his
mark opposite that article upon the
paper. Every once in 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 downright 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
insensibly 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 21. 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,"
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
Queequeg to me. It was Elijah.
"Going aboard?"
"Hands off, will you," said I.
"Lookee here," said Queequeg,
shaking himself, "go ’way!"
"Ain’t 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 impertinent?"
"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
withdrawing. 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?"
Struck by this plain matter-of-fact
question, I answered, saying, "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?
"Find who?"
"Morning to ye! morning to
ye!" he rejoined, again moving
off. "Oh! I was going to warn
ye against—but never mind, never
mind—it’s all one, all in the
family too;—sharp frost this
morning, ain’t it? Good-bye 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 impudence.
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 downwards and inclosed in
his folded arms. The profoundest
slumber 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 countenance
then; but how hard he breathes,
he’s heaving himself; get off,
Queequeg, you are heavy, it’s
grinding the face 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 fattening 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
attendant, 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 flourished
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 completely filling the contracted
hole, it began to tell upon him. He
breathed with a sort of muffledness;
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."
"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.
"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 22. Merry Christmas.
At length, towards 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 whale-boat,
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 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 officers, 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 seen actively
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 hundred and seventy-seventh
lay; when I felt a sudden sharp
poke in my rear, and turning round,
was horrified at the apparition
of Captain Peleg in the act of
withdrawing his leg from my immediate
vicinity. That was my first kick.
"Is that the way they heave in
the marchant service?" he roared.
"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring,
and break thy backbone! Why
don’t ye spring, I say, all
of ye—spring! Quohog! spring,
thou chap with the red whiskers;
spring there, Scotch-cap; spring,
thou green pants. Spring, I say,
all of ye, and spring your eyes
out!" And so saying, he moved
along the windlass, here and there
using his leg very freely, while
imperturbable Bildad kept leading
off with his psalmody. Thinks I,
Captain Peleg must have been drinking
something to-day.
At last the anchor was up, the sails
were set, and off we glided. It was
a short, cold Christmas; and as the
short northern day merged into night,
we found ourselves almost broad upon
the wintry ocean, whose freezing
spray cased us in ice, as in polished
armor. The long rows of teeth on the
bulwarks glistened in the moonlight;
and like the white ivory tusks of
some huge elephant, vast curving
icicles depended from the bows.
Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the
first watch, and ever and anon, as
the old craft deep dived into the
green seas, and sent the shivering
frost all over her, and the winds
howled, and the cordage rang, his
steady notes were heard,—
_"Sweet fields beyond the
swelling flood, Stand dressed in
living green. So to the Jews old
Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled
between."_
Never did those sweet words sound
more sweetly to me than then. They
were full of hope and fruition. Spite
of this frigid winter night in the
boisterous Atlantic, spite of my
wet feet and wetter jacket, there
was yet, it then seemed to me,
many a pleasant haven in store;
and meads and glades so eternally
vernal, that the grass shot up by
the spring, untrodden, unwilted,
remains at midsummer.
At last we gained such an offing,
that the two pilots were needed no
longer. The stout sail-boat that
had accompanied us began ranging
alongside.
It was curious and not unpleasing,
how Peleg and Bildad were affected
at this juncture, especially Captain
Bildad. For loath to depart, yet;
very loath to leave, for good, a
ship bound on so long and perilous
a voyage—beyond both stormy Capes;
a ship in which some thousands of his
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
every way brimful of every interest
to him,—poor old Bildad lingered
long; paced the deck with anxious
strides; ran down into the cabin to
speak another farewell word there;
again came on deck, and looked to
windward; looked towards the wide and
endless waters, only bounded by the
far-off unseen Eastern Continents;
looked towards the land; looked
aloft; looked right and left; looked
everywhere and nowhere; and at last,
mechanically coiling a rope upon
its pin, convulsively grasped stout
Peleg by the hand, and holding up a
lantern, for a moment stood gazing
heroically in his face, as much as to
say, "Nevertheless, friend Peleg,
I can stand it; yes, I can."
As for Peleg himself, he took it
more like a philosopher; but for
all his philosophy, there was a
tear twinkling in his eye, when the
lantern came too near. And he, too,
did not a little run from 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! Stand by to come
close alongside, now! Careful,
careful!—come, Bildad,
boy—say your last. Luck
to ye, Starbuck—luck to
ye, Mr. Stubb—luck to ye,
Mr. Flask—good-bye and good luck
to ye all—and this day three years
I’ll have a hot supper smoking
for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah
and away!"
"God bless ye, and have ye in His
holy keeping, men," murmured old
Bildad, almost incoherently. "I
hope ye’ll have fine weather
now, so that Captain Ahab may soon
be moving among ye—a pleasant
sun is all he needs, and ye’ll
have plenty of them in the tropic
voyage ye go. Be careful in the
hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the
boats needlessly, ye harpooneers;
good white cedar plank is raised
full three per cent. within the
year. Don’t forget your prayers,
either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that
cooper don’t waste the spare
staves. Oh! the sail-needles
are in the green locker! Don’t
whale it too much a’ Lord’s
days, men; but don’t miss a
fair chance either, that’s
rejecting Heaven’s good gifts.
Have an eye to the molasses tierce,
Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I
thought. If ye touch at the islands,
Mr. Flask, beware of fornication.
Good-bye, good-bye! Don’t keep that
cheese too long down in the hold,
Mr. Starbuck; it’ll spoil. Be
careful with the butter—twenty
cents the pound it was, and mind ye,
if—"
"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop
palavering,—away!" and with that,
Peleg hurried him over the side,
and both dropt into the boat.
Ship and boat diverged; the cold,
damp night breeze blew between;
a screaming gull flew overhead;
the two hulls wildly rolled; we
gave three heavy-hearted cheers,
and blindly plunged like fate into
the lone Atlantic.
CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.
Some chapters back, one Bulkington
was spoken of, a tall, newlanded
mariner, encountered in New Bedford
at the inn.
When on that shivering winter’s
night, the Pequod thrust her
vindictive bows into the cold
malicious waves, who should
I see standing at her helm but
Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic
awe and fearfulness upon the man,
who in mid-winter just landed from
a four years’ dangerous voyage,
could so unrestingly push off again
for still another tempestuous
term. The land seemed scorching
to his feet. Wonderfullest things
are ever the unmentionable; deep
memories yield no epitaphs; this
six-inch chapter is the stoneless
grave of Bulkington. Let me only say
that it fared with him as with the
storm-tossed ship, that miserably
drives along the leeward land. The
port would fain give succor; the port
is pitiful; in the port is safety,
comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm
blankets, friends, all that’s
kind to our mortalities. But in
that gale, the port, the land,
is that ship’s direst jeopardy;
she must fly all hospitality; one
touch of land, though it but graze
the keel, would make her shudder
through and through. With all her
might she crowds all sail off shore;
in so doing, fights ’gainst the
very winds that fain would blow
her homeward; seeks all the lashed
sea’s landlessness again; for
refuge’s sake forlornly rushing
into peril; her only friend her
bitterest foe!
Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses
do ye seem to see of that mortally
intolerable truth; that all deep,
earnest thinking is but the intrepid
effort of the soul to keep the open
independence of her sea; while
the wildest winds of heaven and
earth conspire to cast her on the
treacherous, slavish shore?
But as in landlessness alone resides
highest truth, shoreless, indefinite
as God—so, better is it to perish
in that howling infinite, than be
ingloriously dashed upon the lee,
even if that were safety! For
worm-like, then, oh! who would
craven crawl to land! Terrors of
the terrible! is all this agony
so vain? Take heart, take heart,
O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly,
demigod! Up from the spray of thy
ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps
thy apotheosis!
CHAPTER 24. The Advocate.
As Queequeg and I are now fairly
embarked in this business of whaling;
and as this business of whaling has
somehow come to be regarded among
landsmen as a rather unpoetical and
disreputable pursuit; therefore,
I am all anxiety to convince ye,
ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby
done to us hunters of whales.
In the first place, it may be deemed
almost superfluous to establish the
fact, that among people at large,
the business of whaling is not
accounted on a level with what are
called the liberal professions. If
a stranger were introduced into any
miscellaneous metropolitan society,
it would but slightly advance the
general opinion of his merits, were
he presented to the company as a
harpooneer, say; and if in emulation
of the naval officers he should
append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm
Whale Fishery) to his visiting
card, such a procedure would be
deemed pre-eminently presuming and
ridiculous.
Doubtless one leading reason why
the world declines honoring us
whalemen, is this: they think that,
at best, our vocation amounts to
a butchering sort of business; and
that when actively engaged therein,
we are surrounded by all manner
of defilements. Butchers we are,
that is true. But butchers, also,
and butchers of the bloodiest badge
have been all Martial Commanders
whom the world invariably delights
to honor. And as for the matter of
the alleged uncleanliness of our
business, ye shall soon be initiated
into certain facts hitherto pretty
generally unknown, and which,
upon the whole, will triumphantly
plant the sperm whale-ship at least
among the cleanliest things of this
tidy earth. But even granting the
charge in question to be true;
what disordered slippery decks
of a whale-ship are comparable to
the unspeakable carrion of those
battle-fields from which so many
soldiers return to drink in all
ladies’ plaudits? And if the
idea of peril so much enhances the
popular conceit of the soldier’s
profession; let me assure ye that
many a veteran who has freely marched
up to a battery, would quickly recoil
at the apparition of the sperm
whale’s vast tail, fanning into
eddies the air over his head. For
what are the comprehensible terrors
of man compared with the interlinked
terrors and wonders of God!
But, though the world scouts at
us whale hunters, yet does it
unwittingly pay us the profoundest
homage; yea, an all-abounding
adoration! for almost all the tapers,
lamps, and candles that burn round
the globe, burn, as before so many
shrines, to our glory!
But look at this matter in other
lights; weigh it in all sorts of
scales; see what we whalemen are,
and have been.
Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s
time have admirals of their whaling
fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France,
at his own personal expense, fit
out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and
politely invite to that town some
score or two of families from our own
island of Nantucket? Why did Britain
between the years 1750 and 1788 pay
to her whalemen in bounties upwards
of £1,000,000? 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
every 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 harbors, let them fire
salutes to the honor and glory of the
whale-ship, which originally showed
them the way, and first interpreted
between them and the savages. They
may celebrate as they will the heroes
of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks,
your Krusensterns; but I say that
scores of anonymous Captains have
sailed out of Nantucket, that were
as great, and greater than your Cook
and your Krusenstern. For in their
succourless empty-handedness, they,
in the heathenish sharked waters,
and by the beaches of unrecorded,
javelin islands, battled with virgin
wonders and terrors that Cook 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
dedicates three chapters to, these
men accounted unworthy of being set
down in the ship’s common log. Ah,
the world! Oh, the world!
Until the whale fishery rounded Cape
Horn, no commerce but colonial,
scarcely any intercourse but
colonial, was carried on between
Europe and the long line of the
opulent Spanish provinces on the
Pacific coast. It was the 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 liberation of Peru,
Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of
Old Spain, and the establishment of
the eternal democracy in those parts.
That great America on the other
side of the sphere, Australia,
was given to the enlightened world
by the whaleman. After its first
blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman,
all other ships long shunned those
shores as pestiferously barbarous;
but the whale-ship touched there. The
whale-ship is the true mother of
that now mighty colony. Moreover, in
the infancy of the first Australian
settlement, the emigrants were
several times saved from starvation
by the benevolent biscuit of the
whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor
in their waters. The uncounted isles
of all Polynesia confess the same
truth, and do commercial homage to
the whale-ship, that cleared the way
for the missionary and the merchant,
and in many cases carried the
primitive missionaries to their first
destinations. If that double-bolted
land, Japan, is ever to become
hospitable, it is the whale-ship
alone to whom the credit will be due;
for already she is on the threshold.
But if, in the face of all this,
you still declare that whaling has
no æsthetically noble associations
connected with it, then am I ready to
shiver fifty lances with you there,
and unhorse you with a split helmet
every time.
The whale has no famous author,
and whaling no famous chronicler,
you will say.
_The whale no famous author, and
whaling no famous chronicler?_
Who wrote the first account of our
Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And
who composed the first narrative of
a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a
prince than Alfred the Great, who,
with his own royal pen, took down
the words from Other, the Norwegian
whale-hunter of those times! And
who pronounced our glowing eulogy in
Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!
True enough, but then whalemen
themselves are poor devils; they have
no good blood in their veins.
_No good blood in their veins?_
They have something better than
royal blood there. The grandmother
of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;
afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger,
one of the old settlers of Nantucket,
and the ancestress to a long line of
Folgers and harpooneers—all kith
and kin to noble Benjamin—this day
darting the barbed iron from one side
of the world to the other.
Good again; but then all confess that
somehow whaling is not respectable.
_Whaling not respectable?_ Whaling
is imperial! By old English statutory
law, the whale is declared "a royal
fish." *
Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale
himself has never figured in any
grand imposing way.
_The whale never figured in any grand
imposing way?_ In one of the mighty
triumphs given to a Roman general
upon his entering the world’s
capital, the bones of a whale,
brought all the way from the Syrian
coast, were the most conspicuous
object in the cymballed procession.*
*See subsequent chapters for
something more on this head.
Grant it, since you cite it; but,
say what you will, there is no real
dignity in whaling.
_No dignity in whaling?_ The dignity
of our calling the very heavens
attest. Cetus is a constellation in
the South! No more! Drive down your
hat in presence of the Czar, and
take it off to Queequeg! No more! I
know a man that, in his lifetime,
has taken three hundred and fifty
whales. I account that man more
honorable than that great captain of
antiquity who boasted of taking as
many walled towns.
And, as for me, if, by any
possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me; if
I shall ever deserve any real repute
in that small but high hushed world
which I might not be unreasonably
ambitious of; if hereafter I shall
do anything that, upon the whole,
a man might rather have done than to
have left undone; if, at my death,
my executors, or more properly my
creditors, find any precious MSS. in
my desk, then here I prospectively
ascribe all the honor and the glory
to whaling; for a whale-ship was my
Yale College and my Harvard.
CHAPTER 25. Postscript.
In behalf of the dignity of whaling,
I would fain advance naught but
substantiated facts. But after
embattling his facts, an advocate
who should wholly suppress a
not unreasonable surmise, which
might tell eloquently upon his
cause—such an advocate, would he
not be 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 castor 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!
CHAPTER 26. 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
prepared 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 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 ignorance. 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
estimation 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 Stubb, 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 the bottomless
deeps, could he 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 courage 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 valour 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-ruined 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 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 paupered arm of old Cervantes;
Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson
from the pebbles; who didst hurl him
upon a war-horse; who didst thunder
him higher than a throne! Thou who,
in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings,
ever cullest Thy selectest champions
from the kingly commons; bear me out
in it, O God!
CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.
Stubb was the second mate. He was
a native of Cape Cod; and hence,
according to local usage, was called
a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky;
neither craven nor valiant;
taking perils as they came with an
indifferent air; and while engaged
in the most imminent crisis of
the chase, toiling away, calm and
collected as a journeyman joiner
engaged for the year. Good-humored,
easy, and careless, he presided over
his 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 life in
a world full of grave pedlars,
all bowed to the ground with their
packs; what helped to bring about
that almost impious good-humor of
his; that thing must have been his
pipe. For, like his nose, his short,
black little pipe was one of the
regular features of his face. You
would almost as soon have expected
him to turn out of his bunk without
his nose as without his pipe. He
kept a whole row of pipes there
ready loaded, stuck in a rack,
within easy reach of his hand;
and, whenever he turned in, he
smoked them all out in succession,
lighting one from the other to the
end of the chapter; then loading them
again to be in readiness anew. For,
when Stubb dressed, instead of first
putting his legs into his trowsers,
he put his pipe into his mouth.
I say this continual smoking must
have been one cause, at least, of
his peculiar disposition; for every
one knows that this earthly air,
whether ashore or afloat, is terribly
infected with the nameless miseries
of the numberless mortals who have
died exhaling it; and as in time of
the cholera, some people go about
with a camphorated handkerchief to
their mouths; so, likewise, against
all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s
tobacco smoke might have operated as
a sort of disinfecting agent.
The third mate was Flask, a native of
Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard. A
short, stout, ruddy young fellow,
very pugnacious concerning whales,
who somehow seemed to think that
the great leviathans had personally
and hereditarily affronted him;
and therefore it was a sort of point
of honor with him, to destroy them
whenever encountered. So utterly lost
was he to all sense of reverence
for the many marvels of their
majestic bulk and mystic ways;
and so dead to anything like an
apprehension of any possible danger
from encountering them; that in his
poor opinion, the wondrous whale was
but a species of magnified mouse, or
at least water-rat, requiring only a
little circumvention and some small
application of time and trouble
in order to kill and boil. This
ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of
his made him a little waggish in the
matter of whales; he followed these
fish for the fun of it; and a three
years’ voyage round Cape Horn was
only a jolly joke that lasted that
length of time. As a carpenter’s
nails are divided into wrought nails
and cut nails; so mankind may be
similarly divided. Little Flask
was one of the wrought ones; made
to clinch tight and last long. They
called him King-Post on board of the
Pequod; because, in form, he could
be well likened to the short, square
timber known by that name in Arctic
whalers; and which by the means of
many radiating side timbers inserted
into it, serves to brace the ship
against the icy concussions of those
battering seas.
Now these three mates—Starbuck,
Stubb, and Flask, were momentous
men. They it was who by universal
prescription commanded three of the
Pequod’s boats as headsmen. In
that grand order of battle in which
Captain Ahab would probably marshal
his forces to descend on the whales,
these three headsmen were as captains
of companies. Or, being armed with
their long keen whaling spears, they
were as a picked trio of lancers;
even as the harpooneers were flingers
of javelins.
And since in this famous fishery,
each mate or headsman, like a Gothic
Knight of old, is always accompanied
by his boat-steerer or harpooneer,
who in certain conjunctures provides
him with a fresh lance, when the
former one has been badly twisted,
or elbowed in the assault; and
moreover, as there generally subsists
between the two, a close intimacy
and friendliness; it is therefore
but meet, that in this place we set
down who the Pequod’s harpooneers
were, and to what headsman each of
them belonged.
First of all was Queequeg, whom
Starbuck, the chief mate, had
selected for his squire. But Queequeg
is already known.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed
Indian from Gay Head, the most
westerly promontory of Martha’s
Vineyard, where there still exists
the last remnant of a village of red
men, which has long supplied the
neighboring island of Nantucket
with many of her most daring
harpooneers. In the fishery, they
usually go by the generic name of
Gay-Headers. Tashtego’s long, lean,
sable hair, his high cheek bones,
and black rounding eyes—for an
Indian, Oriental in their largeness,
but Antarctic in their glittering
expression—all this sufficiently
proclaimed him an inheritor of
the unvitiated 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 snuffing
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 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
behold. Suspended from his ears were
two golden hoops, so large that the
sailors called them ring-bolts, and
would talk of securing 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 uncommonly 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,
Ahasuerus 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 American 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 liberally 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 Nantucket whalers
frequently touch to augment their
crews from the hardy peasants of
those rocky shores. In like manner,
the 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 _Isolato_ 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 very 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 great 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 28. Ahab.
For several days after leaving
Nantucket, nothing above 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 dictator was there,
though hitherto unseen by any eyes
not permitted to penetrate into the
now sacred retreat of the cabin.
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 diabolical 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 especially the aspect of the
three chief officers of the ship,
the mates, which was most forcibly
calculated to allay these colourless
misgivings, and induce confidence and
cheerfulness in every presentment
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 rapidity,
that as I mounted to the deck at
the call of the forenoon watch,
so soon as I levelled my glance
towards the taffrail, foreboding
shivers ran over me. Reality outran
apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon
his quarter-deck.
There seemed no sign of common
bodily illness about him, nor of the
recovery from any. He looked like a
man cut away from the stake, when the
fire has overrunningly wasted all
the limbs without consuming them,
or taking away one particle from
their compacted aged robustness. His
whole high, broad form, seemed made
of solid bronze, and shaped in an
unalterable mould, like Cellini’s
cast Perseus. Threading its way
out from among his grey hairs, and
continuing right down one side of
his tawny scorched face and neck,
till it disappeared in his clothing,
you saw a slender rod-like mark,
lividly whitish. It resembled
that perpendicular seam sometimes
made in the straight, lofty trunk
of a great tree, when the upper
lightning tearingly darts down it,
and without wrenching a single twig,
peels and grooves out the bark from
top to bottom, ere running off into
the soil, leaving the tree still
greenly alive, but branded. Whether
that mark was born with him, or
whether it was the scar left by
some desperate wound, no one could
certainly say. By some tacit consent,
throughout the voyage little or no
allusion was made to it, especially
by the mates. But once Tashtego’s
senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among
the crew, superstitiously asserted
that not till he was full forty years
old did Ahab become that way branded,
and then it came upon him, not in
the fury of any mortal fray, but
in an elemental strife at sea. Yet,
this wild hint seemed inferentially
negatived, by what a grey Manxman
insinuated, an old sepulchral man,
who, having never before sailed out
of Nantucket, had never ere this laid
eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the
old sea-traditions, the immemorial
credulities, popularly invested this
old Manxman with preternatural powers
of discernment. So that no white
sailor seriously contradicted him
when he said that if ever Captain
Ahab should be tranquilly laid
out—which might hardly come to
pass, so he muttered—then, whoever
should do that last office for the
dead, would find a birth-mark on him
from crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim
aspect of Ahab affect me, and the
livid brand which streaked it, that
for the first few moments I hardly
noted that not a little of this
overbearing grimness was owing to
the barbaric white leg upon which he
partly stood. It had previously come
to me that this ivory leg had at sea
been fashioned from the polished bone
of the sperm whale’s jaw. "Aye,
he was dismasted off Japan," said
the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but
like his dismasted craft, he shipped
another mast without coming home for
it. He has a quiver of ’em."
I was struck with the singular
posture he maintained. Upon each
side of the Pequod’s quarter deck,
and pretty close to the mizzen
shrouds, there was an auger hole,
bored about half an inch or so, into
the plank. His bone leg steadied in
that hole; one arm elevated, and
holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab
stood erect, looking straight out
beyond the ship’s ever-pitching
prow. There was an infinity of
firmest fortitude, a determinate,
unsurrenderable wilfulness, in
the fixed and fearless, forward
dedication of that glance. Not a word
he spoke; nor did his officers say
aught to him; though by all their
minutest gestures and expressions,
they plainly showed the uneasy, if
not painful, consciousness of being
under a troubled master-eye. And not
only that, but moody stricken Ahab
stood before them with a crucifixion
in his face; in all the nameless
regal overbearing dignity of some
mighty woe.
Ere long, from his first visit in
the air, he withdrew into his cabin.
But after that morning, he was
every day visible to the crew;
either standing in his pivot-hole,
or seated upon an ivory stool he had;
or heavily walking the deck. As the
sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began
to grow a little genial, he became
still less and less a recluse; as
if, when the ship had sailed from
home, nothing but the dead wintry
bleakness of the sea had then kept
him so secluded. And, by and by,
it came to pass, that he was almost
continually in the air; but, as yet,
for all that he said, or perceptibly
did, on the at last sunny deck,
he seemed as unnecessary there as
another mast. But the Pequod was only
making a passage now; not regularly
cruising; nearly all whaling
preparatives needing supervision
the mates were fully competent to,
so that there was little or nothing,
out of himself, to employ or excite
Ahab, now; and thus chase away,
for that one interval, the clouds
that layer upon layer were piled
upon his brow, as ever all clouds
choose the loftiest peaks to pile
themselves upon.
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm,
warbling persuasiveness of the
pleasant, holiday weather we came
to, seemed gradually to charm him
from his mood. For, as when the
red-cheeked, dancing girls, April
and May, trip home to the wintry,
misanthropic woods; even the barest,
ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old
oak will at least send forth some
few green sprouts, to welcome such
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 29. Enter Ahab; to Him,
Stubb.
Some days elapsed, and ice and
icebergs all astern, the Pequod now
went rolling through the bright
Quito spring, which, at sea,
almost perpetually reigns on the
threshold of the eternal August of
the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear,
ringing, perfumed, overflowing,
redundant days, were as crystal
goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped
up—flaked up, with rose-water
snow. The starred and stately nights
seemed haughty dames in jewelled
velvets, nursing at home in lonely
pride, the memory of their absent
conquering Earls, the golden helmeted
suns! For sleeping man, ’twas hard
to choose between such winsome days
and such seducing nights. But all
the witcheries of that unwaning
weather did not merely lend new
spells and potencies to the outward
world. Inward they turned upon the
soul, especially when the still
mild hours of eve came on; then,
memory shot her crystals as the
clear ice most forms of noiseless
twilights. And all these subtle
agencies, more and more they wrought
on Ahab’s texture.
Old age is always wakeful; as if,
the longer linked with life, the less
man has to do with aught that looks
like death. Among sea-commanders,
the old greybeards will oftenest
leave their berths to visit the
night-cloaked deck. It was so with
Ahab; only that now, of late, he
seemed so much to live in the open
air, that truly speaking, his visits
were more to the cabin, than from the
cabin to the planks. "It feels like
going down into one’s tomb,"—he
would mutter to himself—"for an
old captain like me to be descending
this narrow scuttle, to go to my
grave-dug berth."
So, almost every twenty-four hours,
when the watches of the night were
set, and the band on deck sentinelled
the slumbers of the band below;
and when if a rope was to be hauled
upon the forecastle, the sailors
flung it not rudely down, as by day,
but with some cautiousness dropt it
to its place for fear of disturbing
their slumbering shipmates; when
this sort of steady quietude would
begin to prevail, habitually, the
silent steersman would watch the
cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old
man would emerge, gripping at the
iron banister, to help his crippled
way. Some considering touch of
humanity was in him; for at times
like these, he usually abstained
from patrolling the quarter-deck;
because to his wearied mates,
seeking repose within six inches of
his ivory heel, such would have been
the reverberating crack and din of
that bony step, that their dreams
would have been on the crunching
teeth of sharks. But once, the mood
was on him too deep for common
regardings; and as with heavy,
lumber-like pace he was measuring
the ship from taffrail to mainmast,
Stubb, the old second mate, came up
from below, with a certain unassured,
deprecating humorousness, hinted that
if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk
the planks, then, no one could say
nay; but there might be some way of
muffling the noise; hinting something
indistinctly and hesitatingly about a
globe of tow, and the insertion into
it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb,
thou didst not know Ahab then.
"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,"
said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad
me that fashion? But go thy ways;
I had forgot. Below to thy nightly
grave; where such as ye sleep between
shrouds, to use ye to the filling one
at last.—Down, dog, and kennel!"
Starting at the unforseen
concluding exclamation of the so
suddenly scornful old man, Stubb
was speechless a moment; then said
excitedly, "I am not used to be
spoken to that way, sir; I do but
less than half like it, sir."
"Avast! gritted Ahab between his
set teeth, and violently moving
away, as if to avoid some passionate
temptation.
"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb,
emboldened, "I will not tamely be
called a dog, sir."
"Then be called ten times a donkey,
and a mule, and an ass, and begone,
or I’ll clear the world of thee!"
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon
him with such overbearing terrors in
his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily
retreated.
"I was never served so before
without giving a hard blow for
it," muttered Stubb, as he
found himself descending the
cabin-scuttle. "It’s very
queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now,
I don’t well know whether to go
back and strike him, or—what’s
that?—down here on my knees and
pray for him? Yes, that was the
thought coming up in me; but it
would be the first time I ever _did_
pray. It’s queer; very queer; and
he’s queer too; aye, take him fore
and aft, he’s about the queerest
old man Stubb ever sailed with. How
he flashed at me!—his eyes like
powder-pans! is he mad? Anyway
there’s something on his mind,
as sure as there must be something
on a deck when it cracks. He aint in
his bed now, either, more than three
hours out of the twenty-four; and he
don’t sleep then. Didn’t that
Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that
of a morning he always finds the old
man’s hammock clothes all rumpled
and tumbled, and the sheets down at
the foot, and the coverlid almost
tied into knots, and the pillow a
sort of frightful hot, as though a
baked brick had been on it? A hot
old man! I guess he’s got what
some folks ashore call a conscience;
it’s a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they
say—worse nor a toothache. Well,
well; I don’t know what it is,
but the Lord keep me from catching
it. He’s full of riddles; I wonder
what he goes into the after hold for,
every night, as Dough-Boy tells me
he suspects; what’s that for,
I should like to know? Who’s
made appointments with him in the
hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But
there’s no telling, it’s the old
game—Here goes for a snooze. Damn
me, it’s worth a fellow’s while
to be born into the world, if only
to fall right asleep. And now that
I think of it, that’s about the
first thing babies do, and that’s
a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but
all things are queer, come to think
of ’em. But that’s against my
principles. Think not, is my eleventh
commandment; and sleep when you can,
is my twelfth—So here goes again.
But how’s that? didn’t he
call me a dog? blazes! he called
me ten times a donkey, and piled a
lot of jackasses on top of _that!_
He might as well have kicked me,
and done with it. Maybe he _did_
kick me, and I didn’t observe it,
I 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. Coming
afoul of that old man has a 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 daylight."
CHAPTER 30. 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 hairs,
not 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 31. 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 insult, 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 difference
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 is; whereas,
if a broad footed farmer kicked
me, _there’s_ a devilish 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 fright. ‘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 seaweed 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
pitch 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 kicks honors; and on no
account kick back; for you can’t
help yourself, wise Stubb. Don’t
you see that pyramid?’ 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 the
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 do you 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 32. Cetology.
Already we are boldly launched
upon the deep; but soon we shall be
lost in its unshored, harbourless
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.
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 authorities have laid down.
"No branch of Zoology is so much
involved as that which is entitled
Cetology," says Captain Scoresby,
A.D. 1820.
"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 incomplete 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. Nevertheless, 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;
Linnæus; Rondeletius; Willoughby;
Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson;
Marten; Lacépède; Bonneterre;
Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick
Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby;
Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the
Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead;
and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what
ultimate generalizing purpose all
these have written, the above cited
extracts will show.
Of the names in this list of whale
authors, only those following Owen
ever saw living whales; and but one
of them was a real professional
harpooneer and whaleman. I
mean Captain Scoresby. On the
separate subject of the Greenland
or right-whale, he is the best
existing authority. But Scoresby
knew nothing and says nothing of
the great sperm whale, compared with
which the Greenland whale is almost
unworthy mentioning. 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 way 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 description. 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
subsequent laborers. As no better
man advances to take this matter
in hand, I hereupon offer my own
poor endeavors. I 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
systematization 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 Cetology
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, Linnæus 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 Linnæus’s
express edict, were still found
dividing the possession of the same
seas with the Leviathan.
The grounds upon which Linnæus
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, penem intrantem feminam mammis
lactantem," and finally, "ex
lege naturæ 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 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 whale
differ from other fish. Above,
Linnæus 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 externals,
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 definition 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 this ground-plan of
Cetology. Now, then, come the grand
divisions of the entire whale host.
*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 noisy, 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.
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 chapters:—I. The
_Sperm Whale_; II. the _Right Whale_;
III. the _Fin-Back Whale_; IV.
the _Hump-backed Whale_; V. the
_Razor 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 Whale. 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 exceedingly scarce,
not being used for light, but only as
an ointment 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
respect 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 fishermen,
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 baptised. 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 Baleine
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 based upon
the most inconclusive differences,
that some departments 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
III. (_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 every 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 colour,
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 surrounding
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; unexpectedly
rising to the surface in the remotest
and most sullen waters; his straight
and single lofty jet rising like a
tall misanthropic 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 unconquerable Cain of
his race, bearing for his mark that
style upon his back. From having the
baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is
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 connection with this appellative
of "Whalebone whales," it is
of great importance to mention,
that however such a nomenclature
may be convenient in facilitating
allusions to some kind of whales,
yet it is in vain to attempt
a clear classification of the
Leviathan, founded upon either his
baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth;
notwithstanding that those marked
parts or features very obviously seem
better adapted to afford the basis
for a regular system of Cetology
than any other detached bodily
distinctions, which the whale, in
his kinds, presents. How then? The
baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth;
these are things whose peculiarities
are indiscriminately dispersed among
all sorts of whales, without any
regard to what may be the nature
of their structure in other and
more essential particulars. Thus,
the sperm whale and the humpbacked
whale, each has a hump; but there the
similitude ceases. Then, this same
humpbacked whale and the Greenland
whale, each of these has baleen;
but there again the similitude
ceases. And it is just the same with
the other parts above mentioned. In
various sorts of whales, they
form such irregular combinations;
or, in the case of any one of
them detached, such an irregular
isolation; as utterly to defy all
general methodization formed upon
such a basis. On this rock every one
of the whale-naturalists has split.
But it may possibly be conceived
that, in the internal parts of
the whale, in his anatomy—there,
at least, we shall be able to hit
the right classification. Nay;
what thing, for example, is there
in the Greenland whale’s anatomy
more striking than his baleen? Yet
we have seen that by his baleen
it is impossible correctly to
classify the Greenland whale. And
if you descend into the bowels of
the various leviathans, why there
you will not find distinctions
a fiftieth part as available to
the systematizer as those external
ones already enumerated. What then
remains? nothing but to take hold
of the whales bodily, in their
entire liberal volume, and boldly
sort them that way. And this is the
Bibliographical system here adopted;
and it is the only one that can
possibly succeed, for it alone is
practicable. To proceed.
BOOK I. (_Folio_) CHAPTER IV. (_Hump
Back_).—This whale is often seen
on the northern American coast. He
has been frequently captured there,
and towed into harbor. He has a
great pack on him like a peddler;
or you might call him the Elephant
and Castle whale. At any rate,
the popular name for him does not
sufficiently distinguish him, since
the sperm whale also has a hump
though a smaller one. His oil is not
very valuable. He has baleen. He is
the most gamesome and light-hearted
of all the whales, making more gay
foam and white water generally than
any other of them.
BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER V. (_Razor
Back_).—Of this whale little is
known but his name. I have seen
him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of
a retiring nature, he eludes both
hunters and philosophers. Though
no coward, he has never yet shown
any part of him but his back, which
rises in a long sharp ridge. Let
him go. I know little more of him,
nor does anybody else.
BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER
VI. (_Sulphur Bottom_).—Another
retiring gentleman, with a brimstone
belly, doubtless got by scraping
along the Tartarian tiles in some of
his profounder divings. He is seldom
seen; at least I have never seen
him except in the remoter southern
seas, and then always at too great a
distance to study his countenance. He
is never chased; he would run away
with rope-walks of line. Prodigies
are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur
Bottom! I can say nothing more that
is true of ye, nor can the oldest
Nantucketer.
Thus ends BOOK I. (_Folio_), and now
begins BOOK II. (_Octavo_).
OCTAVOES.*—These embrace the whales
of middling magnitude, among which
present may be numbered:—I., the
_Grampus_; II., the _Black Fish_;
III., the _Narwhale_; IV., the
_Thrasher_; V., the _Killer_.
*Why this book of whales is not
denominated the Quarto is very plain.
Because, while the whales of this
order, though smaller than those of
the former order, nevertheless retain
a proportionate likeness to them in
figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto
volume in its dimensioned form does
not preserve the shape of the Folio
volume, but the Octavo volume does.
BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER
I. (_Grampus_).—Though this fish,
whose loud sonorous breathing,
or rather blowing, has furnished a
proverb to landsmen, is so well known
a denizen of the deep, yet is he not
popularly classed among whales. But
possessing all the grand distinctive
features of the leviathan, most
naturalists have recognised him
for one. He is of moderate octavo
size, varying from fifteen to
twenty-five feet in length, and
of corresponding dimensions round
the waist. He swims in herds; he is
never regularly hunted, though his
oil is considerable in quantity,
and pretty good for light. By some
fishermen his approach is regarded
as premonitory of the advance of the
great sperm whale.
BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER
II. (_Black Fish_).—I give the
popular fishermen’s names for all
these fish, for generally they are
the best. Where any name happens to
be vague or inexpressive, I shall
say so, and suggest another. I do
so now, touching the Black Fish,
so-called, because blackness is the
rule among almost all whales. So,
call him the Hyena Whale, if
you please. His voracity is well
known, and from the circumstance
that the inner angles of his lips
are curved upwards, he carries an
everlasting Mephistophelean grin
on his face. This whale averages
some sixteen or eighteen feet in
length. He is found in almost all
latitudes. He has a peculiar way
of showing his dorsal hooked fin
in swimming, which looks something
like a Roman nose. When not more
profitably employed, the sperm whale
hunters sometimes capture the Hyena
whale, to keep up the supply of cheap
oil for domestic employment—as
some frugal housekeepers, in the
absence of company, and quite alone
by themselves, burn unsavory tallow
instead of odorous wax. Though their
blubber is very thin, some of these
whales will yield you upwards of
thirty gallons of oil.
BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER
III. (_Narwhale_), that is, _Nostril
whale_.—Another instance of a
curiously named whale, so named
I suppose from his peculiar horn
being originally mistaken for a
peaked nose. The creature is some
sixteen feet in length, while its
horn averages five feet, though
some exceed ten, and even attain to
fifteen feet. Strictly speaking,
this horn is but a lengthened
tusk, growing out from the jaw in
a line a little depressed from the
horizontal. But it is only found on
the sinister side, which has an ill
effect, giving its owner something
analogous to the aspect of a clumsy
left-handed man. What precise purpose
this ivory horn or lance answers,
it would be hard to say. It does not
seem to be used like the blade of the
sword-fish and bill-fish; though some
sailors tell me that the Narwhale
employs it for a rake in turning
over the bottom of the sea for
food. Charley Coffin said it was used
for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale,
rising to the surface of the Polar
Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice,
thrusts his horn up, and so breaks
through. But you cannot prove either
of these surmises to be correct. My
own opinion is, that however this
one-sided horn may really be used
by the Narwhale—however that may
be—it would certainly be very
convenient to him for a folder in
reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I
have heard called the Tusked whale,
the Horned whale, and the Unicorn
whale. He is certainly a curious
example of the Unicornism to be found
in almost every kingdom of animated
nature. From certain cloistered old
authors I have gathered that this
same sea-unicorn’s horn was in
ancient days regarded as the great
antidote against poison, and as such,
preparations of it brought immense
prices. It was also distilled to a
volatile salts for fainting ladies,
the same way that the horns of
the male deer are manufactured
into hartshorn. Originally it
was in itself accounted an object
of great curiosity. Black Letter
tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher
on his return from that voyage,
when Queen Bess did gallantly wave
her jewelled hand to him from a
window of Greenwich Palace, as his
bold ship sailed down the Thames;
"when Sir Martin returned from
that voyage," saith Black Letter,
"on bended knees he presented to
her highness a prodigious long horn
of the Narwhale, which for a long
period after hung in the castle at
Windsor." An Irish author avers
that the Earl of Leicester, on bended
knees, did likewise present to her
highness another horn, pertaining to
a land beast of the unicorn nature.
The Narwhale has a very picturesque,
leopard-like look, being of a
milk-white ground colour, dotted
with round and oblong spots of black.
His oil is very superior, clear and
fine; but there is little of it,
and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly
found in the circumpolar seas.
BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER
IV. (_Killer_).—Of this whale
little is precisely known to the
Nantucketer, and nothing at all to
the professed 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
sometimes takes the great Folio
whales by the lip, and hangs there
like a leech, till the mighty brute
is worried to death. The Killer
is never hunted. I never heard what
sort of oil he has. Exception might
be taken to the name bestowed
upon this whale, on the ground
of its indistinctness. For we are
all killers, on land and on sea;
Bonapartes and Sharks included.
BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER
V. (_Thrasher_).—This gentleman
is famous for his tail, which he
uses for a ferule in thrashing his
foes. He mounts the Folio whale’s
back, and as he swims, he works his
passage by flogging him; as some
schoolmasters get along in the world
by a similar process. Still less is
known of the Thrasher than of the
Killer. Both are outlaws, even in
the lawless seas.
Thus ends BOOK II. (_Octavo_),
and begins BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_).
DUODECIMOES.—These include
the smaller whales. I. The
Huzza Porpoise. II. The Algerine
Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed
Porpoise.
To those who have not chanced
specially to study the subject,
it may possibly seem strange, that
fishes not commonly exceeding four
or five feet should be marshalled
among WHALES—a word, which, in
the popular sense, always conveys an
idea of hugeness. But the creatures
set down above as Duodecimoes are
infallibly whales, by the terms
of my definition of what a whale
is—_i.e._ a spouting fish, with a
horizontal tail.
BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER
1. (_Huzza Porpoise_).—This is
the common porpoise found almost
all over the globe. The name is
of my own bestowal; for there are
more than one sort of porpoises,
and something must be done to
distinguish them. I call him thus,
because he always swims in hilarious
shoals, which upon the broad sea keep
tossing themselves to heaven like
caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their
appearance is generally hailed with
delight by the mariner. Full of fine
spirits, they invariably come from
the breezy billows to windward. They
are the lads that always live before
the wind. They are accounted a lucky
omen. If you yourself can withstand
three cheers at beholding these
vivacious fish, then heaven help ye;
the spirit of godly gamesomeness is
not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza
Porpoise will yield you one good
gallon of good oil. But the fine and
delicate fluid extracted from his
jaws is exceedingly valuable. It
is in request among jewellers and
watchmakers. Sailors put it on
their hones. Porpoise meat is good
eating, you know. It may never have
occurred to you that a porpoise
spouts. Indeed, his spout is so
small that it is not very readily
discernible. But the next time you
have a chance, watch him; and you
will then see the great Sperm whale
himself in miniature.
BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER
II. (_Algerine Porpoise_).—A
pirate. Very savage. He is only
found, I think, in the Pacific. He
is somewhat larger than the Huzza
Porpoise, but much of the same
general make. Provoke him, and
he will buckle to a shark. I have
lowered for him many times, but never
yet saw him captured.
BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_),
CHAPTER III. (_Mealy-mouthed
Porpoise_).—The largest kind of
Porpoise; and only found in the
Pacific, so far as it is known. The
only English name, by which he has
hitherto been designated, is that of
the 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
separate colours, 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, inasmuch as
the Porpoise is the smallest
of the whales. Above, you have
all the Leviathans of note. But
there are a rabble of uncertain,
fugitive, half-fabulous whales,
which, as an American whaleman,
I know by reputation, but not
personally. I shall enumerate them
by their fore-castle 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 readily
be incorporated into this System,
according to his Folio, Octavo,
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; etc. From Icelandic,
Dutch, and old English authorities,
there might be quoted other lists
of uncertain whales, blessed with
all manner of uncouth names. But I
omit them as altogether obsolete; and
can hardly help suspecting them for
mere sounds, full of Leviathanism,
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 33. The Specksnyder.
Concerning the officers of the
whale-craft, this seems as good a
place as any to set down a little
domestic peculiarity on ship-board,
arising from the existence of the
harpooneer class of officers, 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 Specksnyder. 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
department and all its concerns,
the Specksnyder or Chief Harpooneer
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 under 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 quarters 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 captain’s cabin, and sleep
in a place indirectly communicating
with it.
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
whalemen 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. Indeed, 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,
instantaneous 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 behind
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. For be
a man’s intellectual superiority
what it will, it can never assume
the practical, available supremacy
over other men, without 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 imparted
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
tremendous centralization. Nor, will
the tragic dramatist who would depict
mortal indomitableness in its fullest
sweep and direct swing, ever forget
a hint, incidentally so important in
his art, as the one now alluded to.
But Ahab, my Captain, still moves
before me in all his Nantucket
grimness and shagginess; and in this
episode touching Emperors and Kings,
I must not conceal that I have only
to do with a poor old whale-hunter
like him; and, therefore, all outward
majestical trappings and housings
are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall
be grand in thee, it must needs be
plucked at from the skies, and dived
for in the deep, and featured in the
unbodied air!
CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.
It is noon; and Dough-Boy,
the steward, thrusting his
pale loaf-of-bread face from the
cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to
his lord and master; who, sitting
in the lee quarter-boat, has just
been taking an observation of the
sun; and is now mutely reckoning
the latitude on the smooth,
medallion-shaped tablet, reserved
for that daily purpose on the upper
part of his ivory leg. From his
complete inattention to the tidings,
you would think that moody Ahab had
not heard his menial. But presently,
catching hold of the mizen shrouds,
he swings himself to the deck, and
in an even, unexhilarated voice,
saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck,"
disappears into the cabin.
When the last echo of his sultan’s
step has died away, and Starbuck,
the first Emir, has every reason
to suppose that he is seated,
then Starbuck rouses from his
quietude, takes a few turns along
the planks, and, after a grave peep
into the binnacle, says, with some
touch of pleasantness, "Dinner,
Mr. Stubb," and descends the
scuttle. The second Emir lounges
about the rigging awhile, and then
slightly shaking the main brace,
to see whether it will be all right
with that important rope, he likewise
takes up the old burden, and with
a rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask,"
follows after his predecessors.
But the third Emir, now
seeing himself all alone on the
quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved
from some curious restraint; for,
tipping all sorts of knowing winks
in all sorts of directions, and
kicking off his shoes, he strikes
into a sharp but noiseless squall
of a hornpipe right over the Grand
Turk’s head; and then, by a
dexterous sleight, pitching his cap
up into the mizentop for a shelf, he
goes down rollicking so far at least
as he remains visible from the deck,
reversing all other processions, by
bringing up the rear with music. But
ere stepping into the cabin doorway
below, he pauses, ships a new face
altogether, and, then, independent,
hilarious little Flask enters King
Ahab’s presence, in the character
of Abjectus, or the Slave.
It is not the least among the
strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages,
that while in the open air of
the deck some officers will, upon
provocation, bear themselves boldly
and defyingly enough towards their
commander; yet, ten to one, let
those very officers the next moment
go down to their customary dinner
in that same commander’s cabin,
and straightway their inoffensive,
not to say deprecatory and humble air
towards him, as he sits at the head
of the table; this is marvellous,
sometimes most comical. Wherefore
this difference? A problem? Perhaps
not. To have been Belshazzar, King of
Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar,
not haughtily but courteously,
therein certainly must have been some
touch of mundane grandeur. But he who
in the rightly regal and intelligent
spirit presides over his own private
dinner-table of invited guests,
that man’s unchallenged power and
dominion of individual influence
for the time; that man’s royalty
of state transcends Belshazzar’s,
for Belshazzar was not the greatest.
Who has but once dined his friends,
has tasted what it is to be Cæsar.
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 warlike but still deferential
cubs. In his own proper turn, each
officer waited to be served. They
were as little children before
Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there
seemed not to lurk the smallest
social arrogance. With one mind,
their intent eyes all fastened upon
the old man’s knife, as he carved
the chief dish before him. I do not
suppose that for the world they
would have profaned that moment
with the slightest observation,
even upon so neutral a topic as
the weather. No! And when reaching
out his knife and fork, between
which the slice of beef was locked,
Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck’s
plate towards him, the mate received
his meat as though receiving alms;
and cut it tenderly; and a little
started if, perchance, the knife
grazed against the plate; and chewed
it noiselessly; and swallowed it,
not without circumspection. For, like
the Coronation banquet at Frankfort,
where the German Emperor profoundly
dines with the seven Imperial
Electors, so these cabin meals were
somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful
silence; and yet at table old Ahab
forbade not conversation; only he
himself was dumb. What a relief it
was to choking Stubb, when a rat
made a sudden racket in the hold
below. And poor little Flask, he was
the youngest son, and little boy of
this weary family party. His were
the shinbones of the saline beef; his
would have been the drumsticks. For
Flask to have presumed to help
himself, this must have seemed to him
tantamount to larceny in the first
degree. Had he helped himself at that
table, doubtless, never more would he
have been able to hold his head up
in this honest world; nevertheless,
strange to say, Ahab never forbade
him. And had Flask helped himself,
the chances were Ahab had never so
much as noticed it. Least of all,
did Flask presume to help himself
to butter. Whether he thought the
owners of the ship denied it to him,
on account of its clotting his clear,
sunny complexion; or whether he
deemed that, on so long a voyage in
such marketless waters, butter was
at a premium, and therefore was not
for him, a subaltern; however it was,
Flask, alas! was a butterless man!
Another thing. Flask was the last
person down at the dinner, and Flask
is the first man up. Consider! For
hereby Flask’s dinner was badly
jammed in point of time. Starbuck
and Stubb both had the start of him;
and yet they also have the privilege
of lounging in the rear. If Stubb
even, who is but a peg higher than
Flask, happens to have but a small
appetite, and soon shows symptoms of
concluding his repast, then Flask
must bestir himself, he will not
get more than three mouthfuls that
day; for it is against holy usage
for Stubb to precede Flask to the
deck. 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 it
was to be otherwise than hungry,
more or less. For what he ate did
not so much relieve his hunger, as
keep it immortal in him. Peace and
satisfaction, thought Flask, have for
ever departed from my stomach. I am
an officer; but, how I wish I could
fish a bit of old-fashioned beef in
the forecastle, as I used to when I
was before the mast. There’s the
fruits of promotion now; there’s
the vanity of glory: there’s the
insanity of life! Besides, if it
were so that any mere sailor of the
Pequod had a grudge against Flask
in Flask’s official capacity, all
that sailor had to do, in order to
obtain ample vengeance, was to go
aft at dinner-time, and get a peep
at Flask through the cabin sky-light,
sitting silly and dumfoundered before
awful Ahab.
Now, Ahab and his three mates formed
what may be called the first table
in the Pequod’s cabin. After
their departure, taking place in
inverted order to their arrival,
the canvas cloth was cleared, or
rather was restored to some hurried
order by the pallid steward. And
then the three harpooneers were
bidden to the feast, they being its
residuary legatees. They made a sort
of temporary servants’ hall of the
high and mighty cabin.
In strange contrast to the hardly
tolerable constraint and nameless
invisible domineerings of the
captain’s table, was the entire
care-free license and ease,
the almost frantic democracy
of those inferior fellows the
harpooneers. While their masters,
the mates, seemed afraid of the
sound of the hinges of their own
jaws, the harpooneers chewed their
food with such a relish that there
was a report to it. They dined
like lords; they filled their
bellies like Indian ships all day
loading with spices. Such portentous
appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego,
that to fill out the vacancies made
by the previous repast, often the
pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring
on a great baron of salt-junk,
seemingly quarried out of the solid
ox. And if he were not lively about
it, if he did not go with a nimble
hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had
an ungentlemanly way of accelerating
him by darting a fork at his back,
harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo,
seized with a sudden humor, assisted
Dough-Boy’s memory by snatching
him up bodily, and thrusting his head
into a great empty wooden trencher,
while Tashtego, knife in hand, began
laying out the circle preliminary
to scalping him. He was naturally
a very nervous, shuddering sort
of little fellow, this bread-faced
steward; the progeny of a bankrupt
baker and a hospital nurse. And
what with the standing spectacle
of the black terrific Ahab, and the
periodical tumultuous visitations of
these three savages, Dough-Boy’s
whole life was one continual
lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing
the harpooneers furnished with all
things they demanded, he would escape
from their clutches into his little
pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep
out at them through the blinds of
its door, till all was over.
It was a sight to see Queequeg seated
over against Tashtego, opposing
his filed teeth to the Indian’s:
crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on
the floor, for a bench would have
brought his hearse-plumed head to
the low carlines; at every motion of
his colossal limbs, making the low
cabin framework to shake, as when an
African elephant goes passenger in
a ship. But for all this, the great
negro was wonderfully abstemious,
not to say dainty. It seemed hardly
possible that by such comparatively
small mouthfuls he could keep
up the vitality diffused through
so broad, baronial, and superb a
person. But, doubtless, this noble
savage fed strong and drank deep
of the abounding element of air;
and through his dilated nostrils
snuffed in the sublime life of the
worlds. Not by beef or by bread,
are giants made or nourished. But
Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric
smack of the lip in eating—an ugly
sound enough—so much so, that the
trembling Dough-Boy almost looked
to see whether any marks of teeth
lurked in his own lean arms. And
when he would hear Tashtego singing
out for him to produce himself,
that his bones might be picked,
the simple-witted steward all but
shattered the crockery hanging round
him in the pantry, by his sudden
fits of the palsy. Nor did the
whetstone which the harpooneers
carried in their pockets, for
their lances and other weapons; and
with which whetstones, at dinner,
they would ostentatiously sharpen
their knives; that grating sound
did not at all tend to tranquillize
poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget
that in his Island days, Queequeg,
for one, must certainly have been
guilty of some murderous, convivial
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 nominally lived there;
still, being anything but sedentary
in their habits, they were scarcely
ever in it except at mealtimes,
and just before sleeping-time, when
they passed through it to their own
peculiar quarters.
In this one matter, Ahab seemed no
exception to most American whale
captains, who, as a set, rather
incline to the opinion that by rights
the ship’s cabin belongs to them;
and that it is by courtesy alone
that anybody else is, at any time,
permitted there. So that, in real
truth, the mates and harpooneers of
the Pequod might more properly be
said to have lived out of the cabin
than in it. For when they did enter
it, it was something as a 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 inaccessible. Though
nominally included in the census of
Christendom, he was still an alien
to it. He lived in the world, as
the last of the Grisly Bears lived
in settled Missouri. And as when
Spring and Summer had departed, that
wild Logan of the woods, burying
himself in the hollow of a tree,
lived out the winter there, sucking
his own paws; so, in his inclement,
howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut
up in the caved trunk of his body,
there fed upon the sullen paws of
its gloom!
CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.
It was during the more pleasant
weather, that in due rotation with
the other seamen my first mast-head
came round.
In most American whalemen the
mast-heads are manned almost
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
anything 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 expatiate 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 mast-head standers,
is an assertion based upon the
general belief among archæologists,
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 upliftings 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 everything 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 grandeur 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 distracted decks
upon which they gaze; however it
may be surmised, that their spirits
penetrate through the thick haze of
the 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 regular 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 uneventfulness 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 for three years and more
are snugly stowed in casks, and your
bill of fare is immutable.
In one of those southern whalesmen,
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 sentry 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 fleshy 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 enviable 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 fireside narrative
of Captain Sleet, entitled "A
Voyage among the Icebergs, in
quest of the Greenland Whale, and
incidentally for the re-discovery
of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of
Old Greenland;" in this admirable
volume, all standers of mast-heads
are furnished with a charmingly
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 infesting 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 counteracting
the errors resulting from what is
called the "local attraction"
of all binnacle magnets; an error
ascribable to the horizontal vicinity
of the iron in the ship’s planks,
and in the Glacier’s case,
perhaps, to there having been
so many broken-down blacksmiths
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 "approximate 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 replenished 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 Greenlandmen
were; yet that disadvantage is
greatly counter-balanced by the
widely contrasting 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 Queequeg, 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 fisheries any lad with
lean brow and hollow eye; given
to unseasonable meditativeness;
and who offers to ship with the
Phædon 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. Nor are these monitions
at all unneeded. For nowadays, 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 otherwise. 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
listlessness 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 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 imparted 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 36. The Quarter-Deck.
(_Enter Ahab: 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 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 movement.
"D’ye mark him, Flask?"
whispered Stubb; "the chick
that’s in him pecks the
shell. ’Twill 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 Starbuck 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
and 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 standpoint;
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
whispering among the men; till
Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask,
that Ahab must have summoned them
there for the purpose of witnessing
a pedestrian feat. But this did
not last long. Vehemently 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; observing
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-revolving 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, exhibiting 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 tarpaulins they
hailed the act of nailing the gold
to the mast.
"It’s a white whale, I say,"
resumed Ahab, as he threw down the
topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your
eyes for him, men; look sharp for
white water; if ye see but a bubble,
sing out."
All this while Tashtego, Daggoo,
and Queequeg had looked on with even
more intense interest and surprise
than the rest, and at the mention
of the wrinkled brow and crooked
jaw they had started as if each was
separately touched by some specific
recollection.
"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego,
"that white whale must be the same
that some call Moby Dick."
"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do
ye know the white whale then,
Tash?"
"Does he fan-tail a little curious,
sir, before he goes down?" said
the Gay-Header deliberately.
"And has he a curious spout,
too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,
even for a parmacetty, and mighty
quick, Captain Ahab?"
"And he have one, two,
three—oh! good many iron in him
hide, too, Captain," cried Queequeg
disjointedly, "all twiske-tee
be-twisk, like him—him—"
faltering hard for a word, and
screwing his hand round and round as
though uncorking a bottle—"like
him—him—"
"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye,
Queequeg, the harpoons lie all
twisted and wrenched in him; aye,
Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like
a whole shock of wheat, and white as
a pile of our Nantucket wool after
the great annual sheep-shearing;
aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like
a split jib in a squall. Death and
devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have
seen—Moby Dick—Moby Dick!"
"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck,
who, with Stubb and Flask, had
thus far been eyeing his superior
with increasing surprise, but at
last seemed struck with a thought
which somewhat explained all the
wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard
of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby
Dick that took off thy leg?"
"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab;
then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye,
my hearties all round; it was Moby
Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick
that brought me to this dead stump I
stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted
with a terrific, loud, animal sob,
like that of a heart-stricken moose;
"Aye, aye! it was that accursed
white whale that razed me; made a
poor pegging lubber of me for ever
and a day!" Then tossing both
arms, with measureless imprecations
he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and
I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and
round the Horn, and round the Norway
Maelstrom, and round perdition’s
flames before I give him up. And this
is what ye have shipped for, men! to
chase that white whale on both sides
of land, and over all sides of earth,
till he spouts black blood and rolls
fin out. What say ye, men, will ye
splice hands on it, now? I think ye
do look brave."
"Aye, aye!" shouted the
harpooneers and seamen, running
closer to the excited old man:
"A sharp eye for the white whale;
a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"
"God bless ye," he seemed to
half sob and half shout. "God bless
ye, men. Steward! go draw the great
measure of grog. But what’s this
long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt
thou not chase the white whale? art
not game for Moby Dick?"
"I am game for his crooked jaw,
and for the jaws of Death too,
Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in
the way of the business we follow;
but I came here to hunt whales,
not my commander’s vengeance. How
many barrels will thy vengeance
yield thee even if thou gettest it,
Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee
much in our Nantucket market."
"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come
closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a
little lower layer. If money’s
to be the measurer, man, and the
accountants have computed their
great counting-house the globe,
by girdling it with guineas, one to
every three parts of an inch; then,
let me tell thee, that my vengeance
will fetch a great premium _here!_"
"He smites his chest," whispered
Stubb, "what’s that for? methinks
it rings most vast, but hollow."
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!"
cried Starbuck, "that
simply smote thee from blindest
instinct! Madness! To be enraged
with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab,
seems blasphemous."
"Hark ye yet again—the little
lower layer. All visible objects,
man, are but as pasteboard masks. But
in each event—in the living
act, the undoubted deed—there,
some unknown but still reasoning
thing puts forth the mouldings
of its features from behind the
unreasoning mask. If man will strike,
strike through the mask! How can
the prisoner reach outside except
by thrusting through the wall? To
me, the white whale is that wall,
shoved near to me. Sometimes I
think there’s naught beyond.
But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he
heaps me; I see in him outrageous
strength, with an inscrutable malice
sinewing it. That inscrutable thing
is chiefly what I hate; and be the
white whale agent, or be the white
whale principal, I will wreak that
hate upon him. Talk not to me of
blasphemy, man; I’d strike the
sun if it insulted me. For could
the sun do that, then could I do
the other; since there is ever a
sort of fair play herein, jealousy
presiding over all creations. But
not my master, man, is even that fair
play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no
confines. Take off thine eye! more
intolerable than fiends’ glarings
is a doltish stare! So, so; thou
reddenest and palest; my heat has
melted thee to anger-glow. But look
ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat,
that thing unsays itself. There
are men from whom warm words are
small indignity. I meant not to
incense thee. Let it go. Look! see
yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted
tawn—living, breathing pictures
painted by the sun. The Pagan
leopards—the unrecking and
unworshipping things, that live;
and seek, and give no reasons
for the torrid life they feel!
The crew, man, the crew! Are they
not one and all with Ahab, in this
matter of the whale? See Stubb! he
laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts
to think of it. Stand up amid the
general hurricane, thy one tost
sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what
is it? 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.
Receiving the brimming pewter,
and turning to the harpooneers,
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
mariners, 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
magnetic life. The three mates
quailed before his strong, sustained,
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
cupbearers 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
harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men
that man the deathful whaleboat’s
bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us
all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to
his death!" The long, barbed steel
goblets were lifted; and to cries and
maledictions against the white whale,
the spirits were simultaneously
quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck
paled, and turned, and shivered. Once
more, and finally, the replenished
pewter went the rounds among the
frantic crew; when, waving his free
hand to them, they all dispersed;
and Ahab retired within his cabin.
CHAPTER 37. Sunset.
_The cabin; by the stern windows;
Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out_.
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale
waters, paler cheeks, where’er I
sail. The envious billows sidelong
swell to whelm my track; let them;
but first I pass.
Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s
rim, the warm waves blush like wine.
The gold brow plumbs the blue. The
diver sun—slow dived from
noon—goes down; my soul mounts
up! she wearies with her endless
hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy
that I wear? this Iron Crown of
Lombardy. Yet is it bright with
many a gem; I the wearer, see not
its far flashings; but darkly feel
that I wear that, that dazzlingly
confounds. ’Tis iron—that I
know—not gold. ’Tis split,
too—that I feel; the jagged edge
galls me so, my brain seems to beat
against the solid metal; aye, steel
skull, mine; the sort that needs no
helmet in the most brain-battering
fight!
Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was,
when as the sunrise nobly spurred me,
so the sunset soothed. No more. This
lovely light, it lights not me; all
loveliness is anguish to me, since I
can ne’er enjoy. Gifted with the
high perception, I lack the low,
enjoying power; damned, most subtly
and most malignantly! damned in the
midst of Paradise! Good night—good
night! (_waving his hand, he moves
from the window_.)
’Twas not so hard a task. I
thought to find one stubborn, at
the least; but my one cogged circle
fits into all their various wheels,
and they revolve. Or, if you will,
like so many ant-hills of powder,
they all stand before me; and I
their match. Oh, hard! that to fire
others, the match itself must needs
be wasting! What I’ve dared,
I’ve willed; and what I’ve
willed, I’ll do! They think
me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m
demoniac, I am madness maddened! That
wild madness that’s only calm
to comprehend itself! The prophecy
was that I should be dismembered;
and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now
prophesy that I will dismember
my dismemberer. Now, then, be
the prophet and the fulfiller
one. That’s more than ye, ye
great gods, ever were. I laugh and
hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,
ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and
blinded Bendigoes! I will not say
as schoolboys do to bullies—Take
some one of your own size; don’t
pommel _me!_ No, ye’ve knocked me
down, and I am up again; but _ye_
have run and hidden. Come forth from
behind your cotton bags! I have no
long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s
compliments to ye; come and see if
ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye
cannot swerve me, else ye swerve
yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve
me? The path to my fixed purpose is
laid with iron rails, whereon my soul
is grooved to run. Over unsounded
gorges, through the rifled hearts of
mountains, under torrents’ beds,
unerringly I rush! Naught’s an
obstacle, naught’s an angle to the
iron way!
CHAPTER 38. Dusk.
_By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning
against it_.
My soul is more than matched;
she’s overmanned; and by a madman!
Insufferable sting, that sanity
should ground arms on such a
field! But he drilled deep down, and
blasted all my reason out of me! I
think I see his impious end; but feel
that I must help him to it. Will I,
nill I, the ineffable thing has tied
me to him; tows me with a cable
I have no knife to cut. Horrible
old man! Who’s over him, he
cries;—aye, he would be a democrat
to all above; look, how he lords
it over all below! Oh! I plainly
see my miserable office,—to obey,
rebelling; and worse yet, to hate
with touch of pity! For in his eyes I
read some lurid woe would shrivel me
up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time
and tide flow wide. The hated whale
has the round watery world to swim
in, as the small gold-fish has its
glassy globe. His heaven-insulting
purpose, God may wedge aside. I would
up heart, were it not like lead. But
my whole clock’s run down; my
heart the all-controlling weight,
I have no key to lift again.
[_A burst of revelry from the
forecastle_.]
Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen
crew that have small touch of human
mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by
the sharkish sea. The white whale is
their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal
orgies! that revelry is forward! mark
the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks
it pictures life. Foremost through
the sparkling sea shoots on the gay,
embattled, bantering bow, but only
to drag dark Ahab after it, where he
broods within his sternward cabin,
builded over the dead water of
the wake, and further on, hunted
by its wolfish gurglings. The long
howl thrills me through! Peace! ye
revellers, and set the watch! Oh,
life! ’tis in an hour like this,
with soul beat down and held to
knowledge,—as wild, untutored
things are forced to feed—Oh,
life! ’tis now that I do feel the
latent horror in thee! but ’tis
not me! that horror’s out of me!
and with the soft feeling of the
human in me, yet will I try to fight
ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand
by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed
influences!
CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch.
Fore-Top.
(_Stubb solus, and mending a brace_.)
Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my
throat!—I’ve been thinking
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.
CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.
HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.
(_Foresail rises and discovers the
watch standing, lounging, leaning,
and lying in various attitudes,
all singing in chorus_.)
Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish
ladies! Farewell and adieu to you,
ladies of Spain! Our captain’s
commanded.—
1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys,
don’t be sentimental; it’s bad
for the digestion! Take a tonic,
follow me!
(_Sings, and all follow._)
Our captain stood upon the deck,
A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing
of those gallant whales That blew
at every strand. Oh, your tubs in
your boats, my boys, And by your
braces stand, And we’ll have
one of those fine whales, Hand,
boys, over hand! So, be cheery,
my lads! may your hearts never
fail! While the bold harpooner is
striking the whale!
MATE’S VOICE FROM THE
QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there,
forward!
2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the
chorus! Eight bells there! d’ye
hear, bell-boy? Strike the bell
eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and
let me call the watch. I’ve
the sort of mouth for that—the
hogshead mouth. So, so, (_thrusts
his head down the scuttle_,)
Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!
Eight bells there below! Tumble up!
DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing
to-night, maty; fat night for that. I
mark this in our old Mogul’s wine;
it’s quite as deadening to some
as filliping to others. We sing;
they sleep—aye, lie down there,
like ground-tier butts. At ’em
again! There, take this copper-pump,
and hail ’em through it. Tell
’em to avast dreaming of their
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 tambourine!
PIP. (_Sulky and sleepy._) Don’t
know where it is.
FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then,
and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say;
merry’s the word; hurrah! Damn
me, won’t you dance? Form, now,
Indian-file, and gallop into the
double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!
Legs! legs!
ICELAND SAILOR. I don’t like
your floor, maty; it’s too
springy to my taste. I’m used to
ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold
water on the subject; but excuse me.
MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where’s
your girls? Who but a fool would take
his left hand by his right, and say
to himself, how d’ye do? Partners!
I must have partners!
SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a
green!—then I’ll hop with ye;
yea, turn grasshopper!
LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye
sulkies, there’s plenty more of us.
Hoe corn when you may, say I. All
legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here
comes the music; now for it!
AZORE SAILOR. (_Ascending, and
pitching the tambourine up the
scuttle_.) Here you are, Pip;
and there’s the windlass-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_.)
AZORE SAILOR. (_Dancing_) Go it,
Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig
it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make
fire-flies; break the jinglers!
PIP. Jinglers, you say?—there goes
another, dropped off; I pound it so.
CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth,
then, and pound away; make a pagoda
of thyself.
FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up
thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through
it! Split jibs! tear yourselves!
TASHTEGO. (_Quietly smoking._)
That’s a white man; he calls that
fun: humph! I save my sweat.
OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether
those jolly lads bethink them of what
they are dancing over. I’ll dance
over your grave, I will—that’s
the bitterest threat of your
night-women, that beat head-winds
round corners. O Christ! to
think of the green navies and the
green-skulled crews! Well, well;
belike the whole world’s a ball,
as you scholars have it; and so
’tis right to make one ballroom of
it. Dance on, lads, you’re young;
I was once.
3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell
oh!—whew! this is worse than
pulling after whales in a calm—give
us a whiff, Tash.
(_They cease dancing, and gather
in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens—the wind rises_.)
LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys,
it’ll be douse sail soon. The
sky-born, high-tide Ganges turned to
wind! Thou showest thy black brow,
Seeva!
MALTESE SAILOR. (_Reclining and
shaking his cap_.) It’s the
waves—the snow’s caps turn to
jig it now. They’ll shake their
tassels soon. Now would all the waves
were women, then I’d go drown, and
chassee with them evermore! There’s
naught so sweet on earth—heaven
may not match it!—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
swayings—coyings—flutterings!
lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste,
observe ye, else come satiety. Eh,
Pagan? (_Nudging_.)
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 slid! 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 roaring
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
waterspout 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 tree to live when shifted to any
other soil, and 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 birthmark;
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 me! I’m
quarried out of it!
SPANISH SAILOR. (_Aside_.) He
wants to bully, ah!—the
old grudge makes me touchy
(_Advancing_.) Aye, harpooneer,
thy race is the undeniable 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 brawlers! Humph!
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,
mad’st thou the ring?
MATE’S VOICE FROM THE
QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the
halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand
by to reef topsails!
ALL. The squall! the squall! jump,
my jollies! (_They scatter_.)
PIP (_shrinking under the
windlass_). 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!
CHAPTER 41. 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, sympathetical 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 unaccompanied,
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,
comparatively, had knowingly seen
him; while the number who as yet had
actually and knowingly given battle
to him, was small indeed. For,
owing to the large number of
whale-cruisers; the disorderly
way they were sprinkled over the
entire watery circumference, many
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 obstructed 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
meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon
magnitude and malignity, 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 large,
than to the individual cause. In
that way, mostly, the disastrous
encounter between Ahab and the whale
had hitherto been popularly 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
fearlessly 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 ankles, 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 adequate 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 wonderfulness
and fearfulness of the rumors which
sometimes circulate there. For
not only are whalemen as a body
unexempt from that ignorance and
superstitiousness 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 chiseled hearth-stone,
or aught hospitable beneath that
part of the sun; in such latitudes
and longitudes, 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 fœtal 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 fearfully 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 professional inexperience, or
incompetency, or timidity, decline
a contest 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 restricted to the
ignoble monster primitively pursued
in the North; seated on their
hatches, these men will hearken
with a childish fireside 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 experiences
in the fishery may amend such
reports as these; yet in their
full terribleness, even to the
bloodthirsty item of Povelson, 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 perils of this new and daring
warfare; such men protesting that
although other leviathans might be
hopefully pursued, yet to chase and
point lance at such an apparition as
the Sperm Whale was not for mortal
man. That to attempt it, would 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 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 suggestions referred
to, as at last coming to be linked
with the White Whale in the minds of
the superstitiously 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 conceit
altogether without some faint show of
superstitious probability. 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 remain, 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 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 narrations are almost
fully equalled by the realities of
the whalemen.
Forced into familiarity, then,
with such prodigies as these;
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
superstitions; 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 unsullied 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 distinguished 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 hue, nor yet his
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 consternation 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 comrades, 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. No 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 fell for that in his
frantic morbidness he at last came to
identify with him, not only all his
bodily woes, but all his intellectual
and spiritual exasperations. The
White Whale swam before him as the
monomaniac incarnation of all those
malicious 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 whose 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 agonizing 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 encounter, that
the final monomania seized him,
seems all but certain from the
fact that, at intervals during the
passage, he was a raving lunatic;
and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet
such vital strength yet lurked in
his Egyptian chest, and was moreover
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
sufferable 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 unabated 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 madness 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, 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 royalties;
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 otherwise 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 inclined 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 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 voyage 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 revenge.
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 castaways, and
cannibals—morally enfeebled also,
by the incompetence of mere unaided
virtue or right-mindedness in
Starbuck, 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 infernal fatality to help him
to his monomaniac revenge. How it was
that they so aboundingly responded to
the old man’s ire—by what evil
magic their souls were possessed,
that at times his hate seemed almost
theirs; the White Whale as much
their insufferable 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 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 42. 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 myself I must, else all these
chapters might be naught.
Though in many natural objects,
whiteness refiningly enhances
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
preeminence 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, Cæsarian,
heir to overlording Rome, having for
the imperial colour the same imperial
hue; and though this pre-eminence in
it applies 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 innocence 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 incarnate
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 derive 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.
This elusive quality it is, which
causes the thought of whiteness,
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 whiteness makes them the
transcendent horrors they are? That
ghastly whiteness it is which imparts
such an abhorrent mildness, 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.*
*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 whiteness,
separately regarded, which heightens
the intolerable hideousness of that
brute; for, analysed, that heightened
hideousness, it might be said,
only rises 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 assuming 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 funeral 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_.
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.*
*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 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! never had heard
that name before; is it conceivable
that this glorious thing is utterly
unknown 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 impressions 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-folding,
the invoking, and adoring cherubim!
Most famous in our Western
annals and Indian traditions is
that of the White Steed of the
Prairies; 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 Rocky Mountains and the
Alleghanies. At their flaming head
he westward trooped it like that
chosen star which every evening
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 furnished him. A most imperial
and archangelical apparition of that
unfallen, western world, which to the
eyes of the old trappers and hunters
revived the glories of those primeval
times when Adam walked majestic as
a god, bluff-browed 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 circumambient 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 divineness; and
that this divineness had that in it
which, though commanding worship,
at the same time enforced a certain
nameless 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?
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 instances, has
the art of human malice omitted so
potent an auxiliary. 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 quality 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 apparition 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 wherein 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 over us the same sorcery,
however modified;—can we thus
hope to light upon some chance clue
to conduct us to the hidden 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 warriors
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 Byward 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 spectralness
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 "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 ramparts
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 exaggerating
the terror of objects otherwise
terrible; nor to the unimaginative
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 vigilance, 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 headlands shoals
of combed white bears were swimming
round him, 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 under 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 fearfulness it would be
to lose oneself in such inhuman
solitudes. 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, beholding 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 churchyard grinning
upon him with its lean ice monuments
and splintered crosses.
But thou sayest, methinks that
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 creatures in his green
northern home, so that the strange
muskiness he smells cannot recall
to him anything associated with the
experience 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 instinct of the
knowledge of the demonism in the
world. Though 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
mankind.
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 colour as the visible
absence of colour; and at the same
time the concrete of all colours;
is it for these reasons that there
is such a dumb blankness, full of
meaning, in a wide landscape of
snows—a colourless, all-colour of
atheism from which we shrink? And
when we consider that other theory
of the natural philosophers, that all
other earthly hues—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
without; 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 principle 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 coloured and colouring glasses
upon their eyes, so the wretched
infidel gazes himself blind at the
monumental white shroud that wraps
all the prospect around him. And of
all these things the Albino whale
was the symbol. Wonder ye then at
the fiery hunt?
CHAPTER 43. Hark!
"HIST! Did you hear that noise,
Cabaco?"
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. Standing, 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.
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 ears."
"Aye, you are the chap, ain’t
ye, that heard the hum of the old
Quakeress’s knitting-needles fifty
miles at sea from Nantucket; 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 44. 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 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 currents; 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,
concerning the timeliest day to be
upon this or that ground in search
of his prey.
So assured, indeed, is the fact
concerning the periodicalness of the
sperm whale’s resorting to given
waters, that many hunters believe
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.*
*Since the above was written,
the statement is happily borne
out by an official circular,
issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the
National Observatory, 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 of 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."
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 along that path,
migrating whales may with great
confidence be looked for.
And hence not only at substantiated
times, upon well known separate
feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to
encounter his prey; but in crossing
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 entangle
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 identically
the same with those that were found
there the preceding season; though
there are 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 solitaries
and hermits among the matured,
aged sperm whales. So that though
Moby Dick had in a former year been
seen, for example, 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 accomplishing
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 attained,
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 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 motive 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 sleeplessness
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 beginning
of the Season-on-the-Line. No
possible endeavor then could enable
her commander to make the great
passage southwards, 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 correctly
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 Simoon, might blow
Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag
world-circle of the Pequod’s
circumnavigating wake.
But granting all this; yet, regarded
discreetly and coolly, 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 Constantinople? 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 revengeful 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 clashing
of phrensies, and whirled them round
and 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, perhaps, 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 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, therefore it must
have been that, in Ahab’s case,
yielding up all his thoughts and
fancies to his one supreme purpose;
that purpose, by its own sheer
inveteracy of will, forced itself
against gods and devils into a kind
of self-assumed, independent being
of its own. Nay, could grimly live
and burn, while the common vitality
to which it was conjoined, fled
horror-stricken from the unbidden
and unfathered birth. Therefore,
the tormented spirit that glared out
of bodily eyes, when what seemed
Ahab rushed from his room, was
for the time but a vacated thing,
a formless somnambulistic being,
a ray of living light, to be sure,
but without an object to colour, and
therefore a blankness in itself. God
help thee, old man, thy thoughts
have created a creature in thee;
and he whose intense thinking thus
makes him a Prometheus; a vulture
feeds upon that heart for ever; that
vulture the very creature he creates.
CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.
So far as what there may be of
a narrative in this book; and,
indeed, as indirectly touching one
or two very interesting and curious
particulars in the habits of sperm
whales, the foregoing chapter, in its
earlier part, is as important a one
as will be found in this volume; but
the leading matter of it requires to
be still further and more familiarly
enlarged upon, in order to be
adequately understood, and moreover
to take away any incredulity which
a profound ignorance of the entire
subject may induce in some minds,
as to the natural verity of the main
points of this affair.
I care not to perform this part
of my task methodically; but shall
be content to produce the desired
impression by separate citations
of items, practically or reliably
known to me as a whaleman; and from
these citations, I take it—the
conclusion aimed at will naturally
follow of itself.
First: I have personally known
three instances where a whale,
after receiving a harpoon, has
effected a complete escape; and,
after an interval (in one instance
of three years), has been again
struck by the same hand, and slain;
when the two irons, both marked by
the same private cypher, have been
taken from the body. In the instance
where three years intervened between
the flinging of the two harpoons; and
I think it may have been something
more than that; the man who darted
them happening, in the interval,
to go in a trading ship on a voyage
to Africa, went ashore there, joined
a discovery party, and penetrated
far into the interior, where he
travelled for a period of nearly two
years, often endangered by serpents,
savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas,
with all the other common perils
incident to wandering in the heart
of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the
whale he had struck must also have
been on its travels; no doubt it had
thrice circumnavigated the globe,
brushing with its flanks all the
coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.
This man and this whale again came
together, and the one vanquished
the other. I say I, myself, have
known three instances similar to
this; that is in two of them I saw
the whales struck; and, upon the
second attack, saw the two irons
with the respective marks cut in
them, afterwards taken from the dead
fish. In the three-year instance,
it so fell out that I was in the boat
both times, first and last, and the
last time distinctly recognised a
peculiar sort of huge mole under the
whale’s eye, which I had observed
there three years previous. I say
three years, but I am pretty sure it
was more than that. Here are three
instances, then, which I personally
know the truth of; but I have heard
of many other instances from persons
whose veracity in the matter there
is no good ground to impeach.
Secondly: It is well known in
the Sperm Whale Fishery, however
ignorant the world ashore may be of
it, that there have been several
memorable historical instances
where a particular whale in the
ocean has been at distant times and
places popularly cognisable. Why
such a whale became thus marked
was not altogether and originally
owing to his bodily peculiarities as
distinguished from other whales; for
however peculiar in that respect any
chance whale may be, they soon put an
end to his peculiarities by killing
him, and boiling him down into a
peculiarly valuable oil. No: the
reason was this: that from the fatal
experiences of the fishery there hung
a terrible prestige of perilousness
about such a whale as there did
about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch
that most fishermen were content to
recognise him by merely touching
their tarpaulins when he would be
discovered lounging by them on the
sea, without seeking to cultivate
a more intimate acquaintance. Like
some poor devils ashore that happen
to 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 summary 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,
privileges, and distinctions of a
name; had as much a name indeed as
Cambyses or Cæsar. Was it not so,
O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan,
scarred like an iceberg, who so
long did’st lurk in the Oriental
straits of that name, whose spout
was oft seen from the palmy beach of
Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand
Jack! thou terror of all cruisers
that crossed their wakes in the
vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it
not so, O Morquan! King of Japan,
whose lofty jet they say at times
assumed the semblance of a snow-white
cross against the sky? Was it not
so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian
whale, marked like an old tortoise
with mystic hieroglyphics upon the
back! In plain prose, here are four
whales as well known to the students
of Cetacean History as Marius or
Sylla to the classic scholar.
But this is not all. New Zealand Tom
and Don Miguel, after at various
times creating great havoc among
the boats of different vessels,
were finally gone in quest of,
systematically hunted out, chased and
killed by valiant whaling captains,
who heaved up their anchors with that
express object as much in view, as in
setting out through the Narragansett
Woods, Captain Butler of old had
it in his mind to capture that
notorious murderous savage Annawon,
the headmost warrior of the Indian
King Philip.
I do not know where I can find a
better place than just here, to
make mention of one or two other
things, which to me seem important,
as in printed form establishing in
all respects the reasonableness of
the whole story of the White Whale,
more especially the catastrophe. For
this is one of those disheartening
instances where truth requires full
as much bolstering as error. So
ignorant are most landsmen of some
of the plainest and most palpable
wonders of the world, that without
some hints touching the plain facts,
historical and otherwise, of the
fishery, they might scout at Moby
Dick as a monstrous fable, or still
worse and more detestable, a hideous
and intolerable allegory.
First: Though most men have some
vague flitting ideas of the general
perils of the grand fishery, yet
they have nothing like a fixed,
vivid conception of those perils, and
the frequency with which they recur.
One reason perhaps is, that not one
in fifty of the actual disasters and
deaths by casualties in the fishery,
ever finds a public record at home,
however transient and immediately
forgotten that record. Do you
suppose that that poor fellow there,
who this moment perhaps caught by
the whale-line off the coast of New
Guinea, is being carried down to the
bottom of the sea by the sounding
leviathan—do you suppose that that
poor fellow’s name will appear
in the newspaper obituary you will
read to-morrow at your breakfast? No:
because the mails are very irregular
between here and New Guinea. In
fact, did you ever hear what might
be called regular news direct or
indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell
you that upon one particular voyage
which I made to the Pacific, among
many others we spoke thirty different
ships, every one of which had had a
death by a whale, some of them more
than one, and three that had each
lost a boat’s crew. For God’s
sake, be economical with your lamps
and candles! not a gallon you burn,
but at least one drop of man’s
blood was spilled for it.
Secondly: People ashore have
indeed some indefinite idea that
a whale is an enormous creature
of enormous power; but I have
ever found that when narrating to
them some specific example of this
two-fold enormousness, they have
significantly complimented me upon my
facetiousness; when, I declare upon
my soul, I had no more idea of being
facetious than Moses, when he wrote
the history of the plagues of Egypt.
But fortunately the special point I
here seek can be established upon
testimony entirely independent
of my own. That point is this:
The Sperm Whale is in some cases
sufficiently powerful, knowing, and
judiciously malicious, as with direct
aforethought to stave in, utterly
destroy, and sink a large ship; and
what is more, the Sperm Whale _has_
done it.
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 shoal of 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
shipwrecked 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
Chace’s narrative: "Every fact
seemed to warrant me in concluding
that it was 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 manœuvres
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 sufferings." 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 satisfied that I am
correct in my opinion."
Here are his reflections some time
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 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_."
Secondly: The ship Union, also of
Nantucket, was in the year 1807
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 thimbleful. Very good;
but there is more coming. Some weeks
after, the Commodore set sail in this
impregnable craft for Valparaiso. 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.
I will now refer you to
Langsdorff’s Voyages for a
little circumstance 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 intolerably
cold that we were obliged to keep on
our fur clothing. For some days we
had very little wind; it was not till
the nineteenth 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 impossible
to prevent its striking against
him. We were thus placed in the most
imminent danger, as this gigantic
creature, 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 concerning this passage in
Langsdorff. He substantiates every
word. The ship, however, was by no
means a large one: a Russian craft
built on the Siberian coast, and
purchased by my uncle after bartering
away the vessel in which he sailed
from home.
In that up and down manly book of
old-fashioned adventure, so full,
too, of honest wonders—the voyage
of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient
Dampier’s old chums—I found
a little matter set down so like
that just quoted from Langsdorff,
that I cannot forbear inserting it
here for a corroborative example,
if such be needed.
Lionel, it seems, was on his way to
"John Ferdinando," as he calls
the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our
way thither," he says, "about
four o’clock in the morning, when
we were about one hundred and fifty
leagues from the Main of America,
our ship felt a terrible shock, which
put our men in such consternation
that they could hardly tell where
they were or what to think; but every
one began to prepare for death. And,
indeed, the shock was so sudden and
violent, that we took it for granted
the ship had struck against a rock;
but when the amazement was a little
over, we cast the lead, and sounded,
but found no ground. * * * * * The
suddenness of the shock made the guns
leap in their carriages, and several
of the men were shaken out of their
hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay
with his head on a gun, was thrown
out of his cabin!" Lionel then
goes on to impute the shock to an
earthquake, and seems to substantiate
the imputation by stating that a
great earthquake, somewhere about
that time, did actually do great
mischief along the Spanish land. But
I should not much wonder if, in the
darkness of that early hour of the
morning, the shock was after all
caused by an unseen whale vertically
bumping the hull from beneath.
I might proceed with several more
examples, one way or another known
to me, of the great power and malice
at times of the sperm whale. In
more than one instance, he has
been known, not only to chase the
assailing boats back to their ships,
but to pursue the ship itself, and
long withstand all the lances hurled
at him from its decks. The English
ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on
that head; and, as for his strength,
let me say, that there have been
examples where the lines attached
to a running sperm whale have, in a
calm, been transferred to the ship,
and secured there; the whale towing
her great hull through the water, as
a horse walks off with a cart. Again,
it is very often observed that,
if the sperm whale, once struck,
is allowed time to rally, he then
acts, not so often with blind rage,
as with wilful, deliberate designs
of destruction to his pursuers;
nor is it without conveying some
eloquent indication of his character,
that upon being attacked he will
frequently open his mouth, and
retain it in that dread expansion for
several consecutive minutes. But I
must be content with only one more
and a concluding illustration; a
remarkable and most significant one,
by which you will not fail to see,
that not only is the most marvellous
event in this book corroborated by
plain facts of the present day, but
that these marvels (like all marvels)
are mere repetitions of the ages;
so that for the millionth time we say
amen with Solomon—Verily there is
nothing new under the sun.
In the sixth Christian century lived
Procopius, a Christian magistrate
of Constantinople, in the days when
Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius
general. As many know, he wrote the
history of his own times, a work
every way of uncommon value. By the
best authorities, he has always been
considered a most trustworthy and
unexaggerating historian, except in
some one or two particulars, not at
all affecting the matter presently
to be mentioned.
Now, in this history of his,
Procopius mentions that, during
the term of his prefecture at
Constantinople, a great sea-monster
was captured in the neighboring
Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after
having destroyed vessels at intervals
in those waters for a period of more
than fifty years. A fact thus set
down in substantial history cannot
easily be gainsaid. Nor is there
any reason it should be. Of what
precise species this sea-monster was,
is not mentioned. But as he destroyed
ships, as well as for other reasons,
he must have been a whale; and I am
strongly inclined to think a sperm
whale. And I will tell you why. For
a long time I fancied that the sperm
whale had been always unknown in the
Mediterranean and the deep waters
connecting with it. Even now I am
certain that those seas are not,
and perhaps never can be, in the
present constitution of things,
a place for his habitual gregarious
resort. But further investigations
have recently proved to me, that in
modern times there have been isolated
instances of the presence of the
sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I
am told, on good authority, that
on the Barbary coast, a Commodore
Davis of the British navy found the
skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a
vessel of war readily passes through
the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale
could, by the same route, pass out of
the Mediterranean into the Propontis.
In the Propontis, as far as I
can learn, none of that peculiar
substance called _brit_ is to be
found, the aliment of the right
whale. But I have every reason to
believe that the food of the sperm
whale—squid or cuttle-fish—lurks
at the bottom of that sea, because
large creatures, but by no means
the largest of that sort, have been
found at its surface. If, then,
you properly put these statements
together, and reason upon them a
bit, you will clearly perceive that,
according to all human reasoning,
Procopius’s sea-monster, that
for half a century stove the ships
of a Roman Emperor, must in all
probability have been a sperm whale.
CHAPTER 46. Surmises.
Though, consumed with the hot
fire of his purpose, Ahab in all
his thoughts and actions ever had
in view the ultimate capture of
Moby Dick; though he seemed ready
to sacrifice all mortal interests
to that one passion; nevertheless
it may have been that he was by
nature and long habituation far too
wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways,
altogether to abandon the collateral
prosecution of the voyage. Or
at least if this were otherwise,
there were not wanting other motives
much more influential with him. It
would be refining too much, perhaps,
even considering his monomania, to
hint that his vindictiveness towards
the White Whale might have possibly
extended 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 subsequently 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 ascendency 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 disintegrate 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 insanity of Ahab
respecting Moby Dick was noways more
significantly 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 naturally 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 are 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
pursuit, however promissory of life
and passion in the end, it is above
all things requisite that temporary
interests and employments 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. Granting that the
White Whale fully incites the hearts
of this my savage crew, and playing
round their savageness even breeds a
certain 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
traverse two thousand miles of land
to fight for their holy sepulchre,
without committing burglaries,
picking pockets, and gaining other
pious perquisites by the way. Had
they been strictly held to their
one final and romantic object—that
final and romantic object, too many
would have turned from in disgust. I
will not strip these men, thought
Ahab, of all hopes of cash—aye,
cash. They may scorn cash now;
but let some months go by, and no
perspective promise of it to them,
and then this same quiescent cash all
at once mutinying in them, this same
cash would soon cashier Ahab.
Nor was there wanting still another
precautionary motive more related to
Ahab personally. Having impulsively,
it is probable, and perhaps somewhat
prematurely revealed the prime but
private purpose of the Pequod’s
voyage, Ahab was now entirely
conscious that, in so doing, he had
indirectly laid himself open to the
unanswerable charge of usurpation;
and with perfect impunity, both moral
and legal, his crew if so disposed,
and to that end competent, could
refuse all further obedience to him,
and even violently wrest from him
the command. From even the barely
hinted imputation of usurpation, and
the possible consequences of such a
suppressed impression gaining ground,
Ahab must of course have been most
anxious to protect himself. That
protection could only consist in his
own predominating brain and heart
and hand, backed by a heedful,
closely calculating attention to
every minute atmospheric influence
which it was possible for his crew
to be subjected to.
For all these reasons then, and
others perhaps too analytic to
be verbally developed here, Ahab
plainly saw that he must still in
a good degree continue true to
the natural, nominal purpose of
the Pequod’s voyage; observe all
customary usages; and not only that,
but force himself to evince all his
well known passionate interest in the
general pursuit of his profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was
now often heard hailing the three
mast-heads and admonishing them to
keep a bright look-out, and not omit
reporting even a porpoise. This
vigilance was not long without
reward.
CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon;
the seamen were lazily lounging
about the decks, or vacantly gazing
over into the lead-coloured waters.
Queequeg and I were mildly employed
weaving what is called a sword-mat,
for an additional lashing to our
boat. So still and subdued and yet
somehow preluding was all the scene,
and such an incantation of reverie
lurked in the air, that each silent
sailor seemed resolved into his own
invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of
Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As
I kept passing and repassing the
filling or woof of marline between
the long yarns of the warp, using
my own hand for the shuttle, and as
Queequeg, standing sideways, ever
and anon slid his heavy oaken sword
between the threads, and idly looking
off upon the water, carelessly and
unthinkingly drove home every yarn:
I say so strange a dreaminess did
there then reign all over the ship
and all over the sea, only broken by
the intermitting dull sound of the
sword, that it seemed as if this were
the Loom of Time, and I myself were
a shuttle mechanically weaving and
weaving away at the Fates. There lay
the fixed threads of the warp subject
to but one single, ever returning,
unchanging vibration, and that
vibration merely enough to admit
of the crosswise interblending of
other threads with its own. This warp
seemed necessity; and here, thought
I, with my own hand I ply my own
shuttle and weave my own destiny into
these unalterable threads. Meantime,
Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent
sword, sometimes hitting the
woof slantingly, or crookedly, or
strongly, or weakly, as the case
might be; and by this difference
in the concluding blow producing a
corresponding contrast in the final
aspect of the completed fabric; this
savage’s sword, thought I, which
thus finally shapes and fashions both
warp and woof; this easy, indifferent
sword must be chance—aye, chance,
free will, and necessity—nowise
incompatible—all interweavingly
working together. The straight warp
of necessity, not to be swerved
from its ultimate course—its
every alternating vibration,
indeed, only tending to that; free
will still free to ply her shuttle
between given threads; and chance,
though restrained in its play within
the right lines of necessity, and
sideways in its motions directed by
free will, though thus prescribed
to by both, chance by turns rules
either, and has the last featuring
blow at events.
Thus we were weaving and weaving
away when I started at a sound so
strange, long drawn, and musically
wild and unearthly, that the ball of
free will dropped from my hand, and I
stood gazing up at the clouds whence
that voice dropped like a wing. High
aloft in the cross-trees was that
mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body
was reaching eagerly forward, his
hand stretched out like a wand,
and at brief sudden intervals he
continued his cries. To be sure the
same sound was that very moment
perhaps being heard all over the
seas, from hundreds of whalemen’s
look-outs perched as high in the air;
but from few of those lungs could
that accustomed old cry have derived
such a marvellous cadence as from
Tashtego the Indian’s.
As he stood hovering over you
half suspended in air, so wildly
and eagerly peering towards the
horizon, you would have thought him
some prophet or seer beholding the
shadows of Fate, and by those wild
cries announcing their coming.
"There she
blows! there! there! there! she
blows! she blows!"
"Where-away?"
"On the lee-beam, about two miles
off! a school of them!"
Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock
ticks, with the same undeviating
and reliable uniformity. And thereby
whalemen distinguish this fish from
other tribes of his genus.
"There go flukes!" was now the
cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared.
"Quick, steward!" cried
Ahab. "Time! time!"
Dough-Boy hurried 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 Tashtego 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 line 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 gunwale. 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 48. The First Lowering.
The phantoms, for so they then
seemed, were flitting on the other
side of the deck, and, with a
noiseless celerity, were casting
loose the tackles and bands of the
boat which swung there. This boat
had always been deemed one of the
spare boats, though technically
called the captain’s, on account
of its hanging from the starboard
quarter. The figure that now stood
by its bows was tall and swart, with
one white tooth evilly protruding
from its steel-like lips. A rumpled
Chinese jacket of black cotton
funereally invested him, with wide
black trowsers of the same dark
stuff. But strangely crowning this
ebonness was a glistening white
plaited turban, the living hair
braided and coiled round and round
upon his head. Less swart in aspect,
the companions of this figure were of
that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion
peculiar to some of the aboriginal
natives of the Manillas;—a race
notorious for a certain diabolism
of subtilty, and by some honest
white mariners supposed to be the
paid spies and secret confidential
agents on the water of the devil,
their lord, whose counting-room they
suppose to be elsewhere.
While yet the wondering ship’s
company were gazing upon these
strangers, Ahab cried out to the
white-turbaned old man at their head,
"All ready there, Fedallah?"
"Ready," was the half-hissed
reply.
"Lower away then; d’ye hear?"
shouting across the deck. "Lower
away there, I say."
Such was the thunder of his voice,
that spite of their amazement
the men sprang over the rail;
the sheaves whirled round in the
blocks; with a wallow, the three
boats dropped into the sea; while,
with a dexterous, off-handed daring,
unknown in any other vocation, the
sailors, goat-like, leaped down the
rolling ship’s side into the tossed
boats below.
Hardly had they pulled out from under
the ship’s lee, when a fourth keel,
coming from the windward side, pulled
round under the stern, and showed
the five strangers rowing Ahab, who,
standing erect in the stern, loudly
hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask,
to spread themselves widely, so as to
cover a large expanse of water. But
with all their eyes again riveted
upon the swart Fedallah and his crew,
the inmates of the other boats obeyed
not the command.
"Captain Ahab?—" said Starbuck.
"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab;
"give way, all four boats. Thou,
Flask, pull out more to leeward!"
"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried
little King-Post, sweeping round
his great steering oar. "Lay
back!" addressing his crew.
"There!—there!—there
again! There she blows right ahead,
boys!—lay back!"
"Never heed yonder yellow boys,
Archy."
"Oh, I don’t mind ’em, sir,"
said Archy; "I knew it all before
now. Didn’t I hear ’em in the
hold? And didn’t I tell Cabaco here
of it? What say ye, Cabaco? They
are stowaways, Mr. Flask."
"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive;
pull, my children; pull, my little
ones," drawlingly and soothingly
sighed Stubb to his crew, some
of whom still showed signs of
uneasiness. "Why don’t you
break your backbones, my boys? What
is it you stare at? Those chaps in
yonder boat? Tut! They are only five
more hands come to help us—never
mind from where—the more the
merrier. Pull, then, do pull;
never mind the brimstone—devils
are good fellows enough. So, so;
there you are now; that’s the
stroke for a thousand pounds;
that’s the stroke to sweep the
stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of
sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers,
men—all hearts alive! Easy, easy;
don’t be in a hurry—don’t be in
a hurry. Why don’t you snap your
oars, you rascals? Bite something,
you dogs! So, so, so, then:—softly,
softly! That’s it—that’s
it! long and strong. Give way
there, give way! The devil fetch
ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions;
ye are all asleep. Stop snoring,
ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will
ye? pull, can’t ye? pull, won’t
ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and
ginger-cakes don’t ye pull?—pull
and break something! pull, and start
your eyes out! Here!" whipping
out the sharp knife from his
girdle; "every mother’s son
of ye draw his knife, and pull
with the blade between his teeth.
That’s it—that’s it. Now ye
do something; that looks like it,
my steel-bits. Start her—start
her, my 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 compounded of
fun and fury, and the fury seemed so
calculated merely as a spice to the
fun, that no oarsman could hear such
queer invocations without pulling
for dear life, and yet pulling for
the mere joke of the thing. Besides
he all the time looked so easy and
indolent himself, so loungingly
managed his steering-oar, and so
broadly gaped—open-mouthed at
times—that the mere sight of such
a yawning commander, by sheer force
of contrast, acted like a charm upon
the crew. Then again, Stubb was one
of those odd sort of humorists, whose
jollity is sometimes so curiously
ambiguous, as to put all inferiors
on their guard in the matter of
obeying them.
In obedience to a sign from Ahab,
Starbuck was now pulling obliquely
across Stubb’s bow; and when for
a minute or so the two boats were
pretty near to each other, Stubb
hailed the mate.
"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat
there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir,
if ye please!"
"Halloa!" returned Starbuck,
turning round not a single inch
as he spoke; still earnestly but
whisperingly urging his crew; his
face set like a flint from Stubb’s.
"What think ye of those yellow
boys, sir!"
"Smuggled on board, somehow, before
the ship sailed. (Strong, strong,
boys!)" in a whisper to his crew,
then speaking out loud again: "A
sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe
her, seethe her, my lads!) but
never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the
best. Let all your crew pull strong,
come what will. (Spring, my men,
spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm
ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that’s what
ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm,
sperm’s the play! This at least
is duty; duty and profit hand in
hand."
"Aye, aye, I thought as much,"
soliloquized Stubb, when the boats
diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye
on ’em, I thought so. Aye, and
that’s what he went into the after
hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy
long suspected. They were hidden
down there. The White Whale’s
at the bottom of it. Well, well,
so be it! Can’t be helped! All
right! Give way, men! It ain’t
the White Whale to-day! Give way!"
Now the advent of these outlandish
strangers at such a critical instant
as the lowering of the boats from
the deck, this had not unreasonably
awakened a sort of superstitious
amazement in some of the ship’s
company; but Archy’s fancied
discovery having some time previous
got abroad among them, though indeed
not credited then, this had in some
small measure prepared them for the
event. It took off the extreme edge
of their wonder; and so what with
all this and Stubb’s confident way
of accounting for their appearance,
they were for the time freed from
superstitious surmisings; though the
affair still left abundant room for
all manner of wild conjectures as to
dark Ahab’s precise agency in the
matter from the beginning. For me,
I silently recalled the mysterious
shadows I had seen creeping on board
the Pequod during the dim Nantucket
dawn, as well as the enigmatical
hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.
Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of
his officers, having sided the
furthest to windward, was still
ranging ahead of the other boats;
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 regular 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 naked 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 counterbalance
any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen
steadily managing his steering oar as
in a thousand boat lowerings ere the
White Whale had torn him. All at once
the outstretched 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 distantly
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 himself 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 line. Its top is not more
spacious than the palm of a man’s
hand, and standing upon 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 loggerhead 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 volunteered 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, presented his flat palm
to Flask’s foot, and then putting
Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed
head and bidding him spring as
he himself should toss, with one
dexterous fling landed the little man
high and dry on his shoulders. And
here was Flask now standing, Daggoo
with one lifted arm furnishing him
with a breastband to lean against
and steady himself by.
At any time it is a strange sight
to the tyro to see with what
wondrous habitude of unconscious
skill the whaleman will maintain
an erect posture in his boat,
even when pitched about by the most
riotously perverse and cross-running
seas. Still more strange to see him
giddily perched upon the loggerhead
itself, under such circumstances. But
the sight of little Flask mounted
upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more
curious; for sustaining himself with
a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought
of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro
to every roll of the sea harmoniously
rolled his fine form. On his broad
back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed
a snow-flake. The bearer looked
nobler than the rider. Though truly
vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious
little Flask would now and then
stamp with impatience; but not one
added heave did he thereby give to
the negro’s lordly chest. So have
I seen Passion and Vanity stamping
the living magnanimous earth, but
the earth did not alter her tides
and her seasons for that.
Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate,
betrayed no such far-gazing
solicitudes. The whales might have
made one of their regular soundings,
not a temporary dive from mere
fright; and if that were the case,
Stubb, as his wont in such cases,
it seems, was resolved to solace
the languishing interval with
his pipe. He withdrew it from his
hatband, where he always wore it
aslant like a feather. He loaded it,
and rammed home the loading with
his thumb-end; but hardly had he
ignited his match across the rough
sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego,
his harpooneer, whose eyes had been
setting to windward like two fixed
stars, suddenly dropped like light
from his erect attitude to his seat,
crying out in a quick phrensy of
hurry, "Down, down all, and give
way!—there they are!"
To a landsman, no whale, nor any
sign of a herring, would have been
visible at that moment; nothing but
a troubled bit of greenish white
water, and thin scattered puffs
of vapor hovering over it, and
suffusingly blowing off to leeward,
like the confused scud from white
rolling billows. The air around
suddenly vibrated and tingled, as
it were, like the air over intensely
heated plates of iron. Beneath this
atmospheric waving and curling,
and partially beneath a thin layer
of water, also, the whales were
swimming. Seen in advance of all
the other indications, the puffs of
vapor they spouted, seemed their
forerunning couriers and detached
flying outriders.
All four boats were now in keen
pursuit of that one spot of troubled
water and air. But it bade fair to
outstrip them; it flew on and on, as
a mass of interblending bubbles borne
down a rapid stream from the hills.
"Pull, pull, my good boys," said
Starbuck, in the lowest possible
but intensest concentrated whisper
to his men; while the sharp fixed
glance from his eyes darted straight
ahead of the bow, almost seemed as
two visible needles in two unerring
binnacle compasses. He did not say
much to his crew, though, nor did his
crew say anything to him. Only the
silence of the boat was at intervals
startlingly pierced by one of his
peculiar whispers, now harsh with
command, now soft with entreaty.
How different the loud little
King-Post. "Sing out and say
something, my hearties. Roar and
pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me,
beach me on their black backs, boys;
only do that for me, and I’ll sign
over to you my Martha’s Vineyard
plantation, boys; including wife
and children, boys. Lay me on—lay
me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go
stark, staring mad! See! see that
white water!" And so shouting,
he pulled his hat from his head,
and stamped up and down on it; then
picking it up, flirted it far off
upon the sea; and finally fell to
rearing and plunging in the boat’s
stern like a crazed colt from the
prairie.
"Look at that chap now,"
philosophically drawled Stubb, who,
with his unlighted short pipe,
mechanically retained between
his teeth, at a short distance,
followed after—"He’s got fits,
that Flask has. Fits? yes, give him
fits—that’s the very word—pitch
fits into ’em. Merrily, merrily,
hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you
know;—merry’s the word. Pull,
babes—pull, sucklings—pull,
all. But what the devil are you
hurrying about? Softly, softly, and
steadily, my men. Only pull, and
keep pulling; nothing more. Crack
all your backbones, and bite your
knives in two—that’s all. Take it
easy—why don’t ye take it easy,
I say, and burst all your livers
and lungs!"
But what it was that inscrutable Ahab
said to that tiger-yellow crew of
his—these were words best omitted
here; for you live under the blessed
light of the evangelical land. Only
the infidel sharks in the audacious
seas may give ear to such words,
when, with tornado brow, and eyes
of red murder, and foam-glued lips,
Ahab leaped after his prey.
Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The
repeated specific allusions of Flask
to "that whale," as he called the
fictitious monster which he declared
to be incessantly tantalizing his
boat’s bow with its tail—these
allusions of his were at times so
vivid and life-like, that they would
cause some one or two of his men
to snatch a fearful look over 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 harpooneers, and
the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen,
with the wondrous sight of the ivory
Pequod bearing down upon her boats
with outstretched sails, like a wild
hen after her screaming brood;—all
this was thrilling.
Not the raw recruit, marching from
the bosom of his wife into the fever
heat of his first battle; not the
dead man’s ghost encountering the
first unknown phantom in the other
world;—neither of these can feel
stranger and stronger emotions than
that man does, who for the first
time finds himself pulling into the
charmed, churned circle of the hunted
sperm whale.
The dancing white water made by the
chase was now becoming more 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
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 madness 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
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 rising sea forbade all attempts
to bale out the boat. The oars were
useless as propellers, performing
now the office of life-preservers.
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 Queequeg as the standard-bearer
of this forlorn hope. There, then,
he sat, holding up that imbecile
candle in the heart of that almighty
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 creaking,
as of ropes and yards hitherto
muffled by the storm. The sound came
nearer and nearer; the thick mists
were dimly parted by a huge, vague
form. Affrighted, we all sprang into
the sea as the ship at last loomed
into view, bearing right down upon
us within a distance of not much more
than its length.
Floating on the waves we saw the
abandoned boat, as for one instant it
tossed and gaped beneath the ship’s
bows like a chip at the base of a
cataract; and then the vast hull
rolled over it, and it was seen
no more till it came up weltering
astern. Again we swam for it, were
dashed against it by the seas, and
were at last taken up and safely
landed on board. Ere the squall came
close to, the other boats had cut
loose from their fish and returned to
the ship in good time. The ship had
given us up, but was still cruising,
if haply it might light upon some
token of our perishing,—an oar or
a lance pole.
CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.
There are certain queer times and
occasions in this strange mixed
affair we call life when a man
takes this whole universe for a
vast practical joke, though the
wit thereof he but dimly discerns,
and more than suspects that the
joke is at nobody’s expense
but his own. However, nothing
dispirits, and nothing seems worth
while disputing. He bolts down all
events, all creeds, and beliefs, and
persuasions, all hard things visible
and invisible, never mind how knobby;
as an ostrich of potent digestion
gobbles down bullets and gun
flints. And as for small difficulties
and worryings, prospects of sudden
disaster, peril of life and limb;
all these, and death itself, seem to
him only sly, good-natured hits, and
jolly punches in the side bestowed
by the unseen and unaccountable
old joker. That odd sort of wayward
mood I am speaking of, comes over
a man only in some time of extreme
tribulation; it comes in the very
midst of his earnestness, so that
what just before might have seemed to
him a thing most momentous, now seems
but a part of the general joke. There
is nothing like the perils of whaling
to breed this free and easy sort of
genial, desperado philosophy; and
with it I now regarded this whole
voyage of the Pequod, and the great
White Whale its object.
"Queequeg," said I, when they
had dragged me, the last man, to the
deck, and I was still shaking myself
in my jacket to fling off the water;
"Queequeg, my fine friend, does
this sort of thing often happen?"
Without much emotion, though soaked
through just like me, he gave me
to understand that such things did
often happen.
"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to
that worthy, who, buttoned up in his
oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking
his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb,
I think I have heard you say that
of all whalemen you ever met, our
chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by
far the most careful and prudent. I
suppose then, that going plump on a
flying whale with your sail set in
a foggy squall is the height of a
whaleman’s discretion?"
"Certain. I’ve lowered for whales
from a leaking ship in a gale off
Cape Horn."
"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to
little King-Post, who was standing
close by; "you are experienced in
these things, and I am not. Will you
tell me whether it is an unalterable
law in this fishery, Mr. Flask,
for an oarsman to break his own back
pulling himself back-foremost into
death’s jaws?"
"Can’t you twist that smaller?"
said Flask. "Yes, that’s the
law. I should like to see a boat’s
crew backing water up to a whale
face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale
would give them squint for squint,
mind that!"
Here then, from three impartial
witnesses, I had a deliberate
statement of the entire
case. Considering, therefore, that
squalls and capsizings in the water
and consequent bivouacks on the deep,
were matters of common occurrence
in this kind of life; considering
that at the superlatively critical
instant of going on to the whale I
must resign my life into the hands of
him who steered the boat—oftentimes
a fellow who at that very moment is
in his impetuousness upon the point
of scuttling the craft with his own
frantic stampings; considering that
the particular disaster to our own
particular boat was chiefly to be
imputed to Starbuck’s driving on
to his whale almost in the teeth
of a squall, and considering that
Starbuck, notwithstanding, was
famous for his great heedfulness
in the fishery; considering that I
belonged to this uncommonly prudent
Starbuck’s boat; and finally
considering in what a devil’s chase
I was implicated, touching the White
Whale: taking all things together,
I say, I thought I might as well
go below and make a rough draft of
my will. "Queequeg," said I,
"come along, you shall be my
lawyer, executor, and legatee."
It may seem strange that of all
men sailors should be tinkering at
their last wills and testaments,
but there are no people in the world
more fond of that diversion. This was
the fourth time in my nautical life
that I had done the same thing. After
the ceremony was concluded upon the
present occasion, I felt all the
easier; a stone was rolled away from
my heart. Besides, all the days I
should now live would be as good as
the days that Lazarus lived after his
resurrection; a supplementary clean
gain of so many months or weeks as
the case 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 bars of a snug
family vault.
Now then, thought I, unconsciously
rolling up the sleeves of my frock,
here goes for a cool, collected dive
at death and destruction, and the
devil fetch the hindmost.
CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and
Crew. Fedallah.
"Who would have thought it,
Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had
but one leg you would not catch
me in a boat, unless maybe to
stop the plug-hole with my timber
toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful 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
soldiers often argued with tears in
their eyes, whether that invaluable
life of his ought to be carried into
the thickest of the fight.
But with Ahab the question assumed
a modified aspect. Considering 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 individual 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 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 supplied 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
customary business of fitting the
whaleboats for service; when some
time after this Ahab was now and
then found bestirring 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
solicitude 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 shaping 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 observed
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
heedfulness 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.
Now, with the subordinate phantoms,
what wonder remained soon waned
away; for in a whaler wonders soon
wane. Besides, 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, whaleboats, 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 subordinate
phantoms soon found their place
among the crew, though still as it
were somehow distinct from them,
yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah
remained a muffled mystery to the
last. Whence he came in a mannerly
world like this, by what sort of
unaccountable 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
sustain 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 communities,
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 aboriginalness 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 indeed consorted
with the daughters of men, the devils
also, add the uncanonical Rabbins,
indulged in mundane amours.
CHAPTER 51. 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. Fedallah 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 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 struggling 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 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 inscrutable 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 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 Tormentoso, 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 transformed 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 tempestuous 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 madness 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
Ahab stood up to the blast. Even
when wearied nature seemed demanding
repose he would not seek that repose
in his hammock. 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 from
his tightly clenched hand. Though the
body was erect, the head was thrown
back so that the closed eyes were
pointed towards the needle of the
tell-tale that swung from a beam in
the ceiling.*
*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.
Terrible old man! thought Starbuck
with a shudder, sleeping in this
gale, still thou steadfastly eyest
thy purpose.
CHAPTER 52. 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 spectral
appearance was traced with long
channels of reddened rust, while all
her spars 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 windward 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 of small harmless fish,
that for some days before 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 voyagings 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 conduct? 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 Solomon, 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 barren
mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
CHAPTER 53. 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 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, perhaps, 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 Fanning’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 seaport, 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 whaling
intelligence from the cruising-ground
to which she may be destined,
a thing of the utmost importance
to her. And in degree, 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 whaling 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 difference;
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 sometimes affect a kind of
metropolitan superiority over the
American 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 single word of recognition,
mutually cutting each other on
the high seas, like a brace of
dandies in Broadway; and all the
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
scrapings, 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 hurry,
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
gamesome 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
profession 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 conclude, that in boasting himself
to be high lifted above a whaleman,
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; 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_) _Whaleships, generally
on a cruising-ground; when, after
exchanging hails, they exchange
visits by boats’ 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 peculiarities 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,
sometimes cushioned seat there, and
often steers himself with a pretty
little milliner’s tiller decorated
with gay cords and ribbons. But the
whale-boat has no seat astern, no
sofa of that sort whatever, and no
tiller at all. High times indeed, if
whaling 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 subordinate 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 expand
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
corresponding 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 generally
carries his hands in his trowsers’
pockets; but perhaps being generally
very large, heavy hands, he carries
them there for ballast. Nevertheless
there have occurred instances,
well authenticated 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 54. The Town-Ho’s Story.
(_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 Goney 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 heightened by
a circumstance of the Town-Ho’s
story, which seemed obscurely to
involve with the whale a certain
wondrous, inverted visitation of
one of those so called judgments
of God which at times are said
to overtake some men. This latter
circumstance, with its own particular
accompaniments, forming what may
be called the secret part of the
tragedy about to be narrated, 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 secrecy, but the following night
Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and
revealed 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 transpired 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.
*The ancient whale-cry upon first
sighting a whale from the mast-head,
still used by whalemen in hunting
the famous Gallipagos terrapin.
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 morning
upon handling the pumps, according
to daily usage, it was observed that
she made more water in her hold than
common. 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 mariners 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 commonest chance
favoured, 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?’ 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
far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the
land-locked heart of our America,
had yet been nurtured by all those
agrarian freebooting impressions
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 noblest 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 their beaches to wild
barbarians, whose red painted faces
flash from out their peltry wigwams;
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, gentlemen,
though an inlander, Steelkilt was
wild-ocean born, and wild-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 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
harmless and docile. At all events,
he had proved so thus far; but
Radney was doomed and made mad,
and Steelkilt—but, gentlemen,
you shall hear.
"It was not more than a day or
two at the furthest after pointing
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
settled 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
account of all hands gently subsiding
to the bottom. Nor in the solitary
and savage seas far from you to the
westward, gentlemen, 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, and as little inclined to
any sort of nervous apprehensiveness
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 conventional
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 unconquerable
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 unawed, 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 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 playing
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. ‘Thunder 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
commanded 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
every 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 neatness in seamen; some of whom
would not willingly drown without
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 exactly 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 unwillingness
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, gentlemen, 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
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,
steadily followed by the mate with
his menacing hammer, deliberately
repeated his intention not to
obey. Seeing, however, that his
forbearance had not the slightest
effect, by an awful and unspeakable
intimation with his 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 repeating 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 persecutor
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 cry could go aft Steelkilt
was shaking one of the backstays
leading far aloft to where two of
his comrades were standing their
mastheads. They were both Canallers.
"‘Canallers!’ cried Don
Pedro. ‘We have seen many
whale-ships in our harbours,
but never heard of your
Canallers. Pardon: 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 Canallers 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 counties; 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 patronising 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 downwards
into the crowded plazza, with
humorous concern.
"‘Well for our northern friend,
Dame Isabella’s Inquisition
wanes in Lima,’ laughed Don
Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’
"‘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 corrupt 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 Canaller
would make a fine dramatic hero, so
abundantly and picturesquely 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 men born
along its line, the probationary
life of the Grand Canal furnishes
the sole transition between quietly
reaping in a Christian corn-field,
and recklessly ploughing the waters
of the most barbaric seas.
"‘I see! I see!’ impetuously
exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling
his chicha upon his silvery
ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The
world’s one Lima. I had thought,
now, that at your temperate North
the generations were cold and holy
as the hills.—But the story.’
"I left off, gentlemen, where the
Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly
had he done so, when he was
surrounded by the three junior
mates and the four harpooneers,
who all crowded him to the deck. But
sliding down the ropes like baleful
comets, the two Canallers rushed
into the uproar, and sought to drag
their man out of it towards the
forecastle. Others of the sailors
joined with them in this attempt,
and a twisted turmoil ensued; while
standing out of harm’s way, the
valiant captain danced up and down
with a whale-pike, calling upon his
officers to manhandle that atrocious
scoundrel, and smoke him along to
the quarter-deck. At intervals,
he ran close up to the revolving
border of the confusion, and prying
into the heart of it with his pike,
sought to prick out the object of
his resentment. But Steelkilt and
his desperadoes were too much for
them all; they succeeded in gaining
the forecastle deck, where, hastily
slewing about three or four large
casks in a line with the windlass,
these sea-Parisians entrenched
themselves behind the barricade.
"‘Come out of that, ye
pirates!’ roared the captain,
now menacing them with a pistol in
each hand, just brought to him by
the steward. ‘Come out of that,
ye cut-throats!’
"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade,
and striding up and down there,
defied the worst the pistols
could do; but gave the captain to
understand distinctly, that his
(Steelkilt’s) death would be the
signal for a murderous mutiny on the
part of all hands. Fearing in his
heart lest this might prove but too
true, the captain a little desisted,
but still commanded the insurgents
instantly to return to their duty.
"‘Will you promise not to touch
us, if we do?’ demanded their
ringleader.
"‘Turn to! turn to!—I make no
promise;—to your duty! Do you want
to sink the ship, by knocking off at
a time like this? Turn to!’ and he
once more raised a pistol.
"‘Sink the ship?’ cried
Steelkilt. ‘Aye, let her sink. Not
a man of us turns to, unless you
swear not to raise a rope-yarn
against us. What say ye, men?’
turning to his comrades. A fierce
cheer was their response.
"The Lakeman now patrolled the
barricade, all the while keeping his
eye on the Captain, and jerking out
such sentences as these:—‘It’s
not our fault; we didn’t want it;
I told him to take his hammer away;
it was boy’s business; he might
have known me before this; I told him
not to prick the buffalo; I believe
I have broken a finger here against
his cursed jaw; ain’t those mincing
knives down in the forecastle there,
men? look to those handspikes, my
hearties. Captain, by God, look to
yourself; say the word; don’t be
a fool; forget it all; we are ready
to turn to; treat us decently, and
we’re your men; but we won’t
be flogged.’
"‘Turn to! I make no promises,
turn to, I say!’
"‘Look ye, now,’ cried the
Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards
him, ‘there are a few of us here
(and I am one of them) who have
shipped for the cruise, d’ye see;
now as you well know, sir, we can
claim our discharge as soon as the
anchor is down; so we don’t want
a row; it’s not our interest; we
want to be peaceable; we are ready to
work, but we won’t be flogged.’
"‘Turn to!’ roared the Captain.
"Steelkilt glanced round him a
moment, and then said:—‘I tell
you what it is now, Captain, rather
than kill ye, and be hung for such
a shabby rascal, we won’t lift
a hand against ye unless ye attack
us; but till you say the word about
not flogging us, we don’t do a
hand’s turn.’
"‘Down into the forecastle
then, down with ye, I’ll keep ye
there till ye’re sick of it. Down
ye go.’
"‘Shall we?’ cried the
ringleader to his men. Most of them
were against it; but at length,
in obedience to Steelkilt, they
preceded him down into their dark
den, growlingly disappearing, like
bears into a cave.
"As the Lakeman’s bare head
was just level with the planks,
the Captain and his posse leaped the
barricade, and rapidly drawing over
the slide of the scuttle, planted
their group of hands upon it,
and loudly called for the steward
to bring the heavy brass padlock
belonging to the companionway. Then
opening the slide a little, the
Captain whispered something down the
crack, closed it, and turned the key
upon them—ten in number—leaving
on deck some twenty or more, who thus
far had remained neutral.
"All night a wide-awake watch
was kept by all the officers,
forward and aft, especially about
the forecastle scuttle and fore
hatchway; at which last place it was
feared the insurgents might emerge,
after breaking through the bulkhead
below. But the hours of darkness
passed in peace; the men who still
remained at their duty toiling hard
at the pumps, whose clinking and
clanking at intervals through the
dreary night dismally resounded
through the ship.
"At sunrise the Captain went
forward, and knocking on the deck,
summoned the prisoners to work;
but with a yell they refused. Water
was then lowered down to them, and
a couple of handfuls of biscuit were
tossed after it; when again turning
the key upon them and pocketing
it, the Captain returned to the
quarter-deck. Twice every day for
three days this was repeated; but
on the fourth morning a confused
wrangling, and then a scuffling was
heard, as the customary summons was
delivered; and suddenly four men
burst up from the forecastle, saying
they were ready to turn to. The
fetid closeness of the air, and a
famishing diet, united perhaps to
some fears of ultimate retribution,
had constrained them to surrender
at discretion. Emboldened by this,
the Captain reiterated his demand to
the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up
to him a terrific hint to stop his
babbling and betake himself where
he belonged. On the fifth morning
three others of the mutineers bolted
up into the air from the desperate
arms below that sought to restrain
them. Only three were left.
"‘Better turn to, now?’ said
the Captain with a heartless jeer.
"‘Shut us up again, will ye!’
cried Steelkilt.
"‘Oh certainly,’ said the
Captain, and the key clicked.
"It was at this point, gentlemen,
that enraged by the defection of
seven of his former associates, and
stung by the mocking voice that had
last hailed him, and maddened by his
long entombment in a place as black
as the bowels of despair; it was then
that Steelkilt proposed to the two
Canallers, thus far apparently of one
mind with him, to burst out of their
hole at the next summoning of the
garrison; and armed with their keen
mincing knives (long, crescentic,
heavy implements with a handle at
each end) run amuck from the bowsprit
to the taffrail; and if by any
devilishness of desperation possible,
seize the ship. For himself, he would
do this, he said, whether they joined
him or not. That was the last night
he should spend in that den. But the
scheme met with no opposition on the
part of the other two; they swore
they were ready for that, or for
any other mad thing, for anything
in short but a surrender. And what
was more, they each insisted upon
being the first man on deck, when
the time to make the rush should
come. But to this their leader as
fiercely objected, reserving that
priority for himself; particularly
as his two comrades would not yield,
the one to the other, in the matter;
and both of them could not be first,
for the ladder would but admit one
man at a time. And here, gentlemen,
the foul play of these miscreants
must come out.
"Upon hearing the frantic project
of their leader, each in his own
separate soul had suddenly lighted,
it would seem, upon the same piece
of treachery, namely: to be foremost
in breaking out, in order to be
the first of the three, though
the last of the ten, to surrender;
and thereby secure whatever small
chance of pardon such conduct might
merit. But when Steelkilt made known
his determination still to lead
them to the last, they in some way,
by some subtle chemistry of villany,
mixed their before secret treacheries
together; and when their leader
fell into a doze, verbally opened
their souls to each other in three
sentences; and bound the sleeper with
cords, and gagged him with cords;
and shrieked out for the Captain
at midnight.
"Thinking murder at hand,
and smelling in the dark for
the blood, he and all his armed
mates and harpooneers rushed for
the forecastle. In a few minutes
the scuttle was opened, and, bound
hand and foot, the still struggling
ringleader was shoved up into the
air by his perfidious allies, who at
once claimed the honor of securing
a man who had been fully ripe for
murder. But all these were collared,
and dragged along the deck like
dead cattle; and, side by side, were
seized up into the mizzen rigging,
like three quarters of meat, and
there they hung till morning. ‘Damn
ye,’ cried the Captain, pacing to
and fro before them, ‘the vultures
would not touch ye, ye villains!’
"At sunrise he summoned all hands;
and separating those who had rebelled
from those who had taken no part
in the mutiny, he told the former
that he had a good mind to flog
them all round—thought, upon the
whole, he would do so—he ought
to—justice demanded it; but for
the present, considering their timely
surrender, he would let them go with
a reprimand, which he accordingly
administered in the vernacular.
"‘But as for you, ye carrion
rogues,’ turning to the three men
in the rigging—‘for you, I mean
to mince ye up for the try-pots;’
and, seizing a rope, he applied it
with all his might to the backs of
the two traitors, till they yelled
no more, but lifelessly hung their
heads sideways, as the two crucified
thieves are drawn.
"‘My wrist is sprained with
ye!’ he cried, at last; ‘but
there is still rope enough left for
you, my fine bantam, that wouldn’t
give up. Take that gag from his
mouth, and let us hear what he can
say for himself.’
"For a moment the exhausted
mutineer made a tremulous motion of
his cramped jaws, and then painfully
twisting round his head, said in
a sort of hiss, ‘What I say is
this—and mind it well—if you flog
me, I murder you!’
"‘Say ye so? then see how ye
frighten me’—and the Captain drew
off with the rope to strike.
"‘Best not,’ hissed the
Lakeman.
"‘But I must,’—and the
rope was once more drawn back for
the stroke.
"Steelkilt here hissed out
something, inaudible to all but the
Captain; who, to the amazement of
all hands, started back, paced the
deck rapidly two or three times, and
then suddenly throwing down his rope,
said, ‘I won’t do it—let him
go—cut him down: d’ye hear?’
"But as the junior mates were
hurrying to execute the order, a pale
man, with a bandaged head, arrested
them—Radney the chief mate. Ever
since the blow, he had lain in his
berth; but that morning, hearing the
tumult on the deck, he had crept out,
and thus far had watched the whole
scene. Such was the state of his
mouth, that he could hardly speak;
but mumbling something about _his_
being willing and able to do what
the captain dared not attempt, he
snatched the rope and advanced to
his pinioned foe.
"‘You are a coward!’ hissed
the Lakeman.
"‘So I am, but take that.’ The
mate was in the very act of striking,
when another hiss stayed his uplifted
arm. He paused: and then pausing
no more, made good his word, spite
of Steelkilt’s threat, whatever
that might have been. The three men
were then cut down, all hands were
turned to, and, sullenly worked by
the moody seamen, the iron pumps
clanged as before.
"Just after dark that day, when
one watch had retired below, a clamor
was heard in the forecastle; and the
two trembling traitors running up,
besieged the cabin door, saying they
durst not consort with the crew.
Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could
not drive them back, so at their own
instance they were put down in the
ship’s run for salvation. Still, no
sign of mutiny reappeared among the
rest. On the contrary, it seemed,
that mainly at Steelkilt’s
instigation, they had resolved to
maintain the strictest peacefulness,
obey all orders to the last, and,
when the ship reached port, desert
her in a body. But in order to insure
the speediest end to the voyage, they
all agreed to another thing—namely,
not to sing out for whales, in
case any should be discovered. For,
spite of her leak, and spite of all
her other perils, the Town-Ho still
maintained her mast-heads, and her
captain was just as willing to lower
for a fish that moment, as on the day
his craft first struck the cruising
ground; and Radney the mate was quite
as ready to change his berth for a
boat, and with his bandaged mouth
seek to gag in death the vital jaw
of the whale.
"But though the Lakeman had induced
the seamen to adopt this sort
of passiveness in their conduct,
he kept his own counsel (at least
till all was over) concerning his
own proper and private revenge upon
the man who had stung him in the
ventricles of his heart. He was in
Radney the chief mate’s watch;
and as if the infatuated man sought
to run more than half way to meet
his doom, after the scene at the
rigging, he insisted, against the
express counsel of the captain,
upon resuming the head of his watch
at night. Upon this, and one or
two other circumstances, Steelkilt
systematically built the plan of
his revenge.
"During the night, Radney 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 very carefully in his
watches below.
"‘What are you making there?’
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?’
"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
lanyard 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 pillow. 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 in.
"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 air, Sirs.’
"‘The chicha! the chicha!’
cried Don Pedro; ‘our vigorous
friend looks faint;—fill 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 instinctively 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 rumours,
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
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. Moreover,
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 Lakeman
had slackened the line, so as to
drop astern from the whirlpool;
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, headed by
the Lakeman, all but five or six of
the foremastmen 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 weakened
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 whale-boat, 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?’ 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 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, Senor!’ 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 number 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 convictions,
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.
"‘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-Fés 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 moonlight. 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 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures
of Whales.
I shall ere long paint to you as well
as one can without canvas, something
like the true form of the whale as he
actually appears 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
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 delusions will
be found among the oldest Hindoo,
Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For
ever since those inventive but
unscrupulous times when on the
marble panellings of temples,
the pedestals 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
presentations 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 cavern-pagoda of
Elephanta, in India. The Brahmins
maintain that in the almost endless
sculptures of that immemorial
pagoda, 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 profession 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 get the model of such a
strange creature as that? Nor does
Hogarth, in painting the same scene
in his own "Perseus Descending,"
make out one whit better. The huge
corpulence of that Hogarthian monster
undulates on the surface, scarcely
drawing one inch of water. It
has a sort of howdah on its back,
and its distended tusked mouth into
which the billows are rolling, might
be taken for the Traitors’ Gate
leading from the Thames by water
into the Tower. Then, there are
the Prodromus whales of old Scotch
Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as
depicted in the prints of old Bibles
and the cuts of old primers. What
shall be said of these? As for the
book-binder’s whale winding like
a vine-stalk round the stock of a
descending anchor—as stamped and
gilded on the backs and 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
attempt at a whale; because it was so
intended when the device was first
introduced. It was introduced by an
old Italian publisher somewhere about
the 15th century, during the Revival
of Learning; and in those days, and
even down to a comparatively late
period, dolphins were popularly
supposed to be a species of the
Leviathan.
In the vignettes and other
embellishments of some ancient books
you will at times meet with very
curious touches at the whale, where
all manner of spouts, jets d’eau,
hot springs and cold, Saratoga
and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up
from his unexhausted brain. In the
title-page of the original edition
of the "Advancement of Learning"
you will find some curious whales.
But quitting all these unprofessional
attempts, let us glance at those
pictures of leviathan purporting to
be sober, scientific delineations,
by those who know. In old Harris’s
collection of voyages there are some
plates of whales extracted from a
Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671,
entitled "A Whaling Voyage to
Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the
Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland,
master." In one of those plates
the whales, like great rafts of
logs, are represented lying among
ice-isles, with white bears running
over their living backs. In another
plate, the prodigious blunder is
made of representing the whale with
perpendicular flukes.
Then again, there is an imposing
quarto, written by one Captain
Colnett, a Post Captain in the
English navy, entitled "A Voyage
round Cape Horn into the South Seas,
for the purpose of extending the
Spermaceti Whale Fisheries." In
this book is an outline purporting
to be a "Picture of a Physeter or
Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale
from one killed on the coast of
Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on
deck." I doubt not the captain had
this veracious picture taken for the
benefit of his marines. To mention
but one thing about it, let me say
that it has an eye which applied,
according to the accompanying
scale, to a full grown sperm whale,
would make the eye of that whale a
bow-window some five feet long. Ah,
my gallant captain, why did ye
not give us Jonah looking out of
that eye!
Nor are the most conscientious
compilations of Natural History for
the benefit of the young and tender,
free from the same heinousness of
mistake. Look at that popular work
"Goldsmith’s Animated Nature."
In the abridged London edition of
1807, there are plates of an alleged
"whale" and a "narwhale."
I do not wish to seem inelegant,
but this unsightly whale looks much
like an amputated sow; and, as for
the narwhale, one glimpse at it is
enough to amaze one, that in this
nineteenth century such a hippogriff
could be palmed for genuine upon any
intelligent public of schoolboys.
Then, again, in 1825, Bernard
Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great
naturalist, published a scientific
systemized whale book, wherein are
several pictures of the different
species of the Leviathan. All
these are not only incorrect, but
the picture of the Mysticetus or
Greenland whale (that is to say,
the Right whale), even Scoresby,
a long experienced man as touching
that species, declares not to have
its counterpart in nature.
But the placing of the cap-sheaf
to all this blundering business
was reserved for the scientific
Frederick Cuvier, brother to the
famous Baron. In 1836, he published a
Natural History of Whales, in which
he gives what he calls a picture
of the Sperm Whale. Before showing
that picture to any Nantucketer, you
had best provide for your summary
retreat from Nantucket. In a word,
Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is
not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of
course, he never had the benefit of
a whaling voyage (such men seldom
have), but whence he derived that
picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got
it as his scientific predecessor in
the same field, Desmarest, got one
of his authentic abortions; that is,
from a Chinese drawing. And what
sort of lively lads with the pencil
those Chinese are, many queer cups
and saucers inform us.
As for the sign-painters’ whales
seen in the streets hanging over
the shops of oil-dealers, what shall
be said of them? They are generally
Richard III. whales, with dromedary
humps, and very savage; breakfasting
on three or four sailor tarts, that
is whaleboats full of mariners: their
deformities floundering in seas of
blood and blue paint.
But these manifold mistakes in
depicting the whale are not so very
surprising after all. Consider! Most
of the scientific drawings have
been taken from the stranded fish;
and these are about as correct
as a drawing of a wrecked ship,
with broken back, would correctly
represent the noble animal itself
in all its undashed pride of hull
and spars. Though elephants have
stood for their full-lengths, the
living Leviathan has never yet fairly
floated himself for his portrait. The
living whale, in his full majesty
and significance, is only to be seen
at sea in unfathomable waters; and
afloat the vast bulk of him is out of
sight, like a launched line-of-battle
ship; and out of that element it
is a thing eternally impossible for
mortal man to hoist him bodily into
the air, so as to preserve all his
mighty swells and undulations. And,
not to speak of the highly presumable
difference of contour between a
young 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
characteristics; yet nothing of
this kind could be inferred from any
leviathan’s articulated bones. In
fact, as the great Hunter says, the
mere skeleton of the whale bears the
same relation to the fully invested
and padded animal as the insect does
to the chrysalis that so roundingly
envelopes it. This peculiarity is
strikingly evinced in the head, as
in some part of this book will be
incidentally shown. It is also very
curiously displayed in the side fin,
the bones of which almost exactly
answer to the bones of the human
hand, minus only the thumb. This
fin has four regular bone-fingers,
the index, middle, ring, and little
finger. 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 creature in the world
which must remain unpainted to the
last. True, one portrait may hit
the mark much nearer than another,
but none can hit it with any very
considerable degree of exactness. 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 56. 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, etc. 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, excepting the middle
figure in the picture of three whales
in various attitudes, 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.
Of the Right Whale, the best 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 engravings, 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 balancing upon
the monster’s spine; and standing
in that prow, for that one single
incomputable flash of time, you
behold an oarsman, 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 expressions 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 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 foreground is
all raging commotion; but behind,
in admirable artistic contrast, is
the glassy level of a sea becalmed,
the drooping 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 picturesqueness
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
nevertheless 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 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 engravings
of boat hooks, chopping knives, and
grapnels; and with the microscopic
diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to
the inspection of a shivering world
ninety-six fac-similes of magnified
Arctic snow crystals. I mean no
disparagement to the excellent
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 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 57. Of Whales in Paint;
in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron;
in Stone; in Mountains; 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 justification
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 amputation.
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 themselves 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-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
allegiance 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 multiplicity 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 suggestiveness,
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 door. When the porter
is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale
would be best. But these knocking
whales are seldom remarkable 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
intents 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 lie 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
Mendanna 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 pursuit 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 defined 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 harpoons
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 lie
encamped beyond my mortal sight!
CHAPTER 58. 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.*
*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 remarkable
meadow-like appearance, caused by
the vast drifts of brit continually
floating in those latitudes, where
the Right Whale is often chased.
But it was only the sound they made
as they parted the brit which at
all reminded one of mowers. Seen
from the mast-heads, especially when
they paused and were stationary for
a while, their vast black forms
looked more like lifeless masses
of rock than anything else. And as
in the great hunting countries of
India, the stranger at a distance
will sometimes pass on the plains
recumbent elephants without knowing
them to be such, taking them for
bare, blackened elevations of the
soil; even so, often, with him,
who for the first time beholds this
species of the leviathans of the
sea. And even when recognised at
last, their immense magnitude renders
it very hard really to believe that
such bulky masses of overgrowth can
possibly be instinct, in all parts,
with the same sort of life that lives
in a dog or a horse.
Indeed, in other respects, you can
hardly regard any creatures of the
deep with the same feelings that
you do those of the shore. For
though some old naturalists have
maintained that all creatures of the
land are of their kind in the sea;
and though taking a broad general
view of the thing, this may very
well be; yet coming to specialties,
where, for example, does the ocean
furnish any fish that in disposition
answers to the sagacious kindness of
the dog? The accursed shark alone
can in any generic respect be said
to bear comparative analogy to him.
But though, to landsmen in general,
the native inhabitants of the seas
have ever been regarded with emotions
unspeakably unsocial and repelling;
though we know the sea to be an
everlasting terra incognita, so
that Columbus sailed over numberless
unknown worlds to discover his one
superficial western one; though, by
vast odds, the most terrific of all
mortal disasters have immemorially
and indiscriminately befallen
tens and hundreds of thousands of
those who have gone upon the waters;
though but a moment’s consideration
will teach, that however baby man
may brag of his science and skill,
and however much, in a flattering
future, that science and skill may
augment; yet for ever and for ever,
to the crack of doom, the sea will
insult and murder him, and pulverize
the stateliest, stiffest frigate
he can make; nevertheless, by the
continual repetition of these very
impressions, man has lost that sense
of the full awfulness of the sea
which aboriginally belongs to it.
The first boat we read of, floated
on an ocean, that with Portuguese
vengeance had whelmed a whole world
without leaving so much as a widow.
That same ocean rolls now; that same
ocean destroyed the wrecked ships
of last year. Yea, foolish mortals,
Noah’s flood is not yet subsided;
two thirds of the fair world it
yet covers.
Wherein differ the sea and the land,
that a miracle upon one is not a
miracle upon the other? Preternatural
terrors rested upon the Hebrews,
when under the feet of Korah and
his company the live ground opened
and swallowed them up for ever; yet
not a modern sun ever sets, but in
precisely the same manner the live
sea swallows up ships and crews.
But not only is the sea such a foe to
man who is an alien to it, but it is
also a fiend to its own off-spring;
worse than the Persian host who
murdered his own guests; sparing
not the creatures which itself hath
spawned. Like a savage tigress that
tossing in the jungle overlays her
own cubs, so the sea dashes even the
mightiest whales against the rocks,
and leaves them there side by side
with the split wrecks of ships. No
mercy, no power but its own controls
it. Panting and snorting like a
mad battle steed that has lost its
rider, the masterless ocean overruns
the globe.
Consider the subtleness of the sea;
how its most dreaded creatures
glide under water, unapparent for
the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints
of azure. Consider also the devilish
brilliance and beauty of many of
its most remorseless tribes, as
the dainty embellished shape of
many species of sharks. Consider,
once more, the universal cannibalism
of the sea; all whose creatures prey
upon each other, carrying on eternal
war since the world began.
Consider all this; and then turn
to this green, gentle, and most
docile earth; consider them both,
the sea and the land; and do you not
find a strange analogy to something
in yourself? For as this appalling
ocean surrounds the verdant land,
so in the soul of man there lies
one insular Tahiti, full of peace
and joy, but encompassed by all the
horrors of the half known life. God
keep thee! Push not off from that
isle, thou canst never return!
CHAPTER 59. Squid.
Slowly wading through the meadows of
brit, the Pequod still held on her
way north-eastward towards the island
of Java; a gentle air impelling her
keel, so that in the surrounding
serenity her three tall tapering
masts mildly waved to that languid
breeze, as three mild palms on a
plain. And still, at wide intervals
in the silvery night, the lonely,
alluring jet would be seen.
But one transparent blue morning,
when a stillness almost preternatural
spread over the sea, however
unattended with any stagnant calm;
when the long burnished sun-glade on
the waters seemed a golden finger
laid across them, enjoining some
secrecy; when the slippered waves
whispered together as they softly
ran on; in this profound hush
of the visible sphere a strange
spectre was seen by Daggoo from the
main-mast-head.
In the distance, a great white mass
lazily rose, and rising higher and
higher, and disentangling itself from
the azure, at last gleamed before
our prow like a snow-slide, new slid
from the hills. Thus glistening for
a moment, as slowly it subsided,
and sank. Then once more arose,
and silently gleamed. It seemed not
a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick?
thought Daggoo. Again the phantom
went down, but on re-appearing once
more, with a stiletto-like cry that
startled every man from his nod, the
negro yelled out—"There! there
again! there she breaches! right
ahead! The White Whale, the White
Whale!"
Upon this, the seamen rushed to the
yard-arms, as in swarming-time the
bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed
in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on the
bowsprit, and with one hand pushed
far behind in readiness to wave
his orders to the helmsman, cast
his eager 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 prepared 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 lowering.
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-colour, lay
floating on the water, innumerable
long arms radiating from its centre,
and curling and twisting like a nest
of anacondas, 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 billows, 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 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 animated 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 feeding,
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 rising 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, here spoken of, it
is included among the 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 60. The Line.
With reference to the whaling scene
shortly to be described, as well as
for the better understanding of all
similar scenes elsewhere presented,
I have here to speak of the magical,
sometimes 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 æsthetics 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 sperm
whale-line measures something over
two hundred fathoms. 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 concentrated 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 terminating in an
eye-splice or loop coming up from the
bottom against the side of the tub,
and hanging over its edge completely
disengaged 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 harpoon. In these instances, the
whale of course is shifted like 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 loggerhead there, is again
carried forward the entire length of
the boat, resting crosswise upon the
loom or handle of every man’s oar,
so that it jogs against his wrist
in rowing; and also passing between
the men, as they alternately sit at
the opposite gunwales, to the leaded
chocks or grooves in the extreme
pointed prow of the boat, where a
wooden pin or skewer the size of
a common quill, prevents it from
slipping out. From the chocks it
hangs in a slight festoon over the
bows, and is then passed inside the
boat again; and some ten or twenty
fathoms (called box-line) being
coiled upon the box in the bows,
it continues its way to the gunwale
still a little further aft, and is
then attached to the short-warp—the
rope which is immediately connected
with the harpoon; but previous to
that connexion, the short-warp goes
through sundry mystifications too
tedious to detail.
Thus the whale-line folds the whole
boat in its complicated coils,
twisting and writhing around it
in almost every direction. All
the oarsmen are involved in its
perilous contortions; so that to
the timid eye of the landsman,
they seem as Indian jugglers, with
the deadliest snakes sportively
festooning their limbs. Nor can any
son of mortal woman, for the first
time, seat himself amid those hempen
intricacies, and while straining
his utmost at the oar, bethink
him that at any unknown instant
the harpoon may be darted, and all
these horrible contortions be put
in play like ringed lightnings;
he cannot be thus circumstanced
without a shudder that makes the
very marrow in his bones to quiver
in him like a shaken jelly. Yet
habit—strange thing! what cannot
habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies,
more merry mirth, better jokes, and
brighter repartees, you never heard
over your mahogany, than you will
hear over the half-inch white cedar
of the 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
simultaneousness of volition and
action, can you escape being made a
Mazeppa of, and run away with where
the all-seeing sun himself could
never pierce you out.
Again: as the profound calm
which only apparently precedes and
prophesies of the storm, is perhaps
more awful than the storm itself;
for, indeed, the calm is but the
wrapper and envelope of the storm;
and contains it in itself, as the
seemingly harmless rifle holds
the fatal powder, and the ball,
and the explosion; so the graceful
repose of the line, as it silently
serpentines about the oarsmen before
being brought into actual play—this
is a thing which carries more of
true terror than any other aspect
of this dangerous affair. But why
say more? All men live enveloped
in whale-lines. All are born with
halters round their necks; but it is
only when caught in the swift, sudden
turn of death, that mortals realize
the silent, subtle, 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 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.
If to Starbuck the apparition of
the Squid was a thing of portents,
to Queequeg it was quite a different
object.
"When you see him ’quid," said
the savage, honing his harpoon in the
bow of his hoisted boat, "then you
quick see him ’parm whale."
The next day was exceedingly still
and sultry, and with nothing special
to engage them, the Pequod’s
crew could hardly resist the spell
of sleep induced by such a vacant
sea. For this part of the Indian
Ocean through which we then were
voyaging is not what whalemen
call a lively ground; that is, it
affords fewer glimpses of porpoises,
dolphins, flying-fish, and other
vivacious denizens of more stirring
waters, than those off the Rio de
la Plata, or the in-shore ground
off Peru.
It was my turn to stand at the
foremast-head; and with my shoulders
leaning against the slackened
royal shrouds, to and fro I idly
swayed in what seemed an enchanted
air. No resolution could withstand
it; in that dreamy mood losing all
consciousness, at last my soul went
out of my body; though my body still
continued to sway as a pendulum will,
long after the power which first
moved it is withdrawn.
Ere forgetfulness altogether
came over me, I had noticed
that the seamen at the main and
mizzen-mast-heads were already
drowsy. So that at last all three of
us lifelessly swung from the spars,
and for every swing that we made
there was a nod from below from the
slumbering helmsman. The waves, too,
nodded their indolent crests; and
across the wide trance of the sea,
east nodded to west, and the sun
over all.
Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting
beneath my closed eyes; like vices
my hands grasped the shrouds;
some invisible, gracious agency
preserved me; with a shock I came
back to life. And lo! close under
our lee, not forty fathoms off,
a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling
in the water like the capsized
hull of a frigate, his broad,
glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue,
glistening in the sun’s rays like
a mirror. But lazily undulating in
the trough of the sea, and ever and
anon tranquilly spouting his vapory
jet, the whale looked like a portly
burgher smoking his pipe of a warm
afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale,
was thy last. As if struck by some
enchanter’s wand, the sleepy ship
and every sleeper in it all at once
started into wakefulness; and more
than a score of voices from all
parts of the vessel, 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 the noiseless
sails being set. Presently, as we
thus glided in chase, the monster
perpendicularly flitted his tail
forty feet into the air, and then
sank out of sight like a tower
swallowed up.
"There go flukes!" was the cry,
an announcement immediately 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 become
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 projecting from the
mad yeast which he brewed.*
*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 formation 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
sharppointed New York pilot-boat.
"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
perpendicular out of their graves,
boys—that’s all. Start her!"
"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 loggerhead, 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 blisteringly passed through and
through both of Stubb’s hands, 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 oarsman (him
seated by the tub) who, snatching
off his hat, dashed sea-water
into it.* More turns were taken,
so that 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.
*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.
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 cascade
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 Pacifics 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 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, starting from his trance into
that unspeakable thing called his
"flurry," the monster horribly
wallowed in his blood, overwrapped
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 dilating
and contracting his spout-hole,
with sharp, cracking, agonized
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!
"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.
CHAPTER 62. 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 harpooneer-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 disrated; no wonder
that some of them actually burst
their blood-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 boatheader and harpooneer
likewise start to running fore and
aft, to the imminent 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 63. The Crotch.
Out of the trunk, the branches
grow; out of them, the twigs. So,
in productive subjects, grow the
chapters.
The crotch alluded to on a previous
page deserves independent 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 connected 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 of 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 anticipatingly 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 casualties.
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 again until the whale is fairly
captured and a corpse.
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 without
recovery. All these particulars are
faithfully narrated here, as they
will not fail to elucidate several
most important, however intricate
passages, in scenes hereafter to
be painted.
CHAPTER 64. 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 commenced 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 Pequod’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 handing
his lantern to a seaman, went his
way into the cabin, 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 clanking 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.*
*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
relatively 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 prepared 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.
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence,
at least so far as could be known
on deck, Stubb, his second mate,
flushed with conquest, betrayed
an unusual but still good-natured
excitement. Such an unwonted bustle
was he in that the staid Starbuck,
his official superior, quietly
resigned to him for the time 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 flavorish 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
designated 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 spermaceti 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 mastications,
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 miraculous. How
at such an apparently unassailable
surface, they contrive to gouge out
such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a
part of the universal problem of all
things. The mark they thus leave on
the whale, may best be likened to
the hollow made by a carpenter in
countersinking for a screw.
Though amid all the smoking horror
and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks
will be seen longingly gazing up
to the ship’s decks, like hungry
dogs round a table where red meat
is being carved, ready to bolt down
every killed man that is tossed to
them; and though, while the valiant
butchers over the deck-table are thus
cannibally carving each other’s
live meat with carving-knives all
gilded and tasselled, the sharks,
also, with their jewel-hilted
mouths, are quarrelsomely carving
away under the table at the dead
meat; and though, were you to turn
the whole affair upside down, it
would still be pretty much the same
thing, that is to say, a shocking
sharkish business enough for all
parties; and though sharks also
are the invariable outriders of all
slave ships crossing the Atlantic,
systematically trotting alongside,
to be handy in case a parcel is to be
carried anywhere, or a dead slave to
be decently buried; and though one
or two other like instances might
be set down, touching the set terms,
places, and occasions, when sharks do
most socially congregate, and most
hilariously feast; yet is there no
conceivable time or occasion when
you will find them in such countless
numbers, and in gayer or more jovial
spirits, than around a dead sperm
whale, moored by night to a whaleship
at sea. If you have never seen that
sight, then suspend your decision
about the propriety of devil-worship,
and the expediency of conciliating
the devil.
But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the
mumblings of the banquet that was
going on so nigh him, no more than
the sharks heeded the smacking of
his own epicurean lips.
"Cook, cook!—where’s that
old Fleece?" he cried at length,
widening his legs still further, as
if to form a more secure base for
his supper; and, at the same time
darting his fork into the dish, as
if stabbing with his lance; "cook,
you cook!—sail this way, cook!"
The old black, not in any very high
glee at having been previously
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 floundered along, and
in obedience to the word of command,
came to a dead stop on the opposite
side of Stubb’s sideboard; when,
with both hands folded before him,
and resting on his two-legged cane,
he bowed his arched back still
further over, at the same time
sideways inclining his head, so as
to bring his best ear into play.
"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly
lifting a rather reddish morsel to
his mouth, "don’t you think this
steak is rather overdone? You’ve
been beating this steak too much,
cook; it’s too tender. Don’t
I always say that to be good, a
whale-steak must be tough? There
are those sharks now over the
side, don’t you see they prefer
it tough and rare? What a shindy
they are kicking up! Cook, go and
talk to ’em; tell ’em they
are welcome to help themselves
civilly, and in moderation, but
they must keep quiet. Blast me,
if I can hear my own voice. Away,
cook, and deliver my message. Here,
take this lantern," snatching one
from his sideboard; "now then,
go and preach to ’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
congregation, with the other hand
he solemnly flourished his tongs,
and leaning far over the side in a
mumbling voice began addressing the
sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling
behind, overheard all that was said.
"Fellow-critters: I’se ordered
here to say dat you must stop dat
dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat
dam smackin’ ob de 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 won’t have
that swearing. Talk to ’em
gentlemanly."
Once more the sermon proceeded.
"Your woraciousness,
fellow-critters, I don’t blame
ye so much for; dat is natur, and
can’t be helped; but to gobern dat
wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is
sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de
shark in you, why den you be angel;
for all angel is not’ing more dan
de shark well goberned. Now, look
here, bred’ren, just try wonst to
be cibil, a helping yourselbs from
dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de
blubber out your neighbour’s mout,
I say. Is not one shark dood right as
toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none
on you has de right to dat whale; dat
whale belong to some one else. I know
some o’ you has berry brig mout,
brigger dan oders; but den de brig
mouts sometimes has de small bellies;
so dat de brigness of de mout is not
to swaller wid, but to bit off de
blubber for de small fry ob sharks,
dat can’t get into de scrouge to
help demselves."
"Well done, old Fleece!" cried
Stubb, "that’s Christianity;
go on."
"No use goin’ on; de dam willains
will keep a scougin’ 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 you have lived in this world
hard upon one hundred years, cook,
and don’t know yet how to cook
a whale-steak?" rapidly bolting
another mouthful at the last word,
so that morsel seemed a continuation
of the question. "Where were you
born, cook?"
"’Hind de hatchway, in
ferry-boat, goin’ ober de
Roanoke."
"Born in a ferry-boat! That’s
queer, too. But I want to know what
country you were born in, cook!"
"Didn’t I say de Roanoke
country?" he cried sharply.
"No, you didn’t, cook; but
I’ll tell you what I’m coming to,
cook. You must go home and be born
over again; you don’t know how to
cook a whale-steak yet."
"Bress my soul, if I cook noder
one," he growled, angrily, turning
round to depart.
"Come back, cook;—here, hand
me those tongs;—now take that bit
of steak there, and tell me if you
think that steak cooked as it should
be? Take it, I say"—holding
the tongs towards him—"take it,
and taste it."
Faintly smacking his withered lips
over it for a moment, the old negro
muttered, "Best cooked ’teak I
eber taste; joosy, berry joosy."
"Cook," said Stubb, squaring
himself once more; "do you belong
to the church?"
"Passed one once in Cape-Down,"
said the old man sullenly.
"And you have once in your life
passed a holy church in Cape-Town,
where you doubtless overheard a holy
parson addressing his hearers as
his beloved fellow-creatures, have
you, cook! And yet you come here,
and tell me such a dreadful lie as
you did just now, eh?" said Stubb.
"Where do you expect to go to,
cook?"
"Go to bed berry soon," he
mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.
"Avast! heave to! I mean when you
die, cook. It’s an awful question.
Now what’s your answer?"
"When dis old brack man dies,"
said the negro slowly, changing his
whole air and demeanor, "he hisself
won’t go nowhere; but some bressed
angel will come and fetch him."
"Fetch him? How? In a coach and
four, as they fetched Elijah? And
fetch him where?"
"Up dere," said Fleece, holding
his tongs straight over his head,
and keeping it there very solemnly.
"So, then, you expect to go up
into our main-top, do you, cook,
when you are dead? But don’t you
know the higher you climb, the colder
it gets? Main-top, eh?"
"Didn’t say dat t’all," said
Fleece, again in the sulks.
"You said up there, didn’t
you? and now look yourself, and see
where your tongs are pointing. But,
perhaps you expect to get into
heaven by crawling through the
lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no,
cook, you don’t get there, except
you go the regular way, round by the
rigging. It’s a ticklish business,
but must be done, or else it’s
no go. But none of us are in heaven
yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear
my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your
hat in one hand, and clap t’other
a’top of your heart, when I’m
giving my orders, cook. What! that
your heart, there?—that’s your
gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s
it—now you have it. Hold it there
now, and pay attention."
"All ’dention," said the
old black, with both hands placed
as desired, vainly wriggling his
grizzled head, as if to get both ears
in front at one and the same time.
"Well then, cook, you see this
whale-steak of yours was so very
bad, that I have put it out of sight
as soon as possible; you see that,
don’t you? Well, for the future,
when you cook another whale-steak for
my private table here, the capstan,
I’ll tell you what to do so as
not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold
the steak in one hand, and show a
live coal to it with the other; that
done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now
to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting
in the fish, be sure you stand by
to get the tips of his fins; have
them put in pickle. As for the ends
of the flukes, have them soused,
cook. There, now ye may go."
But Fleece had hardly got three paces
off, when he was recalled.
"Cook, give me cutlets for supper
to-morrow night in the mid-watch.
D’ye hear? away you sail,
then.—Halloa! stop! make
a bow before you go.—Avast
heaving again! Whale-balls for
breakfast—don’t forget."
"Wish, by gor! whale eat him,
’stead of him eat whale. I’m
bressed if he ain’t more of
shark dan Massa Shark hisself,"
muttered the old man, limping away;
with which sage ejaculation he went
to his hammock.
CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.
That mortal man should feed upon
the creature that feeds his lamp,
and, like Stubb, eat him by his own
light, as you may say; this seems
so outlandish a thing that one must
needs go a little into the history
and philosophy of it.
It is upon record, that three
centuries ago the tongue of the Right
Whale was esteemed a great delicacy
in France, and commanded large
prices there. Also, that in Henry
VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of
the court obtained a handsome reward
for inventing an admirable sauce to
be eaten with barbacued porpoises,
which, you remember, are a species
of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to
this day considered fine eating. 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 fastidious. We all
know how they live upon whales,
and have rare old vintages of
prime old train oil. Zogranda,
one of their most famous doctors,
recommends strips of blubber for
infants, as being exceedingly juicy
and nourishing. And this reminds me
that certain Englishmen, who 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. Nevertheless, 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 (precisely resembling
two large puddings), they are then
mixed with flour, and cooked into
a most delectable mess, in flavor
somewhat 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 uncommon discrimination. And
that is the reason why a young buck
with an intelligent looking calf’s
head before him, is somehow 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 consideration 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 Fejee, 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 paté-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-handle, 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 resolution
to patronize nothing but steel pens.
CHAPTER 66. 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
very 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 reservation 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
procedure 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 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 disembowelments, 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.
*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.
"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."
CHAPTER 67. 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 painted 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 striking 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
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. Whereupon, 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 unfurnished parlor called
the blubber-room. Into this twilight
apartment sundry nimble hands keep
coiling away the long 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 68. 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 something of the
consistence of firm, close-grained
beef, but tougher, more elastic and
compact, and ranges from eight or
ten to twelve and fifteen inches
in thickness.
Now, however preposterous it
may at first seem to talk of any
creature’s skin as being of that
sort of consistence and thickness,
yet in point of fact these are no
arguments against such a presumption;
because you cannot raise any other
dense enveloping layer from the
whale’s body but that same blubber;
and the outermost enveloping layer
of any animal, if reasonably dense,
what can that be but the skin?
True, from the unmarred dead body
of the whale, you may scrape off
with your hand an infinitely thin,
transparent substance, somewhat
resembling the thinnest shreds of
isinglass, only it is almost as
flexible and soft as satin; that is,
previous to being dried, when it
not only contracts and thickens, but
becomes rather hard and brittle. I
have several such dried bits, which
I use for marks in my whale-books.
It is transparent, as I said before;
and being laid upon the printed
page, I have sometimes pleased
myself with fancying it exerted a
magnifying influence. At any rate,
it is pleasant to read about whales
through their own spectacles, as you
may say. But what I am driving at
here is this. That same infinitely
thin, isinglass substance, which,
I admit, invests the entire body
of the whale, is not so much to be
regarded as the skin of the creature,
as the skin of the skin, so to speak;
for it were simply ridiculous to
say, that the proper skin of the
tremendous whale is thinner and more
tender than the skin of a new-born
child. But no more of this.
Assuming the blubber to be the skin
of the whale; then, when this skin,
as in the case of a very large Sperm
Whale, will yield the bulk of one
hundred barrels of oil; and, when
it is considered that, in quantity,
or rather weight, that oil, in
its expressed state, is only three
fourths, and not the entire substance
of the coat; some idea may hence
be had of the enormousness of that
animated mass, a mere part of whose
mere integument yields such a lake of
liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels
to the ton, you have ten tons for the
net weight of only three quarters of
the stuff of the whale’s skin.
In life, the visible surface
of the Sperm Whale is not the
least among the many marvels he
presents. Almost invariably it
is all over obliquely crossed and
re-crossed with numberless straight
marks in thick array, something
like those in the finest Italian
line engravings. But these marks do
not seem to be impressed upon the
isinglass substance above mentioned,
but seem to be seen through it, as
if they were engraved upon the body
itself. Nor is this all. In some
instances, to the quick, observant
eye, those linear marks, as in a
veritable engraving, but afford the
ground for far other delineations.
These are hieroglyphical; that is, if
you call those mysterious cyphers on
the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics,
then that is the proper word to
use in the present connexion. By my
retentive memory of the hieroglyphics
upon one Sperm Whale in particular,
I was much struck with a plate
representing the old Indian
characters chiselled on the famous
hieroglyphic palisades on the banks
of the Upper Mississippi. Like those
mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked
whale remains undecipherable. This
allusion to the Indian rocks reminds
me of another thing. Besides all the
other phenomena which the exterior
of the Sperm Whale presents, he not
seldom displays the back, and more
especially his flanks, effaced in
great part of the regular linear
appearance, by reason of numerous
rude scratches, altogether of an
irregular, random aspect. I should
say that those New England rocks
on the 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 counterpane;
or, still better, an Indian poncho
slipt over his head, and skirting his
extremity. It is by reason of this
cosy blanketing of his body, that
the whale is enabled to keep himself
comfortable in all weathers, in all
seas, times, and tides. What would
become of a Greenland whale, say,
in those shuddering, icy seas of
the North, if unsupplied with his
cosy surtout? True, other fish are
found exceedingly brisk in those
Hyperborean waters; but these, be
it observed, are your cold-blooded,
lungless fish, whose very bellies
are refrigerators; creatures, that
warm themselves under the lee of an
iceberg, as a traveller in winter
would bask before an inn fire;
whereas, like man, the whale has
lungs and warm blood. Freeze
his blood, and he dies. How
wonderful is it then—except
after explanation—that this great
monster, to whom corporeal warmth
is as indispensable as it is to man;
how wonderful that he should be found
at home, immersed to his lips for
life in those Arctic waters! where,
when seamen fall overboard, they are
sometimes found, months afterwards,
perpendicularly frozen into the
hearts of fields of ice, as a fly
is found glued in amber. But more
surprising is it to know, as has been
proved by experiment, that the blood
of a Polar whale is warmer than that
of a Borneo negro in summer.
It does seem to me, that herein
we see the rare virtue of a strong
individual vitality, and the rare
virtue of thick walls, and the rare
virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh,
man! admire and model thyself after
the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm
among ice. Do thou, too, live in
this world without being of it. Be
cool at the equator; keep thy blood
fluid at the Pole. Like the great
dome of St. Peter’s, and like the
great whale, retain, O man! in all
seasons a temperature of thine own.
But how easy and how hopeless
to teach these fine things! Of
erections, how few are domed like
St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few
vast as the whale!
CHAPTER 69. The Funeral.
"Haul in the chains! Let the
carcase go astern!"
The vast tackles have now done their
duty. The peeled white body of the
beheaded whale flashes like a marble
sepulchre; though changed in hue,
it has not perceptibly lost anything
in bulk. It is still colossal.
Slowly it floats more and more away,
the water round it torn and splashed
by the insatiate sharks, and the air
above vexed with rapacious flights
of screaming fowls, whose beaks are
like so many insulting poniards 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 pleasant 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 peradventure he had needed it; but
upon the banquet of his funeral they
most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible
vultureism of 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 unharming corpse, with
trembling fingers is set down in the
log—_shoals, rocks, and breakers
hereabouts: beware!_ And for years
afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the
place; leaping over it as silly sheep
leap over a vacuum, because their
leader originally leaped there when
a stick was held. There’s your law
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!
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 powerless 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 Doctor Johnson who believe
in them.
CHAPTER 70. 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 discoloured,
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, without so much
as getting one single peep into the
ever-contracting gash thus made,
he must skilfully steer clear of
all adjacent, interdicted parts,
and exactly divide the spine at a
critical point hard by its insertion
into the skull. Do you not marvel,
then, 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 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-dripping
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 unfolding
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 eyes
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 desert. "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
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 lightnings
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."
CHAPTER 71. 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 stranger’s boats and
manned mast-heads proved her a
whale-ship. But as she was so far to
windward, and shooting by, apparently
making a passage 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 stranger’s
setting her own; which proved the
ship to be the Jeroboam 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 stranger 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
untainted, and though his ship
was half a rifle-shot off, and an
incorruptible sea and air rolling and
flowing between; yet conscientiously
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 communications. Preserving an
interval of some few yards between
itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s
boat by the occasional use of its
oars contrived to keep parallel to
the Pequod, as she heavily forged
through the sea (for by this time
it blew very fresh), with her
main-topsail aback; though, indeed,
at times by the sudden onset of a
large rolling wave, the boat would be
pushed some way ahead; but would be
soon skilfully brought to her proper
bearings again. Subject to this,
and other the like interruptions
now and then, a conversation was
sustained between the two parties;
but at intervals not without still
another interruption of a very
different sort.
Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s
boat, was a man of a singular
appearance, even in that wild whaling
life where individual notabilities
make up all totalities. He was a
small, short, youngish man, sprinkled
all over his face with freckles,
and wearing redundant yellow hair. A
long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat
of a faded walnut tinge enveloped
him; the overlapping sleeves of which
were rolled up on his wrists. A deep,
settled, fanatic delirium was in
his eyes.
So soon as this figure had
been first descried, Stubb had
exclaimed—"That’s he! that’s
he!—the long-togged scaramouch the
Town-Ho’s company told us of!"
Stubb here alluded to a strange
story told of the Jeroboam, and a
certain man among her crew, some time
previous when the Pequod spoke the
Town-Ho. According to this account
and what was subsequently learned,
it seemed that the scaramouch in
question had gained a wonderful
ascendency over almost everybody in
the Jeroboam. His story was this:
He had been originally nurtured among
the crazy society of Neskyeuna
Shakers, where he had been a
great prophet; in their cracked,
secret meetings having several
times descended from heaven by the
way of a 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, common-sense
exterior, and offered himself as
a green-hand candidate for the
Jeroboam’s whaling voyage. They
engaged him; but straightway upon
the ship’s getting out of sight
of land, his insanity broke out in
a freshet. He announced himself as
the archangel Gabriel, and commanded
the captain to jump overboard. He
published his manifesto, whereby he
set himself forth as the deliverer
of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica. The
unflinching earnestness with which
he declared these things;—the
dark, daring play of his sleepless,
excited imagination, and all the
preternatural terrors of real
delirium, united to invest this
Gabriel in the minds of the majority
of the ignorant crew, with an
atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover,
they were afraid of him. As such
a man, however, was not of much
practical use in the ship, especially
as he refused to work except when
he pleased, the incredulous captain
would fain have been rid of him; but
apprised that that individual’s
intention was to land him in the
first convenient port, the archangel
forthwith opened all his seals and
vials—devoting the ship and all
hands to unconditional perdition,
in case this intention was carried
out. So strongly did he work upon
his disciples among the crew, that
at last in a body they went to the
captain and told him if Gabriel was
sent from the ship, not a man of
them would remain. He was therefore
forced to relinquish his plan. Nor
would they permit Gabriel to be any
way maltreated, say or do what he
would; so that it came to pass that
Gabriel had the complete freedom
of the ship. The consequence of all
this was, that the archangel cared
little or nothing for the captain
and mates; and since the epidemic
had broken out, he carried a higher
hand than ever; declaring that
the plague, as he called it, was
at his sole command; nor should it
be stayed but according to his good
pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor
devils, cringed, and some of them
fawned before him; in obedience to
his instructions, sometimes rendering
him personal homage, as to a god.
Such things may seem incredible; but,
however wondrous, they are true.
Nor is the history of fanatics
half so striking in respect to the
measureless self-deception of the
fanatic himself, as his measureless
power of deceiving and bedevilling
so many others. But it is time to
return to the Pequod.
"I fear not thy epidemic, man,"
said Ahab from the bulwarks, to
Captain Mayhew, who stood in the
boat’s stern; "come on board."
But now Gabriel started to his feet.
"Think, think of the fevers,
yellow and bilious! Beware of the
horrible plague!"
"Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain
Mayhew; "thou must either—"
But that instant a headlong wave shot
the boat far ahead, and its seethings
drowned all speech.
"Hast thou seen the White Whale?"
demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted
back.
"Think, think of thy whale-boat,
stoven and sunk! Beware of the
horrible tail!"
"I tell thee again, Gabriel,
that—" But again the boat
tore ahead as if dragged by
fiends. Nothing was said for some
moments, while a succession of
riotous waves rolled by, which by
one of those occasional caprices
of the seas were tumbling, not
heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted
sperm whale’s head jogged about
very violently, and Gabriel was
seen eyeing it with rather more
apprehensiveness than his archangel
nature seemed to warrant.
When this interlude was over, Captain
Mayhew began a dark story concerning
Moby Dick; not, however, without
frequent interruptions from Gabriel,
whenever his name was mentioned,
and the crazy sea that seemed leagued
with him.
It seemed that the Jeroboam had not
long left home, when upon speaking
a whale-ship, her people were
reliably apprised of the existence
of Moby Dick, and the havoc he
had made. Greedily sucking in this
intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned
the captain against attacking the
White Whale, in case the monster
should be seen; in his gibbering
insanity, pronouncing the White Whale
to be no less a being than the Shaker
God incarnated; the Shakers receiving
the Bible. But when, some year or
two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly
sighted from the mast-heads, Macey,
the chief mate, burned with ardour
to encounter him; and the captain
himself being not unwilling to let
him have the opportunity, despite
all the archangel’s denunciations
and forewarnings, Macey succeeded
in persuading five men to man his
boat. With them he pushed off; and,
after much weary pulling, 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.
It is well to parenthesize here,
that of the fatal accidents in the
Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is
perhaps almost as frequent 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 nameless 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 opportunity 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 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 oarsmen expectantly desisted from
rowing; the boat drifted a little
towards the ship’s stern; so that,
as if by magic, the letter suddenly
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 jacket
of the whale, many strange things
were hinted in reference to this
wild affair.
CHAPTER 72. 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 mentioned that
upon first breaking ground in the
whale’s back, the blubber-hook was
inserted into the original hole there
cut by the spades of the mates. But
how did so clumsy and weighty a
mass as that same hook get fixed in
that hole? It was inserted there
by my particular friend Queequeg,
whose duty it was, as harpooneer,
to descend upon the monster’s back
for the special purpose referred to.
But in very many cases, circumstances
require that the harpooneer shall
remain on the whale till the whole
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
uncommon advantage; and no one had
a better chance to observe him,
as will presently be seen.
Being the savage’s bowsman,
that is, the person who pulled the
bow-oar in his boat (the second one
from forward), it was my cheerful
duty to attend upon him while taking
that hard-scrabble scramble upon
the dead whale’s back. You have
seen Italian organ-boys holding a
dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so,
from the ship’s steep side, did I
hold Queequeg down there in the sea,
by what is technically called in the
fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a
strong strip of canvas belted round
his waist.
It was a humorously perilous
business for both of us. For, before
we proceed further, it must be said
that the monkey-rope was fast at both
ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad
canvas belt, and fast to my narrow
leather one. So that for better or
for worse, we two, for the time,
were wedded; and should poor Queequeg
sink to rise no more, then both usage
and honor demanded, that instead of
cutting the cord, it should drag
me down in his wake. So, then, an
elongated Siamese ligature united
us. Queequeg was my own inseparable
twin brother; nor could I any way
get rid of the dangerous liabilities
which the hempen bond entailed.
So strongly and metaphysically did I
conceive of my situation then, that
while earnestly watching his motions,
I seemed distinctly to perceive that
my own individuality was now merged
in a joint stock company of two;
that my free will had received a
mortal wound; and that another’s
mistake or misfortune might plunge
innocent me into unmerited disaster
and death. Therefore, I saw that
here was a sort of interregnum in
Providence; for its even-handed
equity never could have so gross
an injustice. And yet still further
pondering—while I jerked him now
and then from between the whale and
ship, which would threaten to jam
him—still further pondering, I say,
I saw that this situation of mine
was the precise situation of every
mortal that breathes; only, in most
cases, he, one way or other, has this
Siamese connexion with a plurality
of other mortals. If your banker
breaks, you snap; if your apothecary
by mistake sends you poison in your
pills, you die. True, you may say
that, by exceeding caution, you
may possibly escape these and the
multitudinous other evil chances
of life. But handle Queequeg’s
monkey-rope heedfully as I would,
sometimes he jerked it so, that I
came very near sliding overboard. Nor
could I possibly forget that, do what
I would, I only had the management
of one end of it.*
*The monkey-rope is found in all
whalers; but it was only in the
Pequod that the monkey and his
holder were ever tied together. This
improvement upon the original usage
was introduced by no less a man
than Stubb, in order to afford
the imperilled harpooneer the
strongest possible guarantee for the
faithfulness and vigilance of his
monkey-rope holder.
I have hinted that I would often
jerk poor Queequeg from between the
whale and the ship—where he would
occasionally fall, from the incessant
rolling and swaying of both. But this
was not the only jamming jeopardy he
was exposed to. Unappalled by the
massacre made upon them during the
night, the sharks now freshly and
more keenly allured by the before
pent blood which began to flow from
the carcass—the rabid creatures
swarmed round it like bees in
a beehive.
And right in among those sharks was
Queequeg; who often pushed them aside
with his floundering feet. A thing
altogether incredible were it not
that attracted by such prey as a dead
whale, the otherwise miscellaneously
carnivorous shark will seldom touch
a man.
Nevertheless, it may well be
believed that since they have such
a ravenous finger in the pie, it
is deemed but wise to look sharp
to them. Accordingly, besides the
monkey-rope, with which I now and
then jerked the poor fellow from
too close a vicinity to the maw of
what seemed a peculiarly ferocious
shark—he was provided with still
another protection. Suspended over
the side in one of the stages,
Tashtego and Daggoo continually
flourished over his head a couple
of keen whale-spades, wherewith
they slaughtered as many sharks as
they could reach. This procedure
of theirs, to be sure, was very
disinterested and benevolent of
them. They meant Queequeg’s best
happiness, I admit; but in their
hasty zeal to befriend him, and from
the circumstance that both he and
the sharks were at times half hidden
by the blood-muddled water, those
indiscreet spades of theirs would
come nearer amputating a leg than a
tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose,
straining and gasping there with
that great iron hook—poor Queequeg,
I suppose, only prayed to his Yojo,
and gave up his life into the hands
of his gods.
Well, well, my dear comrade and
twin-brother, thought I, as I drew
in and then slacked off the rope
to every swell of the sea—what
matters it, after all? Are you
not the precious image of each
and all of us men in this whaling
world? That unsounded ocean you gasp
in, is Life; those sharks, your foes;
those spades, your friends; and what
between sharks and spades you are in
a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.
But courage! there is good cheer in
store for you, Queequeg. For now,
as with blue lips and blood-shot
eyes the exhausted savage at last
climbs up the chains and stands all
dripping and involuntarily trembling
over the side; the steward advances,
and with a benevolent, consolatory
glance hands him—what? Some hot
Cognac? 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 saying, "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
ginger? Sea-coal? firewood?—lucifer
matches?—tinder?—gunpowder?—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 Starbuck, who had
just come from forward. "Will
you look at that kannakin, sir:
smell of it, if you please." Then
watching the mate’s countenance, he
added, "The steward, Mr. Starbuck,
had the face to offer that calomel
and jalap to Queequeg, there, this
instant off the whale. Is the steward
an apothecary, sir? and may I ask
whether this is the sort of bitters
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 ye?"
"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 called 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 strong spirits, and was
handed to Queequeg; the second was
Aunt Charity’s gift, and that was
freely given to the waves.
CHAPTER 73. Stubb 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 captured 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 be fast. An
interval passed and the boats were
in plain sight, in the act of being
dragged right towards the ship by
the towing 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
performed 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 smitten rock.
At last his spout grew thick, and
with a frightful roll and vomit,
he turned upon his back a corpse.
While the two headsmen were engaged
in making fast cords to his flukes,
and in other ways getting the
mass in readiness for towing, some
conversation ensued between them.
"I wonder what the old man wants
with this lump of foul lard," said
Stubb, not without some disgust at
the thought of having to do with so
ignoble a leviathan.
"Wants with it?" said Flask,
coiling some spare line in the
boat’s bow, "did you never hear
that the ship which but once has a
Sperm Whale’s head hoisted on her
starboard side, and at the same time
a Right Whale’s on the larboard;
did you never hear, Stubb, that that
ship can never afterwards capsize?"
"Why not?
"I don’t know, but I heard
that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah
saying so, and he seems to know
all about ships’ charms. But I
sometimes think he’ll charm the
ship to no good at last. I don’t
half like that chap, Stubb. Did you
ever notice how that tusk of his is
a sort of carved into a snake’s
head, Stubb?"
"Sink him! I never look at him at
all; but if ever I get a chance of
a dark night, and he standing hard
by the bulwarks, and no one by; look
down there, Flask"—pointing into
the sea with a peculiar motion of
both hands—"Aye, will I! Flask,
I take that Fedallah to be the devil
in disguise. Do you believe that cock
and bull story about his having been
stowed away on board ship? He’s
the devil, I say. The reason why you
don’t see his tail, is because
he tucks it up out of sight; he
carries it coiled away in his pocket,
I guess. Blast him! now that I think
of it, he’s always wanting oakum to
stuff into the toes of his boots."
"He sleeps in his boots, don’t
he? He hasn’t got any hammock;
but I’ve seen him lay of nights in
a coil of rigging."
"No doubt, and it’s because of
his cursed tail; he coils it down, do
ye see, in the eye of the rigging."
"What’s the old man have so much
to do with him for?"
"Striking up a swap or a bargain,
I suppose."
"Bargain?—about what?"
"Why, do ye see, the old man is
hard bent after that White Whale,
and the devil there is trying to
come round him, and get him to swap
away his silver watch, or his soul,
or something of that sort, and then
he’ll surrender Moby Dick."
"Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking;
how can Fedallah do that?"
"I don’t know, Flask, but
the devil is a curious chap, and
a wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they
say as how he went a sauntering into
the old flag-ship once, switching
his tail about devilish easy and
gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the
old governor was at home. Well,
he was at home, and asked the
devil what he wanted. The devil,
switching his hoofs, up and says,
‘I want John.’ ‘What for?’
says the old governor. ‘What
business is that of yours,’ says
the devil, getting mad,—‘I want
to use him.’ ‘Take him,’ says
the governor—and by the Lord,
Flask, if the devil didn’t give
John the Asiatic cholera before he
got through with him, I’ll eat
this whale in one mouthful. But
look sharp—ain’t you all ready
there? Well, then, pull ahead, and
let’s get the whale alongside."
"I think I remember some such story
as you were telling," said Flask,
when at last the two boats were
slowly advancing with their burden
towards the ship, "but I can’t
remember where."
"Three Spaniards? Adventures of
those three bloody-minded soldadoes?
Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess
ye did?"
"No: never saw such a book; heard
of it, though. But now, tell me,
Stubb, do you suppose that that
devil you was speaking of just now,
was the same you say is now on board
the Pequod?"
"Am I the same man that helped kill
this whale? Doesn’t the devil live
for ever; who ever heard that the
devil was dead? Did you ever see
any parson a wearing mourning for
the devil? And if the devil has a
latch-key to get into the admiral’s
cabin, don’t you suppose he can
crawl into a porthole? Tell me that,
Mr. Flask?"
"How old do you suppose Fedallah
is, Stubb?"
"Do you see that mainmast there?"
pointing to the ship; "well,
that’s the figure one; now take all
the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and
string along in a row with that mast,
for oughts, do you see; well, that
wouldn’t begin to be Fedallah’s
age. Nor all the coopers in creation
couldn’t show hoops enough to make
oughts enough."
"But see here, Stubb, I thought you
a little boasted just now, that you
meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if
you got a good chance. Now, if he’s
so old as all those hoops of yours
come to, and if he is going to live
for ever, what good will it do to
pitch him overboard—tell me that?
"Give him a good ducking,
anyhow."
"But he’d crawl back."
"Duck him again; and keep ducking
him."
"Suppose he should take it into
his head to duck you, though—yes,
and drown you—what then?"
"I should like to see him try it;
I’d give him such a pair of black
eyes that he wouldn’t dare to
show his face in the admiral’s
cabin again for a long while,
let alone down in the orlop there,
where he lives, and hereabouts on
the upper decks where he sneaks
so much. Damn the devil, Flask;
so you suppose I’m afraid of the
devil? Who’s afraid of him, except
the old governor who daresn’t catch
him and put him in double-darbies,
as he deserves, but lets him go about
kidnapping people; aye, and signed a
bond with him, that all the people
the devil kidnapped, he’d roast
for him? There’s a governor!"
"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to
kidnap Captain Ahab?"
"Do I suppose it? You’ll know it
before long, Flask. But I am going
now to keep a sharp look-out on him;
and if I see anything very suspicious
going on, I’ll just take him by
the nape of his neck, and say—Look
here, Beelzebub, you don’t do it;
and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord
I’ll make a grab into his pocket
for his tail, take it to the capstan,
and give him such a wrenching and
heaving, that his tail will come
short off at the stump—do you see;
and then, I rather guess when he
finds himself docked in that queer
fashion, he’ll sneak off without
the poor satisfaction of feeling his
tail between his legs."
"And what will you do with the
tail, Stubb?"
"Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip
when we get home;—what else?"
"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 prepared 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 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 74. 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?
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
colour 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 position
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; 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 concerning 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 lie 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 comprehensive,
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
direction? If he can, then is it as
marvellous a thing in him, as if a
man were able simultaneously to go
through the demonstrations of two
distinct problems in Euclid. Nor,
strictly investigated, 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,
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 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 impaling 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 purpose 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 undecayed; nor filled after
our artificial fashion. The jaw is
afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled
away like joists for building houses.
CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s
Head—Contrasted View.
Crossing the deck, let us now have a
good long look at the Right Whale’s
head.
As in general shape the noble Sperm
Whale’s head may be compared to
a Roman war-chariot (especially
in front, where it is so broadly
rounded); so, at a broad view, the
Right Whale’s head bears a rather
inelegant resemblance to a gigantic
galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years
ago an old Dutch voyager likened
its shape to that of a shoemaker’s
last. And in this same last or shoe,
that old woman of the nursery tale,
with the swarming brood, might very
comfortably be lodged, she and all
her progeny.
But as you come nearer to this great
head it begins to assume different
aspects, according to your point of
view. If you stand on its summit
and look at these two F-shaped
spoutholes, 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 the
"crown," and the Southern fishers
the "bonnet" of the Right Whale;
fixing your eyes solely on this, you
would take the head for the trunk
of some huge oak, with a bird’s
nest in its crotch. At any rate,
when you watch those live crabs that
nestle here on this bonnet, such an
idea will be almost sure to occur
to you; unless, indeed, your fancy
has been fixed by the technical term
"crown" also bestowed upon it;
in which case you will take great
interest in thinking how this mighty
monster is actually a diademed king
of the sea, whose green crown has
been put together for him in this
marvellous manner. But if this whale
be a king, he is a very sulky looking
fellow to grace a diadem. Look at
that hanging lower lip! what a huge
sulk and pout is there! a sulk and
pout, by carpenter’s measurement,
about twenty feet long and five feet
deep; a sulk and pout that will yield
you some 500 gallons of oil and more.
A great pity, now, that this
unfortunate whale should be
hare-lipped. The fissure is about
a foot across. Probably the mother
during an important interval was
sailing down the Peruvian coast,
when earthquakes caused the beach
to gape. Over this lip, as over
a slippery threshold, we now slide
into the mouth. Upon my word were I
at Mackinaw, I should take this to be
the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good
Lord! is this the road that Jonah
went? The roof is about twelve feet
high, and runs to a pretty sharp
angle, as if there were a regular
ridge-pole there; while these ribbed,
arched, hairy sides, present us
with those wondrous, half vertical,
scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone,
say three hundred on a side, which
depending from the upper part of
the head or crown bone, form those
Venetian blinds which have elsewhere
been cursorily mentioned. The
edges of these bones are fringed
with hairy fibres, through which
the Right Whale strains the water,
and in whose intricacies he retains
the small fish, when openmouthed
he goes through the seas of brit in
feeding time. In the central blinds
of bone, as they stand in their
natural order, there are certain
curious marks, curves, hollows,
and ridges, whereby some whalemen
calculate the creature’s age, as
the age of an oak by its circular
rings. Though the certainty of this
criterion is far from demonstrable,
yet it has the savor of analogical
probability. At any rate, if we yield
to it, we must grant a far greater
age to the Right Whale than at first
glance will seem reasonable.
In old times, there seem to have
prevailed the most curious fancies
concerning these blinds. One
voyager in Purchas calls them the
wondrous "whiskers" inside of the
whale’s mouth;* another, "hogs’
bristles"; a third old gentleman in
Hackluyt uses the following elegant
language: "There are about two
hundred and fifty fins growing on
each side of his upper _chop_, which
arch over his tongue on each side of
his mouth."
*This reminds us that the Right
Whale really has a sort of whisker,
or rather a moustache, consisting
of a few scattered white hairs on
the upper part of the outer end of
the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts
impart a rather brigandish expression
to his otherwise solemn countenance.
As every one knows, these same
"hogs’ bristles," "fins,"
"whiskers," "blinds," or
whatever you please, furnish to
the ladies their busks and other
stiffening contrivances. But in
this particular, the demand has long
been on the decline. It was in Queen
Anne’s time that the bone was in
its glory, the farthingale being
then all the fashion. And as those
ancient dames moved about gaily,
though in the jaws of the whale, as
you may say; even so, in a shower,
with the like thoughtlessness, do we
nowadays fly under the same jaws for
protection; the umbrella being a tent
spread over the same bone.
But now forget all about blinds
and whiskers for a moment, and,
standing in the Right Whale’s
mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing
all these colonnades of bone so
methodically ranged about, would
you not think you were inside of the
great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon
its thousand pipes? For a carpet
to the organ we have a rug of the
softest Turkey—the tongue, which
is glued, as it were, to the floor of
the mouth. It is very fat and tender,
and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting
it on deck. This particular tongue
now before us; at a passing glance
I should say it was a six-barreler;
that is, it will yield you about that
amount of oil.
Ere this, you must have plainly
seen the truth of what I started
with—that the Sperm Whale and the
Right Whale have almost entirely
different heads. To sum up, then: in
the Right Whale’s there is no great
well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all;
no long, slender mandible of a lower
jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor
in the Sperm Whale are there any
of those blinds of bone; no huge
lower lip; and scarcely anything of
a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has
two external spout-holes, the Sperm
Whale only one.
Look your last, now, on these
venerable hooded heads, while they
yet lie together; for one will
soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea;
the other will not be very long
in following.
Can you catch the expression of the
Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same
he died with, only some of the longer
wrinkles in the forehead seem now
faded away. I think his broad brow to
be full of a prairie-like placidity,
born of a speculative indifference as
to death. But mark the other head’s
expression. See that amazing lower
lip, pressed by accident against
the vessel’s side, so as firmly to
embrace the jaw. Does not this whole
head seem to speak of an enormous
practical resolution in facing
death? This Right Whale I take to
have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale,
a Platonian, who might have taken up
Spinoza in his latter years.
CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.
Ere quitting, for the nonce, the
Sperm Whale’s head, I would have
you, as a sensible physiologist,
simply—particularly remark its
front aspect, in all its compacted
collectedness. I would have you
investigate it now with the sole
view of forming to yourself some
unexaggerated, intelligent estimate
of whatever battering-ram power
may be lodged there. Here is a
vital point; for you must either
satisfactorily settle this matter
with yourself, or for ever remain
an infidel as to one of the most
appalling, but not the less true
events, perhaps anywhere to be found
in all recorded history.
You observe that in the ordinary
swimming position of the Sperm Whale,
the front of his head presents an
almost wholly vertical plane to
the water; you observe that the
lower part of that front slopes
considerably backwards, so as
to furnish more of a retreat for
the long socket which receives the
boom-like lower jaw; you observe that
the mouth is entirely under the head,
much in the same way, indeed, as
though your own mouth were entirely
under your chin. Moreover you observe
that the whale has no external nose;
and that what nose he has—his
spout hole—is on the top of his
head; you observe that his eyes and
ears are at the sides of his head,
nearly one third of his entire length
from the front. Wherefore, you must
now have perceived that the front of
the Sperm Whale’s head is a dead,
blind wall, without a single organ
or tender prominence of any sort
whatsoever. Furthermore, you are
now to consider that only in the
extreme, 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 toughness,
inestimable by any man who has not
handled it. The 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 between 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 distension
or contraction; and as the Sperm
Whale, as far as I 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
envelope; 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 contraction. 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 adequately estimated
as piled wood is—by the cord;
and all obedient to one volition,
as the smallest insect. So that when
I 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 befell
the weakling youth lifting the dread
goddess’s veil at Lais?
CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh
Tun.
Now comes the Baling of the Case. But
to comprehend it aright, you must
know something of the curious
internal structure 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
almost equal parts, which before were
naturally divided by an internal wall
of a thick tendinous substance.
*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.
The lower subdivided part,
called the junk, is one immense
honeycomb of oil, formed by the
crossing and recrossing, 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
innumerable 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 precious of all his oily
vintages; namely, the highly-prized
spermaceti, 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 Heidelburgh Tun was
coated within, but in superlative
richness that coating could not
possibly have compared with the
silken pearl-coloured 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 than twenty-six feet
for the depth of the tun, when it
is lengthwise 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
contents. 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 marvellous and—in
this particular instance—almost
fatal operation whereby the Sperm
Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun
is tapped.
CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.
Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts
aloft; and without altering his
erect posture, runs straight out
upon the overhanging mainyard-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
being sent up to him, he diligently
searches for the proper place to
begin breaking into the Tun. In this
business he proceeds very heedfully,
like a treasure-hunter in some old
house, sounding 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
very 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 remounting 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 particular 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!
"Man overboard!" cried Daggoo,
who amid the general consternation
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 lifeless
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
suspending the head tore out, and
with a vast vibration the enormous
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 enormous
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 his
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 striking
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 poor Tash by the
head. He averred, that upon first
thrusting in for him, a leg was
presented; but well knowing that
that 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, peradventure, 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 present
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 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 embalmed. How many, think ye,
have likewise fallen into Plato’s
honey head, and sweetly perished
there?
CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.
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 touching
the phrenological characteristics
of other beings than man. Therefore,
though I am but ill qualified for a
pioneer, in the application of these
two semi-sciences to the whale,
I will do my endeavor. I try all
things; I achieve what I can.
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 indispensable
to the completion of the scene;
so no face can be physiognomically
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 deficiency 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 physiognomical voyage you
sail round his vast head in your
jolly-boat, your noble conceptions
of him are never insulted by the
reflection 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 physiognomical 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. Pushing 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
Shakespeare’s or Melancthon’s
rise so 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 incapable 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, exalted 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 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 80. 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 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 monster’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 apprehensions, it seems more in
keeping with the idea of his general
might to regard that mystic part of
him as the seat of his intelligence.
It is plain, then, that
phrenologically the head of this
Leviathan, 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 brow 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 confound 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 prodigious
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
vertebræ to a strung necklace
of dwarfed skulls, all bearing
rudimental resemblance to the skull
proper. It is a German conceit,
that the vertebræ 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 vertebræ 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
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 audacious 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 vertebræ
the canal tapers in size, but for
a considerable 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 emerging from
the brain’s cavity, the spinal
cord remains of an undecreasing
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 magnitude of his spinal
cord.
But leaving this hint to operate
as it may with the phrenologists,
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 vertebræ,
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.
CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The
Virgin.
The predestinated day arrived,
and we duly met the ship 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. Starbuck; he’s coming off 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, without at all heeding
what he had in his hand; but in
his broken 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 having 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 technically 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 overgrowing him,
seemed afflicted with the jaundice,
or some other infirmity. 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
hostile currents meet. His spout was
short, slow, and laborious; coming
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 cumbrous
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 therefore 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 lowered;
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 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 villainous
Yarman—Pull—won’t 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
dropping 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
quahogs for supper, you know, my
lads—baked clams and muffins—oh,
_do_, _do_, spring,—he’s a
hundred barreller—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 devils. What
d’ye say, Tashtego; are you
the man to snap your spine in
two-and-twenty pieces for the honor
of old Gayhead? 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, chivalrous 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 the 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 fear
of this vast dumb brute of the sea,
was chained up and enchanted in him;
he had no voice, save that choking
respiration through his spiracle,
and this made the sight of him
unspeakably pitiable; while still, in
his amazing bulk, portcullis 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—instinctively
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’ll 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
sunbeam! 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!"
But 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 harpooneers
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 perpendicular 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 atmospheric
weight we ourselves stand up under;
even here, above-ground, in the air;
how vast, then, the burden of a
whale, bearing 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 sort,
nay, not so much as a ripple or
a bubble came up from its depths;
what landsman would have thought,
that 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 credible
that by three such thin threads
the great Leviathan was suspended
like the big weight to an eight day
clock. Suspended? and to what? To
three bits of board. Is this the
creature of whom it was once so
triumphantly said—"Canst thou
fill his 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 icefield 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.
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 deadly 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 submerged, 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 prostrate, 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 unconditional inoffensiveness
by all to all. Still rolling in his
blood, at last he partially disclosed
a strangely discoloured bunch or
protuberance, the size of a bushel,
low down on the flank.
"A nice spot," cried Flask;
"just let me prick him 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,
bespattering 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 gurglings
the spray-column lowers and lowers to
the ground—so the last long dying
spout of the whale.
Soon, while the crews were awaiting
the arrival of the ship, the body
showed symptoms of sinking with all
its treasures unrifled. Immediately,
by Starbuck’s orders, lines were
secured to it at different points,
so that ere long every boat was
a buoy; the sunken whale being
suspended a few inches beneath
them by the cords. By very heedful
management, when the ship drew nigh,
the whale was transferred to her
side, and was strongly secured there
by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it
was plain that unless artificially
upheld, the body would at once sink
to the bottom.
It so chanced that almost upon first
cutting into him with the spade, the
entire length of a corroded harpoon
was found imbedded in his flesh, on
the lower part of the bunch before
described. But as the stumps of
harpoons are frequently found in the
dead bodies of captured whales, with
the flesh perfectly healed around
them, and no prominence of any kind
to denote their place; therefore,
there must needs have been some other
unknown reason in the present case
fully to account for the ulceration
alluded to. But still more curious
was the fact of a lance-head of stone
being found in him, not far from the
buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm
about it. Who had darted that stone
lance? And when? It might have been
darted by some Nor’ West Indian
long before America was discovered.
What other marvels might have been
rummaged out of this monstrous
cabinet there is no telling. But
a sudden stop was put to further
discoveries, by the ship’s being
unprecedentedly dragged over sideways
to the sea, owing to the body’s
immensely increasing tendency
to sink. However, Starbuck, who
had the ordering of affairs, hung
on to it to the last; hung on to
it so resolutely, indeed, that when
at length the ship would have been
capsized, if still persisting in
locking arms with the body; then,
when the command was given to break
clear from it, such was the immovable
strain upon the timber-heads to which
the fluke-chains and cables were
fastened, that it was impossible to
cast them off. Meantime everything
in the Pequod was aslant. To cross
to the other side of the deck was
like walking up the steep gabled
roof of a house. The ship groaned
and gasped. Many of the ivory
inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins
were started from their places,
by the unnatural dislocation. In
vain handspikes and crows were
brought to bear upon the immovable
fluke-chains, to pry them adrift
from the timberheads; and so low
had the whale now settled that the
submerged ends could not be at all
approached, while every moment whole
tons of ponderosity seemed added to
the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed
on the point of going over.
"Hold on, hold on, won’t
ye?" cried Stubb to the body,
"don’t be in such a devil of a
hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we
must do something or go for it. No
use prying there; avast, I say with
your handspikes, and run one of ye
for a prayer book and a pen-knife,
and cut the big chains."
"Knife? Aye, aye," cried
Queequeg, and seizing the
carpenter’s heavy hatchet,
he leaned out of a porthole, and
steel to iron, began slashing at
the largest fluke-chains. But a few
strokes, full of sparks, were given,
when the exceeding strain effected
the rest. With a terrific snap,
every fastening went adrift; the ship
righted, the carcase sank.
Now, this occasional inevitable
sinking of the recently killed
Sperm Whale is a very curious
thing; nor has any fisherman yet
adequately accounted for it. Usually
the dead Sperm Whale floats with
great buoyancy, with its side or
belly considerably elevated above
the surface. If the only whales
that thus sank were old, meagre,
and broken-hearted creatures, their
pads of lard diminished and all
their bones heavy and rheumatic;
then you might with some reason
assert that this sinking is caused by
an uncommon specific gravity in the
fish so sinking, consequent upon this
absence of buoyant matter in him. But
it is not so. For young whales,
in the highest health, and swelling
with noble aspirations, prematurely
cut off in the warm flush and May
of life, with all their panting
lard about them; even these brawny,
buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.
Be it said, however, that the
Sperm Whale is far less liable
to this accident than any other
species. Where one of that sort go
down, twenty Right Whales do. This
difference in the species is no
doubt imputable in no small degree
to the greater quantity of bone in
the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds
alone sometimes weighing more than
a ton; from this incumbrance the
Sperm Whale is wholly free. But
there are instances where, after
the lapse of many hours or several
days, the sunken whale again rises,
more buoyant than in life. But the
reason of this is obvious. Gases
are generated in him; he swells to a
prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort
of animal balloon. A line-of-battle
ship could hardly keep him under
then. In the Shore Whaling, on
soundings, among the Bays of New
Zealand, when a Right Whale gives
token of sinking, they fasten buoys
to him, with plenty of rope; so
that when the body has gone down,
they know where to look for it when
it shall have ascended again.
It was not long after the sinking
of the body that a cry was heard
from the Pequod’s mast-heads,
announcing that the Jungfrau was
again lowering her boats; though
the only spout in sight was that
of a Fin-Back, belonging to the
species of uncapturable whales,
because of its incredible power
of swimming. Nevertheless, the
Fin-Back’s spout is so similar
to the Sperm Whale’s, that by
unskilful fishermen it is often
mistaken for it. And consequently
Derick and all his host were now
in valiant chase of this unnearable
brute. The Virgin crowding all sail,
made after her four young keels,
and thus they all disappeared far
to leeward, still in bold, hopeful
chase.
Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many
are the Dericks, my friend.
CHAPTER 82. The Honor 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 distinction upon it, I
am transported with the reflection
that I myself belong, though but
subordinately, to so emblazoned
a fraternity.
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 was
not killed with any sordid intent.
Those were 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 asserted 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 suggestively 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 exploit had St. George but
encountered a crawling reptile of 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 animal 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 therefore, 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 disdain,
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 mythologies, that antique
Crockett and Kit Carson—that
brawny doer of rejoicing good deeds,
was swallowed down and thrown 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
whaleman; 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 versâ; 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 Brahma, 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 beginning 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 Vishnoo 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?
CHAPTER 83. 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 story 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
story 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
very small. But, to this, Bishop
Jebb’s anticipative answer is
ready. It is not necessary, hints
the Bishop, that we consider Jonah
as tombed in the whale’s belly, but
as temporarily lodged in some part of
his mouth. And this seems reasonable
enough in the good Bishop. For truly,
the Right Whale’s mouth would
accommodate a couple of whist-tables,
and comfortably seat all the
players. Possibly, too, Jonah might
have ensconced himself in a hollow
tooth; but, on second thoughts,
the Right Whale is toothless.
Another reason which Sag-Harbor
(he went by that name) urged for his
want of faith in this matter of the
prophet, was something obscurely in
reference to his incarcerated body
and the whale’s gastric juices. But
this objection likewise falls to the
ground, because a German exegetist
supposes that Jonah must have taken
refuge in the floating body of a
_dead_ whale—even as the French
soldiers in the Russian campaign
turned their dead horses into tents,
and crawled into them. Besides, it
has been divined by other continental
commentators, that when Jonah was
thrown overboard from the Joppa ship,
he straightway effected his escape to
another vessel near by, some vessel
with a whale for a figure-head;
and, I would add, possibly called
"The Whale," as some craft are
nowadays christened the "Shark,"
the "Gull," the "Eagle."
Nor have there been wanting learned
exegetists who have opined that the
whale mentioned in the book of Jonah
merely meant a life-preserver—an
inflated bag of wind—which the
endangered prophet swam to, and so
was saved from a watery doom. Poor
Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted
all round. But he had still another
reason for his want of faith. It was
this, if I remember right: Jonah
was swallowed by the whale in the
Mediterranean Sea, and after three
days he was vomited up somewhere
within three days’ journey of
Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very
much more than three days’ journey
across from the nearest point of the
Mediterranean coast. How is that?
But was there no other way for
the whale to land the prophet
within that short distance of
Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried
him round by the way of the Cape of
Good Hope. But not to speak of the
passage through the whole length
of the Mediterranean, and another
passage up the Persian Gulf and Red
Sea, such a supposition would involve
the complete circumnavigation of all
Africa in three days, not to speak
of the Tigris waters, near the site
of Nineveh, being too shallow for
any whale to swim in. Besides, this
idea of Jonah’s weathering the Cape
of Good Hope at so early a day would
wrest the honor of the discovery of
that great headland from Bartholomew
Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so
make modern history a liar.
But all these foolish arguments
of old Sag-Harbor only evinced
his foolish pride of reason—a
thing still more reprehensible in
him, seeing that he had but little
learning except what he had picked
up from the sun and the sea. I
say it only shows his foolish,
impious pride, and abominable,
devilish rebellion against the
reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese
Catholic priest, this very idea of
Jonah’s going to Nineveh via the
Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a
signal magnification of the general
miracle. And so it was. Besides,
to this day, the highly enlightened
Turks devoutly believe in the
historical story of Jonah. And some
three centuries ago, an English
traveller in old Harris’s Voyages,
speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in
honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was
a miraculous lamp that burnt without
any oil.
CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.
To make them run easily and swiftly,
the axles of carriages are anointed;
and for much the same purpose,
some whalers perform an analogous
operation upon their boat; they
grease the bottom. Nor is it to be
doubted that as such a procedure can
do no harm, it may possibly be of no
contemptible advantage; considering
that oil and water are hostile; that
oil is a sliding thing, and that the
object in view is to make the boat
slide bravely. Queequeg believed
strongly in anointing his boat,
and one morning not long after the
German ship Jungfrau disappeared,
took more than customary pains in
that occupation; crawling under its
bottom, where it hung over the side,
and rubbing in the unctuousness as
though diligently seeking to insure
a crop of hair from the craft’s
bald keel. He seemed to be working
in obedience to some particular
presentiment. Nor did it remain
unwarranted by the event.
Towards noon whales were raised; but
so soon as the ship sailed down to
them, they turned and fled with swift
precipitancy; a disordered flight, as
of Cleopatra’s barges from Actium.
Nevertheless, the boats pursued,
and Stubb’s was foremost. By
great exertion, Tashtego at last
succeeded in planting one iron;
but the stricken whale, without
at all sounding, still continued
his horizontal flight, with added
fleetness. Such unintermitted
strainings upon the planted iron must
sooner or later inevitably extract
it. It became imperative to lance
the flying whale, or be content to
lose him. But to haul the boat up to
his flank was impossible, he swam so
fast and furious. What then remained?
Of all the wondrous devices and
dexterities, the sleights of hand and
countless subtleties, to which the
veteran whaleman is so often forced,
none exceed that fine manœuvre with
the lance called pitchpoling. Small
sword, or broad sword, in all
its exercises boasts nothing like
it. It is only indispensable with an
inveterate running whale; its grand
fact and feature is the wonderful
distance to which the long lance is
accurately darted from a violently
rocking, jerking boat, under extreme
headway. Steel and wood included,
the entire spear is some ten or
twelve feet in length; the staff
is much slighter than that of the
harpoon, and also of a lighter
material—pine. It is furnished
with a small rope called a warp,
of considerable length, by which
it can be hauled back to the hand
after darting.
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, therefore, you must
first get fast to a whale, before
any pitchpoling comes into play.
Look now at Stubb; a man who from
his humorous, deliberate 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,
covering 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 life spot of the whale. Instead
of sparkling water, he now spouts
red blood.
"That drove the spigot out of
him!" cried Stubb. "’Tis
July’s immortal Fourth; all
fountains must run wine today! Would
now, it were old Orleans whiskey,
or old Ohio, or unspeakable 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.
CHAPTER 85. The Fountain.
That for six thousand years—and
no one knows how 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 cunning 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 disengaged 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 connexion with his mouth. No,
he breathes through his spiracle
alone; and this is on the top of
his head.
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
contact 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 considerable 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 distended
with oxygenated blood. So that for
an hour or more, a thousand fathoms
in the sea, he carries a surplus
stock of vitality in him, just as the
camel crossing the waterless desert
carries a surplus supply of drink for
future use in its four supplementary
stomachs. The anatomical fact of
this labyrinth is indisputable;
and that the supposition founded
upon it is reasonable and true,
seems the more cogent to me, when I
consider the otherwise inexplicable
obstinacy of that leviathan in
_having his spoutings out_, as the
fishermen phrase it. This is what I
mean. If unmolested, upon rising to
the surface, the Sperm Whale will
continue there for a period of time
exactly uniform with all his other
unmolested risings. Say he stays
eleven minutes, and jets seventy
times, that is, respires seventy
breaths; then whenever he rises
again, he will be sure to have his
seventy breaths over again, to a
minute. Now, if after he fetches a
few breaths you alarm him, so that
he sounds, he will be always dodging
up again to make good his regular
allowance of air. And not till those
seventy breaths are told, will he
finally go down to stay out his full
term below. Remark, however, that in
different individuals these rates
are different; but in any one they
are alike. Now, why should the whale
thus insist upon having his spoutings
out, unless it be to replenish his
reservoir of air, ere descending
for good? How obvious is it, too,
that this necessity for the whale’s
rising exposes him to all the fatal
hazards of the chase. For not by hook
or by net could this vast leviathan
be caught, when sailing a thousand
fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not
so much thy skill, then, O hunter,
as the great necessities that strike
the victory to thee!
In man, breathing is incessantly
going on—one breath only serving
for two or three pulsations; so
that whatever other business he has
to attend to, waking or sleeping,
breathe he must, or die he will. But
the Sperm Whale only breathes about
one seventh or Sunday of his time.
It has been said that the whale only
breathes through his spout-hole; if
it could truthfully be added that
his spouts are mixed with water,
then I opine we should be furnished
with the reason why his sense of
smell seems obliterated in him;
for the only thing about him that
at all answers to his nose is that
identical spout-hole; and being so
clogged with two elements, it could
not be expected to have the power of
smelling. But owing to the mystery
of the spout—whether it be water
or whether it be vapor—no absolute
certainty can as yet be arrived at on
this head. Sure it is, nevertheless,
that the Sperm Whale has no proper
olfactories. But what does he want
of them? No roses, no violets, no
Cologne-water in the sea.
Furthermore, as his windpipe solely
opens into the tube of his spouting
canal, and as that long canal—like
the grand Erie Canal—is furnished
with a sort of locks (that open and
shut) for the downward retention of
air or the upward exclusion of water,
therefore the whale has no voice;
unless you insult him by saying,
that when he so strangely rumbles,
he talks through his nose. But then
again, what has the whale to say?
Seldom have I known any profound
being that had anything to say to
this world, unless forced to stammer
out something by way of getting a
living. Oh! happy that the world is
such an excellent listener!
Now, the spouting canal of the
Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as
it is for the conveyance of air,
and for several feet laid along,
horizontally, just beneath the upper
surface of his head, and a little to
one side; this curious canal is very
much like a gas-pipe laid down in a
city on one side of a street. But
the question returns whether this
gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in
other words, whether the spout of
the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor
of the exhaled breath, or whether
that exhaled breath is mixed with
water taken in at the mouth, and
discharged through the spiracle. It
is certain that the mouth indirectly
communicates with the spouting canal;
but it cannot be proved that this
is for the purpose of discharging
water through the spiracle. Because
the greatest necessity for so doing
would seem to be, when in feeding he
accidentally takes in water. But the
Sperm Whale’s food is far beneath
the surface, and there he cannot
spout even if he would. Besides,
if you regard him very closely, and
time him with your watch, you will
find that when unmolested, there
is an undeviating rhyme between the
periods of his jets and the ordinary
periods of respiration.
But why pester one with all this
reasoning on the subject? Speak out!
You have seen him spout; then declare
what the spout is; can you not tell
water from air? My dear sir, in this
world it is not so easy to settle
these plain things. I have ever found
your plain things the knottiest of
all. And as for this whale spout, you
might almost stand in it, and yet be
undecided as to what it is precisely.
The central body of it is hidden in
the snowy sparkling mist enveloping
it; and how can you certainly tell
whether any water falls from it,
when, always, when you are close
enough to a whale to get a close view
of his spout, he is in a prodigious
commotion, the water cascading all
around him. And if at such times
you should think that you really
perceived drops of moisture in the
spout, how do you know that they are
not merely condensed from its vapor;
or how do you know that they are not
those identical drops superficially
lodged in the spout-hole fissure,
which is countersunk into the summit
of the whale’s head? For even
when tranquilly swimming through
the mid-day sea in a calm, with
his elevated hump sun-dried as a
dromedary’s in the desert; even
then, the whale always carries a
small basin of water on his head,
as under a blazing sun you will
sometimes see a cavity in a rock
filled up with rain.
Nor is it at all prudent for the
hunter to be over curious touching
the precise nature of the whale
spout. It will not do for him to
be peering into it, and putting his
face in it. You cannot go with your
pitcher to this fountain and fill
it, and bring it away. For even when
coming into slight contact with the
outer, vapory shreds of the jet,
which will often happen, your skin
will feverishly smart, from the
acridness of the thing so touching
it. And I know one, who coming into
still closer contact with the spout,
whether with some scientific object
in view, or otherwise, I cannot say,
the skin peeled off from his cheek
and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen,
the spout is deemed poisonous; they
try to evade it. Another thing;
I have heard it said, and I do not
much doubt it, that if the jet is
fairly spouted into your eyes, it
will blind you. 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 impelled, by considerations
touching the great inherent dignity
and sublimity of the Sperm Whale;
I account him no common, shallow
being, inasmuch as it is an
undisputed fact that he is never
found on soundings, or near shores;
all other whales sometimes 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 supposition.
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,
engendered by his incommunicable
contemplations, and that vapor—as
you will sometimes see it—glorified
by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had
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.
CHAPTER 86. 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 considerably
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 compose 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 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,
insensibly blend with them, and
largely contribute to their might;
so that in the tail the confluent
measureless force of the whole
whale seems concentrated to 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
in 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
Eckerman 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 exceeding 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; 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 creatures. It never
wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling
is a sign of inferiority. To the
whale, his tail is the sole means
of propulsion. 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 swimming. 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
contemptuously 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 but a sailor’s
whisker, woe to that sailor,
whiskers and all. What tenderness
there is in that preliminary touch!
Had this 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 sky and sea, I once saw a
large herd of whales in the east,
all heading towards the sun, and
for a moment vibrating in concert
with peaked flukes. As it seemed
to me at the time, such a grand
embodiment of adoration of the gods
was never beheld, even in Persia,
the home of the fire worshippers. As
Ptolemy Philopater testified of the
African elephant, I then testified of
the whale, pronouncing him the most
devout of all beings. For according
to King Juba, the military elephants
of antiquity often hailed the morning
with their trunks uplifted in the
profoundest silence.
The chance comparison in this
chapter, between the whale and the
elephant, so far as some aspects of
the tail of the one and the trunk
of the other are concerned, should
not tend to place those two opposite
organs on an equality, much less the
creatures to which they respectively
belong. For as the mightiest elephant
is but a terrier to Leviathan, so,
compared with Leviathan’s tail,
his trunk is but the stalk of a
lily. The most direful blow from
the elephant’s trunk were as the
playful tap of a fan, compared with
the measureless crush and crash of
the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes,
which in repeated instances have
one after the other hurled entire
boats with all their oars and crews
into the air, very much as an Indian
juggler tosses his balls.*
*Though all comparison in the way
of general bulk between the whale
and the elephant is preposterous,
inasmuch as in that particular the
elephant stands in much the same
respect to the whale that a dog
does to the elephant; nevertheless,
there are not wanting some points of
curious similitude; among these is
the spout. It is well known that the
elephant will often draw up water or
dust in his trunk, and then elevating
it, jet it forth in a stream.
The more I consider this mighty tail,
the more do I deplore my inability
to express it. At times there are
gestures in it, which, though they
would well grace the hand of man,
remain wholly inexplicable. In an
extensive herd, so remarkable,
occasionally, are these mystic
gestures, that I have heard hunters
who have declared them akin to
Free-Mason signs and symbols; that
the whale, indeed, by these methods
intelligently conversed with the
world. Nor are there wanting other
motions of the whale in his general
body, full of strangeness, and
unaccountable to his most experienced
assailant. Dissect him how I may,
then, I but go skin deep; I know him
not, and never will. But if I know
not even the tail of this whale, how
understand his head? much more, how
comprehend his face, when face he has
none? Thou shalt see my back parts,
my tail, he seems to say, but my
face shall not be seen. But I cannot
completely make out his back parts;
and hint what he will about his face,
I say again he has no face.
CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.
The long and narrow peninsula of
Malacca, extending south-eastward
from the territories of Birmah,
forms the most southerly point of
all Asia. In a continuous line
from that peninsula stretch the long
islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and
Timor; which, with many others, form
a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise
connecting Asia with Australia, and
dividing the long unbroken Indian
ocean from the thickly studded
oriental archipelagoes. This rampart
is pierced by several sally-ports for
the convenience of ships and whales;
conspicuous among which are the
straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the
straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels
bound to China from the west, emerge
into the China seas.
Those narrow straits of Sunda divide
Sumatra from Java; and standing
midway in that vast rampart of
islands, buttressed by that bold
green promontory, known to seamen
as Java Head; they not a little
correspond to the central gateway
opening into some vast walled empire:
and considering the inexhaustible
wealth of spices, and silks, and
jewels, and gold, and ivory, with
which the thousand islands of that
oriental sea are enriched, it seems
a significant provision of nature,
that such treasures, by the very
formation of the land, should at
least bear the appearance, however
ineffectual, of being guarded from
the all-grasping western world. The
shores of the Straits of Sunda are
unsupplied with those domineering
fortresses which guard the entrances
to the Mediterranean, the Baltic,
and the Propontis. Unlike the
Danes, these Orientals do not
demand the obsequious homage of
lowered top-sails from the endless
procession of ships before the wind,
which for centuries past, by night
and by day, have passed between
the islands of Sumatra and Java,
freighted with the costliest cargoes
of the east. But while they freely
waive a ceremonial like this, they
do by no means renounce their claim
to more solid tribute.
Time out of mind the piratical
proas of the Malays, lurking among
the low shaded coves and islets of
Sumatra, have sallied out upon the
vessels sailing through the straits,
fiercely demanding tribute at the
point of their spears. Though by
the repeated bloody chastisements
they have received at the hands
of European cruisers, the audacity
of these corsairs has of late been
somewhat repressed; yet, even at the
present day, we occasionally hear
of English and American vessels,
which, in those waters, have been
remorselessly boarded and pillaged.
With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod
was now drawing nigh to these
straits; Ahab purposing to pass
through them into the 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 Sperm Whale
cruising grounds of the world,
previous to descending upon the
Line in the Pacific; where Ahab,
though everywhere else foiled in his
pursuit, firmly counted upon giving
battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he
was most known to frequent; and at a
season when he might 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 Nantucketer, 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 recognised by the fishermen
as an excellent spot for cruising;
therefore, 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 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 multitude,
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 air. Unlike the straight
perpendicular 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 vapory
spouts, individually curling 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.
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
comparative 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
swimming 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 philanthropists to assist in
speeding her on to her own chosen
pursuit,—mere riding-whips and
rowels to her, that they were. As
with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro
paced the deck; in his forward turn
beholding the monsters he chased,
and in the after one the bloodthirsty
pirates chasing _him_; some such
fancy as the above seemed his. And
when he glanced upon the green walls
of the watery defile in which the
ship was then sailing, and bethought
him that through that gate lay the
route to his vengeance, and beheld,
how that through that same gate
he was now both chasing and being
chased to his deadly end; and not
only that, but a herd of remorseless
wild pirates and inhuman atheistical
devils were infernally cheering him
on with their curses;—when all
these conceits had passed through
his brain, Ahab’s brow was left
gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand
beach after some stormy tide has been
gnawing it, without being able to
drag the firm thing from its place.
But thoughts like these troubled
very few of the reckless crew;
and when, after steadily dropping
and dropping the pirates astern,
the Pequod at last shot by the vivid
green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra
side, emerging at last upon the broad
waters beyond; then, the harpooneers
seemed more to grieve that the swift
whales had been gaining upon the
ship, than to rejoice that the ship
had so victoriously gained upon the
Malays. But still driving on in the
wake of the whales, at length they
seemed abating their speed; gradually
the ship neared them; and the wind
now dying away, word was passed to
spring to the boats. But no sooner
did the herd, by some presumed
wonderful instinct of the Sperm
Whale, become notified of the three
keels that were after them,—though
as yet a mile in their rear,—than
they rallied again, and forming in
close ranks and battalions, so that
their spouts all looked like flashing
lines of stacked bayonets, moved on
with redoubled velocity.
Stripped to our shirts and drawers,
we sprang to the white-ash, and after
several hours’ pulling were almost
disposed to renounce the chase,
when a general pausing commotion
among the whales gave animating token
that they were now at last under the
influence of that strange perplexity
of inert irresolution, which, when
the fishermen perceive it in the
whale, they say he is gallied. The
compact martial columns in which
they had been hitherto rapidly and
steadily swimming, were now broken
up in one measureless rout; and like
King Porus’ elephants in the Indian
battle with Alexander, they seemed
going mad with consternation. In
all directions expanding in vast
irregular circles, and aimlessly
swimming hither and thither, by
their short thick spoutings, they
plainly betrayed their distraction of
panic. This was still more strangely
evinced by those of their number,
who, completely paralysed as it were,
helplessly floated like water-logged
dismantled ships on the sea. Had
these Leviathans been but a flock
of simple sheep, pursued over the
pasture by three fierce wolves, they
could not possibly have evinced such
excessive dismay. But this occasional
timidity is characteristic of almost
all herding creatures. Though banding
together in tens of thousands,
the lion-maned buffaloes of the
West have fled before a solitary
horseman. Witness, too, all human
beings, how when herded together in
the sheepfold of a theatre’s pit,
they will, at the slightest alarm
of fire, rush helter-skelter for
the outlets, crowding, trampling,
jamming, and remorselessly dashing
each other to death. Best, therefore,
withhold any amazement at the
strangely gallied whales before us,
for there is no folly of the beasts
of the earth which is not infinitely
outdone by the madness of men.
Though many of the whales, as has
been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a
whole the herd neither advanced nor
retreated, but collectively remained
in one place. As is customary in
those cases, the boats at once
separated, each making for some
one lone whale on the outskirts of
the shoal. In about three minutes’
time, Queequeg’s harpoon was flung;
the stricken fish darted blinding
spray in our faces, and then
running away with us like light,
steered straight for the heart of
the herd. Though such a movement on
the part of the whale struck under
such circumstances, is in no wise
unprecedented; and indeed is almost
always more or less anticipated;
yet does it present one of the
more perilous vicissitudes of the
fishery. For as the swift monster
drags you deeper and deeper into
the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to
circumspect life and only exist in
a delirious throb.
As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged
forward, as if by sheer power of
speed to rid himself of the iron
leech that had fastened to him;
as we thus tore a white gash in
the sea, on all sides menaced as
we flew, by the crazed creatures
to and fro rushing about us; our
beset boat was like a ship mobbed by
ice-isles in a tempest, and striving
to steer through their complicated
channels and straits, knowing not
at what moment it may be locked in
and crushed.
But not a bit daunted, Queequeg
steered us manfully; now sheering
off from this monster directly across
our route in advance; now edging away
from that, whose colossal flukes were
suspended overhead, while all the
time, Starbuck stood up in the bows,
lance in hand, pricking out of our
way whatever whales he could reach by
short darts, for there was no time to
make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen
quite idle, though their wonted
duty was now altogether dispensed
with. They chiefly attended to the
shouting part of the business. "Out
of the way, Commodore!" cried one,
to a great dromedary that of a sudden
rose bodily to the surface, and
for an instant threatened to swamp
us. "Hard down with your tail,
there!" cried a second to another,
which, close to our gunwale, seemed
calmly cooling himself with his own
fan-like extremity.
All 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 considerable length is
then attached to the middle of this
block, and the other end of the line
being looped, it can in a moment be
fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly
among gallied whales that this drugg
is used. For then, more whales are
close round you than you can possibly
chase at one time. But sperm whales
are not every day encountered;
while you may, then, you must kill
all you can. And if you cannot kill
them all at once, you must wing
them, so that they can be afterwards
killed at your leisure. Hence it is,
that at times like these the 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 malefactors with the chain and
ball. But upon flinging the third,
in the act of tossing overboard the
clumsy wooden block, it caught under
one of the seats of the boat, and in
an instant tore it out and carried
it away, dropping the oarsman in the
boat’s bottom as the seat slid
from under him. On both sides the
sea came in at the wounded planks,
but we stuffed two or three drawers
and shirts in, and so stopped the
leaks for the time.
It had been next to impossible
to dart these drugged-harpoons,
were it not that as we advanced
into the herd, our whale’s way
greatly diminished; moreover,
that as we went still further and
further from the circumference of
commotion, the direful disorders
seemed waning. So that when at last
the jerking harpoon drew out, and
the towing whale sideways vanished;
then, with the tapering force of
his parting momentum, we glided
between two whales into the innermost
heart of the shoal, as if from some
mountain torrent we had slid into a
serene valley lake. Here the storms
in the roaring glens between the
outermost whales, were heard but not
felt. In this central expanse the
sea presented that smooth satin-like
surface, called a sleek, produced by
the subtle moisture thrown off by
the whale in his more quiet moods.
Yes, we were now in that enchanted
calm which they say lurks at the
heart of every commotion. And still
in the distracted distance we beheld
the tumults of the outer concentric
circles, and saw successive pods
of whales, eight or ten in each,
swiftly going round and round, like
multiplied spans of horses in a ring;
and so closely shoulder to shoulder,
that a Titanic circus-rider might
easily have over-arched the middle
ones, and so have gone round on
their backs. Owing to the density of
the crowd of reposing whales, more
immediately surrounding the embayed
axis of the herd, no possible chance
of escape was at present afforded
us. We must watch for a breach in
the living wall that hemmed us in;
the wall that had only admitted
us in order to shut us up. Keeping
at the centre of the lake, we were
occasionally visited by small tame
cows and calves; the women and
children of this routed host.
Now, inclusive of the occasional
wide intervals between the revolving
outer circles, and inclusive of
the spaces between the various
pods in any one of those circles,
the entire area at this juncture,
embraced by the whole multitude, must
have contained at least two or three
square miles. At any rate—though
indeed such a test at such a time
might be deceptive—spoutings might
be discovered from our low boat that
seemed playing up almost from the
rim of the horizon. I mention this
circumstance, because, as if the
cows and calves had been purposely
locked up in this innermost fold;
and as if the wide extent of the
herd had hitherto prevented them
from learning the precise cause of
its stopping; or, possibly, being so
young, unsophisticated, and every way
innocent and inexperienced; however
it may have been, these smaller
whales—now and then visiting
our becalmed boat from the margin
of the lake—evinced a wondrous
fearlessness and confidence, or else
a still becharmed panic which it was
impossible not to marvel at. Like
household dogs they came snuffling
round us, right up to our gunwales,
and touching them; till it almost
seemed that some spell had suddenly
domesticated them. Queequeg patted
their foreheads; Starbuck scratched
their backs with his lance; but
fearful of the consequences, for the
time refrained from darting it.
But far beneath this wondrous world
upon the surface, another and still
stranger world met our eyes as we
gazed over the side. For, suspended
in those watery vaults, floated
the forms of the nursing mothers
of the whales, and those that by
their enormous girth seemed shortly
to become mothers. The lake, as I
have hinted, was to a considerable
depth exceedingly transparent;
and as human infants while suckling
will calmly and fixedly gaze away
from the breast, as if leading two
different lives at the time; and
while yet drawing mortal nourishment,
be still spiritually feasting upon
some unearthly reminiscence;—even
so did the young of these whales seem
looking up towards us, but not at us,
as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed
in their new-born sight. Floating on
their sides, the mothers also seemed
quietly eyeing us. One of these
little infants, that from certain
queer tokens seemed hardly a day old,
might have measured some fourteen
feet in length, and some six feet
in girth. He was a little frisky;
though as yet his body seemed scarce
yet recovered from that irksome
position it had so lately occupied
in the maternal reticule; where,
tail to head, and all ready for
the final spring, the unborn whale
lies bent like a Tartar’s bow.
The delicate side-fins, and the palms
of his flukes, still freshly retained
the plaited crumpled appearance of
a baby’s 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 and
spiralling towards the air; so now,
Starbuck 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 vicissitudes 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.*
*The sperm whale, as with all other
species of the Leviathan, but unlike
most other fish, breeds indifferently
at all seasons; after a gestation
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
discolour the sea for rods. The milk
is very sweet and rich; it has been
tasted by man; it might do well with
strawberries. When overflowing with
mutual esteem, the whales salute
_more hominum_.
And thus, though surrounded by circle
upon circle of consternations 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
sometimes 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 afterwards
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, carrying dismay
wherever he went.
But agonizing as was the wound
of this whale, and an appalling
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 harpoon-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 flexible 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 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.
Riotous 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 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 88. Schools and
Schoolmasters.
The previous chapter gave account
of an immense body or herd of Sperm
Whales, and there was also then given
the probable 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 invariably 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 concubines 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
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
confidentially close to one of the
ladies, with what prodigious fury
the Bashaw assails him, and chases
him away! High times, indeed, 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 admirers; 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
supremacy 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 instances, wrenched and
dislocated mouths.
But supposing the invader of domestic
bliss to betake himself away at the
first rush of the harem’s lord,
then is it very 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 worshipping
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 daughters must
take care of themselves; at least,
with only the maternal 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 ardour
of youth declines; as years and
dumps increase; 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,
forswears, 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, however
admirably satirical, that after
going to school himself, he 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-schoolmaster that famous
Frenchman was in his younger days,
and 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 reckless, 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.
CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.
The allusion to the waif 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 unwritten,
universal, undisputed law applicable
to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling
code authorized by legislative
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 comprehensiveness
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.
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 commentaries to
expound it.
First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive
or dead a fish is technically fast,
when it is connected with an occupied
ship or boat, by any medium at
all controllable by the occupant
or occupants,—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 technically 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 intention
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 outrageous 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
of 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 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 Ellenborough 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. Erskine 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 examples of the
whale and the lady were reciprocally
illustrative of each other.
These pleadings, and the counter
pleadings, being duly heard, the very
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 defendants afterwards took the
fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles
were theirs.
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
jurisprudence; 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 possession? 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 Savesoul’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 applicable,
the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish
is still more widely so. That is
internationally and universally
applicable.
What was America in 1492 but
a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus
struck the Spanish standard by way
of waifing 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 90. Heads or Tails.
"De balena vero sufficit, si rex
habeat caput, et regina caudam."
_Bracton, l. 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 accommodation of royalty. In
the first place, in curious proof
of the 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 wearily
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 scratching 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?"
"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 very poor as to
be forced to this desperate mode of
getting a livelihood?"
"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 addressed 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 soundest
commentators this has ever been held
a cogent argument 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 wardrobe
may be supplied 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 sagacious lawyer like
Prynne. 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 91. The Pequod Meets The
Rose-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 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
colours 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 intolerable
indeed is it regarded by some, that
no cupidity could persuade 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 indigestion;
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 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,
mistaking them for Sperm Whale
spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing
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 condemned 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 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 colour. 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 Bouton-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?"
"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 bag.
"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,
ain’t 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 Guernseyman,
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 nonsense
trying to get any oil out of such
whales? As for that dried up one,
there, he hasn’t a gill in his
whole carcase."
"I know that well enough;
but, d’ye see, the Captain here
won’t believe it; this is his first
voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer
before. But come aboard, and mayhap
he’ll believe you, if he won’t
me; and so I’ll get out of this
dirty scrape."
"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet
and pleasant fellow," rejoined
Stubb, and with that he soon mounted
to the deck. There a queer scene
presented itself. The sailors,
in tasselled caps of red worsted,
were getting the heavy tackles in
readiness for the whales. But they
worked rather slow and talked very
fast, and seemed in anything but a
good humor. All their noses upwardly
projected from their faces like so
many 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 thinking they would catch
the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar,
and at intervals held it to their
nostrils. Others having broken the
stems of their pipes almost short off
at the bowl, were vigorously puffing
tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly
filled their olfactories.
Stubb was struck by a shower of
outcries and anathemas proceeding
from the Captain’s round-house
abaft; and looking in that
direction saw a fiery face thrust
from behind the door, which was
held ajar from within. This was
the tormented surgeon, who, after
in vain remonstrating against
the proceedings of the day, had
betaken himself to the Captain’s
round-house (_cabinet_ he called it)
to avoid the pest; but still, could
not help yelling out his entreaties
and indignations at times.
Marking all this, Stubb argued well
for his scheme, and turning to the
Guernsey-man had a little chat with
him, during which the stranger mate
expressed his detestation of his
Captain as a conceited ignoramus,
who had brought them all into so
unsavory and unprofitable a pickle.
Sounding him carefully, Stubb further
perceived that the Guernsey-man
had not the slightest suspicion
concerning the ambergris. He
therefore held his peace on that
head, but otherwise was quite frank
and confidential with him, so that
the two quickly concocted a little
plan for both circumventing and
satirizing the Captain, without his
at all dreaming of distrusting their
sincerity. According to this little
plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man,
under cover of an interpreter’s
office, was to tell the Captain what
he pleased, but as coming from Stubb;
and as for Stubb, he was to utter any
nonsense that should come uppermost
in him during the interview.
By this time their destined victim
appeared from his cabin. He was a
small and dark, but rather delicate
looking man for a sea-captain,
with large whiskers and moustache,
however; and wore a red cotton
velvet vest with watch-seals
at his side. To this gentleman,
Stubb was now politely introduced
by the Guernsey-man, who at once
ostentatiously put on the aspect of
interpreting between them.
"What shall I say to him first?"
said he.
"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the
velvet vest and the watch and seals,
"you may as well begin by telling
him that he looks a sort of babyish
to me, though I don’t pretend to
be a judge."
"He says, Monsieur," said the
Guernsey-man, in French, turning to
his captain, "that only yesterday
his ship spoke a vessel, whose
captain and chief-mate, with six
sailors, had all died of a fever
caught from a blasted whale they had
brought alongside."
Upon this the captain started, and
eagerly desired to know more.
"What now?" said the Guernsey-man
to Stubb.
"Why, since he takes it so easy,
tell him that now I have eyed him
carefully, I’m quite certain that
he’s no more fit to command a
whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In
fact, tell him from me he’s a
baboon."
"He vows and declares, Monsieur,
that the other whale, the dried one,
is far more deadly than the blasted
one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures
us, as we value our lives, to cut
loose from these fish."
Instantly the captain ran forward,
and in a loud voice commanded his
crew to desist from hoisting the
cutting-tackles, and at once cast
loose the cables and chains confining
the whales to the ship.
"What now?" said the
Guernsey-man, when the Captain had
returned to them.
"Why, let me see; yes, you may as
well tell him now that—that—in
fact, tell him I’ve diddled him,
and (aside to himself) perhaps
somebody else."
"He says, Monsieur, that he’s
very happy to have been of any
service to us."
Hearing this, the captain vowed
that they were the grateful parties
(meaning himself and mate) and
concluded by inviting Stubb down
into his cabin to drink a bottle
of Bordeaux.
"He wants you to take a glass
of wine with him," said the
interpreter.
"Thank him heartily; but tell him
it’s against my principles to drink
with the man I’ve diddled. In fact,
tell him I must go."
"He says, Monsieur, that his
principles won’t admit of his
drinking; but that if Monsieur
wants to live another day to drink,
then Monsieur had best drop all four
boats, and pull the ship away from
these whales, for it’s so calm they
won’t drift."
By this time Stubb was over the side,
and getting into his boat, hailed the
Guernsey-man to this effect,—that
having a long tow-line in his boat,
he would do what he could to help
them, by pulling out the lighter
whale of the two from the ship’s
side. While the Frenchman’s boats,
then, were engaged in towing the ship
one way, Stubb benevolently towed
away at his whale the other way,
ostentatiously slacking out a most
unusually long tow-line.
Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb
feigned to cast off from the whale;
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 through the tide of bad
smells without being absorbed by it,
as one river will flow into and then
along with another, without at all
blending with it for a time.
"I have it, I have it," cried
Stubb, with delight, striking
something in the subterranean
regions, "a purse! a purse!"
Dropping his spade, he thrust both
hands in, and drew out handfuls
of something that looked like ripe
Windsor soap, or rich mottled old
cheese; very unctuous and savory
withal. You might easily dent it with
your thumb; it is of a hue between
yellow and ash colour. And this, good
friends, is ambergris, worth a gold
guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some
six handfuls were obtained; but more
was unavoidably lost in the sea, and
still more, perhaps, might have been
secured were it not for impatient
Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to
desist, and come on board, else the
ship would bid them good bye.
CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.
Now this ambergris is a very curious
substance, and so important as an
article of commerce, that in 1791
a certain Nantucket-born Captain
Coffin was examined at the bar of
the English House of Commons on that
subject. For at that time, and indeed
until a comparatively late day, the
precise origin of ambergris remained,
like amber itself, a problem to the
learned. Though the word ambergris
is but the French compound for grey
amber, yet the two substances are
quite distinct. For amber, though
at times found on the sea-coast,
is also dug up in some far inland
soils, whereas ambergris is never
found except upon the sea. Besides,
amber is a hard, transparent,
brittle, odorless substance, used
for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads
and ornaments; but ambergris is
soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant
and spicy, that it is largely
used in perfumery, in pastiles,
precious candles, hair-powders, and
pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking,
and also carry it to Mecca, for the
same purpose that frankincense is
carried to St. Peter’s in Rome.
Some wine merchants drop a few grains
into claret, to flavor it.
Who would think, then, that such
fine ladies and gentlemen should
regale themselves with an essence
found in the inglorious bowels of a
sick whale! Yet so it is. By some,
ambergris is supposed to be the
cause, and by others the effect, of
the dyspepsia in the whale. How to
cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to
say, unless by administering three
or four boat loads of Brandreth’s
pills, and then running out of
harm’s way, as laborers do in
blasting rocks.
I have forgotten to say that there
were found in this ambergris,
certain hard, round, bony plates,
which at first Stubb thought might be
sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it
afterwards turned out that they were
nothing more than pieces of small
squid bones embalmed in that manner.
Now that the incorruption of this
most fragrant ambergris should be
found in the heart of such decay; is
this nothing? Bethink thee of that
saying of St. Paul in Corinthians,
about corruption and incorruption;
how that we are sown in dishonor, but
raised in glory. And likewise call
to mind that saying of Paracelsus
about what it is that maketh the best
musk. Also forget not the strange
fact that of all things of ill-savor,
Cologne-water, in its rudimental
manufacturing stages, is the worst.
I should like to conclude the
chapter with the above appeal,
but cannot, owing to my anxiety
to repel a charge often made
against whalemen, and which, in
the estimation of some already
biased minds, might be considered
as indirectly substantiated by what
has been said of the Frenchman’s
two whales. Elsewhere in this volume
the slanderous aspersion has been
disproved, that the vocation of
whaling is throughout a slatternly,
untidy business. But there is another
thing to rebut. They hint that all
whales always smell bad. Now how did
this odious stigma originate?
I opine, that it is plainly traceable
to the first arrival of the Greenland
whaling ships in London, more than
two centuries ago. Because those
whalemen did not then, and do not
now, try out their oil at sea as
the Southern ships have always done;
but cutting up the fresh blubber in
small bits, thrust it through the
bung holes of large casks, and carry
it home in that manner; the shortness
of the season in those Icy Seas,
and the sudden and violent storms to
which they are exposed, forbidding
any other course. The consequence is,
that upon breaking into the hold,
and unloading one of these whale
cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a
savor is given forth somewhat similar
to that arising from excavating
an old city grave-yard, for the
foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.
I partly surmise also, that this
wicked charge against whalers may be
likewise imputed to the existence on
the coast of Greenland, in former
times, of a Dutch village called
Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which
latter name is the one used by the
learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great
work on Smells, a text-book on that
subject. As its name imports (smeer,
fat; berg, to put up), this village
was founded in order to afford a
place for the blubber of the Dutch
whale fleet to be tried out, without
being taken home to Holland for
that purpose. It was a collection
of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil
sheds; and when the works were in
full operation certainly gave forth
no very pleasant savor. But all this
is quite different 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 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 honor
to Alexander the Great?
CHAPTER 93. 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
every 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.
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy
made a match, like a black pony and
a white one, of equal developments,
though of dissimilar colour, 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 very 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 unaccountably
become entrapped, had most sadly
blurred his brightness; though,
as ere long will be seen, what was
thus temporarily subdued 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 will 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 effulgences, infernally superb;
then the evil-blazing diamond, once
the divinest symbol of the crystal
skies, looks like some crown-jewel
stolen from the King 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.
The first time Stubb lowered with
him, Pip evinced much nervousness;
but happily, for that time, escaped
close contact with the whale; and
therefore came off not altogether
discreditably; 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 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 won’t 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. But the awful
lonesomeness is intolerable. The
intense concentration 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 unfrequently
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 hour
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. Rather 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
man’s insanity is heaven’s sense;
and wandering from all mortal 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 94. 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 operations
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 favourite
cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a
sweetener! such a softener! such a
delicious molifier! After having my
hands in it for only a few minutes,
my fingers felt like eels, and
began, as it were, to serpentine
and spiralise.
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 ship
under indolent sail, and gliding
so serenely along; as I bathed
my hands among those soft, gentle
globules of infiltrated 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 uncontaminated
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 petulance, 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, mistaking 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 anywhere in the intellect or the
fancy; but in the wife, the heart,
the bed, the table, the saddle,
the fireside, the country; now that
I have perceived all this, I am
ready to squeeze case eternally. In
thoughts of the visions of the
night, I saw long rows of angels in
paradise, each with his hands in a
jar of spermaceti.
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 fragmentary 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 something 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 squeezing,
and subsequent decanting. I hold it
to be the wondrously thin, ruptured
membranes of the case, coalescing.
Gurry, so called, is a term properly
belonging to right whalemen, 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-gaffman 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. Meanwhile,
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 of his
assistants’, would you be very much
astonished? Toes are scarce among
veteran blubber-room men.
CHAPTER 95. 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, enigmatical
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 15th 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 proceeds
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 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 archbishopric, what
a lad for a Pope were this mincer!*
*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.
CHAPTER 96. 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 mainmast, the most roomy
part of the deck. The timbers beneath
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 hatchway. 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 geometry 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
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 carpenter 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
live 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 vengeful 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 masses of blubber into the
scalding pots, or stirred up the
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
drowsiness which ever would come over
me at a midnight helm.
But that night, in particular, a
strange (and ever since inexplicable)
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, somehow, 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, O 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 liars!
Nevertheless the sun hides not
Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, 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 which 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 Ecclesiastes 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 graveyards, 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 Rabelais as passing wise,
and therefore jolly;—not that man
is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones,
and break the green damp mould with
unfathomably 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.
CHAPTER 97. 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 their 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 handful 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 unknown 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.
CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and
Clearing Up.
Already has 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 Shadrach, 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 leviathan 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 sometimes 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_, every 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.
In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps
one of the most remarkable 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
lye is readily made; and whenever
any adhesiveness from the back of
the whale remains clinging to the
side, that lye 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
implements 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 concluded, then the crew
themselves proceed to their own
ablutions; 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
humorously discourse of parlors,
sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics;
propose to mat the deck; think of
having hanging 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, infallibly 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 combined 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 splice a rope!
CHAPTER 99. 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 particular 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 significance
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 somewhere 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
and the verdigris of copper spikes,
yet, untouchable and immaculate 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
towers, and all other grand and
lofty things; look here,—three
peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm
tower, that is Ahab; the volcano,
that is Ahab; the courageous, the
undaunted, and victorious fowl,
that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab;
and this round gold is but the image
of the rounder globe, which, like
a magician’s glass, to each and
every man in turn but mirrors back
his own mysterious self. Great pains,
small gains for those who ask the
world to solve them; it cannot solve
itself. Methinks now this coined sun
wears a ruddy face; but see! aye,
he enters the sign of storms, the
equinox! and but six months before
he wheeled out of a former equinox
at Aries! From storm to storm! So be
it, then. Born in throes, ’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 old man seems
to read Belshazzar’s awful
writing. I have never marked the
coin inspectingly. He goes below;
let me read. A dark valley between
three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks,
that almost seem the Trinity, in some
faint earthly symbol. So in this
vale of Death, God girds us round;
and over all our gloom, the sun of
Righteousness still shines a beacon
and a hope. If we bend down our eyes,
the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;
but if we lift them, the bright
sun meets our glance half way, to
cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is
no fixture; and if, at midnight, we
would fain snatch some sweet solace
from him, we gaze for him in vain!
This coin speaks wisely, mildly,
truly, but still sadly to me. I
will quit it, lest Truth shake me
falsely."
"There now’s the old Mogul,"
soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,
"he’s been twigging it; and
there goes Starbuck from the same,
and both with faces which I should
say might be somewhere within
nine fathoms long. And all from
looking at a piece of gold, which
did I have it now on Negro Hill
or in Corlaer’s Hook, I’d not
look at it very long ere spending
it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant
opinion, I regard this as queer. I
have seen doubloons before now
in my voyagings; your doubloons
of old Spain, your doubloons of
Peru, your doubloons of Chili,
your doubloons of Bolivia, your
doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of
gold moidores and pistoles, and joes,
and half joes, and quarter joes. What
then should there be in this doubloon
of the Equator that is so killing
wonderful? By Golconda! let me
read it once. Halloa! here’s
signs and wonders truly! That,
now, is what old Bowditch in his
Epitome calls the zodiac, and what
my almanac below calls ditto. I’ll
get the almanac and as I have heard
devils can be raised with Daboll’s
arithmetic, I’ll try my hand at
raising a meaning out of these queer
curvicues here with the Massachusetts
calendar. Here’s the book. Let’s
see now. Signs and wonders; and the
sun, he’s always among ’em. Hem,
hem, hem; here they are—here
they go—all alive:—Aries, or
the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and
Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself, or
the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels
among ’em. Aye, here on the coin
he’s just crossing the threshold
between two of twelve sitting-rooms
all in a ring. Book! you lie there;
the fact is, you books must know your
places. You’ll do to give us the
bare words and facts, but we come in
to supply the thoughts. That’s
my small experience, so far
as the Massachusetts calendar,
and Bowditch’s navigator, and
Daboll’s arithmetic go. Signs
and wonders, eh? Pity if there is
nothing wonderful in signs, and
significant in wonders! There’s
a clue somewhere; wait a bit;
hist—hark! By Jove, I have it!
Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac
here is the life of man in one round
chapter; and now I’ll read it off,
straight out of the book. Come,
Almanack! To begin: there’s
Aries, or the Ram—lecherous dog,
he begets us; then, Taurus, or the
Bull—he bumps us the first thing;
then Gemini, or the Twins—that is,
Virtue and Vice; we try to reach
Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the
Crab, and drags us back; and here,
going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring
Lion, lies in the path—he gives a
few fierce bites and surly dabs with
his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo,
the Virgin! that’s our first love;
we marry and think to be happy
for aye, when pop comes Libra,
or the Scales—happiness weighed
and found wanting; and while we are
very sad about that, Lord! how we
suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the
Scorpion, stings us in the rear;
we are curing the wound, when
whang 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 hundred and sixty cigars. I
won’t 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;
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 lion. Ship, old ship! my
old head shakes to think of thee."
"There’s another rendering now;
but still one text. All sorts of men
in one kind of world, you see. Dodge
again! here comes Queequeg—all
tattooing—looks like the signs
of the Zodiac himself. What says
the Cannibal? As I live he’s
comparing notes; looking at his
thigh bone; thinks the sun is in
the thigh, or in the calf, or in
the bowels, I suppose, as the old
women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy
in the back country. And by Jove,
he’s found something there in
the vicinity of his thigh—I
guess it’s Sagittarius, or the
Archer. No: he don’t know what to
make of the doubloon; he takes it
for an old button off some king’s
trowsers. But, aside again! here
comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah;
tail coiled out of sight as usual,
oakum in the toes of his pumps
as usual. What does he say, with
that look of his? Ah, only makes a
sign to the sign and bows himself;
there is a sun on the coin—fire
worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more
and more. This way comes Pip—poor
boy! would he had died, or I;
he’s half horrible to me. He
too has been watching all of these
interpreters—myself included—and
look now, he comes to read, with
that unearthly idiot face. Stand away
again and hear him. Hark!"
"I look, you look, he looks; we
look, ye look, they look."
"Upon my soul, he’s been studying
Murray’s Grammar! Improving his
mind, poor fellow! But what’s that
he says now—hist!"
"I look, you look, he looks; we
look, ye look, they look."
"Why, he’s getting it by
heart—hist! again."
"I look, you look, he looks; we
look, ye look, they look."
"Well, that’s funny."
"And I, you, and he; and we, ye,
and they, are all bats; and I’m a
crow, especially when I stand a’top
of this pine tree here. Caw! caw!
caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t
I a crow? And where’s the
scare-crow? There he stands; two
bones stuck into a pair of old
trowsers, and two more poked into
the sleeves of an old jacket."
"Wonder if he means
me?—complimentary!—poor lad!—I
could go hang myself. Any way, for
the present, I’ll quit Pip’s
vicinity. I can stand the rest, for
they have plain wits; but he’s too
crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so,
I leave him muttering."
"Here’s the ship’s navel, this
doubloon here, and they are all 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’ll hoard ye
soon! Hish! hish! God goes ’mong
the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho,
cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get
your hoe-cake done!"
CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.
The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the
Samuel Enderby, of London.
"Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White
Whale?"
So cried Ahab, once more hailing a
ship showing English colours, 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, that hung round him in
festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and
one empty arm of this jacket streamed
behind him like the broidered arm of
a hussar’s surcoat.
"Hast seen the White Whale?"
"See you this?" and withdrawing
it from the folds that had hidden it,
he held up a white arm of sperm whale
bone, terminating in a wooden head
like a mallet.
"Man my boat!" cried Ahab,
impetuously, and tossing about
the oars near him—"Stand by
to lower!"
In less than a minute, without
quitting his little craft, he
and his crew were dropped to the
water, and were soon alongside of
the stranger. But here a curious
difficulty presented itself. In the
excitement of the moment, Ahab had
forgotten that since the loss of
his leg he had never once stepped on
board of any vessel at sea but his
own, and then it was always by an
ingenious and very handy mechanical
contrivance peculiar to the Pequod,
and a thing not to be rigged and
shipped in any other vessel at a
moment’s warning. Now, it is no
very easy matter for anybody—except
those who are almost hourly used to
it, like whalemen—to clamber up
a ship’s side from a boat on the
open sea; for the great swells now
lift the boat high up towards the
bulwarks, and then instantaneously
drop it half way down to the
kelson. So, deprived of one leg,
and the strange ship of course
being altogether unsupplied with
the kindly invention, Ahab now found
himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy
landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the
uncertain changeful height he could
hardly hope to attain.
It has before been hinted,
perhaps, that every little untoward
circumstance that befell him, and
which indirectly sprang from his
luckless mishap, almost invariably
irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in
the present instance, all this was
heightened by the sight of the two
officers of the strange ship, leaning
over 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 seem 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, because the
strange captain, observing at a
glance how affairs 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. 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 sliding 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,
exultingly—"but on!"
"Give me a chance,
then," said the Englishman,
good-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!
"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 line,
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 might 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-grandfather 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 overboard—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 flailings, 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 forwards, went down
like a flash; and the barb of that
cursed second iron towing along
near me caught me here" (clapping
his hand just below his shoulder);
"yes, caught me just here, I say,
and bore me 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 gentleman
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 casting 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 dietetically severe,
is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog,
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 bowing
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 than 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 carpenter 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 born with it. Oh, you solemn
rogue, you—you Bunger! 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 by-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?"
"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 succession—"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 swallow 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, Captain 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
satisfied 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
ivory 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 question 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 bulwarks 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 set like a flint to his own,
Ahab stood upright till alongside of
the Pequod.
CHAPTER 101. The Decanter.
Ere the English ship fades from
sight, be it set down here, that
she hailed from London, and was
named after the late Samuel Enderby,
merchant of that city, the original
of the famous whaling house of
Enderby & Sons; a house which in my
poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not
far behind the united royal houses of
the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of
real historical interest. How long,
prior to the year of our Lord 1775,
this great whaling house was in
existence, my numerous fish-documents
do not make plain; but in that year
(1775) it fitted out the first
English ships that ever regularly
hunted the Sperm Whale; though for
some score of years previous (ever
since 1726) our valiant Coffins and
Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard
had in large fleets pursued 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 thrown open. But
not content with this good deed, the
indefatigable house again bestirred
itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how
many, their mother only knows—and
under their immediate auspices, and
partly, I think, at their expense,
the British government was induced
to send the sloop-of-war Rattler
on a whaling voyage of discovery
into the South Sea. Commanded by
a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler
made a rattling voyage of it, and
did some service; how much does
not appear. But this is not all. In
1819, the same house fitted out a
discovery whale ship of their own, to
go on a tasting cruise to the remote
waters of Japan. That ship—well
called the "Syren"—made a
noble experimental cruise; and it
was thus that the great Japanese
Whaling Ground first became generally
known. The Syren in this famous
voyage was commanded by a Captain
Coffin, a Nantucketer.
All honor to the Enderbies,
therefore, whose house, I think,
exists to the present day; though
doubtless the original Samuel must
long ago have slipped his cable
for the great South Sea of the
other world.
The ship named after him was worthy
of the honor, being a very fast
sailer and a noble craft every
way. I boarded her once at midnight
somewhere off the Patagonian coast,
and drank good flip down in the
forecastle. It was a fine gam we had,
and they were all trumps—every soul
on board. A short life to them, and
a jolly death. And that fine gam I
had—long, very long after old Ahab
touched her planks with his ivory
heel—it minds me of the noble,
solid, Saxon hospitality of that
ship; and may my parson forget me,
and the devil remember me, if I ever
lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say
we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it
at the rate of ten gallons the hour;
and when the squall came (for it’s
squally off there by Patagonia), and
all hands—visitors and all—were
called to reef topsails, we were
so top-heavy that we had to swing
each other aloft in bowlines; and
we ignorantly furled the skirts
of our jackets into the sails, so
that we hung there, reefed fast in
the howling gale, a warning example
to all drunken tars. However, the
masts did not go overboard; and by
and by we scrambled down, so sober,
that we had to pass the flip again,
though the savage salt spray bursting
down the forecastle scuttle, rather
too much diluted and pickled it 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 indestructible dumplings. I
fancied that you could feel them,
and roll them about in you after
they were swallowed. If you stooped
over too far forward, you risked
their pitching out of you like
billiard-balls. The bread—but that
couldn’t be helped; besides, it
was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the
bread contained the only fresh fare
they had. But the forecastle was not
very light, and it was very easy to
step over into a dark corner when you
ate it. But all in all, taking her
from truck to helm, considering the
dimensions of the cook’s boilers,
including his own live parchment
boilers; fore and aft, I say, the
Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship;
of good fare and plenty; fine flip
and strong; crack fellows all, and
capital from boot heels to hat-band.
But why was it, think ye, that the
Samuel Enderby, and some other
English whalers I know of—not
all though—were such famous,
hospitable ships; that passed round
the beef, and the bread, and the
can, and the joke; and were not
soon weary of eating, and drinking,
and laughing? I will tell you. The
abounding good cheer of these English
whalers is matter for historical
research. Nor have I been at all
sparing of historical whale research,
when it has seemed needed.
The English were preceded in the
whale fishery by the Hollanders,
Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they
derived many terms still extant in
the fishery; and what is yet more,
their fat old fashions, touching
plenty to eat and drink. For,
as a general thing, the English
merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but
not so the English whaler. Hence,
in the English, this thing of whaling
good cheer is not normal and natural,
but incidental and particular; and,
therefore, must have some special
origin, which is here pointed out,
and will be still further elucidated.
During my researches in the
Leviathanic histories, I stumbled
upon an ancient Dutch volume, which,
by the musty whaling smell of it, I
knew must be about whalers. The title
was, "Dan Coopman," wherefore
I concluded that this must be the
invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam
cooper in the fishery, as every
whale ship must carry its cooper. I
was reinforced in this opinion by
seeing that it was the production of
one "Fitz Swackhammer." But my
friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned
man, professor of Low Dutch and High
German in the college of Santa Claus
and St. 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). 550 ankers of
Geneva. 10,800 barrels of beer.
Most statistical tables are
parchingly dry in the reading; not
so in the present case, however,
where the reader is flooded with
whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and
gills of good gin and good cheer.
At the time, I devoted three days
to the studious digesting of all
this beer, beef, and bread, during
which many profound thoughts were
incidentally suggested to me, capable
of a transcendental and Platonic
application; and, furthermore, I
compiled supplementary tables of my
own, touching the probable quantity
of stock-fish, etc., 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 precisely
two barrels of beer per man, for a
twelve weeks’ allowance, exclusive
of his fair proportion of that 550
ankers of gin. Now, whether these
gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled
as one might fancy them to have been,
were the right sort of men to stand
up in a boat’s head, and take good
aim at flying whales; this would seem
somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim
at them, and hit them too. But this
was very far North, be it remembered,
where beer agrees well with the
constitution; upon the Equator, in
our southern fishery, beer would be
apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at
the mast-head and boozy in his boat;
and grievous loss might ensue to
Nantucket and New Bedford.
But no more; enough has been said to
show that the old Dutch whalers of
two or three centuries ago were high
livers; and that the English whalers
have not neglected so excellent an
example. For, say they, when cruising
in an empty ship, if you can get
nothing better out of the world,
get a good dinner out of it, at
least. And this empties the decanter.
CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the
Arsacides.
Hitherto, in descriptively treating
of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly
dwelt upon the marvels of his outer
aspect; or separately and in detail
upon some few interior structural
features. But to a large and thorough
sweeping comprehension of him, it
behooves me now to unbutton him still
further, and untagging the points of
his hose, unbuckling his garters, and
casting loose the hooks and the eyes
of the joints of his innermost bones,
set him before you in his ultimatum;
that is to say, in his unconditional
skeleton.
But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that
you, a mere oarsman in the fishery,
pretend to know aught about the
subterranean parts of the whale? Did
erudite Stubb, mounted upon your
capstan, deliver lectures on the
anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help
of the windlass, hold up a specimen
rib for exhibition? Explain thyself,
Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown
whale on your deck for examination,
as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely
not. A veritable witness have you
hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a
care how you seize the privilege
of Jonah alone; the privilege of
discoursing upon the joists and
beams; the rafters, ridge-pole,
sleepers, and under-pinnings, making
up the frame-work of leviathan;
and belike of the tallow-vats,
dairy-rooms, butteries, and
cheeseries in his bowels.
I confess, that since Jonah, few
whalemen have penetrated very far
beneath the skin of the adult whale;
nevertheless, I have been blessed
with an opportunity to dissect him in
miniature. In a ship I belonged to,
a small cub Sperm Whale was once
bodily hoisted to the deck for his
poke or bag, to make sheaths for
the barbs of the harpoons, and for
the heads of the lances. Think you
I let that chance go, without using
my boat-hatchet and jack-knife,
and breaking the seal and reading
all the contents of that young cub?
And as for my exact knowledge of
the bones of the leviathan in their
gigantic, full grown development, for
that rare knowledge I am indebted to
my late royal friend Tranquo, king
of Tranque, one of the Arsacides.
For being at Tranque, years ago,
when attached to the trading-ship Dey
of Algiers, I was invited to spend
part of the Arsacidean holidays with
the lord of Tranque, at his retired
palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side
glen not very far distant from what
our sailors called Bamboo-Town,
his capital.
Among many other fine qualities, my
royal friend Tranquo, being gifted
with a devout love for all matters of
barbaric vertu, had brought together
in Pupella whatever rare things the
more ingenious of his people could
invent; chiefly carved woods of
wonderful devices, chiselled shells,
inlaid spears, costly paddles,
aromatic canoes; and all these
distributed among whatever natural
wonders, 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-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
vertebræ 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, suspended
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 air; all these
unceasingly were active. Through
the lacings of the leaves, the great
sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving
the unwearied verdure. 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 factories. 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 villainies
been detected. Ah, mortal! then,
be heedful; for so, in all 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
arbours. 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 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 specimens 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 skeletons
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 throughout; 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.
CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The
Whale’s Skeleton.
In the first place, I wish to lay
before 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 circumference,
such a whale will weigh at least
ninety tons; so that, reckoning
thirteen men to a ton, he would
considerably outweigh the combined
population of a whole village of one
thousand 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 landsman’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.
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 spine,
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 footpath
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 corresponding rib
measured but little more than eight
feet. So that this rib only conveyed
half of the true notion of the living
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 vertebræ
in all, which in the skeleton are
not locked together. They mostly lie
like the great knobbed 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 smallest, 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.
CHAPTER 104. 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 hawsers coiled
away in the subterranean orlop-deck
of a line-of-battle-ship.
Since I have undertaken to manhandle
this Leviathan, it behooves 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 archæological,
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 unwarrantably
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 subject,
though it may seem but an ordinary
one. How, then, with me, writing of
this Leviathan? Unconsciously my
chirography 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 outreaching 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 antichronical 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 Lombardy,
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 1779
was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine
in Paris, a short street opening
almost directly upon the palace of
the Tuileries; and bones disinterred
in excavating the great docks of
Antwerp, in Napoleon’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
rechristened 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 vertebræ,
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
antichronical 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, shuddering
glimpses into those Polar eternities;
when wedged bastions of ice pressed
hard upon what are now the Tropics;
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 character,
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 traveller.
"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 immediate 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 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 Temple."
In this Afric Temple of the Whale
I leave you, reader, and if you be
a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you
will silently worship there.
CHAPTER 105. 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 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 geological periods;
may it not be, that since Adam’s
time they have degenerated?
Assuredly, we must conclude so,
if we are to credit the accounts
of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the
ancient naturalists generally. For
Pliny tells us of whales that
embraced acres of living bulk,
and Aldrovandus of others which
measured eight hundred feet in
length—Rope Walks and Thames
Tunnels of Whales! And even in the
days of Banks and Solander, Cooke’s
naturalists, we find a Danish
member of the Academy of Sciences
setting down certain Iceland Whales
(reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies)
at one hundred and twenty yards; that
is, three hundred and sixty feet. And
Lacépède, the French naturalist,
in his elaborate history of whales,
in the very beginning of his work
(page 3), sets down the Right Whale
at one hundred metres, three hundred
and twenty-eight feet. And this work
was published so late as A.D. 1825.
But will any whaleman believe these
stories? No. The whale of to-day is
as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s
time. 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.
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 harpoons 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 lifetime—the
census of the buffalo in Illinois
exceeded the census of men now in
London, and though at the present day
not one horn or hoof of them remains
in all that region; and though the
cause of this wondrous extermination
was the spear of man; yet the far
different nature of the whale-hunt
peremptorily forbids so inglorious
an end to the Leviathan. Forty men
in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales
for forty-eight months think they
have done extremely well, and thank
God, if at last they carry home the
oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the
days of the old Canadian and Indian
hunters and trappers of the West,
when the far west (in whose sunset
suns still rise) was a wilderness
and a virgin, the same number of
moccasined men, for the same number
of months, mounted on horse instead
of sailing in ships, would have slain
not forty, but forty thousand and
more buffaloes; a fact that, if need
were, could be statistically stated.
Nor, considered aright, does it
seem any argument in favour of the
gradual extinction of the Sperm
Whale, for example, that in former
years (the latter part of the last
century, say) these Leviathans,
in small pods, were encountered
much oftener than at present, and,
in consequence, the voyages were
not so prolonged, and were also
much more remunerative. Because,
as has been elsewhere noticed, those
whales, influenced by some views to
safety, now swim the seas in immense
caravans, so that to a large degree
the scattered solitaries, yokes, and
pods, and schools of other days are
now aggregated into vast but widely
separated, unfrequent armies. That
is all. And equally fallacious
seems the conceit, that because
the so-called whale-bone whales no
longer haunt many grounds in former
years abounding with them, hence
that species also is declining. For
they are only being driven from
promontory to cape; and if one coast
is no longer enlivened with their
jets, then, be sure, some other and
remoter strand has been very recently
startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.
Furthermore: concerning these last
mentioned Leviathans, they have two
firm fortresses, which, in all human
probability, will for ever remain
impregnable. And as upon the invasion
of their valleys, the frosty Swiss
have retreated to their mountains;
so, hunted from the savannas and
glades of the middle seas, the
whale-bone whales can at last resort
to their Polar citadels, and diving
under the ultimate glassy barriers
and walls there, come up among icy
fields and floes; and in a charmed
circle of everlasting December,
bid defiance to all pursuit from man.
But as perhaps fifty of these
whale-bone whales are harpooned for
one cachalot, some philosophers of
the forecastle have concluded that
this positive havoc has already
very seriously diminished their
battalions. But though for some time
past a number of these whales, not
less than 13,000, have been annually
slain on the nor’ west coast by
the Americans alone; yet there are
considerations which render even
this circumstance of little or no
account as an opposing argument in
this matter.
Natural as it is to be somewhat
incredulous concerning the
populousness of the more enormous
creatures of the globe, yet what
shall we say to Harto, the historian
of Goa, when he tells us that at one
hunting the King of Siam took 4,000
elephants; that in those regions
elephants are numerous as droves of
cattle in the temperate climes. And
there seems no reason to doubt that
if these elephants, which have now
been hunted for thousands of years,
by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal,
and by all the successive monarchs
of the East—if they still survive
there in great numbers, much more may
the great whale outlast all hunting,
since he has a pasture to expatiate
in, which is precisely twice as
large as all Asia, both Americas,
Europe and Africa, New Holland, and
all the Isles of the sea combined.
Moreover: we are to consider, that
from the presumed great longevity
of whales, their probably attaining
the age of a century and more,
therefore at any one period of time,
several distinct adult generations
must be contemporary. And what 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 if ever
the world is to be again flooded,
like the Netherlands, to kill off
its rats, then the eternal whale
will still survive, and rearing upon
the topmost crest of the equatorial
flood, spout his frothed defiance to
the skies.
CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.
The precipitating manner in which
Captain Ahab had quitted the
Samuel Enderby of London, had not
been unattended with some small
violence to his own person. He had
lighted with such energy upon a
thwart of his boat that his ivory
leg had received a half-splintering
shock. And when after gaining his own
deck, and his own pivot-hole there,
he so vehemently wheeled round with
an urgent command to the steersman
(it was, as ever, something about
his not steering inflexibly enough);
then, the already shaken ivory
received such an additional twist and
wrench, that though it still remained
entire, and to all appearances lusty,
yet Ahab did not deem it entirely
trustworthy.
And, indeed, it seemed small
matter for wonder, that for all
his pervading, mad recklessness,
Ahab did at times give careful heed
to the condition of that dead bone
upon which he partly stood. For it
had not been very long prior to the
Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket,
that he had been found one night
lying prone upon the ground, and
insensible; by some unknown, and
seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable
casualty, his ivory limb having
been so violently displaced, that it
had stake-wise smitten, and all but
pierced his groin; nor was it without
extreme difficulty that the agonizing
wound was entirely cured.
Nor, at the time, had it failed
to enter his monomaniac mind,
that all the anguish of that then
present suffering was but the direct
issue of a former woe; and he too
plainly seemed to see, that as the
most poisonous reptile of the marsh
perpetuates his kind as inevitably as
the sweetest songster of the grove;
so, equally with every felicity, all
miserable events do naturally beget
their like. Yea, more than equally,
thought Ahab; since both 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 for the other
world, but, on the contrary, shall
be followed by the joy-childlessness
of all hell’s despair; whereas,
some guilty mortal 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 heartwoes, 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 reason
for this thing appeared by no
means adequate; though, indeed,
as touching all Ahab’s deeper
part, every revelation partook 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
recluseness. 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.
CHAPTER 107. 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 humble 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 callings 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 material. 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 readiness 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 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 indifferent
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 expertness 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 surrounding 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 cathedrals. Yet
was this half-horrible stolidity in
him, involving, too, 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 wanderer,
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; uncompromised 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 unintelligence;
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 in
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,
countersinkers. 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 something 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 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 108. 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
try 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 could turn him out as neat 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
somebody else, that’s certain.
AHAB (_advancing_). (_During
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.
Right. It’s a partnership; he
supplies the muscle part. He makes
a fierce red flame there!
Aye, sir; he must have the white heat
for this kind of fine work.
Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now
a most meaning thing, that that old
Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they
say, should have been a blacksmith,
and animated them with fire; for
what’s made in fire must properly
belong to fire; and so hell’s
probable. How the soot flies!
This must be the remainder the Greek
made the Africans of. Carpenter,
when he’s through with that buckle,
tell him to forge a pair of steel
shoulder-blades; there’s a pedlar
aboard with a crushing pack.
Sir?
Hold; while Prometheus is about it,
I’ll order a complete man after
a desirable pattern. Imprimis,
fifty feet high in his socks; then,
chest modelled after the Thames
Tunnel; then, legs with roots to
’em, to stay in one place; then,
arms three feet through the wrist;
no heart at all, brass forehead,
and about a quarter of an acre of
fine brains; and let me see—shall
I order eyes to see outwards? No,
but put a sky-light on top of his
head to illuminate inwards. There,
take the order, and away.
Now, what’s he speaking about,
and who’s he speaking to, I should
like to know? Shall I keep standing
here? (_aside_).
’Tis but indifferent architecture
to make a blind dome; here’s
one. No, no, no; I must have a
lantern.
Ho, ho! That’s it, hey? Here are
two, sir; one will serve my turn.
What art thou thrusting that
thief-catcher into my face for,
man? Thrusted light is worse than
presented pistols.
I thought, sir, that you spoke to
carpenter.
Carpenter? why that’s—but
no;—a very tidy, and, I may say,
an extremely gentlemanlike sort
of business thou art in here,
carpenter;—or would’st thou
rather work in clay?
Sir?—Clay? clay, sir? That’s mud;
we leave clay to ditchers, sir.
The fellow’s impious! What art thou
sneezing about?
Bone is rather dusty, sir.
Take the hint, then; and when thou
art dead, never bury thyself under
living people’s noses.
Sir?—oh! ah!—I guess
so;—yes—oh, dear!
Look ye, carpenter, I dare say
thou callest thyself a right good
workmanlike workman, eh? Well,
then, will it speak thoroughly well
for thy work, if, when I come to
mount this leg thou makest, I shall
nevertheless feel another leg in the
same identical place with it; that
is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the
flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst
thou not drive that old Adam away?
Truly, sir, I begin to understand
somewhat now. Yes, I have heard
something curious on that score,
sir; how that a dismasted man never
entirely loses the feeling of his old
spar, but it will be still pricking
him at times. May I humbly ask if it
be really so, sir?
It is, man. Look, put thy live
leg here in the place where mine
once was; so, now, here is only one
distinct leg to the eye, yet two to
the soul. Where thou feelest tingling
life; there, exactly there, there to
a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?
I should humbly call it a poser, sir.
Hist, then. How dost thou know
that some entire, living, thinking
thing may not be invisibly and
uninterpenetratingly standing
precisely where thou now standest;
aye, and standing there in thy
spite? In thy most solitary
hours, then, dost thou not fear
eavesdroppers? Hold, don’t
speak! And if I still feel the smart
of my crushed leg, though it be now
so long dissolved; then, why 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 Prætorians
at the auction of the Roman empire
(which was the world’s); and yet
I owe for the flesh in the tongue I
brag with. By heavens! I’ll get a
crucible, and into it, and dissolve
myself down to one small, compendious
vertebra. So.
CARPENTER (_resuming his work_).
Well, well, well! Stubb knows him
best of all, and Stubb always says
he’s queer; says nothing but
that one sufficient little word
queer; he’s queer, says Stubb;
he’s queer—queer, queer; and
keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck
all the time—queer—sir—queer,
queer, very queer. And here’s his
leg! Yes, now that I think of it,
here’s his 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 haphazard-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 ivory, where he figures up
the latitude. So, so; chisel, file,
and sand-paper, now!
CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in
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 unfavourable
affair.*
*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 be kept damply tight;
while by the changed character of
the withdrawn water, the mariners
readily detect any serious leakage
in the precious cargo.
Now, 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."
"Up Burtons and break out? Now
that we are nearing 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. Begone! 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
cares 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 conscience 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?"
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 something 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 Burton, 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.
CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.
Upon searching, it was found
that the casks last struck into
the hold were perfectly sound,
and that the leak must be further
off. So, it being calm weather,
they broke out deeper and deeper,
disturbing the slumbers of the
huge ground-tier butts; and from
that black midnight sending those
gigantic moles into the daylight
above. So deep did they go; and so
ancient, and corroded, and weedy the
aspect of the lowermost puncheons,
that you almost looked next for
some mouldy corner-stone cask
containing coins of Captain Noah,
with copies of the posted placards,
vainly warning the infatuated old
world from the flood. Tierce after
tierce, too, of water, and bread, and
beef, and shooks of staves, and iron
bundles of hoops, were hoisted out,
till at last the piled decks were
hard to get about; and the hollow
hull echoed under foot, as if you
were treading over empty catacombs,
and reeled and rolled in the sea like
an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy
was the ship as a dinnerless student
with all Aristotle in his head. Well
was it that the Typhoons did not
visit them then.
Now, at this time it was that my
poor pagan companion, and fast
bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized
with a fever, which brought him nigh
to his endless end.
Be it said, that in this vocation
of whaling, sinecures are unknown;
dignity and danger go hand in
hand; till you get to be Captain,
the higher you rise the harder
you toil. So with poor Queequeg,
who, as harpooneer, must not only
face all the rage of the living
whale, but—as we have elsewhere
seen—mount his dead back in a
rolling sea; and finally descend
into the gloom of the hold, and
bitterly sweating all day in that
subterraneous confinement, resolutely
manhandle the clumsiest casks and
see to their stowage. To be short,
among whalemen, the harpooneers are
the holders, so called.
Poor Queequeg! when the ship was
about half disembowelled, you should
have stooped over the hatchway, and
peered down upon him there; where,
stripped to his woollen drawers,
the tattooed savage was crawling
about amid that dampness and slime,
like a green spotted lizard at the
bottom of a well. And a well, or an
ice-house, it somehow proved to him,
poor pagan; where, strange to say,
for all the heat of his sweatings,
he caught a terrible chill which
lapsed into a fever; and at last,
after some days’ suffering, laid
him in his hammock, close to the
very sill of the door of death. How
he wasted and wasted away in those
few long-lingering days, till there
seemed but little left of him but his
frame and tattooing. But as all else
in him thinned, and his cheek-bones
grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless,
seemed growing fuller and fuller;
they became of a strange softness
of lustre; and mildly but deeply
looked out at you there from his
sickness, a wondrous testimony to
that immortal health in him which
could not die, or be weakened. And
like circles on the water, which,
as they grow fainter, expand; so his
eyes seemed rounding and rounding,
like the rings of Eternity. An awe
that cannot be named would steal over
you as you sat by the side of this
waning savage, and saw as strange
things in his face, as any beheld
who were bystanders when Zoroaster
died. For whatever is truly wondrous
and fearful in man, never yet was put
into words or books. And the drawing
near of Death, which alike levels
all, alike impresses all with a last
revelation, which only an author from
the dead could adequately tell. So
that—let us say it again—no dying
Chaldee or Greek had higher and
holier thoughts than those, whose
mysterious shades you saw creeping
over the face of poor Queequeg, as he
quietly lay in his swaying hammock,
and the rolling sea seemed gently
rocking him to his final rest, and
the ocean’s invisible flood-tide
lifted him higher and higher towards
his destined heaven.
Not a man of the crew but gave him
up; and, as for Queequeg himself,
what he thought of his case was
forcibly shown by a curious favour
he asked. He called one to him in the
grey morning watch, when the day was
just breaking, and taking his hand,
said that while in Nantucket he
had chanced to see certain little
canoes of dark wood, like the rich
war-wood of his native isle; and
upon inquiry, he had learned that
all whalemen who died in Nantucket,
were laid in those same dark canoes,
and that the fancy of being so laid
had much pleased him; for it was not
unlike the custom of his own race,
who, after embalming a dead warrior,
stretched him out in his canoe,
and so left him to be floated away
to the starry archipelagoes; for not
only do they believe that the stars
are isles, but that far beyond all
visible horizons, their own mild,
uncontinented seas, interflow with
the blue heavens; and so form
the white breakers of the milky
way. He added, that he shuddered
at the thought of being buried in
his hammock, according to the usual
sea-custom, tossed like something
vile to the death-devouring sharks.
No: he desired a canoe like those
of Nantucket, all the more congenial
to him, being a whaleman, that like
a whale-boat these coffin-canoes
were without a keel; though that
involved but uncertain steering,
and much lee-way adown the dim ages.
Now, when this strange circumstance
was made known aft, the carpenter was
at once commanded to do Queequeg’s
bidding, whatever it might
include. There was some heathenish,
coffin-coloured old lumber aboard,
which, upon a long previous voyage,
had been cut from the aboriginal
groves of the Lackaday islands, and
from these dark planks the coffin was
recommended to be made. No sooner was
the carpenter apprised of the order,
than taking his rule, he forthwith
with all the indifferent promptitude
of his character, proceeded into the
forecastle and took Queequeg’s
measure with great accuracy,
regularly chalking Queequeg’s
person as he shifted the rule.
"Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have
to die now," ejaculated the Long
Island sailor.
Going to his vice-bench, the
carpenter for convenience sake and
general reference, now transferringly
measured on it the exact length the
coffin was to be, and then made the
transfer permanent by cutting two
notches at its extremities. This
done, he marshalled the planks and
his tools, and to work.
When the last nail was driven, and
the lid duly planed and fitted,
he lightly shouldered the coffin
and went forward with it, inquiring
whether they were ready for it yet
in that direction.
Overhearing the indignant but
half-humorous cries with which the
people on deck began to drive the
coffin away, Queequeg, to every
one’s consternation, commanded
that the thing should be instantly
brought to him, nor was there any
denying him; seeing that, of all
mortals, some dying men are the most
tyrannical; 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 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
tambourine over base Pip, and hail
him General, if he were once more
dying here. No, no! shame upon all
cowards—shame upon them! Let ’em
go drown like 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 surprise,
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 live 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 his
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 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
mysteries 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 Ahab that
wild exclamation of his, when one
morning turning away from surveying
poor Queequeg—"Oh, devilish
tantalization of the gods!"
CHAPTER 111. 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 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! the White Whale spouts
thick blood!"
CHAPTER 112. 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
contributory work for Ahab’s leg,
but still retained it on deck, fast
lashed to ringbolts by the foremast;
being now almost incessantly 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 served;
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 petulance 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 shameful story of
his wretched fate.
Belated, and not innocently, one
bitter winter’s midnight, on the
road running between two country
towns, 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
himself did ignorantly 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 blacksmith’s
infants were rocked to slumber.
Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst
thou not sometimes 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 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; therefore, 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 Pacifics, 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_ gravestone,
too, within the churchyard, and come
hither, till we marry thee!"
Hearkening to these voices, East
and West, by early sunrise, and by
fall of eve, the blacksmith’s soul
responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth
went a-whaling.
CHAPTER 113. 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
hovering 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 woeful 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?"
"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 unsmoothable; 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 thousand
yoke of fiends could not part, Perth;
something that will stick in a whale
like his own fin-bone. There’s the
stuff," flinging the pouch upon
the anvil. "Look ye, blacksmith,
these are the gathered nail-stubbs of
the steel shoes of racing horses."
"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why,
Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then,
the best and stubbornest stuff we
blacksmiths ever work."
"I know it, old man; these
stubbs will weld together like
glue from the melted bones of
murderers. Quick! forge me the
harpoon. And forge me first, twelve
rods for its shank; then wind,
and twist, and hammer these twelve
together like the yarns and strands
of a tow-line. Quick! I’ll blow
the fire."
When at last the twelve rods were
made, Ahab tried them, one by one,
by spiralling them, with his own
hand, round a long, heavy iron
bolt. "A flaw!" rejecting the
last one. "Work that over again,
Perth."
This done, Perth was about to begin
welding the twelve into one, when
Ahab stayed his hand, and said
he would weld his own iron. As,
then, with regular, gasping hems, he
hammered on the anvil, Perth passing
to him the glowing rods, one after
the other, and the hard pressed forge
shooting up its intense straight
flame, the Parsee passed silently,
and bowing over his head towards
the fire, seemed invoking some curse
or some blessing on the toil. But,
as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.
"What’s that bunch of lucifers
dodging about there for?"
muttered Stubb, looking on from the
forecastle. "That Parsee smells
fire like a fusee; and smells of
it himself, like a hot musket’s
powder-pan."
At last the shank, in one complete
rod, received its final heat; and as
Perth, to temper it, plunged it all
hissing into the cask of water near
by, the scalding steam shot up into
Ahab’s bent face.
"Would’st thou brand me,
Perth?" wincing for a moment with
the pain; "have I been but forging
my own branding-iron, then?"
"Pray God, not that; yet I fear
something, Captain Ahab. Is not this
harpoon for the White Whale?"
"For the white fiend! But now
for the barbs; thou must make
them thyself, man. Here are my
razors—the best of steel; here,
and make the barbs sharp as the
needle-sleet of the Icy Sea."
For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed
the razors as though he would fain
not use them.
"Take them, man, I have no need
for them; for I now neither shave,
sup, nor pray till—but here—to
work!"
Fashioned at last into an arrowy
shape, and welded by Perth to the
shank, the steel soon pointed the end
of the iron; and as the blacksmith
was about giving the barbs their
final heat, prior to tempering
them, he cried to Ahab to place the
water-cask near.
"No, no—no water for that; I want
it of the true death-temper. Ahoy,
there! Tashtego, Queequeg,
Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will
ye give me as much blood as will
cover this barb?" holding it high
up. A cluster of dark nods replied,
Yes. Three punctures were made in
the heathen flesh, and the White
Whale’s barbs were then tempered.
"Ego non baptizo te in nomine
patris, sed in nomine diaboli!"
deliriously howled Ahab, as the
malignant iron scorchingly devoured
the baptismal blood.
Now, mustering the spare poles from
below, and selecting one of hickory,
with the bark still investing it,
Ahab fitted the end to the socket
of the iron. A coil of new tow-line
was then unwound, and some fathoms
of it taken to the windlass,
and stretched to a great tension.
Pressing his foot upon it, till
the rope hummed like a harp-string,
then eagerly bending over it, and
seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed,
"Good! and now for the seizings."
At one extremity the rope was
unstranded, and the separate spread
yarns were all braided and woven
round the socket of the harpoon;
the pole was then driven hard up
into the socket; from the lower end
the rope was traced 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,
light, unnatural, half-bantering,
yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh,
Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle
but unresting eye; all thy strange
mummeries not unmeaningly blended
with the black tragedy of the
melancholy ship, and mocked it!
CHAPTER 114. The Gilder.
Penetrating further and further into
the heart of the Japanese cruising
ground, the Pequod was soon all
astir in the fishery. Often, in
mild, pleasant weather, for twelve,
fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours
on the stretch, they were engaged
in the boats, steadily pulling,
or sailing, or paddling after the
whales, or for an interlude of sixty
or seventy minutes calmly awaiting
their uprising; though with but small
success for their pains.
At such times, under an abated
sun; afloat all day upon smooth,
slow heaving swells; seated in
his boat, light as a birch canoe;
and so sociably mixing with the
soft waves themselves, that like
hearth-stone cats they purr against
the gunwale; these are the times of
dreamy quietude, when beholding the
tranquil beauty and brilliancy of
the ocean’s skin, one forgets the
tiger heart that pants beneath it;
and would not willingly remember,
that this velvet paw but conceals a
remorseless fang.
These are the times, when in
his whale-boat the rover softly
feels a certain filial, confident,
land-like feeling towards the sea;
that he regards it as so much flowery
earth; and the distant ship revealing
only the tops of her masts, seems
struggling forward, not through high
rolling waves, but through the tall
grass of a rolling prairie: 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 and fancy, half-way
meeting, interpenetrate, and form
one seamless whole.
Nor 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
thoughtless faith, adolescence’
doubt (the common doom), then
scepticism, 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:—
"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his
history; but here Stubb takes oaths
that he has always been jolly!"
CHAPTER 115. 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 somewhat
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 narrow 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 colours 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 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 a head 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 satisfaction.
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 Bastille, 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.
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 commander,
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 homeward-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 vial
was filled with Nantucket soundings.
CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.
Not seldom in this life, when, on the
right side, fortune’s favourites
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 wondrousness unknown
before.
"He turns and turns him
to it,—how slowly, but how
steadfastly, 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-favouring eyes should see these
too-favouring 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
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 sunwards
turned his dying head, and then gone
round again, without a lesson to me.
"Oh, trebly hooped and welded
hip of power! Oh, high aspiring,
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 117. 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 astern. These
last three were brought alongside
ere nightfall; but the windward one
could not be reached till morning;
and 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 spectrally 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
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 118. 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 determine his latitude.
Now, in that Japanese sea, the
days in summer are as freshets 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
quadrant was furnished with coloured
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 passionlessness. 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 murmured
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
scorches him, as these old eyes are
even now scorched with thy light,
O 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 conduct 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 himself—these
passed over the mute, motionless
Parsee’s face. Unobserved 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 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 in it!"
CHAPTER 119. 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 mariner 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 teetering side, stove
in the boat’s bottom at the stern,
and left it again, all dripping
through like a sieve.
"Bad work, bad
work! Mr. Starbuck," said Stubb,
regarding the wreck, "but the
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 anybody else, never
mind how foolish?"
"Here!" cried Starbuck, seizing
Stubb by the shoulder, and 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 very 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 shortest 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 conduct it into
the water. But as this conductor
must descend to considerable depth,
that its end may avoid all contact
with the 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 way 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.
"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
corpusants!"
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 teeter 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
Upharsin" 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
phosphorescence, like a far away
constellation of stars. 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 his shark-white
teeth, which strangely gleamed as
if they too had been tipped by
corpusants; while lit up by the
preternatural 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 to 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
securing 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 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 mainmast 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-flung 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 fearless
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
lives 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 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 darkness 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! ’tis an ill
voyage! ill 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 better 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 neighborhood of
some lone, gigantic elm, whose very
height and strength but render it so
much the more unsafe, because so much
the more a mark for thunderbolts;
so at those last words of Ahab’s
many of the mariners did run from
him in a terror of dismay.
CHAPTER 120. The Deck 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."
"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 121. Midnight.—The
Forecastle Bulwarks.
_Stubb and Flask mounted on them,
and passing additional lashings over
the anchors there hanging._
"No, Stubb; you may pound that
knot there as much as you please,
but you will never pound into me
what you were just now saying. And
how long ago is it since you said
the very contrary? Didn’t you once
say that whatever ship Ahab sails in,
that ship should pay something extra
on its insurance policy, just as
though it were loaded with powder
barrels aft and boxes of lucifers
forward? Stop, now; didn’t you
say so?"
"Well, suppose I did? What
then? I’ve part changed my
flesh since that time, why not my
mind? Besides, supposing we _are_
loaded with powder barrels aft and
lucifers forward; how the devil
could the lucifers get afire in
this drenching spray here? Why,
my little man, you have pretty red
hair, but you couldn’t get afire
now. Shake yourself; you’re
Aquarius, or the water-bearer,
Flask; might fill pitchers at
your coat collar. Don’t you see,
then, that for these extra risks the
Marine Insurance companies have extra
guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask.
But hark, again, and I’ll answer
ye the other thing. First take
your leg off from the crown of the
anchor here, though, so I can pass
the rope; now listen. What’s the
mighty difference between holding a
mast’s lightning-rod in the storm,
and standing close by a mast that
hasn’t got any lightning-rod at
all in a storm? Don’t you see,
you timber-head, that no harm can
come to the holder of the rod, unless
the mast is first struck? What are
you talking about, then? Not one
ship in a hundred carries rods,
and Ahab,—aye, man, and all of
us,—were in no more danger then,
in my poor opinion, than all the
crews in ten thousand ships now
sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post,
you, I suppose you would have every
man in the world go about with a
small lightning-rod running up the
corner of his hat, like a militia
officer’s skewered feather, and
trailing behind like his sash. Why
don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s
easy to be sensible; why don’t ye,
then? any man with half an eye can
be sensible."
"I don’t know that, Stubb. You
sometimes find it rather hard."
"Yes, when a fellow’s soaked
through, it’s hard to be sensible,
that’s a fact. And I am about
drenched with this spray. Never
mind; catch the turn there, and pass
it. Seems to me we are lashing down
these anchors now as if they were
never going to be used again. Tying
these two anchors here, Flask, seems
like tying a man’s hands behind
him. And what big generous hands they
are, to be sure. These are your iron
fists, hey? What a hold they have,
too! I wonder, Flask, whether the
world is anchored anywhere; if she
is, she swings with an uncommon long
cable, though. There, hammer that
knot down, and we’ve done. So;
next to touching land, lighting on
deck is the most satisfactory. I say,
just wring out my jacket skirts,
will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at
long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me,
a long tailed coat ought always to
be worn in all storms afloat. The
tails tapering down that way, serve
to carry off the water, d’ye
see. Same with cocked hats; the
cocks form gable-end eave-troughs,
Flask. No more monkey-jackets and
tarpaulins for me; I must mount
a swallow-tail, and drive down a
beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes
my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord,
that the winds that come from heaven
should be so unmannerly! This is a
nasty night, lad."
CHAPTER 122. Midnight
Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.
_The main-top-sail yard_.—_Tashtego
passing new lashings around it_.
"Um, um, 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 123. 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 preventer 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 shuttlecock 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 anyone can behold without some
sort of unwonted emotion.
Some hours after midnight, the
Typhoon abated so much, that through
the strenuous exertions of Starbuck
and Stubb—one engaged forward
and the other aft—the shivered
remnants of the jib and fore and
main-top-sails were cut adrift from
the spars, and went eddying away
to leeward, like the feathers of an
albatross, which sometimes are cast
to the winds when that storm-tossed
bird is on the wing.
The three corresponding new sails
were now bent and reefed, and a
storm-trysail was set further aft;
so that the ship soon went through
the water with some precision again;
and the course—for the present,
East-south-east—which he was to
steer, if practicable, was once
more given to the helmsman. For
during the violence of the gale,
he had only steered according to
its vicissitudes. But as he was now
bringing the ship as near her course
as possible, watching the compass
meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind
seemed coming round astern; aye,
the foul breeze became fair!
Instantly the yards were squared,
to the lively song of "_Ho! the
fair wind! oh-ye-ho, cheerly men!_"
the crew singing for joy, that so
promising an event should so soon
have falsified the evil portents
preceding it.
In compliance with the standing
order of his commander—to
report immediately, and at any
one of the twenty-four hours,
any decided change in the affairs
of the deck,—Starbuck had no
sooner trimmed the yards to the
breeze—however reluctantly and
gloomily,—than he mechanically
went below to apprise Captain Ahab
of the circumstance.
Ere knocking at his state-room,
he involuntarily paused before it
a moment. The cabin lamp—taking
long swings this way and that—was
burning fitfully, and casting
fitful shadows upon the old man’s
bolted door,—a thin one, with
fixed blinds inserted, in place
of upper panels. The isolated
subterraneousness of the cabin
made a certain humming silence
to reign there, though it was
hooped round by all the roar of the
elements. The loaded muskets in the
rack were shiningly revealed, as they
stood upright against the forward
bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest,
upright man; but out of Starbuck’s
heart, at that instant when he saw
the muskets, there strangely evolved
an evil thought; but so blent with
its neutral or good accompaniments
that for the instant he hardly knew
it for itself.
"He would have shot me once," he
murmured, "yes, there’s the very
musket that he pointed at me;—that
one with the studded stock; let
me touch it—lift it. Strange,
that I, who have handled so many
deadly lances, strange, that I
should shake so now. Loaded? I must
see. Aye, aye; and powder in the
pan;—that’s not good. Best spill
it?—wait. I’ll cure myself of
this. I’ll hold the musket boldly
while I think.—I come to report a
fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair
for death and doom,—_that’s_
fair for Moby Dick. It’s a fair
wind that’s only fair for that
accursed fish.—The very tube he
pointed at me!—the very one;
_this_ one—I hold it here; he
would have killed me with the very
thing I handle now.—Aye and he
would fain kill all his crew. Does
he not say he will not strike his
spars to any gale? Has he not dashed
his heavenly quadrant? and in these
same perilous seas, gropes he not
his way by mere dead reckoning of
the error-abounding log? and in this
very Typhoon, did he not swear that
he would have no lightning-rods? But
shall this crazed old man be tamely
suffered to drag a whole ship’s
company down to doom with him?—Yes,
it would make him the wilful murderer
of thirty men and more, if this ship
come to any deadly harm; and come
to deadly harm, my soul swears this
ship will, if Ahab have his way. If,
then, he were this instant—put
aside, that crime would not be
his. Ha! is he muttering in his
sleep? Yes, just there,—in there,
he’s sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but
still alive, and soon awake again. I
can’t withstand thee, then, old
man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance;
not entreaty wilt thou hearken
to; all this thou scornest. Flat
obedience to thy own flat commands,
this is all thou breathest. Aye,
and say’st the men have vow’d
thy vow; say’st all of us are
Ahabs. Great God forbid!—But
is there no other way? no lawful
way?—Make him a prisoner to be
taken home? What! hope to wrest this
old man’s living power from his
own living hands? Only a fool would
try it. Say he were pinioned even;
knotted all over with ropes and
hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts
on this cabin floor; he would be more
hideous than a caged tiger, then. I
could not endure the sight; could
not possibly fly his howlings; all
comfort, sleep itself, inestimable
reason would leave me on the long
intolerable voyage. What, then,
remains? The land is hundreds of
leagues away, and locked Japan the
nearest. I stand alone here upon
an open sea, with two oceans and
a whole continent between me and
law.—Aye, aye, ’tis so.—Is
heaven a murderer when its lightning
strikes a would-be murderer in
his bed, tindering sheets and
skin together?—And would I be a
murderer, then, if"—and slowly,
stealthily, and half sideways
looking, he placed the loaded
musket’s end against the door.
"On this level, Ahab’s hammock
swings within; his head this way. A
touch, and Starbuck may survive to
hug his wife and child again.—Oh
Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But
if I wake thee not to death, old man,
who can tell to what unsounded deeps
Starbuck’s body this day week may
sink, with all the crew! Great God,
where art Thou? Shall I? shall
I?—The wind has gone down and
shifted, sir; the fore and main
topsails are reefed and set; she
heads her course."
"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch
thy heart at last!"
Such were the sounds that now came
hurtling from out the old man’s
tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s
voice had caused the long dumb dream
to speak.
The yet levelled musket shook like a
drunkard’s arm against the panel;
Starbuck seemed wrestling with an
angel; but turning from the door,
he placed the death-tube in its rack,
and left the place.
"He’s too sound asleep,
Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake
him, and tell him. I must see to
the deck here. Thou know’st what
to say."
CHAPTER 124. 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 Babylonian 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 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 hurried 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 very
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; hence it is not
to be much marvelled at, that such
things should be. 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
compasses 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 transpointed
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 day before
dashed to the deck.
"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and
sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked
thee, and to-day the compasses would
fain have wrecked me. So, so. But
Ahab is lord over the level loadstone
yet. Mr. Starbuck—a lance without a
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 object 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,
without 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 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 loadstone! 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 125. The Log and Line.
While now the fated Pequod had been
so long afloat this voyage, the log
and line had but very 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.
"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
downwards, 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 subservient. 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 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?
"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?"
"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," intently 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."
CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.
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 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 that
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 ground; 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 declared
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
concerning 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. "Rig
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?" moving 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 Captain Ahab, and
he wears it like a gentleman; but I
make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he
won’t put his head into it. Are
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; it’s undignified; 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
begins 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
superstitious 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
fellows all fighting for one coffin,
a sight not seen very often beneath
the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron,
pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let’s
to it."
CHAPTER 127. The Deck.
_The coffin laid upon two line-tubs,
between the vice-bench and the open
hatchway; the Carpenter caulking 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, and 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! Beware 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 Queequeg; but
they’ve set me now to turning it
into something else."
"Then tell me; art thou not an
arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling,
monopolising, 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
unprincipled as the gods, and as much
of a jack-of-all-trades."
"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;
but the reason why the grave-digger
made music must have been because
there was none in his spade, sir. But
the caulking 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 churchyard
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."
"Um, 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 woodpecker
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 go 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 128. 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 Manxman. But ere
her commander, who, with trumpet to
mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he
could hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice
was heard.
"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?"
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 windward, the
white hump and head of Moby Dick had
suddenly loomed up out of the 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 concluded that the stricken
whale must have indefinitely run
away with his pursuers, as often
happens. There was some apprehension,
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 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 daylight; yet
not the least glimpse of the missing
keel had been seen.
The story told, the stranger Captain
immediately went on to reveal his
object in boarding the Pequod. He
desired that ship to unite with
his own in the search; by sailing
over the sea some four or five
miles apart, on parallel lines,
and so sweeping a double horizon,
as it were.
"I will wager something now,"
whispered Stubb to Flask, "that
some one in that missing boat wore
off that Captain’s best coat;
mayhap, his watch—he’s so
cursed anxious to get it back. Who
ever heard of two pious whale-ships
cruising after one missing whale-boat
in the height of the whaling
season? See, Flask, only see how pale
he looks—pale in the very buttons
of his eyes—look—it wasn’t the
coat—it must have been the—"
"My boy, my own boy is among
them. For God’s sake—I beg,
I conjure"—here exclaimed the
stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus
far had but icily received his
petition. "For eight-and-forty
hours let me charter your ship—I
will gladly pay for it, and roundly
pay for it—if there be no other
way—for eight-and-forty hours
only—only that—you must, oh,
you must, and you _shall_ do this
thing."
"His son!" cried Stubb, "oh,
it’s his son he’s lost! I take
back the coat and watch—what says
Ahab? We must save that boy."
"He’s drowned with the rest on
’em, last night," said the old
Manx sailor standing behind them;
"I heard; all of ye heard their
spirits."
Now, as it shortly turned out,
what made this incident of the
Rachel’s the more melancholy, was
the circumstance, that not only was
one of the Captain’s sons among the
number of the missing boat’s crew;
but among the number of the other
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
adopting 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 apprehensiveness
and concern.
Meantime, now the stranger was still
beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;
and Ahab still stood like an anvil,
receiving every shock, but without
the least quivering of his own.
"I will not go," said the
stranger, "till you say _aye_ to
me. Do to me as you would have me do
to you in the like case. For _you_
too have a boy, Captain Ahab—though
but a child, and nestling safely at
home now—a child of your old age
too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see
it—run, run, men, now, and stand
by to square in the yards."
"Avast," cried Ahab—"touch
not a rope-yarn"; then in a
voice that prolongingly moulded
every word—"Captain Gardiner,
I will not do it. Even now I lose
time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless
ye, man, and may I forgive myself,
but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look
at the binnacle watch, and in three
minutes from this present instant
warn off all strangers: then brace
forward again, and let the ship sail
as before."
Hurriedly turning, with averted face,
he descended into his cabin, leaving
the strange captain transfixed
at this unconditional and utter
rejection of his so earnest suit. But
starting from his enchantment,
Gardiner silently hurried to the
side; more fell than stepped into
his boat, and returned to his ship.
Soon the two ships diverged their
wakes; and long as the strange
vessel was in view, she was seen
to yaw hither and thither at every
dark spot, however small, on the
sea. This way and that her yards
were swung 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, woeful way, you plainly
saw that this ship that so wept
with spray, still remained without
comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for
her children, because they were not.
CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.
(_Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip
catches him by the hand to follow._)
"Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must
not follow Ahab now. The hour is
coming when Ahab would not scare
thee from him, yet would not have
thee by him. There is that in thee,
poor lad, which I feel too curing to
my malady. Like cures like; and for
this hunt, my malady becomes my most
desired health. Do thou abide below
here, where they shall serve thee,
as if thou wert the captain. Aye,
lad, thou shalt sit here in my own
screwed chair; another screw to it,
thou must be."
"No, no, no! ye have not a whole
body, sir; do ye but use poor me for
your one lost leg; only tread upon
me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain
a part of ye."
"Oh! spite of million villains,
this makes me a bigot in the fadeless
fidelity of man!—and a black! and
crazy!—but methinks like-cures-like
applies to him too; he grows so
sane again."
"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did
once desert poor little Pip, 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 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? epaulets! 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 130. The Hat.
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 indifference with which
the white whale tore his hunters,
whether 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 natural,
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 Fedallah ever
certainly been known to slumber,
or go below. He 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 standing in his pivot-hole, or
exactly pacing the planks between two
undeviating limits,—the main-mast
and the mizen; or else they saw him
standing in the cabin-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 hammock;
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 substance.
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 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 untrackably
swift circlings. Then it darted a
thousand feet straight up into the
air; then spiralized downwards, and
went eddying again round his head.
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
circumstance; only now almost the
least heedful eye seemed to see some
sort of cunning meaning in almost
every sight.
"Your hat, your hat, sir!"
suddenly cried the Sicilian
seaman, 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 discerned, falling
from that vast height into the sea.
CHAPTER 131. 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 upon 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.
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
skeleton 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
ever will 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"—pointing 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 baptism.
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 132. 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, lingering 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 bottomless 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 tremulous 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, 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! 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 contain 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—very much such
a sweetness as this—I struck my
first whale—a boy-harpooneer of
eighteen! Forty—forty—forty years
ago!—ago! Forty years of continual
whaling! 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 soil!—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!—mockery! 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; what cozening, 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 beating, 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 air smells
now, as if it blew from a far-away
meadow; they have been making hay
somewhere under the slopes of the
Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers
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. Fedallah was motionlessly
leaning over the same rail.
CHAPTER 133. 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
dog 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 possible,
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 judgment 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.
"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. _I_
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, 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 pale, 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 projecting
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 accompanying 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 shattered pole of a recent lance
projected from the white whale’s
back; and at intervals one of the
cloud of soft-toed fowls 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 swiftness,
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 fleetness,
rippling straight for the nuptial
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 exceeding 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 marbleized 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. Hoveringly
halting, and dipping on the wing, the
white sea-fowls longingly 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.
"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,
wheeling 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 depths,
he profoundly saw a white living
spot no bigger than a white weasel,
with wonderful celerity uprising,
and magnifying 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 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
unastonished 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 involuntarily
paused, as before a quick crisis
impossible to withstand, then it was
that monomaniac Ahab, furious with
this tantalizing 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 upraising 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 had shaken off
his hold on the jaw; spilled him out
of it, as he leaned to the push; and
so he fell flat-faced upon the sea.
Ripplingly withdrawing from his
prey, Moby 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 Eddystone, triumphantly
to overleap its summit with their
scud.
*This motion is peculiar to the sperm
whale. It receives its designation
(pitchpoling) from its being likened
to that preliminary up-and-down poise
of the whale-lance, in the exercise
called pitchpoling, previously
described. By this motion the whale
must best and most comprehensively
view whatever objects may be
encircling him.
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 mulberries cast
before Antiochus’s elephants in the
book of Maccabees. 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
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 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
outstretching 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-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, now 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
every 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!—How now? Aloft
there! D’ye see him? 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 134. The Chase—Second Day.
At day-break, the three mast-heads
were punctually manned afresh.
"D’ye see him?" cried Ahab
after allowing a little space for
the light to spread.
"See nothing, sir."
"Turn up all hands and make
sail! he travels faster than I
thought for;—the top-gallant
sails!—aye, they should have
been kept on her all night. But
no matter—’tis but resting for
the rush."
Here be it said, that this
pertinacious pursuit of one
particular whale, continued through
day into night, and through night
into day, is a thing by no means
unprecedented in the South sea
fishery. For such is the wonderful
skill, prescience of experience,
and invincible confidence acquired
by some great natural geniuses among
the Nantucket commanders; that from
the simple observation of a whale
when last descried, they will,
under certain given circumstances,
pretty accurately foretell both the
direction in which he will continue
to swim for a time, while out of
sight, as well as his probable
rate of progression during that
period. And, in these cases, somewhat
as a pilot, when about losing
sight of a coast, whose general
trending he well knows, and which he
desires shortly to return to again,
but at some further point; like as
this pilot stands by his compass,
and takes the precise bearing
of the cape at present visible,
in order the more certainly to hit
aright the remote, unseen headland,
eventually to be visited: so does
the fisherman, at his compass,
with the whale; for after being
chased, and diligently marked,
through several hours of daylight,
then, when night obscures the fish,
the creature’s future wake through
the darkness is almost as established
to the sagacious mind of the hunter,
as the pilot’s coast is to him. So
that to this hunter’s wondrous
skill, the proverbial evanescence
of a thing writ in water, a wake, is
to all desired purposes well nigh as
reliable as the steadfast land. And
as the mighty iron Leviathan of the
modern railway is so familiarly known
in its every pace, that, with watches
in their hands, men time his rate
as doctors that of a baby’s pulse;
and lightly say of it, the up train
or the down train will reach such
or such a spot, at such or such an
hour; even so, almost, there are
occasions when these Nantucketers
time that other Leviathan of the
deep, according to the observed humor
of his speed; and say to themselves,
so many hours hence this whale
will have gone two hundred miles,
will have about reached this or that
degree of latitude or longitude. But
to render this acuteness at all
successful in the end, the wind and
the sea must be the whaleman’s
allies; for of what present avail
to the becalmed or windbound mariner
is the skill that assures him he is
exactly ninety-three leagues and a
quarter from his port? Inferable from
these statements, are many collateral
subtile matters touching the chase
of whales.
The ship tore on; leaving such
a furrow in the sea as when a
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
watergate upon the stream!"
And Stubb did but speak out for well
nigh all that crew. The frenzies of
the chase had by this time worked
them bubblingly up, like old wine
worked anew. Whatever pale fears and
forebodings some of them might have
felt before; these were not only now
kept out of sight through the growing
awe of Ahab, but they were broken up,
and on all sides routed, as timid
prairie hares that scatter before
the bounding bison. The hand of Fate
had snatched all their souls; and by
the stirring perils of the previous
day; the rack of the past night’s
suspense; the fixed, unfearing,
blind, reckless way in which their
wild craft went plunging towards its
flying mark; by all these things,
their hearts were bowled along. The
wind that made great bellies of their
sails, and rushed the vessel on by
arms invisible as irresistible; this
seemed the symbol of that unseen
agency which so enslaved them to
the race.
They were one man, not thirty. For
as the one ship that held them all;
though it was put together of all
contrasting things—oak, and maple,
and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and
hemp—yet all these ran into each
other in the one concrete hull, which
shot on its way, both balanced and
directed by the long central keel;
even so, all the individualities of
the crew, this man’s valor, that
man’s fear; guilt and guiltiness,
all varieties were welded into
oneness, and were all directed to
that fatal goal which Ahab their one
lord and keel did point to.
The rigging lived. The mast-heads,
like the tops of tall palms,
were outspreadingly tufted with
arms and legs. Clinging to a spar
with one hand, some reached forth
the other with impatient wavings;
others, shading their eyes from
the vivid sunlight, sat far out on
the rocking yards; all the spars in
full bearing of mortals, ready and
ripe for their fate. Ah! how they
still strove through that infinite
blueness to seek 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 mistaken some
other thing for the whale-spout,
as the event itself soon proved; for
hardly had Ahab reached his perch;
hardly was the rope belayed to its
pin on deck, when he struck the
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 vicinity; 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 mistiness 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 backstays 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, 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 manœuvred,
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 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 maelstrom,
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 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-hung upon the shoulder of
Starbuck, who had thus far been the
foremost 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?"
"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. Give
me something for a cane—there,
that shivered lance will do. Muster
the men. Surely I have not seen
him yet. By heaven it cannot
be!—missing?—quick! call them
all."
The old man’s hinted thought was
true. Upon mustering the company,
the Parsee was not there.
"The Parsee!" cried Stubb—"he
must have been caught in——"
"The black vomit wrench 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!"
"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 decreed. ’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—tomorrow 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 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. _I’ll_, _I’ll_
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 rigging of the spare boats
and sharpening their fresh weapons
for the morrow. Meantime, of the
broken keel of Ahab’s wrecked craft
the carpenter made him another leg;
while still as on the night before,
slouched Ahab stood fixed within
his scuttle; his hid, heliotrope
glance anticipatingly gone backward
on its dial; sat due eastward for
the earliest sun.
CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.
The morning of the third day
dawned fair and fresh, and once
more the solitary night-man at the
fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds
of the daylight look-outs, who dotted
every mast and almost every spar.
"D’ye see him?" cried Ahab;
but the whale was not yet in sight.
"In his infallible wake, though;
but follow that wake, that’s
all. Helm there; steady, as thou
goest, and hast been going. What a
lovely day again! were it a new-made
world, and made for a summer-house
to the angels, and this morning
the first of its throwing open to
them, a fairer day could not dawn
upon that world. Here’s food for
thought, had Ahab time to think;
but Ahab never thinks; he only
feels, feels, feels; _that’s_
tingling enough for mortal man! to
think’s audacity. God only has
that right and privilege. Thinking
is, or ought to be, a coolness and
a calmness; and our poor hearts
throb, and our poor brains beat
too much for that. And yet, I’ve
sometimes thought my brain was very
calm—frozen calm, this old skull
cracks so, like a glass in which
the contents turned to ice, and
shiver it. And still this hair is
growing now; this moment growing,
and heat must breed it; but no,
it’s like that sort of common grass
that will grow anywhere, between
the earthy clefts of Greenland ice
or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild
winds blow it; they whip it about
me as the torn shreds of split
sails lash the tossed ship they
cling to. A vile wind that has no
doubt blown ere this through prison
corridors and cells, and wards of
hospitals, and ventilated them, and
now comes blowing hither as innocent
as fleeces. Out upon it!—it’s
tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow
no more on such a wicked, miserable
world. I’d crawl somewhere to
a cave, and slink there. And yet,
’tis a noble and heroic thing,
the wind! who ever conquered it? In
every fight it has the last and
bitterest blow. Run tilting at it,
and you but run through it. Ha! a
coward wind that strikes stark
naked men, but will not stand to
receive a single blow. Even Ahab
is a braver thing—a nobler thing
than _that_. Would now the wind but
had a body; but all the things that
most exasperate and outrage mortal
man, all these things are bodiless,
but only bodiless as objects, not
as agents. There’s a most special,
a most cunning, oh, a most malicious
difference! And yet, I say again,
and swear it now, that there’s
something all glorious and gracious
in the wind. These warm Trade Winds,
at least, that in the clear heavens
blow straight on, in strong and
steadfast, vigorous mildness; and
veer not from their mark, however the
baser currents of the sea may turn
and tack, and mightiest Mississippies
of the land swift and swerve about,
uncertain where to go at last. And by
the eternal Poles! these same Trades
that so directly blow my good ship
on; these Trades, or something like
them—something so unchangeable,
and full as strong, blow my keeled
soul along! To it! Aloft there! What
d’ye see?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Nothing! and noon at hand! The
doubloon goes a-begging! See
the sun! Aye, aye, it must be
so. I’ve 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 pointed
in the reverse direction, the braced
ship sailed hard upon the breeze as
she rechurned the cream in her own
white wake.
"Against the wind he now steers for
the open jaw," murmured Starbuck to
himself, as he coiled the new-hauled
main-brace upon the rail. "God
keep us, but already my bones feel
damp within me, and from the inside
wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I
disobey my God in obeying him!"
"Stand by to sway me up!" cried
Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket.
"We should meet him soon."
"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway
Starbuck did Ahab’s bidding, and
once more Ahab swung on high.
A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten
out to ages. Time itself now held
long breaths with keen suspense. But
at last, some three points off the
weather bow, Ahab descried the spout
again, and instantly from the three
mast-heads three shrieks went up as
if the tongues of fire had voiced it.
"Forehead to forehead I meet thee,
this third time, Moby Dick! On deck
there!—brace sharper up; crowd her
into the wind’s eye. He’s too far
off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The
sails shake! Stand over that
helmsman with a top-maul! So,
so; he travels fast, and I must
down. But let me have one more good
round look aloft here at the sea;
there’s time for that. An old,
old sight, and yet somehow so
young; aye, and not changed a wink
since I first saw it, a boy, from
the sand-hills of Nantucket! The
same!—the same!—the same to
Noah as to me. There’s a soft
shower to leeward. Such lovely
leewardings! They must lead
somewhere—to something else than
common land, more palmy than the
palms. Leeward! the white whale
goes that way; look to windward,
then; the better if the bitterer
quarter. But good bye, good
bye, old mast-head! What’s
this?—green? aye, tiny mosses
in these warped cracks. No such
green weather stains on Ahab’s
head! There’s the difference
now between man’s old age and
matter’s. 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-bye, 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."
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
blades of the oars, every time they
dipped in the water; and in this
way accompanied the boat with their
bites. It is a thing not 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
skeletons; 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? see’st thou
that sight, oh Ahab!—shudder,
shudder!"
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 harpoons, 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 swamping 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 creamed
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, 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!"—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
distinguish Starbuck’s face as
he leaned over the rail, he hailed
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
Tashtego, 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 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; spasmodically 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 ungraduated,
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 ship; seemingly
seeing in it the source of all his
persecutions; bethinking it—it
may be—a larger and nobler foe;
of a sudden, 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 temporarily 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 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’ll
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, mechanically 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 predestinating head,
sent a broad band of overspreading
semicircular foam 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 surface again,
far off the other bow, but within a
few yards of Ahab’s boat, where,
for a time, he lay quiescent.
"I turn my 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 captains? 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
grooves;—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
fading phantom, as in the gaseous
Fata Morgana; only the uppermost
masts out of water; while fixed by
infatuation, or fidelity, or fate,
to their once lofty perches, the
pagan harpooneers still maintained
their sinking lookouts on the sea.
And now, concentric 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 coincidings, 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
intercept its broad fluttering wing
between the hammer and the wood; and
simultaneously feeling that etherial
thrill, the submerged 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 thousand 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
Parsee’s disappearance, I was he
whom the Fates ordained to take the
place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that
bowsman assumed the vacant post;
the same, who, when on the last
day the three men were tossed from
out of the rocking boat, was dropped
astern. So, floating on the margin of
the ensuing scene, and in full sight
of it, when the halfspent 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
dirgelike 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.
**************************************
Take a penny
__-----__
..;;;--'~~~`--;;;..
/;-~IN GOD WE TRUST~-.\
// ,;;;;;;;; \\
.// ;;;;; \ \\
|| ;;;;( /.| ||
|| ;;;;;;; _\ ||
|| ';; ;;;;= ||
||LIBERTY | ''\;;;;;; ||
\\ ,| '\ '|><| 1995 //
\\ | | \ A //
`;.,|. | '\.-'/
~~;;;,._|___.,-;;;~'
''=--'
Leave a penny