"CHAPTER 1. Loomings.\n\n\nCall me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having\nlittle or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on\nshore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of\nthe world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating\nthe circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;\nwhenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find\nmyself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up\nthe rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get\nsuch an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to\nprevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically\nknocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea\nas soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a\nphilosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly\ntake to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew\nit, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very\nnearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.\n\nThere now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by\nwharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with\nher surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme\ndowntown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and\ncooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land.\nLook at the crowds of water-gazers there.\n\nCircumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears\nHook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What\ndo you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand\nthousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some\nleaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some\nlooking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the\nrigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these\nare all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to\ncounters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are\nthe green fields gone? What do they here?\n\nBut look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and\nseemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the\nextremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder\nwarehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water\nas they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of\nthem--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets\nand avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.\nTell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all\nthose ships attract them thither?\n\nOnce more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take\nalmost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a\ndale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic\nin it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest\nreveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will\ninfallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.\nShould you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this\nexperiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical\nprofessor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for\never.\n\nBut here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,\nquietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of\nthe Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees,\neach with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and\nhere sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder\ncottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a\nmazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their\nhill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though\nthis pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's\nhead, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the\nmagic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores\non scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the\none charm wanting?--Water--there is not a drop of water there! Were\nNiagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to\nsee it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two\nhandfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly\nneeded, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why\nis almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at\nsome time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a\npassenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first\ntold that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the\nold Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate\ndeity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning.\nAnd still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because\nhe could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain,\nplunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see\nin all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of\nlife; and this is the key to it all.\n\nNow, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin\nto grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs,\nI do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.\nFor to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is\nbut a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get\nsea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy\nthemselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger;\nnor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a\nCommodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction\nof such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all\nhonourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind\nwhatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself,\nwithout taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.\nAnd as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory\nin that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow,\nI never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously\nbuttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who\nwill speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled\nfowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old\nEgyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the\nmummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.\n\nNo, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,\nplumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.\nTrue, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to\nspar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort\nof thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour,\nparticularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the\nVan Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all,\nif just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been\nlording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand\nin awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a\nschoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and\nthe Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in\ntime.\n\nWhat of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom\nand sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed,\nI mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel\nGabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and\nrespectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't\na slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may\norder me about--however they may thump and punch me about, I have the\nsatisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is\none way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical\nor metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is\npassed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and\nbe content.\n\nAgain, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of\npaying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single\npenny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must\npay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying\nand being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable\ninfliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING\nPAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man\nreceives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly\nbelieve money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account\ncan a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves\nto perdition!\n\nFinally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome\nexercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,\nhead winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is,\nif you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the\nCommodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from\nthe sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not\nso. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many\nother things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.\nBut wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a\nmerchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling\nvoyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the\nconstant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me\nin some unaccountable way--he can better answer than any one else. And,\ndoubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand\nprogramme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as\na sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances.\nI take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:\n\n\n\"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.\n\n\"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.\n\n\"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.\"\n\n\nThough I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the\nFates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others\nwere set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and\neasy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though\nI cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the\ncircumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives\nwhich being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced\nme to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the\ndelusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill\nand discriminating judgment.\n\nChief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great\nwhale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my\ncuriosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island\nbulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all\nthe attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped\nto sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not\nhave been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting\nitch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on\nbarbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a\nhorror, and could still be social with it--would they let me--since it\nis but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place\none lodges in.\n\nBy reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the\ngreat flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild\nconceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into\nmy inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them\nall, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.\n\n\nI stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm,\nand started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of\nold Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in\nDecember. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet\nfor Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place\nwould offer, till the following Monday.\n\nAs most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at\nthis same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well\nbe related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was\nmade up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a\nfine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous\nold island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has\nof late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though\nin this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket\nwas her great original--the Tyre of this Carthage;--the place where the\nfirst dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket\ndid those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to\ngive chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that\nfirst adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported\ncobblestones--so goes the story--to throw at the whales, in order to\ndiscover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?\n\nNow having a night, a day, and still another night following before me\nin New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a\nmatter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a\nvery dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold\nand cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had\nsounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,--So,\nwherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of\na dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the\nnorth with the darkness towards the south--wherever in your wisdom you\nmay conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire\nthe price, and don't be too particular.\n\nWith halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of \"The\nCrossed Harpoons\"--but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further\non, from the bright red windows of the \"Sword-Fish Inn,\" there came such\nfervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from\nbefore the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches\nthick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,--rather weary for me, when I struck\nmy foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless\nservice the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too\nexpensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the\nbroad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses\nwithin. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away\nfrom before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I\nwent. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for\nthere, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.\n\nSuch dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,\nand here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At\nthis hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of\nthe town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light\nproceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly\nopen. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the\npublic; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an\nash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost\nchoked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But \"The\nCrossed Harpoons,\" and \"The Sword-Fish?\"--this, then must needs be the\nsign of \"The Trap.\" However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice\nwithin, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.\n\nIt seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black\nfaces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel\nof Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the\npreacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and\nwailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out,\nWretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!'\n\nMoving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks,\nand heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging\nsign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing\na tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath--\"The\nSpouter Inn:--Peter Coffin.\"\n\nCoffin?--Spouter?--Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought\nI. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this\nPeter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and\nthe place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little\nwooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from\nthe ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a\npoverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very\nspot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.\n\nIt was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended old house, one side palsied\nas it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner,\nwhere that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever\nit did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a\nmighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob\nquietly toasting for bed. \"In judging of that tempestuous wind called\nEuroclydon,\" says an old writer--of whose works I possess the only copy\nextant--\"it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at\nit from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether\nthou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both\nsides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier.\" True enough,\nthought I, as this passage occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou\nreasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is\nthe house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies\nthough, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late\nto make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone\nis on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus\nthere, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and\nshaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears\nwith rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not\nkeep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his\nred silken wrapper--(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What\na fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them\ntalk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give\nme the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.\n\nBut what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up\nto the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra\nthan here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the\nline of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in\norder to keep out this frost?\n\nNow, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the\ndoor of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be\nmoored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a\nCzar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a\ntemperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.\n\nBut no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is\nplenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet,\nand see what sort of a place this \"Spouter\" may be.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.\n\n\nEntering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,\nlow, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of\nthe bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large\noilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the\nunequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent\nstudy and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of\nthe neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its\npurpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first\nyou almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New\nEngland hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint\nof much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and\nespecially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the\nentry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however\nwild, might not be altogether unwarranted.\n\nBut what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous,\nblack mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three\nblue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy,\nsoggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted.\nYet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable\nsublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily\ntook an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting\nmeant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you\nthrough.--It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.--It's the unnatural\ncombat of the four primal elements.--It's a blasted heath.--It's a\nHyperborean winter scene.--It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream\nof Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous\nsomething in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest\nwere plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic\nfish? even the great leviathan himself?\n\nIn fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my own,\npartly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom\nI conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a\ngreat hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three\ndismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to\nspring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself\nupon the three mast-heads.\n\nThe opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish\narray of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with\nglittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of\nhuman hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round\nlike the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You\nshuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage\ncould ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying\nimplement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons\nall broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long\nlance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen\nwhales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon--so like a\ncorkscrew now--was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale,\nyears afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered\nnigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a\nman, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the\nhump.\n\nCrossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way--cut\nthrough what in old times must have been a great central chimney with\nfireplaces all round--you enter the public room. A still duskier place\nis this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled\nplanks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's\ncockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored\nold ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like\ntable covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities\ngathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the\nfurther angle of the room stands a dark-looking den--the bar--a rude\nattempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the\nvast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive\nbeneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters,\nbottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another\ncursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little\nwithered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors\ndeliriums and death.\n\nAbominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though\ntrue cylinders without--within, the villanous green goggling glasses\ndeceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians\nrudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to\nTHIS mark, and your charge is but a penny; to THIS a penny more; and so\non to the full glass--the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for\na shilling.\n\nUpon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about\na table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of SKRIMSHANDER. I\nsought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a\nroom, received for answer that his house was full--not a bed unoccupied.\n\"But avast,\" he added, tapping his forehead, \"you haint no objections\nto sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin'\na-whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing.\"\n\nI told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should\never do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and\nthat if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the\nharpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander\nfurther about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with\nthe half of any decent man's blanket.\n\n\"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?--you want supper?\nSupper'll be ready directly.\"\n\nI sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the\nBattery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with\nhis jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space\nbetween his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but\nhe didn't make much headway, I thought.\n\nAt last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an\nadjoining room. It was cold as Iceland--no fire at all--the landlord\nsaid he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each\nin a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and\nhold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But\nthe fare was of the most substantial kind--not only meat and potatoes,\nbut dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in\na green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful\nmanner.\n\n\"My boy,\" said the landlord, \"you'll have the nightmare to a dead\nsartainty.\"\n\n\"Landlord,\" I whispered, \"that aint the harpooneer is it?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, \"the harpooneer\nis a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't--he eats\nnothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare.\"\n\n\"The devil he does,\" says I. \"Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?\"\n\n\"He'll be here afore long,\" was the answer.\n\nI could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this \"dark\ncomplexioned\" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so\nturned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into\nbed before I did.\n\nSupper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not\nwhat else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening\nas a looker on.\n\nPresently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord\ncried, \"That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing\nthis morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now\nwe'll have the latest news from the Feegees.\"\n\nA tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open,\nand in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy\nwatch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all\nbedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an\neruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat,\nand this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they\nmade a straight wake for the whale's mouth--the bar--when the wrinkled\nlittle old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all\nround. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah\nmixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a\nsovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how\nlong standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the\nweather side of an ice-island.\n\nThe liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even\nwith the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering\nabout most obstreperously.\n\nI observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though\nhe seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own\nsober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise\nas the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods\nhad ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a\nsleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will\nhere venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet\nin height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have\nseldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt,\nmaking his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep\nshadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give\nhim much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner,\nand from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall\nmountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry\nof his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away\nunobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the\nsea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and\nbeing, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised\na cry of \"Bulkington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington?\" and darted out of\nthe house in pursuit of him.\n\nIt was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost\nsupernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself\nupon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance\nof the seamen.\n\nNo man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal\nrather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but\npeople like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to\nsleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange\ntown, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely\nmultiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should\nsleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep\ntwo in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they\nall sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and\ncover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.\n\nThe more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the\nthought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a\nharpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of\nthe tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over.\nBesides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be\nhome and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at\nmidnight--how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?\n\n\"Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.--I shan't sleep\nwith him. I'll try the bench here.\"\n\n\"Just as you please; I'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a\nmattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here\"--feeling of the knots and\nnotches. \"But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a carpenter's plane\nthere in the bar--wait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough.\" So saying\nhe procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting\nthe bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning\nlike an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the\nplane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was\nnear spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit--the\nbed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing\nin the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the\nshavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in\nthe middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a\nbrown study.\n\nI now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too\nshort; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too\nnarrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher\nthan the planed one--so there was no yoking them. I then placed the\nfirst bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall,\nleaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I\nsoon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under\nthe sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially\nas another current from the rickety door met the one from the window,\nand both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate\nvicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.\n\nThe devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal\na march on him--bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be\nwakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon\nsecond thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next\nmorning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be\nstanding in the entry, all ready to knock me down!\n\nStill, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending\na sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think\nthat after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against\nthis unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be dropping\nin before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may\nbecome jolly good bedfellows after all--there's no telling.\n\nBut though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes,\nand going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.\n\n\"Landlord!\" said I, \"what sort of a chap is he--does he always keep such\nlate hours?\" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.\n\nThe landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to\nbe mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. \"No,\" he\nanswered, \"generally he's an early bird--airley to bed and airley to\nrise--yes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out\na peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late,\nunless, may be, he can't sell his head.\"\n\n\"Can't sell his head?--What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you\nare telling me?\" getting into a towering rage. \"Do you pretend to say,\nlandlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday\nnight, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?\"\n\n\"That's precisely it,\" said the landlord, \"and I told him he couldn't\nsell it here, the market's overstocked.\"\n\n\"With what?\" shouted I.\n\n\"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?\"\n\n\"I tell you what it is, landlord,\" said I quite calmly, \"you'd better\nstop spinning that yarn to me--I'm not green.\"\n\n\"May be not,\" taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, \"but I\nrayther guess you'll be done BROWN if that ere harpooneer hears you a\nslanderin' his head.\"\n\n\"I'll break it for him,\" said I, now flying into a passion again at this\nunaccountable farrago of the landlord's.\n\n\"It's broke a'ready,\" said he.\n\n\"Broke,\" said I--\"BROKE, do you mean?\"\n\n\"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess.\"\n\n\"Landlord,\" said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a\nsnow-storm--\"landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one\nanother, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a\nbed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half\nbelongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I\nhave not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and\nexasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling\ntowards the man whom you design for my bedfellow--a sort of connexion,\nlandlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest\ndegree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this\nharpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the\nnight with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay\nthat story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good\nevidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping\nwith a madman; and you, sir, YOU I mean, landlord, YOU, sir, by trying\nto induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to\na criminal prosecution.\"\n\n\"Wall,\" said the landlord, fetching a long breath, \"that's a purty long\nsarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy,\nthis here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from\nthe south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads\n(great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one\nhe's trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not\ndo to be sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to\nchurches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was\ngoin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the\nairth like a string of inions.\"\n\nThis account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed\nthat the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--but at\nthe same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a\nSaturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal\nbusiness as selling the heads of dead idolators?\n\n\"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.\"\n\n\"He pays reg'lar,\" was the rejoinder. \"But come, it's getting dreadful\nlate, you had better be turning flukes--it's a nice bed; Sal and me\nslept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's plenty of room\nfor two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed that. Why,\nafore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the\nfoot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and\nsomehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm.\nArter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a\nglim in a jiffy;\" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards\nme, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a\nclock in the corner, he exclaimed \"I vum it's Sunday--you won't see that\nharpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere--come along then; DO\ncome; WON'T ye come?\"\n\nI considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was\nushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough,\nwith a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers\nto sleep abreast.\n\n\"There,\" said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest\nthat did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; \"there, make\nyourself comfortable now, and good night to ye.\" I turned round from\neyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.\n\nFolding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the\nmost elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced\nround the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see\nno other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four\nwalls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of\nthings not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed\nup, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman's bag,\ncontaining the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk.\nLikewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf\nover the fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed.\n\nBut what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the\nlight, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive\nat some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to\nnothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little\ntinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an\nIndian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat,\nas you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible\nthat any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the\nstreets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try\nit, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and\nthick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer\nhad been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass\nstuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore\nmyself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck.\n\nI sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this\nhead-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on\nthe bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in\nthe middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought\na little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now,\nhalf undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about\nthe harpooneer's not coming home at all that night, it being so very\nlate, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and\nthen blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the\ncare of heaven.\n\nWhether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery,\nthere is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep\nfor a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty\nnearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy\nfootfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room\nfrom under the door.\n\nLord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal\nhead-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word\ntill spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New\nZealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without\nlooking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the\nfloor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords\nof the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all\neagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while\nemployed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished, however, he\nturned round--when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of\na dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large\nblackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible\nbedfellow; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is,\njust from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face\nso towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be\nsticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were\nstains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this;\nbut soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of\na white man--a whaleman too--who, falling among the cannibals, had been\ntattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his\ndistant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it,\nthought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any\nsort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that\npart of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the\nsquares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of\ntropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man\ninto a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas;\nand perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the\nskin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning,\nthis harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty\nhaving opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled\nout a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing\nthese on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New\nZealand head--a ghastly thing enough--and crammed it down into the bag.\nHe now took off his hat--a new beaver hat--when I came nigh singing out\nwith fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head--none to speak of at\nleast--nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His\nbald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull.\nHad not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted\nout of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.\n\nEven as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but\nit was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of\nthis head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension.\nIgnorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and\nconfounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him\nas if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at\nthe dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not\ngame enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer\nconcerning what seemed inexplicable in him.\n\nMeanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed\nhis chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered\nwith the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all over the same\ndark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just\nescaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very\nlegs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up\nthe trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some\nabominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South\nSeas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it.\nA peddler of heads too--perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might\ntake a fancy to mine--heavens! look at that tomahawk!\n\nBut there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about\nsomething that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that\nhe must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or\ndreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the\npockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with\na hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days' old Congo\nbaby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that\nthis black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. But\nseeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal\nlike polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden\nidol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the\nempty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up this\nlittle hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The\nchimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I\nthought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel\nfor his Congo idol.\n\nI now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but\nill at ease meantime--to see what was next to follow. First he takes\nabout a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places\nthem carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on\ntop and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into\na sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire,\nand still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be\nscorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit;\nthen blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of\nit to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such\ndry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange\nantics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the\ndevotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some\npagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the\nmost unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol\nup very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as\ncarelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.\n\nAll these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and\nseeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business\noperations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time,\nnow or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which\nI had so long been bound.\n\nBut the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one.\nTaking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an\ninstant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle,\nhe puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light\nwas extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth,\nsprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving\na sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.\n\nStammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him\nagainst the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might\nbe, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his\nguttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my\nmeaning.\n\n\"Who-e debel you?\"--he at last said--\"you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.\"\nAnd so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the\ndark.\n\n\"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!\" shouted I. \"Landlord! Watch!\nCoffin! Angels! save me!\"\n\n\"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!\" again growled the\ncannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the\nhot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire.\nBut thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light\nin hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.\n\n\"Don't be afraid now,\" said he, grinning again, \"Queequeg here wouldn't\nharm a hair of your head.\"\n\n\"Stop your grinning,\" shouted I, \"and why didn't you tell me that that\ninfernal harpooneer was a cannibal?\"\n\n\"I thought ye know'd it;--didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin' heads\naround town?--but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look\nhere--you sabbee me, I sabbee--you this man sleepe you--you sabbee?\"\n\n\"Me sabbee plenty\"--grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and\nsitting up in bed.\n\n\"You gettee in,\" he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and\nthrowing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil\nbut a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment.\nFor all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking\ncannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to\nmyself--the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason\nto fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober\ncannibal than a drunken Christian.\n\n\"Landlord,\" said I, \"tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or\nwhatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will\nturn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me.\nIt's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured.\"\n\nThis being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely\nmotioned me to get into bed--rolling over to one side as much as to\nsay--\"I won't touch a leg of ye.\"\n\n\"Good night, landlord,\" said I, \"you may go.\"\n\nI turned in, and never slept better in my life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.\n\n\nUpon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown\nover me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost\nthought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of\nodd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his\ntattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure,\nno two parts of which were of one precise shade--owing I suppose to\nhis keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt\nsleeves irregularly rolled up at various times--this same arm of his, I\nsay, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt.\nIndeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could\nhardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and\nit was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that\nQueequeg was hugging me.\n\nMy sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a\nchild, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me;\nwhether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle.\nThe circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other--I\nthink it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little\nsweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other,\nwas all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,--my\nmother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to\nbed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June,\nthe longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But\nthere was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the\nthird floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time,\nand with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.\n\nI lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse\nbefore I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the\nsmall of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the\nsun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the\nstreets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse\nand worse--at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my\nstockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself\nat her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good\nslippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to lie\nabed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most\nconscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For\nseveral hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I\nhave ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At\nlast I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly\nwaking from it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my eyes, and the before\nsun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock\nrunning through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was\nto be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung\nover the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form\nor phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my\nbed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with\nthe most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking\nthat if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be\nbroken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me;\nbut waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for\ndays and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding\nattempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle\nmyself with it.\n\nNow, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the\nsupernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to\nthose which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan\narm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly\nrecurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to\nthe comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm--unlock his\nbridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly,\nas though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse\nhim--\"Queequeg!\"--but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over,\nmy neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a\nslight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk\nsleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A\npretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the\nbroad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! \"Queequeg!--in the name of\ngoodness, Queequeg, wake!\" At length, by dint of much wriggling, and\nloud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his\nhugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in\nextracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself\nall over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed,\nstiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he\ndid not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim\nconsciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over\nhim. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings\nnow, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at\nlast, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow,\nand he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon\nthe floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that,\nif it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress\nafterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg,\nunder the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the\ntruth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what\nyou will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this\nparticular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much\ncivility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;\nstaring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for\nthe time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless,\na man like Queequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well\nworth unusual regarding.\n\nHe commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one,\nby the by, and then--still minus his trowsers--he hunted up his boots.\nWhat under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next\nmovement was to crush himself--boots in hand, and hat on--under the bed;\nwhen, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was\nhard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever\nheard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his\nboots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition\nstage--neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized\nto show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His\neducation was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not\nbeen a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled\nhimself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage,\nhe never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At\nlast, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his\neyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not\nbeing much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide\nones--probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormented\nhim at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.\n\nSeeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the\nstreet being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view\ninto the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that\nQueequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on;\nI begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat,\nand particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He\ncomplied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the\nmorning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to\nmy amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his\nchest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a\npiece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water\nand commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept\nhis razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner,\nslips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little\non his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall,\nbegins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks\nI, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance.\nAfterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of\nwhat fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp\nthe long straight edges are always kept.\n\nThe rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of\nthe room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his\nharpoon like a marshal's baton.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5. Breakfast.\n\n\nI quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the\ngrinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him,\nthough he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my\nbedfellow.\n\nHowever, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a\ngood thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own\nproper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be\nbackward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in\nthat way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him,\nbe sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.\n\nThe bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the\nnight previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were\nnearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and\nsea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers,\nand ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an\nunshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns.\n\nYou could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This\nyoung fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and\nwould seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days\nlanded from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades\nlighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the\ncomplexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached\nwithal; HE doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show\na cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the\nAndes' western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates,\nzone by zone.\n\n\"Grub, ho!\" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went\nto breakfast.\n\nThey say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease\nin manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: Ledyard,\nthe great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all\nmen, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the\nmere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or\nthe taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart\nof Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's performances--this kind of\ntravel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social\npolish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had\nanywhere.\n\nThese reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that\nafter we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some\ngood stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every\nman maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked\nembarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the\nslightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas--entire\nstrangers to them--and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here\nthey sat at a social breakfast table--all of the same calling, all of\nkindred tastes--looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they\nhad never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains.\nA curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen!\n\nBut as for Queequeg--why, Queequeg sat there among them--at the head of\nthe table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot\nsay much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially\njustified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it\nthere without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent\njeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But\nTHAT was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in\nmost people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.\n\nWe will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed\ncoffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks,\ndone rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the\nrest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting\nthere quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I\nsallied out for a stroll.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6. The Street.\n\n\nIf I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish\nan individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a\ncivilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first\ndaylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.\n\nIn thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will\nfrequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign\nparts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners\nwill sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not\nunknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live\nYankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water\nStreet and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors;\nbut in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners;\nsavages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It\nmakes a stranger stare.\n\nBut, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians,\nand Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft\nwhich unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still\nmore curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town\nscores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain\nand glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;\nfellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch\nthe whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they\ncame. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look\nthere! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and\nswallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here\ncomes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.\n\nNo town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean a\ndownright bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his\ntwo acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a\ncountry dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished\nreputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the\ncomical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his\nsea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his\ncanvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those straps\nin the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and\nall, down the throat of the tempest.\n\nBut think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and\nbumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer\nplace. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this\nday perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador.\nAs it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they\nlook so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live\nin, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like\nCanaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with\nmilk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in\nspite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like\nhouses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came\nthey? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?\n\nGo and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty\nmansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses\nand flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.\nOne and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom\nof the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?\n\nIn New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their\ndaughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece.\nYou must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say,\nthey have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly\nburn their lengths in spermaceti candles.\n\nIn summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples--long\navenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and\nbountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their\ntapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art;\nwhich in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces\nof flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final\nday.\n\nAnd the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But\nroses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks\nis perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that\nbloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young\ngirls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off\nshore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of\nthe Puritanic sands.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7. The Chapel.\n\n\nIn this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are\nthe moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who\nfail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.\n\nReturning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this\nspecial errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving\nsleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called\nbearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I\nfound a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and\nwidows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks\nof the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from\nthe other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The\nchaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and\nwomen sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders,\nmasoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran\nsomething like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:--\n\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was\nlost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November\n1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.\n\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN,\nWALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats'\ncrews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the\nOff-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is\nhere placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.\n\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows\nof his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, AUGUST\n3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.\n\nShaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself\nnear the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near\nme. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze\nof incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only\nperson present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only\none who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid\ninscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen\nwhose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not;\nbut so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly\ndid several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings\nof some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were\nassembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak\ntablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.\n\nOh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among\nflowers can say--here, HERE lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation\nthat broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those\nblack-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those\nimmovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in\nthe lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to\nthe beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might\nthose tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.\n\nIn what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included;\nwhy it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no\ntales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is\nthat to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix\nso significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if\nhe but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the\nLife Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what\neternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies\nantique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we\nstill refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are\ndwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all\nthe dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a\nwhole city. All these things are not without their meanings.\n\nBut Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these\ndead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.\n\nIt needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a\nNantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky\nlight of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen\nwho had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But\nsomehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine\nchance for promotion, it seems--aye, a stove boat will make me an\nimmortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling--a\nspeechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what\nthen? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.\nMethinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true\nsubstance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too\nmuch like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that\nthick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my\nbetter being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not\nme. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and\nstove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.\n\n\nI had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable\nrobustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon\nadmitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation,\nsufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it\nwas the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he\nwas a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his\nyouth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry.\nAt the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a\nhealthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second\nflowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone\ncertain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom--the spring verdure\npeeping forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously\nheard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without\nthe utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical\npeculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life\nhe had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and\ncertainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down\nwith melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to\ndrag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed.\nHowever, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up\nin a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit,\nhe quietly approached the pulpit.\n\nLike most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a\nregular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor,\nseriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect,\nit seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the\npulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like\nthose used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling\ncaptain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted\nman-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and\nstained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what\nmanner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for\nan instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the\nornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards,\nand then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand\nover hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.\n\nThe perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with\nswinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood,\nso that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the\npulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship,\nthese joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not\nprepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn\nround, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder\nstep by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him\nimpregnable in his little Quebec.\n\nI pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this.\nFather Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity,\nthat I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks\nof the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this\nthing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be,\nthen, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual\nwithdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions?\nYes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful\nman of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold--a lofty\nEhrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls.\n\nBut the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place,\nborrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between the marble\ncenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back\nwas adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating\nagainst a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy\nbreakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there\nfloated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's\nface; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the\nship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into\nthe Victory's plank where Nelson fell. \"Ah, noble ship,\" the angel\nseemed to say, \"beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy\nhelm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling\noff--serenest azure is at hand.\"\n\nNor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that\nhad achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in\nthe likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a\nprojecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed\nbeak.\n\nWhat could be more full of meaning?--for the pulpit is ever this earth's\nforemost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the\nworld. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first\ndescried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is\nthe God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds.\nYes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete;\nand the pulpit is its prow.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9. The Sermon.\n\n\nFather Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered\nthe scattered people to condense. \"Starboard gangway, there! side away\nto larboard--larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!\"\n\nThere was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a\nstill slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and\nevery eye on the preacher.\n\nHe paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large\nbrown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered\na prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the\nbottom of the sea.\n\nThis ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of\na bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog--in such tones he\ncommenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards\nthe concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy--\n\n     \"The ribs and terrors in the whale,\n     Arched over me a dismal gloom,\n     While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,\n     And lift me deepening down to doom.\n\n     \"I saw the opening maw of hell,\n     With endless pains and sorrows there;\n     Which none but they that feel can tell--\n     Oh, I was plunging to despair.\n\n     \"In black distress, I called my God,\n     When I could scarce believe him mine,\n     He bowed his ear to my complaints--\n     No more the whale did me confine.\n\n     \"With speed he flew to my relief,\n     As on a radiant dolphin borne;\n     Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone\n     The face of my Deliverer God.\n\n     \"My song for ever shall record\n     That terrible, that joyful hour;\n     I give the glory to my God,\n     His all the mercy and the power.\"\n\n\nNearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the\nhowling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned\nover the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon\nthe proper page, said: \"Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the\nfirst chapter of Jonah--'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up\nJonah.'\"\n\n\"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters--four yarns--is one\nof the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what\ndepths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant\nlesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the\nfish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods\nsurging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters;\nsea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But WHAT is this\nlesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded\nlesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot\nof the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it\nis a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the\nswift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and\njoy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of\nAmittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God--never\nmind now what that command was, or how conveyed--which he found a hard\ncommand. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to\ndo--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to\npersuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in\nthis disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.\n\n\"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at\nGod, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will\ncarry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains\nof this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship\nthat's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded\nmeaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city\nthan the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is\nCadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa,\nas Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the\nAtlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa,\nshipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the\nSyrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the\nwestward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye\nnot then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God?\nMiserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with\nslouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the\nshipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered,\nself-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those\ndays, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested\nere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a\nhat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,--no friends accompany him to the wharf\nwith their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the\nTarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on\nboard to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment\ndesist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye.\nJonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence;\nin vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure\nthe mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious\nway, one whispers to the other--\"Jack, he's robbed a widow;\" or, \"Joe,\ndo you mark him; he's a bigamist;\" or, \"Harry lad, I guess he's the\nadulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing\nmurderers from Sodom.\" Another runs to read the bill that's stuck\nagainst the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering\nfive hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and\ncontaining a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah\nto the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah,\nprepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and\nsummoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a\ncoward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong\nsuspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him\nnot to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends\ninto the cabin.\n\n\"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making\nout his papers for the Customs--'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless\nquestion mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again.\nBut he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon\nsail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah,\nthough the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that\nhollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail with the\nnext coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing\nhim. 'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any honest man that goes a\npassenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls away\nthe Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'--he says,--'the\npassage money how much is that?--I'll pay now.' For it is particularly\nwritten, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this\nhistory, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And\ntaken with the context, this is full of meaning.\n\n\"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime\nin any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this\nworld, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without\na passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.\nSo Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he\njudge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented\nto. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same\ntime resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when\nJonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the\nCaptain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any\nway, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out my\nstate-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.'\n'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah\nenters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing\nhim foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and\nmutters something about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed\nto be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws\nhimself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost\nresting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in\nthat contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah\nfeels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale\nshall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards.\n\n\"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly\noscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf\nwith the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all,\nthough in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with\nreference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it\nbut made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp\nalarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes\nroll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no\nrefuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more\nand more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry.\n'Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it\nburns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!'\n\n\"Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still\nreeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the\nRoman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as\none who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish,\npraying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid\nthe whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the\nman who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught\nto staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy\nof ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.\n\n\"And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and\nfrom the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening,\nglides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded\nsmugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not\nbear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to\nbreak. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her;\nwhen boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind\nis shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with\ntrampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah\nsleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not\nthe reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the\nmighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after\nhim. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship--a\nberth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the\nfrightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What\nmeanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his lethargy by that\ndireful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck,\ngrasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is\nsprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after\nwave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring\nfore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat.\nAnd ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep\ngullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing\nbowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the\ntormented deep.\n\n\"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing\nattitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark\nhim; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last,\nfully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven,\nthey fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was\nupon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they\nmob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest\nthou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior\nof poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where\nfrom; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions,\nbut likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the\nunsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is\nupon him.\n\n\"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries--and then--'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven\nwho hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well\nmightest thou fear the Lord God THEN! Straightway, he now goes on to\nmake a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more\nappalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating\nGod for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his\ndeserts,--when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him\nforth into the sea, for he knew that for HIS sake this great tempest\nwas upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to\nsave the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder;\nthen, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not\nunreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.\n\n\"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea;\nwhen instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea\nis still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth\nwater behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless\ncommotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into\nthe yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory\nteeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto\nthe Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a\nweighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for\ndirect deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He\nleaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that\nspite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy\ntemple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not\nclamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to\nGod was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of\nhim from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before\nyou to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model\nfor repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like\nJonah.\"\n\nWhile he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,\nslanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who,\nwhen describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself.\nHis deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the\nwarring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his\nswarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple\nhearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.\n\nThere now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves\nof the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed\neyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.\n\nBut again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly,\nwith an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these\nwords:\n\n\"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press\nupon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that\nJonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me,\nfor I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down\nfrom this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and\nlisten as you listen, while some one of you reads ME that other and more\nawful lesson which Jonah teaches to ME, as a pilot of the living God.\nHow being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and\nbidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a\nwicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled\nfrom his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking\nship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we\nhave seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to\nliving gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the\nmidst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand\nfathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the\nwatery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of\nany plummet--'out of the belly of hell'--when the whale grounded upon\nthe ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting\nprophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the\nshuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching\nup towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and\nearth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the\nLord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears, like\ntwo sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean--Jonah\ndid the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the\nTruth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!\n\n\"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of\nthe living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from\nGospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God\nhas brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than\nto appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe\nto him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would\nnot be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him\nwho, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is\nhimself a castaway!\"\n\nHe dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his\nface to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with\na heavenly enthusiasm,--\"But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of\nevery woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight,\nthan the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than\nthe kelson is low? Delight is to him--a far, far upward, and inward\ndelight--who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever\nstands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong\narms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has\ngone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the\ntruth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out\nfrom under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,--top-gallant\ndelight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his\nGod, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the\nwaves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake\nfrom this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness\nwill be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final\nbreath--O Father!--chiefly known to me by Thy rod--mortal or immortal,\nhere I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or\nmine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man\nthat he should live out the lifetime of his God?\"\n\nHe said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with\nhis hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed,\nand he was left alone in the place.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.\n\n\nReturning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there\nquite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time.\nHe was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove\nhearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little\nnegro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife\ngently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his\nheathenish way.\n\nBut being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going\nto the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap\nbegan counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth\npage--as I fancied--stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and\ngiving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He\nwould then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number\none each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was\nonly by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his\nastonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.\n\nWith much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and\nhideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--his countenance\nyet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot\nhide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw\nthe traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes,\nfiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a\nthousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing\nabout the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim.\nHe looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.\nWhether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn\nout in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it\notherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was\nhis head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous,\nbut it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular\nbusts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope\nfrom above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two\nlong promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington\ncannibalistically developed.\n\nWhilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be\nlooking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence,\nnever troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared\nwholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book.\nConsidering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night\nprevious, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found\nthrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference\nof his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not\nknow exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm\nself-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed\nalso that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the\nother seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have\nno desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck\nme as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something\nalmost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from\nhome, by the way of Cape Horn, that is--which was the only way he could\nget there--thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in\nthe planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving\nthe utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to\nhimself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he\nhad never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be\ntrue philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or\nso striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself\nout for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he\nmust have \"broken his digester.\"\n\nAs I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that\nmild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then\nonly glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering\nround the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain;\nthe storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of\nstrange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart\nand maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing\nsavage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a\nnature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits.\nWild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself\nmysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have\nrepelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll\ntry a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but\nhollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs\nand hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little\nnoticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last\nnight's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be\nbedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps\na little complimented.\n\nWe then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to\nhim the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures\nthat were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went\nto jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen\nin this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing\nhis pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat\nexchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly\npassing between us.\n\nIf there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's\nbreast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left\nus cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as\nI to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against\nmine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were\nmarried; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends;\nhe would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this\nsudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing\nto be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would\nnot apply.\n\nAfter supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room\ntogether. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his\nenormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out\nsome thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and\nmechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them\ntowards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he\nsilenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay.\nHe then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed\nthe paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed\nanxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I\ndeliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or\notherwise.\n\nI was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible\nPresbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in\nworshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do\nyou suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and\nearth--pagans and all included--can possibly be jealous of an\ninsignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?--to do\nthe will of God--THAT is worship. And what is the will of God?--to do to\nmy fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me--THAT is the\nwill of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that\nthis Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular\nPresbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him\nin his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped\nprop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with\nQueequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that\ndone, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences\nand all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.\n\nHow it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential\ndisclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very\nbottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie\nand chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts'\nhoneymoon, lay I and Queequeg--a cosy, loving pair.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11. Nightgown.\n\n\nWe had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and\nQueequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs\nover mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free\nand easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what\nlittle nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like\ngetting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.\n\nYes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position\nbegan to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves\nsitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the\nhead-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two\nnoses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt\nvery nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors;\nindeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the\nroom. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some\nsmall part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world\nthat is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If\nyou flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so\na long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if,\nlike Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown\nof your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general\nconsciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this\nreason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which\nis one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this\nsort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and\nyour snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the\none warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.\n\nWe had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at\nonce I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether\nby day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always\nkeeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness\nof being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright\nexcept his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element\nof our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon\nopening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created\ndarkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated\ntwelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did\nI at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to\nstrike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt\na strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said,\nthat though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the\nbed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when\nlove once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to\nhave Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full\nof such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for\nthe landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed\nconfidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real\nfriend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed\nthe Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a\nblue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit\nlamp.\n\nWhether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far\ndistant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and,\neager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly\ncomplied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his\nwords, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with\nhis broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as\nit may prove in the mere skeleton I give.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12. Biographical.\n\n\nQueequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and\nSouth. It is not down in any map; true places never are.\n\nWhen a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in\na grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green\nsapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire\nto see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His\nfather was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the\nmaternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable\nwarriors. There was excellent blood in his veins--royal stuff; though\nsadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his\nuntutored youth.\n\nA Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a\npassage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of\nseamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence\ncould prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled\noff to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when\nshe quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low\ntongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the\nwater. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its\nprow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the\nship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with\none backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up\nthe chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled\na ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.\n\nIn vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a\ncutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and\nQueequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild\ndesire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told\nhim he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage--this sea\nPrince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They put him down among\nthe sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to\ntoil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming\nignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his\nuntutored countrymen. For at bottom--so he told me--he was actuated by a\nprofound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to\nmake his people still happier than they were; and more than that,\nstill better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon\nconvinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked;\ninfinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in\nold Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on\nto Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also,\npoor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world in\nall meridians; I'll die a pagan.\n\nAnd thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians,\nwore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer\nways about him, though now some time from home.\n\nBy hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having\na coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he\nbeing very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet;\nand added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had\nunfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan\nKings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,--as soon as\nhe felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to\nsail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a\nharpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.\n\nI asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future\nmovements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon\nthis, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my\nintention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for\nan adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany\nme to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch,\nthe same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap;\nwith both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds.\nTo all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt\nfor Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not\nfail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant\nof the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as\nknown to merchant seamen.\n\nHis story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced\nme, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we\nrolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were\nsleeping.\n\n\nCHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.\n\n\nNext morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber,\nfor a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my\ncomrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed\namazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between\nme and Queequeg--especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories\nabout him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person\nwhom I now companied with.\n\nWe borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own\npoor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went\ndown to \"the Moss,\" the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the\nwharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg\nso much--for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their\nstreets,--but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we\nheeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg\nnow and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked\nhim why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and\nwhether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in\nsubstance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet\nhe had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of\nassured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate\nwith the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers\nand mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with their own\nscythes--though in no wise obliged to furnish them--even so, Queequeg,\nfor his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.\n\nShifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about\nthe first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners\nof his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his\nheavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the\nthing--though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in\nwhich to manage the barrow--Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it\nfast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. \"Why,\"\nsaid I, \"Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would\nthink. Didn't the people laugh?\"\n\nUpon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of\nRokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water\nof young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and\nthis punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided\nmat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once\ntouched at Rokovoko, and its commander--from all accounts, a very\nstately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain--this\ncommander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a\npretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding\nguests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain\nmarches in, and being assigned the post of honour, placed himself over\nagainst the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the\nKing, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,--for those people have their\ngrace as well as we--though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such\ntimes look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the\nducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts--Grace, I say,\nbeing said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony\nof the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers\ninto the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself\nplaced next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking\nhimself--being Captain of a ship--as having plain precedence over a\nmere island King, especially in the King's own house--the Captain coolly\nproceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowl;--taking it I suppose for a\nhuge finger-glass. \"Now,\" said Queequeg, \"what you tink now?--Didn't our\npeople laugh?\"\n\nAt last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner.\nHoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New\nBedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all\nglittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on\ncasks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering\nwhale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others\ncame a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and\nforges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the\nstart; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a\nsecond; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever\nand for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all\nearthly effort.\n\nGaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little\nMoss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings.\nHow I snuffed that Tartar air!--how I spurned that turnpike earth!--that\ncommon highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and\nhoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will\npermit no records.\n\nAt the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me.\nHis dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth.\nOn, on we flew; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the\nblast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways\nleaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the\ntwo tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of\nthis reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that\nfor some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a\nlubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so\ncompanionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a\nwhitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who,\nby their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of\nall verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him\nbehind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping\nhis harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost\nmiraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air;\nthen slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with\nbursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him,\nlighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff.\n\n\"Capting! Capting!\" yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer;\n\"Capting, Capting, here's the devil.\"\n\n\"Hallo, _you_ sir,\" cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking\nup to Queequeg, \"what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you\nmight have killed that chap?\"\n\n\"What him say?\" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.\n\n\"He say,\" said I, \"that you came near kill-e that man there,\" pointing\nto the still shivering greenhorn.\n\n\"Kill-e,\" cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly\nexpression of disdain, \"ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e\nso small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!\"\n\n\"Look you,\" roared the Captain, \"I'll kill-e YOU, you cannibal, if you\ntry any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.\"\n\nBut it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to\nmind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted\nthe weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to\nside, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor\nfellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all\nhands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it,\nseemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost\nin one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of\nsnapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of\nbeing done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the\nboom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the\nmidst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and\ncrawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one\nend to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it\nround the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar\nwas that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the\nwind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg,\nstripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of\na leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog,\nthrowing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing\nhis brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand\nand glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone\ndown. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now\ntook an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters\nwere, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again,\none arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form.\nThe boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands\nvoted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that\nhour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took\nhis last long dive.\n\nWas there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at\nall deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only\nasked for water--fresh water--something to wipe the brine off; that\ndone, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the\nbulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying\nto himself--\"It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We\ncannibals must help these Christians.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14. Nantucket.\n\n\nNothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a\nfine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.\n\nNantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of\nthe world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely\nthan the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it--a mere hillock, and elbow of\nsand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than\nyou would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some\ngamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they\ndon't grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have\nto send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that\npieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true\ncross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses,\nto get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an\noasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand\nshoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up,\nbelted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island\nof by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will\nsometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these\nextravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.\n\nLook now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was\nsettled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle\nswooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant\nIndian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne\nout of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same\ndirection. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they\ndiscovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,--the\npoor little Indian's skeleton.\n\nWhat wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take\nto the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in\nthe sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more\nexperienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last,\nlaunching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world;\nput an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in\nat Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared\neverlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the\nflood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea\nMastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that\nhis very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and\nmalicious assaults!\n\nAnd thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from\ntheir ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like\nso many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and\nIndian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add\nMexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm\nall India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds\nof this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he\nowns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of\nway through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but\nfloating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea\nas highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of\nthe land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the\nbottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on\nthe sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and\nfro ploughing it as his own special plantation. THERE is his home; THERE\nlies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it\noverwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie\ncocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as\nchamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so\nthat when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more\nstrangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull,\nthat at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows;\nso at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails,\nand lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of\nwalruses and whales.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15. Chowder.\n\n\nIt was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly\nto anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no\nbusiness that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of\nthe Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the\nTry Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept\nhotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin\nHosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he\nplainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at\nthe Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow\nwarehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the\nlarboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a\ncorner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first\nman we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very\nmuch puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg\ninsisted that the yellow warehouse--our first point of departure--must\nbe left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to\nsay it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little\nin the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant\nto inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no\nmistaking.\n\nTwo enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears,\nswung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an\nold doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other\nside, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows.\nPerhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I\ncould not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of\ncrick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, TWO\nof them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A\nCoffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones\nstaring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair\nof prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints\ntouching Tophet?\n\nI was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman\nwith yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn,\nunder a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured\neye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen\nshirt.\n\n\"Get along with ye,\" said she to the man, \"or I'll be combing ye!\"\n\n\"Come on, Queequeg,\" said I, \"all right. There's Mrs. Hussey.\"\n\nAnd so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving\nMrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon\nmaking known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing\nfurther scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and\nseating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded\nrepast, turned round to us and said--\"Clam or Cod?\"\n\n\"What's that about Cods, ma'am?\" said I, with much politeness.\n\n\"Clam or Cod?\" she repeated.\n\n\"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is THAT what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?\"\nsays I, \"but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter\ntime, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?\"\n\nBut being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple\nShirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing\nbut the word \"clam,\" Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to\nthe kitchen, and bawling out \"clam for two,\" disappeared.\n\n\"Queequeg,\" said I, \"do you think that we can make out a supper for us\nboth on one clam?\"\n\nHowever, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the\napparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder\ncame in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends!\nhearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than\nhazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into\nlittle flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned\nwith pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty\nvoyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food\nbefore him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched\nit with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking\nme of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try\na little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word\n\"cod\" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the\nsavoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good\ntime a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.\n\nWe resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I\nto myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head?\nWhat's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? \"But look,\nQueequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?\"\n\nFishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved\nits name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for\nbreakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you\nbegan to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area\nbefore the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished\nnecklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books\nbound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk,\ntoo, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening\nto take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw\nHosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the\nsand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slip-shod,\nI assure ye.\n\nSupper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey\nconcerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede\nme up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his\nharpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. \"Why not?\" said I;\n\"every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon--but why not?\" \"Because\nit's dangerous,\" says she. \"Ever since young Stiggs coming from that\nunfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with\nonly three barrels of _ile_, was found dead in my first floor back, with\nhis harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take\nsich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg\" (for\nshe had learned his name), \"I will just take this here iron, and keep\nit for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for\nbreakfast, men?\"\n\n\"Both,\" says I; \"and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of\nvariety.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16. The Ship.\n\n\nIn bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and\nno small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been\ndiligently consulting Yojo--the name of his black little god--and Yojo\nhad told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it\neveryway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in\nharbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo\nearnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly\nwith me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to\ndo so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I,\nIshmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it\nhad turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship\nmyself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.\n\nI have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great\nconfidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising forecast\nof things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good\nsort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all\ncases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.\n\nNow, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the selection\nof our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied\nupon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry\nus and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances produced\nno effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly\nprepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort\nof energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that trifling little\naffair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our\nlittle bedroom--for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan,\nor day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that\nday; HOW it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself\nto it several times, I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX\nArticles--leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo\nwarming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among\nthe shipping. After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries,\nI learnt that there were three ships up for three-years' voyages--The\nDevil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. DEVIL-DAM, I do not know the\norigin of; TIT-BIT is obvious; PEQUOD, you will no doubt remember, was\nthe name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct\nas the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her,\nhopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod,\nlooked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very\nship for us.\n\nYou may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I\nknow;--square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box\ngalliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a\nrare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old\nschool, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look\nabout her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms\nof all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French\ngrenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable\nbows looked bearded. Her masts--cut somewhere on the coast of Japan,\nwhere her original ones were lost overboard in a gale--her masts stood\nstiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her\nancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped\nflag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these\nher old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining\nto the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed.\nOld Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded\nanother vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the\nprincipal owners of the Pequod,--this old Peleg, during the term of his\nchief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid\nit, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched\nby anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She\nwas apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with\npendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of\na craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All\nround, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous\njaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for\npins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not\nthrough base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of\nsea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported\nthere a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved\nfrom the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who\nsteered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds\nback his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a\nmost melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.\n\nNow when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority,\nin order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw\nnobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or\nrather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only\na temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten\nfeet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken\nfrom the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale.\nPlanted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced\ntogether, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in\na tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the\ntop-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening\nfaced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a\ncomplete view forward.\n\nAnd half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who\nby his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and\nthe ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of\ncommand. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all\nover with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a\nstout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was\nconstructed.\n\nThere was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of\nthe elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen,\nand heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style;\nonly there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest\nwrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from\nhis continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to\nwindward;--for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed\ntogether. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.\n\n\"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?\" said I, advancing to the door of\nthe tent.\n\n\"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him?\"\nhe demanded.\n\n\"I was thinking of shipping.\"\n\n\"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer--ever been in a\nstove boat?\"\n\n\"No, Sir, I never have.\"\n\n\"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say--eh?\n\n\"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been several\nvoyages in the merchant service, and I think that--\"\n\n\"Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that\nleg?--I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of\nthe marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now\nye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships.\nBut flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?--it looks\na little suspicious, don't it, eh?--Hast not been a pirate, hast\nthou?--Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?--Dost not think of\nmurdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?\"\n\nI protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask\nof these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated\nQuakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather\ndistrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the\nVineyard.\n\n\"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of\nshipping ye.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.\"\n\n\"Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?\"\n\n\"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.\"\n\n\"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.\"\n\n\"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg--that's who ye are speaking to,\nyoung man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted\nout for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We\nare part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest\nto know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of\nfinding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap\neye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one\nleg.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?\"\n\n\"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured,\nchewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a\nboat!--ah, ah!\"\n\nI was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at\nthe hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I\ncould, \"What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know\nthere was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed\nI might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.\"\n\n\"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou\ndost not talk shark a bit. SURE, ye've been to sea before now; sure of\nthat?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said I, \"I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the\nmerchant--\"\n\n\"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant\nservice--don't aggravate me--I won't have it. But let us understand each\nother. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel\ninclined for it?\"\n\n\"I do, sir.\"\n\n\"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's\nthroat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!\"\n\n\"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be\ngot rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact.\"\n\n\"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find\nout by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to\nsee the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just\nstep forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back\nto me and tell me what ye see there.\"\n\nFor a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not\nknowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But\nconcentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started\nme on the errand.\n\nGoing forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the\nship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely\npointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but\nexceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I\ncould see.\n\n\"Well, what's the report?\" said Peleg when I came back; \"what did ye\nsee?\"\n\n\"Not much,\" I replied--\"nothing but water; considerable horizon though,\nand there's a squall coming up, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go\nround Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where\nyou stand?\"\n\nI was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the\nPequod was as good a ship as any--I thought the best--and all this I now\nrepeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness\nto ship me.\n\n\"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,\" he added--\"come\nalong with ye.\" And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin.\n\nSeated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and\nsurprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with\nCaptain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other\nshares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd\nof old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each\nowning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail\nor two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling\nvessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks\nbringing in good interest.\n\nNow, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a\nQuaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to\nthis day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the\npeculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified\nby things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same\nQuakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They\nare fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.\n\nSo that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture\nnames--a singularly common fashion on the island--and in childhood\nnaturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker\nidiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure\nof their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown\npeculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a\nScandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things\nunite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain\nand a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion\nof many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath\nconstellations never seen here at the north, been led to think\nuntraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or\nsavage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding\nbreast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental\nadvantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language--that man makes\none in a whole nation's census--a mighty pageant creature, formed for\nnoble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically\nregarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems\na half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all\nmen tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure\nof this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But,\nas yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and\nstill a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another\nphase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.\n\nLike Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.\nBut unlike Captain Peleg--who cared not a rush for what are called\nserious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the\nveriest of all trifles--Captain Bildad had not only been originally\neducated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all\nhis subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island\ncreatures, round the Horn--all that had not moved this native born\nQuaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his\nvest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of\ncommon consistency about worthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from\nconscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself\nhad illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe\nto human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns\nupon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his\ndays, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do\nnot know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably\nhe had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's\nreligion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This\nworld pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in short clothes\nof the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat;\nfrom that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a\nship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous\ncareer by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of\nsixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his\nwell-earned income.\n\nNow, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an\nincorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard\ntask-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a\ncurious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew,\nupon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore\nexhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was\ncertainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used to swear,\nthough, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate\nquantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a\nchief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made\nyou feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something--a hammer\nor a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other,\nnever mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own\nperson was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his\nlong, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard,\nhis chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his\nbroad-brimmed hat.\n\nSuch, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I\nfollowed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks\nwas small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so,\nand never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was\nplaced beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was\nbuttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in\nreading from a ponderous volume.\n\n\"Bildad,\" cried Captain Peleg, \"at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been\nstudying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain\nknowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?\"\n\nAs if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,\nBildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and\nseeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.\n\n\"He says he's our man, Bildad,\" said Peleg, \"he wants to ship.\"\n\n\"Dost thee?\" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.\n\n\"I dost,\" said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.\n\n\"What do ye think of him, Bildad?\" said Peleg.\n\n\"He'll do,\" said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at\nhis book in a mumbling tone quite audible.\n\nI thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg,\nhis friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said\nnothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest,\nand drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him,\nand seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time\nto settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the\nvoyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no\nwages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of\nthe profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the\ndegree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's\ncompany. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own\nlay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea,\ncould steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that\nfrom all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay--that\nis, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever\nthat might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they\ncall a rather LONG LAY, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a\nlucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out\non it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I would\nnot have to pay one stiver.\n\nIt might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely\nfortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those\nthat never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the\nworld is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim\nsign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay\nwould be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I\nbeen offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.\n\nBut one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about\nreceiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard\nsomething of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad;\nhow that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore\nthe other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the\nwhole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know\nbut what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about\nshipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod,\nquite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his\nown fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his\njack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was\nsuch an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded\nus, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, \"LAY not up for\nyourselves treasures upon earth, where moth--\"\n\n\"Well, Captain Bildad,\" interrupted Peleg, \"what d'ye say, what lay\nshall we give this young man?\"\n\n\"Thou knowest best,\" was the sepulchral reply, \"the seven hundred and\nseventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?--'where moth and rust do\ncorrupt, but LAY--'\"\n\nLAY, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and\nseventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one,\nshall not LAY up many LAYS here below, where moth and rust do corrupt.\nIt was an exceedingly LONG LAY that, indeed; and though from the\nmagnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet\nthe slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and\nseventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make\na TEENTH of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and\nseventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven\nhundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.\n\n\"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,\" cried Peleg, \"thou dost not want to\nswindle this young man! he must have more than that.\"\n\n\"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,\" again said Bildad, without lifting\nhis eyes; and then went on mumbling--\"for where your treasure is, there\nwill your heart be also.\"\n\n\"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,\" said Peleg, \"do ye\nhear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.\"\n\nBildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,\n\"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the\nduty thou owest to the other owners of this ship--widows and orphans,\nmany of them--and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this\nyoung man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those\norphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.\"\n\n\"Thou Bildad!\" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the\ncabin. \"Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these\nmatters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be\nheavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape\nHorn.\"\n\n\"Captain Peleg,\" said Bildad steadily, \"thy conscience may be drawing\nten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou art still\nan impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be\nbut a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the\nfiery pit, Captain Peleg.\"\n\n\"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye\ninsult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that\nhe's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and\nstart my soul-bolts, but I'll--I'll--yes, I'll swallow a live goat with\nall his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured\nson of a wooden gun--a straight wake with ye!\"\n\nAs he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous\noblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.\n\nAlarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and\nresponsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up\nall idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily\ncommanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who,\nI made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened\nwrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the\ntransom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of\nwithdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As\nfor Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more\nleft in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a\nlittle as if still nervously agitated. \"Whew!\" he whistled at last--\"the\nsquall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at\nsharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs\nthe grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man,\nIshmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael,\nfor the three hundredth lay.\"\n\n\"Captain Peleg,\" said I, \"I have a friend with me who wants to ship\ntoo--shall I bring him down to-morrow?\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" said Peleg. \"Fetch him along, and we'll look at him.\"\n\n\"What lay does he want?\" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in\nwhich he had again been burying himself.\n\n\"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,\" said Peleg. \"Has he ever\nwhaled it any?\" turning to me.\n\n\"Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.\"\n\n\"Well, bring him along then.\"\n\nAnd, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I\nhad done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical\nship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.\n\nBut I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain\nwith whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in\nmany cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all\nher crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving\nto take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the\nshore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have\na family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble\nhimself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till\nall is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at\nhim before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back\nI accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found.\n\n\"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough; thou\nart shipped.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I should like to see him.\"\n\n\"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly\nwhat's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort\nof sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick; but no, he\nisn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't always see me, so I\ndon't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man, Captain Ahab--so some\nthink--but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well enough; no fear, no\nfear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak\nmuch; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be\nforewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as\n'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed\nhis fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance!\naye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't\nCaptain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; HE'S AHAB, boy; and Ahab\nof old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!\"\n\n\"And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did\nthey not lick his blood?\"\n\n\"Come hither to me--hither, hither,\" said Peleg, with a significance in\nhis eye that almost startled me. \"Look ye, lad; never say that on board\nthe Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself.\n'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died\nwhen he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at\nGayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps,\nother fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a\nlie. I know Captain Ahab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago;\nI know what he is--a good man--not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but\na swearing good man--something like me--only there's a good deal more of\nhim. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on\nthe passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it\nwas the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that\nabout, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost\nhis leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of\nmoody--desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass\noff. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's\nbetter to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So\ngood-bye to thee--and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to\nhave a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife--not three voyages\nwedded--a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that\nold man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless\nharm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his\nhumanities!\"\n\nAs I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been\nincidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain\nwild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time,\nI felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't know what,\nunless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange\nawe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was\nnot exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did\nnot disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed\nlike mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However,\nmy thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the\npresent dark Ahab slipped my mind.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.\n\n\nAs Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all\nday, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I\ncherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations,\nnever mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue\neven a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other\ncreatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism\nquite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of\na deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate\npossessions yet owned and rented in his name.\n\nI say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these\nthings, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals,\npagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these\nsubjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most\nabsurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;--but what of that? Queequeg\nthought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content;\nand there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let\nhim be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all--Presbyterians and Pagans\nalike--for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and\nsadly need mending.\n\nTowards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and\nrituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door; but\nno answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. \"Queequeg,\"\nsaid I softly through the key-hole:--all silent. \"I say, Queequeg! why\ndon't you speak? It's I--Ishmael.\" But all remained still as before. I\nbegan to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time; I thought\nhe might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but\nthe door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect\nwas but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the\nfoot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I\nwas surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of\nQueequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken\nfrom him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange, thought I;\nbut at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom or\nnever goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no\npossible mistake.\n\n\"Queequeg!--Queequeg!\"--all still. Something must have happened.\nApoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted.\nRunning down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person\nI met--the chamber-maid. \"La! la!\" she cried, \"I thought something must\nbe the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was\nlocked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silent ever\nsince. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your\nbaggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma'am!--Mistress! murder! Mrs.\nHussey! apoplexy!\"--and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I\nfollowing.\n\nMrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a\nvinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation\nof attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime.\n\n\"Wood-house!\" cried I, \"which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch\nsomething to pry open the door--the axe!--the axe! he's had a stroke;\ndepend upon it!\"--and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs\nagain empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and\nvinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance.\n\n\"What's the matter with you, young man?\"\n\n\"Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry\nit open!\"\n\n\"Look here,\" said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet,\nso as to have one hand free; \"look here; are you talking about prying\nopen any of my doors?\"--and with that she seized my arm. \"What's the\nmatter with you? What's the matter with you, shipmate?\"\n\nIn as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the\nwhole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her\nnose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed--\"No! I haven't seen\nit since I put it there.\" Running to a little closet under the landing\nof the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's\nharpoon was missing. \"He's killed himself,\" she cried. \"It's unfort'nate\nStiggs done over again--there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor\nmother!--it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister?\nWhere's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell\nhim to paint me a sign, with--\"no suicides permitted here, and no\nsmoking in the parlor;\"--might as well kill both birds at once. Kill?\nThe Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there? You, young\nman, avast there!\"\n\nAnd running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force\nopen the door.\n\n\"I don't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the\nlocksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!\" putting her\nhand in her side-pocket, \"here's a key that'll fit, I guess; let's\nsee.\" And with that, she turned it in the lock; but, alas! Queequeg's\nsupplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.\n\n\"Have to burst it open,\" said I, and was running down the entry a\nlittle, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing\nI should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a\nsudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark.\n\nWith a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming\nagainst the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good\nheavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected; right\nin the middle of the room; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on\ntop of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat\nlike a carved image with scarce a sign of active life.\n\n\"Queequeg,\" said I, going up to him, \"Queequeg, what's the matter with\nyou?\"\n\n\"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?\" said the landlady.\n\nBut all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt\nlike pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost\nintolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained;\nespecially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of\neight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals.\n\n\"Mrs. Hussey,\" said I, \"he's ALIVE at all events; so leave us, if you\nplease, and I will see to this strange affair myself.\"\n\nClosing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon\nQueequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could\ndo--for all my polite arts and blandishments--he would not move a peg,\nnor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in\nthe slightest way.\n\nI wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do\nthey fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so;\nyes, it's part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he'll\nget up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last for ever, thank God,\nand his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don't believe it's very\npunctual then.\n\nI went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long\nstories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as\nthey called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig,\nconfined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after\nlistening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went\nup stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must\ncertainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he\nwas just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began to\ngrow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be\nsitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room,\nholding a piece of wood on his head.\n\n\"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have\nsome supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself, Queequeg.\" But not a\nword did he reply.\n\nDespairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep;\nand no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to\nturning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as\nit promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his ordinary\nround jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into\nthe faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere thought\nof Queequeg--not four feet off--sitting there in that uneasy position,\nstark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really wretched. Think of\nit; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his\nhams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!\n\nBut somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of\nday; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he\nhad been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of\nsun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints,\nbut with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his\nforehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over.\n\nNow, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion,\nbe it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any\nother person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when\na man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment\nto him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to\nlodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and\nargue the point with him.\n\nAnd just so I now did with Queequeg. \"Queequeg,\" said I, \"get into bed\nnow, and lie and listen to me.\" I then went on, beginning with the rise\nand progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various\nreligions of the present time, during which time I labored to show\nQueequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in\ncold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless\nfor the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and\ncommon sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an\nextremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained\nme, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan\nof his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the\nspirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be\nhalf-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish\nsuch melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg,\nsaid I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested\napple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary\ndyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.\n\nI then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with\ndyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it\nin. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great\nfeast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle\nwherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the\nafternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening.\n\n\"No more, Queequeg,\" said I, shuddering; \"that will do;\" for I knew the\ninferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who had\nvisited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when\na great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the\nyard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were placed\nin great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with\nbreadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths, were\nsent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as\nthough these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.\n\nAfter all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much\nimpression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed\ndull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his\nown point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more than one\nthird understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he\nno doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than\nI did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and\ncompassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible\nyoung man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety.\n\nAt last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty\nbreakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not\nmake much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the\nPequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18. His Mark.\n\n\nAs we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg\ncarrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us\nfrom his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal,\nand furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft,\nunless they previously produced their papers.\n\n\"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?\" said I, now jumping on the\nbulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.\n\n\"I mean,\" he replied, \"he must show his papers.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from\nbehind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. \"He must show that he's converted.\nSon of darkness,\" he added, turning to Queequeg, \"art thou at present in\ncommunion with any Christian church?\"\n\n\"Why,\" said I, \"he's a member of the first Congregational Church.\" Here\nbe it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at\nlast come to be converted into the churches.\n\n\"First Congregational Church,\" cried Bildad, \"what! that worships in\nDeacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?\" and so saying, taking\nout his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana\nhandkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the\nwigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at\nQueequeg.\n\n\"How long hath he been a member?\" he then said, turning to me; \"not very\nlong, I rather guess, young man.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Peleg, \"and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it would\nhave washed some of that devil's blue off his face.\"\n\n\"Do tell, now,\" cried Bildad, \"is this Philistine a regular member of\nDeacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it\nevery Lord's day.\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,\" said\nI; \"all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First\nCongregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.\"\n\n\"Young man,\" said Bildad sternly, \"thou art skylarking with me--explain\nthyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.\"\n\nFinding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. \"I mean, sir, the same\nancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,\nand Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of\nus belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole\nworshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some\nqueer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in THAT we all join\nhands.\"\n\n\"Splice, thou mean'st SPLICE hands,\" cried Peleg, drawing nearer. \"Young\nman, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand;\nI never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy--why Father Mapple\nhimself couldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come\naboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there--what's\nthat you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what\na harpoon he's got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it\nabout right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand\nin the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?\"\n\nWithout saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon\nthe bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats\nhanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his\nharpoon, cried out in some such way as this:--\n\n\"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well,\nspose him one whale eye, well, den!\" and taking sharp aim at it, he\ndarted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across the\nship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.\n\n\"Now,\" said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, \"spos-ee him whale-e\neye; why, dad whale dead.\"\n\n\"Quick, Bildad,\" said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close\nvicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway.\n\"Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have\nHedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog,\nwe'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was given a\nharpooneer yet out of Nantucket.\"\n\nSo down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon\nenrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged.\n\nWhen all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for\nsigning, he turned to me and said, \"I guess, Quohog there don't know how\nto write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or\nmake thy mark?\"\n\nBut at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken\npart in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the\noffered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact\ncounterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so\nthat through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touching his appellative,\nit stood something like this:--\n\nQuohog. his X mark.\n\nMeanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg,\nand at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his\nbroad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting\none entitled \"The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,\" placed it in\nQueequeg's hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his,\nlooked earnestly into his eyes, and said, \"Son of darkness, I must do my\nduty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the\nsouls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I\nsadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn\nthe idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind\nthine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!\"\n\nSomething of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,\nheterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.\n\n\"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,\"\ncried Peleg. \"Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers--it takes the shark\nout of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish.\nThere was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all\nNantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to\ngood. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and\nsheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove\nand went to Davy Jones.\"\n\n\"Peleg! Peleg!\" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, \"thou thyself,\nas I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what\nit is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou prate in this\nungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this\nsame Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan,\nthat same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st thou not\nthink of Death and the Judgment then?\"\n\n\"Hear him, hear him now,\" cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and\nthrusting his hands far down into his pockets,--\"hear him, all of ye.\nThink of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink!\nDeath and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an\neverlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over us,\nfore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think\nabout Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of;\nand how to save all hands--how to rig jury-masts--how to get into the\nnearest port; that was what I was thinking of.\"\n\nBildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,\nwhere we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some\nsailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then\nhe stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which\notherwise might have been wasted.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19. The Prophet.\n\n\n\"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?\"\n\nQueequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from\nthe water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when\nthe above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us,\nlevelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but\nshabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a\nblack handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all\ndirections flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed\nbed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up.\n\n\"Have ye shipped in her?\" he repeated.\n\n\"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,\" said I, trying to gain a little\nmore time for an uninterrupted look at him.\n\n\"Aye, the Pequod--that ship there,\" he said, drawing back his whole\narm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed\nbayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, \"we have just signed the articles.\"\n\n\"Anything down there about your souls?\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any,\" he said quickly. \"No matter though,\nI know many chaps that hav'n't got any,--good luck to 'em; and they are\nall the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.\"\n\n\"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?\" said I.\n\n\"HE'S got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort\nin other chaps,\" abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis\nupon the word HE.\n\n\"Queequeg,\" said I, \"let's go; this fellow has broken loose from\nsomewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know.\"\n\n\"Stop!\" cried the stranger. \"Ye said true--ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder\nyet, have ye?\"\n\n\"Who's Old Thunder?\" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness\nof his manner.\n\n\"Captain Ahab.\"\n\n\"What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?\"\n\n\"Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye\nhav'n't seen him yet, have ye?\"\n\n\"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will be\nall right again before long.\"\n\n\"All right again before long!\" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly\nderisive sort of laugh. \"Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then\nthis left arm of mine will be all right; not before.\"\n\n\"What do you know about him?\"\n\n\"What did they TELL you about him? Say that!\"\n\n\"They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that he's\na good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.\"\n\n\"That's true, that's true--yes, both true enough. But you must jump when\nhe gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go--that's the word with\nCaptain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape\nHorn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights;\nnothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in\nSanta?--heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash\nhe spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage,\naccording to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about them matters and\nsomething more, eh? No, I don't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows\nit? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell\nabout the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare\nsay. Oh yes, THAT every one knows a'most--I mean they know he's only one\nleg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" said I, \"what all this gibberish of yours is about, I\ndon't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a\nlittle damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of\nthat ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about\nthe loss of his leg.\"\n\n\"ALL about it, eh--sure you do?--all?\"\n\n\"Pretty sure.\"\n\nWith finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like\nstranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a\nlittle, turned and said:--\"Ye've shipped, have ye? Names down on the\npapers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be, will be;\nand then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Anyhow, it's all fixed\nand arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I\nsuppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye,\nshipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped\nye.\"\n\n\"Look here, friend,\" said I, \"if you have anything important to tell\nus, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are\nmistaken in your game; that's all I have to say.\"\n\n\"And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way;\nyou are just the man for him--the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates,\nmorning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded not to make one\nof 'em.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way--you can't fool us. It\nis the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great\nsecret in him.\"\n\n\"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.\"\n\n\"Morning it is,\" said I. \"Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this crazy\nman. But stop, tell me your name, will you?\"\n\n\"Elijah.\"\n\nElijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each\nother's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was\nnothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone\nperhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and\nlooking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us,\nthough at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I\nsaid nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my\ncomrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner\nthat we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging\nus, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This\ncircumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing,\nshrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments\nand half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain\nAhab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver\ncalabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship\nthe day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage\nwe had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things.\n\nI was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really\ndogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg,\nand on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without\nseeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it\nseemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20. All Astir.\n\n\nA day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod.\nNot only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on\nboard, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything\nbetokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain\nPeleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp\nlook-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing\nat the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were\nworking till long after night-fall.\n\nOn the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given at\nall the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their chests\nmust be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon\nthe vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps,\nresolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they\nalways give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail\nfor several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and\nthere is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod\nwas fully equipped.\n\nEvery one knows what a multitude of things--beds, sauce-pans, knives\nand forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are\nindispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling,\nwhich necessitates a three-years' housekeeping upon the wide ocean,\nfar from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And\nthough this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means\nto the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the\nwhaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the\nfishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors\nusually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling\nvessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially\nto the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of\nthe voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare\nlines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain\nand duplicate ship.\n\nAt the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the\nPequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water,\nfuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time\nthere was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and\nends of things, both large and small.\n\nChief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain\nBildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable\nspirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE\ncould help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once\nfairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar\nof pickles for the steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills\nfor the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a\nroll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did\nany woman better deserve her name, which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as\neverybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable\nAunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand\nand heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and\nconsolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother\nBildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of\nwell-saved dollars.\n\nBut it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on\nboard, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and\na still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor\nCaptain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him\na long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down\nwent his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a\nwhile Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men\ndown the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then\nconcluded by roaring back into his wigwam.\n\nDuring these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the\ncraft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when\nhe was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would\nanswer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard\nevery day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend\nto everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been\ndownright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart\nthat I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage,\nwithout once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute\ndictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea.\nBut when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be\nalready involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his\nsuspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said\nnothing, and tried to think nothing.\n\nAt last it was given out that some time next day the ship would\ncertainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21. Going Aboard.\n\n\nIt was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we\ndrew nigh the wharf.\n\n\"There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,\" said I to\nQueequeg, \"it can't be shadows; she's off by sunrise, I guess; come on!\"\n\n\"Avast!\" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind\nus, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself\nbetween us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight,\nstrangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah.\n\n\"Going aboard?\"\n\n\"Hands off, will you,\" said I.\n\n\"Lookee here,\" said Queequeg, shaking himself, \"go 'way!\"\n\n\"Ain't going aboard, then?\"\n\n\"Yes, we are,\" said I, \"but what business is that of yours? Do you know,\nMr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?\"\n\n\"No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that,\" said Elijah, slowly and\nwonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable\nglances.\n\n\"Elijah,\" said I, \"you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We\nare going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be\ndetained.\"\n\n\"Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?\"\n\n\"He's cracked, Queequeg,\" said I, \"come on.\"\n\n\"Holloa!\" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few\npaces.\n\n\"Never mind him,\" said I, \"Queequeg, come on.\"\n\nBut he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my\nshoulder, said--\"Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that\nship a while ago?\"\n\nStruck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, \"Yes,\nI thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure.\"\n\n\"Very dim, very dim,\" said Elijah. \"Morning to ye.\"\n\nOnce more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and\ntouching my shoulder again, said, \"See if you can find 'em now, will ye?\n\n\"Find who?\"\n\n\"Morning to ye! morning to ye!\" he rejoined, again moving off. \"Oh! I\nwas going to warn ye against--but never mind, never mind--it's all one,\nall in the family too;--sharp frost this morning, ain't it? Good-bye to\nye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it's before the Grand\nJury.\" And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for\nthe moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence.\n\nAt last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound\nquiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the\nhatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward\nto the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a\nlight, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a\ntattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his\nface downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber\nslept upon him.\n\n\"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?\" said I,\nlooking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf,\nQueequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I would\nhave thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter,\nwere it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the\nthing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg\nthat perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish\nhimself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though\nfeeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly\ndown there.\n\n\"Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh! perry dood seat,\" said Queequeg, \"my country way; won't hurt him\nface.\"\n\n\"Face!\" said I, \"call that his face? very benevolent countenance then;\nbut how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you\nare heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look,\nhe'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't wake.\"\n\nQueequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and\nlighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing\nover the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him\nin his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his\nland, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king,\nchiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some\nof the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in\nthat respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay\nthem round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on\nan excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible\ninto walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and\ndesiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps\nin some damp marshy place.\n\nWhile narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk\nfrom me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper's head.\n\n\"What's that for, Queequeg?\"\n\n\"Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!\"\n\nHe was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe,\nwhich, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed\nhis soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The\nstrong vapour now completely filling the contracted hole, it began\nto tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed\ntroubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and\nrubbed his eyes.\n\n\"Holloa!\" he breathed at last, \"who be ye smokers?\"\n\n\"Shipped men,\" answered I, \"when does she sail?\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain\ncame aboard last night.\"\n\n\"What Captain?--Ahab?\"\n\n\"Who but him indeed?\"\n\nI was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we\nheard a noise on deck.\n\n\"Holloa! Starbuck's astir,\" said the rigger. \"He's a lively chief mate,\nthat; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to.\" And so\nsaying he went on deck, and we followed.\n\nIt was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and\nthrees; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively\nengaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various\nlast things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly\nenshrined within his cabin.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas.\n\n\nAt length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers,\nand after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the\never-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last\ngift--a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a\nspare Bible for the steward--after all this, the two Captains, Peleg\nand Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg\nsaid:\n\n\"Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is\nall ready--just spoke to him--nothing more to be got from shore, eh?\nWell, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here--blast 'em!\"\n\n\"No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,\" said Bildad,\n\"but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding.\"\n\nHow now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain\nPeleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the\nquarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as\nwell as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of\nhim was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But then,\nthe idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the\nship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was\nnot at all his proper business, but the pilot's; and as he was not\nyet completely recovered--so they said--therefore, Captain Ahab stayed\nbelow. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the merchant\nservice many captains never show themselves on deck for a considerable\ntime after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table,\nhaving a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, before they\nquit the ship for good with the pilot.\n\nBut there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain\nPeleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and\ncommanding, and not Bildad.\n\n\"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors,\" he cried, as the sailors lingered at\nthe main-mast. \"Mr. Starbuck, drive'em aft.\"\n\n\"Strike the tent there!\"--was the next order. As I hinted before, this\nwhalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the\nPequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to\nbe the next thing to heaving up the anchor.\n\n\"Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!--jump!\"--was the next command, and\nthe crew sprang for the handspikes.\n\nNow in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot\nis the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it\nknown, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed pilots\nof the port--he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in\norder to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned\nin, for he never piloted any other craft--Bildad, I say, might now\nbe seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching\nanchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody,\nto cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of\na chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will.\nNevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no\nprofane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in\ngetting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice\ncopy of Watts in each seaman's berth.\n\nMeantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped\nand swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would\nsink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I paused\non my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the\nperils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a\npilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious\nBildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and\nseventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and\nturning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the\nact of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first\nkick.\n\n\"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?\" he roared.\n\"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye\nspring, I say, all of ye--spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red\nwhiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I\nsay, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!\" And so saying, he moved\nalong the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while\nimperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I,\nCaptain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.\n\nAt last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It\nwas a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into\nnight, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose\nfreezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of\nteeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white\nivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from\nthe bows.\n\nLank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the\nold craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost\nall over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady\nnotes were heard,--\n\n\"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green.\nSo to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.\"\n\n\nNever did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They\nwere full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the\nboisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was\nyet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads\nand glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring,\nuntrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.\n\nAt last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed\nno longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging\nalongside.\n\nIt was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at\nthis juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet;\nvery loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a\nvoyage--beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of\nhis hard earned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate\nsailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to\nencounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to\na thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,--poor old Bildad\nlingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the\ncabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and\nlooked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only\nbounded by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards\nthe land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere\nand nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin,\nconvulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern,\nfor a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say,\n\"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can.\"\n\nAs for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all\nhis philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern\ncame too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck--now\na word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate.\n\nBut, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look\nabout him,--\"Captain Bildad--come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the\nmain-yard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now!\nCareful, careful!--come, Bildad, boy--say your last. Luck to ye,\nStarbuck--luck to ye, Mr. Stubb--luck to ye, Mr. Flask--good-bye and\ngood luck to ye all--and this day three years I'll have a hot supper\nsmoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!\"\n\n\"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men,\" murmured old\nBildad, almost incoherently. \"I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so\nthat Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye--a pleasant sun is all\nhe needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go.\nBe careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly,\nye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent.\nwithin the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind\nthat cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in\nthe green locker! Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't\nmiss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an\neye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought.\nIf ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye,\ngood-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr.\nStarbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the butter--twenty cents the\npound it was, and mind ye, if--\"\n\n\"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,--away!\" and with that,\nPeleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.\n\nShip and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a\nscreaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave\nthree heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone\nAtlantic.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.\n\n\nSome chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded\nmariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.\n\nWhen on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive\nbows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her\nhelm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon\nthe man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous\nvoyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another\ntempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest\nthings are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this\nsix-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say\nthat it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably\ndrives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port\nis pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm\nblankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale,\nthe port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all\nhospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make\nher shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail\noff shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would\nblow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again;\nfor refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her\nbitterest foe!\n\nKnow ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally\nintolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid\neffort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while\nthe wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the\ntreacherous, slavish shore?\n\nBut as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,\nindefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite,\nthan be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!\nFor worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of\nthe terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart,\nO Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy\nocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 24. The Advocate.\n\n\nAs Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling;\nand as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among\nlandsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I\nam all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done\nto us hunters of whales.\n\nIn the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish\nthe fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not\naccounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a\nstranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society,\nit would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were\nhe presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation\nof the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm\nWhale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed\npre-eminently presuming and ridiculous.\n\nDoubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring us\nwhalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a\nbutchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we\nare surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is\ntrue. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been\nall Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honour. And\nas for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall\nsoon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown,\nand which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship\nat least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even\ngranting the charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery\ndecks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those\nbattle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies'\nplaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit\nof the soldier's profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran\nwho has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the\napparition of the sperm whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air\nover his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared\nwith the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!\n\nBut, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it\nunwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding\nadoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round\nthe globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!\n\nBut look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of\nscales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.\n\nWhy did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling\nfleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit\nout whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some\nscore or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did\nBritain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties\nupwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of\nAmerica now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world;\nsail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen\nthousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth,\nat the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our\nharbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if\nthere be not something puissant in whaling?\n\nBut this is not the half; look again.\n\nI freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life,\npoint out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty\nyears has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in\none aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way\nand another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so\ncontinuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may\nwell be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves\npregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to\ncatalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past\nthe whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and\nleast known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes\nwhich had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If\nAmerican and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage\nharbors, let them fire salutes to the honour and glory of the\nwhale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted\nbetween them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes\nof Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I say that\nscores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were\nas great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For in their\nsuccourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters,\nand by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin\nwonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines and muskets would\nnot willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old\nSouth Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of\nour heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates\nthree chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the\nship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!\n\nUntil the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial,\nscarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and\nthe long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast.\nIt was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the\nSpanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it\nmight be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the\nliberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and\nthe establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.\n\nThat great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given\nto the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born\ndiscovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned those shores\nas pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The\nwhale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover,\nin the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were\nseveral times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the\nwhale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted\nisles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage\nto the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the\nmerchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their\nfirst destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become\nhospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due;\nfor already she is on the threshold.\n\nBut if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no\naesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to\nshiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet\nevery time.\n\nThe whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you\nwill say.\n\nTHE WHALE NO FAMOUS AUTHOR, AND WHALING NO FAMOUS CHRONICLER? Who wrote\nthe first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who composed\nthe first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than\nAlfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from\nOther, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our\nglowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!\n\nTrue enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no\ngood blood in their veins.\n\nNO GOOD BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS? They have something better than royal\nblood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;\nafterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers\nof Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and\nharpooneers--all kith and kin to noble Benjamin--this day darting the\nbarbed iron from one side of the world to the other.\n\nGood again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not\nrespectable.\n\nWHALING NOT RESPECTABLE? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory\nlaw, the whale is declared \"a royal fish.\"*\n\nOh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any\ngrand imposing way.\n\nTHE WHALE NEVER FIGURED IN ANY GRAND IMPOSING WAY? In one of the mighty\ntriumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital,\nthe bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were\nthe most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.*\n\n\n*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.\n\n\nGrant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no real\ndignity in whaling.\n\nNO DIGNITY IN WHALING? The dignity of our calling the very heavens\nattest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your\nhat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I\nknow a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty\nwhales. I account that man more honourable than that great captain of\nantiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.\n\nAnd, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered\nprime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small\nbut high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if\nhereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather\nhave done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or\nmore properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here\nI prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a\nwhale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 25. Postscript.\n\n\nIn behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but\nsubstantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who\nshould wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might\ntell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate, would he not be\nblameworthy?\n\nIt is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern\nones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is\ngone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there\nmay be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely--who knows?\nCertain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his\ncoronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they\nanoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint\nmachinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential\ndignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but\nmeanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably\nsmells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil,\nunless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him\nsomewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.\n\nBut the only thing to be considered here, is this--what kind of oil is\nused at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil,\nnor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What\nthen can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted\nstate, the sweetest of all oils?\n\nThink of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and\nqueens with coronation stuff!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.\n\n\nThe chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a\nQuaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy\ncoast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard\nas twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would\nnot spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of\ngeneral drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which\nhis state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those\nsummers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his\nthinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and\ncares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely\nthe condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the\ncontrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped\nup in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified\nEgyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come,\nand to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like\na patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well\nin all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet\nlingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted\nthrough life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a\ntelling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for\nall his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities\nin him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to\noverbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and\nendued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his\nlife did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that\nsort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to\nspring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents\nand inward presentiments were his. And if at times these things bent the\nwelded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories\nof his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the\noriginal ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those\nlatent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush\nof dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous\nvicissitudes of the fishery. \"I will have no man in my boat,\" said\nStarbuck, \"who is not afraid of a whale.\" By this, he seemed to mean,\nnot only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises\nfrom the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly\nfearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.\n\n\"Aye, aye,\" said Stubb, the second mate, \"Starbuck, there, is as careful\na man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery.\" But we shall ere long\nsee what that word \"careful\" precisely means when used by a man like\nStubb, or almost any other whale hunter.\n\nStarbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a\nsentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all\nmortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this\nbusiness of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of\nthe ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted.\nWherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor\nfor persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting\nhim. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill\nwhales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that\nhundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was\nhis own father's? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn\nlimbs of his brother?\n\nWith memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain\nsuperstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which\ncould, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But\nit was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such\nterrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature\nthat these things should fail in latently engendering an element in\nhim, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its\nconfinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it\nwas that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which,\nwhile generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or\nwhales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet\ncannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors,\nwhich sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and\nmighty man.\n\nBut were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete\nabasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to\nwrite it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose\nthe fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint\nstock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be;\nmen may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble\nand so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any\nignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their\ncostliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves,\nso far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character\nseem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of\na valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight,\ncompletely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this\naugust dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but\nthat abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it\nshining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic\ndignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The\ngreat God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His\nomnipresence, our divine equality!\n\nIf, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall\nhereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic\ngraces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them\nall, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch\nthat workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow\nover his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear\nme out in it, thou Just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal\nmantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great\ndemocratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the\npale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves\nof finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who\ndidst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a\nwar-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all\nThy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from\nthe kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.\n\n\nStubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence,\naccording to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky;\nneither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an\nindifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the\nchase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged\nfor the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his\nwhale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his\ncrew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable\narrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the\nsnugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of\nthe fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as\na whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes\nwhile flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had,\nfor this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he\nthought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of\nit at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his\nmind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor,\nhe took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir\nthemselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed\nthe order, and not sooner.\n\nWhat, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,\nunfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a\nworld full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs;\nwhat helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that\nthing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black\nlittle pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would\nalmost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his\nnose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready\nloaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he\nturned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from\nthe other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in\nreadiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his\nlegs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.\n\nI say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his\npeculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether\nashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of\nthe numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the\ncholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their\nmouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco\nsmoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.\n\nThe third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A\nshort, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales,\nwho somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally\nand hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of\nhonour with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost\nwas he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic\nbulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of\nany possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion,\nthe wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least\nwater-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small\napplication of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This\nignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in\nthe matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a\nthree years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted\nthat length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought\nnails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask\nwas one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They\ncalled him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could\nbe well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic\nwhalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted\ninto it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those\nbattering seas.\n\nNow these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous\nmen. They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the\nPequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which\nCaptain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales,\nthese three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with\ntheir long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers;\neven as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.\n\nAnd since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic\nKnight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer,\nwho in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when\nthe former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and\nmoreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy\nand friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set\ndown who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of\nthem belonged.\n\nFirst of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected\nfor his squire. But Queequeg is already known.\n\nNext was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly\npromontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last\nremnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring\nisland of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the\nfishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's\nlong, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding\neyes--for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their\nglittering expression--all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor\nof the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest\nof the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal\nforests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild\nbeasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great\nwhales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the\ninfallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe\nsnaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of\nthe earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son\nof the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second\nmate's squire.\n\nThird among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black\nnegro-savage, with a lion-like tread--an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended\nfrom his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called\nthem ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to\nthem. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler,\nlying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been\nanywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors\nmost frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold\nlife of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what\nmanner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues,\nand erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six\nfeet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at\nhim; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to\nbeg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus\nDaggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man\nbeside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that\nat the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the\nmast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though\npretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the\nAmerican whale fishery as with the American army and military and\nmerchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction\nof the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all\nthese cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest\nof the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of\nthese whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound\nNantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy\npeasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers\nsailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to\nreceive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards,\nthey drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but\nIslanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders\nin the Pequod, ISOLATOES too, I call such, not acknowledging the common\ncontinent of men, but each ISOLATO living on a separate continent of his\nown. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were!\nAn Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all\nthe ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the\nworld's grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever\ncome back. Black Little Pip--he never did--oh, no! he went before. Poor\nAlabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him,\nbeating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for,\nto the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and\nbeat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 28. Ahab.\n\n\nFor several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen\nof Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches,\nand for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the\nonly commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin\nwith orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they\nbut commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was\nthere, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate\ninto the now sacred retreat of the cabin.\n\nEvery time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly\ngazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague\ndisquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the\nsea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened\nat times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly\nrecurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived\nof. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was\nalmost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish\nprophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or\nuneasiness--to call it so--which I felt, yet whenever I came to look\nabout me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such\nemotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew,\nwere a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the\ntame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me\nacquainted with, still I ascribed this--and rightly ascribed it--to the\nfierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation\nin which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect\nof the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most\nforcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and induce\nconfidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three\nbetter, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way,\ncould not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a\nNantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the\nship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather,\nthough all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every\ndegree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that\nmerciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one\nof those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the\ntransition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water\nwith a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I\nmounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I\nlevelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me.\nReality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.\n\nThere seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the\nrecovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when\nthe fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them,\nor taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His\nwhole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an\nunalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out\nfrom among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his\ntawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing,\nyou saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that\nperpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of\na great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and\nwithout wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top\nto bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly\nalive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it\nwas the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.\nBy some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was\nmade to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old\nGay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till\nhe was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and\nthen it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in\nan elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially\nnegatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man,\nwho, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this\nlaid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the\nimmemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with\npreternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously\ncontradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should\nbe tranquilly laid out--which might hardly come to pass, so he\nmuttered--then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would\nfind a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.\n\nSo powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid\nbrand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted\nthat not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric\nwhite leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that\nthis ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of\nthe sperm whale's jaw. \"Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,\" said the old\nGay-Head Indian once; \"but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another\nmast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em.\"\n\nI was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of\nthe Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there\nwas an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank.\nHis bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a\nshroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the\nship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude,\na determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless,\nforward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his\nofficers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures\nand expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful,\nconsciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that,\nbut moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his\nface; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.\n\nEre long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin.\nBut after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either\nstanding in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or\nheavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to\ngrow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as\nif, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry\nbleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it\ncame to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet,\nfor all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck,\nhe seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was\nonly making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling\npreparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so\nthat there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite\nAhab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that\nlayer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the\nloftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.\n\nNevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the\npleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from\nhis mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May,\ntrip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest,\nmost thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green\nsprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the\nend, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More\nthan once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any\nother man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.\n\n\nSome days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now\nwent rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost\nperpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic.\nThe warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days,\nwere as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up--flaked up, with\nrose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in\njewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their\nabsent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man,\n'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights.\nBut all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new\nspells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the\nsoul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory\nshot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights.\nAnd all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's\ntexture.\n\nOld age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less\nman has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders,\nthe old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the\nnight-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he\nseemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits\nwere more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. \"It feels\nlike going down into one's tomb,\"--he would mutter to himself--\"for an\nold captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my\ngrave-dug berth.\"\n\nSo, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were\nset, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below;\nand when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors\nflung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt\nit to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when\nthis sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the\nsilent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man\nwould emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way.\nSome considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these,\nhe usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his\nwearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such\nwould have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that\ntheir dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once,\nthe mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy,\nlumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast,\nStubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain\nunassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was\npleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might\nbe some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and\nhesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the\nivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.\n\n\"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,\" said Ahab, \"that thou wouldst wad me that\nfashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave;\nwhere such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at\nlast.--Down, dog, and kennel!\"\n\nStarting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly\nscornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, \"I\nam not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like\nit, sir.\"\n\n\"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away,\nas if to avoid some passionate temptation.\n\n\"No, sir; not yet,\" said Stubb, emboldened, \"I will not tamely be called\na dog, sir.\"\n\n\"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone,\nor I'll clear the world of thee!\"\n\nAs he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in\nhis aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.\n\n\"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,\"\nmuttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. \"It's\nvery queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go\nback and strike him, or--what's that?--down here on my knees and pray\nfor him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the\nfirst time I ever DID pray. It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too;\naye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever\nsailed with. How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he\nmad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be\nsomething on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more\nthan three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't\nthat Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds\nthe old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets\ndown at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the\npillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on\nit? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call\na conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--worse nor a\ntoothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me\nfrom catching it. He's full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the\nafter hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's\nthat for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in\nthe hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old\ngame--Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be\nborn into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think\nof it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of\nqueer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But\nthat's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and\nsleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again. But how's that?\ndidn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and\npiled a lot of jackasses on top of THAT! He might as well have kicked\nme, and done with it. Maybe he DID kick me, and I didn't observe it,\nI was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a\nbleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right\non my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong\nside out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though--How? how?\nhow?--but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again;\nand in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by\ndaylight.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 30. The Pipe.\n\n\nWhen Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the\nbulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor\nof the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe.\nLighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the\nweather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.\n\nIn old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were\nfabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one\nlook at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking\nhim of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of\nthe sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.\n\nSome moments passed, during which the thick vapour came from his mouth\nin quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. \"How\nnow,\" he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, \"this smoking no\nlonger soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be\ngone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring--aye, and\nignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with\nsuch nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the\nstrongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe?\nThis thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapours\namong mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll\nsmoke no more--\"\n\nHe tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the\nwaves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe\nmade. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 31. Queen Mab.\n\n\nNext morning Stubb accosted Flask.\n\n\"Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man's\nivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick\nback, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then,\npresto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking\nat it. But what was still more curious, Flask--you know how curious all\ndreams are--through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be\nthinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that\nkick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg,\nonly a false leg.' And there's a mighty difference between a living\nthump and a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask,\nfifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living\nmember--that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to\nmyself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against\nthat cursed pyramid--so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all\nthe while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but\na cane--a whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful\ncudgelling--in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me--not a base\nkick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the end of it--the foot\npart--what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer\nkicked me, THERE'S a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled\ndown to a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the\ndream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of\nbadger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the\nshoulders, and slews me round. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man,\nbut I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over\nthe fright. 'What am I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is\nthat of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do YOU want a kick?'\nBy the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his\nstern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a\nclout--what do you think, I saw?--why thunder alive, man, his stern\nwas stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second\nthoughts, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said he,\n'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of\nhis own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying\nover his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to\nkicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for it,\nwhen he roared out, 'Stop that kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's\nthe matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue\nthe insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says\nI--'right HERE it was.' 'Very good,' says he--'he used his ivory leg,\ndidn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb,\nwhat have you to complain of? Didn't he kick with right good will? it\nwasn't a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were\nkicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an\nhonour; I consider it an honour. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England the\ngreatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and made\ngarter-knights of; but, be YOUR boast, Stubb, that ye were kicked by\nold Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; BE kicked by him;\naccount his kicks honours; and on no account kick back; for you can't\nhelp yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?' With that, he\nall of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into\nthe air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what\ndo you think of that dream, Flask?\"\n\n\"I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'\"\n\n\"May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see Ahab\nstanding there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing\nyou can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him,\nwhatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark!\"\n\n\"Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts!\n\n\"If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him!\n\n\"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop of\nsomething queer about that, eh? A white whale--did ye mark that, man?\nLook ye--there's something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask.\nAhab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 32. Cetology.\n\n\nAlready we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost\nin its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the\nPequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the\nleviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost\nindispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more\nspecial leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to\nfollow.\n\nIt is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera,\nthat I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The\nclassification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here\nessayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down.\n\n\"No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled\nCetology,\" says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.\n\n\"It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the\ninquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and\nfamilies.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal\"\n(sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.\n\n\"Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters.\"\n\"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.\" \"A field\nstrewn with thorns.\" \"All these incomplete indications but serve to\ntorture us naturalists.\"\n\nThus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson,\nthose lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real\nknowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in\nsome small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are\nthe men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at\nlarge or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:--The Authors\nof the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner;\nRay; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson;\nMarten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier;\nJohn Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the\nAuthor of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what\nultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above cited\nextracts will show.\n\nOf the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen\never saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional\nharpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate\nsubject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing\nauthority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great\nsperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy\nmentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper\nupon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest\nof the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the\nprofound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the\nthen fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to\nthis present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats\nand whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference\nto nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days,\nwill satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to\nthem the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new\nproclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,--the\nGreenland whale is deposed,--the great sperm whale now reigneth!\n\nThere are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the living\nsperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest degree\nsucceed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and Bennett's; both in\ntheir time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both exact and\nreliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found\nin their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of\nexcellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As\nyet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete\nin any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an\nunwritten life.\n\nNow the various species of whales need some sort of popular\ncomprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the\npresent, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent\nlaborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I\nhereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete;\nbecause any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very\nreason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical\ndescription of the various species, or--in this place at least--to much\nof any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a\nsystematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.\n\nBut it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office\nis equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them;\nto have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very\npelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should\nessay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job\nmight well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee?\nBehold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and\nsailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible\nhands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to\nsettle.\n\nFirst: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology\nis in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it\nstill remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of\nNature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, \"I hereby separate the whales from\nthe fish.\" But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850,\nsharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus's express edict,\nwere still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the\nLeviathan.\n\nThe grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from\nthe waters, he states as follows: \"On account of their warm bilocular\nheart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem\nintrantem feminam mammis lactantem,\" and finally, \"ex lege naturae jure\nmeritoque.\" I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley\nCoffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and\nthey united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether\ninsufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.\n\nBe it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned\nground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.\nThis fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal\nrespect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given\nyou those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood;\nwhereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.\n\nNext: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as\nconspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a\nwhale is A SPOUTING FISH WITH A HORIZONTAL TAIL. There you have\nhim. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded\nmeditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a\nfish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is\nstill more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have\nnoticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a\nvertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail,\nthough it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal\nposition.\n\nBy the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude\nfrom the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified\nwith the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other\nhand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien.*\nHence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be\nincluded in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the grand\ndivisions of the entire whale host.\n\n\n*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and\nDugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included\nby many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy,\ncontemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on\nwet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials\nas whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the\nKingdom of Cetology.\n\n\nFirst: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary\nBOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all,\nboth small and large.\n\nI. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.\n\nAs the type of the FOLIO I present the SPERM WHALE; of the OCTAVO, the\nGRAMPUS; of the DUODECIMO, the PORPOISE.\n\nFOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:--I. The SPERM\nWHALE; II. the RIGHT WHALE; III. the FIN-BACK WHALE; IV. the HUMP-BACKED\nWHALE; V. the RAZOR-BACK WHALE; VI. the SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER I. (SPERM WHALE).--This whale, among the\nEnglish of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter\nwhale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the\nFrench, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the\nLong Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;\nthe most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in\naspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being\nthe only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is\nobtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged\nupon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically\nconsidered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was\nalmost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil\nwas only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days\nspermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a\ncreature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland\nor Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that\nquickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of\nthe word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was\nexceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment\nand medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays\nbuy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the\ntrue nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still\nretained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so\nstrangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at\nlast have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti\nwas really derived.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER II. (RIGHT WHALE).--In one respect this is the\nmost venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted\nby man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and\nthe oil specially known as \"whale oil,\" an inferior article in commerce.\nAmong the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the\nfollowing titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale;\nthe Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of\nobscurity concerning the identity of the species thus multitudinously\nbaptised. What then is the whale, which I include in the second species\nof my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the\nGreenland Whale of the English whalemen; the Baleine Ordinaire of the\nFrench whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale\nwhich for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and\nEnglish in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen\nhave long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor'\nWest Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them\nRight Whale Cruising Grounds.\n\nSome pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the\nEnglish and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree\nin all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single\ndeterminate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by\nendless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that\nsome departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The\nright whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference\nto elucidating the sperm whale.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER III. (FIN-BACK).--Under this head I reckon\na monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and\nLong-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale\nwhose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the\nAtlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and\nin his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less\nportly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips\npresent a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds\nof large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which\nhe derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some\nthree or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the\nback, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if\nnot the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated\nfin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When\nthe sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples,\nand this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled\nsurface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it\nsomewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on\nit. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not\ngregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very\nshy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the\nremotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet\nrising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with\nsuch wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present\npursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable\nCain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From\nhaving the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included with\nthe right whale, among a theoretic species denominated WHALEBONE WHALES,\nthat is, whales with baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there\nwould seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little\nknown. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched\nwhales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen's\nnames for a few sorts.\n\nIn connection with this appellative of \"Whalebone whales,\" it is of\ngreat importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be\nconvenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is\nin vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon\neither his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those\nmarked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford\nthe basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached\nbodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How\nthen? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose\npeculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales,\nwithout any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in other\nand more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked\nwhale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. Then, this same\nhumpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen;\nbut there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with the\nother parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such\nirregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached,\nsuch an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general\nmethodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the\nwhale-naturalists has split.\n\nBut it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the\nwhale, in his anatomy--there, at least, we shall be able to hit the\nright classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the\nGreenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have\nseen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the\nGreenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various\nleviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as\navailable to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated.\nWhat then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in\ntheir entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is\nthe Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can\npossibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO) CHAPTER IV. (HUMP-BACK).--This whale is often seen on\nthe northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and\ntowed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you\nmight call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular\nname for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm\nwhale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very\nvaluable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of\nall the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any\nother of them.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER V. (RAZOR-BACK).--Of this whale little is known\nbut his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring\nnature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he\nhas never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long\nsharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody\nelse.\n\nBOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER VI. (SULPHUR-BOTTOM).--Another retiring\ngentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the\nTartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen;\nat least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas,\nand then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is\nnever chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are\ntold of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true\nof ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.\n\nThus ends BOOK I. (FOLIO), and now begins BOOK II. (OCTAVO).\n\nOCTAVOES.*--These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which\npresent may be numbered:--I., the GRAMPUS; II., the BLACK FISH; III.,\nthe NARWHALE; IV., the THRASHER; V., the KILLER.\n\n\n*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain.\nBecause, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of\nthe former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them\nin figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form\ndoes not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume\ndoes.\n\n\nBOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER I. (GRAMPUS).--Though this fish, whose\nloud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb\nto landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not\npopularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive\nfeatures of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one.\nHe is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet\nin length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in\nherds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in\nquantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is\nregarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale.\n\nBOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER II. (BLACK FISH).--I give the popular\nfishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best.\nWhere any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so,\nand suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called,\nbecause blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the\nHyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the\ncircumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he\ncarries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale\naverages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost\nall latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin\nin swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more\nprofitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena\nwhale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment--as\nsome frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by\nthemselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their\nblubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of\nthirty gallons of oil.\n\nBOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER III. (NARWHALE), that is, NOSTRIL\nWHALE.--Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose\nfrom his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The\ncreature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five\nfeet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly\nspeaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw\nin a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only\nfound on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner\nsomething analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What\nprecise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to\nsay. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and\nbill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for\na rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin\nsaid it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the\nsurface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his\nhorn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these\nsurmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided\nhorn may really be used by the Narwhale--however that may be--it would\ncertainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets.\nThe Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and\nthe Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism\nto be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain\ncloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn\nwas in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison,\nand as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also\ndistilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the\nhorns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it\nwas in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells\nme that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when\nQueen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window\nof Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; \"when Sir\nMartin returned from that voyage,\" saith Black Letter, \"on bended knees\nhe presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale,\nwhich for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor.\" An Irish\nauthor avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise\npresent to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the\nunicorn nature.\n\nThe Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a\nmilk-white ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black.\nHis oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and\nhe is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.\n\nBOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER IV. (KILLER).--Of this whale little is\nprecisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed\nnaturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say\nthat he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage--a sort of\nFeegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and\nhangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The\nKiller is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception\nmight be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground\nof its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea;\nBonapartes and Sharks included.\n\nBOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER V. (THRASHER).--This gentleman is famous for\nhis tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts\nthe Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by\nflogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar\nprocess. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both\nare outlaws, even in the lawless seas.\n\nThus ends BOOK II. (OCTAVO), and begins BOOK III. (DUODECIMO).\n\nDUODECIMOES.--These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise.\nII. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.\n\nTo those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may\npossibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five\nfeet should be marshalled among WHALES--a word, which, in the popular\nsense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set\ndown above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my\ndefinition of what a whale is--i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal\ntail.\n\nBOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER 1. (HUZZA PORPOISE).--This is the\ncommon porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own\nbestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something\nmust be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always\nswims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing\nthemselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their\nappearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine\nspirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They\nare the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a\nlucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding\nthese vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly\ngamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will\nyield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid\nextracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among\njewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise\nmeat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that\na porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very\nreadily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and\nyou will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.\n\nBOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER II. (ALGERINE PORPOISE).--A pirate. Very\nsavage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat larger\nthan the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. Provoke him,\nand he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but\nnever yet saw him captured.\n\nBOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER III. (MEALY-MOUTHED PORPOISE).--The\nlargest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it is\nknown. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been designated,\nis that of the fishers--Right-Whale Porpoise, from the circumstance that\nhe is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs\nin some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly\ngirth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-like figure. He has\nno fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail,\nand sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils\nall. Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable,\nyet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called\nthe \"bright waist,\" that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two\nseparate colours, black above and white below. The white comprises part\nof his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he\nhad just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and\nmealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common porpoise.\n\n\nBeyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as\nthe Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the\nLeviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,\nhalf-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by\nreputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their\nfore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to\nfuture investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If\nany of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then\nhe can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio,\nOctavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:--The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale;\nthe Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon\nWhale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the\nIceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic,\nDutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of\nuncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit\nthem as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for\nmere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.\n\nFinally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be\nhere, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have\nkept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus\nunfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the\ncrane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small\nerections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true\nones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever\ncompleting anything. This whole book is but a draught--nay, but the\ndraught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 33. The Specksynder.\n\n\nConcerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place\nas any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising\nfrom the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown\nof course in any other marine than the whale-fleet.\n\nThe large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced\nby the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries\nand more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in\nthe person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an\nofficer called the Specksynder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter;\nusage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In\nthose days, the captain's authority was restricted to the navigation\nand general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting\ndepartment and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief Harpooneer\nreigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted\ntitle of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but\nhis former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply\nas senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more\ninferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the\nharpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since\nin the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat,\nbut under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the\ncommand of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the grand political\nmaxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from\nthe men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their\nprofessional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as\ntheir social equal.\n\nNow, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is\nthis--the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and\nmerchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and\nso, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in\nthe after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the\ncaptain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it.\n\nThough the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest\nof all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and\nthe community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high\nor low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their\ncommon luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and\nhard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less\nrigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind\nhow much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some\nprimitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious\nexternals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed,\nand in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in\nwhich you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated\ngrandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost\nas much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the\nshabbiest of pilot-cloth.\n\nAnd though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least\ngiven to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage\nhe ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he\nrequired no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon\nthe quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar\ncircumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he\naddressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or IN\nTERROREM, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means\nunobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea.\n\nNor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those\nforms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; incidentally\nmaking use of them for other and more private ends than they were\nlegitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain,\nwhich had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; through\nthose forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible\ndictatorship. For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will,\nit can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men,\nwithout the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always,\nin themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever\nkeeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and\nleaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who\nbecome famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice\nhidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted\nsuperiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks\nin these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them,\nthat in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted\npotency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown\nof geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian\nherds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the\ntragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest\nsweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in\nhis art, as the one now alluded to.\n\nBut Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket\ngrimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and\nKings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old\nwhale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings\nand housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it\nmust needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and\nfeatured in the unbodied air!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.\n\n\nIt is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread\nface from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and\nmaster; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an\nobservation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the\nsmooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on\nthe upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the\ntidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But\npresently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to\nthe deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, \"Dinner, Mr.\nStarbuck,\" disappears into the cabin.\n\nWhen the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck, the\nfirst Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck\nrouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after\na grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness,\n\"Dinner, Mr. Stubb,\" and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges\nabout the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to\nsee whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise\ntakes up the old burden, and with a rapid \"Dinner, Mr. Flask,\" follows\nafter his predecessors.\n\nBut the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck,\nseems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all\nsorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his\nshoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right\nover the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching\nhis cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so\nfar at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other\nprocessions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into\nthe cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and,\nthen, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence,\nin the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.\n\nIt is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense\nartificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck\nsome officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and\ndefyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those\nvery officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that\nsame commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say\ndeprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of\nthe table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this\ndifference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of\nBabylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously,\ntherein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he\nwho in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own\nprivate dinner-table of invited guests, that man's unchallenged power\nand dominion of individual influence for the time; that man's royalty of\nstate transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who\nhas but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It\nis a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now,\nif to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a\nship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that\npeculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.\n\nOver his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned\nsea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still\ndeferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be\nserved. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab,\nthere seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind,\ntheir intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved\nthe chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they\nwould have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even\nupon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his\nknife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby\nmotioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as\nthough receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started\nif, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it\nnoiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like\nthe Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly\ndines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were\nsomehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab\nforbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was\nto choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And\npoor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary\nfamily party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have\nbeen the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this\nmust have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had\nhe helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have\nbeen able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless,\nstrange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself,\nthe chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did\nFlask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners\nof the ship denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear,\nsunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such\nmarketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for\nhim, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man!\n\nAnother thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask\nis the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badly\njammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him;\nand yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb\neven, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small\nappetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask\nmust bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day;\nfor it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck.\nTherefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he\nhad arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never\nknown what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what\nhe ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him.\nPeace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from\nmy stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of\nold-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the\nmast. There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory:\nthere's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere\nsailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official\ncapacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance,\nwas to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin\nsky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab.\n\nNow, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table\nin the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted\norder to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was\nrestored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three\nharpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees.\nThey made a sort of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty\ncabin.\n\nIn strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless\ninvisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire care-free\nlicense and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows\nthe harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the\nsound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food\nwith such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords;\nthey filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices.\nSuch portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out\nthe vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was\nfain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of\nthe solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with\na nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of\naccelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once\nDaggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy's memory by\nsnatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty\nwooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the\ncircle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous,\nshuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the progeny\nof a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the standing\nspectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous\nvisitations of these three savages, Dough-Boy's whole life was one\ncontinual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished\nwith all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches into\nhis little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the\nblinds of its door, till all was over.\n\nIt was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing\nhis filed teeth to the Indian's: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on the\nfloor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low\ncarlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin\nframework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a\nship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious,\nnot to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively\nsmall mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad,\nbaronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed\nstrong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his\ndilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by\nbeef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a\nmortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating--an ugly sound enough--so\nmuch so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether\nany marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear\nTashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be\npicked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging\nround him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the\nwhetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their\nlances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they\nwould ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at\nall tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget that in his\nIsland days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some\nmurderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the\nwhite waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on\nhis arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight,\nthe three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous,\nfable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every\nstep, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.\n\nBut, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived\nthere; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were\nscarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time,\nwhen they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.\n\nIn this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale\ncaptains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights\nthe ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that\nanybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth,\nthe mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to\nhave lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it\nwas something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for\na moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing,\nresiding in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin\nwas no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally\nincluded in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He\nlived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled\nMissouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of\nthe woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter\nthere, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age,\nAhab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the\nsullen paws of its gloom!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.\n\n\nIt was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the\nother seamen my first mast-head came round.\n\nIn most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost\nsimultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she may\nhave fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper\ncruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years' voyage\nshe is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her--say, an empty vial\neven--then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her\nskysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether\nrelinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.\n\nNow, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very\nancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here.\nI take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old\nEgyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them.\nFor though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by\ntheir tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia,\nor Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great\nstone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread\ngale of God's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders\npriority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of\nmast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among\narchaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical\npurposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like\nformation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious\nlong upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount\nto the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a\nmodern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In\nSaint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him\na lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of\nhis life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a\ntackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless\nstander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs\nor frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to\nthe last, literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads\nwe have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who,\nthough well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely\nincompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange\nsight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column of Vendome,\nstands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air;\ncareless, now, who rules the decks below; whether Louis Philippe, Louis\nBlanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on\nhis towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars,\nhis column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals\nwill go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his\nmast-head in Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that\nLondon smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for\nwhere there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor\nNapoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however\nmadly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks\nupon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits\npenetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals\nand what rocks must be shunned.\n\nIt may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head\nstanders of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is\nnot so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole\nhistorian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us,\nthat in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly\nlaunched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty\nspars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by means\nof nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few\nyears ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand,\nwho, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh\nthe beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the\none proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads\nare kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their\nregular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two\nhours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant\nthe mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There\nyou stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the\ndeep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and\nbetween your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even\nas ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old\nRhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with\nnothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the\ndrowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the\nmost part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests\nyou; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts\nof commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear\nof no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are\nnever troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner--for\nall your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and\nyour bill of fare is immutable.\n\nIn one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years'\nvoyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the\nmast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be\ndeplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion\nof the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute\nof anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a\ncomfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock,\na hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small\nand snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your\nmost usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you\nstand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called\nthe t' gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner\nfeels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure,\nin cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of\na watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more\nof a house than the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its\nfleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out\nof it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim\ncrossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of\na house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You\ncannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you\nmake a convenient closet of your watch-coat.\n\nConcerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a\nsouthern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents\nor pulpits, called CROW'S-NESTS, in which the look-outs of a Greenland\nwhaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In\nthe fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled \"A Voyage among the\nIcebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the\nre-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;\" in\nthis admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with\na charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented\nCROW'S-NEST of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good\ncraft. He called it the SLEET'S CROW'S-NEST, in honour of himself; he\nbeing the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous\nfalse delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our\nown names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so\nlikewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we\nmay beget. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large\ntierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with\na movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale.\nBeing fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a\nlittle trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the\nstern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for\numbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which\nto keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical\nconveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this\ncrow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him\n(also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for\nthe purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns\ninfesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from\nthe deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon\nthem is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love\nfor Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed\nconveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many\nof these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his\nexperiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for\nthe purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called\nthe \"local attraction\" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to\nthe horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the\nGlacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down\nblacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very\ndiscreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned \"binnacle\ndeviations,\" \"azimuth compass observations,\" and \"approximate errors,\"\nhe knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed\nin those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted\noccasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely\ntucked in on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand.\nThough, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the\nhonest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he\nshould so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend\nand comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded\nhead he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest\nwithin three or four perches of the pole.\n\nBut if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as\nCaptain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is\ngreatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those\nseductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used\nto lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a\nchat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there;\nthen ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the\ntop-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at\nlast mount to my ultimate destination.\n\nLet me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but\nsorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how\ncould I--being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering\naltitude--how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all\nwhale-ships' standing orders, \"Keep your weather eye open, and sing out\nevery time.\"\n\nAnd let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of\nNantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with\nlean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who\noffers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware\nof such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be\nkilled; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes\nround the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor\nare these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery\nfurnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded\nyoung men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking\nsentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches\nhimself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and\nin moody phrase ejaculates:--\n\n\"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand\nblubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.\"\n\nVery often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded\nyoung philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient\n\"interest\" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost\nto all honourable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would\nrather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young\nPlatonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are\nshort-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have\nleft their opera-glasses at home.\n\n\"Why, thou monkey,\" said a harpooneer to one of these lads, \"we've been\ncruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale\nyet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here.\"\nPerhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in\nthe far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of\nvacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending\ncadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity;\ntakes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep,\nblue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every\nstrange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every\ndimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him\nthe embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by\ncontinually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs\naway to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like\nCrammer's(Thomas Cranmer) sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every\nshore the round globe over.\n\nThere is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a\ngently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from\nthe inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye,\nmove your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity\ncomes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps,\nat mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you\ndrop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise\nfor ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.\n\n\n(ENTER AHAB: THEN, ALL)\n\n\nIt was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one\nmorning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the\ncabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that\nhour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the\ngarden.\n\nSoon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old\nrounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over\ndented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did\nyou fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also,\nyou would see still stranger foot-prints--the foot-prints of his one\nunsleeping, ever-pacing thought.\n\nBut on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as\nhis nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his\nthought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the\nmain-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought\nturn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely\npossessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every\nouter movement.\n\n\"D'ye mark him, Flask?\" whispered Stubb; \"the chick that's in him pecks\nthe shell. 'Twill soon be out.\"\n\nThe hours wore on;--Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the\ndeck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.\n\nIt drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the\nbulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with\none hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft.\n\n\"Sir!\" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on\nship-board except in some extraordinary case.\n\n\"Send everybody aft,\" repeated Ahab. \"Mast-heads, there! come down!\"\n\nWhen the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious and not\nwholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike\nthe weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly\nglancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,\nstarted from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him\nresumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched\nhat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among\nthe men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have\nsummoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But\nthis did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:--\n\n\"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?\"\n\n\"Sing out for him!\" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed\nvoices.\n\n\"Good!\" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the\nhearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically\nthrown them.\n\n\"And what do ye next, men?\"\n\n\"Lower away, and after him!\"\n\n\"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?\"\n\n\"A dead whale or a stove boat!\"\n\nMore and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the\ncountenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began\nto gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they\nthemselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.\n\nBut, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his\npivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost\nconvulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:--\n\n\"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white\nwhale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?\"--holding up a\nbroad bright coin to the sun--\"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye\nsee it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.\"\n\nWhile the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was\nslowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if\nto heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile\nlowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and\ninarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his\nvitality in him.\n\nReceiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast\nwith the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the\nother, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: \"Whosoever of ye\nraises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;\nwhosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes\npunctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me\nthat same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!\"\n\n\"Huzza! huzza!\" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they\nhailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.\n\n\"It's a white whale, I say,\" resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul:\n\"a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water;\nif ye see but a bubble, sing out.\"\n\nAll this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even\nmore intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention\nof the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was\nseparately touched by some specific recollection.\n\n\"Captain Ahab,\" said Tashtego, \"that white whale must be the same that\nsome call Moby Dick.\"\n\n\"Moby Dick?\" shouted Ahab. \"Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?\"\n\n\"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?\" said the\nGay-Header deliberately.\n\n\"And has he a curious spout, too,\" said Daggoo, \"very bushy, even for a\nparmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?\"\n\n\"And he have one, two, three--oh! good many iron in him hide, too,\nCaptain,\" cried Queequeg disjointedly, \"all twiske-tee be-twisk, like\nhim--him--\" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and\nround as though uncorking a bottle--\"like him--him--\"\n\n\"Corkscrew!\" cried Ahab, \"aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted\nand wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole\nshock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the\ngreat annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a\nsplit jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have\nseen--Moby Dick--Moby Dick!\"\n\n\"Captain Ahab,\" said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far\nbeen eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed\nstruck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. \"Captain\nAhab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dick that took off\nthy leg?\"\n\n\"Who told thee that?\" cried Ahab; then pausing, \"Aye, Starbuck; aye, my\nhearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that\nbrought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,\" he shouted with\na terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose;\n\"Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razed me; made a poor\npegging lubber of me for ever and a day!\" Then tossing both arms, with\nmeasureless imprecations he shouted out: \"Aye, aye! and I'll chase him\nround Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and\nround perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have\nshipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and\nover all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.\nWhat say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look\nbrave.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye!\" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the\nexcited old man: \"A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for\nMoby Dick!\"\n\n\"God bless ye,\" he seemed to half sob and half shout. \"God bless ye,\nmen. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this long\nface about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not\ngame for Moby Dick?\"\n\n\"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain\nAhab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I\ncame here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels\nwill thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it\nwill not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.\"\n\n\"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest\na little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the\naccountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by\ngirdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let\nme tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium HERE!\"\n\n\"He smites his chest,\" whispered Stubb, \"what's that for? methinks it\nrings most vast, but hollow.\"\n\n\"Vengeance on a dumb brute!\" cried Starbuck, \"that simply smote thee\nfrom blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,\nCaptain Ahab, seems blasphemous.\"\n\n\"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man,\nare but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the\nundoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth\nthe mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man\nwill strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside\nexcept by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that\nwall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But\n'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength,\nwith an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is\nchiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale\nprincipal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy,\nman; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that,\nthen could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play\nherein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man,\nis even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off\nthine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish\nstare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to\nanger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing\nunsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I\nmeant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of\nspotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan\nleopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek,\nand give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the\ncrew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale?\nSee Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it.\nStand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot,\nStarbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no\nwondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt,\nthen, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back,\nwhen every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings\nseize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye!\nthy silence, then, THAT voices thee. (ASIDE) Something shot from my\ndilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine;\ncannot oppose me now, without rebellion.\"\n\n\"God keep me!--keep us all!\" murmured Starbuck, lowly.\n\nBut in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab\ndid not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the\nhold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage;\nnor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment\ntheir hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with\nthe stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds\nblew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah,\nye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But\nrather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much\npredictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things\nwithin. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost\nnecessities in our being, these still drive us on.\n\n\"The measure! the measure!\" cried Ahab.\n\nReceiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he\nordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near\nthe capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates\nstood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship's company\nformed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly\neyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the\nbloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere\nhe rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to\nfall into the hidden snare of the Indian.\n\n\"Drink and pass!\" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the\nnearest seaman. \"The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short\ndraughts--long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so; it\ngoes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the\nserpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this\nway it comes. Hand it me--here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so\nbrimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!\n\n\"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and\nye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there\nwith your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some\nsort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you\nwill yet see that--Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand\nit me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, were't not thou St.\nVitus' imp--away, thou ague!\n\n\"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let\nme touch the axis.\" So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the\nthree level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,\nsuddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from\nStarbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some\nnameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the\nsame fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic\nlife. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic\naspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of\nStarbuck fell downright.\n\n\"In vain!\" cried Ahab; \"but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but\nonce take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, THAT had\nperhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye\ndead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do\nappoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there--yon three\nmost honourable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain\nthe task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using\nhis tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, THAT\nshall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings\nand draw the poles, ye harpooneers!\"\n\nSilently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the\ndetached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs\nup, before him.\n\n\"Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye\nnot the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers,\nadvance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!\" Forthwith,\nslowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon\nsockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.\n\n\"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow\nthem, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha!\nStarbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon\nit. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful\nwhaleboat's bow--Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt\nMoby Dick to his death!\" The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted;\nand to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were\nsimultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and\nshivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds\namong the frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all\ndispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 37. Sunset.\n\n\nTHE CABIN; BY THE STERN WINDOWS; AHAB SITTING ALONE, AND GAZING OUT.\n\n\nI leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I\nsail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them;\nbut first I pass.\n\nYonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine.\nThe gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun--slow dived from noon--goes\ndown; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then,\nthe crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is\nit bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but\ndarkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron--that\nI know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel; the jagged edge galls\nme so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull,\nmine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!\n\nDry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred\nme, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me;\nall loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with\nthe high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly\nand most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night--good\nnight! (WAVING HIS HAND, HE MOVES FROM THE WINDOW.)\n\n'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;\nbut my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they\nrevolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all\nstand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the\nmatch itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and\nwhat I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm\ndemoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm\nto comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered;\nand--Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my\ndismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's\nmore than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye\ncricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes!\nI will not say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own\nsize; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but\nYE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have\nno long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see\nif ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve\nyourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is\nlaid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded\ngorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds,\nunerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron\nway!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 38. Dusk.\n\n\nBY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT.\n\n\nMy soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman!\nInsufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But\nhe drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see\nhis impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I,\nthe ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no\nknife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he cries;--aye, he would\nbe a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I\nplainly see my miserable office,--to obey, rebelling; and worse yet,\nto hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would\nshrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide.\nThe hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small\ngold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may\nwedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole\nclock's run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to\nlift again.\n\n\n[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.]\n\n\nOh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human\nmothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale\nis their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward!\nmark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost\nthrough the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering\nbow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his\nsternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further\non, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through!\nPeace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like\nthis, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,--as wild, untutored\nthings are forced to feed--Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent\nhorror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the\nsoft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim,\nphantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 39. First Night Watch.\n\nFore-Top.\n\n(STUBB SOLUS, AND MENDING A BRACE.)\n\n\nHa! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!--I've been thinking over it\never since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a\nlaugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and come what\nwill, one comfort's always left--that unfailing comfort is, it's all\npredestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor\neye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure\nthe old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the\ngift, might readily have prophesied it--for when I clapped my eye upon\nhis skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, WISE Stubb--that's my title--well,\nStubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be\ncoming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish\nleering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra,\nskirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes\nout?--Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as\na frigate's pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh--\n\nWe'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting\nAs bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while\nmeeting.\n\n\nA brave stave that--who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir--(ASIDE) he's\nmy superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.--Aye, aye, sir, just\nthrough with this job--coming.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.\n\nHARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.\n\n(FORESAIL RISES AND DISCOVERS THE WATCH STANDING, LOUNGING, LEANING, AND\nLYING IN VARIOUS ATTITUDES, ALL SINGING IN CHORUS.)\n\n     Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!\n     Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!\n     Our captain's commanded.--\n\n1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the\ndigestion! Take a tonic, follow me! (SINGS, AND ALL FOLLOW)\n\n    Our captain stood upon the deck,\n    A spy-glass in his hand,\n    A viewing of those gallant whales\n    That blew at every strand.\n    Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,\n    And by your braces stand,\n    And we'll have one of those fine whales,\n    Hand, boys, over hand!\n    So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail!\n    While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!\n\nMATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward!\n\n2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear,\nbell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me\ncall the watch. I've the sort of mouth for that--the hogshead mouth.\nSo, so, (THRUSTS HIS HEAD DOWN THE SCUTTLE,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!\nEight bells there below! Tumble up!\n\nDUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I\nmark this in our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as\nfilliping to others. We sing; they sleep--aye, lie down there, like\nground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail\n'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell 'em\nit's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment.\nThat's the way--THAT'S it; thy throat ain't spoiled with eating\nAmsterdam butter.\n\nFRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to\nanchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand\nby all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!\n\nPIP. (SULKY AND SLEEPY) Don't know where it is.\n\nFRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men,\nI say; merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now,\nIndian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs!\nlegs!\n\nICELAND SAILOR. I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my\ntaste. I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the\nsubject; but excuse me.\n\nMALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take\nhis left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I\nmust have partners!\n\nSICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!--then I'll hop with ye; yea,\nturn grasshopper!\n\nLONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us.\nHoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here\ncomes the music; now for it!\n\nAZORE SAILOR. (ASCENDING, AND PITCHING THE TAMBOURINE UP THE SCUTTLE.)\nHere you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bitts; up you mount! Now,\nboys! (THE HALF OF THEM DANCE TO THE TAMBOURINE; SOME GO BELOW; SOME\nSLEEP OR LIE AMONG THE COILS OF RIGGING. OATHS A-PLENTY.)\n\nAZORE SAILOR. (DANCING) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it,\nstig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!\n\nPIP. Jinglers, you say?--there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.\n\nCHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of\nthyself.\n\n\nFRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it!\nSplit jibs! tear yourselves!\n\nTASHTEGO. (QUIETLY SMOKING) That's a white man; he calls that fun:\nhumph! I save my sweat.\n\nOLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what\nthey are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will--that's\nthe bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round\ncorners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled\ncrews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have\nit; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you're\nyoung; I was once.\n\n3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!--whew! this is worse than pulling after\nwhales in a calm--give us a whiff, Tash.\n\n(THEY CEASE DANCING, AND GATHER IN CLUSTERS. MEANTIME THE SKY\nDARKENS--THE WIND RISES.)\n\nLASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born,\nhigh-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!\n\nMALTESE SAILOR. (RECLINING AND SHAKING HIS CAP.) It's the waves--the\nsnow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake their tassels soon. Now\nwould all the waves were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them\nevermore! There's naught so sweet on earth--heaven may not match\nit!--as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the\nover-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.\n\nSICILIAN SAILOR. (RECLINING.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad--fleet\ninterlacings of the limbs--lithe swayings--coyings--flutterings! lip!\nheart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye,\nelse come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (NUDGING.)\n\nTAHITAN SAILOR. (RECLINING ON A MAT.) Hail, holy nakedness of our\ndancing girls!--the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I\nstill rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven\nin the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn\nand wilted quite. Ah me!--not thou nor I can bear the change! How\nthen, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from\nPirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the\nvillages?--The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (LEAPS TO HIS\nFEET.)\n\nPORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand\nby for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell\nthey'll go lunging presently.\n\nDANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou\nholdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more\nafraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic\nwith storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!\n\n4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old\nAhab tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a\nwaterspout with a pistol--fire your ship right into it!\n\nENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the\nlads to hunt him up his whale!\n\nALL. Aye! aye!\n\nOLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort\nof tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none\nbut the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort\nof weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea.\nOur captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another in the\nsky--lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black.\n\nDAGGOO. What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried\nout of it!\n\nSPANISH SAILOR. (ASIDE.) He wants to bully, ah!--the old grudge makes\nme touchy (ADVANCING.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark\nside of mankind--devilish dark at that. No offence.\n\nDAGGOO (GRIMLY). None.\n\nST. JAGO'S SAILOR. That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or\nelse in his one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in\nworking.\n\n5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What's that I saw--lightning? Yes.\n\nSPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth.\n\nDAGGOO (SPRINGING). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!\n\nSPANISH SAILOR (MEETING HIM). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small\nspirit!\n\nALL. A row! a row! a row!\n\nTASHTEGO (WITH A WHIFF). A row a'low, and a row aloft--Gods and\nmen--both brawlers! Humph!\n\nBELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge\nin with ye!\n\nENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring!\n\nOLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring\nCain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou\nthe ring?\n\nMATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in\ntop-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails!\n\nALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (THEY SCATTER.)\n\n\nPIP (SHRINKING UNDER THE WINDLASS). Jollies? Lord help such jollies!\nCrish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower,\nPip, here comes the royal yard! It's worse than being in the whirled\nwoods, the last day of the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now?\nBut there they go, all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em;\nthey're on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall!\nBut those chaps there are worse yet--they are your white squalls, they.\nWhite squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their\nchat just now, and the white whale--shirr! shirr!--but spoken of\nonce! and only this evening--it makes me jingle all over like my\ntambourine--that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him! Oh,\nthou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on\nthis small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no\nbowels to feel fear!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 41. Moby Dick.\n\n\nI, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest;\nmy oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more\ndid I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A\nwild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud\nseemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous\nmonster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of\nviolence and revenge.\n\nFor some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied,\nsecluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly\nfrequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of his\nexistence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him;\nwhile the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to\nhim, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers;\nthe disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery\ncircumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along\nsolitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or\nmore on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort;\nthe inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity of the\ntimes of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct\nand indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide\nwhaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby\nDick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have\nencountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian,\na Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after\ndoing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them; to\nsome minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in\nquestion must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the\nSperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent\ninstances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster\nattacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave\nbattle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were\ncontent to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to\nthe perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual\ncause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and\nthe whale had hitherto been popularly regarded.\n\nAnd as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance\ncaught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one of\nthem, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other\nwhale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these\nassaults--not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or\ndevouring amputations--but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those\nrepeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors\nupon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many\nbrave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come.\n\nNor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more\nhorrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do\nfabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising\nterrible events,--as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in\nmaritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound,\nwherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. And as the\nsea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses\nevery other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness\nof the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen\nas a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary\nto all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most\ndirectly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing\nin the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but,\nhand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that\nthough you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you\nwould not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath\nthat part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too\nsuch a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all\ntending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth.\n\nNo wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over\nthe widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did\nin the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints,\nand half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which\neventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything\nthat visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally\nstrike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White\nWhale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his\njaw.\n\nBut there were still other and more vital practical influences at work.\nNot even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm\nWhale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the\nleviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are\nthose this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous\nenough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would\nperhaps--either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or\ntimidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are\nplenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing\nunder the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm\nWhale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to\nthe ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their\nhatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest\nand awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the\npre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more\nfeelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him.\n\nAnd as if the now tested reality of his might had in former\nlegendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book\nnaturalists--Olassen and Povelson--declaring the Sperm Whale not only to\nbe a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so\nincredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor\neven down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar\nimpressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself\naffirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are\n\"struck with the most lively terrors,\" and \"often in the precipitancy of\ntheir flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to\ncause instantaneous death.\" And however the general experiences in the\nfishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness,\neven to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in\nthem is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of\nthe hunters.\n\nSo that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of\nthe fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days\nof the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long\npractised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring\nwarfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be\nhopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition\nas the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would\nbe inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are\nsome remarkable documents that may be consulted.\n\nNevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things\nwere ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who,\nchancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the\nspecific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious\naccompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if\noffered.\n\nOne of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked\nwith the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined,\nwas the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had\nactually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same\ninstant of time.\n\nNor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether\nwithout some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets\nof the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to\nthe most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale\nwhen beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his\npursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and\ncontradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the\nmystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports\nhimself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points.\n\nIt is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and\nas well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby,\nthat some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose\nbodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland\nseas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has\nbeen declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could\nnot have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been\nbelieved by some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem\nto man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real\nliving experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of\nthe inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said\nto be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface);\nand that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near\nSyracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land\nby an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully\nequalled by the realities of the whalemen.\n\nForced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing\nthat after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped\nalive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should\ngo still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only\nubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that\nthough groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still\nswim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick\nblood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in\nunensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would\nonce more be seen.\n\nBut even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in\nthe earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike\nthe imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his\nuncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales,\nbut, as was elsewhere thrown out--a peculiar snow-white wrinkled\nforehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent\nfeatures; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he\nrevealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.\n\nThe rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with\nthe same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive\nappellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by\nhis vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue\nsea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden\ngleamings.\n\nNor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his\ndeformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror,\nas that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific\naccounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than\nall, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught\nelse. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every\napparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn\nround suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to\nsplinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship.\n\nAlready several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar\ndisasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual\nin the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's\ninfernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death\nthat he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an\nunintelligent agent.\n\nJudge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of\nhis more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed\nboats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the\nwhite curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene, exasperating\nsunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal.\n\nHis three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the\neddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had\ndashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking\nwith a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale.\nThat captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his\nsickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's\nleg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no\nhired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice.\nSmall reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal\nencounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale,\nall the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came\nto identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his\nintellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before\nhim as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which\nsome deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with\nhalf a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been\nfrom the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe\none-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced\nin their statue devil;--Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them;\nbut deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he\npitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and\ntorments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice\nin it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle\ndemonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly\npersonified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon\nthe whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt\nby his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a\nmortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.\n\nIt is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at\nthe precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the\nmonster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate,\ncorporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he\nprobably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more.\nYet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long\nmonths of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one\nhammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape;\nthen it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another;\nand so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward\nvoyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems\nall but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage,\nhe was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital\nstrength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified\nby his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even\nthere, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung\nto the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable\nlatitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the\ntranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed\nleft behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his\ndark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that\nfirm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once\nagain; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even\nthen, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a\ncunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but\nbecome transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy\nsubsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson,\nwhen that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the\nHighland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of\nAhab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not\none jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living\nagent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may\nstand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it,\nand turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far\nfrom having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a\nthousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon\nany one reasonable object.\n\nThis is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted.\nBut vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding\nfar down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where\nwe here stand--however grand and wonderful, now quit it;--and take your\nway, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes;\nwhere far beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root\nof grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique\nburied beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken\nthrone, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he\npatient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of\nages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud,\nsad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled\nroyalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come.\n\nNow, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means\nare sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or\nchange, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long\ndissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling\nwas only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate.\nNevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when\nwith ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him\notherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the\nterrible casualty which had overtaken him.\n\nThe report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly\nascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which\nalways afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the\npresent voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely,\nthat far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on\naccount of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent\nisle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he\nwas all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full\nof rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and\nscorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable\nidea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart\nhis iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes.\nOr, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that,\nyet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on\nhis underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is,\nthat with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in\nhim, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only\nand all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his\nold acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him\nthen, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the\nship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the\nprofit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an\naudacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.\n\nHere, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a\nJob's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made\nup of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled\nalso, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in\nStarbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in\nStubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered,\nseemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him\nto his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded\nto the old man's ire--by what evil magic their souls were possessed,\nthat at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much\ntheir insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be--what the White\nWhale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in\nsome dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon\nof the seas of life,--all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than\nIshmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one\ntell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his\npick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow\nof a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the\nabandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to\nencounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest\nill.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of The Whale.\n\n\nWhat the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he\nwas to me, as yet remains unsaid.\n\nAside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which\ncould not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there\nwas another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him,\nwhich at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and\nyet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of\nputting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale\nthat above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself\nhere; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all\nthese chapters might be naught.\n\nThough in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as\nif imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas,\nand pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a\ncertain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old\nkings of Pegu placing the title \"Lord of the White Elephants\" above all\ntheir other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings\nof Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard;\nand the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger;\nand the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome,\nhaving for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this\npre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white\nman ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all\nthis, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among\nthe Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal\nsympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many\ntouching, noble things--the innocence of brides, the benignity of age;\nthough among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt\nof wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes,\nwhiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge,\nand contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by\nmilk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most\naugust religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness\nand power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being\nheld the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove\nhimself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the\nnoble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was\nby far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful\ncreature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit\nwith the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from\nthe Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of\none part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the\ncassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is\nspecially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though\nin the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and\nthe four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white\nthrone, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all\nthese accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honourable,\nand sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea\nof this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness\nwhich affrights in blood.\n\nThis elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when\ndivorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object\nterrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds.\nWitness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics;\nwhat but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent\nhorrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an\nabhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb\ngloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his\nheraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or\nshark.*\n\n\n*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him\nwho would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not\nthe whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable\nhideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness,\nit might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the\nirresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the\nfleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together\ntwo such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us\nwith so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true;\nyet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified\nterror.\n\nAs for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that\ncreature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the\nsame quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly\nhit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish\nmass for the dead begins with \"Requiem eternam\" (eternal rest), whence\nREQUIEM denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now,\nin allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and\nthe mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him REQUIN.\n\n\nBethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual\nwonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all\nimaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great,\nunflattering laureate, Nature.*\n\n\n*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged\ngale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch\nbelow, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the\nmain hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and\nwith a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth\nits vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous\nflutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered\ncries, as some king's ghost in supernatural distress. Through its\ninexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took\nhold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white\nthing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled\nwaters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of\ntowns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only\nhint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and\nturning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney!\nnever had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious\nthing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I\nlearned that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no\npossibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those\nmystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our\ndeck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be\nan albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little\nbrighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.\n\nI assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird\nchiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this,\nthat by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses;\nand these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I\nbeheld the Antarctic fowl.\n\nBut how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will\ntell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea.\nAt last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern\ntally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and then letting\nit escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was\ntaken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding,\nthe invoking, and adoring cherubim!\n\n\nMost famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of\nthe White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger,\nlarge-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a\nthousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the\nelected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those\ndays were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At\ntheir flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which\nevery evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his\nmane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more\nresplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A\nmost imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western\nworld, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the\nglories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god,\nbluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid\nhis aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly\nstreamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his\ncircumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White\nSteed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through his\ncool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to the\nbravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. Nor\ncan it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this noble\nhorse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him\nwith divineness; and that this divineness had that in it which, though\ncommanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror.\n\nBut there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that\naccessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and\nAlbatross.\n\nWhat is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks\nthe eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It\nis that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name\nhe bears. The Albino is as well made as other men--has no substantive\ndeformity--and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him\nmore strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so?\n\nNor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but\nnot the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces\nthis crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the\ngauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White\nSquall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice\nomitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of\nthat passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their\nfaction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the\nmarket-place!\n\nNor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all\nmankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It\ncannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of\nthe dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering\nthere; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of\nconsternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And\nfrom that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the shroud\nin which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to\nthrow the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a\nmilk-white fog--Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even\nthe king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his\npallid horse.\n\nTherefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious\nthing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest\nidealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.\n\nBut though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to\naccount for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then,\nby the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of\nwhiteness--though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped\nof all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful,\nbut nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however\nmodified;--can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us\nto the hidden cause we seek?\n\nLet us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety,\nand without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And\nthough, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about\nto be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were\nentirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to\nrecall them now.\n\nWhy to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely\nacquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare mention\nof Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, speechless\nprocessions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded with\nnew-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of the\nMiddle American States, why does the passing mention of a White Friar or\na White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul?\n\nOr what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and\nkings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White\nTower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of\nan untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its\nneighbors--the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer\ntowers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods,\ncomes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of\nthat name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft,\ndewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and\nlongitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness\nover the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal\nthoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, followed by\nthe gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly\nunsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in reading\nthe old fairy tales of Central Europe, does \"the tall pale man\" of the\nHartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the\ngreen of the groves--why is this phantom more terrible than all the\nwhooping imps of the Blocksburg?\n\nNor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling\nearthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the\ntearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide\nfield of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop\n(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of\nhouse-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;--it\nis not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest,\nsaddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and\nthere is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro,\nthis whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful\ngreenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid\npallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.\n\nI know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness\nis not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of\nobjects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught\nof terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost\nsolely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under\nany form at all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean\nby these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the\nfollowing examples.\n\nFirst: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by\nnight he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just\nenough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under precisely\nsimilar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his\nship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness--as if from\nencircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round\nhim, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom\nof the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the\nlead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go\ndown; he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is\nthe mariner who will tell thee, \"Sir, it was not so much the fear of\nstriking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so\nstirred me?\"\n\nSecond: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the\nsnowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the\nmere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast\naltitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be\nto lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the\nbackwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an\nunbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig\nto break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the\nscenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal trick\nof legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half\nshipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery,\nviews what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean\nice monuments and splintered crosses.\n\nBut thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is but\na white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo,\nIshmael.\n\nTell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of\nVermont, far removed from all beasts of prey--why is it that upon the\nsunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that\nhe cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness--why\nwill he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies\nof affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild\ncreatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he\nsmells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of\nformer perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black\nbisons of distant Oregon?\n\nNo; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the\nknowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from\nOregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison\nherds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which\nthis instant they may be trampling into dust.\n\nThus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings\nof the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the\nwindrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking\nof that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!\n\nThough neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic\nsign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere\nthose things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible\nworld seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.\n\nBut not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and\nlearned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange\nand far more portentous--why, as we have seen, it is at once the\nmost meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the\nChristian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in\nthings the most appalling to mankind.\n\nIs it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids\nand immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the\nthought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky\nway? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as\nthe visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all\ncolours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness,\nfull of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows--a colourless, all-colour\nof atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory\nof the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues--every stately\nor lovely emblazoning--the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea,\nand the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of\nyoung girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent\nin substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature\nabsolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but\nthe charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that\nthe mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great\nprinciple of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself, and\nif operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even\ntulips and roses, with its own blank tinge--pondering all this, the\npalsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in\nLapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their\neyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental\nwhite shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these\nthings the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery\nhunt?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 43. Hark!\n\n\n\"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?\"\n\nIt was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a\ncordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the\nscuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets\nto fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed\nprecincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle\ntheir feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence,\nonly broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the\nunceasingly advancing keel.\n\nIt was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose\npost was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the\nwords above.\n\n\"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?\"\n\n\"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?\"\n\n\"There it is again--under the hatches--don't you hear it--a cough--it\nsounded like a cough.\"\n\n\"Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket.\"\n\n\"There again--there it is!--it sounds like two or three sleepers turning\nover, now!\"\n\n\"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits\nye eat for supper turning over inside of ye--nothing else. Look to the\nbucket!\"\n\n\"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears.\"\n\n\"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old\nQuakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're\nthe chap.\"\n\n\"Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody\ndown in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I suspect\nour old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one\nmorning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind.\"\n\n\"Tish! the bucket!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 44. The Chart.\n\n\nHad you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that\ntook place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose\nwith his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom,\nand bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread\nthem before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before\nit, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and\nshadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace\nadditional courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he\nwould refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down\nthe seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various\nships, sperm whales had been captured or seen.\n\nWhile thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his\nhead, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever threw\nshifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it\nalmost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses\non the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and\ncourses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.\n\nBut it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his\ncabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were\nbrought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and\nothers were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before\nhim, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to\nthe more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.\n\nNow, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans,\nit might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary\ncreature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it\nseem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby\ncalculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food; and, also, calling\nto mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular\nlatitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to\ncertainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground\nin search of his prey.\n\nSo assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the\nsperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe that,\ncould he be closely observed and studied throughout the world; were the\nlogs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully collated,\nthen the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to correspond in\ninvariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows.\nOn this hint, attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory\ncharts of the sperm whale.*\n\n     *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne\n     out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of\n     the National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By\n     that circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in\n     course of completion; and portions of it are presented in\n     the circular. \"This chart divides the ocean into districts\n     of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude;\n     perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve\n     columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each\n     of which districts are three lines; one to show the number\n     of days that have been spent in each month in every\n     district, and the two others to show the number of days in\n     which whales, sperm or right, have been seen.\"\n\nBesides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the\nsperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct--say, rather, secret\nintelligence from the Deity--mostly swim in VEINS, as they are called;\ncontinuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating\nexactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with\none tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the\ndirection taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel,\nand though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own\nunavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary VEIN in which at these\ntimes he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width\n(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but\nnever exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads,\nwhen circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at\nparticular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating\nwhales may with great confidence be looked for.\n\nAnd hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate\nfeeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing\nthe widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his\nart, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly\nwithout prospect of a meeting.\n\nThere was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his\ndelirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality,\nperhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons\nfor particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the\nherds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year,\nsay, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were found\nthere the preceding season; though there are peculiar and unquestionable\ninstances where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the\nsame remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solitaries\nand hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby\nDick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the\nSeychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese\nCoast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of\nthose spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly\nencounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding grounds, where\nhe had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his casual\nstopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged\nabode. And where Ahab's chances of accomplishing his object have\nhitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever\nway-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular\nset time or place were attained, when all possibilities would become\nprobabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next\nthing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined\nin the one technical phrase--the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then,\nfor several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried,\nlingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round,\nloiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There\nit was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with the white whale had\ntaken place; there the waves were storied with his deeds; there also was\nthat tragic spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive\nto his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering\nvigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering\nhunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one\ncrowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those\nhopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his\nunquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest.\n\nNow, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the\nSeason-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her commander\nto make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running\ndown sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time\nto cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season.\nYet the premature hour of the Pequod's sailing had, perhaps, been\ncorrectly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of\nthings. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixty-five days\nand nights was before him; an interval which, instead of impatiently\nenduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt; if by chance\nthe White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote from his\nperiodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow off the\nPersian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other\nwaters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'-Westers,\nHarmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might\nblow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's\ncircumnavigating wake.\n\nBut granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not\nbut a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary\nwhale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual\nrecognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the\nthronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar\nsnow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but\nbe unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter\nto himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he\nwould throw himself back in reveries--tallied him, and shall he escape?\nHis broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And\nhere, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness\nand faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the\ndeck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances\nof torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved\nrevengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own\nbloody nails in his palms.\n\nOften, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid\ndreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through\nthe day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them\nround and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing\nof his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes\nthe case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its\nbase, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and\nlightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among\nthem; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be\nheard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his\nstate room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these,\nperhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent\nweakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens\nof its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming,\nunappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had\ngone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from\nit in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or\nsoul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the\ncharacterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer\nvehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching\ncontiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no\nlonger an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with\nthe soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up\nall his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose,\nby its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and\ndevils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay,\ncould grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was\nconjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth.\nTherefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when\nwhat seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated\nthing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be\nsure, but without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in\nitself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature\nin thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a\nvulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature\nhe creates.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.\n\n\nSo far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as\nindirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars\nin the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier\npart, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the\nleading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly\nenlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to\ntake away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire\nsubject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main\npoints of this affair.\n\nI care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall\nbe content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of\nitems, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these\ncitations, I take it--the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of\nitself.\n\nFirst: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after\nreceiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an\ninterval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by\nthe same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same\nprivate cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where\nthree years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I\nthink it may have been something more than that; the man who darted\nthem happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to\nAfrica, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far\ninto the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years,\noften endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas,\nwith all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of\nunknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have\nbeen on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe,\nbrushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.\nThis man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the\nother. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that\nis in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second attack,\nsaw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards\ntaken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell out\nthat I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time\ndistinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's\neye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years,\nbut I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances,\nthen, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many\nother instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no\ngood ground to impeach.\n\nSecondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant\nthe world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable\nhistorical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at\ndistant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became\nthus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily\npeculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar\nin that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his\npeculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly\nvaluable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences\nof the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about\nsuch a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that\nmost fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their\ntarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea,\nwithout seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some\npoor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they\nmake distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they\npursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for\ntheir presumption.\n\nBut not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual\ncelebrity--Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he\nfamous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death,\nbut he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of\na name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so,\nO Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long\ndid'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft\nseen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack!\nthou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of\nthe Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty\njet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross\nagainst the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked\nlike an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain\nprose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean\nHistory as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar.\n\nBut this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various\ntimes creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were\nfinally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed\nby valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with\nthat express object as much in view, as in setting out through the\nNarragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture\nthat notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the\nIndian King Philip.\n\nI do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make\nmention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in\nprinted form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the\nwhole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For\nthis is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full\nas much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of\nthe plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without\nsome hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the\nfishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still\nworse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.\n\nFirst: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general\nperils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid\nconception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur.\nOne reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and\ndeaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home,\nhowever transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose\nthat that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the\nwhale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the\nbottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan--do you suppose that that\npoor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read\nto-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular\nbetween here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be\ncalled regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you\nthat upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many\nothers we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a\ndeath by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each\nlost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and\ncandles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was\nspilled for it.\n\nSecondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is\nan enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when\nnarrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness,\nthey have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I\ndeclare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses,\nwhen he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.\n\nBut fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon\ntestimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm\nWhale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously\nmalicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and\nsink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale HAS done it.\n\nFirst: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket,\nwas cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her\nboats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of\nthe whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping\nfrom the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the\nship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in\nless than \"ten minutes\" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving\nplank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of\nthe crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last,\nCaptain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another\nship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and\nbreakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith\nforswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain\nPollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was\nchief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his\nplain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all\nthis within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*\n\n\n*The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: \"Every fact seemed\nto warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which\ndirected his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at\na short interval between them, both of which, according to their\ndirection, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made\nahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock;\nto effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His\naspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He\ncame directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in\nwhich we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge\nfor their sufferings.\" Again: \"At all events, the whole circumstances\ntaken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the\ntime, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the\npart of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall),\ninduce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion.\"\n\nHere are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during\na black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any\nhospitable shore. \"The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the\nfears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed\nupon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful\ncontemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the\ndismal looking wreck, and THE HORRID ASPECT AND REVENGE OF THE WHALE,\nwholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.\"\n\nIn another place--p. 45,--he speaks of \"THE MYSTERIOUS AND MORTAL ATTACK\nOF THE ANIMAL.\"\n\n\nSecondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807\ntotally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic\nparticulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,\nthough from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions\nto it.\n\nThirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J---, then\ncommanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be\ndining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in\nthe harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales,\nthe Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength\nascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily\ndenied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war\nas to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there\nis more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this\nimpregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a\nportly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business\nwith him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such\na thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest\nport to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider\nthe Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul\nof Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the\nsperm whale will stand no nonsense.\n\nI will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance\nin point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you\nmust know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's\nfamous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century.\nCaptain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:\n\n\"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day\nwe were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very\nclear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on\nour fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not\ntill the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An\nuncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself,\nlay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any\none on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail,\nwas almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking\nagainst him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this\ngigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at\nleast out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether,\nwhile we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding\nthat we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster\nsailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf\napplied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel\nhad received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily\nit had escaped entirely uninjured.\"\n\nNow, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in\nquestion, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual\nadventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of\nDorchester near Boston. I have the honour of being a nephew of his. I\nhave particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff.\nHe substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large\none: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my\nuncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.\n\nIn that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too,\nof honest wonders--the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's\nold chums--I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted\nfrom Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a\ncorroborative example, if such be needed.\n\nLionel, it seems, was on his way to \"John Ferdinando,\" as he calls\nthe modern Juan Fernandes. \"In our way thither,\" he says, \"about four\no'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues\nfrom the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our\nmen in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were\nor what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed,\nthe shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the\nship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little\nover, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground..... The\nsuddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and\nseveral of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who\nlay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!\" Lionel then\ngoes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate\nthe imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about\nthat time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But\nI should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the\nmorning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically\nbumping the hull from beneath.\n\nI might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to\nme, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more\nthan one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing\nboats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long\nwithstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship\nPusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength,\nlet me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a\nrunning sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and\nsecured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a\nhorse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if\nthe sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts,\nnot so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of\ndestruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent\nindication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently\nopen his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several\nconsecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a\nconcluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which\nyou will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in\nthis book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these\nmarvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for\nthe millionth time we say amen with Solomon--Verily there is nothing new\nunder the sun.\n\nIn the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate\nof Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius\ngeneral. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work\nevery way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been\nconsidered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in\nsome one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently\nto be mentioned.\n\nNow, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term\nof his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured\nin the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed\nvessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty\nyears. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be\ngainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species\nthis sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as\nwell as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly\ninclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long\ntime I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the\nMediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am\ncertain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the\npresent constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious\nresort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in\nmodern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the\nsperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that\non the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found\nthe skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes\nthrough the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route,\npass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.\n\nIn the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance\ncalled BRIT is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have\nevery reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale--squid or\ncuttle-fish--lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures,\nbut by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its\nsurface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and\nreason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all\nhuman reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove\nthe ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm\nwhale.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 46. Surmises.\n\n\nThough, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his\nthoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;\nthough he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one\npassion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long\nhabituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether to\nabandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if\nthis were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more\ninfluential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even\nconsidering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the\nWhite Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all\nsperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he\nmultiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would\nprove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed\nexceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though\nnot so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet\nwere by no means incapable of swaying him.\n\nTo accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in\nthe shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew,\nfor example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was\nover Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual\nman any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual\nmastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a\nsort of corporeal relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will\nwere Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain; still\nhe knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his\ncaptain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from\nit, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse\nere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck\nwould ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his\ncaptain's leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial\ninfluences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle\ninsanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly\nmanifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing\nthat, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that\nstrange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that\nthe full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure\nbackground (for few men's courage is proof against protracted meditation\nunrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches,\nhis officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby\nDick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the\nannouncement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less\ncapricious and unreliable--they live in the varying outer weather, and\nthey inhale its fickleness--and when retained for any object remote and\nblank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the\nend, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and\nemployments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the\nfinal dash.\n\nNor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion\nmankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent.\nThe permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought\nAhab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the\nhearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even\nbreeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the\nlove of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food\nfor their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and\nchivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two\nthousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without\ncommitting burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious\nperquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final\nand romantic object--that final and romantic object, too many would have\nturned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all\nhopes of cash--aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months\ngo by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same\nquiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon\ncashier Ahab.\n\nNor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related\nto Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps\nsomewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the\nPequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing,\nhe had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of\nusurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew\nif so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further\nobedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From\neven the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible\nconsequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must\nof course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection\ncould only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand,\nbacked by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute\natmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected\nto.\n\nFor all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be\nverbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good\ndegree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's\nvoyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force\nhimself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general\npursuit of his profession.\n\nBe all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three\nmast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit\nreporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.\n\n\nIt was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging\nabout the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters.\nQueequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat,\nfor an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet\nsomehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie\nlurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own\ninvisible self.\n\nI was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I\nkept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between\nthe long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as\nQueequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword\nbetween the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and\nunthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did\nthere then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by\nthe intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were\nthe Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving\nand weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp\nsubject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and\nthat vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending\nof other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here,\nthought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own\ndestiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive,\nindifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly,\nor strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference\nin the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final\naspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I,\nwhich thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this\neasy, indifferent sword must be chance--aye, chance, free will, and\nnecessity--nowise incompatible--all interweavingly working together.\nThe straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate\ncourse--its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that;\nfree will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and\nchance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of\nnecessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though\nthus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the\nlast featuring blow at events.\n\n\nThus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so\nstrange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball\nof free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds\nwhence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was\nthat mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward,\nhis hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he\ncontinued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment\nperhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's\nlook-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could\nthat accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from\nTashtego the Indian's.\n\nAs he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and\neagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some\nprophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries\nannouncing their coming.\n\n\"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!\"\n\n\"Where-away?\"\n\n\"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!\"\n\nInstantly all was commotion.\n\nThe Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and\nreliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from\nother tribes of his genus.\n\n\"There go flukes!\" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales\ndisappeared.\n\n\"Quick, steward!\" cried Ahab. \"Time! time!\"\n\nDough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact\nminute to Ahab.\n\nThe ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling\nbefore it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to\nleeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of\nour bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale\nwhen, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while\nconcealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the\nopposite quarter--this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action;\nfor there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had\nbeen in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of\nthe men selected for shipkeepers--that is, those not appointed to the\nboats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The\nsailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed\nin their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed,\nand the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over\nhigh cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand\nclung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale.\nSo look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on\nboard an enemy's ship.\n\nBut at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took\nevery eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was\nsurrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 48. The First Lowering.\n\n\nThe phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side\nof the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the\ntackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always\nbeen deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the\ncaptain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The\nfigure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white\ntooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese\njacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers\nof the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a\nglistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled\nround and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of\nthis figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to\nsome of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;--a race notorious for\na certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners\nsupposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the\nwater of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be\nelsewhere.\n\nWhile yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers,\nAhab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, \"All ready\nthere, Fedallah?\"\n\n\"Ready,\" was the half-hissed reply.\n\n\"Lower away then; d'ye hear?\" shouting across the deck. \"Lower away\nthere, I say.\"\n\nSuch was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men\nsprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with a\nwallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous,\noff-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors,\ngoat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats\nbelow.\n\nHardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth\nkeel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and\nshowed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern,\nloudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves widely,\nso as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again\nriveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other\nboats obeyed not the command.\n\n\"Captain Ahab?--\" said Starbuck.\n\n\"Spread yourselves,\" cried Ahab; \"give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask,\npull out more to leeward!\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, sir,\" cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round\nhis great steering oar. \"Lay back!\" addressing his crew.\n\"There!--there!--there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay\nback!\"\n\n\"Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't mind'em, sir,\" said Archy; \"I knew it all before now.\nDidn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it? What\nsay ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask.\"\n\n\"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little\nones,\" drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom\nstill showed signs of uneasiness. \"Why don't you break your backbones,\nmy boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They\nare only five more hands come to help us--never mind from where--the\nmore the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone--devils\nare good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke\nfor a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah\nfor the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men--all hearts\nalive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--don't be in a hurry. Why don't\nyou snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so,\nthen:--softly, softly! That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way\nthere, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are\nall asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull,\ncan't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes\ndon't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out!\nHere!\" whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; \"every mother's son\nof ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's\nit--that's it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits.\nStart her--start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!\"\n\nStubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had\nrather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in\ninculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this\nspecimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions\nwith his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief\npeculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a\ntone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so\ncalculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such\nqueer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for\nthe mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and\nindolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly\ngaped--open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning\ncommander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew.\nThen again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity\nis sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their\nguard in the matter of obeying them.\n\nIn obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely\nacross Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were\npretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.\n\n\"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye\nplease!\"\n\n\"Halloa!\" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he\nspoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set\nlike a flint from Stubb's.\n\n\"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!\"\n\n\"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong,\nboys!)\" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: \"A sad\nbusiness, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind,\nMr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what\nwill. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr.\nStubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the\nplay! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, I thought as much,\" soliloquized Stubb, when the boats\ndiverged, \"as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and that's\nwhat he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long\nsuspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's at the bottom\nof it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men!\nIt ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!\"\n\nNow the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant\nas the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably\nawakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship's\ncompany; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time previous got\nabroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some\nsmall measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge\nof their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb's confident way\nof accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from\nsuperstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room for\nall manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's precise agency in the\nmatter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious\nshadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket\ndawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.\n\nMeantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the\nfurthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a\ncircumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger\nyellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five\ntrip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which\nperiodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst\nboiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen\npulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and\ndisplayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the\ngunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery\nhorizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a\nfencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any\ntendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in\na thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at once\nthe outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed,\nwhile the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and\ncrew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the\nrear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily\ndown into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the\nmovement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.\n\n\"Every man look out along his oars!\" cried Starbuck. \"Thou, Queequeg,\nstand up!\"\n\nNimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage\nstood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the\nspot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme\nstern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with\nthe gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing\nhimself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently\neyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.\n\nNot very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its\ncommander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout\nsort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the\nlevel of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the\nwhale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man's hand,\nand standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the\nmast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little\nKing-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post was\nfull of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead stand-point\nof his did by no means satisfy King-Post.\n\n\"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to\nthat.\"\n\nUpon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his\nway, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty\nshoulders for a pedestal.\n\n\"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?\"\n\n\"That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you\nfifty feet taller.\"\n\nWhereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the\nboat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to\nFlask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed head\nand bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous\nfling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was\nFlask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a\nbreastband to lean against and steady himself by.\n\nAt any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous\nhabitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect\nposture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously\nperverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily\nperched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the\nsight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious;\nfor sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of,\nbarbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously\nrolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed\na snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly\nvivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then\nstamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to\nthe negro's lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the\nliving magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her\nseasons for that.\n\nMeanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing\nsolicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings,\nnot a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case,\nStubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the\nlanguishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband,\nwhere he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed\nhome the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his match\nacross the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer,\nwhose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly\ndropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a\nquick phrensy of hurry, \"Down, down all, and give way!--there they are!\"\n\nTo a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been\nvisible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white\nwater, and thin scattered puffs of vapour hovering over it, and\nsuffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white\nrolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it\nwere, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this\natmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of\nwater, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other\nindications, the puffs of vapour they spouted, seemed their forerunning\ncouriers and detached flying outriders.\n\nAll four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled\nwater and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on,\nas a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the\nhills.\n\n\"Pull, pull, my good boys,\" said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but\nintensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance\nfrom his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two\nvisible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much\nto his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the\nsilence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his\npeculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty.\n\nHow different the loud little King-Post. \"Sing out and say something,\nmy hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their\nblack backs, boys; only do that for me, and I'll sign over to you my\nMartha's Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, boys.\nLay me on--lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad!\nSee! see that white water!\" And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his\nhead, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it far\noff upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's\nstern like a crazed colt from the prairie.\n\n\"Look at that chap now,\" philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his\nunlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a\nshort distance, followed after--\"He's got fits, that Flask has. Fits?\nyes, give him fits--that's the very word--pitch fits into 'em. Merrily,\nmerrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;--merry's the word.\nPull, babes--pull, sucklings--pull, all. But what the devil are you\nhurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and\nkeep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your\nknives in two--that's all. Take it easy--why don't ye take it easy, I\nsay, and burst all your livers and lungs!\"\n\nBut what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of\nhis--these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed\nlight of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious\nseas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of\nred murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.\n\nMeanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of\nFlask to \"that whale,\" as he called the fictitious monster which\nhe declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat's bow with its\ntail--these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that\nthey would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look\nover the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen\nmust put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage\npronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but\narms, in these critical moments.\n\nIt was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the\nomnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along\nthe eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green;\nthe brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on\nthe knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening\nto cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and\nhollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite\nhill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these,\nwith the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps\nof the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing\ndown upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her\nscreaming brood;--all this was thrilling.\n\nNot the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever\nheat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering the\nfirst unknown phantom in the other world;--neither of these can feel\nstranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first\ntime finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the\nhunted sperm whale.\n\nThe dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more\nvisible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows\nflung upon the sea. The jets of vapour no longer blended, but tilted\neverywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes.\nThe boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales\nrunning dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still\nrising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through\nthe water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to\nescape being torn from the row-locks.\n\nSoon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship\nnor boat to be seen.\n\n\"Give way, men,\" whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet\nof his sail; \"there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.\nThere's white water again!--close to! Spring!\"\n\nSoon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted\nthat the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when\nwith a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: \"Stand up!\" and\nQueequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet.\n\nThough not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril\nso close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance\nof the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent\ninstant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of\nfifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still\nbooming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like\nthe erected crests of enraged serpents.\n\n\"That's his hump. THERE, THERE, give it to him!\" whispered Starbuck.\n\nA short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of\nQueequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from\nastern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail\ncollapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapour shot up near by;\nsomething rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole\ncrew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the\nwhite curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all\nblended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped.\n\nThough completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round\nit we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale,\ntumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the\nwater covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes\nthe suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom\nof the ocean.\n\nThe wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together;\nthe whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white\nfire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning; immortal\nin these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar\nto the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those\nboats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew\ndarker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen.\nThe rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were\nuseless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers.\nSo, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures\nStarbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching\nit on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this\nforlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in\nthe heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign\nand symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the\nmidst of despair.\n\nWet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat,\nwe lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over\nthe sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat.\nSuddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear.\nWe all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by\nthe storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were dimly\nparted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as\nthe ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us within a\ndistance of not much more than its length.\n\nFloating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it\ntossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of a\ncataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no\nmore till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were dashed\nagainst it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely landed on\nboard. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from\ntheir fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given us\nup, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some token of\nour perishing,--an oar or a lance pole.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 49. The Hyena.\n\n\nThere are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair\nwe call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical\njoke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than\nsuspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However,\nnothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts\ndown all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard\nthings visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of\npotent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small\ndifficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of\nlife and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly,\ngood-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen\nand unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking\nof, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes\nin the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might\nhave seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the\ngeneral joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this\nfree and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now\nregarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its\nobject.\n\n\"Queequeg,\" said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck,\nand I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water;\n\"Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?\"\nWithout much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to\nunderstand that such things did often happen.\n\n\"Mr. Stubb,\" said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his\noil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; \"Mr. Stubb, I\nthink I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief\nmate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose\nthen, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy\nsquall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?\"\n\n\"Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape\nHorn.\"\n\n\"Mr. Flask,\" said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close\nby; \"you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell\nme whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an\noarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death's\njaws?\"\n\n\"Can't you twist that smaller?\" said Flask. \"Yes, that's the law.\nI should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale face\nforemost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind\nthat!\"\n\nHere then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement\nof the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings\nin the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters\nof common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the\nsuperlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my\nlife into the hands of him who steered the boat--oftentimes a fellow who\nat that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling\nthe craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the\nparticular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed\nto Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall,\nand considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his\ngreat heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this\nuncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a\ndevil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all\nthings together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a\nrough draft of my will. \"Queequeg,\" said I, \"come along, you shall be my\nlawyer, executor, and legatee.\"\n\nIt may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their\nlast wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more\nfond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life\nthat I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon\nthe present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away\nfrom my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good\nas the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary\nclean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived\nmyself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked\nround me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean\nconscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.\n\nNow then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock,\nhere goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the\ndevil fetch the hindmost.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 50. Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah.\n\n\n\"Who would have thought it, Flask!\" cried Stubb; \"if I had but one leg\nyou would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole\nwith my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!\"\n\n\"I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account,\" said Flask.\n\"If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing.\nThat would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other\nleft, you know.\"\n\n\"I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel.\"\n\n\nAmong whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering\nthe paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is\nright for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils\nof the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their\neyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the\nthickest of the fight.\n\nBut with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering\nthat with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger;\nconsidering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and\nextraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then\ncomprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any\nmaimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the\njoint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not.\n\nAhab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of\nhis entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of\nthe chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving\nhis orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually\napportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt--above all for\nCaptain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat's\ncrew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads\nof the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat's\ncrew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head.\nNevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all\nthat matter. Until Cabaco's published discovery, the sailors had little\nforeseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out\nof port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the\nwhaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then\nfound bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his\nown hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even\nsolicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is\nrunning out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was\nobserved in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra\ncoat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better\nwithstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety\nhe evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is\nsometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the\nknee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed\nhow often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the\nsemi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel\ngouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these\nthings, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But\nalmost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness\nin Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick;\nfor he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster\nin person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest\nsuspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that boat.\n\nNow, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned\naway; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such\nunaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown\nnooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of\nwhalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway\ncreatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck,\noars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that\nBeelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin\nto chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable\nexcitement in the forecastle.\n\nBut be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate\nphantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were\nsomehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained\na muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like\nthis, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be\nlinked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort\nof a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even\nauthority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain\nan indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as\ncivilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their\ndreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide\namong the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles\nto the east of the continent--those insulated, immemorial, unalterable\ncountries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the\nghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of\nthe first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants,\nunknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of\nthe sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though,\naccording to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of\nmen, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane\namours.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout.\n\n\nDays, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly\nswept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the\nCape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the\nRio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality,\nsoutherly from St. Helena.\n\nIt was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and\nmoonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver;\nand, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery\nsilence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen\nfar in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it\nlooked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from\nthe sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight\nnights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a\nlook-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet,\nthough herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred\nwould venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions,\nthen, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual\nhours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after\nspending his uniform interval there for several successive nights\nwithout uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his\nunearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every\nreclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had\nlighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. \"There she blows!\"\nHad the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet\nstill they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most\nunwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously\nexciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a\nlowering.\n\nWalking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the\nt'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The\nbest man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head\nmanned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange,\nupheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows\nof so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air\nbeneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic\ninfluences were struggling in her--one to mount direct to heaven, the\nother to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched\nAhab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two\ndifferent things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes\nalong the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap.\nOn life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly\nsped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot,\nyet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he\nsaw it once, but not a second time.\n\nThis midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days\nafter, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it\nwas descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it\ndisappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after\nnight, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously\njetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be;\ndisappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow\nseeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and\nfurther in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on.\n\nNor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance\nwith the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested\nthe Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that\nwhenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however\nfar apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast\nby one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there\nreigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition,\nas if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the\nmonster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest\nand most savage seas.\n\nThese temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous\npotency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath\nall its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as\nfor days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely\nmild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed\nvacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.\n\nBut, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling\naround us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are\nthere; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and\ngored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips,\nthe foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity\nof life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.\n\nClose to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither\nbefore us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And\nevery morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and\nspite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp,\nas though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing\nappointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their\nhomeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the\nblack sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane\nsoul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had\nbred.\n\nCape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called\nof yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had\nattended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea,\nwhere guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed\ncondemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat\nthat black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying;\nstill directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us\non from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried.\n\nDuring all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the\ntime the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck,\nmanifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed\nhis mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and\naloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await\nthe issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists.\nSo, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one\nhand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand\ngazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow\nwould all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew\ndriven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that\nburstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in\nthe waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man\nhad slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which\nhe swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the\nsilent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore\non through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves.\nBy night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the\nocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still\nwordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed\ndemanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never\ncould Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down\ninto the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with\nclosed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain\nand half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before\nemerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the\ntable beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents\nwhich have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly\nclenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so\nthat the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale\nthat swung from a beam in the ceiling.*\n\n\n*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the\ncompass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the\ncourse of the ship.\n\n\nTerrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this\ngale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 52. The Albatross.\n\n\nSouth-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising\nground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross)\nby name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the\nfore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro\nin the far ocean fisheries--a whaler at sea, and long absent from home.\n\nAs if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the\nskeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral\nappearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her\nspars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over\nwith hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to\nsee her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed\nclad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had\nsurvived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to\nthe mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when\nthe ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air\ncame so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the\nmast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking\nfishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own\nlook-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below.\n\n\"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?\"\n\nBut as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the\nact of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand\ninto the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make\nhimself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the\ndistance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod\nwere evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first\nmere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a\nmoment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat\nto board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking\nadvantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and\nknowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and\nshortly bound home, he loudly hailed--\"Ahoy there! This is the Pequod,\nbound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the\nPacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them\nto address them to--\"\n\nAt that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then,\nin accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish,\nthat for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted\naway with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and\naft with the stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual\nvoyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to\nany monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.\n\n\"Swim away from me, do ye?\" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water.\nThere seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep\nhelpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But\nturning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the\nwind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice,--\"Up\nhelm! Keep her off round the world!\"\n\nRound the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings;\nbut whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through\nnumberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that\nwe left behind secure, were all the time before us.\n\nWere this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for\never reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange\nthan any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise\nin the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in\ntormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims\nbefore all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they\neither lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 53. The Gam.\n\n\nThe ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had\nspoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had\nthis not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded\nher--judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions--if so it\nhad been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative\nanswer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he\ncared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain,\nexcept he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly\nsought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not\nsomething said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when\nmeeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common\ncruising-ground.\n\nIf two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the\nequally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering\neach other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of\nthem, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment\nto interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while\nand resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the\nillimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling\nvessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth--off lone\nFanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how much more natural,\nI say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only\ninterchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and\nsociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of\ncourse, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains,\nofficers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other;\nand consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about.\n\nFor the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on\nboard; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a\ndate a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumb-worn\nfiles. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound ship would\nreceive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to\nwhich she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And\nin degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing\neach other's track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they\nare equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a\ntransfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel; and\nsome of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets.\nBesides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable\nchat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors,\nbut likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common\npursuit and mutually shared privations and perils.\n\nNor would difference of country make any very essential difference;\nthat is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case\nwith Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of\nEnglish whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they\ndo occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your\nEnglishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that\nsort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers\nsometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American\nwhalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript\nprovincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority\nin the English whalemen does really consist, it would be hard to say,\nseeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than\nall the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless\nlittle foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does\nnot take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few\nfoibles himself.\n\nSo, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the\nwhalers have most reason to be sociable--and they are so. Whereas, some\nmerchant ships crossing each other's wake in the mid-Atlantic, will\noftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition,\nmutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in\nBroadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon\neach other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea,\nthey first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such\na ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down\nhearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching\nSlave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run\naway from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they\nchance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is--\"How many\nskulls?\"--the same way that whalers hail--\"How many barrels?\" And that\nquestion once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are\ninfernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each\nother's villanous likenesses.\n\nBut look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable,\nfree-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another\nwhaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a \"GAM,\" a thing so\nutterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name\neven; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and\nrepeat gamesome stuff about \"spouters\" and \"blubber-boilers,\" and such\nlike pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also\nall Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such\na scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be\nhard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to\nknow whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about\nit. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the\ngallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has\nno proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude,\nthat in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that\nassertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.\n\nBut what is a GAM? You might wear out your index-finger running up and\ndown the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr. Johnson\nnever attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark does not hold it.\nNevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in\nconstant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly,\nit needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With\nthat view, let me learnedly define it.\n\nGAM. NOUN--A SOCIAL MEETING OF TWO (OR MORE) WHALESHIPS, GENERALLY ON A\nCRUISING-GROUND; WHEN, AFTER EXCHANGING HAILS, THEY EXCHANGE VISITS BY\nBOATS' CREWS; THE TWO CAPTAINS REMAINING, FOR THE TIME, ON BOARD OF ONE\nSHIP, AND THE TWO CHIEF MATES ON THE OTHER.\n\nThere is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten\nhere. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so\nhas the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when\nthe captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern\nsheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often\nsteers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with\ngay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of\nthat sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling\ncaptains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen\nin patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of\nany such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew\nmust leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of\nthe number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and\nthe captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit\nall standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being\nconscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from\nthe sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the\nimportance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is\nthis any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting\nsteering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the\nafter-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus\ncompletely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself\nsideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent\npitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of\nfoundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a\nspread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again,\nit would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would\nnever do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying\nhimself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with\nhis hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he\ngenerally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being\ngenerally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast.\nNevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too,\nwhere the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or\ntwo, in a sudden squall say--to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's\nhair, and hold on there like grim death.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story.\n\n\n(AS TOLD AT THE GOLDEN INN)\n\n\nThe Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is\nmuch like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet\nmore travellers than in any other part.\n\nIt was not very long after speaking the Goney that another\nhomeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned\nalmost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave\nus strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White\nWhale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's\nstory, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain\nwondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God\nwhich at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance,\nwith its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the\nsecret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears\nof Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was\nunknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private\nproperty of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it\nseems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy,\nbut the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed\nso much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well\nwithhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing\nhave on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of\nit, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in\nthis matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never\ntranspired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper\nplace this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the\nship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting\nrecord.\n\n\n*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head,\nstill used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.\n\n\nFor my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated\nit at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve,\nsmoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those\nfine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer\nterms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally\nput, and which are duly answered at the time.\n\n\"Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about\nrehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket,\nwas cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward\nfrom the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the\nnorthward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according to\ndaily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than\ncommon. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the\ncaptain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck\nawaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit\nthem, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though,\nindeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down\nas was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her\ncruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals;\nbut no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was the leak yet\nundiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking\nsome alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest\nharbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired.\n\n\"Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance\nfavoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way,\nbecause his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at\nthem, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free;\nnever mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the\nwhole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the\nTown-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port\nwithout the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the\nbrutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly\nprovoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo.\n\n\"'Lakeman!--Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?'\nsaid Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.\n\n\"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but--I crave your\ncourtesy--may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,\ngentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as\nlarge and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far\nManilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet\nbeen nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly\nconnected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate,\nthose grand fresh-water seas of ours,--Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and\nSuperior, and Michigan,--possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many\nof the ocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of\nraces and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles,\neven as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great\ncontrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime\napproaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted\nall round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries,\nand by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the\nfleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their\nbeaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out\ntheir peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient\nand unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines\nof kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric\nbeasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes\nto Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and\nCleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the\nfull-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer,\nand the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as\ndireful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are,\nfor out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many\na midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though\nan inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured;\nas much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his\ninfancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse\nat his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our\naustere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as\nvengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh\nfrom the latitudes of buck-horn handled bowie-knives. Yet was this\nNantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a\nmariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible\nfirmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition\nwhich is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had\nlong been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved\nso thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt--but,\ngentlemen, you shall hear.\n\n\"It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing\nher prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leak seemed again\nincreasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps\nevery day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our\nAtlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole\nway across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of\nthe deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability\nwould be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on\naccount of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the\nsolitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it\naltogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in\nfull chorus even for a voyage of considerable length; that is, if it lie\nalong a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat\nis afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of\nthe way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her\ncaptain begins to feel a little anxious.\n\n\"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found\ngaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by\nseveral of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded\nthe upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way\nexpanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a\ncoward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness\ntouching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or\non sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when\nhe betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the\nseamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in\nher. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on\nthis head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood\nwith their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water;\nclear as any mountain spring, gentlemen--that bubbling from the pumps\nran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee\nscupper-holes.\n\n\"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional\nworld of ours--watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command\nover his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his\nsuperior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he\nconceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a\nchance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and\nmake a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may,\ngentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a\nhead like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings\nof your last viceroy's snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and\na soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he\nbeen born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly\nas a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love\nSteelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.\n\n\"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the\nrest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with\nhis gay banterings.\n\n\"'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one\nof ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell\nye what, men, old Rad's investment must go for it! he had best cut away\nhis part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish\nonly began the job; he's come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters,\nsaw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole posse of 'em\nare now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; making\nimprovements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump\noverboard and scatter 'em. They're playing the devil with his estate, I\ncan tell him. But he's a simple old soul,--Rad, and a beauty too. Boys,\nthey say the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I\nwonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.'\n\n\"'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney,\npretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!'\n\n\"'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively, boys,\nlively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines;\nthe men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping\nof the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life's\nutmost energies.\n\n\"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went\nforward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face\nfiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his\nbrow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney\nto meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know\nnot; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate\ncommanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a\nshovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig\nto run at large.\n\n\"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household\nwork which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every\nevening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually\nfoundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of\nsea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom\nwould not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all\nvessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys,\nif boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho\nthat had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being\nthe most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly\nassigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have\nbeen freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical\nduties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these\nparticulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood\nbetween the two men.\n\n\"But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as\nplainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat\nin his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will\nunderstand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully\ncomprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for\na moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and\nperceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match\nsilently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all\nthis, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper\npassionateness in any already ireful being--a repugnance most felt, when\nfelt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved--this nameless\nphantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt.\n\n\"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily\nexhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping\nthe deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without\nat all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the customary\nsweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or\nnothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a most\ndomineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his\ncommand; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an\nuplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by.\n\n\"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for\nall his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt\ncould but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still\nsmothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained\ndoggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the\nhammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do\nhis bidding.\n\n\"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily\nfollowed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his\nintention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not\nthe slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his\ntwisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to\nno purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass;\nwhen, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had\nnow forborne as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on\nthe hatches and thus spoke to the officer:\n\n\"'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to\nyourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where\nthe Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of\nhis teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions.\nRetreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye\nwith the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching\nhis right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his\npersecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would\nmurder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter\nby the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant\nthe lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch\nspouting blood like a whale.\n\n\"Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays\nleading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their\nmastheads. They were both Canallers.\n\n\"'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whale-ships in our\nharbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are\nthey?'\n\n\"'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You\nmust have heard of it.'\n\n\"'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary\nland, we know but little of your vigorous North.'\n\n\"'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine; and\nere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such\ninformation may throw side-light upon my story.'\n\n\"For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire\nbreadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and\nmost thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and\naffluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room\nand bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman\narches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or\nbroken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk\ncounties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires\nstand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly\ncorrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee, gentlemen;\nthere howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you;\nunder the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.\nFor by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan\nfreebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so\nsinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.\n\n\"'Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the\ncrowded plazza, with humorous concern.\n\n\"'Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisition wanes in\nLima,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed, Senor.'\n\n\"'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company. 'In the name of all\nus Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by\nno means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima\nfor distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look\nsurprised; you know the proverb all along this coast--\"Corrupt as\nLima.\" It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than\nbilliard-tables, and for ever open--and \"Corrupt as Lima.\" So, too,\nVenice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St.\nMark!--St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you\npour out again.'\n\n\"Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make\na fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like\nMark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile,\nhe indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra,\nripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this\neffeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly\nsports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features.\nA terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he\nfloats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities.\nOnce a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of\nthese Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful;\nbut it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of\nviolence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger\nin a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the\nwildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that\nour wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates,\nand that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much\ndistrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the\ncuriousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and\nyoung men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal\nfurnishes the sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian\ncorn-field, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric\nseas.\n\n\"'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha\nupon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel! The world's one Lima. I\nhad thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold\nand holy as the hills.--But the story.'\n\n\"I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly\nhad he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and the\nfour harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the\nropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and\nsought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the\nsailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued;\nwhile standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down\nwith a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious\nscoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran\nclose up to the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into\nthe heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his\nresentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them\nall; they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily\nslewing about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass,\nthese sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade.\n\n\"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing them\nwith a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. 'Come\nout of that, ye cut-throats!'\n\n\"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,\ndefied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to\nunderstand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the signal\nfor a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart\nlest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but\nstill commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.\n\n\"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their\nringleader.\n\n\"'Turn to! turn to!--I make no promise;--to your duty! Do you want to\nsink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!' and he\nonce more raised a pistol.\n\n\"'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us\nturns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What say\nye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their response.\n\n\"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye\non the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:--'It's not our\nfault; we didn't want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was\nboy's business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to\nprick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his\ncursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there,\nmen? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to\nyourself; say the word; don't be a fool; forget it all; we are ready\nto turn to; treat us decently, and we're your men; but we won't be\nflogged.'\n\n\"'Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!'\n\n\"'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him,\n'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped\nfor the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our\ndischarge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don't want a row; it's\nnot our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we\nwon't be flogged.'\n\n\"'Turn to!' roared the Captain.\n\n\"Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:--'I tell you what\nit is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby\nrascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till\nyou say the word about not flogging us, we don't do a hand's turn.'\n\n\"'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye there till\nye're sick of it. Down ye go.'\n\n\"'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against\nit; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down\ninto their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave.\n\n\"As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain\nand his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide\nof the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called\nfor the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the\ncompanionway.\n\n\"Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something\ndown the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them--ten in\nnumber--leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained\nneutral.\n\n\"All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and\naft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at which\nlast place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after breaking\nthrough the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed in peace;\nthe men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps,\nwhose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary night\ndismally resounded through the ship.\n\n\"At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, summoned\nthe prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was then\nlowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were tossed\nafter it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, the\nCaptain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three days\nthis was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and\nthen a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered; and\nsuddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready\nto turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united\nperhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to\nsurrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his\ndemand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to\nstop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth\nmorning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air from the\ndesperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three were left.\n\n\"'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer.\n\n\"'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt.\n\n\"'Oh certainly,' said the Captain, and the key clicked.\n\n\"It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of seven\nof his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had last\nhailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as black as\nthe bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two\nCanallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst out of\ntheir hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with their\nkeen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle\nat each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any\ndevilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he\nwould do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the\nlast night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no\nopposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were ready for\nthat, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender.\nAnd what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck,\nwhen the time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as\nfiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly as\nhis two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter;\nand both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one\nman at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants\nmust come out.\n\n\"Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own\nseparate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece\nof treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be\nthe first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and\nthereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit.\nBut when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to\nthe last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed\ntheir before secret treacheries together; and when their leader\nfell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three\nsentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords;\nand shrieked out for the Captain at midnight.\n\n\"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and\nall his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a\nfew minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still\nstruggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious\nallies, who at once claimed the honour of securing a man who had been\nfully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along\nthe deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the\nmizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till\nmorning. 'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them,\n'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!'\n\n\"At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had rebelled\nfrom those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former that\nhe had a good mind to flog them all round--thought, upon the whole,\nhe would do so--he ought to--justice demanded it; but for the present,\nconsidering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a\nreprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular.\n\n\"'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men in the\nrigging--'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;' and,\nseizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the\ntwo traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads\nsideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn.\n\n\"'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last; 'but there is still\nrope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give up. Take\nthat gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.'\n\n\"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his\ncramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a sort\nof hiss, 'What I say is this--and mind it well--if you flog me, I murder\nyou!'\n\n\"'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'--and the Captain drew off with\nthe rope to strike.\n\n\"'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman.\n\n\"'But I must,'--and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke.\n\n\"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain;\nwho, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck rapidly\ntwo or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, said, 'I\nwon't do it--let him go--cut him down: d'ye hear?'\n\n\"But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man,\nwith a bandaged head, arrested them--Radney the chief mate. Ever since\nthe blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the tumult\non the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the whole\nscene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak;\nbut mumbling something about his being willing and able to do what the\ncaptain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced to his\npinioned foe.\n\n\"'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman.\n\n\"'So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of striking,\nwhen another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing\nno more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt's threat, whatever that\nmight have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned\nto, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as\nbefore.\n\n\"Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor\nwas heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up,\nbesieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew.\nEntreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own\ninstance they were put down in the ship's run for salvation. Still, no\nsign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed,\nthat mainly at Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain\nthe strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the\nship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the\nspeediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing--namely,\nnot to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For,\nspite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still\nmaintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to\nlower for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the\ncruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his\nberth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the\nvital jaw of the whale.\n\n\"But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of\npassiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till all\nwas over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the man who\nhad stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief\nmate's watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than\nhalf way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted,\nagainst the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head\nof his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances,\nSteelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge.\n\n\"During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the\nbulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of\nthe boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship's side.\nIn this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a\nconsiderable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between\nthis was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next\ntrick at the helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the\nthird day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure,\nhe employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his\nwatches below.\n\n\"'What are you making there?' said a shipmate.\n\n\"'What do you think? what does it look like?'\n\n\"'Like a lanyard for your bag; but it's an odd one, seems to me.'\n\n\"'Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's length\nbefore him; 'but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven't enough\ntwine,--have you any?'\n\n\"But there was none in the forecastle.\n\n\"'Then I must get some from old Rad;' and he rose to go aft.\n\n\"'You don't mean to go a begging to HIM!' said a sailor.\n\n\"'Why not? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's to help himself\nin the end, shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked at him\nquietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given\nhim--neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night\nan iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the\nLakeman's monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for\na pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm--nigh\nto the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to\nthe seaman's hand--that fatal hour was then to come; and in the\nfore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and\nstretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in.\n\n\"But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody\ndeed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the\navenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in\nto take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have\ndone.\n\n\"It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second\nday, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe man,\ndrawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, 'There she\nrolls! there she rolls!' Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick.\n\n\"'Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian; 'St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do\nwhales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?'\n\n\"'A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don;--but\nthat would be too long a story.'\n\n\"'How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding.\n\n\"'Nay, Dons, Dons--nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more\ninto the air, Sirs.'\n\n\"'The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro; 'our vigorous friend looks\nfaint;--fill up his empty glass!'\n\n\"No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.--Now, gentlemen,\nso suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the\nship--forgetful of the compact among the crew--in the excitement of the\nmoment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted\nhis voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been\nplainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy.\n'The White Whale--the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates,\nand harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious\nto capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed\naskance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass,\nthat lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like\na living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality\npervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out\nbefore the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the\nmate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while\nRadney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken\nthe line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were\nlowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely with\ndelight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff\npull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to\nthe bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his\nbandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing\nloath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that\nblent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as\nagainst a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate.\nThat instant, as he fell on the whale's slippery back, the boat righted,\nand was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the\nsea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray,\nand, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to\nremove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round\nin a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing\nhigh up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down.\n\n\"Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman had\nslackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly\nlooking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific,\ndownward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He\ncut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose\nagain, with some tatters of Radney's red woollen shirt, caught in the\nteeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the\nwhale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.\n\n\"In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port--a savage, solitary\nplace--where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the\nLakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted\namong the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double\nwar-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor.\n\n\"The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called\nupon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving\ndown the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over\ntheir dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both\nby night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent,\nthat upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a\nweakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so\nheavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the\nship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon\nfrom the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the\nIslanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with\nhim, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight\nbefore the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a\nreinforcement to his crew.\n\n\"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed\nto have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but\nthe savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt\nhailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain\npresented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes,\nthe Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so\nmuch as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam.\n\n\"'What do you want of me?' cried the captain.\n\n\"'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?' demanded Steelkilt;\n'no lies.'\n\n\"'I am bound to Tahiti for more men.'\n\n\"'Very good. Let me board you a moment--I come in peace.' With that he\nleaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, stood\nface to face with the captain.\n\n\"'Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me.\nAs soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder\nisland, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightning strike\nme!'\n\n\"'A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor!' and leaping\ninto the sea, he swam back to his comrades.\n\n\"Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the\nroots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time\narrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended\nhim; two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially\nin want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They\nembarked; and so for ever got the start of their former captain, had he\nbeen at all minded to work them legal retribution.\n\n\"Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived,\nand the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized\nTahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small\nnative schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all\nright there, again resumed his cruisings.\n\n\"Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of\nNantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses\nto give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that\ndestroyed him.\n\n\"'Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly.\n\n\"'I am, Don.'\n\n\"'Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions,\nthis your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful!\nDid you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to\npress.'\n\n\"'Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don\nSebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest.\n\n\"'Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?'\n\n\"'Nay,' said Don Sebastian; 'but I know a worthy priest near by, who\nwill quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised?\nthis may grow too serious.'\n\n\"'Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?'\n\n\"'Though there are no Auto-da-Fe's in Lima now,' said one of the company\nto another; 'I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy.\nLet us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.'\n\n\"'Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg\nthat you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists\nyou can.'\n\n\"'This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don Sebastian,\ngravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.\n\n\"'Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light,\nand hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.\n\n\"'So help me Heaven, and on my honour the story I have told ye,\ngentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be\ntrue; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have\nseen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.'\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.\n\n\nI shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas,\nsomething like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the\neye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored\nalongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there.\nIt may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those\ncurious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day\nconfidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the\nworld right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all\nwrong.\n\nIt may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will\nbe found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For\never since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble\npanellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields,\nmedallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of\nchain-armor like Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St. George's; ever\nsince then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not\nonly in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific\npresentations of him.\n\nNow, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to\nbe the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta,\nin India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of\nthat immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable\navocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came\ninto being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of\nwhaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale\nreferred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the\nincarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the\nMatse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so\nas only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is\nall wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the\nbroad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes.\n\nBut go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's\nportrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian\nHindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the\nsea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange\ncreature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his\nown \"Perseus Descending,\" make out one whit better. The huge corpulence\nof that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing\none inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its\ndistended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be\ntaken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the\nTower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and\nJonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of\nold primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder's whale\nwinding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--as\nstamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of many books both\nold and new--that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature,\nimitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases.\nThough universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this\nbook-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended\nwhen the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old\nItalian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival\nof Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively\nlate period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the\nLeviathan.\n\nIn the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will\nat times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner\nof spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden,\ncome bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the\noriginal edition of the \"Advancement of Learning\" you will find some\ncurious whales.\n\nBut quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those\npictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations,\nby those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some\nplates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671,\nentitled \"A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the\nWhale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master.\" In one of those plates the\nwhales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles,\nwith white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the\nprodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular\nflukes.\n\nThen again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett,\na Post Captain in the English navy, entitled \"A Voyage round Cape Horn\ninto the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale\nFisheries.\" In this book is an outline purporting to be a \"Picture of\na Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the\ncoast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck.\" I doubt not the\ncaptain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines.\nTo mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which\napplied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm\nwhale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet\nlong. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out\nof that eye!\n\nNor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for\nthe benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of\nmistake. Look at that popular work \"Goldsmith's Animated Nature.\" In the\nabridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged \"whale\"\nand a \"narwhale.\" I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly\nwhale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one\nglimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century\nsuch a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent\npublic of schoolboys.\n\nThen, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a great\nnaturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are\nseveral pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these\nare not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland\nwhale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long\nexperienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its\ncounterpart in nature.\n\nBut the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was\nreserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous\nBaron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he\ngives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that\npicture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary\nretreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not\na Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of\na whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that\npicture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor\nin the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that\nis, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil\nthose Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.\n\nAs for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging over the\nshops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally\nRichard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting\non three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners:\ntheir deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint.\n\nBut these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very\nsurprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have\nbeen taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a\ndrawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent\nthe noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars.\nThough elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan\nhas never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale,\nin his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in\nunfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight,\nlike a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a\nthing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the\nair, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not\nto speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young\nsucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the\ncase of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such\nis then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that\nhis precise expression the devil himself could not catch.\n\nBut it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded\nwhale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all.\nFor it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that\nhis skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy\nBentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of\nhis executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian\nold gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics;\nyet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's\narticulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton\nof the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded\nanimal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes\nit. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some\npart of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously\ndisplayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to\nthe bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four\nregular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But\nall these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human\nfingers in an artificial covering. \"However recklessly the whale may\nsometimes serve us,\" said humorous Stubb one day, \"he can never be truly\nsaid to handle us without mittens.\"\n\nFor all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs\nconclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world\nwhich must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit\nthe mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very\nconsiderable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding\nout precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in\nwhich you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is\nby going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of\nbeing eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had\nbest not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True\nPictures of Whaling Scenes.\n\n\nIn connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly\ntempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of\nthem which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern,\nespecially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass\nthat matter by.\n\nI know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale;\nColnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previous\nchapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins's is far\nbetter than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's\ndrawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the\npicture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second\nchapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no\ndoubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is\nadmirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm\nWhale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they\nare wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.\n\nOf the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they\nare drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has\nbut one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because\nit is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive\nanything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living\nhunters.\n\nBut, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details\nnot the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to\nbe anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed,\nand taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent\nattacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble\nSperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath\nthe boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air\nupon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of\nthe boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon\nthe monster's spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single\nincomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the\nincensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if\nfrom a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and\ntrue. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden\npoles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the\nswimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions\nof affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down\nupon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details\nof this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not\ndraw so good a one.\n\nIn the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside\nthe barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black\nweedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian\ncliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so\nabounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave\nsupper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the\nsmall crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the\nRight Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while\nthe thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of\ntumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock\nin the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean\nsteamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in\nadmirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the\ndrooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of\na dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily\nhanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.\n\nWho Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he\nwas either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously\ntutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for\npainting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and\nwhere will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion\non canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder\nfights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of\nFrance; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the\nsuccessive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned\ncentaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea\nbattle-pieces of Garnery.\n\nThe natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of\nthings seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings\nthey have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's\nexperience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the\nAmericans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only\nfinished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of\nthe whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale\ndraughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline\nof things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as\npicturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching\nthe profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right\nwhaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale,\nand three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats\nus to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives,\nand grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck\nsubmits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of\nmagnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent\nvoyager (I honour him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it\nwas certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a\nsworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace.\n\nIn addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other\nFrench engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself\n\"H. Durand.\" One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present\npurpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet\nnoon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored,\ninshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails\nof the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both\ndrooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when\nconsidered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under\none of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is\nquite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the\nvery heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the\nvessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a\nquay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is\nabout giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances\nlie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its\nhole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands\nhalf-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the\nsmoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke\nover a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up\nwith earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the\nexcited seamen.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in\nStone; in Mountains; in Stars.\n\n\nOn Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a\ncrippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board\nbefore him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg.\nThere are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed\nto contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being\ncrunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years,\nthey tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that\nstump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has\nnow come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in\nWapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you\nwill find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on\nthat stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with\ndowncast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation.\n\nThroughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and\nSag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and\nwhaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth,\nor ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other\nlike skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little\ningenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material,\nin their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes\nof dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the\nskrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their\njack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor,\nthey will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's\nfancy.\n\nLong exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man\nto that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery.\nYour true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a\nsavage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready\nat any moment to rebel against him.\n\nNow, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic\nhours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian\nwar-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of\ncarving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon.\nFor, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that\nmiraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has\ncost steady years of steady application.\n\nAs with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the\nsame marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of\nhis one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not\nquite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design,\nas the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit\nand suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert\nDurer.\n\nWooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of\nthe noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles\nof American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy.\n\nAt some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung\nby the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is\nsleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking\nwhales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some\nold-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for\nweather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all\nintents and purposes so labelled with \"HANDS OFF!\" you cannot examine\nthem closely enough to decide upon their merit.\n\nIn bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken\ncliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the\nplain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the\nLeviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against\nthem in a surf of green surges.\n\nThen, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually\ngirdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky\npoint of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of\nwhales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough\nwhaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish\nto return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact\nintersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else\nso chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise,\nprevious stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the\nSoloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed\nMendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.\n\nNor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out\ngreat whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as\nwhen long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies\nlocked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased\nLeviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright\npoints that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic\nskies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the\nstarry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying\nFish.\n\nWith a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for\nspurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to\nsee whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie\nencamped beyond my mortal sight!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 58. Brit.\n\n\nSteering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows\nof brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale\nlargely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we\nseemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat.\n\nOn the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from\nthe attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly\nswam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that\nwondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated\nfrom the water that escaped at the lip.\n\nAs morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance\ntheir scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these\nmonsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving\nbehind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*\n\n\n*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the \"Brazil Banks\" does\nnot bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there\nbeing shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable\nmeadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually\nfloating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.\n\n\nBut it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all\nreminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they\npaused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked\nmore like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the\ngreat hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will\nsometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them\nto be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even\nso, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the\nleviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense\nmagnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses\nof overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort\nof life that lives in a dog or a horse.\n\nIndeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the\ndeep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though\nsome old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are\nof their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of\nthe thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for\nexample, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to\nthe sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any\ngeneric respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.\n\nBut though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the\nseas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and\nrepelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita,\nso that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his\none superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific\nof all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen\ntens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters;\nthough but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man\nmay brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering\nfuture, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever,\nto the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize\nthe stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the\ncontinual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense\nof the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.\n\nThe first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese\nvengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow.\nThat same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships\nof last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided;\ntwo thirds of the fair world it yet covers.\n\nWherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a\nmiracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews,\nwhen under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened\nand swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in\nprecisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews.\n\nBut not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it\nis also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who\nmurdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath\nspawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her\nown cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks,\nand leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No\nmercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad\nbattle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the\nglobe.\n\nConsider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide\nunder water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden\nbeneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish\nbrilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the\ndainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more,\nthe universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each\nother, carrying on eternal war since the world began.\n\nConsider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile\nearth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a\nstrange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean\nsurrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular\nTahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the\nhalf known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst\nnever return!\n\n\nCHAPTER 59. Squid.\n\n\nSlowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her\nway north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling\nher keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering\nmasts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a\nplain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,\nalluring jet would be seen.\n\nBut one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural\nspread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when\nthe long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid\nacross them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered\ntogether as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible\nsphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.\n\nIn the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and\nhigher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before\nour prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening\nfor a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose,\nand silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick?\nthought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once\nmore, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the\nnegro yelled out--\"There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead!\nThe White Whale, the White Whale!\"\n\nUpon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the\nbees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on\nthe bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave\nhis orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction\nindicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.\n\nWhether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had\ngradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the\nideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular\nwhale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed\nhim; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly\nperceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave\norders for lowering.\n\nThe four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and all\nswiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with\noars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same\nspot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for\nthe moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous\nphenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind.\nA vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing\ncream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating\nfrom its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as\nif blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible\nface or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or\ninstinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless,\nchance-like apparition of life.\n\nAs with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still\ngazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice\nexclaimed--\"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to\nhave seen thee, thou white ghost!\"\n\n\"What was it, Sir?\" said Flask.\n\n\"The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and\nreturned to their ports to tell of it.\"\n\nBut Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel;\nthe rest as silently following.\n\nWhatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with\nthe sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being\nso very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with\nportentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them\ndeclare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few\nof them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and\nform; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale\nhis only food. For though other species of whales find their food above\nwater, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti\nwhale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and\nonly by inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that\nfood consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what\nare supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus\nexhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that\nthe monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to\nthe bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is\nsupplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.\n\nThere seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop\nPontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in\nwhich the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with\nsome other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond.\nBut much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he\nassigns it.\n\nBy some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious\ncreature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish,\nto which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong,\nbut only as the Anak of the tribe.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 60. The Line.\n\n\nWith reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as\nfor the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented,\nI have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.\n\nThe line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly\nvapoured with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary\nropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to\nthe rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the\nsailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity\ntoo much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must\nbe subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general\nby no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it\nmay give it compactness and gloss.\n\nOf late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost\nentirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not\nso durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and\nI will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more\nhandsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark\nfellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian\nto behold.\n\nThe whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first\nsight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment\nits one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and\ntwenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal\nto three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures something\nover two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally\ncoiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so\nas to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded \"sheaves,\" or\nlayers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the \"heart,\"\nor minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least\ntangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take\nsomebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used\nin stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an\nentire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then\nreeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act\nof coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists.\n\nIn the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line\nbeing continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this;\nbecause these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into the\nboat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, nearly\nthree feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky\nfreight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in thickness; for\nthe bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up\na considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated\none. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American line-tub,\nthe boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great\nwedding-cake to present to the whales.\n\nBoth ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an\neye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the\ntub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything.\nThis arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First:\nIn order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a\nneighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as\nto threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the\nharpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug\nof ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the\nfirst boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This\narrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the\nlower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the\nwhale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking\nminute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed\nboat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of\nthe sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.\n\nBefore lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is\ntaken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again\ncarried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon\nthe loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist\nin rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at\nthe opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme\npointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a\ncommon quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs\nin a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat\nagain; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled\nupon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a\nlittle further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp--the rope\nwhich is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that\nconnexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious\nto detail.\n\nThus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils,\ntwisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the\noarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid\neye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest\nsnakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal\nwoman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies,\nand while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any\nunknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible\ncontortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus\ncircumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones\nto quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit--strange thing! what\ncannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes,\nand brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you\nwill hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus\nhung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before\nKing Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death,\nwith a halter around every neck, as you may say.\n\nPerhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for\nthose repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are casually\nchronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the\nline, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in\nthe boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings\nof a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and\nwheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the\nheart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and\nyou are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning;\nand only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of\nvolition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run\naway with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out.\n\nAgain: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and\nprophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;\nfor, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and\ncontains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal\npowder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the\nline, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought\ninto actual play--this is a thing which carries more of true terror than\nany other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men\nlive enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their\nnecks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death,\nthat mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.\nAnd if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would\nnot at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before\nyour evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.\n\n\nIf to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to\nQueequeg it was quite a different object.\n\n\"When you see him 'quid,\" said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow\nof his hoisted boat, \"then you quick see him 'parm whale.\"\n\nThe next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special\nto engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep\ninduced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through\nwhich we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground;\nthat is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish,\nand other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the\nRio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.\n\nIt was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders\nleaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in\nwhat seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that\ndreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my\nbody; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long\nafter the power which first moved it is withdrawn.\n\nEre forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen\nat the main and mizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last\nall three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing\nthat we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman.\nThe waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the wide trance\nof the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.\n\nSuddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my\nhands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me;\nwith a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty\nfathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the\ncapsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue,\nglistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in\nthe trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury\njet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm\nafternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some\nenchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once\nstarted into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts\nof the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted\nforth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted\nthe sparkling brine into the air.\n\n\"Clear away the boats! Luff!\" cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he\ndashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.\n\nThe sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and ere\nthe boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward,\nbut with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he\nswam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave\norders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in\nwhispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats,\nwe swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the\nnoiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the\nmonster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and\nthen sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.\n\n\"There go flukes!\" was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by\nStubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was\ngranted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale\nrose again, and being now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much\nnearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honour\nof the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become\naware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no\nlonger of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And\nstill puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.\n\nYes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy,\nhe was going \"head out\"; that part obliquely projecting from the mad\nyeast which he brewed.*\n\n\n*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance\nthe entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though\napparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about\nhim. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does\nso when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the\nupper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water\nformation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he\nthereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish\ngalliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat.\n\n\n\"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take plenty of\ntime--but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's all,\" cried\nStubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. \"Start her, now; give 'em\nthe long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy--start\nher, all; but keep cool, keep cool--cucumbers is the word--easy,\neasy--only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the\nburied dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys--that's all. Start\nher!\"\n\n\"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!\" screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some\nold war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat\ninvoluntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke\nwhich the eager Indian gave.\n\nBut his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. \"Kee-hee!\nKee-hee!\" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat,\nlike a pacing tiger in his cage.\n\n\"Ka-la! Koo-loo!\" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a\nmouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels\ncut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still\nencouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from\nhis mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the\nwelcome cry was heard--\"Stand up, Tashtego!--give it to him!\" The\nharpoon was hurled. \"Stern all!\" The oarsmen backed water; the same\nmoment something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists.\nIt was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two\nadditional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its\nincreased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled\nwith the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and\nround the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it\nblisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb's hands, from\nwhich the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at\nthese times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's\nsharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving\nto wrest it out of your clutch.\n\n\"Wet the line! wet the line!\" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated\nby the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* More\nturns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now\nflew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego\nhere changed places--stem for stern--a staggering business truly in that\nrocking commotion.\n\n\n*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be\nstated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the\nrunning line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or\nbailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most\nconvenient.\n\n\nFrom the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of\nthe boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would\nhave thought the craft had two keels--one cleaving the water, the other\nthe air--as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once.\nA continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in\nher wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little\nfinger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale\ninto the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging\nto his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of\nTashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring\ndown his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed\nas they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened\nhis flight.\n\n\"Haul in--haul in!\" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round\ntowards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet\nthe boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly\nplanting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the\nflying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning\nout of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging up for\nanother fling.\n\nThe red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a\nhill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled\nand seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing\nupon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every\nface, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. And all\nthe while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the\nspiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of\nthe excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked\nlance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and\nagain, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again\nsent it into the whale.\n\n\"Pull up--pull up!\" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale\nrelaxed in his wrath. \"Pull up!--close to!\" and the boat ranged along\nthe fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned\nhis long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully\nchurning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold\nwatch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of\nbreaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the\ninnermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from\nhis trance into that unspeakable thing called his \"flurry,\" the monster\nhorribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable,\nmad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping\nastern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied\ntwilight into the clear air of the day.\n\nAnd now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view;\nsurging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his\nspout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush\nafter gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red\nwine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping\ndown his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!\n\n\"He's dead, Mr. Stubb,\" said Daggoo.\n\n\"Yes; both pipes smoked out!\" and withdrawing his own from his mouth,\nStubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood\nthoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 62. The Dart.\n\n\nA word concerning an incident in the last chapter.\n\nAccording to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes\noff from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary\nsteersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost\noar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous\narm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called\na long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of\ntwenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the chase,\nthe harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost;\nindeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the\nrest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid\nexclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's\ncompass, while all the other muscles are strained and half started--what\nthat is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl\nvery heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this\nstraining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once\nthe exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry--\"Stand up, and give it\nto him!\" He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his\ncentre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little\nstrength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No\nwonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty\nfair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many\nhapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some\nof them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that\nsome sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder\nthat to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the\nharpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his\nbody how can you expect to find it there when most wanted!\n\nAgain, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant,\nthat is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer\nlikewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of\nthemselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and\nthe headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper\nstation in the bows of the boat.\n\nNow, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish\nand unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from first to\nlast; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no rowing\nwhatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances obvious\nto any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss\nof speed in the chase; but long experience in various whalemen of more\nthan one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures\nin the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the\nwhale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has\ncaused them.\n\nTo insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this\nworld must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of\ntoil.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 63. The Crotch.\n\n\nOut of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in\nproductive subjects, grow the chapters.\n\nThe crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention.\nIt is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which\nis perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow,\nfor the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the\nharpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow.\nThereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it\nup as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from\nthe wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch,\nrespectively called the first and second irons.\n\nBut these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with\nthe line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one\ninstantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming\ndrag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a\ndoubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the\ninstantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving\nthe first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however\nlightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him.\nNevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line,\nand the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be\nanticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the\nmost terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water,\nit accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned\nin a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently\npracticable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the\nsaddest and most fatal casualties.\n\nFurthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown\noverboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror,\nskittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,\nor cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.\nNor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is\nfairly captured and a corpse.\n\nConsider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging\none unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these\nqualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of\nsuch an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be\nsimultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied\nwith several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one\nbe ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are\nfaithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several\nmost important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be\npainted.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 64. Stubb's Supper.\n\n\nStubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was\na calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow\nbusiness of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men\nwith our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers,\nslowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the\nsea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals;\ngood evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we\nmoved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call\nit, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky\nfreighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we\ntowed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk.\n\nDarkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod's\nmain-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab\ndropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing\nthe heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing\nit for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way\ninto the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning.\n\nThough, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had\nevinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature\nwas dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed\nworking in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that\nMoby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were\nbrought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand,\nmonomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on\nthe Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in\nthe deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust\nrattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast\ncorpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the\nstern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black\nhull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night,\nwhich obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two--ship and whale,\nseemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while\nthe other remains standing.*\n\n\n*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most\nreliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,\nis by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part\nis relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its\nflexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so\nthat with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to\nput the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a\nsmall, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and\na weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By\nadroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side\nof the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily\nmade to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked\nfast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with\nits broad flukes or lobes.\n\n\nIf moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known\non deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an\nunusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was\nhe in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned\nto him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping\ncause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest.\nStubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale\nas a flavorish thing to his palate.\n\n\"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut\nme one from his small!\"\n\nHere be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general\nthing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray\nthe current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds\nof the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers\nwho have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale\ndesignated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.\n\nAbout midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two\nlanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper\nat the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb\nthe only banqueter on whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings\nwith his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming\nround the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few\nsleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping\nof their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers'\nhearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you\nheard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on\ntheir backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the\nbigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all\nbut miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they\ncontrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the\nuniversal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale,\nmay best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking\nfor a screw.\n\nThough amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks\nwill be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs\nround a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down\nevery killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant\nbutchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's\nlive meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks,\nalso, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away\nunder the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole\naffair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that\nis to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and\nthough sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships\ncrossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in\ncase a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently\nburied; and though one or two other like instances might be set down,\ntouching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most\nsocially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no\nconceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless\nnumbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm\nwhale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never\nseen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of\ndevil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.\n\nBut, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was\ngoing on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his\nown epicurean lips.\n\n\"Cook, cook!--where's that old Fleece?\" he cried at length, widening\nhis legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper;\nand, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing\nwith his lance; \"cook, you cook!--sail this way, cook!\"\n\nThe old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously\nroused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling\nalong from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something\nthe matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like\nhis other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and\nlimping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy\nfashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered\nalong, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on\nthe opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded\nbefore him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back\nstill further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as\nto bring his best ear into play.\n\n\"Cook,\" said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his\nmouth, \"don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've been\nbeating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don't I always say\nthat to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks\nnow over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a\nshindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are\nwelcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must\nkeep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and\ndeliver my message. Here, take this lantern,\" snatching one from his\nsideboard; \"now then, go and preach to 'em!\"\n\nSullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck\nto the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the\nsea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand\nhe solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a\nmumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling\nbehind, overheard all that was said.\n\n\"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam\nnoise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa Stubb say\ndat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you\nmust stop dat dam racket!\"\n\n\"Cook,\" here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap\non the shoulder,--\"Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way\nwhen you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, cook!\"\n\n\"Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,\" sullenly turning to go.\n\n\"No, cook; go on, go on.\"\n\n\"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:\"--\n\n\"Right!\" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, \"coax 'em to it; try that,\" and\nFleece continued.\n\n\"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you,\nfellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness--'top dat dam slappin' ob de\ntail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and\nbitin' dare?\"\n\n\"Cook,\" cried Stubb, collaring him, \"I won't have that swearing. Talk to\n'em gentlemanly.\"\n\nOnce more the sermon proceeded.\n\n\"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat\nis natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de\npint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den\nyou be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned.\nNow, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping\nyourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your\nneighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat\nwhale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale\nbelong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger\ndan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat\nde brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber\nfor de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help\ndemselves.\"\n\n\"Well done, old Fleece!\" cried Stubb, \"that's Christianity; go on.\"\n\n\"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scougin' and slappin' each\noder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching to\nsuch dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare\nbellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you\nden; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and\ncan't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber.\"\n\n\"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction,\nFleece, and I'll away to my supper.\"\n\nUpon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his\nshrill voice, and cried--\n\n\"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill\nyour dam bellies 'till dey bust--and den die.\"\n\n\"Now, cook,\" said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; \"stand\njust where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular\nattention.\"\n\n\"All 'dention,\" said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the\ndesired position.\n\n\"Well,\" said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; \"I shall now go\nback to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you,\ncook?\"\n\n\"What dat do wid de 'teak,\" said the old black, testily.\n\n\"Silence! How old are you, cook?\"\n\n\"'Bout ninety, dey say,\" he gloomily muttered.\n\n\"And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook,\nand don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?\" rapidly bolting another\nmouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the\nquestion. \"Where were you born, cook?\"\n\n\"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke.\"\n\n\"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to know what\ncountry you were born in, cook!\"\n\n\"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?\" he cried sharply.\n\n\"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook.\nYou must go home and be born over again; you don't know how to cook a\nwhale-steak yet.\"\n\n\"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,\" he growled, angrily, turning round\nto depart.\n\n\"Come back here, cook;--here, hand me those tongs;--now take that bit of\nsteak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be?\nTake it, I say\"--holding the tongs towards him--\"take it, and taste it.\"\n\nFaintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro\nmuttered, \"Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.\"\n\n\"Cook,\" said Stubb, squaring himself once more; \"do you belong to the\nchurch?\"\n\n\"Passed one once in Cape-Down,\" said the old man sullenly.\n\n\"And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where\nyou doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his\nbeloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and\ntell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?\" said Stubb. \"Where\ndo you expect to go to, cook?\"\n\n\"Go to bed berry soon,\" he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.\n\n\"Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now\nwhat's your answer?\"\n\n\"When dis old brack man dies,\" said the negro slowly, changing his whole\nair and demeanor, \"he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel\nwill come and fetch him.\"\n\n\"Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch\nhim where?\"\n\n\"Up dere,\" said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and\nkeeping it there very solemnly.\n\n\"So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you\nare dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets?\nMain-top, eh?\"\n\n\"Didn't say dat t'all,\" said Fleece, again in the sulks.\n\n\"You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see where\nyour tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by\ncrawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don't\nget there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a\nticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of\nus are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye\nhear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart,\nwhen I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?--that's\nyour gizzard! Aloft! aloft!--that's it--now you have it. Hold it there\nnow, and pay attention.\"\n\n\"All 'dention,\" said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,\nvainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at\none and the same time.\n\n\"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,\nthat I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't\nyou? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my\nprivate table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to\nspoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal\nto it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow,\ncook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get\nthe tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the\nflukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.\"\n\nBut Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.\n\n\"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch.\nD'ye hear? away you sail, then.--Halloa! stop! make a bow before you\ngo.--Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast--don't forget.\"\n\n\"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if\nhe ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,\" muttered the old man,\nlimping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.\n\n\nThat mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and,\nlike Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so\noutlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and\nphilosophy of it.\n\nIt is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right\nWhale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large\nprices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of the\ncourt obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be\neaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of\nwhale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The\nmeat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well\nseasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.\nThe old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great\nporpoise grant from the crown.\n\nThe fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all\nhands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but\nwhen you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet\nlong, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men\nlike Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not\nso fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare\nold vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous\ndoctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly\njuicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who\nlong ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel--that\nthese men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of\nwhales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among\nthe Dutch whalemen these scraps are called \"fritters\"; which, indeed,\nthey greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something\nlike old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They\nhave such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly\nkeep his hands off.\n\nBut what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his\nexceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be\ndelicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as\nthe buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid\npyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that\nis; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the\nthird month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for\nbutter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into\nsome other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try\nwatches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their\nship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many\na good supper have I thus made.\n\nIn the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish.\nThe casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump,\nwhitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings),\nthey are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess,\nin flavor somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among\nsome epicures; and every one knows that some young bucks among the\nepicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to\nhave a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a\ncalf's head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon\ndiscrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an\nintelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the\nsaddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at\nhim, with an \"Et tu Brute!\" expression.\n\nIt is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively\nunctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence;\nthat appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before\nmentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea,\nand eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever\nmurdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if\nhe had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and\nhe certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market\nof a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the\nlong rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of\nthe cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will\nbe more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in\nhis cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that\nprovident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized\nand enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest\non their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.\n\nBut Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is\nadding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my\ncivilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is\nthat handle made of?--what but the bones of the brother of the very ox\nyou are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring\nthat fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did\nthe Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders\nformally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two\nthat that society passed a resolution to patronise nothing but steel\npens.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.\n\n\nWhen in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and\nweary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general\nthing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting\nhim in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very\nsoon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the\ncommon usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a'lee; and then send\nevery one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that,\nuntil that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for\nan hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see\nthat all goes well.\n\nBut sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will\nnot answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather\nround the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a\nstretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning.\nIn most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so\nlargely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably\ndiminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades,\na procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to\ntickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the\npresent case with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man\nunaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night,\nwould have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and\nthose sharks the maggots in it.\n\nNevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was\nconcluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman\ncame on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for\nimmediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering\nthree lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid\nsea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an\nincessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep\ninto their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy\nconfusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not\nalways hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the\nincredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each\nother's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit\ntheir own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by\nthe same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was\nthis all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these\ncreatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in\ntheir very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual\nlife had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,\none of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried\nto shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.\n\n\n*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel;\nis about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape,\ncorresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its\nsides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than\nthe lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when\nbeing used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a\nstiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.\n\n\n\"Queequeg no care what god made him shark,\" said the savage, agonizingly\nlifting his hand up and down; \"wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de\ngod wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 67. Cutting In.\n\n\nIt was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio\nprofessors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was\nturned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would\nhave thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.\n\nIn the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous\nthings comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and which\nno single man can possibly lift--this vast bunch of grapes was swayed up\nto the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the strongest\npoint anywhere above a ship's deck. The end of the hawser-like rope\nwinding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass,\nand the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to\nthis block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was\nattached. And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb,\nthe mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the\nbody for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two\nside-fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole,\nthe hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking up a wild\nchorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When\ninstantly, the entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in\nher starts like the nail-heads of an old house in frosty weather; she\ntrembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More\nand more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the\nwindlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till at last,\na swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls\nupwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises\ninto sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the\nfirst strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely\nas the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body\nprecisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the\nstrain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale\nrolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip\nuniformly peels off along the line called the \"scarf,\" simultaneously\ncut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as\nit is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the\ntime being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the\nmain-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment\nor two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let\ndown from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge\nit when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong\noverboard.\n\nOne of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon\ncalled a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices\nout a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this\nhole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked\nso as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what\nfollows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to\nstand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few\nsidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in twain;\nso that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip,\ncalled a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for lowering.\nThe heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one tackle is\npeeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly\nslackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway\nright beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubber-room. Into\nthis twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long\nblanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents.\nAnd thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering\nsimultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing,\nthe blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship\nstraining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the\ngeneral friction.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 68. The Blanket.\n\n\nI have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of\nthe whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen\nafloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains\nunchanged; but it is only an opinion.\n\nThe question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you\nknow what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence\nof firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and\nranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.\n\nNow, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's\nskin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point\nof fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you\ncannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but\nthat same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if\nreasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred\ndead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely\nthin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds\nof isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that is,\nprevious to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but\nbecomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried bits, which\nI use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before;\nand being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself\nwith fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is\npleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may\nsay. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin,\nisinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the\nwhale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as\nthe skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say,\nthat the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender\nthan the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this.\n\nAssuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,\nas in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one\nhundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or\nrather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths,\nand not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had\nof the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere\nintegument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels\nto the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters\nof the stuff of the whale's skin.\n\nIn life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among\nthe many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely\ncrossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array,\nsomething like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these\nmarks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above\nmentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved\nupon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick,\nobservant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but\nafford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical;\nthat is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids\nhieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present\nconnexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm\nWhale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old\nIndian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on\nthe banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the\nmystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian\nrocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which\nthe exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the\nback, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the\nregular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches,\naltogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New\nEngland rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks\nof violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say,\nthat those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this\nparticular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are\nprobably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most\nremarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species.\n\nA word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of\nthe whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long\npieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very\nhappy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber\nas in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho\nslipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this\ncosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself\ncomfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would\nbecome of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the\nNorth, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are\nfound exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it\nobserved, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies\nare refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of\nan iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire;\nwhereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood,\nand he dies. How wonderful is it then--except after explanation--that\nthis great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it\nis to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed\nto his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall\noverboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly\nfrozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued\nin amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by\nexperiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a\nBorneo negro in summer.\n\nIt does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong\nindividual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare\nvirtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after\nthe whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in\nthis world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood\nfluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the\ngreat whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.\n\nBut how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections,\nhow few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the\nwhale!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 69. The Funeral.\n\n\nHaul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!\n\nThe vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the\nbeheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue,\nit has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal.\nSlowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and\nsplashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious\nflights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting\nponiards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further\nand further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem\nsquare roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous\ndin. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous\nsight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair\nface of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass\nof death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives.\n\nThere's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in\npious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled.\nIn life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if\nperadventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they\nmost piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not\nthe mightiest whale is free.\n\nNor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost\nsurvives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or\nblundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the\nswarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in\nthe sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the\nwhale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the\nlog--SHOALS, ROCKS, AND BREAKERS HEREABOUTS: BEWARE! And for years\nafterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly\nsheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there\nwhen a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your\nutility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of\nold beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in\nthe air! There's orthodoxy!\n\nThus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror\nto his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a\nworld.\n\nAre you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than\nthe Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in\nthem.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.\n\n\nIt should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping\nthe body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the\nSperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced\nwhale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.\n\nConsider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck;\non the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that\nvery place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the\nsurgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening\nbetween him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a\ndiscoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear\nin mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many\nfeet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so\nmuch as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus\nmade, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts,\nand exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion\ninto the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he\ndemanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?\n\nWhen first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable\ntill the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale\nit is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full\ngrown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces\nnearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a\nburden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as\nvain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales.\n\nThe Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was\nhoisted against the ship's side--about half way out of the sea, so that\nit might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there\nwith the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the\nenormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm\non that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that\nblood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant\nHolofernes's from the girdle of Judith.\n\nWhen this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went\nbelow to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but\nnow deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow\nlotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon\nthe sea.\n\nA short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone\nfrom his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to\ngaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he\ntook Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's\nDecapitation--and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended\nmass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood\nleaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.\n\nIt was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so\nintense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. \"Speak, thou vast\nand venerable head,\" muttered Ahab, \"which, though ungarnished with a\nbeard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head,\nand tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast\ndived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has\nmoved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies\nrust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this\nfrigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there,\nin that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast\nbeen where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side,\nwhere sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou\nsaw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart\nto heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when\nheaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed\nby pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper\nmidnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on\nunharmed--while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that\nwould have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O\nhead! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of\nAbraham, and not one syllable is thine!\"\n\n\"Sail ho!\" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.\n\n\"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering,\" cried Ahab, suddenly erecting\nhimself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow.\n\"That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better\nman.--Where away?\"\n\n\"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to\nus!\n\n\"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way,\nand to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man!\nhow far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest\natom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam's Story.\n\n\nHand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than\nthe ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.\n\nBy and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned mast-heads\nproved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting\nby, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could\nnot hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would\nbe made.\n\nHere be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of\nthe American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals\nbeing collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels\nattached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale\ncommanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at\nconsiderable distances and with no small facility.\n\nThe Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's setting\nher own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring\nher yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and\nlowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being\nrigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the\nstranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token\nof that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that\nthe Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her\ncaptain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though\nhimself and boat's crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half\na rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing\nbetween; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the\nland, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the\nPequod.\n\nBut this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an\ninterval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's\nboat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the\nPequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew\nvery fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by\nthe sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some\nway ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings\nagain. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a\nconversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not\nwithout still another interruption of a very different sort.\n\nPulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular\nappearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities\nmake up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled\nall over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A\nlong-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped\nhim; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A\ndeep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.\n\nSo soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had\nexclaimed--\"That's he! that's he!--the long-togged scaramouch the\nTown-Ho's company told us of!\" Stubb here alluded to a strange story\ntold of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time\nprevious when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account\nand what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in\nquestion had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the\nJeroboam. His story was this:\n\nHe had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna\nShakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret\nmeetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a\ntrap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he\ncarried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder,\nwas supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim\nhaving seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with\nthat cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense\nexterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the\nJeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon\nthe ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a\nfreshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded\nthe captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby\nhe set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and\nvicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he\ndeclared these things;--the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited\nimagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united\nto invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant\ncrew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of\nhim. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship,\nespecially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous\ncaptain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that\nindividual's intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the\narchangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials--devoting the ship\nand all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was\ncarried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew,\nthat at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel\nwas sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore\nforced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any\nway maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that\nGabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all\nthis was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and\nmates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand\nthan ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole\ncommand; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure.\nThe sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before\nhim; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal\nhomage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however\nwondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking\nin respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as\nhis measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But\nit is time to return to the Pequod.\n\n\"I fear not thy epidemic, man,\" said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain\nMayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; \"come on board.\"\n\nBut now Gabriel started to his feet.\n\n\"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible\nplague!\"\n\n\"Gabriel! Gabriel!\" cried Captain Mayhew; \"thou must either--\" But\nthat instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings\ndrowned all speech.\n\n\"Hast thou seen the White Whale?\" demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted\nback.\n\n\"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible\ntail!\"\n\n\"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that--\" But again the boat tore ahead as if\ndragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession\nof riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices\nof the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm\nwhale's head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing\nit with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to\nwarrant.\n\nWhen this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story\nconcerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from\nGabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed\nleagued with him.\n\nIt seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking\na whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby\nDick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence,\nGabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White\nWhale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity,\npronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God\nincarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two\nafterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the\nchief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him; and the captain himself\nbeing not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all\nthe archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in\npersuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after\nmuch weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last\nsucceeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to\nthe main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and\nhurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants\nof his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his\nboat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting\nhis wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance\nfor his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its\nquick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies\nof the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious\nlife, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his\ndescent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a\nchip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head; but the\nmate for ever sank.\n\nIt is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the\nSperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any.\nSometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated;\noftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the\nheadsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But\nstrangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one,\nwhen the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is\ndiscernible; the man being stark dead.\n\nThe whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried\nfrom the ship. Raising a piercing shriek--\"The vial! the vial!\" Gabriel\ncalled off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the\nwhale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence;\nbecause his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically\nfore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any\none might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the\nwide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship.\n\nMayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to\nhim, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he\nintended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which\nAhab answered--\"Aye.\" Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started\nto his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with\ndownward pointed finger--\"Think, think of the blasphemer--dead, and down\nthere!--beware of the blasphemer's end!\"\n\nAhab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, \"Captain, I have\njust bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy\nofficers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.\"\n\nEvery whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships,\nwhose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends\nupon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus,\nmost letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after\nattaining an age of two or three years or more.\n\nSoon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled,\ndamp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence\nof being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death\nhimself might well have been the post-boy.\n\n\"Can'st not read it?\" cried Ahab. \"Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but\na dim scrawl;--what's this?\" As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a\nlong cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to\ninsert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without\nits coming any closer to the ship.\n\nMeantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, \"Mr. Har--yes, Mr.\nHarry--(a woman's pinny hand,--the man's wife, I'll wager)--Aye--Mr.\nHarry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;--why it's Macey, and he's dead!\"\n\n\"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,\" sighed Mayhew; \"but let\nme have it.\"\n\n\"Nay, keep it thyself,\" cried Gabriel to Ahab; \"thou art soon going that\nway.\"\n\n\"Curses throttle thee!\" yelled Ahab. \"Captain Mayhew, stand by now to\nreceive it\"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he\ncaught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat.\nBut as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat\ndrifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as if by magic, the\nletter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it\nin an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it,\nsent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then\nGabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in\nthat manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.\n\nAs, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket\nof the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild\naffair.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.\n\n\nIn the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there\nis much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are\nwanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying\nin any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done\neverywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description\nof the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned\nthat upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook\nwas inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the\nmates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook\nget fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend\nQueequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the\nmonster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many\ncases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the\nwhale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The\nwhale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the\nimmediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the\nlevel of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the\nwhale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill\nbeneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the\nHighland costume--a shirt and socks--in which to my eyes, at least,\nhe appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to\nobserve him, as will presently be seen.\n\nBeing the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar\nin his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to\nattend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead\nwhale's back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by\na long cord. Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg\ndown there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery\na monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his\nwaist.\n\nIt was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we\nproceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at\nboth ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow\nleather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were\nwedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage\nand honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag\nme down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us.\nQueequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get\nrid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.\n\nSo strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that\nwhile earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive\nthat my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of\ntwo; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another's\nmistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster\nand death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in\nProvidence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an\ninjustice. And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now\nand then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam\nhim--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine\nwas the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most\ncases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality\nof other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by\nmistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say\nthat, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the\nmultitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's\nmonkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came\nvery near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I\nwould, I only had the management of one end of it.*\n\n\n*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod\nthat the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement\nupon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb,\nin order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible\nguarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder.\n\n\nI have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the\nwhale and the ship--where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant\nrolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy\nhe was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the\nnight, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent\nblood which began to flow from the carcass--the rabid creatures swarmed\nround it like bees in a beehive.\n\nAnd right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them\naside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were\nit not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise\nmiscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man.\n\nNevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a\nravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them.\nAccordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked\nthe poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed\na peculiarly ferocious shark--he was provided with still another\nprotection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego\nand Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen\nwhale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could\nreach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and\nbenevolent of them. They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I admit; but\nin their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both\nhe and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water,\nthose indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg\nthan a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there\nwith that great iron hook--poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his\nYojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods.\n\nWell, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in\nand then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea--what matters\nit, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men\nin this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those\nsharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks\nand spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.\n\nBut courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as\nwith blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs\nup the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over\nthe side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory\nglance hands him--what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands\nhim a cup of tepid ginger and water!\n\n\"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?\" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near.\n\"Yes, this must be ginger,\" peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then\nstanding as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the\nastonished steward slowly saying, \"Ginger? ginger? and will you have\nthe goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger?\nGinger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire\nin this shivering cannibal? Ginger!--what the devil is ginger?\nSea-coal? firewood?--lucifer matches?--tinder?--gunpowder?--what the\ndevil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg\nhere.\"\n\n\"There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this\nbusiness,\" he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just\ncome from forward. \"Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it,\nif you please.\" Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, \"The\nsteward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap\nto Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an\napothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by\nwhich he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?\"\n\n\"I trust not,\" said Starbuck, \"it is poor stuff enough.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, steward,\" cried Stubb, \"we'll teach you to drug a\nharpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to poison\nus, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder\nus all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?\"\n\n\"It was not me,\" cried Dough-Boy, \"it was Aunt Charity that brought the\nginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but\nonly this ginger-jub--so she called it.\"\n\n\"Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye\nto the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr.\nStarbuck. It is the captain's orders--grog for the harpooneer on a\nwhale.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" replied Starbuck, \"only don't hit him again, but--\"\n\n\"Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of\nthat sort; and this fellow's a weazel. What were you about saying, sir?\"\n\n\"Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself.\"\n\nWhen Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort\nof tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was\nhanded to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity's gift, and that was\nfreely given to the waves.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk\nOver Him.\n\n\nIt must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale's\nprodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must let it\ncontinue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it.\nFor the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the\nhead, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold.\n\nNow, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually\ndrifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit,\ngave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the\nLeviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking\nanywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of\nthose inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to\ncruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near\nthe Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale\nhad been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the\nannouncement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if\nopportunity offered.\n\nNor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two\nboats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further\nand further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at\nthe mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of\ntumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or\nboth the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in\nplain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the\ntowing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at\nfirst it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a\nmaelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from\nview, as if diving under the keel. \"Cut, cut!\" was the cry from the\nship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being\nbrought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty\nof line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they\npaid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their\nmight so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle was\nintensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened line\nin one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the contending\nstrain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet advance\nthey sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it; when\ninstantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the\nkeel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose\nto view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its\ndrippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water,\nwhile the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were\nfree to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering\nhis course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after\nhim, so that they performed a complete circuit.\n\nMeantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close\nflanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for\nlance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the\nmultitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale's body,\nrushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every\nnew gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that\npoured from the smitten rock.\n\nAt last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he\nturned upon his back a corpse.\n\nWhile the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes,\nand in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some\nconversation ensued between them.\n\n\"I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,\" said\nStubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so\nignoble a leviathan.\n\n\"Wants with it?\" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow,\n\"did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's\nhead hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's\non the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never\nafterwards capsize?\"\n\n\"Why not?\n\n\"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so,\nand he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think\nhe'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap,\nStubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into\na snake's head, Stubb?\"\n\n\"Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a\ndark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look\ndown there, Flask\"--pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of\nboth hands--\"Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in\ndisguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been\nstowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you\ndon't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries\nit coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of\nit, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots.\"\n\n\"He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've\nseen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.\"\n\n\"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye\nsee, in the eye of the rigging.\"\n\n\"What's the old man have so much to do with him for?\"\n\n\"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Bargain?--about what?\"\n\n\"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and\nthe devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away\nhis silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he'll\nsurrender Moby Dick.\"\n\n\"Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked\none, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the\nold flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and\ngentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he\nwas at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching\nhis hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.' 'What for?' says the old\ngovernor. 'What business is that of yours,' says the devil, getting\nmad,--'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says the governor--and by the\nLord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before\nhe got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look\nsharp--ain't you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get\nthe whale alongside.\"\n\n\"I think I remember some such story as you were telling,\" said Flask,\nwhen at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden\ntowards the ship, \"but I can't remember where.\"\n\n\"Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soladoes? Did\nye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?\"\n\n\"No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me,\nStubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was\nthe same you say is now on board the Pequod?\"\n\n\"Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live\nfor ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see\nany parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a\nlatch-key to get into the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can\ncrawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?\"\n\n\"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?\"\n\n\"Do you see that mainmast there?\" pointing to the ship; \"well, that's\nthe figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string\nalong in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that\nwouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation\ncouldn't show hoops enough to make oughts enough.\"\n\n\"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you\nmeant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if\nhe's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going\nto live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard--tell me\nthat?\n\n\"Give him a good ducking, anyhow.\"\n\n\"But he'd crawl back.\"\n\n\"Duck him again; and keep ducking him.\"\n\n\"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though--yes, and\ndrown you--what then?\"\n\n\"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes\nthat he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again for\na long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and\nhereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil,\nFlask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the devil? Who's afraid of\nhim, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in\ndouble-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping\npeople; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil\nkidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a governor!\"\n\n\"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?\"\n\n\"Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now\nto keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious\ngoing on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say--Look\nhere, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord\nI'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan,\nand give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short\noff at the stump--do you see; and then, I rather guess when he finds\nhimself docked in that queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the poor\nsatisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs.\"\n\n\"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?\"\n\n\"Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;--what else?\"\n\n\"Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?\"\n\n\"Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.\"\n\nThe boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where\nfluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing\nhim.\n\n\"Didn't I tell you so?\" said Flask; \"yes, you'll soon see this right\nwhale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's.\"\n\nIn good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply\nleaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of\nboth heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may\nwell believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go\nover that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come\nback again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep\ntrimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard,\nand then you will float light and right.\n\nIn disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the\nship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the\ncase of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off\nwhole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and\nhoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is\ncalled the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case,\nhad been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and\nthe head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of\noverburdening panniers.\n\nMeantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever\nand anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own\nhand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow;\nwhile, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed only to\nblend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish\nspeculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing\nthings.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head--Contrasted View.\n\n\nHere, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us\njoin them, and lay together our own.\n\nOf the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right\nWhale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly\nhunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all\nthe known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between\nthem is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this\nmoment hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one\nto the other, by merely stepping across the deck:--where, I should like\nto know, will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology\nthan here?\n\nIn the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these\nheads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a certain\nmathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly\nlacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold\nit, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point\nof pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is\nheightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the summit,\ngiving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what\nthe fishermen technically call a \"grey-headed whale.\"\n\nLet us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the two\nmost important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of\nthe head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you\nnarrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would\nfancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it to the\nmagnitude of the head.\n\nNow, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is\nplain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more\nthan he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale's\neyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for\nyourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects\nthrough your ears. You would find that you could only command some\nthirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight;\nand about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking\nstraight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not\nbe able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from\nbehind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the\nsame time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes the\nfront of a man--what, indeed, but his eyes?\n\nMoreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes\nare so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to\nproduce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of\nthe whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of\nsolid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating\ntwo lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the\nimpressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore,\nmust see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct\npicture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and\nnothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the world\nfrom a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with the\nwhale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct\nwindows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale's\neyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be\nremembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.\n\nA curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this\nvisual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a\nhint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing\nis involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing\nwhatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience\nwill teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of\nthings at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively,\nand completely, to examine any two things--however large or however\nsmall--at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side\nby side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two\nobjects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in\norder to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to\nbear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary\nconsciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes,\nin themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more\ncomprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same\nmoment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one\nside of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he\ncan, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able\nsimultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems\nin Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this\ncomparison.\n\nIt may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the\nextraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when\nbeset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer\nfrights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly\nproceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their\ndivided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.\n\nBut the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an\nentire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads\nfor hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf\nwhatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so\nwondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With\nrespect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed\nbetween the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has\nan external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered\nover with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.\n\nIs it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the\nworld through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which\nis smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of\nHerschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of\ncathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of\nhearing? Not at all.--Why then do you try to \"enlarge\" your mind?\nSubtilize it.\n\nLet us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant\nover the sperm whale's head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending\nby a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not\nthat the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we\nmight descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But\nlet us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What\na really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling,\nlined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as\nbridal satins.\n\nBut come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems\nlike the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one\nend, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead,\nand expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such,\nalas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these\nspikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold,\nwhen fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there\nsuspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging\nstraight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a\nship's jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of\nsorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his\njaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a\nreproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon\nhim.\n\nIn most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised\nartist--is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting\nthe ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone\nwith which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles,\nincluding canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips.\n\nWith a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an\nanchor; and when the proper time comes--some few days after the other\nwork--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists,\nare set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances\nthe gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being\nrigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag\nstumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally forty-two\nteeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled\nafter our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and\npiled away like joists for building houses.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 75. The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View.\n\n\nCrossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right Whale's\nhead.\n\nAs in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a\nRoman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded);\nso, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant\nresemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an\nold Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last. And\nin this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with\nthe swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her\nprogeny.\n\nBut as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different\naspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and\nlook at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head\nfor an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its\nsounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange,\ncrested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass--this green,\nbarnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the \"crown,\" and the\nSouthern fishers the \"bonnet\" of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes\nsolely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak,\nwith a bird's nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live\ncrabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost\nsure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the\ntechnical term \"crown\" also bestowed upon it; in which case you will\ntake great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a\ndiademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for\nhim in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very\nsulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip!\nwhat a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's\nmeasurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout\nthat will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.\n\nA great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.\nThe fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an\nimportant interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes\ncaused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold,\nwe now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should\ntake this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the\nroad that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a\npretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while\nthese ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half\nvertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a\nside, which depending from the upper part of the head or crown\nbone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily\nmentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres,\nthrough which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose\nintricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through\nthe seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they\nstand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves,\nhollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature's age,\nas the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this\ncriterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical\nprobability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater\nage to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable.\n\nIn old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies\nconcerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous\n\"whiskers\" inside of the whale's mouth;* another, \"hogs' bristles\"; a\nthird old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language:\n\"There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his\nupper CHOP, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.\"\n\n\n*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or\nrather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the\nupper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these\ntufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn\ncountenance.\n\n\nAs every one knows, these same \"hogs' bristles,\" \"fins,\" \"whiskers,\"\n\"blinds,\" or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and\nother stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has\nlong been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was\nin its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those\nancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as\nyou may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we\nnowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a\ntent spread over the same bone.\n\nBut now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing\nin the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these\ncolonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think\nyou were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its\nthousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest\nTurkey--the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the\nmouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting\nit on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I\nshould say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that\namount of oil.\n\nEre this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started\nwith--that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely\ndifferent heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale's there is no great\nwell of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a\nlower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any\nof those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a\ntongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm\nWhale only one.\n\nLook your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie\ntogether; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will\nnot be very long in following.\n\nCan you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same\nhe died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem\nnow faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like\nplacidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the\nother head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident\nagainst the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not\nthis whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in\nfacing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm\nWhale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.\n\n\nEre quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have\nyou, as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly remark its front\naspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate\nit now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated,\nintelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged\nthere. Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle\nthis matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of\nthe most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be\nfound in all recorded history.\n\nYou observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale,\nthe front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the\nwater; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably\nbackwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which\nreceives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely\nunder the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth\nwere entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has\nno external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole--is on the\ntop of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides\nof his head, nearly one third of his entire length from the front.\nWherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm\nWhale's head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender\nprominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider\nthat only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of\nthe head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you\nget near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial\ndevelopment. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad.\nFinally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise\nthe most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of\nthe substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy.\nIn some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the\nbody of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head;\nbut with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so\nthick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not\nhandled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by\nthe strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though\nthe forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I do not\nthink that any sensation lurks in it.\n\nBethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen\nchance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the\nsailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming\ncontact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold\nthere a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest\nand toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which\nwould have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By\nitself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But\nsupplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that\nas ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them,\ncapable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale,\nas far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too,\nthe otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head\naltogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out\nof the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope;\nconsidering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically\noccurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there\nmay possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with\nthe outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and\ncontraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to\nwhich the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes.\n\nNow, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable\nwall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a\nmass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood\nis--by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest\ninsect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the\nspecialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this\nexpansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable\nbraining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant\nincredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale\nstove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic\nwith the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For\nunless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist\nin Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to\nencounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell\nthe weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.\n\n\nNow comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must\nknow something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated\nupon.\n\nRegarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on an\ninclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower\nis the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an\nunctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the\nexpanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the\nforehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two\nalmost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal\nwall of a thick tendinous substance.\n\n\n*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical\nmathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a\nsolid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the\nsteep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both\nsides.\n\n\nThe lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb\nof oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand\ninfiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole\nextent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great\nHeidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is\nmystically carved in front, so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms\ninnumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his\nwondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished\nwith the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun\nof the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages;\nnamely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid,\nand odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed\nin any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly\nfluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to\nconcrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the\nfirst thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale's\ncase generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from\nunavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and\ndribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business\nof securing what you can.\n\nI know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun\nwas coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not\npossibly have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like the\nlining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale's\ncase.\n\nIt will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale\nembraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since--as\nhas been elsewhere set forth--the head embraces one third of the whole\nlength of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet for\na good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth\nof the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship's\nside.\n\nAs in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close\nto the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti\nmagazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless,\nuntimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its\ninvaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which\nis at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by\nthe enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side,\nmake quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.\n\nThus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and--in\nthis particular instance--almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm\nWhale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.\n\n\nNimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect\nposture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the\npart where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried\nwith him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts,\ntravelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that\nit hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it\nis caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down\nthe other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he\nlands on the summit of the head. There--still high elevated above the\nrest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries--he seems some Turkish\nMuezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A\nshort-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches\nfor the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business\nhe proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house,\nsounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time\nthis cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like\na well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other\nend, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three\nalert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian,\nto whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this\npole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun,\ntill it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the\nwhip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail\nof new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted\nvessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large\ntub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until\nthe deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to\nram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun,\nuntil some twenty feet of the pole have gone down.\n\nNow, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way;\nseveral tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a\nqueer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian,\nwas so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed\nhold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the\nplace where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil\nOne himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular\nreasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden,\nas the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up--my God! poor\nTashtego--like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well,\ndropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with\na horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight!\n\n\"Man overboard!\" cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first\ncame to his senses. \"Swing the bucket this way!\" and putting one foot\ninto it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip\nitself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost\nbefore Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime,\nthere was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before\nlifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea,\nas if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only\nthe poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous\ndepth to which he had sunk.\n\nAt this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing\nthe whip--which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles--a\nsharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all,\none of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with\na vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship\nreeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook,\nupon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be\non the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent\nmotions of the head.\n\n\"Come down, come down!\" yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand\nholding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he\nwould still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line,\nrammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the\nburied harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.\n\n\"In heaven's name, man,\" cried Stubb, \"are you ramming home a cartridge\nthere?--Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on\ntop of his head? Avast, will ye!\"\n\n\"Stand clear of the tackle!\" cried a voice like the bursting of a\nrocket.\n\nAlmost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass\ndropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the\nsuddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering\ncopper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging--now over the\nsailors' heads, and now over the water--Daggoo, through a thick mist of\nspray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor,\nburied-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea!\nBut hardly had the blinding vapour cleared away, when a naked figure\nwith a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen\nhovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my\nbrave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the\nside, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and\nno sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now\njumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship.\n\n\"Ha! ha!\" cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch\noverhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust\nupright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust\nforth from the grass over a grave.\n\n\"Both! both!--it is both!\"--cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and\nsoon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and\nwith the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the\nwaiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was\nlong in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk.\n\nNow, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after\nthe slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made\nside lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then\ndropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards,\nand so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first\nthrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that\nwas not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;--he had\nthrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a\nsomerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in\nthe good old way--head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was\ndoing as well as could be expected.\n\nAnd thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg,\nthe deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully\naccomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently\nhopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten.\nMidwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing,\nriding and rowing.\n\nI know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to\nseem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have either\nseen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern ashore; an accident\nwhich not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than the\nIndian's, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the\nSperm Whale's well.\n\nBut, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought\nthe tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and\nmost corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of\na far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at\nall, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been\nnearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense\ntendinous wall of the well--a double welded, hammered substance, as I\nhave before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which\nsinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this\nsubstance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the\nother parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank\nvery slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance\nfor performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it\nwas a running delivery, so it was.\n\nNow, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious\nperishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant\nspermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber\nand sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be\nrecalled--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey\nin the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that\nleaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed.\nHow many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and\nsweetly perished there?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 79. The Prairie.\n\n\nTo scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this\nLeviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as\nyet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for\nLavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar,\nor for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the\nPantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats\nof the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces\nof horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the\nmodifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and\nhis disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the\nphrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore,\nthough I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these\ntwo semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things;\nI achieve what I can.\n\nPhysiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature.\nHe has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most\nconspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and\nfinally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that its\nentire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect\nthe countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire,\ncupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable\nto the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in\nkeeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the nose\nfrom Phidias's marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless,\nLeviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so\nstately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were\nhideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A\nnose to the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical\nvoyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly-boat, your noble\nconceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a\nnose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will insist upon\nobtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne.\n\nIn some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to\nbe had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This\naspect is sublime.\n\nIn thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the\nmorning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has a\ntouch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the\nelephant's brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as\nthat great golden seal affixed by the German Emperors to their decrees.\nIt signifies--\"God: done this day by my hand.\" But in most creatures,\nnay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of alpine\nland lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which like\nShakespeare's or Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the\neyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and all\nabove them in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered\nthoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the\nsnow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and\nmighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified,\nthat gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the\ndread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living\nnature. For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is\nrevealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper;\nnothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with\nriddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men.\nNor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way\nviewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you\nplainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the\nforehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of genius.\n\nBut how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written\na book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his\ndoing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his\npyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale\nbeen known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by\ntheir child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile,\nbecause the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no\ntongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of\nprotrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure\nback to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly\nenthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted\nhill; then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale\nshall lord it.\n\nChampollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is\nno Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's\nface. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing\nfable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could\nnot read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle\nmeanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of\nthe Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you\ncan.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 80. The Nut.\n\n\nIf the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his\nbrain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square.\n\nIn the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet\nin length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as\nthe side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level\nbase. But in life--as we have elsewhere seen--this inclined plane is\nangularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent\nmass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to\nbed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater--in\nanother cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in\ndepth--reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at\nleast twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden\naway behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the\namplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it\nsecreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny\nthat the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance\nof one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange\nfolds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more\nin keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part\nof him as the seat of his intelligence.\n\nIt is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in\nthe creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his\ntrue brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The\nwhale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common\nworld.\n\nIf you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view\nof its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its\nresemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from\nthe same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down\nto the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would\ninvoluntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on\none part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say--This\nman had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations,\nconsidered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and\npower, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most\nexhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is.\n\nBut if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, you\ndeem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea\nfor you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine,\nyou will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung\nnecklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the\nskull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely\nundeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it\nthe Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once\npointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with\nthe vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the\nbeaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have\nomitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the\ncerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's\ncharacter will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel\nyour spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine\nnever yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the\nfirm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.\n\nApply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial\ncavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra\nthe bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being\neight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As\nit passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but\nfor a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course,\nthis canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance--the\nspinal cord--as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain.\nAnd what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's\ncavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost\nequal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be\nunreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically?\nFor, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his\nbrain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative\nmagnitude of his spinal cord.\n\nBut leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I\nwould merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the\nSperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one\nof the larger vertebrae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer\nconvex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this\nhigh hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale.\nAnd that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to\nknow.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.\n\n\nThe predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick\nDe Deer, master, of Bremen.\n\nAt one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and\nGermans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide\nintervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with\ntheir flag in the Pacific.\n\nFor some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects.\nWhile yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a\nboat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the\nbows instead of the stern.\n\n\"What has he in his hand there?\" cried Starbuck, pointing to something\nwavingly held by the German. \"Impossible!--a lamp-feeder!\"\n\n\"Not that,\" said Stubb, \"no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's\ncoming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don't you see that big\ntin can there alongside of him?--that's his boiling water. Oh! he's all\nright, is the Yarman.\"\n\n\"Go along with you,\" cried Flask, \"it's a lamp-feeder and an oil-can.\nHe's out of oil, and has come a-begging.\"\n\nHowever curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the\nwhale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old\nproverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing\nreally happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did\nindubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.\n\nAs he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all\nheeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German\nsoon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately\nturning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some\nremarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in\nprofound darkness--his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a\nsingle flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding\nby hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically\ncalled a CLEAN one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name of\nJungfrau or the Virgin.\n\nHis necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his\nship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the\nmast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that\nwithout pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed\nround his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders.\n\nNow, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German\nboats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod's\nkeels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their danger,\nthey were going all abreast with great speed straight before the wind,\nrubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness.\nThey left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great\nwide parchment upon the sea.\n\nFull in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge,\nhumped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as\nby the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed afflicted\nwith the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this whale belonged\nto the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for\nsuch venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck\nto their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him,\nbecause the white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one,\nlike the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was\nshort, slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush,\nand spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean\ncommotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried\nextremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble.\n\n\"Who's got some paregoric?\" said Stubb, \"he has the stomach-ache, I'm\nafraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse\nwinds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind\nI ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before?\nit must be, he's lost his tiller.\"\n\nAs an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck\nload of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her\nway; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly\nturning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious\nwake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost\nthat fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say.\n\n\"Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that wounded\narm,\" cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him.\n\n\"Mind he don't sling thee with it,\" cried Starbuck. \"Give way, or the\nGerman will have him.\"\n\nWith one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this\none fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most\nvaluable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were\ngoing with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit\nfor the time. At this juncture the Pequod's keels had shot by the three\nGerman boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had, Derick's\nboat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign\nrivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being already so\nnigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they\ncould completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite\nconfident that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding\ngesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats.\n\n\"The ungracious and ungrateful dog!\" cried Starbuck; \"he mocks and dares\nme with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes ago!\"--then\nin his old intense whisper--\"Give way, greyhounds! Dog to it!\"\n\n\"I tell ye what it is, men\"--cried Stubb to his crew--\"it's against\nmy religion to get mad; but I'd like to eat that villainous\nYarman--Pull--won't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do\nye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come,\nwhy don't some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who's that been dropping an\nanchor overboard--we don't budge an inch--we're becalmed. Halloo, here's\ngrass growing in the boat's bottom--and by the Lord, the mast there's\nbudding. This won't do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long of\nit is, men, will ye spit fire or not?\"\n\n\"Oh! see the suds he makes!\" cried Flask, dancing up and down--\"What\na hump--Oh, DO pile on the beef--lays like a log! Oh! my lads, DO\nspring--slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads--baked\nclams and muffins--oh, DO, DO, spring,--he's a hundred barreller--don't\nlose him now--don't oh, DON'T!--see that Yarman--Oh, won't ye pull for\nyour duff, my lads--such a sog! such a sogger! Don't ye love sperm?\nThere goes three thousand dollars, men!--a bank!--a whole bank! The bank\nof England!--Oh, DO, DO, DO!--What's that Yarman about now?\"\n\nAt this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the\nadvancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view\nof retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time economically\naccelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss.\n\n\"The unmannerly Dutch dogger!\" cried Stubb. \"Pull now, men, like fifty\nthousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d'ye say,\nTashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces\nfor the honour of old Gayhead? What d'ye say?\"\n\n\"I say, pull like god-dam,\"--cried the Indian.\n\nFiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod's\nthree boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed,\nmomentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of\nthe headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up\nproudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry\nof, \"There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down with\nthe Yarman! Sail over him!\"\n\nBut so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all\ntheir gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not\na righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade\nof his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to free\nhis white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to\ncapsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;--that was\na good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took a\nmortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter.\nAn instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's\nimmediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the\nfoaming swell that he made.\n\nIt was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was\nnow going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual\ntormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of\nfright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight,\nand still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the\nsea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I\nseen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the\nair, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a\nvoice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear\nof this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him;\nhe had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle,\nand this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his\namazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to\nappal the stoutest man who so pitied.\n\nSeeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod's\nboats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick\nchose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long dart,\nere the last chance would for ever escape.\n\nBut no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three\ntigers--Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo--instinctively sprang to their feet,\nand standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs; and\ndarted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket\nirons entered the whale. Blinding vapours of foam and white-fire! The\nthree boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped\nthe German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled\nharpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels.\n\n\"Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes,\" cried Stubb, casting a passing\nglance upon them as he shot by; \"ye'll be picked up presently--all\nright--I saw some sharks astern--St. Bernard's dogs, you know--relieve\ndistressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel a\nsunbeam! Hurrah!--Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad\ncougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on\na plain--makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that\nway; and there's danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a\nhill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy\nJones--all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale\ncarries the everlasting mail!\"\n\nBut the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he\ntumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round\nthe loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them;\nwhile so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would\nsoon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they\ncaught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at\nlast--owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of\nthe boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue--the\ngunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three\nsterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound,\nfor some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more\nline, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have\nbeen taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this \"holding on,\" as it\nis called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from\nthe back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising\nagain to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril\nof the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the\nbest; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken\nwhale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the\nenormous surface of him--in a full grown sperm whale something less than\n2000 square feet--the pressure of the water is immense. We all know\nwhat an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even\nhere, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale,\nbearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at\nleast equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated\nit at the weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns,\nand stores, and men on board.\n\nAs the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down\ninto its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any\nsort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths;\nwhat landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and\nplacidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in\nagony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.\nSeems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan\nwas suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and\nto what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was\nonce so triumphantly said--\"Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?\nor his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot\nhold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as\nstraw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble;\nhe laugheth at the shaking of a spear!\" This the creature? this he? Oh!\nthat unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength\nof a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the\nmountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fish-spears!\n\nIn that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats\nsent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad\nenough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the\nwounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!\n\n\"Stand by, men; he stirs,\" cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly\nvibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by\nmagnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every\noarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part\nfrom the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce\nupwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are\nscared from it into the sea.\n\n\"Haul in! Haul in!\" cried Starbuck again; \"he's rising.\"\n\nThe lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's breadth\ncould have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all\ndripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two\nship's lengths of the hunters.\n\nHis motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land animals\nthere are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, whereby\nwhen wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in\ncertain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities\nit is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so\nthat when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly\ndrain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is\nheightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance\nbelow the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant\nstreams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant\nand numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and\nbleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will\nflow, whose source is in the well-springs of far-off and undiscernible\nhills. Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously\ndrew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him,\nthey were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept\ncontinually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only\nat intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the\nair. From this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him\nhad thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was\nuntouched.\n\nAs the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of\nhis form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly\nrevealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were\nbeheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the\nnoblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes\nhad once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see.\nBut pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his\nblind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the\ngay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the\nsolemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.\nStill rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely\ndiscoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the\nflank.\n\n\"A nice spot,\" cried Flask; \"just let me prick him there once.\"\n\n\"Avast!\" cried Starbuck, \"there's no need of that!\"\n\nBut humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an\nulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than\nsufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury\nblindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews\nall over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the\nbows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by\nloss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had\nmade; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin,\nthen over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up\nthe white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most\npiteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water\nis gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled\nmelancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the\nground--so the last long dying spout of the whale.\n\nSoon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body\nshowed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. Immediately,\nby Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so\nthat ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a\nfew inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when\nthe ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was\nstrongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain\nthat unless artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the\nbottom.\n\nIt so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade,\nthe entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh,\non the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of\nharpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales,\nwith the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any\nkind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been\nsome other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for\nthe ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a\nlance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron,\nthe flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And\nwhen? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before\nAmerica was discovered.\n\nWhat other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous\ncabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further\ndiscoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways\nto the sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink.\nHowever, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the\nlast; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship\nwould have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the\nbody; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such was\nthe immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and\ncables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime\neverything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the\ndeck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship\ngroaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and\ncabins were started from their places, by the unnatural dislocation.\nIn vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable\nfluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so low\nhad the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all\napproached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to\nthe sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going over.\n\n\"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?\" cried Stubb to the body, \"don't be in such\na devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something or go\nfor it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run\none of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains.\"\n\n\"Knife? Aye, aye,\" cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's heavy\nhatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing\nat the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were\ngiven, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific\nsnap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank.\n\nNow, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm\nWhale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately\naccounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great\nbuoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the\nsurface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and\nbroken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their\nbones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that\nthis sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so\nsinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it\nis not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with\nnoble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of\nlife, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny, buoyant\nheroes do sometimes sink.\n\nBe it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this\naccident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty\nRight Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in\nno small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale;\nhis Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this\nincumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances\nwhere, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale\nagain rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this\nis obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious\nmagnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship could\nhardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among\nthe Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they\nfasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone\ndown, they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again.\n\nIt was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from\nthe Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering\nher boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a Fin-Back,\nbelonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its\nincredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's spout is so\nsimilar to the Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is often\nmistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in\nvaliant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail,\nmade after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to\nleeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.\n\nOh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling.\n\n\nThere are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true\nmethod.\n\nThe more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up\nto the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its\ngreat honourableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many\ngreat demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other\nhave shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection\nthat I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a\nfraternity.\n\nThe gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and\nto the eternal honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale\nattacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those\nwere the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to\nsuccor the distressed, and not to fill men's lamp-feeders. Every one\nknows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda,\nthe daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as\nLeviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince\nof whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and delivered\nand married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely\nachieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this\nLeviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this\nArkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast,\nin one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton\nof a whale, which the city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to\nbe the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans\ntook Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What\nseems most singular and suggestively important in this story, is this:\nit was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.\n\nAkin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda--indeed, by some supposed\nto be indirectly derived from it--is that famous story of St. George and\nthe Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many\nold chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and\noften stand for each other. \"Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a\ndragon of the sea,\" saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale;\nin truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it\nwould much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but\nencountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle\nwith the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a\nPerseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly\nup to a whale.\n\nLet not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though\nthe creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely\nrepresented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted\non land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance\nof those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists;\nand considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have\ncrawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal\nridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse;\nbearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible\nwith the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to\nhold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In\nfact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will\nfare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by\nname; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and\nboth the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or\nfishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even\na whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we\nharpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order\nof St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honourable\ncompany (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a\nwhale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with\ndisdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are\nmuch better entitled to St. George's decoration than they.\n\nWhether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long\nremained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that\nantique Crockett and Kit Carson--that brawny doer of rejoicing good\ndeeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether\nthat strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere\nappears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed,\nfrom the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary\nwhaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I\nclaim him for one of our clan.\n\nBut, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of\nHercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more\nancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versa; certainly\nthey are very similar. If I claim the demigod then, why not the prophet?\n\nNor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole\nroll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal\nkings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in nothing\nshort of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now\nto be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one\nof the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine\nVishnoo himself for our Lord;--Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten\nearthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale.\nWhen Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate\nthe world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to\nVishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books,\nwhose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before\nbeginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained\nsomething in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these\nVedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became\nincarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths,\nrescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even\nas a man who rides a horse is called a horseman?\n\nPerseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's a member-roll\nfor you! What club but the whaleman's can head off like that?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.\n\n\nReference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the\npreceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical\nstory of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks\nand Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times,\nequally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the\ndolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those\ntraditions one whit the less facts, for all that.\n\nOne old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew\nstory was this:--He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,\nembellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented\nJonah's whale with two spouts in his head--a peculiarity only true\nwith respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the\nvarieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this\nsaying, \"A penny roll would choke him\"; his swallow is so very small.\nBut, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not\nnecessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the\nwhale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And\nthis seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the\nRight Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and\ncomfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have\nensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right\nWhale is toothless.\n\nAnother reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his\nwant of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in\nreference to his incarcerated body and the whale's gastric juices. But\nthis objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist\nsupposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a\nDEAD whale--even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned\ntheir dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has\nbeen divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was\nthrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape\nto another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head;\nand, I would add, possibly called \"The Whale,\" as some craft are\nnowadays christened the \"Shark,\" the \"Gull,\" the \"Eagle.\" Nor have there\nbeen wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned\nin the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver--an inflated bag\nof wind--which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a\nwatery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But\nhe had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I\nremember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean\nSea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere within three days'\njourney of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three\ndays' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast.\nHow is that?\n\nBut was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that\nshort distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the\nway of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through\nthe whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the\nPersian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete\ncircumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris\nwaters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to\nswim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope\nat so early a day would wrest the honour of the discovery of that great\nheadland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make\nmodern history a liar.\n\nBut all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his\nfoolish pride of reason--a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing\nthat he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the\nsun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and\nabominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a\nPortuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh\nvia the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of\nthe general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly\nenlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And\nsome three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages,\nspeaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honour of Jonah, in which Mosque was\na miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.\n\n\nTo make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are\nanointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an\nanalogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it\nto be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly\nbe of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are\nhostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to\nmake the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing\nhis boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau\ndisappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling\nunder its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the\nunctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from\nthe craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some\nparticular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event.\n\nTowards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to\nthem, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight,\nas of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.\n\nNevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great\nexertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the\nstricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal\nflight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the\nplanted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became\nimperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But\nto haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and\nfurious. What then remained?\n\nOf all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and\ncountless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced,\nnone exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small\nsword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It\nis only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand\nfact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is\naccurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme\nheadway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve\nfeet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon,\nand also of a lighter material--pine. It is furnished with a small rope\ncalled a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to\nthe hand after darting.\n\nBut before going further, it is important to mention here, that though\nthe harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it\nis seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful,\non account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as\ncompared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a\ngeneral thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any\npitchpoling comes into play.\n\nLook now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and\nequanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel\nin pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the\nflying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead.\nHandling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its\nlength to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up\nthe coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his\ngrasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before\nhis waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering\nhim with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby\nelevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his\npalm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler,\nbalancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless\nimpulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming\ndistance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of\nsparkling water, he now spouts red blood.\n\n\"That drove the spigot out of him!\" cried Stubb. \"'Tis July's immortal\nFourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old\nOrleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then,\nTashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink\nround it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch in the\nspread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the\nliving stuff.\"\n\nAgain and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated,\nthe spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful\nleash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is\nslackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and\nmutely watches the monster die.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 85. The Fountain.\n\n\nThat for six thousand years--and no one knows how many millions of ages\nbefore--the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea,\nand sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so\nmany sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back,\nthousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the\nwhale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings--that all this should\nbe, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter\nminutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D.\n1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings\nare, after all, really water, or nothing but vapour--this is surely a\nnoteworthy thing.\n\nLet us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items\ncontingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their\ngills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is\ncombined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod\nmight live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface.\nBut owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular\nlungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the\ndisengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for\nhis periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree\nbreathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm\nWhale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and\nwhat is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he\nbreathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head.\n\nIf I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function\nindispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a\ncertain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the\nblood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I\nshall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words.\nAssume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be\naerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not\nfetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then\nlive without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the\ncase with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full\nhour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or\nso much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has\nno gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine\nhe is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of\nvermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are\ncompletely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more,\na thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in\nhim, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus\nsupply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs.\nThe anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the\nsupposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more\ncogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of\nthat leviathan in HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase\nit. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the\nSperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform\nwith all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and\njets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he\nrises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to\na minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that\nhe sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular\nallowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he\nfinally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that\nin different individuals these rates are different; but in any one\nthey are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his\nspoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere\ndescending for good? How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the\nwhale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For\nnot by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing\na thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O\nhunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!\n\nIn man, breathing is incessantly going on--one breath only serving\nfor two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to\nattend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the\nSperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time.\n\nIt has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; if\nit could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then\nI opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell\nseems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all\nanswers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged\nwith two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of\nsmelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout--whether it be water or\nwhether it be vapour--no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on\nthis head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper\nolfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no\nCologne-water in the sea.\n\nFurthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting\ncanal, and as that long canal--like the grand Erie Canal--is furnished\nwith a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of\nair or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice;\nunless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles,\nhe talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say?\nSeldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to\nthis world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a\nliving. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!\n\nNow, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it\nis for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along,\nhorizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little\nto one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down\nin a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this\ngas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the\nSperm Whale is the mere vapour of the exhaled breath, or whether that\nexhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and\ndischarged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly\ncommunicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this\nis for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because\nthe greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he\naccidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath\nthe surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if\nyou regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find\nthat when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods\nof his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration.\n\nBut why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out!\nYou have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not\ntell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to\nsettle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the\nknottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in\nit, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.\n\nThe central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping\nit; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it,\nwhen, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view\nof his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading\nall around him. And if at such times you should think that you really\nperceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are\nnot merely condensed from its vapour; or how do you know that they\nare not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole\nfissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For\neven when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with\nhis elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert; even then,\nthe whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under\na blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with\nrain.\n\nNor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the\nprecise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering\ninto it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to\nthis fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into\nslight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds of the jet, which will\noften happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of\nthe thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer\ncontact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view,\nor otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.\nWherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to\nevade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt\nit, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you.\nThe wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let\nthis deadly spout alone.\n\nStill, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My\nhypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides\nother reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations\ntouching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale;\nI account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed\nfact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other\nwhales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am\nconvinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as\nPlato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes\nup a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep\nthoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the\ncuriosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there,\na curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my\nhead. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought,\nafter six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon;\nthis seems an additional argument for the above supposition.\n\nAnd how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to\nbehold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild\nhead overhung by a canopy of vapour, engendered by his incommunicable\ncontemplations, and that vapour--as you will sometimes see it--glorified\nby a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.\nFor, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate\nvapour. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my\nmind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a\nheavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;\nbut doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts\nof all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this\ncombination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who\nregards them both with equal eye.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 86. The Tail.\n\n\nOther poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope,\nand the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, I\ncelebrate a tail.\n\nReckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of\nthe trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises\nupon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The\ncompact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms\nor flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness.\nAt the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways\nrecede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In\nno living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in\nthe crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the\nfull grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across.\n\nThe entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut\ninto it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:--upper,\nmiddle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are\nlong and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running\ncrosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as\nanything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman\nwalls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin\ncourse of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful\nrelics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the\ngreat strength of the masonry.\n\nBut as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough,\nthe whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of\nmuscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins\nand running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and\nlargely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent\nmeasureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.\nCould annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.\n\nNor does this--its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful\nflexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through\na Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most\nappalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony,\nbut it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful,\nstrength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that\nall over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its\ncharm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the\nnaked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the\nman, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God\nthe Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever\nthey may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled,\nhermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most\nsuccessfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all\nbrawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine\none of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form\nthe peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.\n\nSuch is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether\nwielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it\nbe in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no\nfairy's arm can transcend it.\n\nFive great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for\nprogression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping;\nFourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.\n\nFirst: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in\na different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never\nwriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the\nwhale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled\nforwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this\nwhich gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when\nfuriously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by.\n\nSecond: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only\nfights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his\nconflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In\nstriking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the\nblow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed\nair, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply\nirresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only\nsalvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the\nopposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale\nboat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed\nplank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most\nserious result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the\nfishery, that they are accounted mere child's play. Some one strips off\na frock, and the hole is stopped.\n\nThird: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale\nthe sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect\nthere is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the\nelephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of\nsweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft\nslowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface\nof the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor,\nwhiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch!\nHad this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of\nDarmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with\nlow salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their\nzones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not\npossess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet\nanother elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk\nand extracted the dart.\n\nFourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the\nmiddle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence\nof his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a\nhearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of\nhis tail are flirted high into the air; then smiting the surface, the\nthunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a great\ngun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapour\nfrom the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was\nthe smoke from the touch-hole.\n\nFifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes\nlie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely\nout of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into\nthe deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are\ntossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they\ndownwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime BREACH--somewhere\nelse to be described--this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the\ngrandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless\nprofundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the\nhighest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth\nhis tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in\ngazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in\nthe Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the\narchangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that\ncrimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east,\nall heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with\npeaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment\nof adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of\nthe fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African\nelephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout\nof all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of\nantiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the\nprofoundest silence.\n\nThe chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the\nelephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk\nof the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two\nopposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they\nrespectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier\nto Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the\nstalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as\nthe playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash\nof the sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have\none after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews\ninto the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.*\n\n\n*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale\nand the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the\nelephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to\nthe elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious\nsimilitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the elephant\nwill often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it,\njet it forth in a stream.\n\n\nThe more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability\nto express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they\nwould well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an\nextensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures,\nthat I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason\nsigns and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods\nintelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other\nmotions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and\nunaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may,\nthen, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I know\nnot even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more,\nhow comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back\nparts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I\ncannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about\nhis face, I say again he has no face.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.\n\n\nThe long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from\nthe territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia.\nIn a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of\nSumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a\nvast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia,\nand dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded\noriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports\nfor the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the\nstraits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels\nbound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.\n\nThose narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing\nmidway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green\npromontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond\nto the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and\nconsidering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels,\nand gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental\nsea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such\ntreasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the\nappearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping\nwestern world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied\nwith those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the\nMediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these\nOrientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from\nthe endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries\npast, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra\nand Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while\nthey freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce\ntheir claim to more solid tribute.\n\nTime out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among\nthe low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the\nvessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the\npoint of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they\nhave received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these\ncorsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present\nday, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in\nthose waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.\n\nWith a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these\nstraits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and\nthence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and\nthere by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and\ngain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.\nBy these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the\nknown Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending\nupon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled\nin his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the\nsea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he might most\nreasonably be presumed to be haunting it.\n\nBut how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew\ndrink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now,\nthe circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs\nno sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the\nwhaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be\ntransferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries\nno cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a\nwhole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with\nutilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She\ncarries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which,\nwhen three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to\ndrink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from\nthe Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may\nhave gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score\nof ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted\none grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like\nthemselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had\ncome; they would only answer--\"Well, boys, here's the ark!\"\n\nNow, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of\nJava, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of\nthe ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an\nexcellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more\nand more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and\nadmonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the\nland soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils\nthe fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was\ndescried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game\nhereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the\ncustomary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of\nsingular magnificence saluted us.\n\nBut here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which\nof late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales,\ninstead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in\nformer times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes\nembracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if\nnumerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual\nassistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into\nsuch immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the\nbest cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months\ntogether, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly\nsaluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.\n\nBroad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and\nforming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon,\na continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the\nnoon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right\nWhale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft\ndrooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the\nSperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually\nrising and falling away to leeward.\n\nSeen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of\nthe sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the\nair, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed\nlike the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried\nof a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.\n\nAs marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains,\naccelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in\ntheir rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain;\neven so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through\nthe straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and\nswimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.\n\nCrowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers\nhandling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their\nyet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that\nchased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy\ninto the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their\nnumber. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby\nDick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped\nwhite-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with\nstun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans\nbefore us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly\ndirecting attention to something in our wake.\n\nCorresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.\nIt seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling something\nlike the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come and\ngo; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling\nhis glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole,\ncrying, \"Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the\nsails;--Malays, sir, and after us!\"\n\nAs if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should\nfairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot\npursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the swift\nPequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very\nkind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to\nher own chosen pursuit,--mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they\nwere. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his\nforward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the\nbloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed\nhis. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in\nwhich the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that\ngate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that\nsame gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end;\nand not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and\ninhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their\ncurses;--when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's\nbrow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some\nstormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm\nthing from its place.\n\nBut thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and\nwhen, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the\nPequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra\nside, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the\nharpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining\nupon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained\nupon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake of the whales, at\nlength they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship neared them;\nand the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats. But\nno sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm\nWhale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,--though\nas yet a mile in their rear,--than they rallied again, and forming\nin close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like\nflashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.\n\nStripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and\nafter several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase,\nwhen a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating\ntoken that they were now at last under the influence of that strange\nperplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive\nit in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns\nin which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now\nbroken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus' elephants in the\nIndian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation.\nIn all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly\nswimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they\nplainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more\nstrangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed\nas it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the\nsea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over\nthe pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced\nsuch excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is characteristic\nof almost all herding creatures. Though banding together in tens of\nthousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a\nsolitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded\ntogether in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the\nslightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding,\ntrampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best,\ntherefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales\nbefore us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not\ninfinitely outdone by the madness of men.\n\nThough many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,\nyet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor\nretreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in\nthose cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one\nlone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes' time,\nQueequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray\nin our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight\nfor the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the\nwhale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and\nindeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present\none of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift\nmonster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid\nadieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb.\n\nAs, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of\nspeed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we\nthus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by\nthe crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was\nlike a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer\nthrough their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what\nmoment it may be locked in and crushed.\n\nBut not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off\nfrom this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away\nfrom that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the\ntime, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our\nway whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time\nto make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted\nduty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the\nshouting part of the business. \"Out of the way, Commodore!\" cried one,\nto a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface,\nand for an instant threatened to swamp us. \"Hard down with your tail,\nthere!\" cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed\ncalmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity.\n\nAll whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented\nby the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood\nof equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each\nother's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then\nattached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line\nbeing looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly\namong gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales\nare close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm\nwhales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you must\nkill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing\nthem, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it\nis, that at times like these the drugg, comes into requisition. Our boat\nwas furnished with three of them. The first and second were successfully\ndarted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the\nenormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like\nmalefactors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in the\nact of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one\nof the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and carried it\naway, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from\nunder him. On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we\nstuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for\nthe time.\n\nIt had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were\nit not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way greatly\ndiminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from the\ncircumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that\nwhen at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways\nvanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we\nglided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if\nfrom some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here\nthe storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard\nbut not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth\nsatin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture\nthrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now\nin that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every\ncommotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of\nthe outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight\nor ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of\nhorses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic\ncircus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have\ngone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing\nwhales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no\npossible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for\na breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only\nadmitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake,\nwe were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves; the women\nand children of this routed host.\n\nNow, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving\nouter circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in\nany one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by\nthe whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square\nmiles. At any rate--though indeed such a test at such a time might be\ndeceptive--spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that\nseemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this\ncircumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely\nlocked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the\nherd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its\nstopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way\ninnocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller\nwhales--now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the\nlake--evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still\nbecharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like household\ndogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and\ntouching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly\ndomesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched\ntheir backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the\ntime refrained from darting it.\n\nBut far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still\nstranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended\nin those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the\nwhales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to\nbecome mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth\nexceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly\nand fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different\nlives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still\nspiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;--even so did the\nyoung of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if\nwe were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floating on their\nsides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little\ninfants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might\nhave measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in\ngirth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet\nrecovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the\nmaternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final\nspring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The delicate\nside-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the\nplaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign\nparts.\n\n\"Line! line!\" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; \"him fast! him\nfast!--Who line him! Who struck?--Two whale; one big, one little!\"\n\n\"What ails ye, man?\" cried Starbuck.\n\n\"Look-e here,\" said Queequeg, pointing down.\n\nAs when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of\nfathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows\nthe slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the\nair; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame\nLeviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not\nseldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with\nthe maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that\nthe cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas\nseemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan\namours in the deep.*\n\n\n*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike\nmost other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation\nwhich may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a\ntime; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and\nJacob:--a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously\nsituated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves\nextend upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a\nnursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk\nand blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet\nand rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries.\nWhen overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute MORE HOMINUM.\n\n\nAnd thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations\nand affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and\nfearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled\nin dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of\nmy being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and\nwhile ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and\ndeep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.\n\nMeanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic\nspectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats,\nstill engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or\npossibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of\nroom and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight\nof the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro\nacross the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is\nsometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful\nand alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or\nmaiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled\ncutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again.\nA whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not\neffectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along\nwith him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of\nthe wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone\nmounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay\nwherever he went.\n\nBut agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle\nenough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to\ninspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the\nintervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived that\nby one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale had\nbecome entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run\naway with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope\nattached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the\nharpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose\nfrom his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning\nthrough the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and\ntossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own\ncomrades.\n\nThis terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their\nstationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake\nbegan to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted\nby half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to\nheave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished;\nin more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central\ncircles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was\ndeparting. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the\ntumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in\nSpring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre,\nas if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck\nand Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern.\n\n\"Oars! Oars!\" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm--\"gripe your\noars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off,\nyou Queequeg--the whale there!--prick him!--hit him! Stand up--stand\nup, and stay so! Spring, men--pull, men; never mind their backs--scrape\nthem!--scrape away!\"\n\nThe boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a\nnarrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate endeavor\nwe at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way rapidly,\nand at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. After many\nsimilar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had\njust been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales,\nall violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply\npurchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows\nto prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by\nthe air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close\nby.\n\nRiotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon\nresolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having\nclumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their\nonward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but\nthe boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales\nmight be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had\nkilled and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which\nare carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand,\nare inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to\nmark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should\nthe boats of any other ship draw near.\n\nThe result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious\nsaying in the Fishery,--the more whales the less fish. Of all the\ndrugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for\nthe time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other\ncraft than the Pequod.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters.\n\n\nThe previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm\nWhales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those\nvast aggregations.\n\nNow, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must\nhave been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are\noccasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each.\nSuch bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those\ncomposed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young\nvigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated.\n\nIn cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a\nmale of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces\nhis gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his\nladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about\nover the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces\nand endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and\nhis concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest\nleviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not\nmore than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are\ncomparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen\nyards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the\nwhole they are hereditarily entitled to EMBONPOINT.\n\nIt is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent\nramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely\nsearch of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower\nof the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from\nspending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all\nunpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and\ndown the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental\nwaters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other\nexcessive temperature of the year.\n\nWhen serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange\nsuspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his\ninteresting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming\nthat way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies,\nwith what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away!\nHigh times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be\npermitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the\nBashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed;\nfor, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the\nmost terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales,\nwho sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with\ntheir long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving\nfor the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not\na few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,--furrowed\nheads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and\ndislocated mouths.\n\nBut supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at\nthe first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch\nthat lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and\nrevels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario,\nlike pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.\nGranting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give\nchase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish\nof their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the\nsons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must\ntake care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For\nlike certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord\nWhale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so,\nbeing a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the\nworld; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardour\nof youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends\nher solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated\nTurk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our\nOttoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life,\nforswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old\nsoul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his\nprayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.\n\nNow, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so\nis the lord and master of that school technically known as the\nschoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably\nsatirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad\ninculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title,\nschoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed\nupon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first\nthus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of\nVidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that\nfamous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of\nthose occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.\n\nThe same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale\nbetakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm\nWhales. Almost universally, a lone whale--as a solitary Leviathan is\ncalled--proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone,\nhe will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to\nwife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though\nshe keeps so many moody secrets.\n\nThe schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously\nmentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while\nthose female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or\nforty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious\nof all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter;\nexcepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met,\nand these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.\n\nThe Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like\na mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness,\ntumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no\nprudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous\nlad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though,\nand when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in\nquest of settlements, that is, harems.\n\nAnother point of difference between the male and female schools is\nstill more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a\nForty-barrel-bull--poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike\na member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with\nevery token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as\nthemselves to fall a prey.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.\n\n\nThe allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one,\nnecessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale\nfishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.\n\nIt frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company,\na whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed\nand captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised\nmany minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For\nexample,--after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale,\nthe body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and\ndrifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a\ncalm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus\nthe most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between\nthe fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal,\nundisputed law applicable to all cases.\n\nPerhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative\nenactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in\nA.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling\nlaw, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and\nlawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse\ncomprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of\nthe Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's\nBusiness. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing,\nor the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.\n\nI. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.\n\nII. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.\n\nBut what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable\nbrevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to\nexpound it.\n\nFirst: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast,\nwhen it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all\ncontrollable by the occupant or occupants,--a mast, an oar, a nine-inch\ncable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same.\nLikewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other\nrecognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly\nevince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their\nintention so to do.\n\nThese are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen\nthemselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks--the\nCoke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and\nhonourable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases,\nwhere it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim\npossession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But\nothers are by no means so scrupulous.\n\nSome fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated\nin England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of\na whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had\nsucceeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of\ntheir lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat\nitself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up\nwith the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it\nbefore the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were\nremonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs'\nteeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done,\nhe would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained\nattached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the\nplaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line,\nharpoons, and boat.\n\nMr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was\nthe judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on\nto illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con.\ncase, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's\nviciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in\nthe course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to\nrecover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he\nthen supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally\nharpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the\ngreat stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet\nabandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore\nwhen a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that\nsubsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have\nbeen found sticking in her.\n\nNow in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale\nand the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.\n\nThese pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very\nlearned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--That as for the boat, he\nawarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it\nto save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale,\nharpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because\nit was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons\nand line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish)\nacquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards\ntook the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took\nthe fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.\n\nA common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might\npossibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the\nmatter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws\npreviously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in\nthe above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,\nI say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human\njurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture,\nthe Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two\nprops to stand on.\n\nIs it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law:\nthat is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often\npossession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of\nRussian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is\nthe whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last\nmite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion\nwith a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the\nruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone,\nthe bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation;\nwhat is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of\nSavesoul's income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese\nof hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven\nwithout any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular L100,000 but a\nFast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets\nbut Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor\nIreland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother\nJonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not\nPossession the whole of the law?\n\nBut if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable,\nthe kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is\ninternationally and universally applicable.\n\nWhat was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the\nSpanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress?\nWhat was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India\nto England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All\nLoose-Fish.\n\nWhat are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but\nLoose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is\nthe principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to\nthe ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but\nLoose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what\nare you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.\n\n\n\"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.\"\nBRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.\n\n\nLatin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the\ncontext, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of\nthat land, the King, as Honourary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head,\nand the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which,\nin the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no intermediate\nremainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this day in\nforce in England; and as it offers in various respects a strange anomaly\ntouching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is here treated of\nin a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts\nthe English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially\nreserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in\ncurious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in\nforce, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that happened within\nthe last two years.\n\nIt seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one\nof the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and\nbeaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from\nthe shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the\njurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden.\nHolding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal\nemoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment\nhis. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so.\nBecause the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his\nperquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of\nthem.\n\nNow when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their\ntrowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat\nfish high and dry, promising themselves a good L150 from the precious\noil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and good\nale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares; up\nsteps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with\na copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head,\nhe says--\"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it\nas the Lord Warden's.\" Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful\nconsternation--so truly English--knowing not what to say, fall to\nvigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing\nfrom the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter,\nor at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy\nof Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for\nhis ideas, made bold to speak,\n\n\"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?\"\n\n\"The Duke.\"\n\n\"But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?\"\n\n\"It is his.\"\n\n\"We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is\nall that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing at all for our\npains but our blisters?\"\n\n\"It is his.\"\n\n\"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of\ngetting a livelihood?\"\n\n\"It is his.\"\n\n\"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of\nthis whale.\"\n\n\"It is his.\"\n\n\"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?\"\n\n\"It is his.\"\n\nIn a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of\nWellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular\nlights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be\ndeemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman\nof the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to\ntake the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To\nwhich my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published)\nthat he had already done so, and received the money, and would be\nobliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend\ngentleman) would decline meddling with other people's business. Is\nthis the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three\nkingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?\n\nIt will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the\nDuke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs\ninquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested with\nthat right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon gives\nus the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to\nthe King and Queen, \"because of its superior excellence.\" And by the\nsoundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such\nmatters.\n\nBut why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason\nfor that, ye lawyers!\n\nIn his treatise on \"Queen-Gold,\" or Queen-pinmoney, an old King's Bench\nauthor, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: \"Ye tail is ye Queen's,\nthat ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.\" Now this\nwas written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or\nRight whale was largely used in ladies' bodices. But this same bone\nis not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for\na sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be\npresented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.\n\nThere are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers--the whale\nand the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and\nnominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's ordinary revenue.\nI know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by\ninference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same\nway as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head\npeculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be\nhumorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there\nseems a reason in all things, even in law.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.\n\n\n\"In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan,\ninsufferable fetor denying not inquiry.\" SIR T. BROWNE, V.E.\n\n\nIt was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we\nwere slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, that the many\nnoses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the\nthree pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was\nsmelt in the sea.\n\n\"I will bet something now,\" said Stubb, \"that somewhere hereabouts are\nsome of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they\nwould keel up before long.\"\n\nPresently, the vapours in advance slid aside; and there in the distance\nlay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be\nalongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours from\nhis peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and\nhovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside\nmust be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that\nhas died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse.\nIt may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must\nexhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are\nincompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded\nby some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it.\nYet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that\nthe oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and\nby no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.\n\nComing still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman\nhad a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more\nof a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of\nthose problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort\nof prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies\nalmost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the\nproper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn\nup his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted\nwhales in general.\n\nThe Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed\nhe recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were\nknotted round the tail of one of these whales.\n\n\"There's a pretty fellow, now,\" he banteringly laughed, standing in the\nship's bows, \"there's a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes\nof Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering\ntheir boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,\nand sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of\ntallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they\nwill get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into; aye, we all\nknow these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our\nleavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with\nscraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor\ndevil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a present\nof a little oil for dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from\nthat drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no, not\nin a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get\nmore oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than\nhe'll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it\nmay contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris.\nI wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes,\nI'm for it;\" and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.\n\nBy this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether\nor no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of\nescaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb\nnow called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing\nacross her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French\ntaste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a\nhuge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper\nspikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a\nsymmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in\nlarge gilt letters, he read \"Bouton de Rose,\"--Rose-button, or Rose-bud;\nand this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.\n\nThough Stubb did not understand the BOUTON part of the inscription, yet\nthe word ROSE, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently\nexplained the whole to him.\n\n\"A wooden rose-bud, eh?\" he cried with his hand to his nose, \"that will\ndo very well; but how like all creation it smells!\"\n\nNow in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he\nhad to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to\nthe blasted whale; and so talk over it.\n\nArrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he\nbawled--\"Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that\nspeak English?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be\nthe chief-mate.\n\n\"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?\"\n\n\"WHAT whale?\"\n\n\"The WHITE Whale--a Sperm Whale--Moby Dick, have ye seen him?\n\n\"Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale--no.\"\n\n\"Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a minute.\"\n\nThen rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning\nover the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands\ninto a trumpet and shouted--\"No, Sir! No!\" Upon which Ahab retired, and\nStubb returned to the Frenchman.\n\nHe now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the\nchains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of\nbag.\n\n\"What's the matter with your nose, there?\" said Stubb. \"Broke it?\"\n\n\"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!\" answered\nthe Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very\nmuch. \"But what are you holding YOURS for?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain't it?\nAir rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye,\nBouton-de-Rose?\"\n\n\"What in the devil's name do you want here?\" roared the Guernseyman,\nflying into a sudden passion.\n\n\"Oh! keep cool--cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack those\nwhales in ice while you're working at 'em? But joking aside, though; do\nyou know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil out of\nsuch whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his\nwhole carcase.\"\n\n\"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe\nit; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But\ncome aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me; and so I'll\nget out of this dirty scrape.\"\n\n\"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,\" rejoined Stubb,\nand with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented\nitself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the\nheavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow\nand talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their\nnoses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-booms.\nNow and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the\nmast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the\nplague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their\nnostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short\noff at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it\nconstantly filled their olfactories.\n\nStubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from\nthe Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a\nfiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within.\nThis was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating\nagainst the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain's\nround-house (CABINET he called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could\nnot help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times.\n\nMarking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the\nGuernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate\nexpressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus,\nwho had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle.\nSounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man\nhad not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore\nheld his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and\nconfidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan\nfor both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all\ndreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan\nof theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter's office, was\nto tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as\nfor Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in\nhim during the interview.\n\nBy this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a\nsmall and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with\nlarge whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest\nwith watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely\nintroduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the\naspect of interpreting between them.\n\n\"What shall I say to him first?\" said he.\n\n\"Why,\" said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, \"you\nmay as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me,\nthough I don't pretend to be a judge.\"\n\n\"He says, Monsieur,\" said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his\ncaptain, \"that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain\nand chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a\nblasted whale they had brought alongside.\"\n\nUpon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.\n\n\"What now?\" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.\n\n\"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him\ncarefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit to command a\nwhale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he's a\nbaboon.\"\n\n\"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is\nfar more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us,\nas we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.\"\n\nInstantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his\ncrew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose\nthe cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.\n\n\"What now?\" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to\nthem.\n\n\"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that--that--in\nfact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody\nelse.\"\n\n\"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any service to\nus.\"\n\nHearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties\n(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his\ncabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.\n\n\"He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,\" said the interpreter.\n\n\"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to drink\nwith the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him I must go.\"\n\n\"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking; but\nthat if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had\nbest drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for\nit's so calm they won't drift.\"\n\nBy this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed\nthe Guernsey-man to this effect,--that having a long tow-line in his\nboat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter\nwhale of the two from the ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats,\nthen, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed\naway at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most\nunusually long tow-line.\n\nPresently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale;\nhoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the\nPequod slid in between him and Stubb's whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly\npulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of\nhis intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous\ncunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the\nbody, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was\ndigging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck\nagainst the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and\npottery buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high\nexcitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as\ngold-hunters.\n\nAnd all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and\nscreaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning\nto look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when\nsuddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint\nstream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without\nbeing absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with\nanother, without at all blending with it for a time.\n\n\"I have it, I have it,\" cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in\nthe subterranean regions, \"a purse! a purse!\"\n\nDropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls\nof something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old\ncheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with\nyour thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good\nfriends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.\nSome six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the\nsea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for\nimpatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board,\nelse the ship would bid them good bye.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 92. Ambergris.\n\n\nNow this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as\nan article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain\nCoffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that\nsubject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day,\nthe precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem\nto the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for\ngrey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though\nat times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland\nsoils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides,\namber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for\nmouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft,\nwaxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in\nperfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum.\nThe Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same\npurpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some wine\nmerchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.\n\nWho would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale\nthemselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick\nwhale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and\nby others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such\na dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four\nboat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as\nlaborers do in blasting rocks.\n\nI have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain\nhard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors'\ntrowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing\nmore than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.\n\nNow that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be\nfound in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that\nsaying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption;\nhow that we are sown in dishonour, but raised in glory. And likewise\ncall to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh\nthe best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of\nill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the\nworst.\n\nI should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot,\nowing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen,\nand which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be\nconsidered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of\nthe Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous\naspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout\na slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They\nhint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma\noriginate?\n\nI opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the\nGreenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because\nthose whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as\nthe Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in\nsmall bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry\nit home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas,\nand the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding\nany other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold,\nand unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a\nsavor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an\nold city grave-yard, for the foundations of a Lying-in-Hospital.\n\nI partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be\nlikewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former\ntimes, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which\nlatter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great\nwork on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer,\nfat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a\nplace for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without\nbeing taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of\nfurnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full\noperation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is\nquite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four\nyears perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not,\nperhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the\nstate that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that\nliving or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by\nno means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the\npeople of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by\nthe nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant,\nwhen, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance\nof exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the\nopen air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water\ndispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a\nwarm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance,\nconsidering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with\njewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian\ntown to do honour to Alexander the Great?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 93. The Castaway.\n\n\nIt was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most\nsignificant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew; an\nevent most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes\nmadly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying\nprophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.\n\nNow, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some\nfew hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work\nthe vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing,\nthese ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats'\ncrews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous\nwight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It\nwas so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by\nabbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember\nhis tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.\n\nIn outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a\nwhite one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven in\none eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and\ntorpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom\nvery bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to\nhis tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with\nfiner, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar\nshould show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and\nNew Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was\nbrilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous\nebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's\npeaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he\nhad somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his\nbrightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily\nsubdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by\nstrange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the\nnatural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut,\nhe had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at\nmelodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon\ninto one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day,\nsuspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop\nwill healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you\nthe diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy\nground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural\ngases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then\nthe evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies,\nlooks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to\nthe story.\n\nIt came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman\nchanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed;\nand, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.\n\nThe first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness;\nbut happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and\ntherefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing\nhim, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness\nto the utmost, for he might often find it needful.\n\nNow upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as\nthe fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which\nhappened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The\ninvoluntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in\nhand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale\nline coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as\nto become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That\ninstant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly\nstraightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks\nof the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken\nseveral turns around his chest and neck.\n\nTashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He\nhated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath,\nhe suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb,\nexclaimed interrogatively, \"Cut?\" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face\nplainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than\nhalf a minute, this entire thing happened.\n\n\"Damn him, cut!\" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was\nsaved.\n\nSo soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed\nby yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these\nirregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like,\nbut still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done,\nunofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never\njump from a boat, Pip, except--but all the rest was indefinite, as the\nsoundest advice ever is. Now, in general, STICK TO THE BOAT, is your\ntrue motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when LEAP FROM\nTHE BOAT, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he\nshould give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving\nhim too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped\nall advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, \"Stick to the boat,\nPip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We\ncan't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for\nthirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and\ndon't jump any more.\" Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that\nthough man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which\npropensity too often interferes with his benevolence.\n\nBut we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was\nunder very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time\nhe did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to\nrun, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk.\nAlas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous,\nblue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away,\nall round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the\nextremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed\nlike a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly\nastern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was\nwinged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between\nPip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his\ncrisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though\nthe loftiest and the brightest.\n\nNow, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the\npractised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful\nlonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the\nmiddle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how\nwhen sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea--mark how closely they\nhug their ship and only coast along her sides.\n\nBut had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he\ndid not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake,\nand he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very\nquickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards\noarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested\nby the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not\nunfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so\ncalled, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to\nmilitary navies and armies.\n\nBut it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly\nspying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and\nStubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent\nupon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him\nmiserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but\nfrom that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at\nleast, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body\nup, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though.\nRather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of\nthe unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes;\nand the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the\njoyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous,\nGod-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters\nheaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the\nloom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's\ninsanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man\ncomes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and\nfrantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his\nGod.\n\nFor the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that\nfishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what\nlike abandonment befell myself.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.\n\n\nThat whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to\nthe Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations\npreviously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of\nthe Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.\n\nWhile some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed\nin dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and\nwhen the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated\nere going to the try-works, of which anon.\n\nIt had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several\nothers, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found\nit strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the\nliquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid.\nA sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this sperm was\nsuch a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a\nsoftener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it for\nonly a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to\nserpentine and spiralise.\n\nAs I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter\nexertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under\nindolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among\nthose soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within\nthe hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their\nopulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that\nuncontaminated aroma,--literally and truly, like the smell of spring\nviolets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky\nmeadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible\nsperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit\nthe old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying\nthe heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from\nall ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.\n\nSqueeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm\ntill I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a\nstrange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly\nsqueezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the\ngentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving\nfeeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually\nsqueezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as\nmuch as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish\nany social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;\nlet us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into\neach other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and\nsperm of kindness.\n\nWould that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by\nmany prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases\nman must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable\nfelicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in\nthe wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fireside, the\ncountry; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case\neternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of\nangels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.\n\nNow, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things\nakin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the\ntry-works.\n\nFirst comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering\npart of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It\nis tough with congealed tendons--a wad of muscle--but still contains\nsome oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first\ncut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like\nblocks of Berkshire marble.\n\nPlum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the\nwhale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and\noften participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is\na most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name\nimports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked\nsnowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and\npurple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason,\nit is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole\nbehind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive\na royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted,\nsupposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison\nseason, and that particular venison season contemporary with an\nunusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.\n\nThere is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in\nthe course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling\nadequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation\noriginal with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.\nIt is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the\ntubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting.\nI hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case,\ncoalescing.\n\nGurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but\nsometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the\ndark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland\nor right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior\nsouls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.\n\nNippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's vocabulary.\nBut as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipper is\na short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of\nLeviathan's tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is\nabout the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the\noily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless\nblandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.\n\nBut to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once\nto descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates.\nThis place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for the\nblanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the proper\ntime arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of\nterror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull\nlantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They generally\ngo in pairs,--a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is\nsimilar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is\nsomething like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a\nsheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship\npitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet\nitself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This\nspade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless;\nthe thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from\nhim, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his\nassistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among\nveteran blubber-room men.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 95. The Cassock.\n\n\nHad you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this\npost-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the\nwindlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small\ncuriosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen\nthere, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous\ncistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower\njaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so\nsurprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,--longer than\na Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black\nas Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or,\nrather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in\nthe secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which,\nKing Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it\nfor an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th\nchapter of the First Book of Kings.\n\nLook at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted\nby two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it,\nand with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier\ncarrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle\ndeck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an\nAfrican hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside\nout, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to\ndouble its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging,\nto dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it,\ntowards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes\nat the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer\nnow stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling.\nImmemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately\nprotect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.\n\nThat office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the\npots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted\nendwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into\nwhich the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's\ndesk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent\non bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a\nPope were this mincer!*\n\n\n*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates\nto the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as\nthin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of\nboiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably\nincreased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.\n\n\nBesides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished\nby her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid\nmasonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship.\nIt is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her\nplanks.\n\nThe try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most\nroomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength,\nfitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and\nmortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The\nfoundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly\nsecured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all\nsides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased\nwith wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened\nhatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in\nnumber, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in use, they are\nkept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone\nand sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the\nnight-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil\nthemselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them--one\nman in each pot, side by side--many confidential communications\nare carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound\nmathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod,\nwith the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first\nindirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies\ngliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from\nany point in precisely the same time.\n\nRemoving the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare\nmasonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of\nthe furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted\nwith heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented\nfrom communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir\nextending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel\ninserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as\nfast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct\nfrom the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment.\n\nIt was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were\nfirst started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee\nthe business.\n\n\"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the\nworks.\" This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his\nshavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that\nin a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a\ntime with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick\nignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the\ncrisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains\nconsiderable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames.\nLike a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once\nignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body.\nWould that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to\ninhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in\nit for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such\nas may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left\nwing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.\n\nBy midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the\ncarcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean\ndarkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce\nflames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and\nilluminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek\nfire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to\nsome vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the\nbold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad\nsheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and\nfolded them in conflagrations.\n\nThe hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth\nin front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the\npagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged\npoles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or\nstirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out\nof the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen\nheaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil,\nwhich seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth\nof the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the\nwindlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not\notherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their\neyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all\nbegrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting\nbarbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in\nthe capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other\ntheir unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth;\nas their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the\nflames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers\nwildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the\nwind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and\nyet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness\nof the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in\nher mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing\nPequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning\na corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the\nmaterial counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.\n\nSo seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently\nguided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval,\nin darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the\nghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before\nme, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred\nvisions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable\ndrowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.\n\nBut that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable)\nthing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was\nhorribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote\nmy side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails,\njust beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I\nwas half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically\nstretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see\nno compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I\nhad been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it.\nNothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by\nflashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift,\nrushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as\nrushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of\ndeath, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with\nthe crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way,\ninverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief\nsleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with\nmy back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just\nin time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very\nprobably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this\nunnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being\nbrought by the lee!\n\nLook not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy\nhand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first\nhint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its\nredness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun,\nthe skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking\nflames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the\nglorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp--all others but liars!\n\nNevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's\naccursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of\ndeserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean,\nwhich is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this\nearth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow\nin him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped. With\nbooks the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the\ntruest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered\nsteel of woe. \"All is vanity.\" ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold\nof unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and\njails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of\noperas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all\nof sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as\npassing wise, and therefore jolly;--not that man is fitted to sit\ndown on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably\nwondrous Solomon.\n\nBut even Solomon, he says, \"the man that wandereth out of the way\nof understanding shall remain\" (I.E., even while living) \"in the\ncongregation of the dead.\" Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it\ninvert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom\nthat is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill\neagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges,\nand soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces.\nAnd even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the\nmountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still\nhigher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 97. The Lamp.\n\n\nHad you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's\nforecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single\nmoment you would have almost thought you were standing in some\nilluminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay\nin their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a\nscore of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.\n\nIn merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of\nqueens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in\ndarkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he\nseeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an\nAladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night\nthe ship's black hull still houses an illumination.\n\nSee with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of\nlamps--often but old bottles and vials, though--to the copper cooler at\nthe try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He\nburns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore,\nunvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral\ncontrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He\ngoes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and\ngenuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own\nsupper of game.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.\n\n\nAlready has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off\ndescried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and\nslaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside\nand beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of\nold to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded\nsurtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he\nis condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his\nspermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire;--but now it\nremains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by\nrehearsing--singing, if I may--the romantic proceeding of decanting off\nhis oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where\nonce again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along\nbeneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow.\n\nWhile still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the\nsix-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling\nthis way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed\nround and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot\nacross the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last\nman-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap,\nrap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, EX OFFICIO,\nevery sailor is a cooper.\n\nAt length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great\nhatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down\ngo the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are\nreplaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.\n\nIn the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable\nincidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with\nfreshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of\nthe whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as\nin a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the\nbulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire\nship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is\ndeafening.\n\nBut a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this\nself-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works,\nyou would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a\nmost scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses\na singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never\nlook so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides,\nfrom the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is\nreadily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale\nremains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands\ngo diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags\nrestore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower\nrigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise\nfaithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed\nupon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask is out of\nsight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by the combined\nand simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's company, the\nwhole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew\nthemselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to\ntoe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as\nbridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland.\n\nNow, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and\nhumorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics;\npropose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not\nto taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to\nsuch musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short\nof audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and\nbring us napkins!\n\nBut mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent\non spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again\nsoil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot\nsomewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest\nuninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through\nfor ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their\nwrists with all day rowing on the Line,--they only step to the deck to\ncarry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea,\nand in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined\nfires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the\nheel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the\nship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor\nfellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by\nthe cry of \"There she blows!\" and away they fly to fight another whale,\nand go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this\nis man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long\ntoilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable\nsperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its\ndefilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul;\nhardly is this done, when--THERE SHE BLOWS!--the ghost is spouted up,\nand away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's\nold routine again.\n\nOh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two\nthousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with\nthee along the Peruvian coast last voyage--and, foolish as I am, taught\nthee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 99. The Doubloon.\n\n\nEre now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck,\ntaking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but\nin the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been\nadded how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood,\nhe was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely\neyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the\nbinnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass,\nthat glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his\npurpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast,\nthen, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin\nthere, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed\nwith a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.\n\nBut one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly\nattracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as\nthough now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in\nsome monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some\ncertain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little\nworth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by\nthe cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in\nthe Milky Way.\n\nNow this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the\nheart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the\nhead-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all\nthe rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet,\nuntouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito\nglow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed\nby ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick\ndarkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every\nsunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was\nset apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton\nin their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white\nwhale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by\nnight, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever\nlive to spend it.\n\nNow those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun\nand tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's disks\nand stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in\nluxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to\nderive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through\nthose fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.\n\nIt so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example\nof these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL\nECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the\nmiddle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it;\nand it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that\nknows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three\nAndes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a\ncrowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned\nzodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the\nkeystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.\n\nBefore this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now\npausing.\n\n\"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and\nall other grand and lofty things; look here,--three peaks as proud as\nLucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the\ncourageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all\nare Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,\nwhich, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but\nmirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those\nwho ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now\nthis coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign\nof storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a\nformer equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in\nthroes, 'tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be\nit, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.\"\n\n\"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must\nhave left their mouldings there since yesterday,\" murmured Starbuck\nto himself, leaning against the bulwarks. \"The old man seems to read\nBelshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly.\nHe goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty,\nheaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint\nearthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over\nall our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a\nhope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;\nbut if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.\nYet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain\nsnatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin\nspeaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it,\nlest Truth shake me falsely.\"\n\n\"There now's the old Mogul,\" soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, \"he's\nbeen twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with\nfaces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.\nAnd all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on\nNegro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere\nspending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as\nqueer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons\nof old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your\ndoubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold\nmoidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What\nthen should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing\nwonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs and\nwonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the\nzodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I'll get the almanac and\nas I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try\nmy hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with\nthe Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and\nwonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here they\nare--here they go--all alive:--Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull\nand Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he\nwheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold\nbetween two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there;\nthe fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the\nbare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That's my\nsmall experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's\nnavigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if\nthere is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's\na clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you,\nDoubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter;\nand now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To\nbegin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then,\nTaurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the\nTwins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes\nCancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo,\na roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly\ndabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our\nfirst love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes\nLibra, or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we\nare very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the\nScorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang\ncome the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing\nhimself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the\nbattering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing,\nand headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours\nout his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the\nFishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the\nsun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and\nhearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and\nso, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu,\nDoubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the\ntry-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. There; he's\nbefore it; he'll out with something presently. So, so; he's beginning.\"\n\n\"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises\na certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's all this\nstaring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true; and at\ntwo cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smoke\ndirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and\nsixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out.\"\n\n\"Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a\nfoolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort\nof wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman--the old\nhearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. He\nluffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side\nof the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's\nback again; what does that mean? Hark! he's muttering--voice like an old\nworn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!\"\n\n\"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when\nthe sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and know\ntheir marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch\nin Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe\nsign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what's the\nhorse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign--the roaring and\ndevouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee.\"\n\n\"There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men\nin one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--all\ntattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the\nCannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;\nthinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I\nsuppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country.\nAnd by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--I\nguess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't know what to make\nof the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers.\nBut, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out\nof sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he\nsay, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows\nhimself; there is a sun on the coin--fire worshipper, depend upon it.\nHo! more and more. This way comes Pip--poor boy! would he had died,\nor I; he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these\ninterpreters--myself included--and look now, he comes to read, with that\nunearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!\"\n\n\"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.\"\n\n\"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his mind,\npoor fellow! But what's that he says now--hist!\"\n\n\"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.\"\n\n\"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again.\"\n\n\"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.\"\n\n\"Well, that's funny.\"\n\n\"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow,\nespecially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw!\ncaw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scare-crow? There he\nstands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked\ninto the sleeves of an old jacket.\"\n\n\"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary!--poor lad!--I could go hang\nmyself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can stand\nthe rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty for my\nsanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.\"\n\n\"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire\nto unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then\nagain, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to\nthe mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab!\nthe White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old\nTolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown\nover in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And\nso they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old\nmast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the\nshaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the green\nmiser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds\nblackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey,\nhey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.\n\nThe Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London.\n\n\n\"Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?\"\n\nSo cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, bearing\ndown under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his\nhoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger\ncaptain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow. He was\na darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or\nthereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in\nfestoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket streamed\nbehind him like the broidered arm of a hussar's surcoat.\n\n\"Hast seen the White Whale!\"\n\n\"See you this?\" and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it,\nhe held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head\nlike a mallet.\n\n\"Man my boat!\" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near\nhim--\"Stand by to lower!\"\n\nIn less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his\ncrew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger.\nBut here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the\nmoment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never\nonce stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was\nalways by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to\nthe Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other\nvessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter\nfor anybody--except those who are almost hourly used to it, like\nwhalemen--to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for\nthe great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and\nthen instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived\nof one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied\nwith the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a\nclumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height\nhe could hardly hope to attain.\n\nIt has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward\ncircumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his\nluckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And\nin the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the\ntwo officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the\nperpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a\npair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem\nto bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to\nuse their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute,\nbecause the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood,\ncried out, \"I see, I see!--avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing\nover the cutting-tackle.\"\n\nAs good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two\nprevious, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved\nblubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. This\nwas quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his\nsolitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the\nfluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the\nword, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his\nown weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of\nthe tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and\ngently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust\nforth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his\nivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades)\ncried out in his walrus way, \"Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones\ntogether!--an arm and a leg!--an arm that never can shrink, d'ye\nsee; and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the White\nWhale?--how long ago?\"\n\n\"The White Whale,\" said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards\nthe East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a\ntelescope; \"there I saw him, on the Line, last season.\"\n\n\"And he took that arm off, did he?\" asked Ahab, now sliding down from\nthe capstan, and resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he did so.\n\n\"Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?\"\n\n\"Spin me the yarn,\" said Ahab; \"how was it?\"\n\n\"It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line,\"\nbegan the Englishman. \"I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time.\nWell, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat\nfastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went\nmilling and milling round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish,\nby sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches\nfrom the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white\nhead and hump, all crows' feet and wrinkles.\"\n\n\"It was he, it was he!\" cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended\nbreath.\n\n\"And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye--they were mine--MY irons,\" cried Ahab, exultingly--\"but on!\"\n\n\"Give me a chance, then,\" said the Englishman, good-humoredly. \"Well,\nthis old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam\ninto the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line!\n\n\"Aye, I see!--wanted to part it; free the fast-fish--an old trick--I\nknow him.\"\n\n\"How it was exactly,\" continued the one-armed commander, \"I do not know;\nbut in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow;\nbut we didn't know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled on the\nline, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other whale's;\nthat went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and\nwhat a noble great whale it was--the noblest and biggest I ever saw,\nsir, in my life--I resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage\nhe seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would get loose, or\nthe tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat's\ncrew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say, I jumped\ninto my first mate's boat--Mr. Mounttop's here (by the way,\nCaptain--Mounttop; Mounttop--the captain);--as I was saying, I jumped\ninto Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale\nwith mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old\ngreat-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir--hearts and souls\nalive, man--the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat--both\neyes out--all befogged and bedeadened with black foam--the whale's tail\nlooming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble\nsteeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, with\na blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after the\nsecond iron, to toss it overboard--down comes the tail like a Lima\ntower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and,\nflukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was\nall chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized\nhold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that\nlike a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same\ninstant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a\nflash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me\ncaught me here\" (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); \"yes,\ncaught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I was\nthinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript\nits way along the flesh--clear along the whole length of my arm--came\nout nigh my wrist, and up I floated;--and that gentleman there will tell\nyou the rest (by the way, captain--Dr. Bunger, ship's surgeon: Bunger,\nmy lad,--the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn.\"\n\nThe professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all the\ntime standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote his\ngentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober\none; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched\ntrowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a\nmarlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other,\noccasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two\ncrippled captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab,\nhe politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding.\n\n\"It was a shocking bad wound,\" began the whale-surgeon; \"and, taking my\nadvice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy--\"\n\n\"Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship,\" interrupted the one-armed\ncaptain, addressing Ahab; \"go on, boy.\"\n\n\"Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot\nweather there on the Line. But it was no use--I did all I could; sat up\nwith him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet--\"\n\n\"Oh, very severe!\" chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly altering\nhis voice, \"Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he\ncouldn't see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half seas\nover, about three o'clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up with\nme indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, and very\ndietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why\ndon't ye? You know you're a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead,\nboy, I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man.\"\n\n\"My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir\"--said the\nimperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab--\"is apt to\nbe facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But\nI may as well say--en passant, as the French remark--that I myself--that\nis to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy--am a strict total\nabstinence man; I never drink--\"\n\n\"Water!\" cried the captain; \"he never drinks it; it's a sort of fits to\nhim; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on--go on with\nthe arm story.\"\n\n\"Yes, I may as well,\" said the surgeon, coolly. \"I was about observing,\nsir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption, that spite of my\nbest and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; the\ntruth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; more\nthan two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead line.\nIn short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it came.\nBut I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is\nagainst all rule\"--pointing at it with the marlingspike--\"that is the\ncaptain's work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had\nthat club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one's brains\nout with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical\npassions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir\"--removing his hat, and\nbrushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull,\nbut which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever\nhaving been a wound--\"Well, the captain there will tell you how that\ncame here; he knows.\"\n\n\"No, I don't,\" said the captain, \"but his mother did; he was born with\nit. Oh, you solemn rogue, you--you Bunger! was there ever such another\nBunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in\npickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal.\"\n\n\"What became of the White Whale?\" now cried Ahab, who thus far had been\nimpatiently listening to this by-play between the two Englishmen.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried the one-armed captain, \"oh, yes! Well; after he sounded,\nwe didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I\ndidn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till\nsome time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby\nDick--as some call him--and then I knew it was he.\"\n\n\"Did'st thou cross his wake again?\"\n\n\"Twice.\"\n\n\"But could not fasten?\"\n\n\"Didn't want to try to: ain't one limb enough? What should I do without\nthis other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he\nswallows.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" interrupted Bunger, \"give him your left arm for bait to\nget the right. Do you know, gentlemen\"--very gravely and mathematically\nbowing to each Captain in succession--\"Do you know, gentlemen, that the\ndigestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine\nProvidence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest\neven a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the\nWhite Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means\nto swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But\nsometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine\nin Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let\none drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth\nor more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks,\nd'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully\nincorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if\nyou are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the\nsake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that\ncase the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you\nshortly, that's all.\"\n\n\"No, thank ye, Bunger,\" said the English Captain, \"he's welcome to the\narm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then; but not to\nanother one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered for him once, and\nthat has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know\nthat; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye,\nhe's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain?\"--glancing at the\nivory leg.\n\n\"He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let\nalone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a\nmagnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading?\"\n\n\"Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's,\" cried Bunger, stoopingly\nwalking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; \"this man's\nblood--bring the thermometer!--it's at the boiling point!--his pulse\nmakes these planks beat!--sir!\"--taking a lancet from his pocket, and\ndrawing near to Ahab's arm.\n\n\"Avast!\" roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks--\"Man the boat!\nWhich way heading?\"\n\n\"Good God!\" cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put.\n\"What's the matter? He was heading east, I think.--Is your Captain\ncrazy?\" whispering Fedallah.\n\nBut Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to\ntake the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle\ntowards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower.\n\nIn a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men\nwere springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him.\nWith back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own,\nAhab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 101. The Decanter.\n\n\nEre the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that\nshe hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby,\nmerchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of\nEnderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion, comes not\nfar behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point\nof real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our\nLord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous\nfish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted\nout the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale;\nthough for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant\nCoffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets\npursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not\nelsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were\nthe first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm\nWhale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the\nwhole globe who so harpooned him.\n\nIn 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose,\nand at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape\nHorn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any\nsort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one;\nand returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the\nAmelia's example was soon followed by other ships, English and American,\nand thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open.\nBut not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again\nbestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons--how many, their mother only\nknows--and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their\nexpense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war\nRattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded\nby a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and\ndid some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In\n1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to\ngo on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship--well\ncalled the \"Syren\"--made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus\nthat the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known.\nThe Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a\nNantucketer.\n\nAll honour to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to\nthe present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have\nslipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world.\n\nThe ship named after him was worthy of the honour, being a very fast\nsailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight\nsomewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the\nforecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps--every\nsoul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine\ngam I had--long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his\nivory heel--it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that\nship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever\nlose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it\nat the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it's\nsqually off there by Patagonia), and all hands--visitors and all--were\ncalled to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each\nother aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our\njackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the\nhowling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts\ndid not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we\nhad to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down\nthe forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to my\ntaste.\n\nThe beef was fine--tough, but with body in it. They said it was\nbull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for\ncertain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial,\nsymmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you\ncould feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed.\nIf you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out\nof you like billiard-balls. The bread--but that couldn't be helped;\nbesides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the\nonly fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it\nwas very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all\nin all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the\ncook's boilers, including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft,\nI say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty;\nfine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to\nhat-band.\n\nBut why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other\nEnglish whalers I know of--not all though--were such famous, hospitable\nships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the\njoke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing?\nI will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers\nis matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of\nhistorical whale research, when it has seemed needed.\n\nThe English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders,\nZealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant\nin the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions,\ntouching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English\nmerchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in\nthe English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural,\nbut incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special\norigin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.\n\nDuring my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an\nancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I\nknew must be about whalers. The title was, \"Dan Coopman,\" wherefore I\nconcluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam\ncooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was\nreinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one\n\"Fitz Swackhammer.\" But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man,\nprofessor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and\nSt. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box\nof sperm candles for his trouble--this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he\nspied the book, assured me that \"Dan Coopman\" did not mean \"The Cooper,\"\nbut \"The Merchant.\" In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book\ntreated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects, contained\na very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it\nwas, headed, \"Smeer,\" or \"Fat,\" that I found a long detailed list of the\noutfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from\nwhich list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following:\n\n400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock\nfish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins\nof butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese\n(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of\nbeer.\n\nMost statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in\nthe present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes,\nbarrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.\n\nAt the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all\nthis beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were\nincidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic\napplication; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my\nown, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by\nevery Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen\nwhale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and\nLeyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their\nnaturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the\nnature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game\nin those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country\nwhere the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil.\n\nThe quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those\npolar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that\nclimate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen,\nincluding the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much\nexceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet\nof 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say,\nwe have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks'\nallowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin.\nNow, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might\nfancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in\na boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem\nsomewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But\nthis was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with\nthe constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would\nbe apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his\nboat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.\n\nBut no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers\nof two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English\nwhalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when\ncruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the\nworld, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the\ndecanter.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.\n\n\nHitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly\ndwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail\nupon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough\nsweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still\nfurther, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters,\nand casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost\nbones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his\nunconditional skeleton.\n\nBut how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the\nfishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the\nwhale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures\non the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a\nspecimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land\na full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a\nroast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been,\nIshmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone;\nthe privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters,\nridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of\nleviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and\ncheeseries in his bowels.\n\nI confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far\nbeneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed\nwith an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged\nto, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his\npoke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the\nheads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my\nboat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the\ncontents of that young cub?\n\nAnd as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their\ngigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted\nto my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides.\nFor being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey\nof Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with\nthe lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side\nglen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his\ncapital.\n\nAmong many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted\nwith a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought\ntogether in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his\npeople could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices,\nchiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes;\nand all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the\nwonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.\n\nChief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an\nunusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his\nhead against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings\nseemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of\nits fathom-deep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun,\nthen the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a\ngrand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.\n\nThe ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with\nArsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests\nkept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head\nagain sent forth its vapoury spout; while, suspended from a bough, the\nterrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung\nsword that so affrighted Damocles.\n\nIt was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy\nGlen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the\nindustrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet\non it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and\nthe living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden\nbranches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying\nair; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the\nleaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied\nverdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!--whither\nflows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless\ntoilings? Speak, weaver!--stay thy hand!--but one single word with\nthee! Nay--the shuttle flies--the figures float from forth the loom; the\nfreshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves;\nand by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and\nby that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only\nwhen we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through\nit. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that\nare inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly\nheard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby\nhave villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in\nall this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be\noverheard afar.\n\nNow, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the\ngreat, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging--a gigantic idler! Yet,\nas the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around\nhim, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven\nover with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but\nhimself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim\ngod wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.\n\nNow, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the\nskull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real\njet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as\nan object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests\nshould swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced\nbefore this skeleton--brushed the vines aside--broke through the\nribs--and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid\nits many winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was\nout; and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered.\nI saw no living thing within; naught was there but bones.\n\nCutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton.\nFrom their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the\naltitude of the final rib, \"How now!\" they shouted; \"Dar'st thou measure\nthis our god! That's for us.\" \"Aye, priests--well, how long do ye make\nhim, then?\" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning\nfeet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their\nyard-sticks--the great skull echoed--and seizing that lucky chance, I\nquickly concluded my own admeasurements.\n\nThese admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be\nit recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied\nmeasurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can\nrefer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell\nme, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where\nthey have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I\nhave heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have\nwhat the proprietors call \"the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or\nRiver Whale in the United States.\" Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire,\nEngland, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has\nin his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size,\nby no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's.\n\nIn both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons\nbelonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar\ngrounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir\nClifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir\nClifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a\ngreat chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony\ncavities--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan--and swing all day\nupon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and\nshutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of\nkeys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at\nthe whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo\nin the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view\nfrom his forehead.\n\nThe skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied\nverbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild\nwanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving\nsuch valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished\nthe other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was\nthen composing--at least, what untattooed parts might remain--I did not\ntrouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all\nenter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton.\n\n\nIn the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain\nstatement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we\nare briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here.\n\nAccording to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base\nupon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest\nsized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful\ncalculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between\neighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty\nfeet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least\nninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would\nconsiderably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one\nthousand one hundred inhabitants.\n\nThink you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this\nleviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's imagination?\n\nHaving already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole,\njaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now\nsimply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his\nunobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large\na proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the\nmost complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in\nthis chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your\narm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the\ngeneral structure we are about to view.\n\nIn length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two\nFeet; so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have\nbeen ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one\nfifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet,\nhis skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of\nplain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a\nthird of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once\nenclosed his vitals.\n\nTo me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine,\nextending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled\nthe hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty\nof her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the\ntime, but a long, disconnected timber.\n\nThe ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck,\nwas nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each\nsuccessively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one\nof the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From\nthat part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only\nspanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore\na seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most\narched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay\nfootpath bridges over small streams.\n\nIn considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the\ncircumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of\nthe whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of\nthe Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish\nwhich, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the\ninvested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen\nfeet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more than eight\nfeet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the\nliving magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw\nbut a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of\nadded bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the\nample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of the\nweighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank!\n\nHow vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try\nto comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead\nattenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the\nheart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry\nflukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale\nbe truly and livingly found out.\n\nBut the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a\ncrane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now\nit's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar.\n\nThere are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are\nnot locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on\na Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest,\na middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth\nmore than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the\ntail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white\nbilliard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they\nhad been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children,\nwho had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the\nspine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple\nchild's play.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.\n\n\nFrom his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon\nto enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not\ncompress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial\nfolio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail,\nand the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic\ninvolutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great\ncables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a\nline-of-battle-ship.\n\nSince I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me\nto approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not\noverlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him\nout to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him\nin most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it\nnow remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and\nantediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the\nLeviathan--to an ant or a flea--such portly terms might justly be deemed\nunwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is\naltered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest\nwords of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been\nconvenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have\ninvariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased\nfor that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal\nbulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author\nlike me.\n\nOne often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject,\nthough it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing\nof this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard\ncapitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an\ninkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my\nthoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their\noutreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole\ncircle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and\nmastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas\nof empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its\nsuburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal\ntheme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose\na mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the\nflea, though many there be who have tried it.\n\nEre entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials\nas a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been\na stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells,\nwine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of\npreliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier\ngeological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost\ncompletely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are called\nthe Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted\nlinks, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote\nposterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales\nhitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last\npreceding the superficial formations. And though none of them\nprecisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet\nsufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking\nrank as Cetacean fossils.\n\nDetached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones\nand skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been\nfound at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in\nScotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.\nAmong the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the\nyear 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street\nopening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones\ndisinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's\ntime. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly\nunknown Leviathanic species.\n\nBut by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost\ncomplete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on\nthe plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous\nslaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen\nangels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed\nupon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being\ntaken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out\nthat this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A\nsignificant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this\nbook, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the\nshape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster\nZeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society,\npronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures\nwhich the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence.\n\nWhen I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks,\njaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to\nthe existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on\nthe other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical\nLeviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back\nto that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun;\nfor time began with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I\nobtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged\nbastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in\nall the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference, not an inhabitable\nhand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the\nwhale's; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines\nof the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan?\nAhab's harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems\na school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck\nat this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of\nthe whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after\nall humane ages are over.\n\nBut not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the\nstereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his\nancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim\nfor them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable\nprint of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah,\nsome fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a\nsculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and\ndolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the\nmoderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was there\nswimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled.\n\nNor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity\nof the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by\nthe venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.\n\n\"Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams\nof which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are\noftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that\nby a secret Power bestowed by God upon the temple, no Whale can pass it\nwithout immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either\nside of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea,\nand wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib\nof an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with\nits convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be\nreached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said\nto have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians\naffirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple,\nand some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth\nby the Whale at the Base of the Temple.\"\n\nIn this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a\nNantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?--Will He Perish?\n\n\nInasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from\nthe head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,\nin the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the\noriginal bulk of his sires.\n\nBut upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the\npresent day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are\nfound in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period\nprior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those\nbelonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier\nones.\n\nOf all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the\nAlabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than\nseventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen,\nthat the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large\nsized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that\nSperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of\ncapture.\n\nBut may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an\nadvance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may\nit not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated?\n\nAssuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such\ngentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny\ntells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus\nof others which measured eight hundred feet in length--Rope Walks and\nThames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and Solander,\nCooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences\nsetting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies)\nat one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet.\nAnd Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales,\nin the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at\none hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work\nwas published so late as A.D. 1825.\n\nBut will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is\nas big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny\nis, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.\nBecause I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies\nthat were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not\nmeasure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks;\nand while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian\nand Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are\ndrawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle\nof Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest\nof Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of\nall animals the whale alone should have degenerated.\n\nBut still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more\nrecondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs\nat the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through\nBehring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers\nof the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all\ncontinental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure\nso wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last\nbe exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man,\nsmoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.\n\nComparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo,\nwhich, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies\nof Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with\ntheir thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals,\nwhere now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such\na comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that\nthe hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction.\n\nBut you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a\nperiod ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois\nexceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day\nnot one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the\ncause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far\ndifferent nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an\nend to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for\nforty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God,\nif at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days\nof the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when\nthe far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and\na virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of\nmonths, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain\nnot forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need\nwere, could be statistically stated.\n\nNor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the\ngradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former years\n(the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in\nsmall pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in\nconsequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more\nremunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales,\ninfluenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense\ncaravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and\npods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but widely\nseparated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems\nthe conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer\nhaunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that\nspecies also is declining. For they are only being driven from\npromontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with\ntheir jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very\nrecently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.\n\nFurthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two\nfirm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain\nimpregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss\nhave retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and\nglades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to\ntheir Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and\nwalls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed circle\nof everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.\n\nBut as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one\ncachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this\npositive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions.\nBut though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than\n13,000, have been annually slain on the nor'-west coast by the Americans\nalone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance\nof little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter.\n\nNatural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness\nof the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to\nHarto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the\nKing of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are\nnumerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems no\nreason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for\nthousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the\nsuccessive monarchs of the East--if they still survive there in great\nnumbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he\nhas a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all\nAsia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles\nof the sea combined.\n\nMoreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity\nof whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,\ntherefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations\nmust be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea\nof, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of\ncreation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children\nwho were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to\nthe present human population of the globe.\n\nWherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his\nspecies, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas\nbefore the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the\nTuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he\ndespised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like\nthe Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still\nsurvive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood,\nspout his frothed defiance to the skies.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 106. Ahab's Leg.\n\n\nThe precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel\nEnderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to\nhis own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his\nboat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And\nwhen after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so\nvehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it\nwas, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); then,\nthe already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and wrench,\nthat though it still remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet\nAhab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.\n\nAnd, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his\npervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the\ncondition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not\nbeen very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he\nhad been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible;\nby some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his\nivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise\nsmitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme\ndifficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.\n\nNor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all\nthe anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a\nformer woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous\nreptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest\nsongster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable\nevents do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought\nAhab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the\nancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is\nan inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural\nenjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world,\nbut, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of\nall hell's despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still\nfertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs\nbeyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an\ninequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while\neven the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying\npettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic\nsignificance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their\ndiligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the\ngenealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the\nsourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the\nglad, hay-making suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must\nneeds give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad.\nThe ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of\nsorrow in the signers.\n\nUnwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more\nproperly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other\nparticulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some,\nwhy it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the sailing\nof the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like\nexclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as\nit were, among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited\nreason for this thing appeared by no means adequate; though, indeed,\nas touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation partook more of\nsignificant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all\ncame out; this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at\nthe bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that\never-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed\nthe privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the\nabove hinted casualty--remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by\nAhab--invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land\nof spirits and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had\nall conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of\nthis thing from others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable\ninterval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks.\n\nBut be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air,\nor the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not\nwith earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain\npractical procedures;--he called the carpenter.\n\nAnd when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay\nset about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied\nwith all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus\nfar been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful selection\nof the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, the\ncarpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night; and to\nprovide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to\nthe distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be\nhoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate\nthe affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the\nforging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.\n\n\nSeat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high\nabstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But\nfrom the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they\nseem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.\nBut most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of\nthe high, humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate;\nhence, he now comes in person on this stage.\n\nLike all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging\nto whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent,\nalike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own;\nthe carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all\nthose numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an\nauxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic\nremark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in\nthose thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring\nin a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized\nand far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary\nduties:--repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of\nclumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails\nin the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more directly\npertaining to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatingly\nexpert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and\ncapricious.\n\nThe one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold,\nwas his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several\nvices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times\nexcept when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed\nathwartships against the rear of the Try-works.\n\nA belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole:\nthe carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and straightway\nfiles it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plumage strays on board,\nand is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and\ncross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking\ncage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist: the carpenter concocts a\nsoothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon\nthe blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood,\nthe carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes\na fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears.\nAnother has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping\none hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow\nunmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the\nhandle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in\nthat, if he would have him draw the tooth.\n\nThus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent\nand without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he\ndeemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But\nwhile now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such\nliveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some\nuncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was\nthis man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as\nit were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding\ninfinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity\ndiscernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active\nin uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you,\nthough you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible\nstolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying\nheartlessness;--yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old,\ncrutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now\nand then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served\nto pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle\nof Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long\nwanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss;\nbut what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings\nmight have originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract; an\nunfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without\npremeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost\nsay, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of\nunintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so\nmuch by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to\nit, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven; but merely by\na kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure\nmanipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early\noozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of\nthose unreasoning but still highly useful, MULTUM IN PARVO, Sheffield\ncontrivances, assuming the exterior--though a little swelled--of a\ncommon pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes,\nbut also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers,\nnail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the\ncarpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part\nof him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the\nlegs, and there they were.\n\nYet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter,\nwas, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a\ncommon soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously\ndid its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few\ndrops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it\nhad abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same\nunaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept\nhim a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning\nwheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a\nsentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the\ntime to keep himself awake.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.\n\nThe Deck--First Night Watch.\n\n\n(CARPENTER STANDING BEFORE HIS VICE-BENCH, AND BY THE LIGHT OF TWO\nLANTERNS BUSILY FILING THE IVORY JOIST FOR THE LEG, WHICH JOIST IS\nFIRMLY FIXED IN THE VICE. SLABS OF IVORY, LEATHER STRAPS, PADS, SCREWS,\nAND VARIOUS TOOLS OF ALL SORTS LYING ABOUT THE BENCH. FORWARD, THE RED\nFLAME OF THE FORGE IS SEEN, WHERE THE BLACKSMITH IS AT WORK.)\n\n\nDrat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft,\nand that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and\nshinbones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (SNEEZES).\nHalloa, this bone dust is (SNEEZES)--why it's (SNEEZES)--yes it's\n(SNEEZES)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old\nfellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and\nyou don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it\n(SNEEZES). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have\nthat ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky\nnow (SNEEZES) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little;\nbut a mere shinbone--why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should\nlike to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I\ncould turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (SNEEZES) scraped to a lady\nin a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop\nwindows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of\ncourse get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (SNEEZES) with washes and\nlotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, now, I must\ncall his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right;\ntoo short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck;\nhere he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain.\n\nAHAB (ADVANCING)\n\n(DURING THE ENSUING SCENE, THE CARPENTER CONTINUES SNEEZING AT TIMES)\n\n\nWell, manmaker!\n\nJust in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.\nLet me measure, sir.\n\nMeasured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it!\nThere; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here,\ncarpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.\n\nOh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware!\n\nNo fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this\nslippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?--the\nblacksmith, I mean--what's he about?\n\nHe must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.\n\nRight. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a\nfierce red flame there!\n\nAye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work.\n\nUm-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that\nold Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a\nblacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in fire must\nproperly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the soot flies!\nThis must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter,\nwhen he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel\nshoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.\n\nSir?\n\nHold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a\ndesirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest\nmodelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay\nin one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all,\nbrass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let\nme see--shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on\ntop of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.\n\nNow, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like\nto know? Shall I keep standing here? (ASIDE).\n\n'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No,\nno, no; I must have a lantern.\n\nHo, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.\n\nWhat art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man?\nThrusted light is worse than presented pistols.\n\nI thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.\n\n\nCarpenter? why that's--but no;--a very tidy, and, I may say,\nan extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here,\ncarpenter;--or would'st thou rather work in clay?\n\nSir?--Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.\n\nThe fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about?\n\nBone is rather dusty, sir.\n\nTake the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under\nliving people's noses.\n\nSir?--oh! ah!--I guess so;--yes--dear!\n\nLook ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good\nworkmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well\nfor thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall\nnevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that\nis, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst\nthou not drive that old Adam away?\n\nTruly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard\nsomething curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never\nentirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still\npricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?\n\nIt is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once\nwas; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the\nsoul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a\nhair, do I. Is't a riddle?\n\nI should humbly call it a poser, sir.\n\nHist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing\nmay not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where\nthou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most\nsolitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't\nspeak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now\nso long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery\npains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!\n\nGood Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again;\nI think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.\n\nLook ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long before the\nleg is done?\n\nPerhaps an hour, sir.\n\nBungle away at it then, and bring it to me (TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here\nI am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for\na bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will\nnot do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the\nwhole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with\nthe wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was\nthe world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By\nheavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to\none small, compendious vertebra. So.\n\nCARPENTER (RESUMING HIS WORK).\n\n\nWell, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says\nhe's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's\nqueer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into\nMr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer. And\nhere's his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow! has\na stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll stand\non this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and\nall three places standing in one hell--how was that? Oh! I don't wonder\nhe looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes,\nthey say; but that's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body\nlike me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall,\nheron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick,\nand there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg!\nlong and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts\na lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a\ntender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab;\noh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the\nother for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there,\nyou Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it\nbefore the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for\nall legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round collecting old beer\nbarrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real\nlive leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this\nto-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the\nlittle oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So,\nso; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.\n\n\nAccording to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no\ninconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have\nsprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into\nthe cabin to report this unfavourable affair.*\n\n\n*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it\nis a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench\nthe casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, is\nremoved by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to be kept\ndamply tight; while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the\nmariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo.\n\n\nNow, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and\nthe Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from\nthe China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with\na general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him;\nand another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the\nJapanese islands--Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new\nivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long\npruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with his\nback to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his old\ncourses again.\n\n\"Who's there?\" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round\nto it. \"On deck! Begone!\"\n\n\"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We\nmust up Burtons and break out.\"\n\n\"Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here\nfor a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?\"\n\n\"Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good\nin a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving,\nsir.\"\n\n\"So it is, so it is; if we get it.\"\n\n\"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.\"\n\n\"And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak!\nI'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks,\nbut those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a far worse plight\nthan the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for who can\nfind it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if\nfound, in this life's howling gale? Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons\nhoisted.\"\n\n\"What will the owners say, sir?\"\n\n\"Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What\ncares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck,\nabout those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But\nlook ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye,\nmy conscience is in this ship's keel.--On deck!\"\n\n\"Captain Ahab,\" said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin,\nwith a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed\nnot only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation\nof itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself;\n\"A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would quickly\nenough resent in a younger man; aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab.\"\n\n\"Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?--On\ndeck!\"\n\n\"Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir--to be forbearing!\nShall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?\"\n\nAhab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most\nSouth-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,\nexclaimed: \"There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one\nCaptain that is lord over the Pequod.--On deck!\"\n\nFor an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks,\nyou would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of\nthe levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose,\nand as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: \"Thou hast\noutraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of\nStarbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of\nthyself, old man.\"\n\n\"He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!\"\nmurmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. \"What's that he said--Ahab\nbeware of Ahab--there's something there!\" Then unconsciously using the\nmusket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little\ncabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and\nreturning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.\n\n\"Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck,\" he said lowly to the mate;\nthen raising his voice to the crew: \"Furl the t'gallant-sails, and\nclose-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton,\nand break out in the main-hold.\"\n\nIt were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting\nStarbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him;\nor mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously\nforbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient,\nin the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders\nwere executed; and the Burtons were hoisted.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.\n\n\nUpon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold\nwere perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it\nbeing calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the\nslumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight\nsending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they\ngo; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost\npuncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask\ncontaining coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards,\nvainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. Tierce after\ntierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and\niron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks\nwere hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if\nyou were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea\nlike an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless\nstudent with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons\ndid not visit them then.\n\nNow, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast\nbosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh\nto his endless end.\n\nBe it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;\ndignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the\nhigher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as\nharpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but--as\nwe have elsewhere seen--mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and\nfinally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating\nall day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the\nclumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen,\nthe harpooneers are the holders, so called.\n\nPoor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should\nhave stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where,\nstripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about\namid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom\nof a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor\npagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he\ncaught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after\nsome days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill\nof the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few\nlong-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his\nframe and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones\ngrew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller;\nthey became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply\nlooked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to that\nimmortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And like\ncircles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his eyes\nseemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe that\ncannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this\nwaning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who\nwere bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly wondrous and\nfearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing\nnear of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last\nrevelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell.\nSo that--let us say it again--no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and\nholier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping\nover the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying\nhammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final\nrest, and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher\ntowards his destined heaven.\n\nNot a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,\nwhat he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he\nasked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was\njust breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he\nhad chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich\nwar-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all\nwhalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes,\nand that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not\nunlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior,\nstretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to\nthe starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars\nare isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild,\nuncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the\nwhite breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at\nthe thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual\nsea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks.\nNo: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial\nto him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes\nwere without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and\nmuch lee-way adown the dim ages.\n\nNow, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter\nwas at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might\ninclude. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard,\nwhich, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal\ngroves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin\nwas recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of\nthe order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent\npromptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took\nQueequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg's\nperson as he shifted the rule.\n\n\"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now,\" ejaculated the Long Island\nsailor.\n\nGoing to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general\nreference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin\nwas to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches\nat its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools,\nand to work.\n\nWhen the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted,\nhe lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring\nwhether they were ready for it yet in that direction.\n\nOverhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the\npeople on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one's\nconsternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to\nhim, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some\ndying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will\nshortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be\nindulged.\n\nLeaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with\nan attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock\ndrawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along\nwith one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also,\nbiscuits were then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water\nwas placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in\nthe hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a\npillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he\nmight make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving\na few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his little\ngod, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he\ncalled for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him.\nThe head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg\nin his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view. \"Rarmai\"\n(it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced\nin his hammock.\n\nBut ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all this\nwhile, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took him\nby the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.\n\n\"Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where\ngo ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where\nthe beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little\nerrand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think\nhe's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he\nmust be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--I found\nit. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying\nmarch.\"\n\n\"I have heard,\" murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, \"that in\nviolent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues;\nand that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their\nwholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken\nin their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip,\nin this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all\nour heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?--Hark! he speaks\nagain: but more wildly now.\"\n\n\"Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his harpoon?\nLay it across here.--Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock\nnow to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!--mind ye that;\nQueequeg dies game!--take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game! I\nsay; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all\na'shiver;--out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles\nhe's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from\na whale-boat! I'd never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail\nhim General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all\ncowards--shame upon them! Let 'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a\nwhale-boat. Shame! shame!\"\n\nDuring all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip\nwas led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock.\n\nBut now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now\nthat his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon\nthere seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some\nexpressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the\ncause of his sudden convalescence was this;--at a critical moment, he\nhad just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone;\nand therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet,\nhe averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of\nhis own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word,\nit was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere\nsickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some\nviolent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.\n\nNow, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized;\nthat while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing,\ngenerally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.\nSo, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after\nsitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a\nvigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms\nand legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then\nspringing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon,\npronounced himself fit for a fight.\n\nWith a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and\nemptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there.\nMany spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of\ngrotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was\nstriving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on\nhis body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and\nseer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on\nhis body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical\ntreatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own\nproper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but\nwhose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart\nbeat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in\nthe end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were\ninscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must\nhave been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when\none morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg--\"Oh, devilish\ntantalization of the gods!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 111. The Pacific.\n\n\nWhen gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South\nSea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear Pacific\nwith uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was\nanswered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues\nof blue.\n\nThere is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently\nawful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those\nfabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St.\nJohn. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery\nprairies and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should\nrise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed\nshades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that\nwe call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like\nslumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their\nrestlessness.\n\nTo any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must\never after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of\nthe world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same\nwaves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday\nplanted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still\ngorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between\nfloat milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown\nArchipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine\nPacific zones the world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay\nto it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal\nswells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.\n\nBut few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing like an\niron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one\nnostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles\n(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other\nconsciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in\nwhich the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at\nlength upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese\ncruising-ground, the old man's purpose intensified itself. His firm lips\nmet like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead's veins swelled\nlike overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through\nthe vaulted hull, \"Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith.\n\n\nAvailing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in\nthese latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active\npursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old\nblacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after\nconcluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained\nit on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost\nincessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do\nsome little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their\nvarious weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an\neager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads,\nharpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement,\nas he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded\nby a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from\nhim. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically\nbroken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the\nheavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it\nwas.--Most miserable!\n\nA peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing\nyawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the\ncuriosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted\nquestionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every\none now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate.\n\nBelated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road\nrunning between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt\nthe deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning,\ndilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both\nfeet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four\nacts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth\nact of the grief of his life's drama.\n\nHe was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly\nencountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been\nan artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house\nand garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three\nblithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church,\nplanted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further\nconcealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into\nhis happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to\ntell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into\nhis family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that\nfatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for\nprudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in\nthe basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so\nthat always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no\nunhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of\nher young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by\npassing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly,\nin her nursery; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's\ninfants were rocked to slumber.\n\nOh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst\nthou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon\nhim, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a\ntruly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and\nall of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some\nvirtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the\nresponsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless\nold man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to\nharvest.\n\nWhy tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more\nand more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last;\nthe wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly\ngazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell; the\nforge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived\ndown into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her\nthither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond\nin crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen\ncurls!\n\nDeath seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death\nis only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but\nthe first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the\nWild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of\nsuch men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against\nsuicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly\nspread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and\nwonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite\nPacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them--\"Come hither,\nbroken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate\ndeath; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come\nhither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and\nabhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put\nup THY gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we\nmarry thee!\"\n\nHearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall\nof eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went\na-whaling.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 113. The Forge.\n\n\nWith matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about\nmid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter\nplaced upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the\ncoals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came\nalong, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While\nyet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last,\nPerth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the\nanvil--the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights,\nsome of which flew close to Ahab.\n\n\"Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying\nin thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;--look here, they\nburn; but thou--thou liv'st among them without a scorch.\"\n\n\"Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab,\" answered Perth, resting\nfor a moment on his hammer; \"I am past scorching; not easily can'st thou\nscorch a scar.\"\n\n\"Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful\nto me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others\nthat is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou\nnot go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet\nhate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?--What wert thou making there?\"\n\n\"Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it.\"\n\n\"And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard\nusage as it had?\"\n\n\"I think so, sir.\"\n\n\"And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never\nmind how hard the metal, blacksmith?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.\"\n\n\"Look ye here, then,\" cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning\nwith both hands on Perth's shoulders; \"look ye here--HERE--can ye\nsmoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,\" sweeping one hand across his\nribbed brow; \"if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay\nmy head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.\nAnswer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?\"\n\n\"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?\"\n\n\"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for\nthough thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the\nbone of my skull--THAT is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no\nmore gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!\" jingling the leathern bag,\nas if it were full of gold coins. \"I, too, want a harpoon made; one that\na thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will\nstick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff,\" flinging\nthe pouch upon the anvil. \"Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered\nnail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses.\"\n\n\"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the\nbest and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.\"\n\n\"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the\nmelted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me\nfirst, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these\ntwelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll\nblow the fire.\"\n\nWhen at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by\nspiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. \"A\nflaw!\" rejecting the last one. \"Work that over again, Perth.\"\n\nThis done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when\nAhab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then,\nwith regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to\nhim the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge\nshooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and\nbowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or\nsome blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.\n\n\"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?\" muttered Stubb,\nlooking on from the forecastle. \"That Parsee smells fire like a fusee;\nand smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan.\"\n\nAt last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as\nPerth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near\nby, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face.\n\n\"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?\" wincing for a moment with the pain;\n\"have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?\"\n\n\"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this\nharpoon for the White Whale?\"\n\n\"For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them\nthyself, man. Here are my razors--the best of steel; here, and make the\nbarbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.\"\n\nFor a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain\nnot use them.\n\n\"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup,\nnor pray till--but here--to work!\"\n\nFashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the\nshank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith\nwas about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he\ncried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.\n\n\"No, no--no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy,\nthere! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me\nas much blood as will cover this barb?\" holding it high up. A cluster of\ndark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh,\nand the White Whale's barbs were then tempered.\n\n\"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!\"\ndeliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the\nbaptismal blood.\n\nNow, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory,\nwith the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of\nthe iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of\nit taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing\nhis foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly\nbending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, \"Good! and\nnow for the seizings.\"\n\nAt one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns\nwere all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole\nwas then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope\nwas traced half-way along the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with\nintertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope--like the Three\nFates--remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the\nweapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole,\nboth hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin,\nlight, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh,\nPip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange\nmummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the\nmelancholy ship, and mocked it!\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 114. The Gilder.\n\n\nPenetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising\nground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild,\npleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the\nstretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing,\nor paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy\nminutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success\nfor their pains.\n\nAt such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow\nheaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so\nsociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone\ncats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy\nquietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the\nocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and\nwould not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a\nremorseless fang.\n\nThese are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a\ncertain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he\nregards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing\nonly the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high\nrolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when\nthe western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their\nhidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.\n\nThe long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these\nthere steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied\nchildren lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when\nthe flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most\nmystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate,\nand form one seamless whole.\n\nNor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as\ntemporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem\nto open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon\nthem prove but tarnishing.\n\nOh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in\nye,--though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,--in ye,\nmen yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some\nfew fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them.\nWould to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling\nthreads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a\nstorm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this\nlife; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one\npause:--through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless\nfaith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then\ndisbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once\ngone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men,\nand Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no\nmore? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will\nnever weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like\nthose orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of\nour paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.\n\nAnd that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that\nsame golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:--\n\n\"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's\neye!--Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping\ncannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep\ndown and do believe.\"\n\nAnd Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same\ngolden light:--\n\n\"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that\nhe has always been jolly!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.\n\n\nAnd jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down\nbefore the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded.\n\nIt was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her\nlast cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad\nholiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing\nround among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to\npointing her prow for home.\n\nThe three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting\nat their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down;\nand hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the\nlast whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colours\nwere flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of\nher three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her\ntop-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious\nfluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp.\n\nAs was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising\nsuccess; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same\nseas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a\nsingle fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to\nmake room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental\ncasks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were\nstowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms.\nEven the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the\ncabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the\nfloor for a centrepiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually\ncaulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously\nadded, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and\nfilled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled\nit; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and\nfilled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the\ncaptain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands\ninto, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.\n\nAs this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the\nbarbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing\nstill nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge\ntry-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like POKE or stomach skin of\nthe black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched\nhands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were\ndancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the\nPolynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured\naloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with\nglittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious\njig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at\nthe masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been\nremoved. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed\nBastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and\nmortar were being hurled into the sea.\n\nLord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the\nship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was\nfull before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual\ndiversion.\n\nAnd Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black,\nwith a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's\nwakes--one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings\nas to things to come--their two captains in themselves impersonated the\nwhole striking contrast of the scene.\n\n\"Come aboard, come aboard!\" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting\na glass and a bottle in the air.\n\n\"Hast seen the White Whale?\" gritted Ahab in reply.\n\n\"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all,\" said the other\ngood-humoredly. \"Come aboard!\"\n\n\"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?\"\n\n\"Not enough to speak of--two islanders, that's all;--but come aboard,\nold hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come\nalong, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound.\"\n\n\"How wondrous familiar is a fool!\" muttered Ahab; then aloud, \"Thou art\na full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty\nship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there!\nSet all sail, and keep her to the wind!\"\n\nAnd thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other\nstubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew\nof the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding\nBachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively\nrevelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the\nhomewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and\nthen looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two\nremote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket\nsoundings.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.\n\n\nNot seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites\nsail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the\nrushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed\nit with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor,\nwhales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.\n\nIt was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson\nfight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun\nand whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such\nplaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that\nit almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of\nthe Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had\ngone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.\n\nSoothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned\noff from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now\ntranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales\ndying--the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring--that strange\nspectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a\nwondrousness unknown before.\n\n\"He turns and turns him to it,--how slowly, but how steadfastly, his\nhomage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too\nworships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!--Oh\nthat these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights.\nLook! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe;\nin these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks\nfurnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still\nrolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the\nNiger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith; but\nsee! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads\nsome other way.\n\n\"Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded\nthy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas;\nthou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the\nwide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor\nhas this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round\nagain, without a lesson to me.\n\n\"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed\njet!--that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh\nwhale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that\nonly calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker\nhalf, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable\nimminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living\nthings, exhaled as air, but water now.\n\n\"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild\nfowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though\nhill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.\n\n\nThe four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to\nwindward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These\nlast three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one\ncould not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay\nby its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's.\n\nThe waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and\nthe lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare\nupon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which\ngently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.\n\nAhab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching\nin the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the\nwhale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound\nlike the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of\nGomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.\n\nStarted from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and\nhooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a\nflooded world. \"I have dreamed it again,\" said he.\n\n\"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor\ncoffin can be thine?\"\n\n\"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?\"\n\n\"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two\nhearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by\nmortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in\nAmerica.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:--a hearse and its plumes\nfloating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a\nsight we shall not soon see.\"\n\n\"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.\"\n\n\"And what was that saying about thyself?\"\n\n\"Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot.\"\n\n\"And when thou art so gone before--if that ever befall--then ere I can\nfollow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?--Was it not\nso? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two\npledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.\"\n\n\"Take another pledge, old man,\" said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up\nlike fire-flies in the gloom--\"Hemp only can kill thee.\"\n\n\"The gallows, ye mean.--I am immortal then, on land and on sea,\" cried\nAhab, with a laugh of derision;--\"Immortal on land and on sea!\"\n\nBoth were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the\nslumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead\nwhale was brought to the ship.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.\n\n\nThe season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab,\ncoming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would\nostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to\nthe braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed\non the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship's\nprow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high\nnoon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was\nabout taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his\nlatitude.\n\nNow, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of\neffulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing\nfocus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks\nlacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness\nof unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne.\nWell that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with coloured glasses, through\nwhich to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form\nto the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument\nplaced to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to\ncatch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian.\nMeantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling\nbeneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's,\nwas eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded\ntheir orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness.\nAt length the desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon\nhis ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that\nprecise instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up\ntowards the sun and murmured to himself: \"Thou sea-mark! thou high and\nmighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I AM--but canst thou cast the\nleast hint where I SHALL be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing\nbesides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou\nmust be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is\neven now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally\nbeholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!\"\n\nThen gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its\nnumerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered:\n\"Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and\nCaptains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what\nafter all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou\nthyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds\nthee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water\nor one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence\nthou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed\nbe all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live\nvividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched\nwith thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the\nglances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God\nhad meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!\"\ndashing it to the deck, \"no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee;\nthe level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by\nline; THESE shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye,\"\nlighting from the boat to the deck, \"thus I trample on thee, thou paltry\nthing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!\"\n\nAs the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live\nand dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a\nfatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself--these passed over\nthe mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away;\nwhile, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered\ntogether on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck,\nshouted out--\"To the braces! Up helm!--square in!\"\n\nIn an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon\nher heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon\nher long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one\nsufficient steed.\n\nStanding between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's\ntumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck.\n\n\"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of\nits tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down,\nto dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine,\nwhat will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!\"\n\n\"Aye,\" cried Stubb, \"but sea-coal ashes--mind ye that, Mr.\nStarbuck--sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab\nmutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine;\nswears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but\nthou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 119. The Candles.\n\n\nWarmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal\ncrouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent\nbut basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes\nthat never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these\nresplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all\nstorms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless\nsky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.\n\nTowards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and\nbare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly\nahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the\nthunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts\nfluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the\ntempest had left for its after sport.\n\nHolding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at every\nflash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster\nmight have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb and Flask\nwere directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the\nboats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very\ntop of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape.\nA great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's high\nteetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and left it\nagain, all dripping through like a sieve.\n\n\"Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck,\" said Stubb, regarding the wreck,\n\"but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight it. You see,\nMr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all\nround the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all\nthe start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never\nmind; it's all in fun: so the old song says;\"--(SINGS.)\n\n  Oh! jolly is the gale,\n  And a joker is the whale,\n  A' flourishin' his tail,--\n  Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!\n\n  The scud all a flyin',\n  That's his flip only foamin';\n  When he stirs in the spicin',--\n  Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!\n\n  Thunder splits the ships,\n  But he only smacks his lips,\n  A tastin' of this flip,--\n  Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!\n\n\n\"Avast Stubb,\" cried Starbuck, \"let the Typhoon sing, and strike his\nharp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy\npeace.\"\n\n\"But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward;\nand I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr.\nStarbuck, there's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my\nthroat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a\nwind-up.\"\n\n\"Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.\"\n\n\"What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never\nmind how foolish?\"\n\n\"Here!\" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his\nhand towards the weather bow, \"markest thou not that the gale comes from\nthe eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the very\ncourse he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where is\nthat stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand--his\nstand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou\nmust!\n\n\"I don't half understand ye: what's in the wind?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to\nNantucket,\" soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's\nquestion. \"The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it\ninto a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward,\nall is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward--I see it lightens up\nthere; but not with the lightning.\"\n\nAt that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following\nthe flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same\ninstant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.\n\n\"Who's there?\"\n\n\"Old Thunder!\" said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his\npivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed\nlances of fire.\n\nNow, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off\nthe perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some\nships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But\nas this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may\navoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly\ntowing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering\nnot a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the\nvessel's way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a\nship's lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made\nin long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the\nchains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.\n\n\"The rods! the rods!\" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to\nvigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux,\nto light Ahab to his post. \"Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and\naft. Quick!\"\n\n\"Avast!\" cried Ahab; \"let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker\nside. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that\nall the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let them be, sir.\"\n\n\"Look aloft!\" cried Starbuck. \"The corpusants! the corpusants!\"\n\nAll the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each\ntri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of\nthe three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like\nthree gigantic wax tapers before an altar.\n\n\"Blast the boat! let it go!\" cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing\nsea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently\njammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. \"Blast it!\"--but\nslipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and\nimmediately shifting his tone he cried--\"The corpusants have mercy on us\nall!\"\n\nTo sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of\nthe calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses\nfrom the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething\nsea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when\nGod's burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His \"Mene, Mene,\nTekel Upharsin\" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.\n\nWhile this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the\nenchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle,\nall their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away\nconstellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic\njet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed\nthe black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of\nTashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as\nif they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the\npreternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue\nflames on his body.\n\nThe tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more\nthe Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment\nor two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It\nwas Stubb. \"What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the\nsame in the song.\"\n\n\"No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I\nhope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?--have\nthey no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck--but it's too dark\nto look. Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign\nof good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be\nchock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm will\nwork up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will\nyet be as three spermaceti candles--that's the good promise we saw.\"\n\nAt that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly beginning\nto glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: \"See! see!\" and once\nmore the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled\nsupernaturalness in their pallor.\n\n\"The corpusants have mercy on us all,\" cried Stubb, again.\n\nAt the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame,\nthe Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his head bowed away\nfrom him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where\nthey had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen,\narrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a\nknot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted\nattitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in\nHerculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all their eyes\nupcast.\n\n\"Aye, aye, men!\" cried Ahab. \"Look up at it; mark it well; the white\nflame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast\nlinks there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it;\nblood against fire! So.\"\n\nThen turning--the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot\nupon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, he\nstood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.\n\n\"Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian\nonce did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to\nthis hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now\nknow that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence\nwilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all\nare killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless,\nplaceless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will\ndispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the\npersonified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at\nbest; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live,\nthe queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war\nis pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will\nkneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power;\nand though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that\nin here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy\nfire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to\nthee.\"\n\n[SUDDEN, REPEATED FLASHES OF LIGHTNING; THE NINE FLAMES LEAP LENGTHWISE\nTO THRICE THEIR PREVIOUS HEIGHT; AHAB, WITH THE REST, CLOSES HIS EYES,\nHIS RIGHT HAND PRESSED HARD UPON THEM.]\n\n\"I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung\nfrom me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then\ngrope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of\nthese poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning\nflashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and ache; my whole beaten\nbrain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground. Oh, oh!\nYet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou\nleapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping\nout of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the\nflames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou\nart but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what\nhast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater.\nThou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten;\ncertainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I\nknow that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent.\nThere is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom\nall thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through\nthee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou\nfoundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable\nriddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read\nmy sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with\nthee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!\"\n\n\"The boat! the boat!\" cried Starbuck, \"look at thy boat, old man!\"\n\nAhab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed\nin its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's\nbow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather\nsheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a\nlevelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there\nlike a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm--\"God, God\nis against thee, old man; forbear! 'tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill\ncontinued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a\nfair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this.\"\n\nOverhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the\nbraces--though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast\nmate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But\ndashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the\nburning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to\ntransfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end.\nPetrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart\nthat he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:--\n\n\"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and\nheart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye\nmay know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out\nthe last fear!\" And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the\nflame.\n\nAs in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of\nsome lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so\nmuch the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts;\nso at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him\nin a terror of dismay.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.\n\nAHAB STANDING BY THE HELM. STARBUCK APPROACHING HIM.\n\n\n\"We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working loose\nand the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?\"\n\n\"Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway them up\nnow.\"\n\n\"Sir!--in God's name!--sir?\"\n\n\"Well.\"\n\n\"The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?\"\n\n\"Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises,\nbut it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.--By\nmasts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some\ncoasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest\ntrucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now\nsails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards\nsend down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft\nthere! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic\nis a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 121. Midnight.--The Forecastle Bulwarks.\n\n\nSTUBB AND FLASK MOUNTED ON THEM, AND PASSING ADDITIONAL LASHINGS OVER\nTHE ANCHORS THERE HANGING.\n\n\n\"No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you\nwill never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long\nago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you once say that\nwhatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its\ninsurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft\nand boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn't you say so?\"\n\n\"Well, suppose I did? What then? I've part changed my flesh since that\ntime, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we ARE loaded with powder\nbarrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get\nafire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have\npretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now. Shake yourself; you're\nAquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat\ncollar. Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine\nInsurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But\nhark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg off\nfrom the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope;\nnow listen. What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's\nlightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't\ngot any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head,\nthat no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first\nstruck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred\ncarries rods, and Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more\ndanger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand\nships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would\nhave every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running\nup the corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather,\nand trailing behind like his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's\neasy to be sensible; why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be\nsensible.\"\n\n\"I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.\"\n\n\"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible, that's\na fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the\nturn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors\nnow as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two\nanchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands behind him. And what\nbig generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists,\nhey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is\nanchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable,\nthough. There, hammer that knot down, and we've done. So; next to\ntouching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, just\nwring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs\nso, Flask; but seems to me, a Long tailed coat ought always to be worn\nin all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry\noff the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end\neave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me; I\nmust mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. Halloa! whew!\nthere goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that the winds that come\nfrom heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.--Thunder and Lightning.\n\n\nTHE MAIN-TOP-SAIL YARD.--TASHTEGO PASSING NEW LASHINGS AROUND IT.\n\n\n\"Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What's\nthe use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; we want rum; give\nus a glass of rum. Um, um, um!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 123. The Musket.\n\n\nDuring the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's\njaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by\nits spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached\nto it--for they were slack--because some play to the tiller was\nindispensable.\n\nIn a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock\nto the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the\ncompasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the\nPequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice\nthe whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is\na sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted\nemotion.\n\nSome hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the\nstrenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb--one engaged forward and the\nother aft--the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails\nwere cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like\nthe feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when\nthat storm-tossed bird is on the wing.\n\nThe three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a\nstorm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through\nthe water with some precision again; and the course--for the present,\nEast-south-east--which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more\ngiven to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only\nsteered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the\nship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo!\na good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze\nbecame fair!\n\nInstantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of \"HO! THE\nFAIR WIND! OH-YE-HO, CHEERLY MEN!\" the crew singing for joy, that so\npromising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents\npreceding it.\n\nIn compliance with the standing order of his commander--to report\nimmediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change\nin the affairs of the deck,--Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to\nthe breeze--however reluctantly and gloomily,--than he mechanically went\nbelow to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.\n\nEre knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it\na moment. The cabin lamp--taking long swings this way and that--was\nburning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted\ndoor,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels.\nThe isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming\nsilence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of\nthe elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as\nthey stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest,\nupright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw\nthe muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with\nits neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew\nit for itself.\n\n\"He would have shot me once,\" he murmured, \"yes, there's the very musket\nthat he pointed at me;--that one with the studded stock; let me touch\nit--lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly lances,\nstrange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye; and\npowder in the pan;--that's not good. Best spill it?--wait. I'll cure\nmyself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly while I think.--I come\nto report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and\ndoom,--THAT'S fair for Moby Dick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for\nthat accursed fish.--The very tube he pointed at me!--the very one;\nTHIS one--I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing I\nhandle now.--Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say\nhe will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly\nquadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere\ndead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did\nhe not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed\nold man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom\nwith him?--Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and\nmore, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my\nsoul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he were this\ninstant--put aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he muttering in\nhis sleep? Yes, just there,--in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping? aye,\nbut still alive, and soon awake again. I can't withstand thee, then, old\nman. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to;\nall this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is\nall thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow; say'st\nall of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!--But is there no other way? no\nlawful way?--Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest\nthis old man's living power from his own living hands? Only a fool\nwould try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes\nand hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would\nbe more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the\nsight; could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself,\ninestimable reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What,\nthen, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan\nthe nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and\na whole continent between me and law.--Aye, aye, 'tis so.--Is heaven\na murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed,\ntindering sheets and skin together?--And would I be a murderer, then,\nif\"--and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the\nloaded musket's end against the door.\n\n\"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way. A\ntouch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.--Oh\nMary! Mary!--boy! boy! boy!--But if I wake thee not to death, old man,\nwho can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week\nmay sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall\nI?--The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails\nare reefed and set; she heads her course.\"\n\n\"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!\"\n\nSuch were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's\ntormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream\nto speak.\n\nThe yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel;\nStarbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he\nplaced the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.\n\n\"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell\nhim. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to say.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 124. The Needle.\n\n\nNext morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of\nmighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on\nlike giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded\nso, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world\nboomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible\nsun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his\nbayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian\nkings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of\nmolten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.\n\nLong maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time\nthe tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye\nthe bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by\nthe stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how\nthe same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.\n\n\"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of\nthe sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye!\nYoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!\"\n\nBut suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the\nhelm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.\n\n\"East-sou-east, sir,\" said the frightened steersman.\n\n\"Thou liest!\" smiting him with his clenched fist. \"Heading East at this\nhour in the morning, and the sun astern?\"\n\nUpon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then\nobserved by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very\nblinding palpableness must have been the cause.\n\nThrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse\nof the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost\nseemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two\ncompasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.\n\nBut ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew,\nthe old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, \"I have it! It has happened\nbefore. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses--that's\nall. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.\"\n\n\"Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir,\" said the pale mate,\ngloomily.\n\nHere, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than\none case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as\ndeveloped in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially one with\nthe electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled\nat, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has\nactually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and\nrigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal;\nall its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic\nsteel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in\neither case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original\nvirtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected,\nthe same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were\nthe lowermost one inserted into the kelson.\n\nDeliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed\ncompasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took\nthe precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were\nexactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be\nchanged accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod\nthrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair\none had only been juggling her.\n\nMeanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing,\nbut quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask--who\nin some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise\nunmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly\nrumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as\never before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed;\nor if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their\ncongenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.\n\nFor a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But\nchancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper\nsight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.\n\n\"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked\nthee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But\nAhab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck--a lance without\na pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles.\nQuick!\"\n\nAccessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about\nto do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to\nrevive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a\nmatter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old\nman well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily\npracticable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors,\nwithout some shudderings and evil portents.\n\n\"Men,\" said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed\nhim the things he had demanded, \"my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's\nneedles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that\nwill point as true as any.\"\n\nAbashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this\nwas said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might\nfollow. But Starbuck looked away.\n\nWith a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the\nlance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade\nhim hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul,\nafter repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the\nblunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered\nthat, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then\ngoing through some small strange motions with it--whether indispensable\nto the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe\nof the crew, is uncertain--he called for linen thread; and moving to the\nbinnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally\nsuspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards.\nAt first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at\neither end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had\nbeen intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the\nbinnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,--\"Look\nye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun\nis East, and that compass swears it!\"\n\nOne after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could\npersuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk\naway.\n\nIn his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his\nfatal pride.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.\n\n\nWhile now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log\nand line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance\nupon other means of determining the vessel's place, some merchantmen,\nand many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the\nlog; though at the same time, and frequently more for form's sake than\nanything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the\ncourse steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of\nprogression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden\nreel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the\nrailing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and\nwind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that\nhung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he\nhappened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene,\nand he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic\noath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly;\nastern the billows rolled in riots.\n\n\"Forward, there! Heave the log!\"\n\nTwo seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. \"Take\nthe reel, one of ye, I'll heave.\"\n\nThey went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side, where the\ndeck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into\nthe creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.\n\nThe Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting\nhandle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so\nstood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to him.\n\nAhab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty\nturns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old\nManxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to\nspeak.\n\n\"Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have\nspoiled it.\"\n\n\"'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee?\nThou seem'st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.\"\n\n\"I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these\ngrey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with a\nsuperior, who'll ne'er confess.\"\n\n\"What's that? There now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's\ngranite-founded College; but methinks he's too subservient. Where wert\nthou born?\"\n\n\"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.\"\n\n\"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that.\"\n\n\"I know not, sir, but I was born there.\"\n\n\"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's a man\nfrom Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man;\nwhich is sucked in--by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall\nbutts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.\"\n\nThe log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long\ndragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In\nturn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing\nresistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.\n\n\"Hold hard!\"\n\nSnap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the tugging\nlog was gone.\n\n\"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad\nsea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian;\nreel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and\nmend thou the line. See to it.\"\n\n\"There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer\nseems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in,\nTahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and\ndragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?\"\n\n\"Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. Pip's missing.\nLet's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman. It drags\nhard; I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul\nin no cowards here. Ho! there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet!\na hatchet! cut it off--we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir,\nsir! here's Pip, trying to get on board again.\"\n\n\"Peace, thou crazy loon,\" cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm.\n\"Away from the quarter-deck!\"\n\n\"The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,\" muttered Ahab, advancing.\n\"Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?\n\n\"Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!\"\n\n\"And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of\nthy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve\nthrough! Who art thou, boy?\"\n\n\"Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip!\nOne hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high--looks\ncowardly--quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip the\ncoward?\"\n\n\"There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens! look\ndown here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned him,\nye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home\nhenceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou\nart tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down.\"\n\n\"What's this? here's velvet shark-skin,\" intently gazing at Ahab's hand,\nand feeling it. \"Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this,\nperhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a man-rope;\nsomething that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come\nand rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I\nwill not let this go.\"\n\n\"Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse\nhorrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in\ngods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods\noblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not\nwhat he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come!\nI feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an\nEmperor's!\"\n\n\"There go two daft ones now,\" muttered the old Manxman. \"One daft with\nstrength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the end of the rotten\nline--all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new\nline altogether. I'll see Mr. Stubb about it.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.\n\n\nSteering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress\nsolely determined by Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod held on\nher path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such\nunfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled\nby unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed\nthe strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.\n\nAt last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the\nEquatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the\ndawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch--then headed\nby Flask--was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like\nhalf-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered\nInnocents--that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for\nthe space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly\nlistening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained\nwithin hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was\nmermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled.\nYet the grey Manxman--the oldest mariner of all--declared that the wild\nthrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men\nin the sea.\n\nBelow in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when\nhe came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not\nunaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus\nexplained the wonder.\n\nThose rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers\nof seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams\nthat had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company\nwith her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this\nonly the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a\nvery superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their\npeculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their\nround heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from\nthe water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have\nmore than once been mistaken for men.\n\nBut the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible\nconfirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At\nsun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore;\nand whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for\nsailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus\nwith the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he\nhad not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard--a cry and a\nrushing--and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and\nlooking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the\nsea.\n\nThe life-buoy--a long slender cask--was dropped from the stern, where it\nalways hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it,\nand the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it\nslowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and\nthe studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to\nyield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.\n\nAnd thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out\nfor the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar ground; that man\nwas swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the\ntime. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at\nleast as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil\nin the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They\ndeclared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had\nheard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.\n\nThe lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see\nto it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as\nin the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of\nthe voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly\nconnected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be;\ntherefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided with a\nbuoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint\nconcerning his coffin.\n\n\"A life-buoy of a coffin!\" cried Starbuck, starting.\n\n\"Rather queer, that, I should say,\" said Stubb.\n\n\"It will make a good enough one,\" said Flask, \"the carpenter here can\narrange it easily.\"\n\n\"Bring it up; there's nothing else for it,\" said Starbuck, after a\nmelancholy pause. \"Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so--the coffin,\nI mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.\"\n\n\"And shall I nail down the lid, sir?\" moving his hand as with a hammer.\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And shall I caulk the seams, sir?\" moving his hand as with a\ncaulking-iron.\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?\" moving his hand as\nwith a pitch-pot.\n\n\"Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and\nno more.--Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.\"\n\n\"He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he baulks.\nNow I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it\nlike a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he won't put\nhis head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin?\nAnd now I'm ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It's like turning an old\ncoat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like this\ncobbling sort of business--I don't like it at all; it's undignified;\nit's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings; we are their\nbetters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square\nmathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and\nis at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not\na cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at\nthe end. It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord!\nwhat an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of\nsixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that's\nthe reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when\nI kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their\nlonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at\nsea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay\nover the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the\nsnap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before\nwith a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied\nup in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty\nAroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing\nabout with a grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make\nbridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We\nwork by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask\nthe why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling,\nand then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly.\nI'll have me--let's see--how many in the ship's company, all told? But\nI've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-headed\nlife-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then,\nif the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for\none coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer,\ncaulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let's to it.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 127. The Deck.\n\n\nTHE COFFIN LAID UPON TWO LINE-TUBS, BETWEEN THE VICE-BENCH AND THE OPEN\nHATCHWAY; THE CARPENTER CAULKING ITS SEAMS; THE STRING OF TWISTED OAKUM\nSLOWLY UNWINDING FROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED IN THE BOSOM OF\nHIS FROCK.--AHAB COMES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND HEARS PIP\nFOLLOWING HIM.\n\n\n\"Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand\ncomplies with my humor more genially than that boy.--Middle aisle of a\nchurch! What's here?\"\n\n\"Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the\nhatchway!\"\n\n\"Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.\"\n\n\"Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.\"\n\n\"Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy\nshop?\"\n\n\"I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?\"\n\n\"Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but\nthey've set me now to turning it into something else.\"\n\n\"Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling,\nmonopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the\nnext day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those\nsame coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a\njack-of-all-trades.\"\n\n\"But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.\"\n\n\"The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a\ncoffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the\ncraters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in\nhand. Dost thou never?\"\n\n\"Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for that; but\nthe reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there\nwas none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark\nto it.\"\n\n\"Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board; and what in\nall things makes the sounding-board is this--there's naught beneath. And\nyet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter.\nHast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against\nthe churchyard gate, going in?\n\n\"Faith, sir, I've--\"\n\n\"Faith? What's that?\"\n\n\"Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like--that's all,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Um, um; go on.\"\n\n\"I was about to say, sir, that--\"\n\n\"Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself?\nLook at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.\"\n\n\"He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot\nlatitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipagos,\nis cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of\nEquator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He's always under\nthe Line--fiery hot, I tell ye! He's looking this way--come, oakum;\nquick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'm the\nprofessor of musical glasses--tap, tap!\"\n\n(AHAB TO HIMSELF.)\n\n\"There's a sight! There's a sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping\nthe hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that\nthing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag,\nthat fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all\nmaterials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here\nnow's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made\nthe expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life.\nA life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some\nspiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver!\nI'll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth,\nthat its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain\ntwilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed\nsound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return\nagain. Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous\nphilosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds\nmust empty into thee!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.\n\n\nNext day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down\nupon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the\ntime the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the\nbroad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all\nfell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from\nthe smitten hull.\n\n\"Bad news; she brings bad news,\" muttered the old Manxman. But ere her\ncommander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he\ncould hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was heard.\n\n\"Hast seen the White Whale?\"\n\n\"Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?\"\n\nThrottling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question;\nand would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain\nhimself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen descending her\nside. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequod's\nmain-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by\nAhab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged.\n\n\"Where was he?--not killed!--not killed!\" cried Ahab, closely advancing.\n\"How was it?\"\n\nIt seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while\nthree of the stranger's boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which\nhad led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were\nyet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had\nsuddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon,\nthe fourth rigged boat--a reserved one--had been instantly lowered in\nchase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat--the swiftest\nkeeled of all--seemed to have succeeded in fastening--at least, as\nwell as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the\ndistance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam\nof bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was\nconcluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with\nhis pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no\npositive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging;\ndarkness came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward\nboats--ere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite\ndirection--the ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to\nits fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance\nfrom it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded\nall sail--stunsail on stunsail--after the missing boat; kindling a fire\nin her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out.\nBut though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the\npresumed place of the absent ones when last seen; though she then\npaused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her; and not finding\nanything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and\nthough she had thus continued doing till daylight; yet not the least\nglimpse of the missing keel had been seen.\n\nThe story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his\nobject in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his\nown in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles\napart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.\n\n\"I will wager something now,\" whispered Stubb to Flask, \"that some one\nin that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap, his\nwatch--he's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two\npious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of\nthe whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks--pale in the\nvery buttons of his eyes--look--it wasn't the coat--it must have been\nthe--\"\n\n\"My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake--I beg, I\nconjure\"--here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far\nhad but icily received his petition. \"For eight-and-forty hours let me\ncharter your ship--I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it--if\nthere be no other way--for eight-and-forty hours only--only that--you\nmust, oh, you must, and you SHALL do this thing.\"\n\n\"His son!\" cried Stubb, \"oh, it's his son he's lost! I take back the\ncoat and watch--what says Ahab? We must save that boy.\"\n\n\"He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night,\" said the old Manx\nsailor standing behind them; \"I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.\"\n\nNow, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's\nthe more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the\nCaptain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew; but among\nthe number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other\nhand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase,\nthere had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched\nfather was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which\nwas only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the\nordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies, that is, when\nplaced between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the\nmajority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason,\nhad refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by\nAhab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad,\nbut twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving\nhardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to\ninitiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially\nthe destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that\nNantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away from them,\nfor a protracted three or four years' voyage in some other ship than\ntheir own; so that their first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall\nbe unenervated by any chance display of a father's natural but untimely\npartiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern.\n\nMeantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;\nand Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without\nthe least quivering of his own.\n\n\"I will not go,\" said the stranger, \"till you say aye to me. Do to me\nas you would have me do to you in the like case. For YOU too have a boy,\nCaptain Ahab--though but a child, and nestling safely at home now--a\nchild of your old age too--Yes, yes, you relent; I see it--run, run,\nmen, now, and stand by to square in the yards.\"\n\n\"Avast,\" cried Ahab--\"touch not a rope-yarn\"; then in a voice that\nprolongingly moulded every word--\"Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.\nEven now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I\nforgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch,\nand in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers:\nthen brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.\"\n\nHurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin,\nleaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter\nrejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment,\nGardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his\nboat, and returned to his ship.\n\nSoon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel\nwas in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot,\nhowever small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round;\nstarboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a\nhead sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her\nmasts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry\ntrees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.\n\nBut by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw\nthat this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort.\nShe was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 129. The Cabin.\n\n\n(AHAB MOVING TO GO ON DECK; PIP CATCHES HIM BY THE HAND TO FOLLOW.)\n\n\"Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is coming\nwhen Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee by him.\nThere is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady.\nLike cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired\nhealth. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if\nthou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own screwed\nchair; another screw to it, thou must be.\"\n\n\"No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for\nyour one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a\npart of ye.\"\n\n\"Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless\nfidelity of man!--and a black! and crazy!--but methinks like-cures-like\napplies to him too; he grows so sane again.\"\n\n\"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose\ndrowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin.\nBut I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with\nye.\"\n\n\"If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up in him.\nI tell thee no; it cannot be.\"\n\n\"Oh good master, master, master!\n\n\"Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad.\nListen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still\nknow that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!--Met! True art\nthou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless\nthee; and if it come to that,--God for ever save thee, let what will\nbefall.\"\n\n(AHAB GOES; PIP STEPS ONE STEP FORWARD.)\n\n\n\"Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,--but I'm alone. Now\nwere even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he's missing. Pip! Pip!\nDing, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must be up here; let's try the\ndoor. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there's no opening\nit. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me this\nscrewed chair was mine. Here, then, I'll seat me, against the transom,\nin the ship's full middle, all her keel and her three masts before me.\nHere, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours great\nadmirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of captains and\nlieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets! epaulets! the epaulets all come\ncrowding! Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs!\nWhat an odd feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men with gold\nlace upon their coats!--Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip?--a little\nnegro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a\nwhale-boat once;--seen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and\nlet's drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them!\nPut one foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards.--Hist! above there,\nI hear ivory--Oh, master! master! I am indeed down-hearted when you walk\nover me. But here I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks; and they\nbulge through; and oysters come to join me.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 130. The Hat.\n\n\nAnd now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a\npreliminary cruise, Ahab,--all other whaling waters swept--seemed to\nhave chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely\nthere; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and\nlongitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a\nvessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually\nencountered Moby Dick;--and now that all his successive meetings with\nvarious ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference\nwith which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned\nagainst; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's eyes,\nwhich it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting\npolar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night\nsustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now\nfixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It\ndomineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings,\nfears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a\nsingle spear or leaf.\n\nIn this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural,\nvanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove\nto check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to\nfinest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of\nAhab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever\nconscious that the old man's despot eye was on them.\n\nBut did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours; when\nhe thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that\neven as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance\nawed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it.\nSuch an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah\nnow; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious\nat him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal\nsubstance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen\nbeing's body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by\nnight, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go\nbelow. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan\nbut wondrous eyes did plainly say--We two watchmen never rest.\n\nNor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the\ndeck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or\nexactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,--the main-mast\nand the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle,--his\nliving foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched\nheavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the\ndays and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock;\nyet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly\nwhether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether\nhe was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in\nthe scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp\ngathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The\nclothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him;\nand so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath\nthe planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for.\n\nHe ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,--breakfast and\ndinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew\nall gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow\nidly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though\nhis whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's\nmystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never\nseemed to speak--one man to the other--unless at long intervals some\npassing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell\nseemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew,\nthey seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word;\nby night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal\ninterchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they\nstood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by\nthe mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the\nParsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned\nsubstance.\n\nAnd yet, somehow, did Ahab--in his own proper self, as daily, hourly,\nand every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,--Ahab\nseemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both\nseemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean shade\nsiding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel\nwas solid Ahab.\n\nAt the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard\nfrom aft,--\"Man the mast-heads!\"--and all through the day, till after\nsunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of\nthe helmsman's bell, was heard--\"What d'ye see?--sharp! sharp!\"\n\nBut when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the\nchildren-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac\nold man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; at least, of nearly\nall except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether\nStubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if\nthese suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally\nexpressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.\n\n\"I will have the first sight of the whale myself,\"--he said. \"Aye!\nAhab must have the doubloon!\" and with his own hands he rigged a nest\nof basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved\nblock, to secure to the main-mast head, he received the two ends of the\ndownward-reeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for\nthe other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that\nend yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon\nhis crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long upon\nDaggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his\nfirm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,--\"Take the rope, sir--I give\nit into thy hands, Starbuck.\" Then arranging his person in the basket,\nhe gave the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being\nthe one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And\nthus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad\nupon the sea for miles and miles,--ahead, astern, this side, and\nthat,--within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height.\n\nWhen in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in\nthe rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is\nhoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these\ncircumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge\nto some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a\nwilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft\ncannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the\ndeck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes\ncast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if,\nunprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some\ncarelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the\nsea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only\nstrange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one\nonly man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the\nslightest degree approaching to decision--one of those too, whose\nfaithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat;--it was\nstrange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman;\nfreely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's\nhands.\n\nNow, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten\nminutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly\nincommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these\nlatitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head\nin a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet\nstraight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying\nagain round his head.\n\nBut with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed\nnot to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked\nit much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least\nheedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every\nsight.\n\n\"Your hat, your hat, sir!\" suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who\nbeing posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though\nsomewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing\nthem.\n\nBut already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes; the long\nhooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with\nhis prize.\n\nAn eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace\nit, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would\nbe king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen\naccounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and\non with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while\nfrom the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly\ndiscerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight.\n\n\nThe intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the\nlife-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably\nmisnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were\nfixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships,\ncross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine feet; serving to\ncarry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats.\n\nUpon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and\nsome few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you\nnow saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled,\nhalf-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.\n\n\"Hast seen the White Whale?\"\n\n\"Look!\" replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with\nhis trumpet he pointed to the wreck.\n\n\"Hast killed him?\"\n\n\"The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that,\" answered the\nother, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered\nsides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together.\n\n\"Not forged!\" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab\nheld it out, exclaiming--\"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold\nhis death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs;\nand I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin,\nwhere the White Whale most feels his accursed life!\"\n\n\"Then God keep thee, old man--see'st thou that\"--pointing to the\nhammock--\"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only\nyesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were\nburied before they died; you sail upon their tomb.\" Then turning to his\ncrew--\"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and\nlift the body; so, then--Oh! God\"--advancing towards the hammock with\nuplifted hands--\"may the resurrection and the life--\"\n\n\"Brace forward! Up helm!\" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.\n\nBut the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound\nof the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so\nquick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled\nher hull with their ghostly baptism.\n\nAs Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy\nhanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.\n\n\"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!\" cried a foreboding voice in her wake.\n\"In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your\ntaffrail to show us your coffin!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 132. The Symphony.\n\n\nIt was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were\nhardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was\ntransparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and\nman-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's\nchest in his sleep.\n\nHither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small,\nunspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air;\nbut to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed\nmighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong,\ntroubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.\n\nBut though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and\nshadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were,\nthat distinguished them.\n\nAloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle\nair to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the\ngirdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion--most seen\nhere at the Equator--denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving\nalarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.\n\nTied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm\nand unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the\nashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the\nmorn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's\nforehead of heaven.\n\nOh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged\ncreatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how\noblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But so have I seen\nlittle Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around\ntheir old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on\nthe marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.\n\nSlowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and\nwatched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more\nand the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely\naromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment,\nthe cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome\nsky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long\ncruel--forbidding--now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck,\nand did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however\nwilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to\nbless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea;\nnor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.\n\nStarbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side;\nand he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that\nstole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch\nhim, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there.\n\nAhab turned.\n\n\"Starbuck!\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such\na day--very much such a sweetness as this--I struck my first whale--a\nboy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty--forty--forty years ago!--ago! Forty\nyears of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and\nstorm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab\nforsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors\nof the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not\nspent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation\nof solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's\nexclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the\ngreen country without--oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of\nsolitary command!--when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so\nkeenly known to me before--and how for forty years I have fed upon dry\nsalted fare--fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soil!--when the\npoorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the\nworld's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts--away, whole oceans away, from\nthat young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn\nthe next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow--wife?\nwife?--rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor\ngirl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy,\nthe boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand\nlowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey--more a\ndemon than a man!--aye, aye! what a forty years' fool--fool--old fool,\nhas old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy\nthe arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or\nbetter is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this\nweary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under\nme? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep.\nLocks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look\nvery old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and\nhumped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled\ncenturies since Paradise. God! God! God!--crack my heart!--stave my\nbrain!--mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have\nI lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old?\nClose! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is\nbetter than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By\nthe green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass,\nman; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on\nboard!--lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick.\nThat hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see\nin that eye!\"\n\n\"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why\nshould any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us\nfly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are\nStarbuck's--wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow\nyouth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving,\nlonging, paternal old age! Away! let us away!--this instant let me alter\nthe course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl\non our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such\nmild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.\"\n\n\"They have, they have. I have seen them--some summer days in the\nmorning. About this time--yes, it is his noon nap now--the boy\nvivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of\ncannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back\nto dance him again.\"\n\n\"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning,\nshould be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's\nsail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my\nCaptain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face\nfrom the window! the boy's hand on the hill!\"\n\nBut Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and\ncast his last, cindered apple to the soil.\n\n\"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what\ncozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor\ncommands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep\npushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly\nmaking me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not\nso much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this\narm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy\nin heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power;\nhow then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think\nthoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that\nliving, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in\nthis world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all\nthe time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon\nAlbicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where\ndo murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged\nto the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and\nthe air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been\nmaking hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the\nmowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how\nwe may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid\ngreenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut\nswaths--Starbuck!\"\n\nBut blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.\n\nAhab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at\ntwo reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly\nleaning over the same rail.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 133. The Chase--First Day.\n\n\nThat night, in the mid-watch, when the old man--as his wont at\nintervals--stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went\nto his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing\nup the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in drawing nigh to\nsome barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that\npeculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the\nliving sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner\nsurprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and\nthen ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible,\nAhab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the\nsail to be shortened.\n\nThe acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated\nat daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and\nlengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery\nwrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift\ntide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.\n\n\"Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!\"\n\nThundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle\ndeck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they\nseemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear\nwith their clothes in their hands.\n\n\"What d'ye see?\" cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky.\n\n\"Nothing, nothing sir!\" was the sound hailing down in reply.\n\n\"T'gallant sails!--stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!\"\n\nAll sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for\nswaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were\nhoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft,\nand while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the\nmain-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the\nair. \"There she blows!--there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is\nMoby Dick!\"\n\nFired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three\nlook-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous\nwhale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final\nperch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just\nbeneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's\nhead was almost on a level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale\nwas now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing\nhis high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the\nair. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had\nso long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.\n\n\"And did none of ye see it before?\" cried Ahab, hailing the perched men\nall around him.\n\n\"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I\ncried out,\" said Tashtego.\n\n\"Not the same instant; not the same--no, the doubloon is mine, Fate\nreserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the\nWhite Whale first. There she blows!--there she blows!--there she blows!\nThere again!--there again!\" he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic\ntones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible jets.\n\"He's going to sound! In stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand by\nthree boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship.\nHelm there! Luff, luff a point! So; steady, man, steady! There go\nflukes! No, no; only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by,\nstand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower,--quick, quicker!\" and he\nslid through the air to the deck.\n\n\"He is heading straight to leeward, sir,\" cried Stubb, \"right away from\nus; cannot have seen the ship yet.\"\n\n\"Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!--brace up!\nShiver her!--shiver her!--So; well that! Boats, boats!\"\n\nSoon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped; all the boat-sails\nset--all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to\nleeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up\nFedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.\n\nLike noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea;\nbut only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew\nstill more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a\nnoon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came\nso nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump\nwas distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing,\nand continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish\nfoam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head\nbeyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went\nthe glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical\nrippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters\ninterchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake;\nand on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But\nthese were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly\nfeathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to\nsome flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but\nshattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back;\nand at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and\nto and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and\nrocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.\n\nA gentle joyousness--a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested\nthe gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with\nravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering\neyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness,\nrippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that\ngreat majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so\ndivinely swam.\n\nOn each soft side--coincident with the parted swell, that but once\nleaving him, then flowed so wide away--on each bright side, the whale\nshed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who\nnamelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured\nto assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of\ntornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all\nwho for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way\nthou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before.\n\nAnd thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among\nwaves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby\nDick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his\nsubmerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw.\nBut soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant\nhis whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural\nBridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the\ngrand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly\nhalting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered\nover the agitated pool that he left.\n\nWith oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the\nthree boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's reappearance.\n\n\"An hour,\" said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern; and he gazed\nbeyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing\nvacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed\nwhirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now\nfreshened; the sea began to swell.\n\n\"The birds!--the birds!\" cried Tashtego.\n\nIn long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were\nnow all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began\nfluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous,\nexpectant cries. Their vision was keener than man's; Ahab could discover\nno sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its\ndepths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white\nweasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose,\ntill it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long crooked\nrows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable\nbottom. It was Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast,\nshadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. The\nglittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble\ntomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled\nthe craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon\nFedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and\nseizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and\nstand by to stern.\n\nNow, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its\nbow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head while yet\nunder water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that\nmalicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself,\nas it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath\nthe boat.\n\nThrough and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for\nan instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of\na biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his\nmouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into\nthe open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish\npearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's\nhead, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale\nnow shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With\nunastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the\ntiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other's heads to gain the\nuttermost stern.\n\nAnd now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the\nwhale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his\nbody being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from\nthe bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and\nwhile the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis\nimpossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with\nthis tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and\nhelpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized\nthe long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from\nits gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the\nfrail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an\nenormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain,\nand locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two\nfloating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew\nat the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast\nto the oars to lash them across.\n\nAt that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first\nto perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a\nmovement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand\nhad made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only\nslipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it\nslipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him out of\nit, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea.\n\nRipplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little\ndistance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the\nbillows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body;\nso that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose--some twenty or more feet\nout of the water--the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves,\ndazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray\nstill higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel\nbillows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to\noverleap its summit with their scud.\n\n\n*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation\n(pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down\npoise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously\ndescribed. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively\nview whatever objects may be encircling him.\n\n\nBut soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round\nand round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful\nwake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault.\nThe sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of\ngrapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book\nof Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's\ninsolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,--though he could still\nkeep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless\nAhab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock\nmight burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and\nmildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not\nsuccor him; more than enough was it for them to look to themselves.\nFor so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and so\nplanetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed\nhorizontally swooping upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed,\nstill hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the eddy to\nstrike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of\nthe jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that case could they\nthemselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, they remained on\nthe outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old\nman's head.\n\nMeantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's\nmast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene;\nand was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!--\"Sail on\nthe\"--but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and\nwhelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing\nto rise on a towering crest, he shouted,--\"Sail on the whale!--Drive him\noff!\"\n\nThe Pequod's prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle, she\neffectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly swam\noff, the boats flew to the rescue.\n\nDragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white brine\ncaking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily strength did\ncrack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom: for a time, lying\nall crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one trodden under foot\nof herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as\ndesolate sounds from out ravines.\n\nBut this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more\nabbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts sometimes condense\nto one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused\nthrough feebler men's whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary\nin each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their\nlife-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous\nintensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures\ncontain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.\n\n\"The harpoon,\" said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one\nbended arm--\"is it safe?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,\" said Stubb, showing it.\n\n\"Lay it before me;--any missing men?\"\n\n\"One, two, three, four, five;--there were five oars, sir, and here are\nfive men.\"\n\n\"That's good.--Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there!\nthere! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!--Hands off from me!\nThe eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the sail; out oars;\nthe helm!\"\n\nIt is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked\nup by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus\ncontinued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. But\nthe added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale,\nfor he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a\nvelocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances,\npushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a\nhopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long a period, such an\nunintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing barely tolerable\nonly in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it\nsometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of\novertaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were\nsoon swayed up to their cranes--the two parts of the wrecked boat having\nbeen previously secured by her--and then hoisting everything to her\nside, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it\nwith stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an albatross; the\nPequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At the well known,\nmethodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout was regularly announced\nfrom the manned mast-heads; and when he would be reported as just gone\ndown, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnacle-watch\nin hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour expired, his\nvoice was heard.--\"Whose is the doubloon now? D'ye see him?\" and if the\nreply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded them to lift him to his\nperch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless;\nanon, unrestingly pacing the planks.\n\nAs he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft,\nor to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still\ngreater breadth--thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at\nevery turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon\nthe quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered stern.\nAt last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh\ntroops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face\nthere now stole some such added gloom as this.\n\nStubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to\nevince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in\nhis Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed--\"The\nthistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!\"\n\n\"What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did\nI not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear\nthou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" said Starbuck drawing near, \"'tis a solemn sight; an omen,\nand an ill one.\"\n\n\"Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to\nman, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and\ngive an old wives' darkling hint.--Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles\nof one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and\nye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of\nthe peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold--I\nshiver!--How now? Aloft there! D'ye see him? Sing out for every spout,\nthough he spout ten times a second!\"\n\nThe day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling.\nSoon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset.\n\n\"Can't see the spout now, sir;--too dark\"--cried a voice from the air.\n\n\"How heading when last seen?\"\n\n\"As before, sir,--straight to leeward.\"\n\n\"Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals and top-gallant\nstun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before morning; he's\nmaking a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm there! keep her\nfull before the wind!--Aloft! come down!--Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand\nto the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning.\"--Then advancing\ntowards the doubloon in the main-mast--\"Men, this gold is mine, for I\nearned it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead;\nand then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be\nkilled, this gold is that man's; and if on that day I shall again raise\nhim, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away\nnow!--the deck is thine, sir!\"\n\nAnd so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and\nslouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals\nrousing himself to see how the night wore on.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 134. The Chase--Second Day.\n\n\nAt day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.\n\n\"D'ye see him?\" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light\nto spread.\n\n\"See nothing, sir.\"\n\n\"Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought\nfor;--the top-gallant sails!--aye, they should have been kept on her all\nnight. But no matter--'tis but resting for the rush.\"\n\nHere be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale,\ncontinued through day into night, and through night into day, is a thing\nby no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is the\nwonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence\nacquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders;\nthat from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they\nwill, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both\nthe direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of\nsight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period.\nAnd, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of\na coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires\nshortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this\npilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the\ncape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright\nthe remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the\nfisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased, and\ndiligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night\nobscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness\nis almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the\npilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill, the\nproverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all\ndesired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as the\nmighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in\nits every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as\ndoctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or\nthe down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour;\neven so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that\nother Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his\nspeed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have\ngone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of\nlatitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in\nthe end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman's allies; for of what\npresent avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that\nassures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his\nport? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile\nmatters touching the chase of whales.\n\nThe ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a\ncannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level\nfield.\n\n\"By salt and hemp!\" cried Stubb, \"but this swift motion of the deck\ncreeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two\nbrave fellows!--Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise,\non the sea,--for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait\nthat leaves no dust behind!\"\n\n\"There she blows--she blows!--she blows!--right ahead!\" was now the\nmast-head cry.\n\n\"Aye, aye!\" cried Stubb, \"I knew it--ye can't escape--blow on and\nsplit your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your\ntrump--blister your lungs!--Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller\nshuts his watergate upon the stream!\"\n\nAnd Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies\nof the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine\nworked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might\nhave felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the\ngrowing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed,\nas timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand\nof Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of\nthe previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed,\nunfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging\ntowards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled\nalong. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the\nvessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of\nthat unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race.\n\nThey were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all;\nthough it was put together of all contrasting things--oak, and maple,\nand pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp--yet all these ran into each\nother in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and\ndirected by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of\nthe crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all\nvarieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal\ngoal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to.\n\nThe rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were\noutspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one\nhand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others,\nshading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking\nyards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for\ntheir fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to\nseek out the thing that might destroy them!\n\n\"Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?\" cried Ahab, when, after\nthe lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard.\n\"Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet\nthat way, and then disappears.\"\n\nIt was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some\nother thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for\nhardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its\npin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the\nair vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant\nhalloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as--much nearer to the ship\nthan the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead--Moby Dick\nbodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not\nby the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White\nWhale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon\nof breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths,\nthe Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of\nair, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the\ndistance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged\nwaves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his\nact of defiance.\n\n\"There she breaches! there she breaches!\" was the cry, as in his\nimmeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to\nHeaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved\nagainst the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for\nthe moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and\nstood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling\nintensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale.\n\n\"Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!\" cried Ahab, \"thy hour and\nthy harpoon are at hand!--Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore.\nThe boats!--stand by!\"\n\nUnmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like\nshooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and\nhalyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from\nhis perch.\n\n\"Lower away,\" he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat--a spare one,\nrigged the afternoon previous. \"Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine--keep\naway from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!\"\n\nAs if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first\nassailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the\nthree crews. Ahab's boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them\nhe would take the whale head-and-head,--that is, pull straight up to his\nforehead,--a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such\na course excludes the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision.\nBut ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were\nplain as the ship's three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning\nhimself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing\namong the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling\nbattle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every\nboat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which\nthose boats were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling\nlike trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him;\nthough, at times, but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's\nunearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.\n\nBut at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed\nand recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three\nlines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves,\nwarped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now\nfor a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more\ntremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more\nline: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again--hoping\nthat way to disencumber it of some snarls--when lo!--a sight more savage\nthan the embattled teeth of sharks!\n\nCaught and twisted--corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons\nand lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing\nand dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat. Only one\nthing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached\nwithin--through--and then, without--the rays of steel; dragged in\nthe line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice\nsundering the rope near the chocks--dropped the intercepted fagot of\nsteel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White\nWhale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines;\nby so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and\nFlask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on\na surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in\na boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of\nthe wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly\nstirred bowl of punch.\n\nWhile the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after\nthe revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while\naslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his\nlegs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily\nsinging out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old man's\nline--now parting--admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to\nrescue whom he could;--in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand\nconcreted perils,--Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards\nHeaven by invisible wires,--as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly\nfrom the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its\nbottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till it fell\nagain--gunwale downwards--and Ahab and his men struggled out from under\nit, like seals from a sea-side cave.\n\nThe first uprising momentum of the whale--modifying its direction as\nhe struck the surface--involuntarily launched him along it, to a little\ndistance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his\nback to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from\nside to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip\nor crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and\ncame sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work\nfor that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the\nocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his\nleeward way at a traveller's methodic pace.\n\nAs before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again\ncame bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the\nfloating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and\nsafely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and\nankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances; inextricable\nintricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these were there;\nbut no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As\nwith Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to\nhis boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor\ndid it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap.\n\nBut when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as\ninstead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of\nStarbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory\nleg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.\n\n\"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he\nwill; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.\"\n\n\"The ferrule has not stood, sir,\" said the carpenter, now coming up; \"I\nput good work into that leg.\"\n\n\"But no bones broken, sir, I hope,\" said Stubb with true concern.\n\n\"Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!--d'ye see it.--But even with\na broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of\nmine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost. Nor white whale,\nnor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and\ninaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape\nyonder roof?--Aloft there! which way?\"\n\n\"Dead to leeward, sir.\"\n\n\"Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of\nthe spare boats and rig them--Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat's\ncrews.\"\n\n\"Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the\nunconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane--there, that\nshivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet.\nBy heaven it cannot be!--missing?--quick! call them all.\"\n\nThe old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the\nParsee was not there.\n\n\"The Parsee!\" cried Stubb--\"he must have been caught in--\"\n\n\"The black vomit wrench thee!--run all of ye above, alow, cabin,\nforecastle--find him--not gone--not gone!\"\n\nBut quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was\nnowhere to be found.\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" said Stubb--\"caught among the tangles of your line--I\nthought I saw him dragging under.\"\n\n\"MY line! MY line? Gone?--gone? What means that little word?--What\ndeath-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry.\nThe harpoon, too!--toss over the litter there,--d'ye see it?--the forged\niron, men, the white whale's--no, no, no,--blistered fool! this hand did\ndart it!--'tis in the fish!--Aloft there! Keep him nailed--Quick!--all\nhands to the rigging of the boats--collect the oars--harpooneers!\nthe irons, the irons!--hoist the royals higher--a pull on all the\nsheets!--helm there! steady, steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle\nthe unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay\nhim yet!\"\n\n\"Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,\" cried Starbuck;\n\"never, never wilt thou capture him, old man--In Jesus' name no more of\nthis, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased; twice stove\nto splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil\nshadow gone--all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:--\n\n\"What more wouldst thou have?--Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish\ntill he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom\nof the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh,\noh,--Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!\"\n\n\"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that\nhour we both saw--thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this\nmatter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this\nhand--a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This\nwhole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion\nyears before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act\nunder orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.--Stand round\nme, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered\nlance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab--his body's part; but\nAhab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel\nstrained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale;\nand I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack; and till ye hear\nTHAT, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in\nthe things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they\ndrown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again,\nto sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick--two days he's floated--tomorrow\nwill be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,--but only to spout\nhis last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?\"\n\n\"As fearless fire,\" cried Stubb.\n\n\"And as mechanical,\" muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he\nmuttered on: \"The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same\nto Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek\nto drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!--The\nParsee--the Parsee!--gone, gone? and he was to go before:--but still was\nto be seen again ere I could perish--How's that?--There's a riddle now\nmight baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line\nof judges:--like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'LL, I'LL solve it,\nthough!\"\n\nWhen dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.\n\nSo once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as\non the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the\ngrindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns\nin the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening\ntheir fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of\nAhab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as\non the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his\nhid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due\neastward for the earliest sun.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 135. The Chase.--Third Day.\n\n\nThe morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the\nsolitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the\ndaylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar.\n\n\"D'ye see him?\" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.\n\n\"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all. Helm\nthere; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day\nagain! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the\nangels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a\nfairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought, had\nAhab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels;\nTHAT'S tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has\nthat right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a\ncalmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much\nfor that. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm--frozen\ncalm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents\nturned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this\nmoment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort\nof common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of\nGreenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip\nit about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they\ncling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison\ncorridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and\nnow comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!--it's\ntainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable\nworld. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a\nnoble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight\nit has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run\nthrough it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not\nstand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing--a nobler\nthing than THAT. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things\nthat most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are\nbodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a most\nspecial, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I\nsay again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and\ngracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the\nclear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous\nmildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of\nthe sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift\nand swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal\nPoles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these\nTrades, or something like them--something so unchangeable, and full as\nstrong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\"\n\n\"Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun!\nAye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye,\nhe's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad; I might have known it, too.\nFool! the lines--the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by\nlast night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look\nouts! Man the braces!\"\n\nSteering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's\nquarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced\nship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own\nwhite wake.\n\n\"Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw,\" murmured Starbuck to\nhimself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. \"God keep\nus, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my\nflesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!\"\n\n\"Stand by to sway me up!\" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket.\n\"We should meet him soon.\"\n\n\"Aye, aye, sir,\" and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once\nmore Ahab swung on high.\n\nA whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held\nlong breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the\nweather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three\nmast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced\nit.\n\n\"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck\nthere!--brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too\nfar off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that\nhelmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But\nlet me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there's\ntime for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and\nnot changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of\nNantucket! The same!--the same!--the same to Noah as to me. There's\na soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead\nsomewhere--to something else than common land, more palmy than the\npalms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward,\nthen; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old\nmast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks.\nNo such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now\nbetween man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old\ntogether; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus\na leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live\nflesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known some ships made\nof dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of\nvital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my\npilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the\nbottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all\nnight I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye,\nlike many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee;\nbut, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head--keep a good\neye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay,\nto-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.\"\n\nHe gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered\nthrough the cloven blue air to the deck.\n\nIn due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's\nstern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the\nmate,--who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck--and bade him pause.\n\n\"Starbuck!\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.\"\n\n\"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing,\nStarbuck!\"\n\n\"Truth, sir: saddest truth.\"\n\n\"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of\nthe flood;--and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb,\nStarbuck. I am old;--shake hands with me, man.\"\n\nTheir hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue.\n\n\"Oh, my captain, my captain!--noble heart--go not--go not!--see, it's a\nbrave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!\"\n\n\"Lower away!\"--cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. \"Stand by\nthe crew!\"\n\nIn an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.\n\n\"The sharks! the sharks!\" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there;\n\"O master, my master, come back!\"\n\nBut Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the\nboat leaped on.\n\nYet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when\nnumbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath\nthe hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they\ndipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their\nbites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in\nthose swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in\nthe same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching\nregiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been\nobserved by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried;\nand whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow\nbarbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the\nsharks--a matter sometimes well known to affect them,--however it was,\nthey seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.\n\n\"Heart of wrought steel!\" murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and\nfollowing with his eyes the receding boat--\"canst thou yet ring boldly\nto that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by\nthem, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?--For\nwhen three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure\nthe first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening\nand the end of that thing--be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what\nis this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet\nexpectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me,\nas in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim.\nMary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to\nsee but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem\nclearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey's end coming? My legs\nfeel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,--beats\nit yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!--stave it off--move, move!\nspeak aloud!--Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the\nhill?--Crazed;--aloft there!--keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:--\n\n\"Mark well the whale!--Ho! again!--drive off that hawk! see! he pecks--he\ntears the vane\"--pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck--\"Ha!\nhe soars away with it!--Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight,\noh Ahab!--shudder, shudder!\"\n\nThe boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads--a\ndownward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but\nintending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little\nsideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest\nsilence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered against the\nopposing bow.\n\n\"Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads\ndrive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no\nhearse can be mine:--and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!\"\n\nSuddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then\nquickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of\nice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a\nsubterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with\ntrailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise,\nbut obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it\nhovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back\ninto the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for\nan instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of\nflakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the\nmarble trunk of the whale.\n\n\"Give way!\" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to\nthe attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in\nhim, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell\nfrom heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad\nwhite forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together;\nas head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more\nflailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two\nmates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows,\nbut leaving Ahab's almost without a scar.\n\nWhile Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the\nwhale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he\nshot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round\nand round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which,\nduring the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines\naround him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment\nfrayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab.\n\nThe harpoon dropped from his hand.\n\n\"Befooled, befooled!\"--drawing in a long lean breath--\"Aye, Parsee! I\nsee thee again.--Aye, and thou goest before; and this, THIS then is the\nhearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of\nthy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those\nboats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to\nme; if not, Ahab is enough to die--Down, men! the first thing that but\noffers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are\nnot other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.--Where's the\nwhale? gone down again?\"\n\nBut he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the\ncorpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had\nbeen but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily\nswimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,--which thus far had\nbeen sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present\nher headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost\nvelocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the\nsea.\n\n\"Oh! Ahab,\" cried Starbuck, \"not too late is it, even now, the third\nday, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that\nmadly seekest him!\"\n\nSetting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to\nleeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding\nby the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as he\nleaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow\nhim, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he\nsaw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three\nmast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats\nwhich had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in\nrepairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped,\nhe also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves\non deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he\nheard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving\na nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or\nflag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had\njust gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer\nand nails, and so nail it to the mast.\n\nWhether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance\nto his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some\nlatent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White\nWhale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly\nnearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not been\nso long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the\nunpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the\nboat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became\njagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost\nevery dip.\n\n\"Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on!\n'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water.\"\n\n\"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!\"\n\n\"They will last long enough! pull on!--But who can tell\"--he\nmuttered--\"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on\nAhab?--But pull on! Aye, all alive, now--we near him. The helm! take the\nhelm! let me pass,\"--and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward\nto the bows of the still flying boat.\n\nAt length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along\nwith the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its\nadvance--as the whale sometimes will--and Ahab was fairly within the\nsmoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout, curled\nround his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when,\nwith body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the\npoise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the\nhated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked\ninto a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh\nflank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly\ncanted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the\ngunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed\ninto the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen--who foreknew not the\nprecise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its\neffects--these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of\nthem clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing\nwave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly\ndropping astern, but still afloat and swimming.\n\nAlmost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated,\ninstantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering\nsea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with\nthe line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their\nseats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line\nfelt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air!\n\n\"What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!--'tis whole again; oars! oars!\nBurst in upon him!\"\n\nHearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled\nround to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution,\ncatching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing\nin it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it--it may be--a\nlarger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing\nprow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam.\n\nAhab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. \"I grow blind; hands!\nstretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't night?\"\n\n\"The whale! The ship!\" cried the cringing oarsmen.\n\n\"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for\never too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see:\nthe ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?\"\n\nBut as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the\nsledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks\nburst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat\nlay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying\nhard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.\n\nMeantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer\nremained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as\nwith a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own\nforward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the\nbowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon\nas he.\n\n\"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air,\nnow hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's\nfainting fit. Up helm, I say--ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the\nend of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab,\nAhab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again!\nHe turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one,\nwhose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!\"\n\n\"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help\nStubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!\nWho ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking\neye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too\nsoft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou\ngrinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of\nas good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet\nring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou\ngrinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye\nnot, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in\nhis drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;--cherries!\ncherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!\"\n\n\"Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope\nmy poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will\nnow come to her, for the voyage is up.\"\n\nFrom the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers,\nbits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their\nhands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their\nenchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely\nvibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading\nsemicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance,\neternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal\nman could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's\nstarboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their\nfaces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook\non their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters\npour, as mountain torrents down a flume.\n\n\"The ship! The hearse!--the second hearse!\" cried Ahab from the boat;\n\"its wood could only be American!\"\n\nDiving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its\nkeel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far\noff the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a\ntime, he lay quiescent.\n\n\"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer.\nOh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only\ngod-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed\nprow,--death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I\ncut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh,\nlonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in\nmy topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in,\nye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber\nof my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering\nwhale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at\nthee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins\nand all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let\nme then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee,\nthou damned whale! THUS, I give up the spear!\"\n\nThe harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting\nvelocity the line ran through the grooves;--ran foul. Ahab stooped to\nclear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the\nneck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was\nshot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the\nheavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty\ntub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its\ndepths.\n\nFor an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. \"The\nship? Great God, where is the ship?\" Soon they through dim, bewildering\nmediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana;\nonly the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or\nfidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers\nstill maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, concentric\ncircles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating\noar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all\nround and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod\nout of sight.\n\nBut as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the\nsunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the\nerect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag,\nwhich calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying\nbillows they almost touched;--at that instant, a red arm and a hammer\nhovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing\nthe flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that\ntauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home\namong the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there;\nthis bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the\nhammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill,\nthe submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen\nthere; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his\nimperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the\nflag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink\nto hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and\nhelmeted herself with it.\n\nNow small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white\nsurf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great\nshroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.\n\n\n\n\nEpilogue\n\n\"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE\" Job.\n\nThe drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?--Because one\ndid survive the wreck.\n\nIt so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the\nFates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman\nassumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three\nmen were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So,\nfloating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it,\nwhen the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then,\nbut slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had\nsubsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting\ntowards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling\ncircle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital\ncentre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of\nits cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great\nforce, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and\nfloated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day\nand night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks,\nthey glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks\nsailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer,\nand picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in\nher retracing search after her missing children, only found another\norphan."