diff --git a/lorem.txt b/lorem.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c016355 --- /dev/null +++ b/lorem.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. +Proin in odio laoreet ipsum consectetur consequat. +Nulla molestie mi vitae nisi malesuada pulvinar. +Maecenas in sem sed risus pellentesque porttitor quis ac massa. +Nulla efficitur erat et pharetra tristique. + +Vivamus malesuada turpis consequat eros tincidunt molestie. + +Aliquam bibendum arcu eget lobortis facilisis. +Praesent mollis elit sit amet nisi lobortis, at efficitur sem laoreet. +Ut tincidunt quam nec faucibus sollicitudin. +Duis accumsan sem tempor magna rutrum, non pulvinar velit hendrerit. +Cras tincidunt felis ut pulvinar aliquet. + +In rutrum lacus sit amet neque maximus cursus. +Donec finibus augue id massa laoreet, mattis dapibus purus luctus. +Morbi volutpat libero in tellus finibus, in rhoncus felis sodales. + +Vivamus sit amet tellus quis sapien dignissim bibendum at nec diam. +Suspendisse egestas augue et sem tristique, eget consectetur justo pharetra. +Donec hendrerit elit eget consequat elementum. + diff --git a/mobydick.txt b/mobydick.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acccf68 --- /dev/null +++ b/mobydick.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22659 @@ + + + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman +Melville + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Moby Dick; or The Whale + +Author: Herman Melville + +Release Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #2701] + +Last Updated: October 24, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus, Jonesey, and David Widger + + + + + + + + +MOBY DICK; + + +or, THE WHALE. + + +By Herman Melville + + + + + + CONTENTS + + + ETYMOLOGY. + + EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian). + + + CHAPTER 1. Loomings. + + CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. + + CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. + + CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane. + + CHAPTER 5. Breakfast. + + CHAPTER 6. The Street. + + CHAPTER 7. The Chapel. + + CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. + + CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. + + CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend. + + CHAPTER 11. Nightgown. + + CHAPTER 12. Biographical. + + CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow. + + CHAPTER 14. Nantucket. + + CHAPTER 15. Chowder. + + CHAPTER 16. The Ship. + + CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan. + + CHAPTER 18. His Mark. + + CHAPTER 19. The Prophet. + + CHAPTER 20. All Astir. + + CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard. + + CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas. + + CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore. + + CHAPTER 24. The Advocate. + + CHAPTER 25. Postscript. + + CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires. + + CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. + + CHAPTER 28. Ahab. + + CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. + + CHAPTER 30. The Pipe. + + CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab. + + CHAPTER 32. Cetology. + + CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder. + + CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table. + + CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head. + + CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck. + + CHAPTER 37. Sunset. + + CHAPTER 38. Dusk. + + CHAPTER 39. First Night Watch. + + CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle. + + CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick. + + CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of The Whale. + + CHAPTER 43. Hark! + + CHAPTER 44. The Chart. + + CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit. + + CHAPTER 46. Surmises. + + CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker. + + CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering. + + CHAPTER 49. The Hyena. + + CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah. + + CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout. + + CHAPTER 52. The Albatross. + + CHAPTER 53. The Gam. + + CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story. + + CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. + + CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes. + + CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars. + + CHAPTER 58. Brit. + + CHAPTER 59. Squid. + + CHAPTER 60. The Line. + + CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. + + CHAPTER 62. The Dart. + + CHAPTER 63. The Crotch. + + CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper. + + CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish. + + CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre. + + CHAPTER 67. Cutting In. + + CHAPTER 68. The Blanket. + + CHAPTER 69. The Funeral. + + CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx. + + CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story. + + CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope. + + CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk + + CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. + + CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. + + CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram. + + CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun. + + CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets. + + CHAPTER 79. The Prairie. + + CHAPTER 80. The Nut. + + CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. + + CHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling. + + CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded. + + CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling. + + CHAPTER 85. The Fountain. + + CHAPTER 86. The Tail. + + CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada. + + CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. + + CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. + + CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails. + + CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. + + CHAPTER 92. Ambergris. + + CHAPTER 93. The Castaway. + + CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. + + CHAPTER 95. The Cassock. + + CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works. + + CHAPTER 97. The Lamp. + + CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. + + CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon. + + CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm. + + CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. + + CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides. + + CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton. + + CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale. + + CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish? + + CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg. + + CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter. + + CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter. + + CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. + + CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin. + + CHAPTER 111. The Pacific. + + CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith. + + CHAPTER 113. The Forge. + + CHAPTER 114. The Gilder. + + CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. + + CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale. + + CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch. + + CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant. + + CHAPTER 119. The Candles. + + CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. + + CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks. + + CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning. + + CHAPTER 123. The Musket. + + CHAPTER 124. The Needle. + + CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line. + + CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy. + + CHAPTER 127. The Deck. + + CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel. + + CHAPTER 129. The Cabin. + + CHAPTER 130. The Hat. + + CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight. + + CHAPTER 132. The Symphony. + + CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day. + + CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day. + + CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day. + + Epilogue + + + + + +Original Transcriber’s Notes: + +This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS +project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg’s archives. +The proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of +Adelaide Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting +etext was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text. + +In chapters 24, 89, and 90, we substituted a capital L for the symbol +for the British pound, a unit of currency. + + + + + +ETYMOLOGY. (Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School.) + +The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him +now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer +handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all +the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it +somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. + +“While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what +name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through +ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification +of the word, you deliver that which is not true.” —Hackluyt. + +“WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness +or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted.” —Webster’s +Dictionary. + +“WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. Wallen; +A.S. Walwian, to roll, to wallow.” —Richardson’s Dictionary. + + חן, Hebrew. + ϰητος, Greek. + CETUS, Latin. + WHŒL, Anglo-Saxon. + HVALT, Danish. + WAL, Dutch. + HWAL, Swedish. + WHALE, Icelandic. + WHALE, English. + BALEINE, French. + BALLENA, Spanish. + PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee. + PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan. + + + + + +EXTRACTS. (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian). + +It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a +poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans +and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to +whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or +profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the +higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these +extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the +ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these +extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing +bird’s eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, +and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our +own. + +So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou +belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world +will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; +but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; +and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes +and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness—Give +it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the +world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that +I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down +your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your +friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, +and making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and +Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts +together—there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! EXTRACTS. + +“And God created great whales.” —Genesis. + +“Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep +to be hoary.” —Job. + +“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” +—Jonah. + +“There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to +play therein.” —Psalms. + +“In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, +shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked +serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” —Isaiah. + +“And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this +monster’s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all +incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the +bottomless gulf of his paunch.” —Holland’s Plutarch’s Morals. + +“The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: +among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much +in length as four acres or arpens of land.” —Holland’s Pliny. + +“Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise +a great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among +the former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us, +open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before +him into a foam.” —Tooke’s Lucian. “The True History.” + +“He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, +which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought +some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own country, of +which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was +one of six who had killed sixty in two days.” —Other or Other’s +verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King Alfred, A.D. 890. + +“And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that +enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are +immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it +in great security, and there sleeps.” —MONTAIGNE. —Apology for +Raimond Sebond. + +“Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan +described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.” +—Rabelais. + +“This whale’s liver was two cartloads.” —Stowe’s Annals. + +“The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling +pan.” —Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms. + +“Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received +nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible +quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.” —Ibid. +“History of Life and Death.” + +“The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward +bruise.” —King Henry. + +“Very like a whale.” —Hamlet. + + “Which to secure, no skill of leach’s art + Mote him availle, but to returne againe + To his wound’s worker, that with lowly dart, + Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, + Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro’ the maine.” + —The Faerie Queen. + +“Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful +calm trouble the ocean till it boil.” —Sir William Davenant. Preface +to Gondibert. + +“What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned +Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid +sit.” —Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide +his V. E. + + “Like Spencer’s Talus with his modern flail + He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. + ... + Their fixed jav’lins in his side he wears, + And on his back a grove of pikes appears.” + —Waller’s Battle of the Summer Islands. + +“By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth +or State—(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.” +—Opening sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan. + +“Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat +in the mouth of a whale.” —Pilgrim’s Progress. + + “That sea beast + Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.” —Paradise Lost. + + —-“There Leviathan, + Hugest of living creatures, in the deep + Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, + And seems a moving land; and at his gills + Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.” —Ibid. + +“The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil +swimming in them.” —Fuller’s Profane and Holy State. + + “So close behind some promontory lie + The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, + And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, + Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.” + —Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis. + +“While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off +his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; +but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.” —Thomas +Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas. + +“In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in +wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which +nature has placed on their shoulders.” —Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages +into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll. + +“Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to +proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship +upon them.” —Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation. + +“We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The +Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but +that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether +they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his +pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a +barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that +he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.” —A +Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Coll. + +“Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one +eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was +informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of +baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.” +—Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross. + +“Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this +Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was +killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.” —Richard +Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668. + +“Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.” —N. E. Primer. + +“We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those +southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the +northward of us.” —Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, A.D. +1729. + +“... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such +an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.” +—Ulloa’s South America. + + “To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, + We trust the important charge, the petticoat. + Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, + Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.” + —Rape of the Lock. + +“If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those +that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear +contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest +animal in creation.” —Goldsmith, Nat. Hist. + +“If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them +speak like great wales.” —Goldsmith to Johnson. + +“In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was +found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then +towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the +whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.” —Cook’s Voyages. + +“The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so +great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to +mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, +and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to +terrify and prevent their too near approach.” —Uno Von Troil’s +Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in 1772. + +“The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce +animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.” +—Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in 1778. + +“And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” —Edmund +Burke’s reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery. + +“Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.” —Edmund +Burke. (somewhere.) + +“A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded +on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from +pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and +sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, +are the property of the king.” —Blackstone. + + “Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: + Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends + The barbed steel, and every turn attends.” + —Falconer’s Shipwreck. + + “Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, + And rockets blew self driven, + To hang their momentary fire + Around the vault of heaven. + + “So fire with water to compare, + The ocean serves on high, + Up-spouted by a whale in air, + To express unwieldy joy.” + —Cowper, on the Queen’s Visit to London. + +“Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a +stroke, with immense velocity.” —John Hunter’s account of the +dissection of a whale. (A small sized one.) + +“The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of +the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage +through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood +gushing from the whale’s heart.” —Paley’s Theology. + +“The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” —Baron +Cuvier. + +“In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take +any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.” +—Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale +Fishery. + + “In the free element beneath me swam, + Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, + Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; + Which language cannot paint, and mariner + Had never seen; from dread Leviathan + To insect millions peopling every wave: + Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands, + Led by mysterious instincts through that waste + And trackless region, though on every side + Assaulted by voracious enemies, + Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw, + With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.” + —Montgomery’s World before the Flood. + + “Io! Paean! Io! sing. + To the finny people’s king. + Not a mightier whale than this + In the vast Atlantic is; + Not a fatter fish than he, + Flounders round the Polar Sea.” + —Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the Whale. + +“In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the +whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: +there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s +grand-children will go for bread.” —Obed Macy’s History of +Nantucket. + +“I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the +form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.” +—Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales. + +“She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been +killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.” +—Ibid. + +“No, Sir, ‘tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his sprout; +he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to +look at. He’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!” —Cooper’s Pilot. + +“The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that +whales had been introduced on the stage there.” —Eckermann’s +Conversations with Goethe. + +“My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been +stove by a whale.” —“Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship +Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large +Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean.” By Owen Chace of Nantucket, first +mate of said vessel. New York, 1821. + + “A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, + The wind was piping free; + Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, + And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, + As it floundered in the sea.” + —Elizabeth Oakes Smith. + +“The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture +of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six +English miles.... + +“Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, +cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four +miles.” —Scoresby. + +“Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the +infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, +and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes +at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast +swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great +astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, +and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm +Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited +so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent +observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant +and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.” +—Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale, 1839. + +“The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the +True Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable +weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently +displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in +manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being +regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the +whale tribe.” —Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling Voyage Round the +Globe, 1840. + + October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head. + “Where away?” demanded the captain. + “Three points off the lee bow, sir.” + “Raise up your wheel. Steady!” “Steady, sir.” + “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?” + “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she + breaches!” + “Sing out! sing out every time!” + “Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—thar she + blows—bowes—bo-o-os!” + “How far off?” + “Two miles and a half.” + “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands.” + —J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruize. 1846. + +“The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the +horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of +Nantucket.” —“Narrative of the Globe Mutiny,” by Lay and Hussey +survivors. A.D. 1828. + +Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the +assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length +rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping +into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.” —Missionary +Journal of Tyerman and Bennett. + +“Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and +peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of +eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely +every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering +industry.” —Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the U. S. Senate, +on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket. 1828. + +“The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in +a moment.” —“The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman’s +Adventures and the Whale’s Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise +of the Commodore Preble.” By Rev. Henry T. Cheever. + +“If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will +send you to hell.” —Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by +his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship Globe +narrative. + +“The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, +if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they +failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale.” +—McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary. + +“These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward +again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem +to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West +Passage.” —From “Something” unpublished. + +“It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being +struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with +look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around +them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular +voyage.” —Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex. + +“Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect +having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form +arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have +been told that these were the ribs of whales.” —Tales of a Whale +Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. + +“It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, +that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages +enrolled among the crew.” —Newspaper Account of the Taking and +Retaking of the Whale-Ship Hobomack. + +“It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling +vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they +departed.” —Cruise in a Whale Boat. + +“Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up +perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.” —Miriam Coffin or +the Whale Fisherman. + +“The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would +manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied +to the root of his tail.” —A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks. + +“On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male +and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a +stone’s throw of the shore” (Terra Del Fuego), “over which +the beech tree extended its branches.” —Darwin’s Voyage of a +Naturalist. + +“‘Stern all!’ exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw +the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the +boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—‘Stern all, for your +lives!’” —Wharton the Whale Killer. + +“So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold +harpooneer is striking the whale!” —Nantucket Song. + + “Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale + In his ocean home will be + A giant in might, where might is right, + And King of the boundless sea.” + —Whale Song. + + + + + + +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 +honourable 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 honour, +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 +1st, 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 31st, 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 +3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. + +Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself +near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near +me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze +of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only +person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only +one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid +inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen +whose names appeared there were now among the 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 dishonour! 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 honour, 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 Peleg. 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 vapour 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 honouring 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 honour. 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 L1,000,000? 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 honour 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 +aesthetically 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 honourable 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 honour 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 +honour 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 vapour 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 vapours +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 honour; I consider it an honour. +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 honours; 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; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; +Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; +John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the +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, Linnaeus declares, “I hereby separate the whales +from the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the +year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus’s +express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas +with the Leviathan. + +The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from +the waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular +heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem +intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturae +jure meritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey +and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain +voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were +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, Linnaeus has given +you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; +whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded. + +Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious 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 honours 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 Caesar. +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 +archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical +purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like +formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious +long 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 honour 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 Phaedon 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 honourable 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 Crammer’s (Thomas Cranmer) 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, were’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 honourable 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 foetal 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, Caesarian, 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 honour; 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 honourable, +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 +snowhowdahed 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 colourless 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 Caesar. Was it not so, +O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long +did’st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft +seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! +thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of +the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty +jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross +against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked +like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain +prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean +History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. + +But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various +times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were +finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed +by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their 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 manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His +aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He +came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in +which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with +revenge for their 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 honour 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 vapour 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 vapour 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 vapour 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 vapour 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 Tormentoto, 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 honour 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 lightning 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-Fe’s 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 honour 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 Lacepede, a great +naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are +several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these +are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland +whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long +experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its +counterpart in nature. + +But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was +reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous +Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he +gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that +picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary +retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is +not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. 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 honour 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 +vapoured with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary +ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to +the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the +sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity +too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must +be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general +by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, however much it +may give it compactness and gloss. + +Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost +entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not +so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and +I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more +handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark +fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian +to behold. + +The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first +sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment +its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and +twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal +to three tons. In length, the common 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 vapoury +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 honour 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 lips! Massa Stubb +say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! +you must stop dat dam racket!” + +“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden +slap on the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t +swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert +sinners, cook!” + +“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go. + +“No, cook; go on, go on.” + +“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”— + +“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ‘em to it; try +that,” and Fleece continued. + +“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, +fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—‘top dat dam slappin’ ob de +tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam 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-preaching 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 the sea, go fast to sleep on +de coral, and can’t hear noting 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 here, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that +bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it +should be? Take it, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take +it, and taste it.” + +Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro +muttered, “Best cooked ‘teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.” + +“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to +the church?” + +“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly. + +“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, +where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as +his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, +and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb. +“Where do you expect to go to, cook?” + +“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 pate-de-foie-gras. + +But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is +adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-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 patronise 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 honour 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 soladoes? +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 vapour 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 vertebrae to a strung +necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the +skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely +undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it +the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once +pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with +the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the +beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have +omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations 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 vertebrae 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 vertebrae, 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 honour 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 vapours 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 Honour 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 honourableness 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 honour 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 honourable 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 versa; certainly +they are very similar. If I claim the demigod 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 honour 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 honour 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 manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small +sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It +is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand +fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is +accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme +headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve +feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the 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 vapour—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 vapour—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 vapour 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 vapour; 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, vapoury 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 vapour, engendered by his incommunicable +contemplations, and that vapour—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 vapour. 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 vapour +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 vapoury 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 vapours, 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 embonpoint. + +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 +honourable 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 L100,000 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 +L100,000 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 Honourary 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 L150 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, vapoury, 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 vapours 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 dishonour, 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 honour 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 honour 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 honour, 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 vertebrae were carved with +Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests +kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head +again sent forth its vapoury 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 vertebrae 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 archaeological, fossiliferous, and +antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the +Leviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be +deemed 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 vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to +the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on +the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated 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 Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his elaborate +history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down +the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight +feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825. + +But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is +as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. 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 whaleships, 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—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 Praetorians 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 semiweekly 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 homewardbound 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 deadreckoning, 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 grey-headed 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 honourably 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 manoeuvred, +incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for +a while eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while +all the time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to +shreds. + +But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed +and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three +lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, +warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now +for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more +tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more +line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again—hoping +that way to disencumber it of some snarls—when lo!—a sight more +savage than the embattled teeth of sharks! + +Caught and twisted—corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose +harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came +flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab’s boat. +Only one thing could be done. Seizing the 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. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + +***** This file should be named 2701-h.htm or 2701-h.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/0/2701/ + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus, Jonesey, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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