1851 
MOBY DICK; 
OR THE WHALE 
by Herman Melvile



 CHAPTER 1 


 Loomings  


 Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely-
having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to
interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see
the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the
spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly
November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing
before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral
I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of
me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as
soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If
they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or
other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with
me. 


 There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round
by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs- commerce surrounds it
with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its
extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by
waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out
of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. 


 Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all
around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed
in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated 
upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from
China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a
still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days
pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches,
clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone?
What do they here? 


 But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,
and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them
but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee
of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as
nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they
stand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes
and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here
they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of
the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? 


 Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of
lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries
you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream.
There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged
in his deepest reveries- stand that man on his legs, set his feet
a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there
be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great
American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be
supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows,
meditation and water are wedded for ever. 


 But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in
all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs?
There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and
a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep
his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep
into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping
spurs 


of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the
picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down
its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain,
unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before
him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of
miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies- what is the one charm
wanting?- Water- there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara
but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see
it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two
handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he
sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway
Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy
soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon
your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a
mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now
out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy?
Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of
Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the
meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp
the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it
and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all
rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of
life; and this is the key to it all. 


 Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever
I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious
of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to
sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a
purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.
Besides, passengers get sea-sick- grow quarrelsome- don't sleep of
nights- do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;- no, I
never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do
I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon
the glory  and distinction of such offices to those who like them.
For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials,
and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as
I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships,
barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,-
though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being
a sort of officer on ship-board- yet, somehow, I never fancied
broiling fowls;- though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and
judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak
more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than
I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians
upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies
of those creatures in their huge bakehouses the pyramids. 


 No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the
mast, plumb down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal
mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump
from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at
first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's
sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established
family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or
Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your
hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country
schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The
transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a
sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to
enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time. 


 What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get
a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount
to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you
think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because
I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular 


instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however
the old sea-captains may order me about- however they may thump and
punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all
right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the
same way- either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that
is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands
should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content. 


 Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point
of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a
single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers
themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world
between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the
most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed
upon us. But being paid,- what will compare with it? The urbane
activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous,
considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of
all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter
heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! 


 Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the
wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in
this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from
astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so
for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his
atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He
thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do
the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same
time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that
after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I
should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the
invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant
surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some
unaccountable way- he can better 


answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this
whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence
that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief
interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it
that this part of the bill must have run something like this:  


 "Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United
States. 


                "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL." 


                "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."  


 Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage
managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling
voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high
tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly
parts in farces- though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet,
now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little
into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me
under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the
part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a
choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating
judgment. 


 Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great
whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all
my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his
island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale;
these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian
sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men,
perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for
me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I
love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not
ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could
still be social with it- would they let me- since it is but well to
be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges
in. 


 By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome;
the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the
wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there 
floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and,
mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in
the air. 


 CHAPTER 2 


 The Carpet-Bag  


 I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under
my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the
good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a
Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning
that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that
no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following
Monday. 


 As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling
stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it
may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing.
For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft,
because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything
connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me.
Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing
the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old
Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great
original- the Tyre of this Carthage;- the place where the first
dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did
those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes
to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too,
did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden
with imported cobblestones- so goes the story- to throw at the
whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a
harpoon from the bowsprit? 


 Now having a night, a day, and still another night following
before me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, it
became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep
meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and
dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the
place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only
brought up a few 


pieces of silver,- So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to
myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my
bag, and comparing the towards the north with the darkness towards
the south- wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for
the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't
be too particular. 


 With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of
"The Crossed Harpoons"- but it looked too expensive and jolly
there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish
Inn," there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted
the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else
the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic
pavement,- rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the
flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service the
soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive
and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad
glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses
within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get
away from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way.
So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me
waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the
cheeriest inns. 


 Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either
hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a
tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that
quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came
to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of
which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were
meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I
did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha,
as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that
destroyed city, Gomorrah? But "The Crossed Harpoons," and the "The
Sword- Fish?"- this, then must needs be the sign of "The Trap."
However, I  picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within,
pushed on and opened a second, interior door. 


 It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A
hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond,
a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a
negro church; and the preacher's text was about the blackness of
darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha,
Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the
sign of 'The Trap!' 


 Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from
the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up,
saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it,
faintly representing tall straight jet of misty spray, and these
words underneath- "The Spouter Inn:- Peter Coffin." 


 Coffin?- Spouter?- Rather ominous in that particular connexion,
thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I
suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light
looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough,
and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it
might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district,
and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to
it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and
the best of pea coffee. 


 It was a queer sort of place- a gable-ended old house, one side
palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp
bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a
worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft.
Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one
in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. "In of
that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," says an old writer- of
whose works I possess the only copy extant- "it maketh a marvellous
difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window
where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it
from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of
which 


the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, thought I, as
this passage occurred to my mind- old black-letter, thou reasonest
well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the
house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies
though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too
late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the
copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago.
Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for
his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he
might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his
mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon.
Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper- (he had a
redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how
Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their
oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the
privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. 


 But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding
them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be
in Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him down
lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to
the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost? 


 Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone
before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an
iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself,
he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and
being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid
tears of orphans. 


 But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and
there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our
frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be. 


 CHAPTER 3 


 The Spouter-Inn  


 Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself  in a
wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding
one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung
a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way
defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it
was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it,
and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive
at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of
shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious
young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored
to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest
contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by
throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you
at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild,
might not be altogether unwarranted. 


 But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,
portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the
picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a
nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to
drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,
half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze
you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to
find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a
bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It's the
Black Sea in a midnight gale.- It's the unnatural combat of the
four primal elements.- It's a blasted heath.- It's a Hyperborean
winter scene.- It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time.
But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something
in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were
plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic
fish? even the great leviathan himself? 


 In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my 


own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged
persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture
represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered
ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible;
and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft,
is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three
mast-heads. 


 The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a
heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly
set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted
with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast
handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass
by a long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered
what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a
death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed
with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken
and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance,
now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen
whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon- so like a
corkscrew now- was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a
whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original
iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning
in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was
found imbedded in the hump. 


 Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way-
cut through what in old times must have been a great central
chimney with fireplaces all round- you enter the public room. A
still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above,
and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy
you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling
night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On
one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked
glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide
world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the
room stands a dark-looking den- the bar- a rude attempt at a right
whale's head. Be  that how it may, there stands the vast arched
bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive
beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old
decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction,
like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him),
bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly
sells the sailors deliriums and death. 


 Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.
Though true cylinders without- within, the villanous green goggling
glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom.
Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these
footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a
penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass- the Cape
Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling. 


 Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen
gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens
of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired
to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house
was full- not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his
forehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's
blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd better
get used to that sort of thing." 


 I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I
should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might
be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me,
and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than
wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would
put up with the half of any decent man's blanket. 


 "I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?- you want supper?
Supper'll be ready directly." 


 I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench
on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further
adorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently
working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand
at a ship under 


full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought. 


 At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an
adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland- no fire at all- the
landlord said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow
candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our
monkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our
half frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind-
not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings
for supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself
to these dumplings in a most direful manner. 


 "My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to a
dead sartainty." 


 "Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?" 


 "Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the
harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he
don't- he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare." 


 "The devil he does," says I. "Where is that harpooneer? Is he
here?" 


 "He'll be here afore long," was the answer. 


 I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this
"dark complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that
if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress
and get into bed before I did. 


 Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when,
knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the
rest of the evening as a looker on. 


 Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the
landlord cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in
the offing this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship.
Hurrah, boys; now we'll have the latest news from the Feegees." 


 A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was
flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped
in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in
woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff
with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They
had just 


landed from their boat, and this was the first house they
entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the
whale's mouth- the bar- when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there
officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One
complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a
pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a
sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of
how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or
on the weather side of an ice-island. 


 The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does
even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they
began capering about most obstreperously. 


 I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and
though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his
shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained
from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at
once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon
become my shipmate (though but a sleeping partner one, so far as
this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little
description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble
shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such
brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his
white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of
his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him
much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and
from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall
mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the
revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man
slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my
comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his
shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favorite
with them, they raised a cry of "Bulkington! Bulkington! where's
Bulkington?" and darted out of the house in 


pursuit of him. 


 It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost
supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate
myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to
the entrance of the seamen. 


 No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good
deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it
is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when
it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in
a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your
objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason
why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody
else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor
Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one
apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with
your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. 


 The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated
the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being
a harpooneer, his linen or woolen, as the case might be, would not
be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch
all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer
ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble
in upon me at midnight- how could I tell from what vile hole he had
been coming? 


 "Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.- I shan't
sleep with him. I'll try the bench here." 


 "Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth for
a mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"- feeling of the
knots and notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a
carpenter's plane there in the bar- wait, I say, and I'll make ye
snug enough." So saying he procured the plane; and with his old
silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to
planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The
shavings flew right and left; till  at last the plane-iron came
bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near
spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit- the
bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the
planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So
gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into
the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his
business, and left me in a brown study. 


 I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a
foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was
a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four
inches higher than the planed one- so there was no yoking them. I
then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space
against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to
settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of
cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan
would never do at all, especially as another current from the
rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed
a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot
where I had thought to spend the night. 


 The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't
I steal a march on him- bolt his door inside, and jump into his
bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no
bad idea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could
tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the
room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to
knock me down! 


 Still looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of
spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I
began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable
prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait
awhile; he must be dropping in before long. I'll have a good look
at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after
all- there's no telling. 


  But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and
threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. 


 "Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he- does he always
keep such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock. 


 The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to
be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he
answered, "generally he's an early bird- airley to bed and airley
to rise- yea, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he
went out a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps
him so late, unless, may be, he can't sell his head." 


 "Can't sell his head?- What sort of a bamboozingly story is this
you are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend
to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this
blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his
head around this town?" 


 "That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he
couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked." 


 "With what?" shouted I. 


 "With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the
world?" 


 "I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'd
better stop spinning that yarn to me- I'm not green." 


 "May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but
I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears
you a slanderin' his head." 


 "I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again
at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. 


 "It's broke a'ready," said he. 


 "Broke," said I- "broke, do you mean?" 


 "Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess."



 "Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a
snowstorm- "landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one
another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want
a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other
half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer,
whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most
mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an 


uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my
bedfellow- a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and
confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to
speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether
I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in
the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about
selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that
this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a
madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to
induce me to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liable
to a criminal prosecution." 


 "Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a
purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But
be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of
has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of
'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he's sold
all on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell to-night,
cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' human
heads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wanted
to last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin' out of the
door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a
string of inions." 


 This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and
showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me-
but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed
out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in
such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators? 


 "Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man." 


 "He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's a nice
bed: Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced.
There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it's an
almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put
our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming
and sprawling about  one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the
floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it
wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" and
so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering to
lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock in
the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday- you won't see that
harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere- come along
then; do come; won't ye come?" 


 I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went,
and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished,
sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for
any four harpooneers to sleep abreast. 


 "There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old
sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table;
"there, make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye." I
turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. 


 Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though
none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well.
I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre
table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a
rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a
man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room,
there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one
corner; also a large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's
wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a
parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the
fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed. 


 But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close
to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way
possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it.
I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the
edges with 


little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills
round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of
this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could
it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat,
and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise?
I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being
uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though
this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I
went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never
saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a
hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck. 


 I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about
this head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking
some time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket,
and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off
my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. But
beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and
remembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer's not
coming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made no
more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and then
blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the
care of heaven. 


 Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or broken
crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and
could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light
doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of
Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a
glimmer of light come into the room from under the door. 


 Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the
infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not
to say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that
identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the
room, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good
way off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working
away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as
being in  the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he
kept it averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag's
mouth. This accomplished, however, he turned round- when, good
heavens; what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish,
yellow color, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking
squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible bedfellow;
he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from
the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so
towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be
sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They
were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make
of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I
remembered a story of a white man- a whaleman too- who, falling
among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that
this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have
met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all!
It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But
then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I
mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squares
of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of
tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white
man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the
South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary
effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing
through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all.
But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced
fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a
seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest
in the middle of a room, he then took the New Zealand head- a
ghastly thing enough- and crammed it down into the bag. He now took
off his hat- a new beaver hat- when I came nigh singing out with
fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head- none to speak of at
least- nothing but a small  scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead.
His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed
skull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would
have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. 


 Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the
window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what
to make of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether passed my
comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being
completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess
I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who
had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was
so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address
him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed
inexplicable in him. 


 Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last
showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him
were checkered with the same squares as his face, his back, too,
was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a
Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster
shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as a parcel of dark
green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now
quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped
aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this
Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too-
perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to
mine- heavens! look at that tomahawk! 


 But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went
about something that completely fascinated my attention, and
convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy
grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on
a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a
curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly
the color of a three days' old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed
head,  at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real
baby preserved some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at
all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony,
I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed
it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty
fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up this
little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The
chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I
thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or
chapel for his Congo idol. 


 I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image,
feeling but ill at ease meantime- to see what was next to follow.
First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego
pocket, and places them carefully before the idol; then laying a
bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he
kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after
many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of
his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at
last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off the
heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little
negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of
fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were
accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who
seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan
psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most
unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol
up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as
carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. 


 All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and
seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his
business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was
high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break 
the spell in which I had so long been bound. 


 But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a
fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the
head of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with
his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco
smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild
cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I
sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a sudden grunt of
astonishment he began feeling me. 


 Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from
him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he
might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp
again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but
ill comprehended my meaning. 


 "Who-e debel you?"- he at last said- "you no speak-e, dam-me, I
kill-e." And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about
me in the dark. 


 "Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord!
Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!" 


 "Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" again
growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk
scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen
would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord
came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up
to him. 


 "Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg here
wouldn't harm a hair of your head." 


 "Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell me
that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?" 


 "I thought ye know'd it;- didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin'
heads around town?- but turn flukes again and go to sleep.
Queequeg, look here- you sabbee me, I sabbee- you this man sleepe
you- you sabbee?" 


 "Me sabbee plenty"- grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe
and sitting up in bed. 


 "You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk,
and 


throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only
a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at
him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean,
comely looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making
about, thought I to myself- the man's a human being just as I am:
he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of
him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. 


 "Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or
pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short,
and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking
in bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured." 


 This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again
politely motioned me to get into bed- rolling over to one side as
much as to say- I won't touch a leg of ye." 


 "Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go." 


 I turned in, and never slept better in my life. 


 CHAPTER 4 


 The Counterpane  


 Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm
thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had
almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of
patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles;
and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan
labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise
shade- owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically
in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at
various times- this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the
world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly
lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell
it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it was
only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that
Queequeg was hugging me. 


 My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I
was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that
befell me; 


whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely
settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper
or other- I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had
seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who,
somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to
bed supperless,- my mother dragged me by the legs out of the
chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in
the afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in year in our
hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so up
stairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressed
myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter
sigh got between the sheets. 


 I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must
elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in
bed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light
too; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of
coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the
house. I felt worse and worse- at last I got up, dressed, and
softly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother,
and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseeching her as a
particular favor to give me a good slippering for my misbehaviour:
anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable
length of time. But she was the best and most conscientious of
stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For several hours I
lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever
done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last
I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly
waking from it- half steeped in dreams- I opened my eyes, and the
before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I
felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen,
and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed
in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless,
unimaginable, silent form or  phantom, to which the hand belonged,
seemed closely seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on
ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to
drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it
one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how
this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the
morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks
and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to
explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself
with it. 


 Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the
supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in the strangeness, to
those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan
arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events
soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only
alive to the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his
arm- unlock his bridegroom clasp- yet, sleeping as he was, he still
hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.
I now strove to rouse him- "Queequeg!"- but his only answer was a
snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a
horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside
the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's
side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly,
thought I; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a
cannibal and a tomahawk! "Queequeg!- in the name of goodness,
Queequeg, wake!" At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and
incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a
fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in
extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook
himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and
sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing
his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came to be
there, though a dim consciousness of knowing something  about me
seemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing
him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly
observing so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed
made up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as
it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor, and
by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it
pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress
afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I,
Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized
overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of
delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially
polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg,
because he treated me with so much civility and consideration,
while I was guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed,
and watching all his toilette motions; for the time my curiosity
getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, a man like
Queequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well worth
unusual regarding. 


 He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very
tall one, by the by, and then- still minus his trowsers-  he hunted
up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell,
but his next movement was to crush himself- boots in hand, and hat
on- under the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and
strainings, I inferred he was hard at work booting himself; though
by no law of propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required to
be private when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was
a creature in the transition stage- neither caterpillar nor
butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his
outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His education was
not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not been a
small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled
himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a
savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put
them on. At last, he emerged  with his hat very much dented and
crushed down over his eyes, and began creaking and limping about
the room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots, his pair of
damp, wrinkled cowhide ones- probably not made to order either-
rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter
cold morning. 


 Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that
the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain
view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous
figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his
hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate
his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as
soon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself.
At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed his
face; but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with
restricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then
donned his waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on the
wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water and commenced
lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor,
when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips
out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little
on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall,
begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.
Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a
vengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I
came to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and
how exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept. 


 The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched
out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and
sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton. 


 CHAPTER 5 


 Breakfast  


 I quickley followed suit, and descending into the bar-room 


accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no
malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a
little in the matter of my bedfellow. 


 However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too
scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in
his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let
him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend
and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything
bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man
than you perhaps think for. 


 The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping
in the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look
at. They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates,
and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea
blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny
company, with bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing
monkey jackets for morning gowns. 


 You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore.
This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in
hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been
three days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks
a few shades lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in
him. In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but
slightly bleached withal; he doubtless has tarried whole weeks
ashore. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred
with various tints, seemed like the Andes' western slope, to show
forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone. 


 "Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in
we went to breakfast. 


 They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite
at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always,
though: Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park,
the Scotch one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in
the parlor.  But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge
drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on
an empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum
of poor Mungo's performances- this kind of travel, I say, may not
be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for
the most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere. 


 These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance
that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to
hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise
nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that,
but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many
of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales
on the high seas- entire strangers to them- and duelled them dead
without winking; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast
table- all of the same calling, all of kindred tastes- looking
round as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out
of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. A curious
sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! 


 But as for Queequeg- why, Queequeg sat there among them- at the
head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be
sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could
not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into
breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching
over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and
grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very
coolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people's
estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. 


 We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he
eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention
to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he
withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his 


tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and
smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a
stroll. 


 CHAPTER 6 


 The Street  


 If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so
outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite
society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon
taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.



 In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will
frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from
foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean
mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street
is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo
Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford
beats all Water Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts
you see only sailors; in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand
chatting at street corners; savages outright; many of whom yet
carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare. 


 But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans,
Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of
the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will
see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There
weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New
Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They
are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled
forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.
Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some
things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that
chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and
swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife.
Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. 


 No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I  mean
a downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow
his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now
when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a
distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you
should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In
bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his
waistcoats; straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how
bitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when
thou art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the
tempest. 


 But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers,
cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New
Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that
tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling
condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back
country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town
itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England.
It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land,
also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in
the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of
this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like
houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence
came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? 


 Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder
lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these
brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific,
and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up
hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a
feat like that? 


 In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to
their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises
a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding;
for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and
every 


night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. 


 In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-
long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the
beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer
the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms.
So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has
superinduced bright terraces ot flowers upon the barren refuse
rocks thrown aside at creation's final day. 


 And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red
roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation
of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.
Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem,
where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor
sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing
nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands. 


 CHAPTER 7 


 The Chapel  


 In the same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and
few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or
Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure
that I did not. 


 Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon
this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to
driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the
cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm.
Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and
sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken
at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed
purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief
were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived;
and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly
eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the
wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like
the following, but I do not pretend to quote: 


 


                           SACRED 


                       TO THE MEMORY 


                             OF 


                         JOHN TALBOT, 


       Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard 


         Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, 


                      November 1st, 1836. 


                         THIS TABLET 


                  Is erected to his Memory 


                        BY HIS SISTER.  


                           SACRED 


                       TO THE MEMORY 


                             OF 


                 ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, 


           NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, 


                      AND SAMUEL GLEIG, 


                Forming one of the boats' crews 


                             OF 


                      THE SHIP ELIZA 


            Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, 


                 On the Off-shore Ground in the 


                          PACIFIC, 


                     December 31st, 1839. 


                         THIS MARBLE 


              Is here placed by their surviving 


                          SHIPMATES.  


                           SACRED 


                       TO THE MEMORY 


                             OF 


                          The late 


                   CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, 


         Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a 


              Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, 


                      August 3d, 1833. 


                         THIS TABLET 


                  Is erected to his Memory 


                             BY 


                         HIS WIDOW.  


 Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I
seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to
see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there
was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance.
This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my
entrance; because he was the only one who could not read, and,
therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall.
Whether any of 


the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now
among the congregation, I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded
accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present
wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief,
that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose
unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically
caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. 


 Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who
standing among flowers can say- here, here lies my beloved; ye know
not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter
blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What
despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and
unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all
Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly
perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the
cave of Elephanta as here. 


 In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are
included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that
they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin
Sands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the
other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet
do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies
of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay
death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring
paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who
died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to
be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in
unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the
dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify
a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. 


 But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from
these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. 


 It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the  eve of
a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the
murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the
whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be
thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to
embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems- aye, a stove boat will
make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business
of whaling- a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into
Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this
matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow
here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at
things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun
through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of
air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact
take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore
three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body
when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. 


 CHAPTER 8 


 The Pulpit  


 I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable
robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back
upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the
congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the
chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the
whalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite. He had been a
sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had
dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of,
Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that
sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth,
for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain
mild gleams of a newly developing bloom- the spring verdure peeping
forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard
his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without
the  utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical
peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime
life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no
umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his
tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot
cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight
of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes
were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an
adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly
approached the pulpit. 


 Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and
since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle
with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the
chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father
Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a
perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from
a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the
chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this
ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a
mahogany color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of
chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an
instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the
ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look
upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential
dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the
main-top of his vessel. 


 The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the
case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the
rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my
first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however
convenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed
unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after
gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the
pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the
whole  was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little
Quebec. 


 I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for
this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity
and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by
any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some
sober reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize
something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical
isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from
all outward worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with
the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this
pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold- a lofty
Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. 


 But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the
place, borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between the
marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which
formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a
gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of
black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and
dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from
which beamed forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed a
distant spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something
like that silver plate now inserted into Victory's plank where
Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angel seemed to say, "beat on,
beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is
breaking through; the clouds are rolling off- serenest azure is at
hand." 


 Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste
that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front
was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible
rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a
ship's fiddle-headed beak. 


 What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever this
earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the  pulpit
leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath
is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From
thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for
favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and
not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. 


 CHAPTER 9 


 The Sermon  


 Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority
ordered the scattered people to condense. "Star board gangway,
there! side away to larboard- larboard gangway to starboard!
Midships! midships!" 


 There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches,
and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet
again, and every eye on the preacher. 


 He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded
his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes,
and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and
praying at the bottom of the sea. 


 This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual
tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog- in
such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing
his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a
pealing exultation and joy-  


         The ribs and terrors in the whale, 


           Arched over me a dismal gloom, 


         While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, 


           And lift me deepening down to doom.  


         I saw the opening maw of hell, 


           With endless pains and sorrows there; 


         Which none but they that feel can tell- 


           Oh, I was plunging to despair.  


         In black distress, I called my God, 


           When I could scarce believe him mine, 


         He bowed his ear to my complaints- 


           No more the whale did me confine.  


         With speed he flew to my relief, 


           As on a radiant dolphin borne; 


          Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone 


           The face of my Deliverer God.  


         My song for ever shall record 


           That terrible, that joyful hour; 


         I give the glory to my God, 


           His all the mercy and the power.  


 Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above
the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly
turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand
down upon the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the
last verse of the first chapter of Jonah- 'And God had prepared a
great fish to swallow up Jonah.'" 


 "Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters- four
yarns- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the
Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul Jonah's deep sealine sound!
what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is
that canticle in the fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously
grand! We feel the floods surging over us, we sound with him to the
kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea
is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah
teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all
as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As
sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the
sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift
punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and
joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of
Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God- never
mind now what that command was, or how conveyed- which he found a
hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard
for us to do- remember that- and hence, he oftener commands us than
endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey
ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the
hardness of obeying God consists. 


 "With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further 
flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship
made by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reign
but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of
Joppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks,
perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish
could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's the
opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in
Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have
sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost
unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the
most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish
or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that,
just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates,
that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh!
most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and
guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like
a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered,
self-condemning in his look, that had there been policemen in those
days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been
arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no
baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,- no friends
accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much
dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items
of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the
cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the
goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in
vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his
wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he
can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one
whispers to the other- "Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, do
you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the 


adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the
missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's
stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored,
offering five hundred gold coins for the apprenhension of a
parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads,
and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic
shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon
him. Frightened Jonah trembles. and summoning all his boldness to
his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess
himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes
the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the man
that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the
cabin. 


 "'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly
making out his papers for the Customs- 'Who's there?' Oh! how that
harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to
flee again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to
Tarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not
looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no
sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing
glance. 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly
answered, still intently eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?'- 'Soon
enough for any honest man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's
another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that
scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'- he says,- 'the passage money how much
is that?- I'll pay now.' For it is particularly written, shipmates,
as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'that
he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And taken with
the context, this is full of meaning. 


 "Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment
detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the
penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can
travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper,
is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test
the length of  Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges
him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented to. Then the Captain
knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same time resolves to
help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly
takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain.
He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way,
he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out my
state-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.'
'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah
enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key.
Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to
himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts' cells
being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as
he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the little
state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is
close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too,
beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heralding
presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him
in the smallest of his bowels' wards. 


 "Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly
oscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the
wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame
and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent
obliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly
straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among
which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his
berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far
successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But
that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor,
the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. 'Oh! so my conscience
hangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it burns; but the
chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!' 


 "Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his  bed,
still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the
plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his
steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still
turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation
until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he
feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to
death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch
it; so, after sore wrestling in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of
ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. 


 "And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her
cables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for
Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was
the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the
sea rebels; he will not bare the wicked burden. A dreadful storm
comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain
calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are
clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are
yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over
Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous
sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling
timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty
whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after
him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the
ship- a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep.
But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead
ear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his
lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and
stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea.
But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping
over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and
finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners
come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the 


white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in
the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit
pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the
tormented deep. 


 "Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his
cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The
sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of
him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole
matter to high Heaven, they all-outward to casting lots, to see for
whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's;
that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their
questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy
country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of
poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where
from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions,
but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the
unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God
that is upon him. 


 "'I am a Hebrew,' he cries- and then- 'I fear the Lord the God
of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O
Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway,
he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners
became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when
Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well
knew the darkness of his deserts,- when wretched Jonah cries out to
them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that
for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn
from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in
vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised
invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold
of Jonah. 


 "And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the
sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and
the sea is as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth
water 


behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless
commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething
into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his
ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah
prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his
prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does
not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his
dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God,
contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and
pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here,
shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for
pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was
this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him
from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before
you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a
model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent
of it like Jonah." 


 While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,
slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher,
who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm
himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed
arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that
rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from
his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear
that was strange to them. 


 There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over
the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing
motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with
God and himself. 


 But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head
lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he
spake these words: 


 "Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands
press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the
lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and 
still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how
gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches
there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of
you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches
to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed
pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord to
sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh,
Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his
mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship
at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we
have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down
to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along
'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him
ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his
head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even
then beyond the reach of any plummet- 'out of the belly of hell'-
when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then,
God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God
spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of
the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant
sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah
upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time;
and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two sea-shells, still
multitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did the Almighty's
bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the
face of Falsehood! That was it! 


 "This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that
pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world
charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the
waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks
to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more
to him than 


goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe
to him who would not be true, even though to be false were
salvation! Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it,
while preaching to others is himself a castaway! 


 He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting
his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried
out with a heavenly enthusiasm,- "But oh! shipmates! on the
starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher
the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not
the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him- a
far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and
commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable
self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the
ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him.
Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills,
burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the
robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,- top-gallant delight is to
him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is
only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of
the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from
this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness
will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final
breath- O Father!- chiefly known to me by Thy rod- mortal or
immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be
this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to
Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his
God?" 


 He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his
face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people
had departed, and he was left alone in the place. 


 CHAPTER 10 


 A Bosom Friend  


 Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg
there 


quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction
some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet
on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his
face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and
with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile
humming to himself in his heathenish way. 


 But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon,
going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on
his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at
every fiftieth page- as I fancied- stopping for a moment, looking
vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling
whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next
fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he
could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large
number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at
the multitude of pages was excited. 


 With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and
hideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- his
countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means
disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly
tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart;
and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed
tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides
all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which
even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a
man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it
was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in
freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it
otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it
was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem
ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as
seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly
graded retreating slope from above the 


brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long
promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington
cannibalistically developed. 


 Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending
meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he
never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as a
single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages
of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been
sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering
the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in the
morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But
savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to
take them. At first they are overawing; their calm
self-collectedness of simplicity seems as Socratic wisdom. I had
noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very
little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances
whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his
acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon
second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was
a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape
Horn, that is- which was the only way he could get there- thrown
among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet
Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the
utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal
to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no
doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But,
perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be
conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such
or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that,
like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have "broken his digester." 


 As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in
that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air,
it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms



gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent,
solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began
to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more
my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the
wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat,
his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no
civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. he was; a very sight of
sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn
towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most
others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll try a
pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but
hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly
signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first
he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring
to his last night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we
were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he
looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented. 


 We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to
explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the
few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and
from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various
outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a
social smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly
offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild
pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us. 


 If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the
Pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it
out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as
naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over,
he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist,
and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country's
phrase, that 


we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should
be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have
seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in
this simple savage those old rules would not apply. 


 After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our
room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out
his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew
out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the
table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions,
pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to
remonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers'
pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers,
took out his idol, and removed the paper firebrand. By certain
signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him;
but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment
whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise. 


 I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the
infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this
wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is
worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the
magnanimous God of heaven and earth- pagans and all included- can
possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood?
Impossible! But what is worship?- to do the will of God? that is
worship. And what is the will of God?- to do to my fellow man what
I would have my fellow man to do to me- that is the will of God.
Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this
Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular
Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with
him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings;
helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit
with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose;
and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own
consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep 


without some little chat. 


 How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for
confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some
old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.
Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg- a cosy,
loving pair. 


 CHAPTER 11 


 Nightgown  


 We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short
intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his
brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so
entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by
reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in
us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though
day-break was yet some way down the future. 


 Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent
position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found
ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning
against the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together,
and our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were
warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was
so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that
there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to
enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there
is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by
contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that
you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then
you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like
Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of
your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general
consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For
this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a
fire, which is one of the 


luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of
deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and
your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie
like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. 


 We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when
all at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between
sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I
have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to
concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever
feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if,
darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though
light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes
then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness
into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated
twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion.
Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it
were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and
besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his
Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong
repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how
elastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bend
them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking
by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene
household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the
landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed
confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with
a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders,
we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there
grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the
flame of the new-lit lamp. 


 Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage
away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his
native island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go
on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill 
comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures,
when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now
enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the
mere skeleton I give. 


 CHAPTER 12 


 Biographical  


 Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the
West and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are. 


 When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native
woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if
he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul,
lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a
specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his
uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who
were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood
in his veins- royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the
cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth. 


 A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought
a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full
complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his
father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone
in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the
ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was
a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with
mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe,
still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat
down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was
gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one
backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up
the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck,
grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though
hacked in pieces. 


 In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended
a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King,
and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, 
and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last
relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine
young savage- this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's
cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of
him. But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of
foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby
he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored
countrymen. For at bottom- so he told me- he was actuated by a
profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to
make his people still happier than they were; and more than that,
still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen
soon convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and
wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived
at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there;
and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their
wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost.
Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.



 And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these
Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish.
Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home. 


 By hints I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and
having a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead
and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He
answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity,
or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and
undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by,
he said, he would return,- as soon as he felt himself baptized
again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow
his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer of
him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. 


 I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching  his
future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old
vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and
informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the
most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He
at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the
same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess
with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his,
boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously
assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was
an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of
great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the
mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known
to merchant seamen. 


 His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg
embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the
light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very
soon were sleeping. 


 CHAPTER 13 


 Wheelbarrow  


 Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a
barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using,
however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the
boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which
had sprung up between me and Queequeg- especially as Peter Coffin's
cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me
concerning the very person whom I now companied with. 


 We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including
my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock,
away we went down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet
schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people
stared; not at Queequeg so much- for they were used to seeing
cannibals like him in their streets,- but at seeing him and me upon
such confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along
wheeling the barrow by turns, 


and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his
harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing
with him ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their
own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied, that though what
I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his
own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a
mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In
short, like many reapers and mowers, who go into the farmer's
meadows armed with their own scythes- though in no wise obliged to
furnish them- even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons,
preferred his own harpoon. 


 Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny
story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag
Harbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in
which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem
ignorant about the thing- though in truth he was entirely so,
concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow- Queequeg
puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the
barrow and marches up the wharf. "Why," said I, "Queequeg, you
might have known better than that, one would think. Didn't the
people laugh?" 


 Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of
Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant
water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a
punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central
ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain
grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander-
from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least
for a sea captain- this commander was invited to the wedding feast
of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten.
Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's
bamboo cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the
post of honor, placed himself over against the punchbowl, and
between the High Priest and his 


majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,- for those
people have their grace as well as we- though Queequeg told me that
unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters, they,
on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great
Giver of all feasts- Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest
opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island; that
is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl
before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next
the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself- being
Captain of a ship- as having plain precedence over a mere island
King, especially in the King's own house- the Captain coolly
proceeds to wash his hands in the punch bowl;- taking it I suppose
for a huge finger-glass. "Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now?-
Didn't our people laugh?" 


 At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the
schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one
side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered
trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and
mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side
by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely
moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and
coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch,
all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most
perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second
ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such
is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.



 Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the
little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt
his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!- how I spurned that
turnpike earth!- that common highway all over dented with the marks
of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity
of the sea which will permit no records. 


 At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and  reel
with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and
pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss did
homage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before
the Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn
tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes
in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we
stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not
notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like
assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so
companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified
than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins
there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the
heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young
saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's
hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage
caught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity and
strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly
tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting
lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him,
lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff. 


 "Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running toward that
officer; "Capting, Capting, here's the devil." 


 "Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea,
stalking up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that?
Don't you know you might have killed that chap?" 


 "What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. 


 "He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there,"
pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. 


 "Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an
unearthly expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e;
Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!" 


 "Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e you, you cannibal,
if 


you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye." 


 But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the
Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the
main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was
now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after
part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so
roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to
attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew
from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a
watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into
splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being
done; those on deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing the
boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the
midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees,
and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope,
secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like
a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at
the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The
schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing
away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from
the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or
more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms
straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny
shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand and
glorious but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down.
Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now took
an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters
were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose
again, one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a
lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was
restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain
begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to  Queequeg like a
barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. 


 Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think
that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous
Societies. He only asked for water- fresh water- something to wipe
the brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe,
and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around
him, seemed to be saying to himself- "It's a mutual, joint-stock
world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians." 


 CHAPTER 14 


 Nantucket  


 Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so,
after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. 


 Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real
corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off
shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it- a
mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.
There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a
substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you
that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally;
that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond
seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood
in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome;
that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get
under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an
oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear
quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are
so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made
an utter island of by the ocean, that to the very chairs and tables
small clams will sometimes be found adhering as to the backs of sea
turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no
Illinois. 


 Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island
was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an



eagle swooped down upon the New England coast and carried off an
infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their
child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to
follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a
perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found
an empty ivory casket,- the poor little Indian's skeleton. 


 What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach,
should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs
and quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for
mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured
cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea,
explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of
circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in
all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the
mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous
and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed
with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics
are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious
assaults! 


 And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits,
issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the
watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers
did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon
Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their
blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe
are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors
own empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it.
Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating
forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as
highwaymen the road. they but plunder other ships, other fragments
of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living
from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides
and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it
in ships; to and fro 


ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home;
there lies his business which a Noah's flood would not interrupt,
though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the
sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he
climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows
not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like
another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.
With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is
rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer,
out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest,
while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. 


 CHAPTER 15 


 Chowder  


 It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came
snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could
attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a
bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his
cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the
proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and
moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was
famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could
not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the
directions hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our
starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and
then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three
points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we
met where the place was; these crooked directions of his very much
puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg
insisted that the yellow warehouse- our first point of departure-
must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter
Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating
about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceful
inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last 


came to something which there was no mistaking. 


 Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'
ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in
front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed
off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a
little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such
impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this
gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as
I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for
Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my
Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring
at me in the whalemen's chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of
prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique
hints touching Tophet? 


 I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled
woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of
the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much
like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in
a purple woollen shirt. 


 "Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing
ye!" 


 "Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs. Hussey." 


 And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but
leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his
affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs.
Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us
into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the
relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said-
"Clam or Cod?" 


 "What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness. 


 "Clam or Cod?" she repeated. 


 "A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs.
Hussey?" says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in
the winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?" 


 But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the
purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to 


hear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an
open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two,"
disappeared. 


 "Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make a supper for
us both on one clam?" 


 However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie
the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking
chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet
friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely
bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and
salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with
butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our
appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular,
Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the
chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great
expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs.
Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little
experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word "cod"
with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the
savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in
good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us. 


 We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl,
thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the
head? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people?
"But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's
your harpoon?" 


 Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well
deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders.
Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for
supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your
clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs.
Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea
Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin.
There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all
account  for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the
beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow
feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each
foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure
ye. 


 Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs.
Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was
about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm,
and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers.
"Why not? said I; "every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- but
why not?" "Because it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since young
Stiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone
four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found
dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever
since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in
their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for she had learned his
name), "I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till
morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast,
men?" 


 "Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring by
way of variety." 


 CHAPTER 16 


 The Ship  


 In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise
and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he
had been diligently consulting Yojo- the name of his black little
god- and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly
insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among
the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft;
instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection
of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed
befriending us; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a
vessel, which, if left to 


myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the
world as though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I
must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of
Queequeg. 


 I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg
placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and
surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable
esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough
upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent
designs. 


 Now, this plan of Queequeg's or rather Yojo's, touching the
selection of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not
a little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler
best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my
remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to
acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business with
a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly
settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving
Queequeg shut up with in our little bedroom- for it seemed that it
was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation,
and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day; how it was I never
could find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times,
I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX Articles- leaving
Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming
himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among
the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering, and many random
inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years'
voyages- The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-dam, I
do not know the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod you will no
doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts
Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about
the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally,
going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then
decided that this was the very ship for us. 


  You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I
know;- square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box
galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such
a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of
the old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned
claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in
the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's
complexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike
fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her
masts- cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones
were lost overboard in a gale- her masts stood stiffly up like the
spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were
worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in
Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old
antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to
the wild business that for more than half a century she had
followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he
commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and
one of the principal owners of the Pequod,- this old Peleg, during
the term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original
grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of
material and device, unmatched by anything except it be
Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled like
any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of
polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft,
tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All
round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one
continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale,
inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons
to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, but
deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning 


a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a
tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the
long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who
steered that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he
holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but
somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. 


 Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having
authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the
voyage, at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a
strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the
main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was
of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long,
huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest
part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends
on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually
sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted
point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the
top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular
opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider
commanded a complete view forward. 


 And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one
who by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon,
and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the
burden of command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair,
wriggling all over with curious carving; and the bottom of which
was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of
which the wigwam was constructed. 


 There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the
appearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like
most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in
the Quaker style; only there was a fine and almost microscopic
net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round eyes, which
must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales,
and always looking 


to windward;- for this causes the muscles about the eyes to
become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a
scowl. 


 "Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to the
door of the tent. 


 "Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want
of him?" he demanded. 


 "I was thinking of shipping." 


 "Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer- ever been
in a stove boat?" 


 "No, Sir, I never have." 


 "Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say- eh? 


 "Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been
several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-" 


 "Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see
that leg?- I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou
talkest of the merchant service to me again. Marchant service
indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served
in those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to
go a whaling, eh?- it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh?-
Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?- Didst not rob thy last Captain,
didst thou?- Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou
gettest to sea?" 


 I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the
mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an
insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular
prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they
hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard. 


 "But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I
think of shipping ye." 


 "Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the
world." 


 "Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain
Ahab?" 


 "Who is Captain Ahab, sir?" 


 "Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this
ship." 


 "I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain
himself." 


  "Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg- that's who ye are speaking
to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the
Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs,
including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going
to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye
do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself
to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and
thou wilt find that he has only one leg." 


 "What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?" 


 "Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured,
chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever
chipped a boat!- ah, ah!" 


 I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little
touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said
as calmly as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir;
but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that
particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much from
the simple fact of the accident." 


 "Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see;
thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now;
sure of that?" 


 "Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four
voyages in the merchant-" 


 "Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant
service- don't aggravate me- I won't have it. But let us understand
each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye
yet feel inclined for it?" 


 "I do, sir." 


 "Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live
whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!" 


 "I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so;
not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact." 


 "Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to
find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in 


order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so.
Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the
weather bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there." 


 For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request,
not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in
earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl,
Captain Peleg started me on the errand. 


 Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived
that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now
obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was
unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the
slightest variety that I could see. 


 "Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what
did ye see?" 


 "Not much," I replied- "nothing but water; considerable horizon
though, and there's a squall coming up, I think." 


 "Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish
to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the
world where you stand?" 


 I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would;
and the Pequod was as good a ship as any- I thought the best- and
all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he
expressed his willingness to ship me. 


 "And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added-
"come along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into
the cabin. 


 Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who along
with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the
other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held
by a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and
chancery wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a
foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket
invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do
yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest. 


  Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers,
was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that
sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an
uncommon measure peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and
anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous.
For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all
sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are
Quakers with a vengeance. 


 So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with
Scripture names- a singularly common fashion on the island- and in
childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of
the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless
adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these
unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not
unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And
when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force,
with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the
stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest
waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north,
been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all
nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin
voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some
help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language- that man makes one in a whole nation's census- a mighty
pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all
detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or
other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling
morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically
great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O
young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we
have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and still
a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another
phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. 


  Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired
whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg- who cared not a rush for what
are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same
serious things the veriest of all trifles- Captain Bildad had not
only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of
Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the
sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn- all
that had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not
so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this
immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency about
worthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples,
to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably
invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human
bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns
upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening
of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him
much, and very probably he had long since come to the sage and
sensible conclusion that a man's religion is one thing, and this
practical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising
from a little cabin boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to
a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming
boat-header, chief mate, and captain, and finally a shipowner;
Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by
wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and
dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his
well-earned income. 


 Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard
task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems
a curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his
crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the
hospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially
for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the
least. He  never used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but
somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard
work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his
drab-colored eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely
nervous, till you could clutch something- a hammer or a
marrling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other,
never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His
own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character.
On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous
beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like that worn
nap of his broad-brimmed hat. 


 Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when
I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the
decks was small; and there, bolt upright, sat old Bildad, who
always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails.
His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly
crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and
spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous
volume. 


 "Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have
been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to
my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?" 


 As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old
shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly
looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. 


 "He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants to ship." 


 "Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to
me. 


 "I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. 


 "What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg. 


 "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling
away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. 


 I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as
Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I
said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open
a chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and  ink
before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to think
it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would be
willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in the
whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the
captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and
that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance
pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company. I was
also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not
be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, could
steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that
from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay-
that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage,
whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay
was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than
nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for
the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my three
years' beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one
stiver. 


 It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a
princely fortune- and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am
one of those who never take on about princely fortunes, and am
quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I
am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the
whole, I thought the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, but
would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th,
considering I was of a broad-shouldered make. 


 But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful
about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore,
I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable
old crony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of
the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and
scattered 


owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to
these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might
have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now
found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin,
and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg
was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to
my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested
party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on
mumbling to himself out of his book, "Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth, where moth-" 


 "Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what
lay shall we give this young man?" 


 "Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven
hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?- 'where
moth and rust do corrupt, but lay-'" 


 Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for
one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do
corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though
from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a
landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that though
seven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when
you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the
seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a forthing is a good deal
less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I
thought at the time. 


 "Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not want
to swindle this young man! he must have more than that." 


 "Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without
lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling- "for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also." 


 "I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said
Peleg, "do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say." 


 Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him
said, 


"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must
consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship-
widows and orphans, many of them- and that if we too abundantly
reward the labors of this young man, we may be taking the bread
from those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred and
seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg." 


 "Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about
the cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice
in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about
that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever
sailed round Cape Horn." 


 "Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be
drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as
thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear
lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink
thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg." 


 "Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural
bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human
creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say
that again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'll- I'll- yes, I'll
swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the
cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun- a straight
wake with ye!" 


 As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a
marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded
him. 


 Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and
responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up
all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and
temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress
to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from
before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat
down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the
slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to
impenitent  Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his
rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat
down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously
agitated. "Whew!" he whistled at last- "the squall's gone off to
leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a
lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the
grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man,
Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, for
the three hundredth lay." 


 "Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to
ship too- shall I bring him down to-morrow?" 


 "To be sure," said Peleg. "Fetch him along, and we'll look at
him." 


 "What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the
Book in which he had again been burying himself. 


 "Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg. "Has he
ever whaled it any?" turning to me. 


 "Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg." 


 "Well, bring him along then." 


 And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but
that I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the
identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me
round the Cape. 


 But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the
Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though,
indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out,
and receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself
visible by arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages
are so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly
brief, that if the captain have family, or any absorbing
concernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much about
his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is ready
for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at him before
irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back I
accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be
found. 


  "And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right
enough; thou art shipped." 


 "Yes, but I should like to see him." 


 "But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know
exactly what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the
house; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't
sick; but no, he isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't
always see me, so I don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man,
Captain Ahab- so some think- but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him
well enough; no fear, no fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man,
Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you
may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common;
Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals; been used
to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in
mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest
and surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad;
no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old,
thou knowest, was a crowned king!" 


 "And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs,
did they not lick his blood?" 


 "Come hither to me- hither, hither," said Peleg, with a
significance in his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad;
never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain
Ahab did not name himself .'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his
crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old.
And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name would
somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may
tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know Captain
Ahab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago; know what he is-
a good man- not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good
man- something like me- only there's a good deal more of him. Aye,
aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the
passage home  he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it
was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought
that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he
lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind
of moody- desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all
pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young
man, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing
bad one. So good-bye to thee- and wrong not Captain Ahab, because
he happens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife-
not three voyages wedded- a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by
that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can be
any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken,
blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!" 


 As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been
incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a
certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow,
at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I
don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet
I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I
cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what it
was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him;
though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so
imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts were
at length carried in other directions, so that for the present dark
Ahab slipped my mind. 


 CHAPTER 17 


 The Ramadan  


 As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to
continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards
night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's
religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find
it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants
worshipping a toad-stool; or 


those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a
degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down
before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account
of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. 


 I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in
these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other
mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits
on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining
the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;- but what of
that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he
seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with
him would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us
all- Presbyterians and Pagans alike- for we are all somehow
dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending. 


 Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances
and rituals must be over, I went to his room and knocked at the
door; but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened
inside. "Queequeg," said I softly through the key-hole:- all
silent. "I say, Queequeg! why don't you speak? It's I- Ishmael."
But all remained still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had
allowed him such abundant time; I thought he might have had an
apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but the door opening
into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect was but a
crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-board
of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was
surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of
Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had
taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange,
thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he
seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside
here, and no possible mistake. 


 "Queequeg!- Queequeg!"- all still. Something must have happened.
Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly 


resisted. Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to
the first person I met- the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "I
thought something must the matter. I went to make the bed after
breakfast, and the door was locked; and not a mouse to be heard;
and it's been just so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, you
had both gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La!
la, ma'am!- Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!"- and with
these cries she ran towards the kitchen, I following. 


 Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a
vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the
occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little
black boy meantime. 


 "Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Run for God's sake, and
fetch something to pry open the door- the axe!- the axe! he's had
a stroke; depend upon it!"- and so saying I was unmethodically
rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed
the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her
countenance. 


 "What's the matter with you, young man?" 


 "Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one,
while I pry it open!" 


 "Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down the
vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; "look here; are you
talking about prying open any of my doors?"- and with that she
seized my arm. "What's the matter with you? What's the matter with
you, shipmate?" 


 In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to
understand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet
to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then
exclaimed- "No! I haven't seen it since I put it there." Running to
a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in,
and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing. "He's
killed himself," she cried. "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over
again there goes another counterpane- God pity his poor mother!- it
will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where's
that girl?- there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him
to paint me a sign,  with- "no suicides permitted here, and no
smoking in the parlor;"- might as well kill both birds at once.
Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there?
You, young man, avast there!" 


 And running after me, she caught me as I was again trying to
force open the door. 


 "I won't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the
locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!" putting
her hand in her side pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess;
let's see." And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas!
Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. 


 "Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry
a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again
vowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her,
and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. 


 With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob
slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and
there, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool on his
hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither one
way nor the other way but sat like a carved image with scarce a
sign of active life. 


 "Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's the
matter with you?" 


 "He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the
landlady. 


 But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost
felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it
was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally
constrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting
so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular
meals. 


 "Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's alive at all events; so leave us,
if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself." 


 Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon
Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he
could do- for all my polite arts and blandishments- he would not
move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor  notice
my presence in the slightest way. 


 I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his
Ramadan; do they fast on their hams that way in his native land. It
must be so; yes, it's a part of his creed, I suppose; well, then,
let him rest; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last
for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I
don't believe it's very punctual then. 


 I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to
the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a
plum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short
whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the
line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after listening to these
plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went up stairs to go
to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly
have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he was
just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began to
grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to
be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold
room, holding a piece of wood on his head. 


 "For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up
and have some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself,
Queequeg." But not a word did he reply. 


 Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to
sleep; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But
previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw
it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night; and he had
nothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I
would, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the
candle; and the mere thought of Queequeg- not four feet off-
sitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and
dark; this made me really wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night
in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in this
dreary, unaccountable Ramadan! 


  But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till
break of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted
Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon
as the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with
stiff grating joints, but with a cheerful look; limped towards me
where I lay; pressed his forehead again against mine; and said his
Ramadan was over. 


 Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's
religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill
or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe
it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it
is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of
ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to
take that individual aside and argue the point with him. 


 And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "get
into bed now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginning
with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming
down to the various religions of the present time, during which
time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and
prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark
nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in
short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him,
too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and
sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him
now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his.
Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit
caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be
half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists
cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one
word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first
born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated
through the hereditary 


dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. 


 I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with
dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take
it in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after
a great feast given by his father the king on the gaining of a
great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about
two o'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very
evening. 


 "No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for I
knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a
sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was
the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue
all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by
one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished
round like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some
parsley in their mouths, were sent round with the victor's
compliments to all his friends, just as though these presents were
so many Christmas turkeys. 


 After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made
much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he
somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless
considered from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he
did not more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as
I would; and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more
about the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of
condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a
great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly
lost to evangelical pagan piety. 


 At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously
hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady
should not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied
out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth
with halibut bones. 


 CHAPTER 18 


 His Mark 


 


 As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship,
Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice
loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my
friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no
cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced
their papers. 


 "What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping
on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. 


 "I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers." 


 "Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his
head from behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that
he's converted. Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg,
"art thou at present in communion with any Christian church?" 


 "Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational
Church." Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in
Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches. 


 "First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that
worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so
saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great
yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully,
came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took
a good long look at Queequeg. 


 "How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;
"not very long, I rather guess, young man." 


 "No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either, or
it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face." 


 "Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular
member of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going
there, and I pass it every Lord's day." 


 "I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,"
said I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the
First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is." 


 "Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me-
explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean?
answer me." 


 Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, "I mean, sir,  the
same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg
there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and
soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of
this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of
us cherish some crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in
that we all join hands." 


 "Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawing
nearer. "Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of
a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon
Deuteronomy- why Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it, and he's
reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard: never mind about the
papers. I say, tell Quohog there- what's that you call him? tell
Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's got
there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it about right.
I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the
head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?" 


 Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped
upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the
whale-boats hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee,
and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:- 


 "Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him?
well, spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at
it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean
across the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of
sight. 


 "Now," said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, "spos-ee him
whale-e eye; why, dad whale dead." 


 "Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the
close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the
cabin gangway. "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's
papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our
boats. Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's
more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket." 


  So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg
was soon enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself
belonged. 


 When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything
ready for signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there
don't know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost
thou sign thy name or make thy mark? 


 But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before
taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but
taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place,
an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed
upon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake
touching his appellative, it stood something like  this:- 


                            Quohog. 


                          his X mark. Meanwhile Captain Bildad
sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising
solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his broadskirted drab
coat took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled "The
Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose," placed it in Queequeg's
hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked
earnestly into his eyes, and said, "Son of darkness, I must do my
duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for
the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan
ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a
Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn
from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness
gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!" 


 Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,
heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. 


 "Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our
harpooneer," Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers- it
takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint
pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest
boat-header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the
meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about  his
plaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for
fear of after-claps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones." 


 "Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, "thou
thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest,
Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou
prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg.
Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard
in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with
Captain Ahab, did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment
then?" 


 "Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the
cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,- "hear
him, all of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought the
ship would sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three
masts making such an everlasting thundering against the side; and
every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the
Judgment then? No! no time to think about death then. Life was what
Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands how
to rig jury-masts how to get into the nearest port; that was what
I was thinking of." 


 Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,
where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking
some sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and
then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine,
which otherwise might have been wasted. 


 CHAPTER 19 


 The Prophet  


 "Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?" 


 Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering
from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts,
when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing
before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in
question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and
patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck.
A confluent  smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face,
and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the
rushing waters have been dried up. 


 "Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated. 


 "You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain a
little more time for an uninterrupted look at him. 


 "Aye, the Pequod- that ship there," he said, drawing back his
whole arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, with
the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. 


 "Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles." 


 "Anything down there about your souls?" 


 "About what?" 


 "Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter
though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,- good luck to 'em;
and they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth
wheel to a wagon." 


 "What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I. 


 "He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of
that sort in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger, placing a
nervous emphasis upon the word he. 


 "Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from
somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't
know." 


 "Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true- ye hav'n't seen Old
Thunder yet, have ye?" 


 "Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane
earnestness of his manner. 


 "Captain Ahab." 


 "What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?" 


 "Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name.
Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?" 


 "No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and
will be all right again before long." 


 "All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a
solemnly derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all
right, then this left arm of mine will be all right; not before." 


 "What do you know about him?" 


 "What did they tell you about him? Say that!" 


 "They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard
that he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew." 


 "That's true, that's true- yes, both true enough. But you  must
jump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go- that's
the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that
happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for
three days and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the
Spaniard afore the altar in Santa?- heard nothing about that, eh?
Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about
his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't
ye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, I
don't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket,
I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, and
how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes,
that every one knows a'most- I mean they know he's only one leg;
and that a parmacetti took the other off." 


 "My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about,
I don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you
must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of
Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you,
that I know all about the loss of his leg." 


 "All about it, eh- sure you do? all? 


 "Pretty sure." 


 With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the
beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie;
then starting a little, turned and said:- "Ye've shipped, have ye?
Names down on the papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and
what's to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won't be, after
all. Any how, it's all fixed and arranged already; and some sailors
or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other
men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable
heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped ye." 


 "Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important to
tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us,
you are mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say." 


 "And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that
way; you are just the man for him- the likes of ye. Morning  to ye,
shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded
not to make one of 'em." 


 "Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way- you can't fool
us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he
had a great secret in him." 


 "Morning to ye, shipmates, morning." 


 "Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this
crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?" 


 "Elijah." 


 Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after
each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that
he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not
gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner,
and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah
following us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him
struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind,
but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger
would turn the same corner that we did. He did; and then it seemed
to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not for
the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his
ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now
begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions,
and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he
had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and what
Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day
previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage we
had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things. 


 I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was
really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with
Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah
passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once
more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart,
a humbug. 


 CHAPTER 20 


 All Astir  


  A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the
Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails
were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in
short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were
hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but
sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad
did all the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the men
employed in the hold and on the rigging were working till long
after night-fall. 


 On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was
given at all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that
their chests must be on board before night, for there was no
telling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got
down our traps, resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last.
But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, and
the ship did not sail for several days. But no wonder; there was a
good deal to be done, and there is no telling how many things to be
thought of, before the Pequod was fully equipped. 


 Every one knows what a multitude of things- beds, sauce-pans,
knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and
what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just
so with whaling, which necessitates a three-years' housekeeping
upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors,
bakers, and bankers. And though this also holds true of merchant
vessels, yet not by any means to the same extent as with whalemen.
For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerous
articles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and the
impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors usually
frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling
vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and
especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon
which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare
boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare
everythings, almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate  ship. 


 At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage
of the Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef,
bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before
hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying
on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small. 


 Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain
Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and
indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed
resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found
wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one
time she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the
steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills for the chief
mate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a roll of
flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did any
woman better deserve her name, which was Charity- Aunt Charity, as
everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this
charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to
turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety,
comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her
beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself
owned a score or two of well-saved dollars. 


 But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress
coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in
one hand, and still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was
Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he
carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at
every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon
the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his
whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to
the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back
into his wigwam. 


 During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited
the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was,
and 


when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions
they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was
expected aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and
Bildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for
the voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I would
have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being
committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes
on the man who was to be absolute dictator of it, so soon as the
ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any
wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the
matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from
himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and
tried to think nothing. 


 At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would
certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early
start. 


 CHAPTER 21 


 Going Aboard  


 It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn,
when we drew nigh the wharf. 


 "There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,"
said I to Queequeg, "it can't be shadow; she's off by sunrise, I
guess; come on!" 


 "Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming
close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then
insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in
the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It
was Elijah. 


 "Going aboard?" 


 "Hands off, will you," said I. 


 "Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!" 


 "Aint going aboard, then?" 


 "Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours? Do
you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?" 


 "No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and
wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most 
unaccountable glances. 


 "Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by
withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and
would prefer not to be detained." 


 "Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?" 


 "He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on." 


 "Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had
removed a few paces. 


 "Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on." 


 But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on
my shoulder, said- "Did ye see anything looking like men going
towards that ship a while ago?" 


 Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered,
saying, "Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too
dim to be sure." 


 "Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye." 


 Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us;
and touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find 'em now,
will ye? 


 "Find who?" 


 "Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off.
"Oh! I was going to warn ye against- but never mind, never mind-
it's all one, all in the family too;- sharp frost this morning,
ain't it? Good-bye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess;
unless it's before the Grand Jury." And with these cracked words he
finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small
wonderment at his frantic impudence. 


 At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in
profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked
within; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of
rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the
scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old
rigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at
whole length upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in
his folded arms. The profoundest slumber slept upon him. 


 "Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?" 


said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that,
when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now
alluded to; hence I would have thought myself to have been
optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah's
otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down; and
again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that
perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish
himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as
though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado,
sat quietly down there. 


 "Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there," said I. 


 "Oh; perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way; won't
hurt him face." 


 "Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenance
then; but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off,
Queequeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get
off, Queequeg! Look, he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't
wake." 


 Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper,
and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe
passing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon
questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to
understand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees and
sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally,
were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for
ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you
had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them around
in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an
excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are
convertible into walking sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his
attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a
spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. 


 While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the 


tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the
sleeper's head. 


 "What's that for, Queequeg?" 


 "Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy! 


 He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-
pipe which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes
and soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the
sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now completely filling the
contracted hole, it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort
of muffledness; then seemed troubled in the nose; then revolved
over once or twice; then sat up and rubbed his eyes. 


 "Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smokers?" 


 "Shipped men," answered I, "when does she sail?" 


 "Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The
Captain came aboard last night." 


 "What Captain?- Ahab?" 


 "Who but him indeed?" 


 I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab,
when we heard a noise on deck. 


 "Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a lively
chief mate that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must
turn to." And so saying he went on deck, and we followed. 


 It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos
and threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were
actively engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in
bringing various last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab
remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin. 


 CHAPTER 22 


 Merry Christmas  


 At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's
riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf,
and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat,
with her last gift- a nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, her
brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward- after all this,
the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and
turning to the chief mate, Peleg said: 


 "Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain
Ahab 


is all ready- just spoke to him- nothing more to be got from
shore, eh? Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here- blast
'em!" 


 "No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg," said
Bildad, "but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding." 


 How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage,
Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on
the quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at
sea, as well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain
Ahab, no sign of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in
the cabin. But then, the idea was, that his presence was by no
means necessary in getting the ship under weigh, and steering her
well out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all his proper
business, but the pilot's; and as he was not yet completely
recovered- so they said- therefore, Captain Ahab stayed below. And
all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the merchant
service many captains never show themselves on deck for a
considerable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the
cabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shore
friends, before they quit the ship for good with the pilot. 


 But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for
Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the
talking and commanding, and not Bildad. 


 "Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors
lingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive aft." 


 "Strike the tent there!"- was the next order. As I hinted
before, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port;
and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the
tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. 


 "Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!- jump!"- was the next
command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes. 


 Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by
the pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who,
with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers, was one
of the licensed pilots of the port- he being suspected to have got
himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket  pilot-fee to
all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other
craft- Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking
over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing
what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the
windlass, who roared forth some sort of chorus about the girls in
Booble Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days
previous, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be
allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh;
and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in
each seaman's berth. 


 Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg
ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost
thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up;
involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the
same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage
with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however,
with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some
salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; when
I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was
horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the art of
withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first
kick. 


 "Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared.
"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't
ye spring, I say, all of ye- spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with
the red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green
pants. Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And so
saying, he moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg
very freely, while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his
psalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something
to-day. 


 At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we
glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern
day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the
wintry ocean, whose 


freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long
rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like
the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles
depended from the bows. 


 Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and
anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the
shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage
rang, his steady notes were heard,-  


            "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, 


               Stand dressed in living green. 


             So to the Jews old Canaan stood, 


               While Jordan rolled between."  


 Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then.
They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter
night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter
jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven
in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass
shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. 


 At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were
needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began
ranging alongside. 


 It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were
affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to
depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long
and perilous a voyage- beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which
some thousands of his hardearned dollars were invested; a ship, in
which an old shipmate sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he,
once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitiless
jaw; loath to say good-bye to a thing so every way brimful of every
interest to him,- poor old Bildad lingered long; paced the deck
with anxious strides; ran down into the cabin to speak another
farewell word there; again came on deck, and looked to windward;
looked towards the wide and endless waters, only bound by the
far-off  unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards the land; looked
aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere and nowhere; and at
last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively
grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a
moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say,
"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can." 


 As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but
for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when
the lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from
the cabin to deck- now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck,
the chief mate. 


 But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of
look about him,- "Captain Bildad- come, old shipmate, we must go.
Back the mainyard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close
alongside, now! Careful, careful!- come, Bildad, boy- say your
last. Luck to ye, Starbuck- luck to ye, Mr. Stubb- luck to ye, Mr.
Flask- good-bye and good luck to ye all- and this day three years
I'll have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and
away!" 


 "God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmured
old Bildad, almost incoherently. "I hope ye'll have fine weather
now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye- a pleasant
sun is all he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic
voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the
boats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised
full three per cent within the year. Don't forget your prayers,
either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste the spare
staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in the green locker. Don't whale
it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't miss a fair chance
either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an eye to the
molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye
touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye,
good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr.
Starbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the 


butter- twenty cents the pound it was, and mind ye, if--" 


 "Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,- away!" and with
that, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the
boat. 


 Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew
between; a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly
rolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged
like fate into the lone Atlantic. 


 CHAPTER 23 


 The Lee Shore  


 Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall,
newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. 


 When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her
vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see
standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe
and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a
four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again
for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to
his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep
memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless
grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with
the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward
land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the
port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets,
friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the
port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all
hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would
make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds
all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that
fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's
landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril;
her only friend her bitterest foe! 


 Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that
mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but
the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of
her sea;  while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to
cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? 


 But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,
indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howling
infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that
were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to
land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take
heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from
the spray of thy ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thy
apotheosis! 


 CHAPTER 24 


 The Advocate  


 As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of
whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be
regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable
pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen,
of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales. 


 In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to
establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of
whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the
liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any
miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance
the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the company
as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the naval officers he
should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his
visting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminently
presuming and ridiculous. 


 Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us
whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts
to a butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged
therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers
we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the
bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world
invariably delights to honor. And as for the matter of the alleged
uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into
certain 


facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, upon the
whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship at least among
the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the
charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery decks of a
whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those
battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all
ladies' plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the
popular conceit of the soldier's profession; let me assure ye that
many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would
quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale's vast tail,
fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the
comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors
and wonders of God! 


 But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it
unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding
adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn
round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! 


 But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts
of scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. 


 Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their
whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personal
expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to
that town some score or two of families from our own island of
Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to
her whalemen in bounties upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how
comes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest of
the banded whalemen in the world; sail a navy of upwards of seven
hundred vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming
4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, at the time of sailing,
$20,000,000! and every year importing into our harbors a well
reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not
something puissant in whaling? 


 But this is not the half; look again. 


  I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for
his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the
last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad
world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of
whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable
in themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential
issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother,
who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be
a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a
handful suffice. For many years past the whale-ship has been the
pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the
earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart,
where no Cooke or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and
European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let
them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the whale-ship, which
originally showed them the way, and first interpreted between them
and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of
Exploring Expeditions, your Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I say
that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket,
that were as great, and greater, than your Cooke and your
Krusenstern. For in their succorless empty-handedness, they, in the
heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded,
javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cooke
with all his marines and muskets would not have willingly dared.
All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages,
those things were but the life-time commonplaces of our heroic
Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three
chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the
ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world! 


 Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but
colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on
between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces
on the Pacific coast. It was the whalemen who first broke through
the  jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies;
and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from
those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili,
and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of
the eternal democracy in those parts. 


 That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia,
was given to the enlightened world by whaleman. After its first
blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunned
those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched
there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony.
Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the
emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the
benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in
their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same
truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the
way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried
the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that
double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the
whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is
on the threshold. 


 But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling
has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am
I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with
a split helmet every time. 


 The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous
chronicler, you will say. 


 The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler?
Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job?
And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but
no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal
pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of
those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament?
Who, but Edmund Burke! 


  True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they
have no good blood in their veins. 


 No good blood in their veins? They have something better than
royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary
Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old
settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers
and harpooneers- all kith and kin to noble Benjamin- this day
darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. 


 Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not
respectable. 


 Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English
statutory law, the whale is declared "a royal fish." 


 Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in
any grand imposing way. 


 The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the
mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the
world's capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the
Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed
procession.*  


 *See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.  


 Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is no
real dignity in whaling. 


 No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very
heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south! No more!
Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to
Queequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime has taken
three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable
than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many
walled towns. 


 And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real
repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be
unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything upon
the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone;
if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find 
any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all
the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale
College and my Harvard. 


 CHAPTER 25 


 Postscript  


 In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught
but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an
advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise,
which might tell eloquently upon his cause- such an advocate, would
he not be blame-worthy? 


 It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,
even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for
their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so
called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,
precisely- who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is
solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it
be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior
run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,
concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in
common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who
anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth,
a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man has
probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he
can't amount to much in his totality. 


 But the only thing to be considered here is this- what kind of
oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor
macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor
cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in
its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? 


 Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings
and queens with coronation stuff! 


 CHAPTER 26 


 Knights and Squires  


 The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of 
Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and
though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot
latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported
to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He
must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or
upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only
some thirty and summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all
his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak,
seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it
seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the
condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the
contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely
wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like
a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for
long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar
snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior
vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his
eves, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those
thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A
staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling
pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all
his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in
him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to
overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman,
and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery
loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to
superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some
organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence
than from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were
his. And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul,
much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife
and child, tend to bend him still more from the original 
ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those
latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the
gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more
perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my
boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he
seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage
was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered
peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous
comrade than a coward. 


 "Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Starbuck, there, is as
careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery." But we
shall ere long see what that word "careful" precisely means when
used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. 


 Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a
sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand
upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought,
perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the
great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and
not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering
for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish
that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I
am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and
not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had
been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father's?
Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his
brother? 


 With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a
certain superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this
Starbuck, which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed
have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a man
so organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrances
as he had; it was not in nature that these things should fail in
latently engendering an element in him, which, under suitable
circumstances, would break out from its confinement, and burn all
his courage up. And brave as he might be, it was that sort of
bravery chiefly,  visible in some intrepid men, which, while
generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or
whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet
cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual
terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of
an enraged and mighty man. 


 But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the
complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I
have the heart to write it; but it is a thing most sorrowful, nay
shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem
detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and
murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but,
man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and
glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his
fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate
manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it
remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds
with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined
man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, completely
stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this
august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes,
but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou
shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a
spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates
without end from God; Himself! The great God absolute! The centre
and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine
equality! 


 If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I
shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave around
them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most
abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted
mounts; if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereal
light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun;
then against 


all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of
Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all
my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst
not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl;
Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold,
the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick
up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a
war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in
all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest
champions from the kingly commoners; bear me out in it, O God! 


 CHAPTER 27 


 Knights and Squires  


 Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and
hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A
happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they
came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most
imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as
a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and
careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly
encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He
was as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part of
the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box.
When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he
handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling
tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while
flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had,
for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.
What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he
ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did
chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no
doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the
watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something
which he would find out when he  obeyed the order, and not sooner. 


 What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,
unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in
a world fail of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their
packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of
his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his
short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his
face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his
bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of
pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his
hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in
succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter;
then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb
dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he
put his pipe into his mouth. 


 I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least
of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this early
air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the
nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling
it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a
camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all
mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as
a sort of disinfecting agent. 


 The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's
Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious
concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great
Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and
therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them
whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of
reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic
ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible
danger encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous
whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat,
requiring only a little circumvention  and some small application
of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant,
unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the
matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a
three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that
lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into
wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided.
Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and
last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod;
because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square
timber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means
of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace
the ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas. 


 Now these three mates- Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous
men. They was who by universal prescription commanded three of the
Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which
Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the
whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or,
being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a
picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of
javelins. 


 And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a
Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or
harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh
lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in
the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the
two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet,
that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were,
and to what headsman each of them belonged. 


 First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had
selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. 


 Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most
westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists
the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied
the 


neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring
harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of
Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek
bones, and black rounding eyes- for an Indian, Oriental in their
largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression- all this
sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of
those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England
moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the
main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the
woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of
the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the
infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his
lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions
of some of the earlier Puritans and half-believed this wild Indian
to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was
Stubb the second mate's squire. 


 Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black
negro-savage, with a lion-like tread- an Ahasuerus to behold.
Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the
sailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing the
top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily
shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native
coast. And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa,
Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by the whalemen;
and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery in
the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what manner of men they
shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a
giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in
his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and
a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg
truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro,
Ahasuerus Daggoo, was  the Squire of little Flask, who looked like
a chess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company,
be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many
thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale
fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers
are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with
the American army and military and merchant navies, and the
engineering forces employed in the construction of the American
Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases
the native American literally provides the brains, the rest of the
world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of these
whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound
Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the
hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland
whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland
Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the
passage homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is
no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were
nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not
acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living
on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one
keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz
deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the
earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world's
grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever
come back. Black Little Pip- he never did- oh, no! he went before.
Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere
long see him, beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal
time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid
strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory; called a
coward here, hailed a hero there! 


 CHAPTER 28 


 Ahab 


 


 For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches
was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other
at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary,
they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they
sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and
peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded
vicariously. Yet, their supreme lord and dictator was there, though
hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now
sacred retreat of the cabin. 


 Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I
instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face was visible; for my
first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the
seclusion of the sea became almost a perturbation. This was
strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical
incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I
could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand
them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the
solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves.
But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness- to call it
so- which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship,
it seemed against all warranty to cherish such emotions. For though
the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more
barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame
merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me
acquainted with, still I ascribed this- and rightly ascribed it- to
the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian
vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was
especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the
mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorless
misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every
presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers
and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found,
and they were  every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a
Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot
from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather,
though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by
every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually
leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather
behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and
gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the
ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of
leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at
the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance
towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality
outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. 


 There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of
the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the
stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without
consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted
aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid
bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast
Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and
continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck,
till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like
mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam
sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when
the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching
a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom
ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly
alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether
it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could
certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little
or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once
Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,
superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty 


years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon
him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife
at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what
a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never
before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon
wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial
credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural
powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously
contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be
tranquilly laid out- which might hardly come to pass, so he
muttered- then, whoever should do that last office for the dead,
would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole. 


 So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and
the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments
I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was
owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had
previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned
from the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he was
dismasted off Japan," said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but like
his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home
for it. He has a quiver of 'em." 


 I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each
side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen
shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so,
into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm
elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect,
looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There
was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate,
unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward
dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his
officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures
and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not 


painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And
not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a
crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing
dignity of some mighty woe. 


 Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his
cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the
crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory
stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less
gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less
and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home,
nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him
so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost
continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or
perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as
unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making
a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling
preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to,
so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or
excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the
clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all
clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. 


 Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the
pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him
from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April
and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the
barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send
forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted
visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful
allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the
faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon
flowered out in a smile. 


 CHAPTER 29 


 Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb  


  Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod
now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea,
almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of
the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing,
redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped
up- flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights
seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely
pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden
helmeted suns! For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such
winsome days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of
that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies
to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially
when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her
crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And
all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's
texture. 


 Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life,
the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among
sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths
to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that
now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly
speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to
the planks. "It feels like going down into one's tomb,"- he would
mutter to himself- "for an old captain like me to be descending
this narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth." 


 So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the
night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of
the band below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the
forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but
with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing
their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would
begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the
cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at
the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch
of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually
abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied 
mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such
would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step,
that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks.
But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and
as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from
taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from
below, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted
that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one
could say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise;
hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of
tow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou
didst not know Ahab then. 


 "Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad
me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy
nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to
the filling one at last.- Down, dog, and kennel!" 


 Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so
suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said
excitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but
less than half like it, sir." 


 "Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving
away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation. 


 "No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely
be called a dog, sir." 


 "Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and
begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!" 


 As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing
terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. 


 "I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for
it," muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the
cabin-scuttle. "It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't
well know whether to go back and strike him, or- what's that?- down
here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming
up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It's
queer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore and aft,
he's about the  queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he
flashed at me!- his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad! Anyway
there's something's on his mind, as sure as there must be something
on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than
three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't
that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always
finds the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and
the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into
knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked
brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some
folks ashore call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they
say- worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is,
but the Lord keep me from catching it. He's full of riddles; I
wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as
Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should like to
know? Who's made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't that
queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old game- Here goes
for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into
the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of
it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of
queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of
'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh
commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth- So here goes
again. But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called
me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that!
He might as well have kicked me, and done with me. Maybe he did
kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken aback with his
brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil's
the matter with me? I don't stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of
that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord,
I must have been dreaming, though- How? how? how?- but the only
way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; 


and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks
over by daylight." 


 CHAPTER 30 


 The Pipe  


 When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the
bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a
sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and
also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting
the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. 


 In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings
were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How
could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones,
without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of
the plank, and a king of the sea and a great lord of Leviathans was
Ahab. 


 Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his
mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his
face. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube,
"this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with
me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling,
not pleasuring- aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the
while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the
dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of
trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is
meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white
hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no
more-" 


 He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed
in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the
sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the
planks. 


 CHAPTER 31 


 Queen Mab  


 Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. 


 "Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old 


man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I
tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg
right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a
blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious,
Flask- you know how curious all dreams are- through all this rage
that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that
after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab.
'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg, only a false
one.' And there's a mighty difference between a living thump and a
dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty
times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living
member- that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I
to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes
against that cursed pyramid- so confoundedly contradictory was it
all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his
leg now, but a cane-. a whale-bone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was
only a playful cudgelling- in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave
me- not a base kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the
end of it- the foot part- what a small sort of end it is; whereas,
if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devilish broad
insult. But this insult is whittled down to a point only.' But now
comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I was battering
away at the pyramid, a sort of badger-haired old merman, with a
hump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round.
'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, but I was frightened.
Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright. 'What
am I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is that of yours,
I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?' By the
lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his
stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for
a clout- what do you think, I saw?- why thunder alive, man, his
stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I
on second thought, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise
Stubb,' said  he, 'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time,
a sort of eating of his gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't
going to stop saying over his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought
I might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only
just lifted my foot for it, when he roared out, 'Stop that
kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's the matter now, old fellow?'
'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue the insult. Captain Ahab
kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I- 'right here it was.'
'Very good,' says he- 'he used his ivory leg, didn't he?' 'Yes, he
did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, what have you to
complain of? Didn't he kick with right good will? it wasn't a
common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were kicked
by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an
honor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England
the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen,
and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast, Stubb, that ye were
kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; be
kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick
back; for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that
pyramid?' With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some
queer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and
there I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream,
Flask?" 


 "I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'" 


 "May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see
Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the
best thing you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never
speak to him, whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts?
Hark!" 


 "Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales
hereabouts! 


 If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! 


 "What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop
of something queer about that, eh? A white whale- did ye mark that,



man? Look ye- there's something special in the wind. Stand by for
it, Flask. Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he
comes this way." 


 CHAPTER 32 


 Cetology  


 Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall
be lost in its unshored harborless immensities. Ere that come to
pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the
barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to
attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative
understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and
allusions of all sorts which are to follow. 


 It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad
genera, that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy
task. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing
less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest
authorities have laid down. 


 "No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is
entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. 


 "It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the
inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups
and families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of
this animal" (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. 


 "Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters."
"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A field
strewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve to
torture us naturalists." 


 Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and
Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though
of real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty;
and so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of
whales. Many are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen
and seamen, who have at large or in little, written of the whale.
Run over a few:- The 


Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas
Browne; Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green;
Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest;
Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale;
Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and
the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all
these have written, the above cited extracts will show. 


 Of the names in this list of whale authors only those following
Owen ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real
professional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On
the separate subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the
best existing authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing
of the great sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale
is almost unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that the
Greenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is
not even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the
long priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which till
some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly
unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day still
reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports;
this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearly
all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will
satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to
them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a
new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,-
the Greenland whale is deposed,- the great sperm whale now
reigneth! 


 There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put
the living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the
remotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and
Bennett's; both in their time surgeons to the English South-Sea
whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original matter
touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is
necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellent
quality,  though mostly confined to scientific description. As yet,
however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete
in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an
unwritten life. 


 Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular
comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the
present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by
subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter
in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing
complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for
that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a
minute anatomical description of the various species, or- in this
space at least- to much of any description. My object here is
simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I
am the architect, not the builder. 


 But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the
Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the
sea after them; to have one's hands among the unspeakable
foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful
thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this
leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me. "Will he
(the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him
is vain! But I have swam through libraries and sailed through
oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible hands; I am
in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle.



 First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of
Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in
some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a
fish. In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I
hereby separate the whales from the fish." But of my own knowledge,
I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and
herring, against 


Linnaeus's express edict, were still found dividing the
possession of the same seas with the Leviathan. 


 The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the
whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their
warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, their
hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and
finally, "ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this to
my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both
messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the
opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient.
Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. 


 Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old
fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah
to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in
what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above,
Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these:
lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold
blooded. 


 Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals,
so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short,
then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you
have him. However contracted, that definition is the result of
expanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the
walrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term
of the definition is still more cogent, as coupled with the first.
Almost any one must have noticed that all the fish familiar to
landsmen have not a flat, but a vertical, or up-and-down tail.
Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarly
shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position. 


 By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means
exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto
identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor,
on the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively
regarded as alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting and 
horizontal tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of
cetology. Now, then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale
host.  


 *I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled
Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of
Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But
as these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in
the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as
they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have
presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of
Cetology.  


 First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three
primary BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall
comprehend them all, both small and large. 


 I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO
WHALE. 


 As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale; of the
OCTAVO, the Grampus; of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise. 


 FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:- I.
The Sperm Whale; II. the Right Whale; III. the Fin Back Whale; IV.
the Humpbacked Whale; V. the Razor Back Whale; VI. the Sulphur
Bottom Whale. 


 BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale).- This whale, among
the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale and the
Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot
of the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the
Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest
inhabitant of the globe; the most formidable of all whales to
encounter; the most majestic in aspect; and lastly, by far the most
valuable in commerce; he being the only creature from which that
valuable substance, spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities
will, in many other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with
his name that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it is
absurd. Some centuries ago, when the sperm whale was almost wholly
unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was only
accidentally obtained from 


the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was
popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the
one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was
the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor
of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word
literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was
exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an
ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists
as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the
course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its
original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to
enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its
scarcity. And so the appellation must at last have come to be
bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti was really
derived. 


 BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale).- In one respect this
is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first
regularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as
whalebone or baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," an
inferior article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is
indiscriminately designated by all the following titles: The Whale;
the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True
Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning the
Identity of the species thus multitudinously baptized. What then is
the whale, which I include in the second species of my Folios? It
is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the Greenland
Whale of the English whaleman; the Baliene Ordinaire of the French
whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale
which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch
and English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American
fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil
Banks, on the Nor' West Coast, and various other parts of the
world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds. 


  Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of
the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they
precisely agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet been
presented a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical
distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most
inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history
become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere
treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the sperm
whale. 


 BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (Fin-Back).- Under this head I
reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back,
Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is
commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by
passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In
the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles
the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter
color, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like
aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large
wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he
derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some
three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of
the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end.
Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible,
this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from
the surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked
with spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and
casts shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed
that the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial,
with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial
the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He
seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very shy; always
going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest
and most sullen waters; his  straight and single lofty jet rising
like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with
such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all
present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and
unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style
upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is
sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic species
denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with baleen. Of these
so-called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several
varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosed
whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales;
under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fisherman's names
for a few sorts. 


 In connexion with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is
of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature
may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales,
yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the
Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or
teeth; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very
obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular
system of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions,
which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then? The baleen,
hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose peculiarities are
indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, without any
record to what may be the nature of their structure in other and
more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the
humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases.
Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of
these has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is
just the same with the other parts above mentioned. In various
sorts of whales, they form such irregular combinations; or, in the
case of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation; as
utterly to defy all general methodization 


formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the
whale-naturalists has split. 


 But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of
the whale, in his anatomy- there, at least, we shall be able to hit
the right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in
the Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we
have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify
the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the
various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a
fiftieth part as available to the systematizer as those external
ones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take
hold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and
boldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical system
here adopted; and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for
it alone is practicable. To proceed. 


 BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back).- This whale is often
seen on the northern American coast. He has been frequently
captured there, and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him
like a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castle
whale. At any rate, the popular name for him does not sufficiently
distinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump though a
smaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the
most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay
foam and white water generally than any other of them. 


 BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razar Back).- Of this whale little
is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn.
Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers.
Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his
back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little
more of him, nor does anybody else. 


 BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).- Another retiring
gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along
the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom
seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter 
southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his
countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks
of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can
say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest
Nantucketer. 


 Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo). 


 OCTAVOES.* These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among
which present may be numbered:- I., the Grampus; II., the Black
Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer.  


 *Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very
plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than
those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate
likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in
its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio
volume, but the Octavo volume does.  


 BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).- Though this fish,
whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a
proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is
he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand
distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have
recognised him for one. He is of moderate octave size, varying from
fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding
dimensions round the waist. He swims in herds; he is never
regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, and
pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is regarded
as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. 


 BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish).- I give the popular
fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the
best. Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall
say so, and suggest another. I do so now touching the Black Fish,
so called because blackness is the rule among almost all whales.
So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well
known  and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips
are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin
on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in
length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way
of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something
like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm
whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the
supply of cheap oil for domestic employment- as some frugal
housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by
themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though
their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you
upwards of thirty gallons of oil. 


 BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril
whale.- Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I
suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a
peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its
horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to
fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened
tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from
the horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which
has an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the
aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What precise purpose this ivory
horn or lance answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem to
be used like the blade of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though some
sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning
over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was
used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of
the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn
up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these
surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this
one-sided horn may really be used by the Narwhale- however that may
be- it would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in
reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard 


called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale.
He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in
almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered
old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn was
in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and
as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also
distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies the same way that
the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn.
Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity.
Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from
that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand
to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed
down the Thames; "when Sir Martin returned from that voyage," saith
Black Letter, "on bended knees he presented to her highness a
prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after
hung in the castle at Windsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl
of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness
another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature. 


 The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of
a milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of
black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is
little of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the
circumpolar seas. 


 BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).- Of this whale little
is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the
professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance,
I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very
savage- a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio
whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty
brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never
heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name
bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For
we are  all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks
included. 


 BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).- This gentleman is
famous for his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his
foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works
his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the
world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher
than of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. 


 Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III, (Duodecimo.) 


 DUODECIMOES.- These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza
Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed
Porpoise. 


 To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it
may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four
or five feet should be marshalled among WHALES- a word, which, in
the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the
creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by
the terms of my definition of what a whale is- i.e. a spouting
fish, with a horizontal tail. 


 BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise).- This is the
common porpoise found all over the globe. The name is of my own
bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and
something must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus,
because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad
sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July
crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the
mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy
billows to windward. They are the lads that always live before the
wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can
withstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then
heaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A
well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon of
good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jaws
is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among jewellers and
watchmakers. Sailors put  in on their hones. Porpoise meat is good
eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a porpoise
spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readily
discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and
you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. 


 BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise).- A
pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He
is somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same
general make. Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have
lowered for him many times, but never yet saw him captured. 


 BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise).-
The largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far
as it is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto
been designated, is that of the fisher- Right-Whale Porpoise, from
the circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that
Folio. In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise,
being of a less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a
neat and gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most
other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian
eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils him. Though his
entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a
boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the
"bright waist," that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two
separate colors, black above and white below. The white comprises
part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look
as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A
most mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common
porpoise.  


 Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as
the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the
Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,
half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by 


reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their
fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable
to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but
begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught
and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System,
according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:- The
Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the
Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale;
the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog
Whale; the Blue Whale; &c. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English
authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales,
blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as
altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere
sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. 


 Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not
be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I
have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing
thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left,
with the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted
tower. For small erections may be finished by their first
architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to
posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole
book is but a draught- nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time,
Strength, Cash, and Patience! 


 CHAPTER 33 


 The Specksynder  


 Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good
a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on
ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of
officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the
whale-fleet. 


 The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is
evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two
centuries and more ago, the command of a whale-ship was not wholly
lodged in the person now called the captain, but was divided 
between him and an officer called the Specksynder. Literally this
word means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalent
to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the captain's authority was
restricted to the navigation and general management of the vessel;
while over the whale-hunting department and all its concerns, the
Specksynder or Chief Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British
Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this
old Dutch official is still retained, but his former dignity is
sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer;
and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns.
Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the
success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the
American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat,
but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground)
the command of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the grand
political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live
apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way
distinguished as their professional superior; though always, by
them, familiarly regarded as their social equal. 


 Now, the grand distinction between officer and man at sea, is
this- the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships
and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the
captain; and so, too, in most of the American whalers the
harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is to
say, they take their meals in the captain's cabin, and sleep in a
place indirectly communicating with it. 


 Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the
longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar
perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing among a
company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, not
upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck, together with their
common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work; though all these 
things do in some cases tend to beget a less rigorous discipline
than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind how much like an old
Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitive
instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious externals,
at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and in
no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in
which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an
elated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting
almost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple,
and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth. 


 And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the
least given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the
only homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience;
though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere
stepping upon the quarter-deck; and though there were times when,
owing to peculiar circumstances connected with events hereafter to
be detailed, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether of
condescension or in terrorem, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab
was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of
the sea. 


 Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that
behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked
himself; incidentally making use of them for other and more private
ends than they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain
sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree
remained unmanifested; through those forms that same sultanism
became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man's
intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the
practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of
some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in
themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever
keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings;
and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men
who become famous more through their  infinite inferiority to the
choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their
undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large
virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political
superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to
idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the
case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire
encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased
before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic
dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest
sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so
important in his art, as the one now alluded to. 


 But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket
grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and
Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old
whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical
trappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand
in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for
in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air! 


 CHAPTER 34 


 The Cabin-Table  


 It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale
loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his
lord and master who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been
taking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the
latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that
daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete
inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not
heard his menial. But presently, catching hold of the mizen
shrouds, he swings himself to the deck, and in an even,
unexhilarated voice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck," disappears
into the cabin. 


 When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and
Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is 
seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns
along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says,
with some touch of pleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends
the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and
then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all
right with that important rope, he likewise takes up the old
burden, and with a rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows after his
predecessors. 


 But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the
quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint;
for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions,
and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless
squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by
a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a
shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains
visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing
up the rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin doorway
below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then,
independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, in
the character of Abjectus, or the Slave. 


 It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the
deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly
and defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let
those very officers the next moment go down to their customary
dinner in that same commander's cabin, and straightway their
inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as
he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes
most comical. Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To
have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar,
not haughtily but courteously, therein certainly must have been
some touch of mundane grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and
intelligent spirit presides over his own private dinner-table of
invited  guests, that man's unchallenged power and dominion of
individual influence for the time; that man's royalty of state
transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who
has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar.
It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding.
Now, if to this consideration you super-add the official supremacy
of a ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of
that peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. 


 Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned
sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-like but
still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited
to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in
Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With
one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife,
as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for
the world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest
observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And
when reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice of
beef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards
him, the mate received his meat as though receiving alms; and cut
it tenderly; and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazed
against the plate; and chewed it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not
without circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet at
Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly dines with the seven
imperial electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals,
eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade not
conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to
choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below.
And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of
this weary family party. His were the shin-bones of the saline
beef; his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have
presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount
to larceny in the first degree. Had 


he helped himself at the table, doubtless, never more would he
have been able to hold his head up in this honest world;
nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask
helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed
it. Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter.
Whether he thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on
account of its clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he
deemed that, on so long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter
was at a premium, and therefore was not for him, a subaltern;
however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man! 


 Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and
Flask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was
badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the
start of him; and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in
the rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask,
happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms of
concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will not
get more than three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holy
usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that
Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen to
the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never known what
it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate
did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him.
Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from
my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of
old-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was
before the mast. There's the fruit of promotion now; there's the
vanity of glory: there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were
so that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in
Flask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to
obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime, and get a peep
at Flask 


through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered
before awful Ahab. 


 Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the
first table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking
place in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was
cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid
steward. And then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast,
they being its residuary legatees. They made a sort of temporary
servants' hall of the high and mighty cabin. 


 In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and
nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the
entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of
those inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the
mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws,
the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that there was
a report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their bellies
like Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such portentous
appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies
made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to
bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the
solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with
a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way
of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise.
And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy's
memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a
great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began
laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally
a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced
steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And
what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and
the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages,
Dough-Boy's whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly,
after seeing the 


harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he would
escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and
fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all
was over. 


 It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,
opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's; crosswise to them, Daggoo
seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his
hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his
colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an
African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, the
great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. It
seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls
he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial,
and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong
and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his
dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by
beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he
had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating- an ugly sound
enough- so much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to
see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And
when he would hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself,
that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all but
shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his
sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the
harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other
weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would
ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at
all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget that
in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been
guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretion. Alas! Dough-Boy!
hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin
should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to
his great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and
depart; to his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial
bones jingling in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars  in
scabbards. 


 But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally
lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits,
they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before
sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their own peculiar
quarters. 


 In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American
whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that
by rights the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by
courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there.
So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod
might more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in
it. For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor
enters a house; turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned out
the next; and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nor
did they lose much hereby; in the cabin was no companionship;
socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally included in the
census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the
world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri.
And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the
woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the
winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling
old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there
fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom! 


 CHAPTER 35 


 The Mast-Head  


 It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation
with the other seamen my first mast-head came round. 


 In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost
simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she
may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her
proper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years'
voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her- say, an
empty 


vial even- then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last! and
not till her skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port,
does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale
more. 


 Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat,
is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure
expatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads
were the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none
prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel,
must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest
mast-head in all Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck
was put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to
have gone by the board, in the dread gale of God's wrath;
therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the
Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast-head
standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among
archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for
astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the
peculiar stairlike formation of all four sides of those edifices;
whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old
astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new
stars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail,
or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous
Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar
in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its
summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we
have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads;
who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain,
hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to the last,
literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads we
have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who,
though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely
incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any
strange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column
of  Vendome stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty
feet in the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below, whether
Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington,
too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and
like one of Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of human
grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on
a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar Square;
and even when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet
given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, must
be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson,
will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to
befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they
gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate
through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and
what rocks must be shunned. 


 It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head
standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is
not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole
historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells
us, that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were
regularly launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that
island erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the
look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go
upstairs in a hen-house. A few years ago this same plan was adopted
by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game,
gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But this
custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the one proper
mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads are
kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their
regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two
hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly
pleasant the mast-head: nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is
delightful. There you  stand, a hundred feet above the silent
decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic
stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim
the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between
the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand,
lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but
the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade
winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most
part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests
you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling
accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary
excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt
securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of
what you shall have for dinner- for all your meals for three years
and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is
immutable. 


 In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four
years' voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you
spend at the mast-head would amount to several entire months. And
it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote so
considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life,
should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy
inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of
feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry
box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug
contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your most
usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you
stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen)
called the t' gallant crosstrees. Here, tossed about by the sea,
the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's
horns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft
with you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the
thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than 


the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy
tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out
of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant
pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not
so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin
encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your
body, and no more can you make a convenience closet of your
watch-coat. 


 Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the
mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those
enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the
look-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement
weather of the frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of Captain
Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the
Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost
Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;" in this admirable volume, all
standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly
circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-nest of
the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. He
called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he being
the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous
false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after
our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and
patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any
other apparatus we may beret. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is
something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however,
where it is furnished with a movable sidescreen to keep to windward
of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast,
you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On
the after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is a
comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas,
comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keep
your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical
conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his  mast-head in
this crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle
with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and
shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or
vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot
successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of
the water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing.
Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe,
as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of his
crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and
though he treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments
in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for the
purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called
the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable
to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in
the Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many
broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the
Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his
learned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and
"approximate errors," he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he
was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as
to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished
little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow's
nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I
greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learned
Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly
ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend and
comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded
head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's
nest within three or four perches of the pole. 


 But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft
as Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage
is greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of
those 


seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one,
I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top
to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might
find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a
lazy leg over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the
watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination. 


 Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I
kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in
me, how could I- being left completely to myself at such a
thought-engendering altitude- how could I but lightly hold my
obligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders, "Keep your
weather eye open, and sing out every time." 


 And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners
of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any
lad with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable
meditativeness; and who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of
Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say: your whales
must be seen before they can be killed; and this sunken-eyed young
Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make
you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these monitions at all
unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for
many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted
with the corking care of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and
blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon the
mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and in moody
phrase  ejaculates:-  


    "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! 


     Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain."  Very
often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young
philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient
"interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly
lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret 


souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in
vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is
imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the
visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home. 


 "Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads,
"we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not
raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou
art up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been
shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an
opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this
absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts,
that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his
feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul,
pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen,
gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered,
uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the
embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by
continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit
ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and
space; like Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last
a part of every shore the round globe over. 


 There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted
by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the
sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this
dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at
all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian
vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather,
with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent
air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye
Pantheists! 


 CHAPTER 36 


 The Quarter-Deck  


 (Enter Ahab: Then, all) 


 


 It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one
morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended
the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk
at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few
turns in the garden. 


 Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced
his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they
were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar
mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and
dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints-
the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. 


 But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even
as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full
of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made,
now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see
that thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced;
so completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the
inward mould of every outer movement. 


 "D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in
him pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out." 


 The hours wore on;- Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon,
pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his
aspect. 


 It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the
bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and
with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send
everybody aft. 


 "Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never
given on ship-board except in some extraordinary case. 


 "Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come
down!" 


 When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious
and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked
not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab,
after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes



among the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not a
soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent
head and half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the
wondering whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered
to Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose
of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long.
Vehemently pausing, he cried:- 


 "What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?" 


 "Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of
clubbed voices. 


 "Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing
the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so
magnetically thrown them. 


 "And what do ye next, men?" 


 "Lower away, and after him!" 


 "And what tune is it ye pull to, men?" 


 "A dead whale or a stove boat!" 


 More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew
the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners
began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was
that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly
purposeless questions. 


 But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving
in his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and
tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:- 


 "All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about
a white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"-
holding up a broad bright coin to the sun- "it is a sixteen dollar
piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul." 


 While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking,
was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket,
as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was
meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely
muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of
the wheels of his vitality in him. 


 Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the 


main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the
gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming:
"Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled
brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed
whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye,
whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this
gold ounce, my boys!" 


 "Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins
they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. 


 "It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the
topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp
for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out." 


 All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with
even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the
mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if
each was separately touched by some specific recollection. 


 "Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the
same that some call Moby Dick." 


 "Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then,
Tash?" 


 "Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"
said the Gay-Header deliberately. 


 "And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,
even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?" 


 "And he have one, two, three- oh! good many iron in him hide,
too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee
be-twisk, like him- him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing
his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle- "like him-
him-" 


 "Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all
twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one,
like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket
wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he
fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it
is Moby Dick ye have seen- Moby Dick- Moby Dick!" 


 "Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had
thus 


far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at
last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the
wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was not
Moby Dick that took off thy leg?" 


 "Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck;
aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me;
Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye,
aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a
heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale
that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a
day!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he
shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and
round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round
perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have
shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land,
and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls
fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think
ye do look brave." 


 "Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer
to the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp
lance for Moby Dick!" 


 "God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God bless
ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's
this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white
whale! art not game for Moby Dick?" 


 "I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,
Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we
follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's
vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if
thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our
Nantucket market." 


 "Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou
requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man,
and the accountants have computed their great counting-house the
globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an
inch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great
premium here!" 


  "He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for?
methinks it rings most vast, but hollow." 


 "Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote
thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb
thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." 


 "Hark ye yet again- the little lower layer. All visible objects,
man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the living
act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning
thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the
unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! How
can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the
wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.
Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks
me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an
inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly
what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale
principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of
blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the
sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort
of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not
my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath
no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends'
glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my
heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is
said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom
warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it
go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn- living,
breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards- the
unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give
no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew!
Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale?
See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it.
Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling 


cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help
strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From
this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket,
surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched
a whetstone. Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts
thee! Speak, but speak!- Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices
thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has
inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me
now, without rebellion." 


 "God keep me!- keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly. 


 But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate,
Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh
from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the
cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as
for a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast
eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean
laugh died away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship
heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why
stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than
warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as
verifications of the fore-going things within. For with little
external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being,
these still drive us on. 


 "The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab. 


 Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers,
he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before
him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his
three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of
the ship's company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an
instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild
eyes met his, as the bloodshot eves of the prairie wolves meet the
eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of
the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the
Indian. 


 "Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged  flagon to
the nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it,
round! Short draughts- long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's
hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks
out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That
way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me- here's a hollow! Men,
ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward,
refill! 


 "Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this
capstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye
harpooneers, stand there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners,
ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of my
fishermen fathers before me. O men, you will yet see that- Ha! boy,
come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this
pewter had run brimming again, wert not thou St. Vitus' imp- away,
thou ague! 


 "Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done!
Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped
the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so
doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile glancing
intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as
though, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have
shocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the
Leyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed before
his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked
sideways from him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright. 


 "In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three
but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing,
that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have
dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye
mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen
there- yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant
harpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the
feet of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! 


your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order
ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye
harpooneers!" 


 Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with
the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long,
held, barbs up, before him. 


 "Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over!
know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye
cup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I
fill!" Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he
brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. 


 "Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices!
Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble
league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now
waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye
men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow- Death to Moby Dick! God
hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!" The long,
barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictions
against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed
down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once
more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds among the
frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all
dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin. 


 CHAPTER 37 


 Sunset  


The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing
out.  


 I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,
where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my
track; let them; but first I pass. 


 Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like
wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun- slow dived from
noon- goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless
hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of
Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer,  see not
its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that
dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron- that I know- not gold. 'Tis split,
too- that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to
beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that
needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! 


 Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly
spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it
lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er
enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying
power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the
midst of Paradise! Good night-good night! (waving his hand, he
moves from the window.) 


 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the
least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,
and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of
powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that
to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've
dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me
mad- Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That
wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy
was that I should be dismembered; and- Aye! I lost this leg. I now
prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the
prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods,
ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye
pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as
schoolboys do to bullies- Take some one of your own size; don't
pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye
have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I
have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come
and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else
ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my
fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved
to run. Over unsounded gorges,  through the rifled hearts of
mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an
obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! 


 CHAPTER 38 


 Dusk  


 By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it.  


 My soul is more than matched; she's over-manned; and by a
madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such
a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of
me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to
it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me
with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over
him, he cries;- aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how
he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,-
to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For
in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.
Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the
round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its
glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I
would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock's run
down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift
again.  


 [A burst of revelry from the forecastle.]  


 Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch
of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.
The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies!
that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks
it pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the
gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it,
where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead
water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings.
The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the 
watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and
held to knowledge,- as wild, untutored things are forced to feed-
Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but
'tis not me! that horror's out of me, and with the soft feeling of
the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom
futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! 


 CHAPTER 39 


 First Night Watch  


 (Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)  


 Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!- I've been thinking over
it ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so?
Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer;
and come what will, one comfort's always left- that unfailing
comfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with
Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I
the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too.
I twigged it, knew it; had the gift, might readily have prophesied
it- for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb,
wise Stubb- that's my title- well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's
a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it
will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in
all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my
juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?- Giving
a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a
frigate's pennant, and so am I- fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh-  


        We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, 


          To love, as gay and fleeting 


        As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, 


          And break on the lips while meeting.  


 A brave stave that- who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir-
(Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.-
Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job- coming. 


  CHAPTER 40 


 Midnight, Forecastle  


                  HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS 


 (Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging,
leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)  


         Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! 


         Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! 


                  Our captain's commanded.-  


                   1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR 


 Oh, boys, don't be sentimental. it's bad for the digestion! Take
a tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow) 


          Our captain stood upon the deck, 


            A spy-glass in his hand, 


          A viewing of those gallant whales 


            That blew at every strand. 


          Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, 


            And by your braces stand, 


          And we'll have one of those fine whales, 


            Hand, boys, over hand! 


     So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! 


     While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!  


             MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK 


 Eight bells there, forward!  


                    2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR 


 Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy? Strike
the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the
watch. I've the sort of mouth for that- the hogshead mouth. So, so,
(thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!
Eight bells there below! Tumble up!  


                      DUTCH SAILOR 


 Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark this
in our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as
filliping to others. We sing; they sleep- aye, lie down there, like
ground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and
hail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lassies.
Tell 'em it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come
to judgment. That's the way- that's it; thy throat ain't spoiled
with eating Amsterdam butter.  


                       FRENCH SAILOR 


 Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in
Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all
legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!  


                  PIP (Sulky and sleepy) 


 Don't know where it is.  


                      FRENCH SAILOR 


 Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say;
merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now,
Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!
Legs! legs!  


                      ICELAND SAILOR 


 I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste. I'm
used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject;
but excuse me.  


                      MALTESE SAILOR 


 Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his left
hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I
must have partners!  


                      SICILIAN SAILOR 


 Aye; girls and a green!- then I'll hop with ye; yea, turn
grasshopper!  


                     LONG-ISLAND SAILOR 


 Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when
you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the
music; now for it!  AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the
tambourine up the scuttle.) 


 Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits; up you mount!
Now, boys! 


 (The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some
sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)  


                   AZORE SAILOR (Dancing) 


 Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,
bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!  


                            PIP 


 Jinglers, you say?- there goes another, dropped off; I  pound it
so.  


                         CHINA SAILOR 


 Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of
thyself.   


                         FRENCH SAILOR 


 Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split
jibs! tear yourself!  


                   TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking) 


 That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat. 



                        OLD MANX SAILOR 


 I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are
dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will- that's the
bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round
corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the
green-skulled crews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball,
as you scholars have it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of
it. Dance on, lads, you're young; I was once.  


                      3D NANTUCKET SAILOR 


 Spell oh!- whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a
calm- give a whiff, Tash. 


 (They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens- the wind rises.)  


                         LASCAR SAILOR 


 By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born,
high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow,
Seeva!  


         MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking his cap) 


 It's the waves- the snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll
shake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then
I'd go drown, and chassee with them evermore! There's naught so
sweet on earth- heaven may not match it!- as those swift glances of
warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide
such ripe, bursting grapes.  


                   SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining) 


 Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad- fleet interlacings of the
limbs- 


lithe swayings- coyings- flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)  


                TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat) 


 Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!- the Heeva-Heeva! Ah!
low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the
soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green the
first day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!-
not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted
to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee's peak of
spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages?- The
blast, the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.)  


                       PORTUGUESE SAILOR 


 How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for
reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell
they'll go lunging presently.  


                         DANISH SAILOR 


 Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest!
Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more
afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the
Baltic with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!  


                      4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR 


 He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he
must always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout
with a pistol- fire your ship right into it!  


                         ENGLISH SAILOR 


 Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads to
hunt him up his whale!  


                            ALL 


 Aye! aye!  


                      OLD MANX SAILOR 


 How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to
live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but the 


crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of
weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at
sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's
another in the sky lurid- like, ye see, all else pitch black.  


                           DAGGOO 


 What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried
out of it!  


                        SPANISH SAILOR 


 (Aside.) He wants to bully, ah!- the old grudge makes me touchy
(Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side
of mankind- devilish dark at that. No offence.  


                         DAGGOO (Grimly) 


 None.  


                       ST. JAGO'S SAILOR 


 That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in his
one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in working. 



                      5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR 


 What's that I saw- lightning? Yes.  


                          SPANISH SAILOR 


 No; Daggoo showing his teeth.  


                        DAGGOO (Springing) 


 Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!  


                   SPANISH SAILOR (Meeting him) 


 Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit!  


                              ALL 


 A row! a row! a row!  


                    TASHTEGO (With a whiff) 


 A row a'low, and a row aloft- Gods and men- both brawlers!
Humph!  


                        BELFAST SAILOR 


 A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in with
ye!  


                         ENGLISH SAILOR 


 Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring!  


                         OLD MANX SAILOR 


 Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain 
struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou
the ring?  


               MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK 


 Hands by the halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef
topsails!  


                              ALL 


 The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (They scatter.)   


               PIP (Shrinking under the windlass) 


 Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the
jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal
yard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day of
the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go,
all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're on
the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But those
chaps there are worse yet- they are your white squalls, they. White
squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their
chat just now, and the white whale- shirr! shirr!- but spoken of
once! and only this evening- it makes me ingle all over like my
tambourine- that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him!
Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have
mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men
that have no bowels to feel fear! 


 CHAPTER 41 


 Moby Dick  


 I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the
rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted,
and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in
my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's
quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history
of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had
taken our oaths of violence and revenge. 


 For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied,
secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly 


frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew
of his existence; a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen
him; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given
battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of
whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the
entire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing
their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a
whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single
news-telling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each
separate voyage; the irregularity of the times of sailing from
home; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect,
long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide
whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning
Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels
reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or
such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity,
which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, has
completely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair
presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no
other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had
been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great
ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore it
was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby
Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to
ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the
perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual
cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab
and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded. 


 And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by
chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had
every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for
him, as for any other whale of that species. But at length, such
calamities did ensue in these assaults- not restricted to sprained
wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputations- but
fatal to the 


last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all
accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things
had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom
the story of the White Whale had eventually come. 


 Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still
the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For
not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of
all surprising terrible events,- as the smitten tree gives birth to
its fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra
firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality
for them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in this
matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime
life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which
sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a body
unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to
all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most
directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly
astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest
marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such
remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and
passed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiselled
hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in
such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he
does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all tending to make his
fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No wonder, then, that ever
gathering volume from the mere transit over the wildest watery
spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end
incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and
half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which
eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from
anything that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic
did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had
heard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing to 


encounter the perils of his jaw. 


 But there were still other and more vital practical influences
at work. Nor even at the present day has the original prestige of
the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species
of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body.
There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and
courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right
whale, would perhaps- either from professional inexperience, or
incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale;
at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those
whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never
hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of
the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively
pursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will
hearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild,
strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the preeminent
tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly
comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. 


 And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former
legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book
naturalists- Olassen and Povelson- declaring the Sperm Whale not
only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but
also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for
human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were
these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural
History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm
Whale, all fish (sharks included) are "struck with the most lively
terrors," and "often in the precipitancy of their flight dash
themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause
instantaneous death." And however the general experiences in the
fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full
terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item 


of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some
vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of the
hunters. 


 So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not
a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the
earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes
hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the
perils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that
although other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase
and point lances at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not
for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn
into a quick eternity. On this head, there are some remarkable
documents that may be consulted. 


 Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these
things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater
number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely,
without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without
superstitious accompaniments were sufficiently hardy not to flee
from the battle if offered. 


 One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be
linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously
inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous;
that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one
and the same instant of time. 


 Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit
altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability.
For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been
divulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of
the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part,
unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time have
originated the most curious and contradictory speculations
regarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes whereby,
after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with such
vast swiftness to the most widely distant points. 


 It is a thing well known to both American and English 
whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record
years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far
north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of
harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid,
that in some of these instances it has been declared that the
interval of time between the two assaults could not have exceeded
very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been believed by some
whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, was
never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real living
experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of the
inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said
to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the
surface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa
fountain near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come
from the Holy Land by an underground passage); these fabulous
narrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the
whalemen. 


 Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and
knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had
escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some
whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring
Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but
ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted
in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he
should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but
a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of
leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen. 


 But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was
enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the
monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was
not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from
other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out- a peculiar
snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump.
These  were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the
limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long
distance, to those who knew him. 


 The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled
with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his
distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed,
literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high
noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy
foam, all spangled with golden gleamings. 


 Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor
yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with
natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which,
according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced
in his assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struck
more of dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before
his exulting pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had
several times been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down
upon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them
back in consternation to their ship. 


 Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though
similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means
unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the
White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every
dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as
having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent. 


 Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the
minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the
chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they
swam out of the white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the
serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or
a bridal. 


 His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling
in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken 


prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his
foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep
life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that
suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby
Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the
field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have
smote him with more seeming malice. Small reason was there to
doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had
cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more
fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify
with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual
and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the
monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some
deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with
half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has
been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern
Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient
Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil;- Ahab did not
fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring
its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all
mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that
stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that
cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of
life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly
personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled
upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and
hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his
chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. 


 It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant
rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in
darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a
sudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received the
stroke that 


tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration,
but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn
towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and
anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid
winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his
torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so
interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward
voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him,
seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the
passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg,
yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was
moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to
lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In
a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And,
when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild
stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all
appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with the
Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the
blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected
front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his
mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then,
Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a
cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have
but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full
lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated
Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably
through the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing
monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left
behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural
intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the
living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special
lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all
its concentred cannon upon 


its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength,
Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency
than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable
object. 


 This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains
unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is
profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this
spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand- however grand and
wonderful, now quit it;- and take your way, ye nobler, sadder
souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath the
fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root of grandeur, his
whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buried
beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken
throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid,
he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled
entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls!
question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget
ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will
the old State-secret come. 


 Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely; all my
means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to
kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind
he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of
his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his
will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that
dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no
Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and
that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken
him. 


 The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise
popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added
moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in
the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is
it so very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness for
another whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, the
calculating people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor the 
conceit, that for those very reasons he was all the better
qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of rage and
wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and scorched
without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable
idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to
dart his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all
brutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally
incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively
competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But be
all this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of his
unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed
upon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object
of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on
shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon
would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from
such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the
profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent
on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. 


 Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with
curses Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too,
chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals-
morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue
or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invunerable jollity of
indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading
mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially
picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his
monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded
to the old man's ire- by what evil magic their souls were
possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White
Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to
be- what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious
understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have
seemed the gliding great  demon of the seas of life,- all this to
explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The
subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither
leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick?
Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of
a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the
abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to
encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the
deadliest ill. 


 CHAPTER 42 


 The Whiteness of The Whale  


 What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at
times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid. 


 Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick,
which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some
alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror
concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely
overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh
ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a
comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above
all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here;
and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all
these chapters might be naught. 


 Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances
beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in
marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in
some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even
the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of
the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions
of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same
snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag
bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great
Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for
the imperial  color the same imperial hue; and though this
pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the
white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though,
besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of
gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day;
and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same
hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the
innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men
of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest
pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the
majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to
the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds;
though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it
has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by
the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the
holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove
himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to
the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog
was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless,
faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to
the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and
though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian
priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the
alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy
pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the
celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St.
John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the
four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the
great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like
wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is
sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive
something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of
panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. 


  This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of
whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled
with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the
furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white
shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes
them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it
is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome
than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not
the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage
as the white-shrouded bear or shark.*  


 *With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by
him who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not
the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable
hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened
hideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance,
that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands
invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence,
by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the
Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even
assuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness,
you would not have that intensified terror. 


 As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose
in that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely
tallies with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This
peculiarity is most vividly hit by the French in the name they
bestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with
"Requiem eternam" (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the
mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, in allusion to the
white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and the mild
deadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin.  


 Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of
spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom
sails in all 


imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's
great, unflattering laureate, Nature.*  


 *I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a
prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my
forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and
there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing
of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At
intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to
embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook
it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost
in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes,
methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham
before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white,
its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost
the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I
gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the
things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and
turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied.
Goney! never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that
this glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But
some time after, I learned that goney was some seaman's name for
albatross. So that by no possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme
have had aught to do with those mystical impressions which were
mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then
read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in
saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the
noble merit of the poem and the poet. 


 I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the
bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more
evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called
grey albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with
such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl. 


  But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and
I will tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated
on the sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a
lettered, leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and
place; and then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern
tally, meant for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl
flew to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim! 



 Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that
of the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white
charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the
dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage.
He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose
pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and
the Alleghanies. At their flaming head he westward trooped it like
that chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light.
The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail,
invested him with housings more resplendent than gold and
silver-beaters could have furnished him. A most imperial and
archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which to
the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories of
those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god,
bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching
amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that
endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether
with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon,
the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils
reddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he
presented himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object
of trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from what
stands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was his
spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness;
and that this divineness had that in it which, though  commanding
worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror. 


 But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all
that accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White
Steed and Albatross. 


 What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often
shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and
kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by
the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men- has no
substantive deformity- and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading
whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest
abortion. Why should this be so? 


 Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable
but not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her
forces this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy
aspect, the gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been
denominated the White Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has
the art of human malice omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly
it heightens the effect of that passage in Froissart, when, masked
in the snowy symbol of their faction, the desperate White Hoods of
Ghent murder their bailiff in the market-place! 


 Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of
all mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this
hue. It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the
aspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble
pallor lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like
the badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal
trepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the
expressive hue of the shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our
superstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round our
phantoms; all ghosts rising in a milk-white fog- Yea, while these
terrors seize us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, when
personified by the evangelist, rides on his pallid horse. 


 Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand  or
gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its
profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar
apparition to the soul. 


 But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal
man to account for it? To analyze it, would seem impossible. Can
we, then, by the citation of some of those instances wherein this
thing of whiteness- though for the time either wholly or in great
part stripped of all direct associations calculated to import to it
aught fearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same
sorcery, however modified;- can we thus hope to light upon some
chance clue to conduct us to the hidden cause we seek? 


 Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to
subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another into
these halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of the
imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been shared
by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of them at the
time, and therefore may not be able to recall them now. 


 Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but
loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the
bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary,
speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and
hooded with new-fallen snow? Or to the unread, unsophisticated
Protestant of the Middle American States, why does the passing
mention of a White Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless
statue in the soul? 


 Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors
and kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the
White Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination
of an untravelled American, than those other storied structures,
its neighbors- the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those
sublimer towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in
peculiar moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at
the bare mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue 
Ridge is full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why,
irrespective of all latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the
White Sea exert such a spectralness over the fancy, while that of
the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild
afternoons on the waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest
of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely
addressed to the fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales of
Central Europe, does "the tall pale man" of the Hartz forests,
whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the green of
the groves- why is this phantom more terrible than all the whooping
imps of the Blocksburg? 


 Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling
earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the
tearlessness of and skies that never rain; nor the sight of her
wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all
adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban
avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack
of cards;- it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima,
the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the
white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her
woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new;
admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over
her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its
own distortions. 


 I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of
whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating
the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative
mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness
to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon,
especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to
muteness or universality. What I mean by these two statements may
perhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples. 


  First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign
lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to
vigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his
faculties; but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be
called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight
sea of milky whiteness- as if from encircling headlands shoals of
combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent,
superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is
horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the lead assures him he is
still off soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he never
rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is the mariner
who will tell thee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking
hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred
me?" 


 Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the
snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the
mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such
vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it
would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitude. Much the same is
it with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative
indifference views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow,
no shadow of tree or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness.
Not so the sailor, beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas;
where at times, by some infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers
of frost and air, he, shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of
rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, views what seems
a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean ice
monuments and splintered crosses. 


 But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about
whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou
surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael. 


 Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful
valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey- why is it
that 


upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe
behind him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild
animal muskiness- why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes
paw the ground in phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in
him of any gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, so
that the strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything
associated with the experience of former perils; for what knows he,
this New England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon? 


 No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct
of the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of
miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the
rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild
foal of the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into
dust. 


 Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak
rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate
shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to
Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened
colt! 


 Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the
mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt,
somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects
this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were
formed in fright. 


 But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness,
and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more
strange and far more portentous- why, as we have seen, it is at
once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very
veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the
intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. 


 Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless
voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from
behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white
depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is
not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the
same time  the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that
there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide
landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we
shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural
philosophers, that all other earthly hues- every stately or lovely
emblazoning- the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and
the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of
young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually
inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all
deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements
cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed
further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces
every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever
remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without
medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses,
with its own blank tinge- pondering all this, the palsied universe
lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who
refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the
wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud
that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the
Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? 


 CHAPTER 43 


 Hark!  


 "HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco? 


 It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were
standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts
in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this
manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing,
for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck,
they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to
hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the
occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly
advancing keel. 


 It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the 
cordon, whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his
neighbor, a Cholo, the words above. 


 "Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" 


 "Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?" 


 "There it is again- under the hatches- don't you hear it- a
cough- it sounded like a cough." 


 "Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket." 


 "There again- there it is!- it sounds like two or three sleepers
turning over, now!" 


 "Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked
biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye- nothing else.
Look to the bucket!" 


 "Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears." 


 "Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old
Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket;
you're the chap." 


 "Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is
somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck;
and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard
Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of
that sort in the wind." 


 "Tish! the bucket!" 


 CHAPTER 44 


 The Chart  


 Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the
squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild
ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him
go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled
roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on his
screwed-down table. Then seating himself before it, you would have
seen him intently study the various lines and shadings which there
met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace additional
courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he would
refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down
the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of
various ships, sperm whales had  been captured or seen. 


 While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains
over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and
for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his
wrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself was
marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, some
invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the deeply
marked chart of his forehead. 


 But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of
his cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night
they were brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were
effaced, and others were substituted. For with the charts of all
four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and
eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that
monomaniac thought of his soul. 


 Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the
leviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek
out one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet.
But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and
currents; and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm
whale's food; and, also calling to mind the regular, ascertained
seasons for hunting him in particular latitudes; could arrive at
reasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concerning
the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search of his
prey. 


 So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of
the sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters
believe that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout
the world; were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet
carefully collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be
found to correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals
or the flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made
to construct elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.*  


 *Since the above was written, the statement is happily  borne
out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the
National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that
circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in course of
completion; and portions of it are presented in the circular. "This
chart divides the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude
by five degrees of longitude; perpendicularly through each of which
districts are twelve columns for the twelve months; and
horizontally through each of which districts are three lines; one
to show the number of days that have been spent in each month in
every district, and the two others to show the number of days in
which whales, sperm or right, have been seen."  


 Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to
another, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct- say,
rather, secret intelligence from the Deity- mostly swim in veins,
as they are called; continuing their way along a given ocean-line
with such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her
course, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision.
Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one whale be
straight as a surveyor's parallel, and though the line of advance
be strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the
arbitrary vein in which at these times he is said to swim,
generally embraces some few miles in width (more or less, as the
vein is presumed to expand or contract); but never exceeds the
visual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads, when circumspectly
gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at particular
seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating whales
may with great confidence be looked for. 


 And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known
separate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey;
but in crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds
he 


could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even
then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting. 


 There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle
his delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the
reality, perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their
regular seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot
conclude that the herds which haunted such and such a latitude or
longitude this year, say, will turn out to be identically the same
with those that were found there the preceding season; though there
are peculiar and unquestionable instances where the contrary of
this has proved true. In general, the same remark, only within a
less wide limit, applies to the solitaries and hermits among the
matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby Dick had in a
former year been seen, for example, on what is called the Seychelle
ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast;
yet it did not follow that were the Pequod to visit either of those
spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly
encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding-grounds,
where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only
his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his
places of prolonged abode. And where Ahab's chances of
accomplishing his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has
only been made to whatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects
were his, ere a particular set time or place were attained, when
all possibilities would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly
thought, every possibility the next thing to a certainty. That
particular set time and place were conjoined in the one technical
phrase- the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several
consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried,
lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual
round, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the
Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with
the white whale had taken place; there the waves were storied with
his deeds; there also was that tragic spot  where the monomaniac
old man had found the awful motive to his vengeance. But in the
cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering vigilance with which
Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering hunt, he would
not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one crowning fact
above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those hopes; nor
in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his
unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. 


 Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning
of the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable
her commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape
Horn, and then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the
equatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait
for the next ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod's
sailing had, perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view
to this very complexion of things. Because, an interval of three
hundred and sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval
which, instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a
miscellaneous hunt; if by chance the White Whale, spending his
vacation in seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds,
should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the
Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his
race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Traders;
any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the
devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake.



 But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly,
seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless
ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought
capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a
white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of
Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick,
and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable. And have I
not tallied the  whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as after
poring over his charts till long after midnight he would throw
himself back in reveries- tallied him, and shall he escape? His
broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's are!
And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a
weariness and faintness of pondering came over him! and in the open
air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God!
what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with
one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands;
and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. 


 Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and
intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own
intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing
of phrensies, and whirled them round and round and round in his
blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became
insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these
spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a
chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and
lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down
among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild
cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab
would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that
was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the
unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at his
own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at
such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter
of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not
the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The
latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in
sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind,
which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it
spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the 


frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an
integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the
soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up
all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that
purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against
gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of
its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality
to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden
and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared
out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was
for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being,
a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color,
and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy
thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense
thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that
heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. 


 CHAPTER 45 


 The Affidavit  


 So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and,
indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and
curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing
chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be
found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be
still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be
adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity
which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some
minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair. 


 I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but
shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate
citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a
whaleman; and from these citations, I take it- the conclusion aimed
at will naturally follow of itself. 


 First: I have personally known three instances where a whale,
after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, 


after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been
again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both
marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body.
In the instance where three years intervened between the flinging
of the two harpoons; and I think it may have been something more
than that; the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to
go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there,
joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior,
where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often
endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with
all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of
unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have
been on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the
globe, brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no
purpose. This man and this whale again came together, and the one
vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three instances
similar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales struck;
and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective
marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the
three-year instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both
times, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognized a
peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's eye, which I had
observed there three years previous. I say three years, but I am
pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then,
which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many
other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is
no good ground to impeach. 


 Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however
ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been
several memorable historical instances where a particular whale in
the ocean has been at distant times and places popularly
cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogether
and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished
from other whales; for 


however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be, they
soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling
him down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this:
that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a
terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there did
about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content
to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would
be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to
cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils
ashore that happen to known an irascible great man, they make
distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they
pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary
thump for their presumption. 


 But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great
individual celebrity- nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown; not
only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle
stories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights,
privileges, and distinctions of a name; had as much a name indeed
as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou famed
leviathan, scarred like a iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in the
Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the
palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou
terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of
the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose
lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white
cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian
whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon
the back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the
students of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic
scholar. 


 But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at
various times creating great havoc among the boats of different
vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out,
chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their 


anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting
out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in
his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the
headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip. 


 I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to
make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem
important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the
reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more
especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening
instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So
ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most
palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the
plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might
scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more
detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. 


 First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the
general perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a
fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency with
which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of
the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever
finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately
forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there,
who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast of
New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the
sounding leviathan- do you suppose that that poor fellow's name
will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at
your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular between
here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be
called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I will
tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the
Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every
one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than
one, and three that had each lost a boat's crew. For 


God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a
gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled
for it. 


 Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a
whale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever
found that when narrating to them some specific example of this
two-fold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon
my facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea
of being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the
plagues of Egypt. 


 But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established
upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this:
The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing,
and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,
utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm
Whale has done it. 


 First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of
Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw
spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm
whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when,
suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from
the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his
forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than
"ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank
of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of
the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at
last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command
of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown
rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost,
and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never attempted it since.
At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen
Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the
tragedy; I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have
conversed with his 


son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the
catastrophe.*  


 *The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact
seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance
which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the
ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to
their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being
made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for
the shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were
necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated
resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had
just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his
companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings." Again:
"At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all
happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time,
impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the
part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall),
induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion." 


 Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship,
during a black night an open boat, when almost despairing of
reaching any hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters
were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful
tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary
subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a
moment's thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect
and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until
day again made its appearance." 


 In another place- p.45,- he speaks of "the mysterious and mortal
attack of the animal."  


 Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year
1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the
authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to 
encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard
casual allusions to it. 


 Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J-- then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to
be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket
ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning
upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the
amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen
present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could
so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as
a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks
later, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for
Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale,
that begged a few moments' confidential business with him. That
business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack,
that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port
to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider
the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not
Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell
you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense. 


 I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little
circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof.
Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian
Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning
of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his
seventeenth chapter: 


 "By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the
next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The
weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we
were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very
little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from
the northwest sprang up. An uncommonly large whale, the body of 
which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of
the water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the
moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him,
so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We
were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic
creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least
out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether,
while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck,
concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we
saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity.
Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether
or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we
found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured." 


 Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship
in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual
adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of
Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his.
I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in
Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by
no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast,
and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which
he sailed from home. 


 In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so
full, too, of honest wonders- the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of
ancient Dampier's old chums- I found a little matter set down so
like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear
inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed. 


 Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he
calls the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says,
"about four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred
and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a
terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they
could 


hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every one began
to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and
violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a
rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead,
and sounded, but found no ground. * * * The suddenness of the shock
made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were
shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head
on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then goes on to
impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the
imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that
time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I
should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of
the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale
vertically bumping the hull from beneath. 


 I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another
known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm
whale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to
chase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the
ship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from
its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that
head; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been
examples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in
a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there! the whale
towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with
a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale,
once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often
with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction
to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent
indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will
frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion
for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only
one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and 


most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not
only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by
plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all
marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the
millionth time we say amen with Solomon- Verily there is nothing
new under the sun. 


 In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian
magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was
Emperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history
of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best
authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and
unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars,
not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned. 


 Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the
term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was
captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after
having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period
of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial
history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it
should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not
mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons,
he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a
sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied
that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean
and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that
those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present
constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort.
But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in
modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of
the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority,
that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy
found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war
readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could,
by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean 


into the Propontis. 


 In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar
substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right
whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the
sperm whale- squid or cuttle-fish-lurks at the bottom of that sea,
because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort,
have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these
statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly
perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius's
sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman
Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale. 


 CHAPTER 46 


 Surmises  


 Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all
his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of
Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests
to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by
nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's
ways, altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the
voyage. Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wanting
other motives much more influential with him. It would be refining
too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that his
vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended
itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more
monsters he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that
each subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one
he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there
were still additional considerations which, though not so strictly
according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no
means incapable of swaying him. 


 To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools
used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out  of
order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency
in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not
cover the complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal
superiority involves intellectual mastership; for to the purely
spiritual, the intellectual but stand in sort of corporeal
relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will were Ahab's,
so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain; still he knew
that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his
captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself
from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval
would elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long
interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of
rebellion against his captain's leadership, unless some ordinary,
prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon
him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby
Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his
superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the
present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange
imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full
terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure
background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted
meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long
night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to
think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the
savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all
sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable-
they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its
fickleness- and when retained for any object remote and blank in
the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it
is above all things requisite that temporary interests and
employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for
the final dash. 


 Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of  strong
emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are
evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the
manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the
White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and
playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous
knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give
chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common,
daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders
of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of
land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing
burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by
the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and
romantic object- that final and romantic object, too many would
have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought
Ahab, of all hopes of cash- aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but
let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them,
and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them,
this same cash would soon cashier Ahab. 


 Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more
related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and
perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose
of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so
doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable
charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and
legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could
refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from
him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of
usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed
impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most
anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in
his own predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by a
heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute atmospheric
influence which it was possible  for his crew to be subjected to. 


 For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to
be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in
a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the
Pequod's voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that,
but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interest
in the general pursuit of his profession. 


 Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the
three mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and
not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long
without reward. 


 CHAPTER 47 


 The Mat-Maker  


 It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily
lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the
lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving
what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat.
So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene,
and such an incantation of revelry lurked in the air, that each
silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self. 


 I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat.
As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline
between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the
shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his
heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon
the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say
so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and
all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the
sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I
myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the
Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one
single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration
merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other
threads with its own. 


This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand
I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these
unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent
sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or
strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference
in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the
final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought
I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this
easy, indifferent sword must be chance- aye, chance, free will, and
necessity- wise incompatible- all interweavingly working together.
The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate
course- its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to
that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given
threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right
lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free
will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules
either, and has the last featuring blow at events.  


 Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound
so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the
ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at
the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the
cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was
reaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and
at brief sudden intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the
same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the
seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the
air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have
derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's. 


 As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly
and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him
some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those
wild cries announcing their coming. 


  "There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!" 


 "Where-away?" 


 "On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!" 


 Instantly all was commotion. 


 The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same
undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen
distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus. 


 "There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared. 


 "Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!" 


 Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the
exact minute to Ahab. 


 The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently
rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down
heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again
directly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times
evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one
direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface,
mills around, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter- this
deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was no
reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any
way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men
selected for shipkeepers- that is, those not appointed to the
boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The
sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were
fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was
backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire
baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews
with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly
poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war's men
about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship. 


 But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that
took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark
Ahab, 


who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh
formed out of air. 


 CHAPTER 48 


 The First Lowering  


 The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the
other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were
casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.
This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though
technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from
the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was
tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its
steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton
funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark
stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white
plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round
upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure
were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the
aboriginal natives of the Manillas;- a race notorious for a certain
diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed
to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of
the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be
elsewhere. 


 While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these
strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their
head, "All ready there, Fedallah?" 


 "Ready," was the half-hissed reply. 


 "Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower
away there, I say." 


 Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement
the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the
blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while,
with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation,
the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into
the tossed boats below. 


 Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a
fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the 


stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing
erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to
spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water.
But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and
his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command. 


 "Captain Ahab?-" said Starbuck. 


 "Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats.
Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!" 


 "Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round
his great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. "There!-
there!- there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!- lay back! 


 "Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy." 


 "Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before
now. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here
of it? What say we, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask." 


 "Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my
little ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew,
some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you break
your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in
yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help us
never mind from where the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull;
never mind the brimstone devils are good fellows enough. So, so;
there you are now; that's the stroke for a thousand pounds; that's
the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm
oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men- all hearts alive! Easy, easy;
don't be in a hurry- don't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap your
oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:-
softly, softly! That's it- that's it! long and strong. Give way
there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye
are all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye?
pull, can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and
ginger-cakes don't ye pull?- pull and break something! pull, and
start your eyes out!  Here," whipping out the sharp knife from his
girdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the
blade between his teeth. That's it- that's it. Now ye do something;
that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her- start her, my
silverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!" 


 Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he
had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and
especially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not
suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew
into downright passions with his congregation. Not at all; and
therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most
terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of
fun most terri and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely
as a spice to the fun, that no oarsmen could hear such queer
invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the
mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and
indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so
broadly gaped- open-mouthed at times- that the mere sight of such
a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm
upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of
humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to
put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them. 


 In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling
obliquely across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two
boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. 


 "Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir,
if ye please!" 


 "Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as
he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his
face set like a flint from Stubb's. 


 "What think ye of those yellow boys, sir! 


 "Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong,
strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud 


again: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my
lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your
crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's
hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for.
(Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty;
duty and profit hand in hand." 


 "Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the
boats diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye,
and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as
Dough-Boy long suspected. They were hidden down there. The White
Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped!
All right! Give way men! It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give
way!" 


 Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical
instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not
unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of
the ship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time
previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,
this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took
off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this and
Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were
for the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affair
still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to
dark Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For
me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping
on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the
enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. 


 Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the
furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats;
a circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those
tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like
five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of
strength, which periodically started the boat along the water like
a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for
Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown
aside  his black jacket, and displayed his naked chest with the
whole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cut against the
alternating depressions of the watery horizon; while at the other
end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown half
backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to
trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in a
thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at
once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained
fixed, while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked.
Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread
boats in the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly
settled bodily down into the blue, thus giving no distantly
discernible token of the movement, though from his closer vicinity
Ahab had observed it. 


 "Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou,
Queequeg, stand up!" 


 Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the
savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off
towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise
upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly
platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly
and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip
of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. 


 Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly
still; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the
loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising
some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used for
catching turns with the whale line. Its top is not more spacious
than the palm of a man's hand, and standing upon such a base as
that, Flask seemed perched at the mast-head of some ship which had
sunk to all but her trucks. But little King-Post was small and
short, and at the same time little King-Post was full of a large
and tall ambition, so that this 


logger head stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.



 "I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me
onto that." 


 Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady
his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered
his lofty shoulders for a pedestal. 


 "Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?" 


 "That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I
wish you fifty feet taller." 


 Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks
of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his
flat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his
hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should
toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry
on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one
lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and
steady himself by. 


 At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what
wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain
an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most
riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to
see him giddily perched upon the logger head itself, under such
circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic
Daggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining himself with a cool,
indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro
to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his
broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer
looked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous,
ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience;
but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly
chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living
magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her
seasons for that. 


 Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing
solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their  regular
soundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were
the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved
to solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it
from his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He
loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; but
hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his
hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to
windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his
erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry,
"Down, down all, and give way!- there they are!" 


 To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have
been visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish
white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it,
and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from
white rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and
tingled, as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of
iron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially
beneath a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen
in advance of all the other indications, the puffs of vapor they
spouted, seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flying
outriders. 


 All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of
troubled water and air. But it bade far outstrip them; it flew on
and on, a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream
from the hills. 


 "Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest
possible but intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the
sharp fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow,
almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle
compasses. He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his
crew say anything to him. Only the silence of the boat was at
intervals startlingly pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now
harsh with command, now soft with 


entreaty. 


 How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out and say
something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me,
beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I'll
sign over to you my Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys; including
wife and children, boys. Lay me on- lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I
shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white water!" And so
shouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and stamped up and down
on it; then picking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea; and
finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's stern like a
crazed colt from the prairie. 


 "Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who,
with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his
teeth, at a short distance, followed after- "He's got fits, that
Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fits- that's the very word- pitch
fits into 'em. Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper,
you know;- merry's the word. Pull, babes- pull, sucklings- pull,
all. But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly, and
steadily, my men. Only pull, and keep pulling; nothing more. Crack
all your backbones, and bite your knives in two- that's all. Take
it easy- why don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your
livers and lungs!" 


 But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow
crew of his- these were words best omitted here; for you live under
the blessed light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks
in the audacious seas may give ear to such words, when, with
tornado brow, and eyes of red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab
leaped after his prey. 


 Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific
allusions of Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitious
monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat's
bow with its tail- these allusions of his were at times so vivid
and life-like, that they would cause some one or two of his men to
snatch a fearful look over 


his shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must
put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usages
announcing that they must have no organs but ears; and no limbs but
arms, in these critical moments. 


 It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of
the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they
rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless
bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would
tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves,
that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden
profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings
and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong,
sled-like slide down its other side;- all these, with the cries of
the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the
oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down
upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her
screaming brood;- all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit,
marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his
first battle; not the dead man's host encountering the first
unknown phantom in the other world;- neither of these can feel
stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the
first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle
of the hunted sperm whale. 


 The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more
and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun
cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer
blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed
separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck
giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail was
now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along; the boat
going with such madness through the water, that the lee oars could
scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the 


row-locks. 


 Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist;
neither ship nor boat to be seen. 


 "Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft
the sheet of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the
squall comes. There's white water again!- close to! Spring!" 


 Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us
denoted that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they
overheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck
said: "Stand up!" and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his
feet. 


 Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death
peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense
countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that
the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous
wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter.
Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves
curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged
serpents. 


 "That's his hump. There, there, give it to him!" whispered
Starbuck. 


 A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted
iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an
invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking
on a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding
vapor shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like an
earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as they
were tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of the
squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together; and
the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. 


 Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed.
Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them
across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to
our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so
that to our downward gazing eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral
boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean. 


 The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers
together; the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled  around us
like a white fire upon the prairie, in which unconsumed, we were
burning; immortal in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the
other boats; as well roar to the live coals down the chimney of a
flaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm. Meanwhile the
driving scud, rack, and mist, grew darker with the shadows of
night; no sign of the ship could be seen. The rising sea forbade
all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were useless as
propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. So,
cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many
failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then
stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the
standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding
up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness.
There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith,
hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair. 


 Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or
boat, we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still
spread over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of
the boat. Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand
to his ear. We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards
hitherto muffled by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer;
the thick mists were dimly parted by a huge, vague form.
Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as the ship at last loomed
into view, bearing right down upon us within a distance of not much
more than its length. 


 Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one
instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at
the base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and
it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam
for it, were dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken
up and safely landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the
other boats had cut loose from their fish and returned to the ship
in good time. The ship had given us up, but was still cruising, if 
haply it might light upon some token of our perishing,- an oar or
a lance pole. 


 CHAPTER 49 


 The Hyena  


 There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange
mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for
a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly
discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's
expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems
worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and
beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible,
never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles
down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and
worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb;
all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured
hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and
unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am
speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme
tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that
what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous,
now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the
perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial,
desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage
of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. 


 "Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to
the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off
the water; "Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often
happen?" Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me,
he gave me to understand that such things did often happen. 


 "Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in
his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr.
Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever
met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and
prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with
your sail set in 


a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?" 


 "Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale
off Cape Horn." 


 "Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was
standing close by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am
not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this
fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling
himself back-foremost into death's jaws?" 


 "Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the
law. I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale
face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint,
mind that!" 


 Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate
statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls
and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep,
were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering
that at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale
I must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat-
oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness
upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic
stampings; considering that the particular disaster to our own
particular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on
to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that
Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in
the fishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent
Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a devil's chase I
was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all things
together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a
rough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall
be my lawyer, executor, and legatee." 


 It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering
at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the
world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time  in my
nautical life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony
was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a
stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should
now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his
resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks
as the case may be. I survived myself; my death and burial were
locked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and
contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting
inside the bars of a snug family vault. 


 Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my
frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and
destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost. 


 CHAPTER 50 


 Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah  


 "Who would have thought it, Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had but
one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the
plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!" 


 "I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account," said
Flask. "If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a
different thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, and
good part of the other left, you know." 


 "I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel." 



 Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether,
considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of
the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that
life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers
often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life
of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight. 


 But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect.
Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all
times of dancer; considering that the pursuit of whales is always
under great and extraordinary difficulties; that every individual
moment, indeed, then comprises a peril; under these circumstances
is it wise for  any maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt?
As a general thing, the joint-owners of the Pequod must have
plainly thought not. 


 Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think
little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless
vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of
action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to
have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman in
the hunt- above all for Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as
that same boat's crew, he well knew that such generous conceits
never entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he
had not solicited a boat's crew from them, nor had he in any way
hinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken private
measures of his own touching all that matter. Until Cabaco's
published discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though to
be sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands had
concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for
service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then found
bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own
hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even
solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line
is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this
was observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an
extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it
better withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also
the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or
clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in
the boat's bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing
at the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in that
boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depression
in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel gouged out a little
here and straightened it a little there; all these things, I say,
had awakened much  interest and curiosity at the time. But almost
everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in
Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick;
for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal
monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve
the remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that
boat. 


 Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon
waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and
then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up
from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these
floating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up
such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on
planks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese
junks, and what not; that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side
and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would
not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle. 


 But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the
subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though
still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned
Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in
a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he
soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes;
nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; Heaven
knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this
none knew, but one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning
Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in
the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly;
but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging
Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of
the continent- those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries,
which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly
aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of
the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his
descendants, unknowing whence  he came, eyed each other as real
phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created
and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels
indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add
the uncanonical Robbins, indulged in mundane amours. 


 CHAPTER 51 


 The Spirit-Spout  


 Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had
slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; off the Azores;
off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the
mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked,
watery locality, southerly from St. Helena. 


 It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene
and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of
silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed
a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery
jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up
by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering
god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of
these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast
head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it
had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night,
not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them.
You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old
Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the
moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform
interval there for several successive nights without uttering a
single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was
heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining
mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in
the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the
trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet
still they felt no  terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a
most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so
deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively
desired a lowering. 


 Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab
commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every
stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then,
with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before
the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail
breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant,
hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she
rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in
her- one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to
some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face that night,
you would have thought that in him also two different things were
warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck,
every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life
and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped,
and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet
the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he
saw it once, but not a second time. 


 This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when,
some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again
announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to
overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And
so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to
wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or
starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole
day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct
repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van,
this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. 


 Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in
accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which  in many
things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen
who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote
times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that
unnearable spout was cast by one selfsame whale; and that whale,
Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar
dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously
beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round
upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas. 


 These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a
wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in
which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a
devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas
so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our
vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like
prow. 


 But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began
howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled
seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to
the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like
showers of silver chips, the foamflakes flew over her bulwarks;
then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to
sights more dismal than before. 


 Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and
thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable
sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these
birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time
obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some
drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and
therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved
and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast
tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish
and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred. 


 Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as
called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences  that
before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this
tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and
these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any
haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But
calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of
feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, the
solitary jet would at times be descried. 


 During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming
for the time the almost continual command of the drenched and
dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom
than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these,
after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can
be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain
and crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg
inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly
grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing dead
to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow would all
but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven
from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that
burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks
in the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves,
each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the
rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were
spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in
wax, day after day tore on through all the swift madness and
gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of
humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in
silence the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up
to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he
would not seek that respose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck
forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the
cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes 


sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and
half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before
emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On
the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and
currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung
from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head
was thrown back so that the closed eves were pointed towards the
needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling.*  


 *The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without
going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can
inform himself of the course of the ship.  


 Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in
this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose. 


 CHAPTER 52 


 The Albatross  


 South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good
cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney
(Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch
at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so
remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries- a whaler at sea,
and long absent from home. 


 As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like
the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this
spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust,
while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of
trees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set.
A wild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those
three mast-heads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn
and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of
cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed
and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when the ship slowly
glided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to
each other that we might almost 


have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the
other; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as
they passed, said not one word to our own look-outs, while the
quarter-deck hail was being heard from below. 


 "Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?" 


 But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks,
was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell
from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in
vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was
still increasing the distance between us. While in various silent
ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of
this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the White
Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it almost
seemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board the
stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking
advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet,
and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a
Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed- "Ahoy there!
This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all
future letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if
I am not at home, tell them to address them to-" 


 At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly,
then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small
harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming
by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and
ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks. Though
in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before
have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the
veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. 


 "Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the
water. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed
more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever
before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far  had
been holding the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried
out in his old lion voice,- "Up helm! Keep her off round the
world!" 


 Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud
feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only
through numberless perils to the very point whence we started,
where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before
us. 


 Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we
could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet
and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then
there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far
mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom
that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while
chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in
barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. 


 CHAPTER 53 


 The Gam  


 The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler
we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even
had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have
boarded her- judging by his subsequent conduct on similar
occasions- if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he
had obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as it
eventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for five
minutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute some
of that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this might
remain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of the
peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other in
foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground. 


 If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or
the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually
encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain,
for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and 


stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps,
sitting down for a while and resting in concert: then, how much
more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury
Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the
ends of the earth- off lone Fanning's Island, or the far away
King's Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under such
circumstances these ships should not only interchange hails, but
come into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact. And
especially would this seem to be a matter of course, in the case of
vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, officers, and not
a few of the men are personally known to each other; and
consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about.



 For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has
letters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have
some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on her
blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the
outward-bound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence
from the cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of
the utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold
true concerning whaling vessels crossing each other's track on the
cruising-ground itself, even though they are equally long absent
from home. For one of them may have received a transfer of letters
from some third, and now far remote vessel; and some of those
letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides,
they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat.
For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors,
but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a
common pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils. 


 Nor would difference of country make any very essential
difference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as
is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from
the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very
often 


occur, and when they do occur there. is too apt to be a sort of
shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved, and
your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but
himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of
metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regarding the
long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a
sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority in the English
whaleman does really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing that
the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than all the
English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless little
foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does not
take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few
foibles himself. 


 So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea,
the whalers have most reason to be sociable- and they are so.
Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the
mid-Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single
word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas,
like a brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time indulging,
perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other's rig. As for
Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go through
such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking of
ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down hearty
good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching
Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they
run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates,
when they chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail
is- "How many skulls?"- the same way that whalers hail- "How many
barrels?" And that question once answered, pirates straightway
steer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and
don't like to see overmuch of each other's villanous likenesses. 


 But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable,
sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she
meets another 


whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "Gam," a thing so
utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the
name even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin
at it, and repeat gamesome stuff about "spouters" and
"blubber-boilers," and such like pretty exclamations. Why it is
that all Merchant-seamen, and also all Pirates and Man-of-War's
men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling
towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to answer.
Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether
that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It
sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the
gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion,
he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I
conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a
whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand
on. 


 But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger running
up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word,
Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark
does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now
for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand
true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be
incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly
define it. 


 GAM. NOUN- A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships,
generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they
exchange visits hy boats' crews, the two captains remaining, for
the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the
other. 


 There is another little item about Gamming which must not be
forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiarities
of detail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or
slave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he
always sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimes
cushioned seat 


there, and often steers himself with a pretty little milliner's
tiller decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has
no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at
all. High times indeed, if whaling captains were wheeled about the
water on castors like gouty old aldermen in patent chairs. And as
for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy;
and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the
ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number,
that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the
captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all
standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being
conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him
from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive
to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his
legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the
immense projecting steering oar hitting him now and then in the
small of his back, the after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees
in front. He is thus completely wedged before and behind, and can
only expand himself sideways by settling down on his stretched
legs; but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will  often go far to
topple him, because length of foundation is nothing without
corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles, and
you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in plain
sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for
this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest
particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as
token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his
hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very
large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless
there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where
the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or
two, in a sudden squall say- to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's
hair, and hold on 


there like grim death. 


 CHAPTER 54 


 The Town-Ho's Story  


 (As told at the Golden Inn)  


 The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about
there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway,
where you meet more travellers than in any other part. 


 It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another
homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was
manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued
she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest
in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of
the Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the
whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so
called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some
men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular
accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the
tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain
Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to
the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of
three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems,
communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but
the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so
much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well
withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this
thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full
knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so,
were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among
themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's
main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with
the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this
strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.  


 *The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the
mast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous  Gallipagos
terrapin.  


 For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once
narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends,
one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the
Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and
Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the
interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly
answered at the time. 


 "Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am
about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of
Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days'
sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was
somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling
the pumps according to daily usage, it was observed that she made
more water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish had
stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason
for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes;
and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not
being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could
not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in
rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the
mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but no
good luck came; more days went by and not only was the leak yet
undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now
taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the
nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out
and repaired. 


 "Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest
chance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder
by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and being
periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his
could easily keep the ship free; never mind if the leak should
double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage being
attended by very 


prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in
perfect safety at her port without the occurrence of the least
fatality, had it not been for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the
mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeance of
Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo. 


 "'Lakeman!- Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is
Buffalo?' said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. 


 "On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but- I crave your
courtesy- may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,
gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nigh
as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao
to far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our
America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting
impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their
interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,-
Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,- possess
an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblest
traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes.
They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the
Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great
contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime
approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East,
dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by
batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they
have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals,
they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted
faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues
are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines
stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same
woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures
whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the
paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago
villages; they float alike the 


full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the
steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and
dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they
know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland,
they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking
crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean
born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as
any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him
down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea;
though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and
your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full
of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes
of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man
with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who
though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness,
only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is
the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long
been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so
thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt- but,
gentlemen, you shall hear. 


 "It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after
pointing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leak
seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more
at the pumps every day. You must know that in a settled and
civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers think
little of pumping their whole way across it; though of a still,
sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget his
duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his
shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all hands
gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and savage seas
far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusual
for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in full chorus
even for a voyage of considerable 


length! that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or
if any other reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when
a leaky vessel is in some very out of the way part of those waters,
some really landless latitude, that her captain begins to feel a
little anxious. 


 "Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak
was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern
manifested by several of her company; especially by Radney the
mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home
anew, and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I
suppose, was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to any
sort of nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as any
fearless, unthinking creature on land or on sea that you can
conveniently gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this imagine,
solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the seamen
declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in
her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was
on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as
they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling
clear water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen- that bubbling
from the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady
spouts at the lee scupper-holes. 


 "Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this
conventional world of ours- watery or otherwise; that when a person
placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very
significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway
against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and
bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize
that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. Be
this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt
was a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman, and a flowing
golden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy's
snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him,
gentlemen, which 


had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to
Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet
as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, and
Steelkilt knew it. 


 "Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump
with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed,
went on with his gay banterings. 


 "'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a
cannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's
worth bottling! I tell ye what, men, old Rad's investment must go
for it! he had best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home.
The fact is, boys, that sword-fish only began the job; he's come
back again with a gang of ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish,
and what not; and the whole posse of 'em are now hard at work
cutting and slashing at the bottom; making improvements, I suppose.
If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump overboard and
scatter They're playing the devil with his estate, I can tell him.
But he's a simple old soul,- Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they say
the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I wonder
if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.' 


 "'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney,
pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at
it!' 


 'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively,
boys, lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty
fire-engines; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long
that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes the
fullest tension of life's utmost energies. 


 "Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the
Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the
windlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the
profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was,
gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that
corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. 
Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get
a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove
some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at
large. 


 "Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of
household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly
attended to every evening; it has been known to be done in the case
of ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the
inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in
seamen; some of whom would not willingly drown without first
washing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business is the
prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard.
Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had been
divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being the most
athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned
captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freed
from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties,
such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these
particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair
stood between the two men. 


 "But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was
almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though
Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a
whale-ship will understand this; and all this and doubtless much
more, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his
command. But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastly
looked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived the stacks of
powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match silently burning
along towards them; as he instinctively saw all this, that strange
forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper passionateness
in any already ireful being- a repugnance most felt, when felt at
all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved- this nameless
phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt. 


 "Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by  the
bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying
that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do
it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to
three lads, as the customary sweepers; who, not being billeted at
the pumps, had done little or nothing all day. To this, Radney
replied, with an oath, in a most domineering and outrageous manner
unconditionally reiterating his command; meanwhile advancing upon
the still seated Lakeman, with an unlifted cooper's club hammer
which he had snatched from a cask near by. 


 "Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the
pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the
sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate;
but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, without
speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the
incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches of his face,
furiously commanding him to do his bidding. 


 "Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windless,
steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer,
deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however,
that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and
unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off the
foolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose. And in this
way the two went once slowly round the windlass; when, resolved at
last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had now forborne
as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on the
hatches and thus spoke to the officer: 


 "'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or
look to yourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still closer
to him, where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer
within an inch of his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of
insufferable maledictions. Retreating not the thousandth part of an
inch; stabbing him in the eye with the unflinching poniard of his
glance, Steelkilt, clenching his right hand behind him and 
creepingly drawing it back, told his persecutor that if the hammer
but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would murder him. But,
gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter by the gods.
Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant the
lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch
spouting blood like a whale. 


 "Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the
backstays leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were
standing their mastheads. They were both Canallers. 


 "'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whaleships in
our harbors, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and
what are they?' 


 "'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie
Canal. You must have heard of it.' 


 "'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and
hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North.' 


 "'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine;
and ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are;
for such information may throw side-light upon my story.' 


 "For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the
entire breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous
cities and most thriving villages; through long, dismal,
uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for
fertility; by billiard-room and bar-room; through the
holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman arches over Indian
rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or broken; through
all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk counties;
especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires stand
almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly
corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee,
gentlemen; there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next
door to you; under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronizing
lee of churches. For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted
of your metropolitan freebooters that they ever encamp around the
halls of justice, so sinners, gentlemen,  most abound in holiest
vicinities. 


 "'Is that a fair passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards
into the crowded plazza, with humorous concern. 


 "'Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisition
wanes in Lima,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed, Senor.' 


 "'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company. 'In the name
of all us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that
we have by no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting
present Lima for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do
not bow and look surprised: you know the proverb all along this
coast- "Corrupt as Lima." It but bears out your saying, too;
churches more plentiful than billiard-tables, and for ever open-and
"Corrupt as Lima." So, too, Venice; I have been there; the holy
city of the blessed evangelist, St. Mark!- St. Dominic, purge it!
Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you pour out again.' 


 "Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller
would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely
wicked he is. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his
green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying
with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the
sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The
brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched
and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror to the
smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats; his
swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a
vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of
these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not
ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of
your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back
a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum,
gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically
evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so many of
its most finished  graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind,
except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains.
Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to
many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line,
the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole
transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and
recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas. 


 "'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his
chicha upon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel! The world's
one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate North the
generations were cold and holy as the hills.- But the story.' 


 "I had left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the
backstay. Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the
three junior mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to
the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two
Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out
of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with
them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing
out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a
whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious
scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals,
he ran close up to the revolving border of the confusion, and
prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the
object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were
too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the forecastle
deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks in a
line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves
behind the barricade. 


 "'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now
menacing them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by
the steward. 'Come out of that, ye cut-throats!' 


 "Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down
there, defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain
to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the



signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing
in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a
little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents instantly to
return to their duty. 


 "'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their
ringleader. 


 "'Turn to! turn to!- I make no promise; to your duty! Do you
want to sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn
to!' and he once more raised a pistol. 


 "'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let her sink. Not a man
of us turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against
us. What say ye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was
their response. 


 "The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping
his eye on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:-
'It's not our fault; we didn't want it; I told him to take his
hammer away; it was boy's business; he might have known me before
this; I told him not to prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken
a finger here against his cursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives
down in the forecastle there, men? look to those handspikes, my
hearties. Captain, by God, look to yourself; say the word; don't be
a fool; forget it all; we are ready to turn to; treat us decently,
and we're your men; but we won't be flogged.' 


 "'Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!' 


 "'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards
him, 'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have
shipped for the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can
claim our discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don't want
a row; it's not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready
to work, but we won't be flogged.' 


 "'Turn to!' roared the Captain. 


 "Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:- 'I tell
you what it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for
such a shabby rascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless ye 
attack us; but till you say the word about not flogging us, we
don't do a hand's turn.' 


 "'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye
there till ye're sick of it. Down ye go.' 


 "'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were
against it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded
him down into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears
into a cave. 


 "As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks, the
Captain and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing
over the slide of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon
it, and loudly called for the steward to bring the heavy brass
padlock belonging to the companionway. 


 Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something
down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them- ten in
number- leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had
remained neutral. 


 "All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers,
forward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore
hatchway; at which last place it was feared the insurgents might
emerge, after breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of
darkness passed in peace; the men who still remained at their duty
toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals
through the dreary night dismally resounded through the ship. 


 "At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck,
summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water
was then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit
were tossed after it; when again turning the key upon them and
pocketing it, the Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every
day for three days this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a
confused wrangling, and then a scuffling was heard, as the
customary summons was delivered; and suddenly four men burst up
from the forecastle, saying they were ready to turn to. The fetid
closeness 


of the air, and a famishing diet, united perhaps to some fears of
ultimate retribution, had constrained them to surrender at
discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his demand
to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to
stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the
fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air
from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only
three were left. 


 "'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer. 


 "'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt. 


 "'Oh certainly,' the Captain, and the key clicked. 


 "It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection
of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice
that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a
place as black as the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt
proposed to the two Canallers, thus far apparently of mind with
him, to burst out of their hole at the next summoning of the
garrison; and armed with their keen mincing knives (long,
crescentic, heavy implements with a handle at each end) run amuck
from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any devilishness of
desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he would do
this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the last
night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no
opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were ready
for that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a
surrender. And what was more, they each insisted upon being the
first man on deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But
to this their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority
for himself; particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the
one to the other, in the matter; and both of them could not be
first, for the ladder would but admit one man at a time. And here,
gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants must come out. 


 "Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his
own separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the 
same piece of treachery, namely: to be the foremost in breaking
out, in order to be the first of the three, though the last of the
ten, to surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of
pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his
determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by
some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret
treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze,
verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences; and
bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; and
shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. 


 "Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the
blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the
forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound
hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved up into
the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the honor of
securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder. But all these
were collared, and dragged along the deck like dead cattle; and,
side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging, like three
quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning. 'Damn ye,'
cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, 'the vultures
would not touch ye, ye villains!' 


 "At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had
rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told
the former he had a good mind to flog them all round- thought, upon
the while, he would do so- he ought to- justice demanded it; but
for the present, considering their timely surrender, he would let
them go with a reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the
vernacular. 


 "'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men
in the rigging- 'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;'
and, seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs
of the two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung
their heads sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn. 


  "'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last; 'but there
is still rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't
give up. Take that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can
say for himself.' 


 "For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of
his cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said
in a sort of hiss, 'What I say is this- and mind it well- if you
flog me, I murder you!' 


 "'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'- and the Captain drew
off with the rope to strike. 


 "'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman. 


 "'But I must,'- and the rope was once more drawn back for the
stroke. 


 "Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the
Captain; who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced
the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing
down his rope, said, 'I won't do it- let him go- cut him down: d'ye
hear?' 


 But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a
pale man, with a bandaged head, arrested them- Radney the chief
mate. Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that
morning, hearing the tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus
far had watched the whole scene. Such was the state of his mouth,
that he could hardly speak; but mumbling something about his being
willing and able to do what the captain dared not attempt, he
snatched the rope and advanced to his pinioned foe. 


 "'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman. 


 "'So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of
striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and
then pausing no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt's
threat, whatever that might have been. The three men were then cut
down, all hands were turned to, and, sullenly worked by the moody
seamen, the iron pumps clanged as before. 


 "Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a
clamor was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors 


running up, besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not
consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive
them back, so at their own instance they were put down in the
ship's run for salvation. Still, no sign of mutiny reappeared among
the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, that mainly at Steelkilt's
instigation, they had resolved to maintain the strictest
peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the ship
reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the
speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing-
namely, not to sing out for whales, in case any should be
discovered. For, spite her leak, and spite of all her other perils,
the Town-Ho still maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was
just as willing to lower for a fish that moment, as on the day his
craft struck the cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as
ready to change his berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth
seek to gag in death the vital jaw of the whale. 


 "But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this
sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at
least till all was over) concerning his own proper and private
revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ventricles of his
heart. He was in Radney the chief mate's watch; and as if the
infatuated man sought to run more than half way to meet his doom,
after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, against the express
counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head of his watch at
night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, Steelkilt
systematically built the plan of his revenge. 


 "During the night, Radney had an unseaman-like way of sitting on
the bulwarks of the quarterdeck, and leaning his arm upon the
gunwale of the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the
ship's side. In this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes
dozed. There was a considerable vacancy between the boat and the
ship, and down between this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his
time, and found that his next trick at the helm would come round at
two o'clock, in the morning of the third day from that in which he
had been betrayed. At  his leisure, he employed the interval in
braiding something very carefully in his watches below. 


 "'What are you making there?' said a shipmate. 


 "'What do you think? what does it look like?' 


 "'Like a lanyard for your bag; but it's an odd one, seems to
me.' 


 'Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's
length before him; 'but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven't
enough twine,- have you any?' 


 "But there was none in the forecastle. 


 "'Then I must get some from old Rad;' and he rose to go aft. 


 "'You don't mean to go a begging to him!' said a sailor. 


 "'Why not? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's to help
himself in the end, shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked at
him quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It
was given him- neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the
next night an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the
pocket of the Lakeman's monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat
into his hammock for a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick
at the silent helm- nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the
grave always ready dug to the seaman's hand- that fatal hour was
then to come; and in the fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate
was already stark and stretched as a corpse, with his forehead
crushed in. 


 "But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the
bloody deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and
without being the avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven
itself seemed to step in to take out of his hands into its own the
damning thing he would have done. 


 "It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the
second day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid
Teneriffe man, drawing water in the main-chains, all at once
shouted out, 'There she rolls! there she rolls!' Jesu, what a
whale! It was Moby Dick. 


 "'Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian; 'St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but
do whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?' 


 "'A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal  monster,
Don;- but that would be too long a story.' 


 "'How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding. 


 "'Nay, Dons, Dons- nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me
get more into the air, Sirs.' 


 "'The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro; 'our vigorous friend
faint;- fill up his empty glass!' 


 "No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.- Now, gentlemen,
so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the
ship- forgetful of the compact among the crew- in the excitement of
the moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily
lifted his voice for the monster, though for some little time past
it had been plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All
was now a phrensy. 'The White Whale- the White Whale!' was the cry
from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful
rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish;
while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling
beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal
spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue
morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole
career of these events, as if verily mapped out before the world
itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and
when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney
stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the
line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were
lowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely
with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After
a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney
sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a
boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's
topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up,
through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till
of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling
over, spilled out the  standing mate. That instant, as he fell on
the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed aside
by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the sea, on the
other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, and, for
an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to
remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed
round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws;
and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went
down. 


 "Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman
had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool;
calmly looking on, lie thought his own thoughts. But a sudden,
terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife
to the line. He cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some
distance, Moby Dick rose again, with some tatters of Radney's red
woolen shirt, caught in the teeth that had destroyed him. All four
boats gave chase again; but the whale eluded them, and finally
wholly disappeared. 


 "In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port- a savage, solitary
place- where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the
Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately
deserted among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a
large double war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some
other harbor. 


 "The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the captain
called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business
of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting
vigilance over their dangerous allies was this small band of whites
necessitated, both by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard
work they underwent, that upon the vessel being ready again for
sea, they were in such a weakened condition that the captain durst
not put off with them in so heavy a vessel. After taking counsel
with his officers, he anchored the ship as far off shore as
possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon from the bows; stacked
his muskets 


on the poop; and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship
at their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his
best whale-boat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five
hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew. 


 "On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried,
which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered
away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the
voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him
under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each
prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn;
assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he
would bury him in bubbles and foam. 


 "'What do you want of me?' cried the captain. 


 "'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?' demanded
Steelkilt; 'no lies.' 


 "'I am bound to Tahiti for more men.' 


 "'Very good. Let me board you a moment- I come in peace.' With
that he leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the
gunwale, stood face to face with the captain. 


 "'Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after
me. As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on
yonder island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may
lightning strike me!' 


 "'A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor!' and
leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. 


 "Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to
the roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in
due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There,
luck befriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and
were providentially in want of precisely that number of men which
the sailor headed. They embarked, and so for ever got the start of
their former captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal
retribution. 


 "Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the  whale-boat
arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more
civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea.
Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to his
vessel; and finding all right there, again resumed his cruisings. 


 "Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the
island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea
which refuses to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful
white whale that destroyed him. 


 "'Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly. 


 "'I am, Don.' 


 "'Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own
convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so
passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source?
Bear with me if I seem to press.' 


 "'Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don
Sebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest. 


 "'Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn,
gentlemen?' 


 "'Nay,' said Don Sebastian; 'but I know a worthy priest near by,
who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well
advised? this may grow too serious.' 


 "'Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?' 


 "'Though there are no Auto-da-Fe's in Lima now,' said one of the
company to another; 'I fear our sailor friend runs risks of the
archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see
no need of this.' 


 "'Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also
beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized
Evangelists you can.'  


 'This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don
Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. 


 "'Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the
light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. 


 "'So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye,
gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to 


be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the
crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of
Radney.'" 


 CHAPTER 55 


 Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales  


 I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas,
something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to
the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is
moored alongside the whaleship so that he can be fairly stepped
upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert
to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the
present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is
time to set the world right in this matter, by proving such
pictures of the whale all wrong. 


 It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial
delusions will be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and
Grecian sculptures. For ever since those inventive but unscrupulous
times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pedestals of
statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin
was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin's, and a helmeted
head like St. George's; ever since then has something of the same
sort of license prevailed, not only in most popular pictures of the
whale, but in many scientific presentations of him. 


 Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways
purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous
cavern-pagoda of Elephants, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in
the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the
trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were
prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No
wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of whaling
should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred
to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the
incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as
the Matse Avatar. But 


though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to
give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all
wrong. It looks more like the tapering of an anaconda, than the
broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes. 


 But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian
painter's portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the
antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing
Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the
model of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in
painting the same scene in his own "Perseus Descending," make out
one whit better. The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster
undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It
has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended tusked mouth
into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the
Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower.
Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and
Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts
of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the
book-binder's whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a
descending anchor- as stamped and gilded on the backs and
titlepages of many books both old and new- that is a very
picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from
the like figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated
a dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an attempt
at a whale; because it was so intended when the device was first
introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere
about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning; and in
those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins
were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan. 


 In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books
you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale,
where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold,
Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted
brain. In the 


title-page of the original edition of the "Advancement of
Learning" you will find some curious whales. 


 But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at
those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific
delineations, by those who know. In old Harris's collection of
voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book
of voyages, A.D. 1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzberge n
in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland,
master." In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of
logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, with white bears
running over their living backs. In another plate, the prodigious
blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular
flukes. 


 Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain
Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage
round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending
the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries." In this book is an outline
purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale,
drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August,
1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not the captain had this
veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. To mention
but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which
applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm
whale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet
long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking
out of that eye! 


 Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History
for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same
heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's
Animated Nature." In the abridged London edition of 1807, there are
plates of an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale." I do not wish to
seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an
amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is
enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a
hippogriff could be palmed for  genuine upon any intelligent public
of schoolboys. 


 Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a
great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book,
wherein are several pictures of the different species of the
Leviathan. All these are not only incorrect, but the picture of the
Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say the Right whale),
even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching that species,
declares not to have its counterpart in nature. 


 But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business
was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the
famous Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in
which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before
showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for
your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's
Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never
had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but
whence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as
his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of
his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what
sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer
cups and saucers inform us. 


 As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging
over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are
generally Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very
savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is
whaleboats full of mariners: their deformities floundering in seas
of blood and blue paint. 


 But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so
very surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific
drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; and these are
about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back,
would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its
undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood for
their full-lengths, the  living Leviathan has never yet fairly
floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full
majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable
waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a
launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a thing
eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the
air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And,
not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between
a young suckling whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet,
even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a
ship's deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered,
varying shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself
could not catch. 


 But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the
stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true
form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about
this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his
general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for
candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly
conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with
all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of
this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's articulated bones.
In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale
bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as
the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it.
This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part
of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously
displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer
to bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four
regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger.
But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as
the human fingers in an artificial covering. "However recklessly
the whale may 


sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never
be truly said to handle us without mittens." 


 For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you
must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature
in the world which much remain unpainted to the last. True, one
portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can
hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is
no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks
like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable
idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by
so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk
by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too
fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan. 


 CHAPTER 56 


 Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales and the True Pictures
of Whaling Scenes  


 In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am
strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous
stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both
ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris,
Cuvier, &c. But I pass that matter by. 


 I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale;
Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the
previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to.
Huggins's is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is
the best. All Beale's drawings of this whale are good, excepting
the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various
attitudes, capping his second chapter. His frontispiece, boats
attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the
civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and
life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale drawings
in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they are
wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault 


though. 


 Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby;
but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable
impression. He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is
a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all
well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the
living whale as seen by his living hunters. 


 But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some
details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling
scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well
executed, and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively,
they represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first
engraving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might,
just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and
bearing high in the. air upon his back the terrific wreck of the
stoven planks. The prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is
drawn just balancing upon the monster's spine; and standing in that
prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an
oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale,
and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of
the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The half-emptied
line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden poles of the
spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the swimming
crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions of
affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing
down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the
anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the
life of me, I could not draw so good a one. 


 In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing
alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that
rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide
from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black
like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you
would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great
bowels below. Sea  fowls are pecking at the small crabs,
shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right
Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while
the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving
tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight
boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the
paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the fore-ground is all
raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is
the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails
of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a
conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from
the inserted into his spout-hole. 


 Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for
it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else
marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are
the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of
Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and
breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at
Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through
the consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a
flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and
Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly
unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of
Garnery. 


 The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the
picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what
paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With
not one tenth of England's experience in the fishery, and not the
thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless
furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all
capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. For the
most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen seem entirely
content with  presenting the mechanical outline of things, such as
the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as picturesqueness
of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the
profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right
whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland
whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and
porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat
hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the microscopic
diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering
world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I
mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a
veteran), but in so important a matter it was certainly an
oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit
taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace. 


 In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two
other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes
himself "H. Durand." One of them, though not precisely adapted to
our present purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other
accounts. It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific;
a French whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking
water on board; the loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves
of the palms in the background, both drooping together in the
breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when considered with
reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under one of their
few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is quite a
different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the
very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside;
the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as
if to a quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of
activity, is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The
harpoons and lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just
setting the mast in its hole; while from a sudden roll of the ship,
the little craft stands half-erect out of the water, like a rearing
horse. From that ship, the 


smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the
smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud,
rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the
activity of the excited seamen. 


 CHAPTER 57 


 Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone;
in Mountains; in Stars  


 On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have
seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say) holding a
painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he
lost his leg. There are three whales and three boats; and one of
the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original
integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any
time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that
picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. But the
time of his justification has now come. His three whales are as
good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate; and his
stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western
clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a
stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with downcast eyes,
stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation. 


 Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford,
and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and
whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm
Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone,
and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the
numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out
of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of
them have little boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially
intended for the skrimshandering business. But, in general, they
toil with their jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent
tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in
the way of a mariner's fancy. 


 Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably 
restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what
is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as
an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the
King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against
him. 


 Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his
domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient
Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and
elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance
as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a
shark's tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has
been achieved; and it has cost steady years of steady application. 


 As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage.
With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's
tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone
sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its
maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and
full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that
fine Dutch savage, Albert Durer. 


 Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark
slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in
the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with
much accuracy. 


 At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass
whales hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When
the porter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But
these knocking whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On
the spires of some old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron
whales placed there for weathercocks; but they are so elevated, and
besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with
"Hands off!" you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon
their merit. 


 In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high
broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon
the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms
of 


the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks
against them in a surf of green surges. 


 Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is
continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from
some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the
profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you
must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only
that, but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be
sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your
first stand-point, else so chance-like are such observations of the
hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would require a
laborious re-discovery; like the Soloma islands, which still remain
incognita, though once high-ruffled Mendanna trod them and old
Figuera chronicled them. 


 Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to
trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit
of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern
nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the
North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the
revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And
beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the
Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far
beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish. 


 With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of
harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the
topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their
countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight! 


 CHAPTER 58 


 Brit  


 Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast
meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right
Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues undulated round us, so
that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and
golden wheat. 


  On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who,
secure from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open
jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the
fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths,
was in that manner separated from the water that escaped at the
lips. 


 As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly
advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads;
even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting
sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the
yellow sea.*  


 *That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks"
does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of
there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this
remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of
brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale
is often chased.  


 But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit
which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads,
especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their
vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than
anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the
stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent
elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare,
blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for
the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.
And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude renders
it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth
can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life
that lives in a dog or a horse. 


 Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures
of the deep with the same feeling that you do those of the shore.
For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures
of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a 
broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming
to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish
that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?
The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear
comparative analogy to him. 


 But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of
the seas have ever regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and
repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra
incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds
to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds,
the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and
indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those
who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration
will teach that, however baby man may brag of his science and
skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and
skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom,
the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest,
stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual
repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of
the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. 


 The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with
Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so
much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean
destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals,
Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it
yet covers. 


 Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is
not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the
Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live
ground opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun
ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows
up ships and crews. 


 But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it,
but 


it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian
host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which
itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the
jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest
whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with
the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls
it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its
rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe. 


 Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and
treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider
also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most
remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species
of sharks. Consider once more, the universal cannibalism of the
sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal
war since the world began. 


 Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most
docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you
not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this
appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man
there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but
encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep
thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return! 


 CHAPTER 59 


 Squid  


 Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held
on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air
impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three
tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three
mild palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery
night, the lonely, alluring jet would be seen. 


 But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost
preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any
stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters 


seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy;
when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on;
in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was
seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head. 


 In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising
higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last
gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills.
Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then
once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and
yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down,
but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that
startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out- "There!
there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the
White Whale!" 


 Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in
swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the
sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed
far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast
his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the
outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. 


 Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary
jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to
connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of
the particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his
eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner
did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick
intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering. 


 The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and
all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and
while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo!
in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost
forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed
at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto 
revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and
breadth, of a glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water,
innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and
twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any
hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it
have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but
undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like
apparition of life. 


 As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again,
Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk,
with a wild voice exclaimed- "Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick
and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!" 


 "What was it, Sir?" said Flask. 


 "The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever
beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it." 


 But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the
vessel; the rest as silently following. 


 Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have
connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a
glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far
to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that
though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated
thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most
vague ideas concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding,
they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food. For
though other species of whales find their food above water, and may
be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains
his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and only by
inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that food
consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are
supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus
exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy
that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by
them to the bed of  the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike
other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear
it. 


 There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of
Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The
manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and
sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the
two correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the
incredible bulk he assigns it. 


 By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the
mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class
of cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it
would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe. 


 CHAPTER 60 


 The Line  


 With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as
well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes
elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes
horrible whale-line. 


 The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp,
slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case
of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the
hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope
itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not
only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line
for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most
seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to
the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it
compactness and gloss. 


 Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery
almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for,
though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft
and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all
things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp.
Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as
a  golden-haired Circassian to behold. 


 The whale-line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness. At
first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By
experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of
one hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a
strain nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm
whale-line measures something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the
stern of the boat it is spirally coiled away in the tub, not like
the worm-pipe of a still though, but so as to form one round,
cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded "sheaves," or layers of
concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the "heart," or
minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least
tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly
take somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution
is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will
consume almost an entire morning in this business, carrying the
line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a block
towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all
possible wrinkles and twists. 


 In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same
line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some
advantage in this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit
more readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas,
the American tub, nearly three feet in diameter and of
proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose
planks are but one-half inch in thickness; for the bottom of the
whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up a considerable
distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated one. When
the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American tubline, the
boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great
wedding-cake to present to the whales. 


 Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in
an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of
the 


tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from
everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two
accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an
additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale
should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line
originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale
of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one
boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to
assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensable for
common safety's sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way
attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out
to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does,
he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be
dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that
case no town-crier would ever find her again. 


 Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the
line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead
there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat,
resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so
that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between
the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the
leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat,
where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common squill, prevents
it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon
over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again; and some
ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box
in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little
further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp- the rope which
is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that
connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too
tedious to detail. 


 Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated
coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction.
All the 


oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the
timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the
deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son
of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen
intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him
that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all
these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings;
he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the
very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet
habit- strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?- Gayer sallies,
more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never
heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch
white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses;
and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six
men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter
around every neck, as you may say. 


 Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for
those repeated whaling disasters- some few of which are casually
chronicled- of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by
the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated
then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold
whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam,
and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot
sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is
rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other,
without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting
buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you
escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the
all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out. 


 Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and
prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm
itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of
the storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless 
rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so
the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about
the oarsmen before being brought into actual play- this is a thing
which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this
dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in
whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is
only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals
realize the silent, subtle, everpresent perils of life. And if you
be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at
heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your
evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. 


 CHAPTER 61 


 Stubb Kills a Whale  


 If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of
portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object. 


 "When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in
the bow of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale." 


 The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing
special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the
spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the
Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging is not what
whalemen call a lively ground; that is, it affords fewer glimpses
of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens
of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or the
in-shore ground off Peru. 


 It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my
shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro
I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could
withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last
my soul went out of my body; though my body still continued to sway
as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it is
withdrawn. 


 Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that
the seamen at the main and mizzen mast-heads were already  drowsy.
So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars,
and for every swing that we made there was a nod from below from
the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent
crests; and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west,
and the sun over all. 


 Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like
vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency
preserved me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under
our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling
in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy
back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a
mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever
and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like
a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that
pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter's
wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started
into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts of
the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted
forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly
spouted the sparkling brine into the air. 


 "Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying his own
order, he dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the
spokes. 


 The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale;
and ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to
the leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few
ripples as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be
alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used, and no
man must speak but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on
the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along;
the calm not admitting of the noiseless sails being set. Presently,
as we thus glided in chase, the monster perpendicularly flitted his
tail forty feet into the air, and then sank out of sight like a
tower 


swallowed up. 


 "There go flukes!" was the cry, an announcement immediately
followed by Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for
now a respite was granted. After the full interval of his sounding
had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being now in advance of the
smoker's boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others,
Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was obvious, now,
that the whale had at length become aware of his pursuers. All
silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles
were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at
his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault. 


 Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his
jeopardy, he was going "head out"; that part obliquely projecting
from the mad yeast which he brewed.*  


 *It will be seen in some other place of what a very light
substance the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head
consists. Though apparently the most massive, it is by far the most
buoyant part about him. So that with ease he elevates it in the
air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost speed.
Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his
head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower part,
that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to
transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a
sharppointed New York pilot-boat.  


 "Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take
plenty of time- but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's
all," cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. "Start
her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her,
Tash, my boy- start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool- cucumbers
is the word- easy, easy- only start her like grim death and
grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of
their graves, boys- that's all. Start her!" 


 "Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Header in reply,  raising
some old war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained
boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading
stroke which the eager Indian gave. 


 But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild.
"Kee-hee! Kee-hee!" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards
on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage. 


 "Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over
a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the
keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb, retaining his place in the
van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing
the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they
strained, till the welcome cry was heard- "Stand up, Tashtego!-
give it to him!" The harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen
backed water; the same moment something went hot and hissing along
every one of their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant
before, Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round
the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings,
a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady fumes
from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the loggerhead;
so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed
through and through both of Stubb's hands, from which the
hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these
times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's
sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time
striving to wrest it out of your clutch. 


 "Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman
(him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed
sea-water into it.* More turns were taken, so that the line began
holding its place. The boat now flew through the boiling water like
a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed places- stem for
stern- a staggering business truly in that rocking commotion. 


 


 *Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here
be stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash
the running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin,
or bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the
most convenient.  


 From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper
part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a
harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keels- one
cleaving the water, the other the air- as the boat churned on
through both opposing elements at once. A continual cascade played
at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake; and, at the
slightest motion from within, even but of a little finger, the
vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale into
the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging to
his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of
Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to
bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics
seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale
somewhat slackened his flight. 


 "Haul in- haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing
round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to
him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his
flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted
dart after dart into the flying fish; at the word of command, the
boat alternately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible
wallow, and then ranging up for another fling. 


 The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like
brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in
blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake.
The slanting sun playing upon their crimson pond in the sea, sent
back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to
each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white
smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and
vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman; as
at  every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line
attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few
rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into
the whale. 


 "Pull up- pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning
whale relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up!- close to!" and the boat
ranged along the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow,
Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept
it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking
to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed,
and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But
that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And
now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that
unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster horribly
wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad,
boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping
astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied
twilight into the clear air of the day. 


 And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out
into view! surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and
contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized
respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if
it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened
air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless
flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! 


 "He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo. 


 "Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his
mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a
moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. 


 CHAPTER 62 


 The Dart  


 A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. 


 According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat
pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as 


temporary steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling
the foremost oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs
a strong, nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for
often, in what is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be
flung to the distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however
prolonged and exhausting the chase, the harpooneer is expected to
pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; indeed, he is expected to
set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not only by
incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations;
and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's compass, while
all the other muscles are strained and half started- what that is
none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl very
heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this
straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at
once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry- "Stand up,
and give it to him!" He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn
round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch,
and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it
somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of
whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not
five are successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are
madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually
burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm
whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to
many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the
harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of
his body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted! 


 Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical
instant, that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and
harpooneer likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent
jeopardy of themselves and every one else. It is then they change
places; and the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, 
takes his proper station in the bows of the boat. 


 Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both
foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from
first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and
no rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under
circumstances obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would
sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase; but long
experience in various whalemen of more than one nation has
convinced me that in the vast majority of failures in the fishery,
it has not by any means been so much the speed of the whale as the
before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has caused them.



 To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers
of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and
not from out of toil. 


 CHAPTER 63 


 The Crotch  


 Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So,
in productive subjects, grow the chapters. 


 The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent
mention. It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in
length, which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard
gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the
wooden extremity of the harpoons, whose other naked, barbed end
sloping projects from the prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at
hand to its hurler, who snatches it up as readily from its rest as
a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall. It is customary to
have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, respectively called the
first and second irons. 


 But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected
with the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if
possible, one instantly after the other into the same whale; so
that if, in the coming drag, one should draw out, the other may
still retain a hold. It is a doubling of the chances. But it very
often happens that owing to the instantaneous, violent, convulsive
running 


of the whale upon receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible
for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in his movements, to
pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is
already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence
that weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of
the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy
would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is
in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned in a
preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently
practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with
the saddest and most fatal casualties. 


 Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown
overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror,
skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the
lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all
directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again
until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse. 


 Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all
engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when
owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand
concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten
loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For,
of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on
to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted without
recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as
they will not fail to elucidate several most important however
intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted. 


 CHAPTER 64 


 Stubb's Supper  


 Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It
was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced slow
business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we
eighteen 


men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs
and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert,
sluggish corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all,
except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the
enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of
Hang-Ho, or whatever they call it, in China, four or five laborers
on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a
mile an hour; but this grand argosy we towed heavily forged along,
as if laden with piglead in bulk. 


 Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod's
main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab
dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly
eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders
for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a
seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again
until morning. 


 Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab
had evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the
creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or
despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body
reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a
thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not
one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would
have thought from the sound on the Pequod's decks, that all hands
were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are
being dragged along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the
port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast corpse itself,
not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, and
by the tall to the bows, the whale now lies with its black hull
close to the vessel's, and seen through the darkness of the night,
which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two- ship and
whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one
reclines while the other  remains standing.*  


 *A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and
most reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored
alongside, is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater
density that part is relatively heavier than any other (excepting
the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink
low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you cannot get at it
from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this
difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is
prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its
middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit
management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of
the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is
readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is
at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the
point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.  


 If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could
be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest,
betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an
unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official
superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management
of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in
Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he
was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing
to his palate. 


 "A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go,
and cut me one from his small!" 


 Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a
general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the
enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at least before
realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find
some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that
particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb; comprising 
the tapering extremity of the body. 


 About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two
lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti
supper at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard.
Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale's flesh that night.
Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on
thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly
feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were
often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the
hull, within a few inches of the sleepers' hearts. Peering over the
side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing
in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their backs as
they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness
of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all but
miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they
contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of
the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on
the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in
countersinking for a screw. 


 Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight,
sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like
hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to
bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though,
while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally
carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded and
tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are
quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and
though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would
still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking
sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also
are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the
Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a
parcel is to be carried  anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently
buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set
down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do
most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there
no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such
countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around
a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you
have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the
propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the
devil. 


 But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that
was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the
smacking of his own epicurean lips. 


 "Cook, cook!- where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length,
widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base
for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the
dish, as if stabbing with his lance; "cook, you cook!- sail this
way, cook!" 


 The old black, not in any very high glee at having been
previously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable
hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old
blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pans, which he
did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as
they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his
step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of
straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in
obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on the
opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded
before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched
back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his
head, so as to bring his best ear into play. 


 "Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to
his mouth, "don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've
been 


beating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don't I
always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are
those sharks now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough
and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to
'em; tell 'em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in
moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my
own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this
lantern," snatching one from his sideboard; "now then, go and
preach to them!" 


 Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across
the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand drooping his
light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his
congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs,
and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing
the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that
was said. 


 "Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat
dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa
Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but
by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!" 


 "Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a
sudden slap on the shoulder,- "cook! why, damn your eyes, you
mustn't swear that way when you're preaching. That's no way to
convert sinners, cook!" 


 "Who dat? Den preach to him yourself," sullenly turning to go. 


 "No, cook; go on, go on." 


 "Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"- 


 "Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax 'em to it, try
that," and Fleece continued. 


 "Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to
you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness- 'top dat dam slappin'
ob de tail! How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up such a dam
slapping and bitin' dare?" 


 "Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won't have that swearing.
Talk to 'em gentlemanly." 


 Once more the sermon proceeded. 


 "Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don't blame ye so  much
for; dat is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked
natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de
shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more
dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try
wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be
tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one
shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you
has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I
know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but then
de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of
de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de
small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help
demselves." 


 "Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go
on." 


 "No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scougin' and
slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use
a-preaching to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies
is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em
full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast
to sleep on de coral, and can't hear noting at all, no more, for
eber and eber." 


 "Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the
benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to my supper." 


 Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised
his shrill voice, and cried- 


 "Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you
can; fill your dam bellies 'till dey bust- and den die." 


 "Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan;
"stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay
particular attention." 


 "All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs
in the desired position. 


 "Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; "I shall
now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how
old 


are you, cook?" 


 "What dat do wid de 'teak, " said the old black, testily. 


 "Silence! How old are you, cook?" 


 "'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered. 


 "And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years,
cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?" rapidly
bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a
continuation of the question. "Where were you born, cook?" 


 "'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke." 


 "Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to know
what country you were born in, cook!" 


 "Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he cried sharply. 


 "No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to,
cook. You must go home and be born over again; you don't know how
to cook a whale-steak yet." 


 "Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he growled, angrily,
turning round to depart. 


 "Come back here, cook;- here, hand me those tongs;- now take
that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked
as it should be? Take it, I say"- holding the tongs towards him-
"take it, and taste it." 


 Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old
negro muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry
joosy." 


 "Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more; "do you belong
to the church?" 


 "Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly. 


 "And you have once in your life passed a holy church in
Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing
his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And
yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just
now, eh?" said Stubb. "Where do you expect to go to, cook?" 


 "Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke. 


 "Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful
question. Now what's your answer?" 


 "When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly, changing
his whole air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go nowhere; but some
bressed 


angel will come and fetch him." 


 "Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah?
And fetch him where?" 


 "Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his
head, and keeping it there very solemnly. 


 "So, then, you expect to go into our main-top, do you, cook,
when you are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the
colder it gets? Main-top, eh?" 


 "Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks. 


 "You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see
where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into
heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no, no,
cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by
the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else
it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs,
cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand,
and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders,
cook. What! that your heart, there?- that's your gizzard! Aloft!
aloft!- that's it- now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay
attention." 


 "All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as
desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears
in front at one and the same time. 


 "Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very
bad, that have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see
that, don't you? Well, for the future, when you cook another
whale-steak for my private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you
what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in
one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done,
dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in
the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have
them put in pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them
soused, cook. There, now ye may go." 


 But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.



 "Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the
mid-watch. D'ye hear? away you sail then.- Halloa! stop! make a bow



before you go.- Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast-
don't forget." 


 "Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm
bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,"
muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he
went to his hammock. 


 CHAPTER 65 


 The Whale as a Dish  


 That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his
lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say;
this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little
into the history and philosophy of it. 


 It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the
Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded
large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain
cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an
admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you
remember, are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this
day considered fine eating. The meat is made into balls about the
size of billiard balls, and being well seasoned and spiced might be
taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. The old monks of Dunfermline
were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the
crown. 


 The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by
all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of
him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one
hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most
unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales;
but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious. We all know how they live
upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil.
Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of
blubber for infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And
this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who long ago were
accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel- that these men
actually lived for several 


months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore
after trying out the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps
are called "fritters"; which, indeed, they greatly resemble, being
brown and crisp, and smelling something like old Amsterdam
housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They have such an
eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly keep
his hands off. 


 But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is
his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too
fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine
eating as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it
not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how
bland and creamy that is; like the transparent, half jellied, white
meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its growth, yet far too
rich to supply a substitute for butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen
have a method of absorbing it into some other substance, and then
partaking of it. In the long try watches of the night it is a
common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge
oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supper have I
thus made. 


 In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a
fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and
the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling
two large puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked
into a most delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves'
head, which is quite a dish among some epicures; and every one
knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually
dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains
of their own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own
heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is
the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head
before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The
head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an "Et tu Brute!"
expression. 


  It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so
excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him
with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the
consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly
murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no
doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a
murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial
by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it
if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and
see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead
quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's
jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more
tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his
cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that
provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee,
civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground
and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras. 


 But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that
is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle,
there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand, dining off that roast
beef, what is that handle made of?- what but the bones of the
brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your
teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the
same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for
the Suppression of Cruelty of Ganders formally indite his
circulars? It is only within the last month or two that the society
passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens. 


 CHAPTER 66 


 The Shark Massacre  


 When in the Southern Fishery a captured Sperm Whale, after long
and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as
a 


general thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the
business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly
laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands
to set about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all
sail; lash the helm a'lee; and then send every one below to his
hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, until that time,
anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for an hour,
each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see that
all goes well. 


 But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this
plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of
sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for
six hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would
be visible by morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however,
where these fish do not so largely abound, their wondrous voracity
can be at times considerably diminished, by vigorously stirring
them up with sharp whaling-spades, a procedure notwithstanding,
which, in some instances, only seems to tickle them into still
greater activity. But it was not thus in the present case with the
Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such
sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost
thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks
the maggots in it. 


 Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his
supper was concluded; and when, accordingly Queequeg and a
forecastle seaman came on deck, no small excitement was created
among the sharks; for immediately suspending the cutting stages
over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so that they cast long
gleams of light over the turbid sea, these two mariners, darting
their long whaling-spades,* kept up an incessant murdering of the
sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls,
seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy confusion of
their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit
their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the
incredible ferocity of the foe. 


They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments,
but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those
entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to
be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was
unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A
sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their
very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual
life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his
skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off,
when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.  


 *The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best
steel; is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general
shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named;
only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably
narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as
possible; and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a
razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet
long, is inserted for a handle.  


 "Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the savage,
agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; "wedder Fejee god or
Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin." 


 CHAPTER 67 


 Cutting In  


 It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex
officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory
Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a
butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand
red oxen to the sea gods. 


 In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other
ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted
green, and which no single man can possibly lift- this vast bunch
of grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the
lower 


mast-head, the strongest point anywhere above a ship's deck. The
end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was
then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the
tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber
hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached. And now
suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates,
armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for
the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two
side-fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the
hole, the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking
up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the
windlass. When instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side;
every bolt in her starts like the nailheads of an old house in
frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted
mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale,
while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a helping
heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap is
heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from
the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging
after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of
blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the
rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely
as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the
strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the
whale rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one
strip uniformly peels off along the line called the "scarf,"
simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates;
and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very
act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher
aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the
windlass then cease heaving, for a moment or two the prodigious
blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky,
and every one 


present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it
may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard. 


 One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen
weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he
dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the
swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating
great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the
blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this
accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more
makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong,
desperate, lunging, slicings, severs it completely in twain; so
that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper
strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for
lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the
one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale,
the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip
through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor
called the blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble
hands keep coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a
great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds;
the two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously; both whale
and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, the blubber-room
gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and all
hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general
friction. 


 CHAPTER 68 


 The Blanket  


 I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the
skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it with
experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My
original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion. 


 The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale.
Already you know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of
the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more 
elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and
fifteen inches in thickness. 


 Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any
creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness,
yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a
presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping
layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the
outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what
can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred dead body of the
whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin,
transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds of
isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that
is, previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and
thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such
dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is
transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed
page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a
magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about
whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am
driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass
substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is
not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin
of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say,
that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more
tender than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this. 


 Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when
this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield
the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered
that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed
state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the
coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that
animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a
lake of liquid as 


that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the
net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale's skin.



 In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least
among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all
over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight
marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian
line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon
the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen
through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is
this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those
linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground
for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if
you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids
hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present
connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one
Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate
representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous
hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like
those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains
undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of
another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior
of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and
more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular
linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether
of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England
rocks on the seacoast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of
violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs- I should say,
that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this
particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale
are probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have
most remarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species. 


 A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber
of the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript  from him
in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this
one is very happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up
in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still
better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his
extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body,
that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all
weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a
Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the North,
if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found
exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it
observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies
are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of
an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire;
whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his
blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then- except after
explanation- that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is
as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be
found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic
waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes
found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of
fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more
surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that
the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in
summer. 


 It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a
strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and
the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model
thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do
thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the
equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of
St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all
seasons a temperature of thine own. 


 But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of
erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how
few vast as the whale! 


  CHAPTER 69 


 The Funeral  


 Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern! 


 The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body
of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though
changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is
still colossal. Slowly it floats more and more away, the water
round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air
above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks
are like so many insulting poniards in the whale.The vast white
headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and
every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and
cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and
hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen.
Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the
pleasant sea, waited by the joyous breezes, that great mass of
death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives. 


 There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The
sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all
punctiliously in black or speckled. In life but few of them would
have helped the whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it;
but upon the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce.
Oh, horrible vulturism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale
is free. 


 Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost
survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid
man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the
distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the
white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high
against it; straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with
trembling fingers is set down in the log- shoals, rocks, and
breakers hereabout: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps,
ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a
vacuum, because their leader 


originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law
of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the
story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on
the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!



 Thus, while in the life the great whale's body may have been a
real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless
panic to a world. 


 Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts
than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who
believe in them. 


 CHAPTER 70 


 The Sphynx  


 It should not have been omitted that previous to completely
stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the
beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon
which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and
not without reason. 


 Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called
a neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join,
there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember,
also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten
feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject
almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous
and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward
circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in
that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single
peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skillfully
steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide
the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull.
Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten
minutes to behead a sperm whale? 


 When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by
a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a
small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. 
But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm
whale's head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and
completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense
tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt
weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales. 


 The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the
head was hoisted against the ship's side- about half way out of the
sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native
element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over it,
by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head,
and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the
waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist
like the giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. 


 When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen
went below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before
tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a
universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless
measureless leaves upon the sea. 


 A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab
alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he
paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the
main-chains he took Stubb's long spade still remaining there after
the whale's decapitation and striking it into the lower part of the
half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutchwise under one arm,
and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.



 It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst
of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak,
thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with
mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in
thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon
which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's
foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold
hopes and  anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in
that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast
been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's
side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them
down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming
ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to
each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for
hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and
his murderers still sailed on unharmed- while swift lightnings
shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous
husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough
to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!" 


 "Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head. 


 "Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow.
"That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a
better man.- Where away?" 


 "Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her
breeze to us! 


 "Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along
that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and
O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked
analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has
its cunning duplicate in mind." 


 CHAPTER 71 


 The Jeroboam's Story  


 Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came
faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock. 


 By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned
mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to
windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage to some
other ground, the 


Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see
what response would be made. 


 Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the
ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all
which signals being collected in a book with the names of the
respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with it.
Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other
upon the ocean, even at considerable distance, and with no small
facility. 


 The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's
setting her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of
Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under
the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as
the side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate
the visiting captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from
his boat's stern in token of that proceeding being entirely
unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant
epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of
infecting the Pequod's company. For, though himself and the boat's
crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot
off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between;
yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land,
he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the
Pequod. 


 But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving
an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the
Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep
parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for
by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback;
though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling
wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead; but would be soon
skilfully brought to her proper bearings again. Subject to this,
and other the like interruptions now and then, a conversation was
sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not without
still another interruption 


of a very different sort. 


 Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular
appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual
notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short,
youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and
wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut
coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves
of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic
delirium was in his eyes. 


 So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had
exclaimed- "That's he! that's he!- the long-togged scaramouch the
Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to a strange
story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some
time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this
account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the
scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over
almost everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this: 


 He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of
Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their
cracked, secret meetings having several times descended from heaven
by the way of a trapdoor, announcing the speedy opening of the
seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which,
instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with
laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left
Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to
craziness, he assumed a steady, common sense exterior, and offered
himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling
voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship's getting
out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He
announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded the
captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he
set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with
which he declared these things;- the dark, daring play of his
sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural  terrors
of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the
majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness.
Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not
of much practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work
except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have
been rid of him; but apprised that that individual's intention was
to land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith
opened all his seals and vials- devoting the ship and all hands to
unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out. So
strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, that at
last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel was
sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was
therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit
Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that
it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship.
The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared little or
nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had
broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the
plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be
stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor
devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience
to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to
a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they
are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in
respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself,
as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many
others. But it is time to return to the Pequod. 


 "I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab from the bulwarks, to
Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; "come on board." 


 But now Gabriel started to his feet. 


 "Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the
horrible plague!" 


  "Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew; "thou must either-"
But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its
seethings drowned all speech. 


 "Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demanded Ahab, when the boat
drifted back. 


 "Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the
horrible tail!" 


 "I tell thee again, Gabriel, that-" But again the boat tore
ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments,
while a succession of riotous waves rolled by which by one of those
occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it.
Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very
violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more
apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to warrant. 


 When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story
concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions
from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea
that seemed leagued with him. 


 It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon
speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the
existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking
in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against
attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in
his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less
a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the
Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly
sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with
ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling
to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel's
denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five
men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after much weary
pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last
succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to
the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures,
and hurling forth 


prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his
divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's
bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his
wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance
for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea;
by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of
the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full
of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long
arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about
fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any
oarsman's head; but the mate for ever sank. 


 It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in
the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as
any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus
annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the
thigh-board, on which the headsman stands, is torn from its place
and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance,
that in more instances than one, when the body has been recovered,
not a single mark of violence is discernible the man being stark
dead. 


 The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly
descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek- "The vial! the
vial!" Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further
hunting of the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel
with added influence; because his credulous disciples believed that
he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a
general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have
chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He
became a nameless terror to the ship. 


 Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions
to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring
whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should
offer. To which Ahab answered- "Aye." Straightway, then, Gabriel
once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and 
vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger- "Think, think
of the blasphemer- dead, and down there!- beware of the
blasphemer's end!" 


 Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, "Captain, I
have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one
of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag." 


 Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for
various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be
addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the
four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many
are only received after attaining an age of two or three years or
more. 


 Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely
tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in
consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a
letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy. 


 "Can'st not read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me, man. Aye, aye,
it's but a dim scrawl;- what's this?" As he was studying it out,
Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife
slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that
way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the
ship. 


 Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, "Mr. Har- yes, Mr.
Harry- (a woman's pinny hand,- the man's wife, I'll wager)- Aye-
Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; why it's Macey, and he's dead!" 


 "Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife," sighed Mayhew;
"but let me have it." 


 "Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab; "thou art soon
going that way." 


 "Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "Captain Mayhew, stand by
now to receive it"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's
hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over
towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly
desisted from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship's
stern; so that, as if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along
with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it in an instant, seized the
boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back
into the ship. 


It fell at Ahab's feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades
to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat
rapidly shot away from the Pequod. 


 As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the
jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference
to this wild affair. 


 CHAPTER 72 


 The Monkey-Rope  


 In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a
whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew.
Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there.
There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time
everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him
who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our
way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in
the whale's back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original
hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy
and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was
inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was,
as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster's back for the special
purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require
that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole
tensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it
observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate
parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level
of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale
and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill
beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the
Highland costume- a shirt and socks- in which to my eyes, at least,
he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance
to observe him, as will presently be seen. 


 Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the
bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was  my
cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble
scramble upon the dead whale's back. You have seen Italian
organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the
ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by
what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached
to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist. 


 It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For,
before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was
fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast
to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two,
for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no
more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting
the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an
elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own
inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the
dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. 


 So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation
then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed
distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in
a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a
mortal wound; and that another's mistake or misfortune might plunge
innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw
that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its
even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet
still further pondering- while I jerked him now and then from
between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him- still
further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the
precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most
cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a
plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if
your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die.
True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly
escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But
handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I  would, sometimes he
jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I
possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of
one end of it.*  


 *The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the
Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This
improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man
than Stubb, in order to afford to the imperilled harpooneer the
strongest possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of
his monkey-rope holder.  


 I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between
the whale and the ship- where he would occasionally fall, from the
incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only
jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made
upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly
allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the
carcass- the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a
beehive. 


 And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed
them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible
were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the
otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a
man. 


 Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such
a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp
to them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and
then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of
what seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark- he was provided with
still another protection. Suspended over the side in one of the
stages, Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a
couple of keen whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many
sharks as they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure,
was very disinterested and benevolent of them. They meant
Queequeg's best 


happiness, I admit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and
from the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times
half hidden by the blood-muddled water, those indiscreet spades of
theirs would come nearer amputating a leg than a tall. But poor
Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there with that great
iron hook- poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his Yojo, and
gave up his life into the hands of his gods. 


 Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I
drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea-
what matters it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each
and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you
gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your
friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle
and peril, poor lad. 


 But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For
now, as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at
last climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily
trembling over the side; the steward advances, and with a
benevolent, consolatory glance hands him- what? Some hot Cognac?
No! hands him, ye gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water! 


 "Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming
near. "Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as yet untasted
cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked
towards the astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and
will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies
the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use,
Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!-
what the devil is ginger?- sea-coal? firewood?- lucifer matches?-
tinder?- gunpowder?- what the devil is ginger, I say, that you
offer this cup to our poor Queequeg here." 


 "There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this
business," he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had
just come from forward. "Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell
of 


it, if you please." Then watching the mate's countenance, he
added, "The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that
calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale.
Is the steward an apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is
the sort of bitters by which he blows back the life into a
half-drowned man?" 


 "I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuff enough." 


 "Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teach you to drug it
harpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to
poison us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want
to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?" 


 "It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that
brought the ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers
any spirits, but only this ginger-jub- so she called it." 


 "Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with
ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong,
Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's orders- grog for the harpooneer
on a whale." 


 "Enough," replied Starbuck, "only don't hit him again, but-" 


 "Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or
something of that sort; and this fellow's a weazel. What were you
about saying, sir?" 


 "Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest
thyself." 


 When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand,
and a sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong
spirits, and was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity's
gift, and that was freely given to the waves. 


 CHAPTER 73 


 Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over
Him  


 It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm
Whale's prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must
let it continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to
attend to it. For the present other matters press, and the best we
can do now for the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. 


 Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had 
gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of
yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales,
a species of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this
particular time lurking anywhere near. And though all hands
commonly disdained the capture of those inferior creatures; and
though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them at all,
and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without
lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought
alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement
was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if
opportunity offered. 


 Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and
two boats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling
further and further away, they at last became almost invisible to
the men at the masthead. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a
great heap of tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from
aloft that one or both the boats must be fast. An interval passed
and the boats were in plain sight, in the act of being dragged
right towards the ship by the towing whale. So close did the
monster come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he meant it
malice; but suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three rods
of the planks, he wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under
the keel. "Cut, cut!" was the cry from the ship to the boats,
which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being brought with
a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty of line
yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they paid
out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their
might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the
struggle was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out
the tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in
another, the contending strain threatened to take them under. But
it was only a few feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck
to it till they did gain 


it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like
lightning along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath
the ship, suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and
quivering; and so flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell
like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond also
rose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly. But the
fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his course,
went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him, so
that they performed a complete circuit. 


 Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close
flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for
lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while
the multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm
Whale's body, rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily
drinking at every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new
bursting fountains that poured from the smitten rock. 


 At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and
vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse. 


 While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his
flukes, and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing,
some conversation ensued between them. 


 "I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,"
said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do
with so ignoble a leviathan. 


 "Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the
boat's bow, "did you never hear that the ship which but once has a
Sperm Whale's head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same
time a Right Whale's on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb,
that that ship can never afterwards capsize?" 


 "Why not? 


 "I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah
saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I
sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't
half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of
his is a sort 


of carved into a snake's head, Stubb?" 


 "Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a
chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and
no one by; look down there, Flask"- pointing into the sea with a
peculiar motion of both hands- "Aye, will I! Flask, I take that
Fedallah to be the devil in disguise. Do you believe that cock and
bull story about his having been stowed away on board ship? He's
the devil, I say. The reason why you don't see his tail, is because
he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it coiled away in his
pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always
wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots." 


 "He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock;
but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging." 


 "No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it
down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging." 


 "What's the old man have so much to do with him for?" 


 "Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose." 


 "Bargain?- about what?" 


 "Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White
Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him
to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that
sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick." 


 "Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?" 


 "I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a
wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering
into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy
and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home.
Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The
devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.' 'What for?'
says the old governor. 'What business is that of yours,' says the
devil, getting mad,- 'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says the
governor- and by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the
Asiatic cholera before he got through with him, I'll eat this whale
in one mouthful. But look sharp- ain't you all ready there? Well,
then, 


pull ahead, and let's get the whale alongside." 


 "I think I remember some such story as you were telling," said
Flask, when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their
burden towards the ship, "but I can't remember where." 


 "Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded
soladoes? Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?" 


 "No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell
me, Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just
now, was the same you say is now on board the Pequod?" 


 "Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the
devil live for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did
you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if
the devil has a latch-key to get into the admiral's cabin, don't
you suppose he can crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?"



 "How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?" 


 "Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing to the ship; "well,
that's the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold,
and string along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see;
well, that wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers
in creation couldn't show hoops enough to make oughts enough." 


 "But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now,
that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good
chance. Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to,
and if he is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch
him overboard- tell me that? 


 "Give him a good ducking, anyhow." 


 "But he'd crawl back." 


 "Duck him again; and keep ducking him." 


 "Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though-
yes, and drown you- what then?" 


 "I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of
black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's
cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there,
where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks
so much. Damn the devil, Flask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the
devil? Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't
catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets
him go  about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him,
that all the people the devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him?
There's a governor!" 


 "Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?" 


 "Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long, Flask. But I am
going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything
very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his
neck, and say- Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he
makes any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket for
his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and
heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stump- do you
see; and then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that
queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of
feeling his tail between his legs." 


 "And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?" 


 "Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;- what
else?" 


 "Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along,
Stubb?" 


 "Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship." 


 The boats were here halled, to tow the whale on the larboard
side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already
prepared for securing him. 


 "Didn't I tell you so?" said Flask; "yes, you'll soon see this
right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacety's." 


 In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod
steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the
counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though
sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you
hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other
side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor
plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye
foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will
float light and right. 


 In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought
alongside the ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take
place as  in the case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter
instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the former the lips and
tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with all the
well known black bone attached to what is called the crown-piece.
But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done. The
carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship
not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of overburdening
panniers. 


 Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and
ever and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in
his own hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee
occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all
it seemed only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew
toiled on, Laplandish speculations were bandied among them,
concerning all these passing things. 


 CHAPTER 74 


 The Sperm Whale's Head - Contrasted View  


 Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together;
let us join them, and lay together our own. 


 Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the
Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only
whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present
the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the
external difference between them is mainly observable in their
heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the
Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one to the other, by
merely stepping across the deck:- where, I should like to know,
will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than
here? 


 In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast
between these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience;
but, there is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's
which the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is more character in the
Sperm Whale's head. As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the
immense superiority to him, in point of pervading dignity. In the
present 


instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt
color of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age and
large experience. In short, he is what the fishermen technically
call a "grey-headed whale." 


 Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads- namely,
the two most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the
side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's
jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye,
which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all
proportion is it to the magnitude of the head. 


 Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it
is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no
more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the
whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may
fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways
survey objects through your ears. You would find that you could
only command some thirty degrees of vision in advance of the
straight side-line of sight; and about thirty more behind it. If
your bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with dagger
uplifted in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more
than if he were stealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would
have two backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two
fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes the front of a man-
what, indeed, but his eyes? 


 Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of,
the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual
power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the
peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they
are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them
like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of
course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent
organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture
on this 


side, and another distinct picture on that side; while all
between must be profound darkness and nothingness to him. Man may,
in effect, be said to look out on the world from a sentry-box with
two joined sashes for his window. But with the whale, these two
sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct windows, but
sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is
a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be
remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes. 


 A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning
this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content
with a hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act
of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically
seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's
experience will teach him, that though he can take in an
undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite
impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two
things- however large or however small- at one and the same instant
of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other.
But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround
each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of
them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the
other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary
consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his
eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so
much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he
can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct
prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly
opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in
him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the
demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly
investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison. 


 It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to  me,
that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some
whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and
liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that
all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of
volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers
of vision must involve them. 


 But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you
are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two
heads for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no
external leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly
insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little
behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this important
difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right.
While the ears of the former has an external opening, that of the
latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as
to be quite imperceptible from without. 


 Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see
the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an
ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as
the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as
the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight,
or sharper of hearing? Not at all.- Why then do you try to
"enlarge" your mind? Subtilize it. 


 Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at
hand, cant over the sperm whale's head, so, that it may lie bottom
up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the
mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated
from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky
Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth,
and look about us where we are. What a really beautiful and
chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather
papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins. 


  But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which
seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the
hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to
get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific
portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the
fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far
more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you
see some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious
jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at right-angles
with his body; for all the world like a ship's jibboom. This whale
is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps;
hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have
relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a
reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws
upon him. 


 In most cases this lower jaw- being easily unhinged by a
practised artist- is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose
of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard
white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of
curious articles including canes, umbrellasticks, and handles to
riding-whips. 


 With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it
were an anchor; and when the proper time comes- some few days after
the other work- Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all
accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With a keen
cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums; then the jaw is lashed
down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from aloft, they drag
out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of
wild woodlands. There are generally forty-two teeth in all; in old
whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled after our
artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and
piled away like joists for building houses. 


 CHAPTER 75 


 The Right Whale's Head - Contrasted View  


  Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the the
Right Whale's head. 


 As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared
to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly
rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a
rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two
hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of
a shoemaker's last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman
of the nursery tale with the swarming brood, might very comfortably
be lodged, she and all her progeny. 


 But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume
different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on
its summit and look at these two f-shaped spout-holes, you would
take the whole head for an enormous bass viol, and these spiracles,
the apertures in its soundingboard. Then, again, if you fix your
eye upon this strange, crested, comblike incrustation on the top of
the mass- this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call
the "crown," and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right
Whale; fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for
the trunk of some huge oak, with a bird's nest in its crotch. At
any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on this
bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you; unless,
indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term "crown"
also bestowed upon it; in which case you will take great interest
in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a diademed king of
the sea, whose green crown has been put together for him in this
marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very sulky
looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip!
what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's
measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and
pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more. 


 A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be
hare-lipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the
mother 


during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast,
when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over
a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word
were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an
Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The
roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle,
as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed,
arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical,
scimitar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side,
which depending from the upper part of the head or crown bone, form
those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily
mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres,
through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose
intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes
through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of
bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain
curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen
calculate the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular
rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from
demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical probability. At
any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the
Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. 


 In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious
fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them
the wondrous "whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;* another,
"hogs' bristles"; a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the
following elegant language: "There are about two hundred and fifty
fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his
tongue on each side of his mouth."  


 *This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of
whisker, or rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white



hairs on the upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw.
Sometimes these tufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his
otherwise solemn countenance.  


 As every one knows, these same "hogs' bristles," "fins,"
"whiskers," "blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies
their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this
particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in
Queen Anne's time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale
being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about
gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you may say; even so, in
a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under
the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a tent spread over
the same bone. 


 But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and,
standing in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing
all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would
you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and
gazing upon its thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have
a rug of the softest Turkey- the tongue, which is glued, as it
were, to the floor of the mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt
to tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck. This particular tongue
now before us; at a passing glance I should say it was a
six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that amount of oil. 


 Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started
with- that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely
different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale's there is no
great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender
mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm
Whale are there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and
scarcely anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two
external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one. 


 Look your last now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they
yet lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; 


the other will not be very long in following. 


 Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is
the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the
forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of
a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to
death. But mark the other head's expression. See that amazing lower
lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to
embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an
enormous practical resolution facing death? This Right Whale I take
to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have
taken up Spinoza in his latter years. 


 CHAPTER 76 


 The Battering-Ram  


 Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would
have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply- particularly remark
its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have
you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself
some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram
power may be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must
either satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever
remain an infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less
true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history. 


 You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm
Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical
plane to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front
slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat
for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you
observe that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same
way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your
chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has no external nose; and
that what nose he has- his spout hole- is on the top of his head;
you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head;
nearly one third of his entire length from the front. Wherefore, 
you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's
head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender
prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to
consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of
the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and
not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to
the full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless
mass is as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its
contents partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to
be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably
invests all that apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have
described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as
the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head; but with this
difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick is of
a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not handled
it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the
strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though
the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I do
not think that any sensation lurks in it. 


 Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded
Indian-men chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the
docks, what do the sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at
the point of coming contact, any merely hard substance, like iron
or wood. No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork,
enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and
uninjured takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken
handspikes and iron crow-bars. By itself this sufficiently
illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But supplementary to this,
it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess
what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of
distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I
know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise 
inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether
beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of
the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope;
considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically
occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs
there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected
connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to
atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the
irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and
destructive of all elements contributes. 


 Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable,
uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims
behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately
estimated as piled wood is- by the cord; and all obedient to one
volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter
detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency
everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you
some of his more inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will
have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by
this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the
Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you
would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the
whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But
clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how
small the chances for the provincials then? What befell the
weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais? 


 CHAPTER 77 


 The Great Heidelburgh Tun  


 Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright,
you must know something of the curious internal structure of the
thing operated upon. 


 Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on
an 


inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the
lower is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the
upper an unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward
end forming the expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale.
At the middle of the forehead horizontally subdivide this upper
quoin, and then you have two almost equal parts, which before were
naturally divided by an internal wall of a thick tendinous
substance.  


 *Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical
mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is
a solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed
by the steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual
tapering of both sides.  


 The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense
honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten
thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres
throughout its whole extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may
be regarded as the great Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as
that famous great tierce is mystically carved in front, so the
whale's vast plaited forehead forms innumerable strange devices for
emblematical adornment of his wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of
Heidelburgh was always replenished with the most excellent of the
wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by
far the most precious of all his oily vintages; namely, the
highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and
odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed
in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains
perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it
soon begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline
shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is just forming in
water. A large whale's case generally yields about five hundred
gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances,
considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is
otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business of  securing
what you can. 


 I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh
Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating
could not possibly have compared with the silken pearl-colored
membrane, like the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner
surface of the Sperm Whale's case. 


 It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm
Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and
since- as has been elsewhere set forth- the head embraces one third
of the whole length of the creature, then setting that length down
at eighty feet for a good sized whale, you have more than
twenty-six feet for the depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise
hoisted up and down against a ship's side. 


 As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is
brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced
into the spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly
heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the
sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable contents. It is this
decapitated end of the head, also, which is at last elevated out of
the water, and retained in that position by the enormous cutting
tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, make quite a
wilderness of ropes in that quarter. 


 Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous
and- in this particular instance- almost fatal operation whereby
the Sperm Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. 


 CHAPTER 78 


 Cistern and Buckets  


 Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his
erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm,
to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has
carried with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only
two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this
block, so that it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end
of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on the 
deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down the other part, the Indian drops
through the air, till dexterously he lands on the summit of the
head. There- still high elevated above the rest of the company, to
whom he vivaciously cries- he seems some Turkish Muezzin calling
the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A short-handled
sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for the
proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business he
proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house,
sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the
time this cautious search is over, a stout ironbound bucket,
precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the
whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is
there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the
bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has
reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket,
Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely
disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, up
comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of
new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted
vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a
large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same
round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end,
Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and
deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone
down. 


 Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this
way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all
at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego,
that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a
moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending
the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous
and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out
so,  without stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly,
there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or
ninetieth bucket came suckingly up- my God! poor Tashtego- like the
twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped
head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a
horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight! 


 "Man overboard!" cried Daggoo, who amid the general
consternation first came to his senses. "Swing the bucket this
way!" and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his
slippery hand-hold on the whip itself the hoisters ran him high up
to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could have reached
its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult. Looking
over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and
heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized
with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian
unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to
which he had sunk. 


 At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was
clearing the whip- which had somehow got foul of the great cutting
tackles- a sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable
horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head
tore out, and with a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways
swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook as if smitten by an
iceberg. The one remaining hook, upon which the entire strain now
depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving way; an
event still more likely from the violent motions of the head. 


 "Come down, come down!" yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with
one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head
should drop, he would still remain suspended; the negro having
cleared the foul line, rammed down the bucket into the now
collapsed well, meaning that the buried harpooneer should grasp it,
and so be hoisted out. 


 "In heaven's name, man," cried Stubb, "are you ramming home a
cartridge there?- Avast! How will that help him; jamming  that
iron-bound bucket on top of his head? Avast, will ye!" 


 "Stand clear of the tackle!" cried a voice like the bursting of
a rocket. 


 Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous
mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the
whirlpool; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far
down her glittering copper; and all caught their breath, as half
swinging- now over the sailors' heads, and now over the water-
Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly beheld clinging to
the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-alive Tashtego was
sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea! But hardly had the
blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked figure with a
boardingsword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering
over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my brave
Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the
side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed
moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be
seen. Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a
little off from the ship. 


 "Ha! ha!" cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet,
swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the side, we
saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to
see, as an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave. 


 "Both! both!- it is both!"-cried Daggoo again with a joyful
shout; and soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with
one hand, and with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian.
Drawn into the waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck;
but Tashtego was long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very
brisk. 


 Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving
after the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had
made side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole
there; then dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards
and upwards, and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred,
that 


upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well
knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion
great trouble;- he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous
heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that
with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way-head
foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as
could be expected. 


 And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of
Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was
successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward
and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means
to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with
fencing and boxing, riding and rowing. 


 I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be
sure to seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves
may have either seen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern
ashore; an accident which not seldom happens, and with much less
reason too than the Indian's, considering the exceeding
slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale's well. 


 But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We
thought the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the
lightest and most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink
in an element of a far greater specific gravity than itself. We
have thee there. Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time poor
Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter
contents, leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well-
a double welded, hammered substance, as I have before said, much
heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which sinks in it like
lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance
was in the present instance materially counteracted by the other
parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank
very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair
chance for performing 


his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it was a
running delivery, so it was. 


 Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very
precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of
fragment spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret
inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter
end can readily be recalled- the delicious death of an Ohio
honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree,
found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it
sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have
likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished
there? 


 CHAPTER 79 


 The Prairie  


 To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of
this Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or
Phrenologist has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem
almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles
on the Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and
manipulated the dome of the Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of
his, Lavater not only treats of the various faces of men, but also
attentively studies the faces of horses, birds, serpents, and fish;
and dwells in detail upon the modifications of expression
discernible therein. Nor have Gall and his disciple Spurzheim
failed to throw out some hints touching the phrenological
characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, though I am
but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two
semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all
things; I achieve what I can. 


 Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous
creature. He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central
and most conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most
modifies and finally controls their combined expression; hence it
would seem that its entire absence, as an external appendage, must
very largely affect the countenance of the whale. For as in
landscape gardening,  a spire, cupola, monument, or tower of some
sort, is deemed almost indispensable to the completion of the
scene; so no face can be physiognomically in keeping without the
elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the nose from Phidias's
marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless, Leviathan is
of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that
the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in
him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A nose to
the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical
voyage you sail round his vast head in your jollyboat, your noble
conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has
a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will
insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal
beadle on his throne. 


 In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical
view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his
head. This aspect is sublime. 


 In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled
with the morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of
the bull has a touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up
mountain defiles, the elephant's brow is majestic. Human or animal,
the mystical brow is as that great golden seal affixed by the
German Emperors to their decrees. It signifies- "God: done this day
by my hand." But in most creatures, nay in man himself, very often
the brow is but a mere strip of alpine land lying along the snow
line. Few are the foreheads which like Shakespeare's or
Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the eyes
themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and above
them in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered
thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track
the snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this
high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so
immensely amplified, that gazing  on it, in that full front view,
you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in
beholding any other object in living nature. For you see no one
point precisely; not one distinct feature is revealed; no nose,
eyes, cars, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; nothing but
that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles;
dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. Nor, in
profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way viewed
its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you plainly
perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the
forehead's middle, which, in a man, is Lavater's mark of genius. 


 But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever
written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared
in his doing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover
declared in his pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had
the great Sperm Whale been known to the young Orient World, he
would have been deified by their child-magian thoughts. They
deified the crocodile of the Nile, because the crocodile is
tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or at least it is so
exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion. If hereafter
any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure back to their
birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enthrone
them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted hill;
then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale
shall lord it. 


 Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But
there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and
every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is
but a passing fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty
languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its
profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael
hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put
that brow before you. Read it if you can. 


 CHAPTER 80 


  The Nut  


 If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the
phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is
impossible to square. 


 In in full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty
feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this
skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting
throughout on a level base. But in life- as we have elsewhere seen-
this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by
the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high
end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass; while
under the long floor of this crater- in another cavity seldom
exceeding ten inches in length and as many in depth reposes the
mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at least twenty
feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind
its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified
fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in
him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the
Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one
formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange
folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems
more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that
mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence. 


 It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this
Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire
delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of
it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears
a false brow to the common world. 


 If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear
view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by
its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation,
and from the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull
(scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls,
and you  would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking
the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase
you would say- This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And
by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of
his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the
truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the
most exalted potency is. 


 But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper
brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I
have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost any
quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its
vertebrae to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing
rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit,
that the vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the
curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the
first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me,
in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of
which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relieve, the beaked prow
of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted
an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the
cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a
man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would
rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin
joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice
in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I
fling half out to the world. 


 Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His
cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in
that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten
inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure
with the base downwards. As it passes through the remaining
vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance
remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled
with much the  same strangely fibrous substance- the spinal cord-
as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And what is
still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's cavity,
the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to
that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be
unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine
phrenologically? For, viewed in this light, the wonderful
comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated
by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord. 


 But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the
phrenologists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a
moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump,
if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebrae, and is,
therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its
relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of
firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great
monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know. 


 CHAPTER 81 


 The Pequod Meets The Virgin  


 The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship
Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen. 


 At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch
and Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very
wide intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally
meet with their flag in the Pacific. 


 For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her
respects. While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to,
and dropping a boat, her captain was impelled towards us,
impatiently standing in the bows instead of the stern. 


 "What has he in his hand there?" cried Starbuck, pointing to
something wavingly held by the German. "Impossible!- a
lamp-feeder!" 


 "Not that," said Stubb, "no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr.
Starbuck; he's coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman;
don't you see 


that big tin can there alongside of him?- that's his boiling
water. Oh! he's all right, is the Yarman." 


 "Go along with you," cried Flask, "it's a lamp-feeder and an
oil-can. He's out of oil, and has come a-begging." 


 However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil
on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict
the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes
such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick
De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.



 As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at
all heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the
German soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale;
immediately turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil
can, with some remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock
at night in profound darkness- his last drop of Bremen oil being
gone, and not a single flying-fish yet captured to supply the
deficiency; concluding by hinting that his ship was indeed what in
the Fishery is technically called a clean one (that is, an empty
one), well deserving the name of Jungfrau or the Virgin. 


 His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained
his ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from
the mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was
Derick, that without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder
aboard, he slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan
lamp-feeders. 


 Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three
German boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of
the Pequod's keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware
of their danger, they were going all abreast with great speed
straight before the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely as so
many spans of horses in harness. They left a great, wide wake, as
though continually unrolling a great wide parchment upon the sea. 


 Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a
huge, humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as
well as by the unusual yellowish incrustations over-growing  him,
seemed afflicted with the jaundice, or some other infirmity.
Whether this whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed
questionable; for it is not customary for such venerable leviathans
to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though
indeed their back water must have retarded him, because the
white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, like the
swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was short,
slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, and
spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean
commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried
extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble. 


 "Who's got some paregoric?" said Stubb, "he has the
stomach-ache, I'm afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of
stomach-ache! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys.
It's the first foul wind ever knew to blow from astern; but look,
did ever whale yaw so before? it must be, he's lost his tiller." 


 As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with
a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and
wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and
now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose
the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his
starboard fin. Whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been
born without it, it were hard to say. 


 "Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that
wounded arm," cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near
him. 


 "Mind he don't sling thee with it," cried Starbuck. "Give way,
or the German will have him." 


 With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for
this one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore
the most valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other
whales were going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to 


defy pursuit for the time. At this juncture, the Pequod's keels
had shot by the three German boats last lowered; but from the great
start he had had, Derick's boat still led the chase, though every
moment neared by his foreign rivals. The only thing they feared,
was, that from being already so nigh to his mark, he would be
enabled to dart his iron before they could completely overtake and
pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite confident that this would
be the case, and occasionally with a deriding gesture shook his
lamp-feeder at the other boats. 


 "The ungracious and ungrateful dog!" cried Starbuck; "he mocks
and dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five
minutes ago!"- Then in his old intense whisper- "give way,
greyhounds! Dog to it!" 


 "I tell ye what it is, men"- cried Stubb to his crew- "it's
against my religion to get mad; but I'd like to eat that villainous
Yarman- Pull-  won't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye?
Do ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man.
Come, why don't some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who's that been
dropping an anchor overboard- we don't budge an inch- we're
becalmed. Halloo, here's grass growing in the boat's bottom- and by
the Lord, the mast there's budding. This won't do, boys. Look at
that Yarman! The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit fire or
not?" 


 "Oh! see the suds he makes!" cried Flask, dancing up and down-
"What a hump- Oh, do pile on the beef- lays like a log! Oh! my
lads, do spring- slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my
lads- baked clams and muffins- ho, do, do, spring,- he's a hundred
barreler- don't lose him now- don't oh, don't!- see that Yarman-
Oh, won't ye pull for your duff, my lads- such a sog! such a
sogger! Don't ye love sperm? There goes three thousand dollars,
men!- a bank!- a whole bank! The bank of England!- Oh, do, do, do!-
What's that Yarman about now?" 


 At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder
at the advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the
double view of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time 


economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the
backward toss. 


 "The unmannerly Dutch dogger!" cried Stubb. "Pull now, men, like
fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What
d'ye say, Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in
two-and-twenty pieces for the honor of old Gayhead? What d'ye say?"



 "I say, pull like god-dam,"- cried the Indian. 


 Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the
Pequod's three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so
disposed, momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous
attitude of the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three
mates stood up proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with
an exhilarating cry of, "There she slides, now! Hurrah for the
white-ash breeze! Down with the Yarman! Sail over him!" 


 But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of
all their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race,
had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which
caught the blade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber
was striving to free his white-ash, and while, in consequence,
Derick's boat was nigh to capsizing, and he thundering away at his
men in a mighty rage;- that was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb,
and Flask. With a shout, they took a mortal start forwards, and
slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter. An instant more, and
all four boats were diagonically in the whale's immediate wake,
while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell
that he made. 


 It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale
was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a
continual tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an
agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his
faltering flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he
spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky
his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing,
making affrighted broken circle in the air, vainly striving to
escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with
plaintive cries will make  known her fear; but the fear of this
vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; he
had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle,
and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still,
in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was
enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied. 


 Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the
Pequod's boat the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his
game, Derick chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most
unusually long dart, ere the last chance would for ever escape. 


 But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than
all three tigers- Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo- instinctively sprang
to their feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously
pointed their barbs; and darted over the head of the German
harpooneer, their three Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding
vapors of foam and white-fire! The three boats, in the first fury
of the whale's headlong rush, bumped the German's aside with such
force, that both Derick and his baffled harpooneer were spilled
out, and sailed over by the three flying keels. 


 "Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes," cried Stubb, casting a
passing glance upon them as he shot by; "ye'll be picked up
presently- all right- I saw some sharks astern- St. Bernard's dogs,
you know- relieve distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to
sail now. Every keel a sunbeam! Hurrah!- Here we go like three tin
kettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts me in mind of
fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plain- makes the
wheelspokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that way; and there's
danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a hill. Hurrah!
this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy Jones- all
a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale carries
the everlasting mail!" 


 But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he
tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines  flew
round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in
them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid
sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their
dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope
to hold on; till at last- owing to the perpendicular strain from
the lead-lined chocks of the boat, whence the three ropes went
straight down into the blue- the gunwales of the bows were almost
even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.
And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for some time they remained in
that attitude, fearful of expending more line, though the position
was a little ticklish. But though boats have been taken down and
lost in this way, yet it is this "holding on," as it is called;
this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from the back;
this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising again
to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril
of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the
best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the
stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted.
Because, owing to the enormous surface of him- in a full grown
sperm whale something less than 2000 square feet- the pressure of
the water is immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric
weight we ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the
air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a
column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the
weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the
weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and
stores, and men on board. 


 As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing
down into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry
of any sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from
its depths; what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that
silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was  writhing
and wrenching in agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were
visible at the bows. Seems it credible that by three such thin
threads the great Leviathan was suspended like the big weight to an
eight day clock. Suspended? and to what? To three bits of board. Is
this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said- "Canst
thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears?
The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the
dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow
cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at
the shaking of a spear!" This the creature? this he? Oh! that
unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of
a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the
mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fishspears! 


 In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three
boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and
broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling
to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting
over his head! 


 "Stand by, men; he stirs," cried Starbuck, as the three lines
suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to
them, as by magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale,
so that every oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment,
relieved in great part from the downward strain at the bows, the
boats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a small icefield will, when
a dense herd of white bears are scared from it into the sea. 


 "Haul in! Haul in!" cried Starbuck again; "he's rising." 


 The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's
breadth could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung
back all dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water
within two ship's length of the hunters. 


 His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land
animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of  their
veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least
instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale;
one of whose peculiarities it is, to have an entire non-valvular
structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so
small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon
his whole arterial system; and when this is heightened by the
extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the
surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant
streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so
distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus
bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a
drought a river will flow, whose source is the well-springs of
far-off and indiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled
upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and
the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets
from the new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the
natural spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however
rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last
vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him had thus far
been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was
untouched. 


 As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper
part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was
plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had
been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the
knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points
which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind
bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all
his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the
death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other
merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches
that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still
rolling in his blood, at last 


he partially disclosed a strangely discolored bunch or
protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank. 


 "A nice spot," cried Flask; "just let me prick him there once." 


 "Avast!" cried Starbuck, "there's no need of that!" 


 But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an
ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more
than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with
swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their
glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's
boat and marring the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this
time, so spent was he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled
away from the wreck he had made; lay panting on his side,
impotently flapped with his stumped fin, then over and over slowly
revolved like a waning world; turned up the white secrets of his
belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most piteous, that last
expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is gradually
drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled
melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the
ground- so the last long dying spout of the whale. 


 Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the
body showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled.
Immediately, by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at
different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the
sunken whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the
cords. By very heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the
whale was transferred to her side, and was strongly secured there
by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless
artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the bottom. 


 It so chanced that almost upon first him with the spade, the
entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his
flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the
stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of
captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and
no prominence 


of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs
have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to
account for the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was
the fact of a lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from
the buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted
that stone lance? And when? It might have been darted by some Nor'
West Indian long before America was discovered. 


 What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this
monstrous cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to
further discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged
over sideways to the sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing
tendency to sink. However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of
affairs, hung on to it to the last; hung on to it so resolutely,
indeed, that when at length the ship would have been capsized, if
still persisting in locking arms with the body; then, when the
command was given to break clear from it, such was the immovable
strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and cables
were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime
everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of
the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The
ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her
bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the
unnatural dislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to
bear upon the immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the
timberheads; and so low had the whale now settled that the
submerged ends could not be at all approached, while every moment
whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk, and the
ship seemed on the point of going over. 


 "Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to the body, "don't be
in such a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do
something or go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your
handspikes, and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife,
and cut the big chains." 


  "Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's
heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron,
began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full
of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest.
With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship
righted, the carcase sank. 


 Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed
Sperm Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet
adequately accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats
with great buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated
above the surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old,
meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished
and all their bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some
reason assert that this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific
gravity in the fish so sinking, consequent upon this absence of
buoyant matter in him. But it is not so. For young whales, in the
highest health, and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely
cut off in the warm flush and May of life, with all their panting
lard about them! even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes
sink. 


 Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to
this accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go
down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no
doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone
in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing
more than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly
free. But there are instances where, after the lapse of many hours
or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in
life. But the reason of this is obvious. Gases are generated in
him; he swells to a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort of animal
balloon. A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him under then. In
the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays of New Zealand,
when a Right 


Whale gives token of sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with
plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone down, they know
where to look for it when it shall have ascended again. 


 It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was
heard from the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau
was again lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was
that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable
whales, because of its incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless,
the Fin-Back's spout is so similar to the Sperm Whale's, that by
unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken for it. And consequently
Derick and all his host were now in valiant chase of this
unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail, made after her four
young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to leeward, still in
bold, hopeful chase. 


 Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.



 CHAPTER 82 


 The Honor and Glory of Whaling  


 There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
the true method. 


 The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my
researches up to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I
impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity; and
especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets
of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it,
I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though
but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity. 


 The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman;
and to the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first
whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid
intent. Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we
only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill men's
lamp-feeders. Every one knows the fine story of Perseus and
Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was
tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as Leviathan was in the very
act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince of whalemen,
intrepidly advancing, harpooned the 


monster, and delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable
artistic exploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the
present day; inasmuch as this Leviathan was slain at the very first
dart. And let no man doubt this Arkite story; for in the ancient
Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of the Pagan temples,
there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of a whale, which the
city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to be the identical
bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans took Joppa,
the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What seems most
singular and suggestively important in this story, is this: it was
from Joppa that Jonah set sail. 


 Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda- indeed, by some
supposed to be indirectly derived from it- is that famous story of
St. George and the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a
whale; for in many old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely
jumbled together, and often stand for each other. "Thou art as a
lion of the waters, and as a dragon of the sea," said Ezekiel;
hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the
Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from
the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling
reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster
of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St.
George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a
whale. 


 Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for
though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is
vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle
is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the
great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was
unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus' case, St.
George's whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach;
and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have
been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind,  it
will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and
the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon
no other than the great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before
the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that
fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who
being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both
the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or
fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp,
even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good
rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most
noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of
that honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever
had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye
a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and
tarred trowers we are much better entitled to St. George's
decoration than they. 


 Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I
long remained dubious: for though according to the Greek
mythologies, that antique Crockett and Kit Carson- that brawny doer
of rejoicing good deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a
whale; still, whether that strictly makes a whaleman of him, that
might be mooted. It nowhere appears that he ever actually harpooned
his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside. Nevertheless, he may be
deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman; at any rate the whale caught
him, if he did not the whale. I claim him for one of our clan. 


 But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story
of Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the
still more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice
versa; certainly they are very similar. If I claim the demigod
then, why not the prophet? 


 Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the
whole roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for



like royal kings of old times, we find the head-waters of our
fraternity in nothing short of the great gods themselves. That
wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster,
which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the
godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo himself for
our Lord;- Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly
incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. When
Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate
the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth
to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical
books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to
Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore must
have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young
architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so
Vishnoo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to
the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this
Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even as a man who rides a horse is called
a horseman? 


 Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's a
member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman's can head off like
that? 


 CHAPTER 83 


 Jonah Historically Regarded  


 Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the
whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather
distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then
there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from
the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of
Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their
doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit
the less facts, for all that. 


 One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the
Hebrew story was this:- He had one of those quaint old-fashioned
Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which



represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head- a
peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan
(the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order), concerning
which the fishermen have this saying, "A penny roll would choke
him"; his swallow is so very small. But, to this, Bishop Jebb's
anticipative answer  is ready. It is not necessary, hints the
Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but
as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems
reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale's
mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and comfortably
seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced
himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale
is toothless. 


 Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for
his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something
obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and the whale's
gastric juices. But this objection likewise falls to the ground,
because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken
refuge in the floating body of a dead whale- even as the French
soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their dead horses into
tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has been divined by other
continental commentators, that when Jonah was thrown overboard from
the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape to another
vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; and, I
would add, possibly called "The Whale," as some craft are nowadays
christened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle." Nor have there
been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale
mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver- an
inflated bag of wind- which the endangered prophet swam to, and so
was saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems
worsted all round. But he had still another reason for his want of
faith. It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the
whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days' he was
vomited up somewhere within  three days' journey of Nineveh, a city
on the Tigris, very much more than three days' journey across from
the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. How is that? 


 But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet
within that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried
him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of
the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and
another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition
would involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three
days, not to speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh,
being too shallow for any whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of
Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope at so early a day would
wrest the honor of the discovery of that great headland from
Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make modern
history a liar. 


 But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced
his foolish pride of reason- a thing still more reprehensible in
him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had
picked up from the sun and the sea. I say it only shows his
foolish, impious pride, and abominable, devilish rebellion against
the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese Catholic priest, this very
idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hope was
advanced as a signal magnification of the general miracle. And so
it was. Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks devoutly
believe in the historical story of Jonah. And some three centuries
ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a
Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a
miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil. 


 CHAPTER 84 


 Pitchpoling  


 To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are
anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an
analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is
it 


to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may
possibly be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and
water are hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object
in view is to make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed
strongly in anointing his boat, and one morning not long after the
German ship Jungfrau disappeared, took more than customary pains in
that occupation; crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the
side, and rubbing in the unctuousness as though diligently seeking
to insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel. He seemed to
be working in obedience to some particular presentiment. Nor did it
remain unwarranted by the event. 


 Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed
down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a
disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. 


 Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By
great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron;
but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued
his horizontal flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted
strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or later inevitably
extract it. It became imperative to lance the flying whale, or be
content to lose him. But to haul the boat up to his flank was
impossible, he swam so fast and furious. What then remained? 


 Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of
hand and countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so
often forced, none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called
pitchpoling. Small sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises
boasts nothing like it. It is only indispensable with an inveterate
running whale; its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance
to which the long lance is accurately darted from a violently
rocking, jerking boat, under extreme headway. Steel and wood
included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve feet in length;
the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, and also of a
lighter mat  erial- pine. It is furnished with a small rope called
a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to
the hand after darting. 


 But before going further, it is important to mention here, that
though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the
lance, yet it is seldom done; and when done, is still less
frequently successful, on account of the greater weight and
inferior length of the harpoon as compared with the lance, which in
effect become serious drawbacks. As a general thing, therefore, you
must first get to a whale, before any pitchpoling comes into play. 


 Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate
coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially
qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright
in the tossed bow of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the
towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly,
glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if it be exactly
straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of the wrap in one
hand, so as to secure its free end in his grasp, leaving the rest
unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before his waistband's
middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering him with it, he
steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby elevating the
point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his palm, fifteen
feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancing a
long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse,
in a superb arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and
quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water,
he now spouts red blood. 


 "That drove the spigot out of him!" cried Stubb. "'Tis July's
immortal Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it
were old Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old
Monongahela! Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the
jet, and we'd drink round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew
choice punch in the spread of his spout-hole there, and from that
live  punch-bowl quaff the living stuff." 


 Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is
repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held
in skilful leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the
tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds
his hands, and mutely watches the monster die. 


 CHAPTER 85 


 The Fountain  


 That for six thousand years- and no one knows how many millions
of ages before- the great whales should have been spouting all over
the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as
with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some
centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the
fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings-
that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute
(fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this
sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a
problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or
nothing but vapor- this is surely a noteworthy thing. 


 Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting
items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of
their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at
all times is combined with the element in which they swim; hence,
a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its
head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure
which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can
only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere.
Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the upper
world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for,
in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's mouth is buried at
least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still more, his
windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through
his spiracle 


alone; and this is on the top of his head. 


 If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function
indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a
certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with
the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not
think I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous
scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood
in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up
his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is
to say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may
seem, this is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically
lives, by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom)
without drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling
a particle of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this?
Between his ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with
a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels,
which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended
with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand
fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him,
just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus
supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs.
The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the
supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more
cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy
of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the fishermen
phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the
surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time
exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays
eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy
breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his
seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches
a few breaths you alarm him, so 


that he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good
his regular allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths
are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full term below.
Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are
different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale
thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to
replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How
obvious it is too, that this necessity for the whale's rising
exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. And not by hook
or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a
thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then,
O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!



 In man, breathing is incessantly going on- one breath only
serving for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other
business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must,
or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh
or Sunday of his time. 


 It has been said that the whale only breathes through his
spout-hole; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are
mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with the
reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him; for the
only thing about him that at all answers to his nose is that
identical spout-hole; and being so clogged with two elements, it
could not be expected to have the power of smelling. But owing to
the mystery of the spout- whether it be water or whether it be
vapor- no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head.
Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper
olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets,
no Cologne-water in the sea. 


 Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his
spouting canal, and as that long canal- like the grand Erie Canal-
is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the
downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water, 


therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by
saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his
nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I
known any profound being that had anything to say to this world,
unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living.
Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! 


 Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as
it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along,
horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a
little to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe
laid down in a city on one side of a street. But the question
returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words,
whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the
exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water
taken in at the mouth, and discharged through the spiracle. It is
certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting
canal; but it cannot be proved that this is for the purpose of
discharging water through the spiracle. Because the greatest
necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he
accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far
beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would.
Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your
watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating
rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of
respiration. 


 But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak
out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can
you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not
so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain
things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might
almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is
precisely. 


 The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist 


enveloping it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water
falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale
to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion,
the water cascading all around him. And if at such times you should
think that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how
do you know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor; or
how do you know that they are not those identical drops
superficially lodged in the spout-hole fissure, which is
countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For even when
tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with his
elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert; even then,
the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as
under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock
filled up with rain. 


 Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious
touching the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for
him to be peering into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot
go with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it
away. For even when coming into slight contact with the outer,
vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will
feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so touching it.
And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the
spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise,
I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.
Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try
to evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much
doubt it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will
blind you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems
to me, is to let this deadly spout alone. 


 Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and
establish. My hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but
mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled,
by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity
of the  Sperm Whale; I account him no common, shallow being,
inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on
soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are. He is
both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads
of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil,
Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain
semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts.
While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity
to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a
curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my
head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep
thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an
August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above
supposition. 


 And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty
monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical
sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered
by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor- as you will
sometimes see it- glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had
put its seal upon his thoughts. For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit
the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the
thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and
then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I
thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials,
few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly,
and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes
neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both
with equal eye. 


 CHAPTER 86 


 The Tail  


 Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the
antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights;
less celestial, I celebrate a tail. 


 Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at  that
point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it
comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty
square feet. The compact round body of its root expands into two
broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less
than an inch in thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes
slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings,
leaving a wide vacancy between. In no living thing are the lines of
beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of
these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the
tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across. 


 The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but
cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:-
upper, middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers,
are long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and
running crosswise between the outside layers. This triune
structure, as much as anything else, imparts power to the tail. To
the student of old Roman walls, the middle layer will furnish a
curious parallel to the thin course of tiles always alternating
with the stone in those wonderful relics of the antique, and which
undoubtedly contribute so much to the great strength of the
masonry. 


 But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not
enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp
and woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either
side the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend
with them, and largely contribute to their might; so that in the
tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems
concentrated to a point. Could annihilation occur to matter, this
were the thing to do it. 


 Nor does this- its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the
graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease
undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those
motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength
never  impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in
everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the
magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from
the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As
devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of
Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that
seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the
Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever
they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled,
hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most
successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of
all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative,
feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is
conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings. 


 Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that
whether wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be
the mood it be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding
grace. Therein no fairy's arm can transcend it. 


 Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin
for progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in
sweeping; Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes. 


 First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail
acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea
creatures. It never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign
of inferiority. To the whale his tail is the sole means of
propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled forwards beneath the body, and then
rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular
darting, leaping motion to the monster when furiously swimming. His
side-fins only serve to steer by. 


 Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale
only fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw,
nevertheless, in his conflicts with man, he chiefly and
contemptuously uses his tail. In striking at a boat, he swiftly
curves away his  flukes from it, and the blow is only inflicted by
the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed air, especially if it
descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply irresistible. No
ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only salvation lies in
eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the opposing water,
then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale-boat, and the
elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed plank or
two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most serious
result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the
fishery, that they are accounted mere child's play. Some one strips
off a frock, and the hole is stopped. 


 Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the
whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this
respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness
of the elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the
action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a
certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes side to side upon
the surface of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe
to that sailor, whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that
preliminary touch! Had this tail any prehensile power, I should
straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented
the flower-market, and with low salutations presented nosegays to
damsels, and then caressed their zones. On more accounts than one,
a pity it is that the whale does not possess this prehensile virtue
in his tail; for I have heard of yet another elephant, that when
wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk and extracted the
dart. 


 Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security
of the middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast
corpulence of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean
as if it were a hearth. But still you see his power in his play.
The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into the air! then
smiting the surface, the thunderous concussion resounds for miles.
You would 


almost think a great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed
the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity,
you would think that that was the smoke from the touch-hole. 


 Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the
flukes lies considerably below the level of his back, they are then
completely out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about
to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty
feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain
vibrating a moment, till they downwards shoot out of view.
Excepting the sublime breach- somewhere else to be described- this
peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be
seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the
gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven.
So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his
tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in
gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in
the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah,
the archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a
sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of
whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment
vibrating in concert with peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the
time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never
beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers. As
Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then
testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all
beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of
antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in
the profoundest silence. 


 The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the
elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the
trunk of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those
two opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to
which they respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is
but a terror to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan's tail, his
trunk 


is but the stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the
elephant's trunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with
the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale's ponderous
flukes, which in repeated instances have one after the other hurled
entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, very much
as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.*  


 *Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the
whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that
particular the elephant stands in much the same respect to the
whale that a dog does to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not
wanting some points of curious similitude; among these is the
spout. It is well known that the elephant will often draw up water
or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a
stream.  


 The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my
inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which,
though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly
inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally,
are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have
declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale,
indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world.
Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general
body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most
experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin
deep. I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the
tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how
comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back
parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But
I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will
about his face, I say again he has no face. 


 CHAPTER 87 


 The Grand Armada  


 The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending
south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the most
southerly point of 


all Asia. In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the
long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many
others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia
with Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from
the thickly studded oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced
by several sally-ports for the convenience of ships and whales;
conspicuous among which are the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By
the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels bound to China from the
west, emerge into the China seas. 


 Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and
standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that
bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a
little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast
walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices,
and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand
islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant
provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of
the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual,
of being guarded from the all-grasping western world. The shores of
the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering
fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the
Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not
demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless
procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries past, by
night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra and
Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while
they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means
renounce their claim to more solid tribute. 


 Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking
among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out
upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding
tribute at 


the point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody
chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers,
the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed;
yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and
American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly
boarded and pillaged. 


 With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to
these straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Java
sea, and thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be
frequented here and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the
Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for
the great whaling season there. By these means, the
circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm
Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending upon
the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled
in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in
the sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he
might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it. 


 But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does
his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long
time, now, the circus-running sun had raced within his fiery ring,
and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this,
too, in the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien
stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering
whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and
their wants. She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample
hold. She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable
pig-lead and kentledge. She carries years' water in her. Clear old
prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the
Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish
fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or
Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone
to China from New  York, and back again, touching at a score of
ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted
one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen
like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another
flood had come; they would only answer- "Well, boys, here's the
ark!" 


 Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western
coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda;
indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised
by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as
the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were
repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake. But though
the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard
bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in
the air, yet not a single jet was descried. Almost renouncing all
thought of falling in with any game hereabouts, the ship had well
nigh entered the straits, when the customary cheering cry was heard
from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of singular magnificence
saluted us. 


 But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity
with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the
Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small
detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with
in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that
it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn
solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To
this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may
be imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds,
you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without
being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by
what sometimes seems thousands on thousands. 


 Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles,
and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level
horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing  and
sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular
twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in
two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the
single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick
curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to
leeward. 


 Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high
hill of the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling
up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish
haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense
metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman
on a height. 


 As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the
mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that
perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative
security upon the plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now
seem hurrying forward through the straits; gradually contracting
the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but
still crescentic centre. 


 Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their
yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they,
that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would
only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a
few of their number. And who could tell whether, in that
congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be
swimming, like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation
procession of the Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we
sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a
sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention
to something in our wake. 


 Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in
the rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and
falling something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not 
so completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without
finally disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab
quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, "Aloft there, and rig
whips and buckets to wet the sail;- Malays, sir, and after us!" 


 As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod
should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics
were now in hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay.
But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself
in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny philanthropists to
assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit,- mere
riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were. As with glass under
arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding
the monsters he chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty
pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed his. And
when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in which
the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate
lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that
same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly
end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and
inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with
their curses;- when all these conceits had passed through his
brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand
beach after some stormy tide had been gnawing it, without being
able to drag the firm thing from its place. 


 But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew;
and when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern,
the Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the
Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then,
the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had
been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so
victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the
wake of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed;
gradually the ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word
was passed to spring to the boats. But no sooner did the  herd, by
some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become
notified of the three keels that were after them,- though as yet a
mile in their rear,- than they rallied again, and forming in close
ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing
lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity. 


 Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash,
and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce
the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave
animating tokens that they were now at last under the influence of
that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the
fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The
compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and
steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout; and
like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander,
they seemed going mad with consternation. In all directions
expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither
and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed
their distraction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced
by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were,
helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea.
Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over
the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have
evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is
characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though banding
together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West
have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human
beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre's
pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter
for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly
dashing each other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any
amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is
no  folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone
by the madness of men. 


 Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent
motion, yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither
advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As
is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated, each
making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In
about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the
stricken fish darted blinding spray in faces, and then running away
with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd.
Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such
circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost
always more or less anticipated; yet does it present one of the
more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift monster
drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu
to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb. 


 As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer
power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened
to him; as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides
menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing
about us; our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a
tempest, and striving to steer through complicated channels and
straits, knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and
crushed. 


 But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now
sheering off from this monster directly across our route in
advance; now edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were
suspended overhead, while all the time, Starbuck stood up in the
bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever whales he
could reach by short darts, for there was no time to make long
ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted duty was
now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the
shouting part of the business. "Out of the way, Commodore!" cried
one, to a great dromedary that of a  sudden rose bodily to the
surface, and for an instant threatened to swamp us. "Hard down with
your tail, there!" cried a second to another, which, close to our
gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like
extremity. 


 All whale-boats carry certain curious contrivances, originally
invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares
of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they
cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable
length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other
end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a
harpoon. It is chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is
used. For then, more whales are close round you than you can
possibly chase at one time. But sperm whales are not every day
encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can. And if
you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they
can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it is, that at
times like these the drug, comes into requisition. Our boat was
furnished with three of them. The first and second were
successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running
off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing
drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball.
But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the
clumsy wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat,
and in an instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the
oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from under him. On
both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed
two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for
the time. 


 It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons,
were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way
greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and
further from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders
seemed waning. So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out,
and the towing 


whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his
parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost
heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid
into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens
between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this
central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface,
called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the
whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted
calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And
still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer
concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten
in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of
horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a
Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones,
and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the
crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed
axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at present
afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that
hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut
us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally
visited by small tame cows and calves; the women and children of
this routed host. 


 Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the
revolving outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the
various pods in any one of those circles, the entire area at this
juncture, embraced by the whole multitude, must have contained at
least two or three square miles. At any rate- though indeed such a
test at such a time might be deceptive- spoutings might be
discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the
rim of the horizon. I mention this circumstance, because, as if the
cows and calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost
fold; and as if the wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented
them from learning the precise cause of its stopping; or, possibly, 
being so young, unsophisticated, and every way innocent and
inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller whales- now
and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the lake-
evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still
becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like
household dogs they came snuffing round us, right up to our
gunwales, and touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell
had suddenly domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads;
Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance; but fearful of the
consequences, for the time refrained from darting it. 


 But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another
and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.
For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the
nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous
girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted,
was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent; and as human
infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the
breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while
yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon
some unearthly reminiscence;- even so did the young of these whales
seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit
of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floating on their sides, the
mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little infants,
that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have
measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in girth.
He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet
recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in
the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the
final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The
delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly
retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly
arrived from foreign parts. 


 "Line! line!" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale;  "him
fast! him fast!- Who line him! Who struck?- Two whale; one big, one
little!" 


 "What ails ye, man?" cried Starbuck. 


 "Look-e here," said Queequeg, pointing down. 


 As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out
hundreds of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up
again, and shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and
spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the
umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed
still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of
the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes
entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.
Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in
this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep.*  


 *The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan,
but unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons;
after a gestation which may probably be set down at nine months,
producing but one at a time; though in some few known instances
giving birth to an Esau and Jacob:- a contingency provided for in
suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one on each side of the
anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from that. When by
chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the
hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly
discolor the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich; it has
been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. When
overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute more hominum.  


 And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of
consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at
the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful
concernments; yes, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But
even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still
for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous
planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland
there I still  bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. 


 Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden
frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the
other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier
of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first
circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were
afforded them. But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and
then blindly darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to
what at last met our eyes. It is sometimes the custom when fast to
a whale more than commonly powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring
him, as it were, by sundering or maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.
It is done by darting a short-handled cutting-spade, to which is
attached a rope for hauling it back again. A whale wounded (as we
afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually, as it
seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half
of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the wound,
he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone
mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying
dismay wherever he went. 


 But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling
spectacle enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he
seemed to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which
at first the intervening distance obscured from us. But at length
we perceived that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the
fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line that
he towed; he had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and
while the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had
permanently caught in the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail,
the cutting-spade itself had worked loose from his flesh. So that
tormented to madness, he was now churning through the water,
violently flailing with his flexible tail, and tossing the keen
spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades. 


 This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their 


stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our
lake began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if
lifted by half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began
faintly to heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and
nurseries vanished; in more and more contracting orbits the whales
in the more central circles began to swim in thickening clusters.
Yes, the long calm was departing. A low advancing hum was soon
heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the
great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales
came tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up
in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed
places; Starbuck taking the stern. 


 "Oars! Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm- "gripe
your oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove
him off, you Queequeg- the whale there!- prick him!- hit him! Stand
up- stand up, and stay so! Spring men- pull, men; never mind their
backs- scrape them!- scrape away!" 


 The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks,
leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by
desperate endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening; then
giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for
another outlet. After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last
swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles,
but now crossed by random whales, all violently making for one
centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of
Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows to prick the
fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by the
air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close
by. 


 Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it
soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for
having clumped together at last in one dense body, they then
renewed their onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further
pursuit was useless; but the boats still lingered in their wake to
pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and likewise
to secure one  which Flask had killed and waited. The waif is a
pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat; and
when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the
floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea,
and also as token of prior possession, should the boats of any
other ship draw near. 


 The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that
sagacious saying in the Fishery,- the more whales the less fish. Of
all the drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to
escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be
seen, by some other craft than the Pequod. 


 CHAPTER 88 


 Schools and Schoolmasters  


 The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of
Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause
inducing those vast aggregations. 


 Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as
must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands
are occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty
individuals each. Such bands are known as schools. They generally
are of two sorts; those composed almost entirely of females, and
those mustering none but young vigorous males, or bulls as they are
familiarly designated. 


 In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you
invariably see a male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who,
upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and
covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a
luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world,
surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of the
harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his concubines is
striking; because, while he is always of the largest leviathanic
proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more than
one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are
comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a
dozen yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied,
that upon the whole they are hereditarily  entitled to embonpoint. 


 It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their
indolent ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the
move in leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in
time for the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having
just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern
seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and
warmth. By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of
the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in
anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other
excessive temperature of the year. 


 When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange
suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his
interesting family. Should any unwarranted pert young Leviathan
coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the
ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and
chases him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes
like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic
bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most
notorious Lothario out of his bed; for alas! all fish bed in
common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels
among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes
come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with their long
lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving for
the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers.
Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,-
furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some
instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths. 


 But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself
away at the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very
diverting to watch that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk
among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing
vicinity to young 


Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his
thousand concubines. Granting other whales to be in sight, the
fisherman will seldom give chase to one of these Grand Turks; for
these Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence their
unctuousness is small. As for the sons and daughters they beget,
why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at
least, with only the maternal help. For like certain other
omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord Whale has no
taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so, being a
great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world;
every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardor of
youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends
her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the
sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for
maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant,
admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown
to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the
meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young
Leviathan from his amorous errors. 


 Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school,
so is the lord and master of that school technically known as the
schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however
admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should
then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly
of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived
from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have
surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman
whale, must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself
what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in
his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons
he inculcated into some of his pupils. 


 The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster
whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all  aged
Sperm Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale- as a solitary
Leviathan is called- proves an ancient one. Like venerable
moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature
herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and
the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets. 


 The schools composing none but young and vigorous males,
previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools.
For while those females are characteristically timid, the young
males, or forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the
most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most
dangerous to encounter; excepting those wondrous grey-headed,
grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim
fiends exasperated by a penal gout. 


 The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools.
Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and
wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking
rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more than
he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish
this turbulence though, and when about three-fourths grown, break
up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is,
harems. 


 Another point of difference between the male and female schools
is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a
Forty-barrel-bull- poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But
strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around
her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her
and so long, as themselves to fall a prey. 


 CHAPTER 89 


 Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish  


 The allusion to the waif-poles in the last chapter but one,
necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale
fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and
badge. 


 It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in 


company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be
finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are
indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of
this one grand feature. For example,- after a weary and perilous
chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship
by reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be
retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it
alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious
and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were
there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law
applicable to all cases. 


 Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative
enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the
States-General in A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever
had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been
their own legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have
provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses
Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the
Suppression of Meddling with other People's Business. Yes; these
laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's forthing, or the barb of
a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. 


 I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. 


 II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch
it. 


 But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the
admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of
commentaries to expound it. 


 First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically
fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any
medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants,- a mast,
an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb,
it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it
bears a waif, or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long
as the party wailing it plainly evince their ability at any time to 
take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do. 


 These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the
whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder
knocks- the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more
upright and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for
peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for
one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or
killed by another party. But others are by no means so scrupulous. 


 Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover
litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after
a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they
(the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at
last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only
their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the
crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed,
seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the
plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their
captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured
them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now
retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached
to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs
now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line,
harpoons, and boat. 


 Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough
was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went
on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con.
case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his
wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of
life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he
instituted an action to recover possession of her. Erskine was on
the other side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the
gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her
fast,  and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging
viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet abandon her he did, so
that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when a subsequent
gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent
gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have been
found sticking in her. 


 Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of
the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative to each
other. 


 These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard,
the very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,- That as for
the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely
abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the
controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the
defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of
the final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish
made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those
articles; and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a
right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo,
the aforesaid articles were theirs. 


 A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge,
might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of
the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling
laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord
Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching
Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will on reflection, be found the
fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its
complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the
Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on. 


 Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of
the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession?
But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews
and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish,
whereof 


possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious
landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder
undetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif;
what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which
Mordecai, the broker, gets from the poor Woebegone, the bankrupt,
on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; what is that
ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of
Savesoul's income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and
cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure
of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular
100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary
towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer,
John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic
lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning
all these, is not Possession the whole of the law? 


 But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable,
the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is
internationally and universally applicable. 


 What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus
struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal
master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to
the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the
United States? All Loose-Fish. 


 What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but
Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What
is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What
to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of
thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a
Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a
Fast-Fish, too? 


 CHAPTER 90 


 Heads or Tails  


 "De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina
caudam." 


                                      BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.  


 Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along
with the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on
the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer,
must have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with
the tail. A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an
apple; there is no intermediate remainder. Now as this law, under
a modified form, is to this day in force in England; and as it
offers in various respects a strange anomaly touching the general
law of Fast- and Loose-Fish, it is here treated of in a separate
chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts the English
railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially reserved
for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in curious
proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in force,
I proceed to lay before you a circumstance-that happened within the
last two years. 


 It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or
some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in
killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally
descried afar off from the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are
partially or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman
or beadle, called a Lord Warden. Holding the office directly from
the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the
Cinque Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers
this office is called a sinecure. But not so. Because the Lord
Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his perquisites;
which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of them. 


 Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with
their trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily
hauled their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good
L150 from the precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare
tea with their 


wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of
their respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian
and charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm;
and laying it upon the whale's head, he says- "Hands off! this
fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's."
Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation- so
truly English- knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously
scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from
the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter,
or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the
copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching
about for his ideas, made bold to speak, 


 "Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?" 


 "The Duke." 


 "But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?" 


 "It is his." 


 "We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and
is all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing at all
for our pains but our blisters?" 


 "It is his." 


 "Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode
of getting a livelihood?" 


 "It is his." 


 "I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my
share of this whale." 


 "It is his." 


 "Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?" 


 "It is his." 


 In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke
of Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some
particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some
small degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one,
ali honest clergyman of the town respectfully addressed a note to
his Grace, begging him to take the case of those unfortunate
mariners into full consideration. To which my Lord Duke in
substance replied (both letters were published) that he had already
done so, and received the money, and would be obliged to the
reverend gentleman 


if for the future he (the reverend gentleman) would decline
meddling with other people's business. Is this the still militant
old man, standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all
hands coercing alms of beggars? 


 It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of
the Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We
must needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is
originally invested with that right. The law itself has already
been set forth. But Plowdon gives us the reason for it. Says
Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to the King and Queen,
"because of its superior excellence." And by the soundest
commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such
matters. 


 But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail?
A reason for that, ye lawyers! 


 In his treatise on "Queen-Gold," or Queen-pin-money, an old
King's Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: "Ye tail
is ye Queen's, that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye
whalebone." Now this was written at a time when the black limber
bone of the Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies'
bodices. But this same bone is not in the tail; it is in the head,
which is a sad mistake for a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is
the Queen a mermaid, to be presented with a tail? An allegorical
meaning may lurk here. 


 There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers-
the whale and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain
limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the
crown's ordinary revenue. I know not that any other author has
hinted of the matter; but by inference it seems to me that the
sturgeon must be divided in the same way as the whale, the King
receiving the highly dense and elastic head peculiar to that fish,
which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be humorously grounded
upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there seems a reason in
all things, even in law. 


 CHAPTER 91 


  The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud  


 "In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this
Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry." 


                                  SIR T. BROWNE, V. E.  


 It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and
when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea,
that the many noses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant
discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not
very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea. 


 "I will bet something now," said Stubb, "that somewhere
hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other
day. I thought they would keel up before long." 


 Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the
distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of
whale must be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed
French colors from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture
sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was
plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a
blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the
sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. It may well be
conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse
than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are
incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it
regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor
alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it;
notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects
is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of
attar-of-rose. 


 Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the
Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and this second whale
seemed even more of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned
out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and
die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving
their  defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like
oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing
fisherman will ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this,
however much he may shun blasted whales in general. 


 The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb
vowed he recognized his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines
that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales. 


 "There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed, standing
in the ship's bows, "there's a jackal for ye! I well knew that
these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery;
sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking them for
Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with
their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers,
foreseeing that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip
the Captain's wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look
ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged
whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry
bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor devil! I say,
pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a present of a
little oil for dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from
that drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no,
not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll
agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three
masts of ours, than he'll get from that bundle of bones; though,
now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal
more than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has
thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, I'm for it;" and so saying
he started for the quarter-deck. 


 By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that
whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell,
with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing
from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's crew, and pulled off
for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in 
accordance with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her
stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was
painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it
here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb
of a bright red color. Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters,
he read "Bouton de Rose,"- Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was
the romantic name of this aromatic ship. 


 Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of the
inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous figure-head put
together, sufficiently explained the whole to him. 


 "A wooden rose-bud, eh?" he cried with his hand to his nose,
"that will do very well; but how like all creation it smells!" 


 Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on
deck, he had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus
come close to the blasted whale; and so talk over it. 


 Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he
bawled- "Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses
that speak English?" 


 "Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out
to be the chief-mate. 


 "Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White
Whale?" 


 "What whale?" 


 "The White Whale- a Sperm Whale- Moby Dick, have ye seen him? 


 "Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale-
no." 


 "Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a
minute." 


 Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab
leaning over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded
his two hands into a trumpet and shouted- "No, Sir! No!" Upon which
Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman. 


 He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into
the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a
sort of bag. 


 "What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb. "Broke
it?" 


 "I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!"
answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he
was at very much. "But what are you holding yours for?" 


  "Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day,
ain't it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of
posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?" 


 "What in the devil's name do you want here?" roared the
Guernseyman, flying into a sudden passion. 


 "Oh! keep cool- cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack
those whales in ice while you're working at 'em? But joking aside,
though; do you know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get
any oil out of such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he
hasn't a gill in his whole carcase." 


 "I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't
believe it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer
before. But come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't
me; and so I'll get out of this dirty scrape." 


 "Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow," rejoined
Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer
scene presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red
worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the
whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and
seemed in anything but a good humor. All their noses upwardly
projected from their faces like so many jibbooms. Now and then
pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to
get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the plague,
dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their
nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost
short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so
that it constantly filled their olfactories. 


 Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas
proceeding from the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in
that direction saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which
was held ajar from within. This was the tormented surgeon, who,
after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had
betaken himself to the Captain's round-house (cabinet he called it)
to avoid the pest; but still, could not help yelling out his
entreaties and 


indignations at times. 


 Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning
to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the
stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a
conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and
unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further
perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion
concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head,
but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that
the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and
satirizing the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting
their sincerity. According to this little plan of theirs, the
Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter's office, was to tell
the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as for
Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in
him during the interview. 


 By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He
was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a
sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore
a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side. To this
gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man,
who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting
between them. 


 "What shall I say to him first?" said he. 


 "Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and
seals, "you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort
of babyish to me, though I don't pretend to be a judge." 


 "He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning
to his captain, "that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose
captain and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever
caught from a blasted whale they had brought alongside." 


 Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.



 "What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb. 


 "Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed
him carefully, I'm certain that he's no more fit to command a
whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he's
a  baboon." 


 "He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried
one, is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he
conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish." 


 Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded
his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once
cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. 


 "What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned
to them. 


 "Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that- that-
in fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps
somebody else." 


 "He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any
service to us." 


 Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful
parties (meaning himself and mate), and concluded by inviting Stubb
down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. 


 "He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the
interpreter. 


 "Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to
drink with the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him I must go." 


 "He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his
drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink,
then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away
from these whales, for it's so calm they won't drift." 


 By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat,
hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,- that having a long
tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help them, by
pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship's side.
While the Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship
one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way,
ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line. 


 Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the
whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his
distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's  whale.
Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing
the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to
reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp
boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind
the side fin. You would almost have thought he was digging a cellar
there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck against the
gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery
buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high
excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking anxious as
gold-hunters. 


 And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and
screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was
beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay
increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague,
there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the
tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will
flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with
it for a time. 


 "I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking
something in the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!" 


 Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out
handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich
mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might
easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and
ash color. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold
guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfulls were obtained;
but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps,
might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab's loud
command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would
bid them good-bye. 


 CHAPTER 92 


 Ambergris  


 Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important
as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born
Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House  of
Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a
comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained,
like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word
ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two
substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on
the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas
ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a
hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for
mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is
soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely
used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and
pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca,
for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in
Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor
it. 


 Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen
should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious
bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is
supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the
dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard
to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of
Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers
do in blasting rocks. 


 I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris,
certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought
might be sailors' trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out
that they were nothing, more than pieces of small squid bones
embalmed in that manner. 


 Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should
be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee
of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and
incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in
glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about
what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange
fact that of 


all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental
manufacturing stages, is the worst. 


 I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but
cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against
whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased
minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has
been said of the Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in this volume
the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of
whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is
another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad.
Now how did this odious stigma originate? 


 I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of
the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago.
Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their
oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up
the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes
of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of
the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to
which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The
consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one
of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given
forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city
graveyard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital. 


 I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers
may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland,
in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or
Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo
Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that
subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this
village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of
the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to
Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces,
fat-kettles,  and oil sheds; and when the works were in full
operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this
is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage
of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil,
does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boding
out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly
scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently
treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor;
nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages
affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed
can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a
general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of
exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the
open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above
water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her
dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to
for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that
famous elephant, with jeweled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which
was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great? 


 CHAPTER 93 


 The Castaway  


 It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that
a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the
Pequod's crew; an event most lamentable; and which ended in
providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a
living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel
might prove her own. 


 Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the
boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose
province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the
whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows
as 


the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an
unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight
is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with
the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor
Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine
on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly. 


 In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black
pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar
color, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy
was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over
tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant,
genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever
enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than
any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught
but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's
Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was
brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon
lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life,
and all life's peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking
business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped,
had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be
seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was
destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that
fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre with
which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once
enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at melodious
even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon into
one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day,
suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop
will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you
the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a
gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some
unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally
superb; then the evil-blazing  diamond, once the divinest symbol of
the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King
of Hell. But let us to the story. 


 It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's
after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to
become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. 


 The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much
nervousness; but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with
the whale; and therefore came off not altogether discreditably;
though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to
cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find
it needful. 


 Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale;
and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary
rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's
seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to
leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part
of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it
overboard with him, so as to become entangled in it, when at last
plumping into the water. That instant the stricken whale started on
a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and presto! poor Pip
came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly
dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his
chest and neck. 


 Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt.
He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its
sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning
towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's
blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in
a flash. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened. 


 "Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip
was saved. 


 So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was
assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly
permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a
plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip 


officially; and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome
advice. The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except- but
all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now,
in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling; but
cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still
better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he should give
undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too
wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped all
advice, and concluded with a peremptory command "Stick to the boat,
Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We
can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell
for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in
mind, and don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly
hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making
animal, which  propensity too often interferes with his
benevolence. 


 But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again.
It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance;
but this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the
whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a
hurried traveller's trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his
word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day! the spangled sea
calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the
horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest.
Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head
of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern.
Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was
winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was
between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip
turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely
castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest. 


 Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to
the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.  But
the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of
self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can
tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open
sea- mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her
sides. 


 But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his
fate? No; he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two
boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of
course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up; though,
indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized through
their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters in all
similar instances; and such instances not unfrequently occur;
almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked
with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and
armies. 


 But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip,
suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave
chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his
crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to
expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself
at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about
the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had
leeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his
soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to
wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world
glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman,
Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous,
heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous,
God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters
heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the
loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So
man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal
reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to
reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then
uncompromised, indifferent as his God. 


  For the rest blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in
that fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be
seen what like abandonment befell myself. 


 CHAPTER 94 


 A Squeeze of the Hand  


 That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to
the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations
previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the
baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. 


 While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were
employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with
the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was
carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon. 


 It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with
several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it,
I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling
about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these
lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in
old times sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such
a sweetener! such a softener; such a delicious mollifier! After
having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like
eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize. 


 As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the
bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the
ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I
bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated
tissues, wove almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my
fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes
their wine; as. I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,- literally
and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that
for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our
horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and
my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan
superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of
anger; while bathing in that 


bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or
malice, of any sort whatsoever. 


 Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that
sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm
till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself
unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their
hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate,
friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I
was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their
eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings,
why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the
slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round;
nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze
ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. 


 Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now,
since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived
that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his
conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the
intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the
table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have
perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In
thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in
paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.  


 Now, while discoursing of sperm it behooves to speak of other
things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for
the try-works. 


 First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the
tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of
his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons- a wad of muscle-
but still contains some oil. After being severed from the whale,
the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the
mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble. 


 Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts



of the whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of
blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its
unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object
to behold. As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich,
mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted
with spots of the deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of
rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep
yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole behind the
foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive a
royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted,
supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison
season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an
unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. 


 There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns
up in the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very
puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an
appellation original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature
of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most
frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing,
and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin,
ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing. 


 Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right
whalemen, but sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen.
It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off
the back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers
the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan. 


 Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's
vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's
nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the
tapering part of Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in
thickness, and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part of
a hoe. Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a
leathern squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic,
allures along 


with it all impurities. 


 But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is
at once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with
its inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the
receptacle for the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the
whale. When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents,
this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by
night. On one side, lit by a dull lantern, a space has been left
clear for the workmen. They generally go in pairs,- a
pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is similar to a
frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is something
like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a sheet of
blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches
and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet
itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces.
This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are
shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide
away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes,
or one of his assistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes
are scarce among veteran blubber-room men. 


 CHAPTER 95 


 The Cassock  


 Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of
this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward
nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned
with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which
you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee
scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale's huge head; not
the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw; not the miracle of his
symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you, as half a
glimpse of that unaccountable cone,- longer than a Kentuckian is
tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo,
the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an 


idol, indeed, it is; or rather, in old times, its likeness was.
Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in
Judea; and for worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose
her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the
brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the First
Book of Kings. 


 Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and
assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the
mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as
if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field.
Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds
cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the
pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a
pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double
its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to
dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of
it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for
arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into
it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full
canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this
investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in
the peculiar functions of his office. 


 That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for
the pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden
horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious
tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the
sheets from a rapt orator's desk. Arrayed in decent black;
occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves; what a
candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a Pope were this
mincer!*  


 *Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the
mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work
into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the
business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and  its
quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving it in
quality. 


 CHAPTER 96 


 The Try-Works  


 Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly
distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of
the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting
the completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln
were transported to her planks. 


 The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the
most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar
strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of
brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in
height. The foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry
is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing
it on all sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks
it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large,
sloping, battened hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great
try-pots, two in number, and each of several barrels' capacity.
When not in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are
polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like
silver punchbowls. During the night-watches some cynical old
sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away there for a
nap. While employed in polishing them- one man in each pot, side by
side- many confidential communications are carried on, over the
iron lips. It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation.
It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone
diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by
the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the
cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from any point in
precisely the same time. 


 Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the
bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron 
mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths
are fitted with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire
is prevented from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a
shallow reservoir extending under the entire inclosed surface of
the works. By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept
replenished with water as fast as it evaporates. There are no
external chimneys; they open direct from the rear wall. And here
let us go back for a moment. 


 It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works
were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to
oversee the business. 


 "All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire
the works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been
thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage.
Here be it said in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works
has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used,
except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word,
after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called
scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous
properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric
burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the
whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that
he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and
inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for
the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such
as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the
left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit. 


 By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from
the carcass; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild
ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the
fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty
flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the
famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly 
commissioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and
sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from
their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore
down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations. 


 The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a
wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean
shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers.
With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into
the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky
flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet.
The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship
there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to
leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the
further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This
served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise
employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes
felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all
begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the
contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were
strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As
they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of
terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked
upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and
fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their
huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea
leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot
her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and
the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and
viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod,
freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse,
and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material
counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul. 


  So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours
silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for
that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the
redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual
sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and
half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so
soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which
ever would come over me at a midnight helm. 


 But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since
inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing
sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The
jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears
was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I
thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my
fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further
apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to
steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching
the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing
seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by
flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever
swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven
ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered
feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped
the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was,
somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the
matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned
myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with my back to
her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time
to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very
probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from
this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal
contingency of being brought by the lee! 


 Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never  dream
with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept
the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial
fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in
the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like
devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at
least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only
true lamp- all others but liars! 


 Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor
Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of
miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not
the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two
thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more
of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true- not
true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men
was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's,
and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is
vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian
Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and
walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas
than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all
of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais
as passing wise, and therefore jolly;- not that man is fitted to
sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with
unfathomably wondrous Solomon. 


 But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the
way of understanding shall remain" (i.e. even while living) "in the
congregation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest
it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a
wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there
is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the
blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in
the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge,
that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop
the 


mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain,
even though they soar. 


 CHAPTER 97 


 The Lamp  


 Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's
forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single
moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some
illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they
lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled
muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. 


 In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk
of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble
in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman,
as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his
berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the
pitchiest night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination.



 See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of
lamps- often but old bottles and vials, though- to the copper
cooler at the tryworks, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale
at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured,
and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar,
or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in
April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its
freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie
hunts up his own supper of game. 


 CHAPTER 98 


 Stowing Down and Clearing Up  


 Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off
described from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery
moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then
towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which
entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded
was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his
executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots,  and,
like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone
pass unscathed through the fire;- but now it remains to conclude
the last chapter of this part of the description by rehearsing-
singing, if I may- the romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil
into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where once
again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along
beneath the surface :is before; but, alas! never more to rise and
blow. 


 While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and
rolling this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks
are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes
perilously scoot across the slippery deck, like so many land
slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their course; and
all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play upon
them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper. 


 At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then
the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown
open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This
done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a
closet walled up. 


 In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable
incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream
with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous
masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks
lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has
besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with
unctuousness; the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while
on all hands the din is deafening. 


 But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears
in this self-same ship! and were it not for the tell-tale boats and
try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant
vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The 
unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing virtue.
This is the reason why the decks never look so white as just after
what they call an affair of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the
burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is readily made; and
whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains
clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands go
diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags
restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the
lower rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use
are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is
scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots;
every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks;
and when by the combined and,  simultaneous industry of almost the
entire ship's company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at
last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own
ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to
the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow as bridegrooms new-leaped
from out the daintiest Holland. 


 Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes,
and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine
cambrics; propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the
top; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the
forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and
blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you
distantly allude to. Away, and bring us napkins! 


 But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men
intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will
again soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small
grease-spot somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the
severest uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing
straight through for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where 


they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the Line,-
they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the
heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings
to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the
equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of
all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the
ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the
poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are
startled by the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to
fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again.
Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For
hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's
vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary
patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to
live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done,
when- There she blows!- the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail
to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine
again. 


 Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece,
two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I
sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage- and, foolish
as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope. 


 CHAPTER 99 


 The Doubloon  


 Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his
quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle
and mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring
narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks,
when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each
spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before
him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened
on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a
javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when
resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the
same  riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he
still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a
certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. 


 But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be
newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on
it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for
himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in
them. And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all
things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty
cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about
Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way. 


 Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere
out of the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over
golden sands, the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though
now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris
of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness,
it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a
ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through
the livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover
any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the
doubloon where the sunset last left it. For it was set apart and
sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their
sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white
whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch
by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he
would ever live to spend it. 


 Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of
the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and
volcanoes; sun's disks and stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and
rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that
the precious gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and
enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so
Spanishly poetic. 


 It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy
example of these things. On its round border it bore the  letters,
REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a
country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great
equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the
Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those
letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a
flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while
arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs
all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun
entering the equinoctial point at Libra. 


 Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was
now pausing. 


 "There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers,
and all other grand and lofty things; look here,- three peaks as
proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that
is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that,
too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of
the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and
every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great
pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it
cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy
face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and
but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries!
From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that
man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's
stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then." 


 "No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws
have left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck
to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to
read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin
inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between
three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity,
in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds
us round; and over 


all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and
a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy
soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half
way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at
midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze
for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still
sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely." 


 "There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the
try-works, "he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the
same, and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere
within nine fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece of gold,
which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not
look at it very long ere spending it. Humph! in my poor,
insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer. I have seen
doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain,
your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of
Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores
and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What then
should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing
wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs
and wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome
calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto. I'll get
the almanack; and as I have heard devils can be raised with
Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of
these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar. Here's
the book. Let's see now. Signs and wonders; and the sun, he's
always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here they are- here they go- all
alive: Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and Jimimi! here's
Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels among 'em.
Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold between two
of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there; the
fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do 


to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the
thoughts. That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts
calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go.
Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs,
and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit;
hist- hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac
here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it
off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's
Aries, or the Ram- lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or
the Bull- he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins-
that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes
Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue,
Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path- he gives a few fierce bites
and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin!
that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when
pop comes Libra, or the Scales- happiness weighed and found
wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we
suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear;
we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round;
Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the
shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the
Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when
Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns
us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a
sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every
year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he,
aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow here,
does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon!
But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the try-works,
now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. There; he's before it;
he'll out with something presently. So, so; he's beginning." 


 "I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and 
whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.
So, what's all this staring been about? It is worth sixteen
dollars, that's true; and at two cents the cigar, that's nine
hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but
I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and sixty of them; so here
goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out." 


 "Shall I call that Wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it
has a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it
a sort of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old
Manxman- the old hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before
he took to the sea. He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and
goes round on the other side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe
nailed on that side; and now he's back again; what does that mean?
Hark! he's muttering- voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick
ears, and listen!" 


 "If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day,
when the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs,
and know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by
the old witch in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then
be? The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold.
And what's the horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign-
the roaring and devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes
to think of thee." 


 "There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of
men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes
Queequeg- all tattooing- looks like the signs of the Zodiac
himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes;
looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in
the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk
Surgeon's Astronomy in the black country. And by Jove, he's found
something there in the vicinity of his thigh- I guess it's
Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't know what to make of the
doubloon; he takes it for an old button off 


some king's trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that
ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in
the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of
his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is
a sun on the coin- fire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and
more. This way comes Pip- poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's
half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these
interpreters myself included- and look now, he comes to read, with
that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!" 


 "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." 


 "Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving
his mind, poor fellow! But what's that he says now- hist!" 


 "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." 


 "Why, he's getting it by heart- hist! again." 


 "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." 


 "Well, that's funny." 


 "And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm
a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw!
caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the
scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old
trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket." 


 "Wonder if he means me?- complimentary- poor lad!- I could go
hang myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I
can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too
crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering." 


 "Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all
one fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the
consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for
when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow
desperate. Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This
is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine
tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old
darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in
the resurrection,  when they come to fish up this old mast, and
find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy
bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious gold!- the green
miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds
blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!" 


 CHAPTER 100 


 Leg and Arm 


 The Pequod of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London  


 "Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?" 


 So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colors,
bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was
standing in his hoisted quarter-deck, his ivory leg plainly
revealed to the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in
his own boat's bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, goodnatured,
fine-looking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious
roundabout, that hung round him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth;
and one empty arm of his jacket streamed behind him like the
broidered arm of a huzzar's surcoat. 


 "Hast seen the White Whale!" 


 "See you this?" and withdrawing it from the folds that had
hidden it, he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating
in a wooden head like a mallet. 


 "Man my boat!" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the
oars near him- "Stand by to lower!" 


 In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and
his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the
stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the
excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotton that since the loss of
his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but
his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy
mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to
be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's  warning.
Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody- except those who are
almost hourly used to it, like whalemen- to clamber up a ship's
side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the
boat high up towards the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it
half way down to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the
strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly
invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy
landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he
could hardly hopte to attain. 


 It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward
circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his
luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab.
And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight
of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by
the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging
towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first
they did not seem to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too
much of a cripple to use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness
only lasted a minute, because the strange captain, observing at a
glance how affairs stood, cried out, "I see, I see!- avast heaving
there! Jump, boys, and swing over the cutting-tackle." 


 As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day
or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the
massive curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached
to the end. This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once
comprehending it all, slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the
hook (it was like sitting in the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch
of an apple tree), and then giving the word, held himself fast, and
at the same time also helped to hoist his own weight, by pulling
hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of the tackle. Soon he
was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed
upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth  in
welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his
ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades)
cried out in his walrus way, "Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones
together!- an arm and a leg!- an arm that never can shrink, d'ye
see; and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the White
Whale?- how long ago?" 


 "The White Whale," said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm
towards the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had
been a telescope; "there I saw him, on the Line, last season." 


 "And he took that arm off, did he?" asked Ahab, now sliding down
from the capstan, and resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he
did so. 


 "Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?" 


 "Spin me the yarn," said Ahab; "how was it?" 


 "It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the
Line," began the Englishman. "I was ignorant of the White Whale at
that time. Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five
whales, and my boat fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse
he was, too, that went milling and milling round so that my boat's
crew could only trim dish, by sitting all their sterns on the outer
gunwale. Presently up breaches from the bottom of the sea a
bouncing great whale, with a milky-white head and hump, all crows'
feet and wrinkles." 


 "It was he, it was he!" cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his
suspended breath. 


 "And harpoons sticking in near his starboad fin." 


 "Aye, aye- they were mine- my irons," cried Ahab, exultingly-
"but on!" 


 "Give me a chance, then," said the Englishman, good-humoredly.
"Well, this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump,
runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my
fast-line! 


 "Aye, I see!- wanted to part it; free the fast-fish- an old
trick- I know him." 


 "How it was exactly," continued the one-armed commander, "I do
not know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth,  caught
there somehow; but we didn't know it then; so that when we
afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump!
instead of the other whale's; that went off to windward, all
fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and what a noble great whale it
was- the noblest and biggest I ever saw, sir, in my life- I
resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage he seemed to be
in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would get loose, or the tooth
it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat's crew
for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say, I jumped into
my first mate's boat- Mr. Mounttop's here (by the way, Captain-
Mounttop; Mounttop- the captain);- as I was saying, I jumped into
Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with
mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old
great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir- hearts and
souls alive, man- the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a
bat- both eyes out- all befogged and bedeadened with black foam-
the whale's tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in
the air, like a marble steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as
I was groping at midday, with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as
I was groping, I say, after the second iron, to toss it overboard-
down comes the tail like a Lima tower, cutting my boat in two,
leaving each half in splinters; and, flukes first, the white hump
backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips. We all struck
out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my
harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like
a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same
instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a
flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me
caught me here" (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); "yes,
caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I
was thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the
barb ript its way along the flesh- clear along the whole length of
my arm- came out nigh  my wrist, and up I floated;- and that
gentleman there will tell you the rest (by the way, captain- Dr.
Bunger, ship's surgeon: Bunger, my lad,- the captain). Now, Bunger
boy, spin your part of the yarn." 


 The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been
all the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to
denote his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly
round but sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woolen frock or
shirt, and patched trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his
attention between a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a
pill-box held in the other, occasionally casting a critical glance
at the ivory limbs of the two crippled captains. But, at his
superior's introduction of him to Ahab, he politely bowed, and
straightway went on to do his captain's bidding. 


 "It was a shocking bad wound," began the whale-surgeon; "and,
taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy-" 


 "Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship," interrupted the
one-armed captain, addressing Ahab; "go on, boy." 


 "Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the
blazing hot weather there on the Line. But it was no use- I did all
I could; sat up with him nights; was very severe with him in the
matter of diet-" 


 "Oh, very severe!" chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly
altering his voice, "Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night,
till he couldn't see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed,
half seas over, about three o'clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars!
he sat up with me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a
great watcher, and very dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger.
(Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why don't ye? You know you're a
precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, boy, I'd rather be killed
by you than kept alive by any other man." 


 "My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir"-
said the imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to
Ahab- "is apt to be facetious at times; he spins us many clever
things of that sort. But I may as well say- en passant, as the 
French remark- that I myself- that is to say, Jack Bunger, late of
the reverend clergy- am a strict total abstinence man; I never
drink-" 


 "Water!" cried the captain; "he never drinks it; it's a sort of
fits to him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go
on- go on with the arm story." 


 "Yes, I may as well," said the surgeon, coolly. "I was about
observing, sir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption,
that spite of my best and severest endeavors, the wound kept
getting worse and worse; the truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping
wound as surgeon ever saw; more than two feet and several inches
long. I measured it with the lead line. In short, it grew black; I
knew what was threatened, and off it came. But I had no hand in
shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is against all rule"-
pointing at it with the marlingspike- "that is the captain's work,
not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had that
club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one's brains out
with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical
passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir"- removing his hat,
and brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his
skull, but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token
of ever having been a wound- "Well, the captain there will tell you
how that came there; he knows." 


 "No, I don't," said the captain, "but his mother did; he was
born with it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you- you Bunger! was there ever
such another Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you
ought to die in pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future
ages, you rascal." 


 "What became of the White Whale?" now cried Ahab, who thus far
had been impatiently listening to this byeplay between the two
Englishmen. 


 "Oh!" cried the one-armed captain, "oh, yes! Well; after he
sounded, we didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I
before hinted, I didn't then know what whale it was that had served
me such a trick, till some time afterwards, when coming back to the 
Line, we heard about Moby Dick- as some call him- and then I knew
it was he." 


 "Did'st thou cross his wake again?" 


 "Twice." 


 "But could not fasten?" 


 "Didn't want to try to; ain't one limb enough? What should I do
without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so
much as he swallows." 


 "Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give him your left arm for
bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen"- very gravely and
mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession- "Do you know,
gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so
inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite
impossible for him to completely digest even a man's arm? And he
knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's malice is
only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb;
he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the
old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that
making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop
into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or
more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small
tacks, d'ye see? No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife,
and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes,
Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind
to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent
burial to the other, why, in that case the arm is yours; only let
the whale have another chance at you shortly, that's all." 


 "No, thank you, Bunger," said the English Captain, "he's welcome
to the arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then;
but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered
for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory
in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious
sperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone; don't you think
so, Captain?"- glancing at the ivory leg. 


 "He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is  best
let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures.
He's all a magnet! How long since thou sawist him last? Which way
heading?" 


 "Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's," cried Bunger,
stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing;
"this man's blood- bring the thermometer!- it's at the boiling
point!- his pulse makes these planks beat!- sir!"- taking a lancet
from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm. 


 "Avast!" roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks- "Man the
boat! Which way heading?" 


 "Good God!" cried the English Captain, to whom the question was
put. "What's the matter? He was heading east, I think.- Is your
Captain crazy?" whispering Fedallah. 


 But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the
bulwarks to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the
cutting-tackle towards him commanded the ship's sailors to stand by
to lower. 


 In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla
men were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain
hailed him. With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a
flint to his own, Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod. 


 CHAPTER 101 


 The Decanter  


 Ere the English ship fades from sight be it set down here, that
she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel
Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling
house of Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's
opinion, comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors
and Bourbons, in point of real historical interest. How long, prior
to the year of our Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in
existence, my numerous fish-documents do not make plain; but in
that year (1775) it fitted out the first English ships that ever
regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; though for some score of years
previous (ever since 1726) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of
Nantucket and the Vineyard had  in large fleets pursued the
Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not elsewhere.
Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the
first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm
Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the
whole globe who so harpooned him. 


 In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express
purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly
rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a
whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a
skilful and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold
full of the precious sperm, the Amelia's example was soon followed
by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale
grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. But not content with this
good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel
and all his Sons- how many, their mother only knows- and under
their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense,
the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler
on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by
a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and
did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In
1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their
own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That
ship- well called the "Syren"- made a noble experimental cruise;
and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became
generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by
a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer. 


 All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think,
exists to the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel
must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the
other world. 


 The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very
fast sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at
midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good  flip
down in the forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all
trumps- every soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly
death. And that fine gam I had- long, very long after old Ahab
touched her planks with his ivory heel- it minds me of the noble,
solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship; and may my parson forget me,
and the devil remember me, if I ever lose sight of it. Flip? Did I
say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallons
the hour; and when the squall came (for it's squally off there by
Patagonia), and all hands- visitors and all- were called to reef
topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each other
aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our
jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the
howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the
masts did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so
sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt
spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted
and pickled it for my taste. 


 The beef was fine- tough, but with body in it. They said it was
bullbeef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know,
for certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but
substantial, symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings.
I fancied that you could feel them, and roll them about in you
after they were swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you
risked their pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread-
but that couldn't be helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic, in
short, the bread contained the only fresh fare they had. But the
forecastle was not very light, and it was very easy to step over
into a dark corner when you ate it. But all in all, taking her from
truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the cook's boilers,
including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, I say, the
Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; fine flip
and strong; crack 


fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band. 


 But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some
other English whalers I know of- not all though- were such famous,
hospitable ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and
the can, and the joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and
drinking, and laughing? I will tell you. The abounding good cheer
of these English whalers is matter for historical research. Nor
have I been at all sparing of historical whale research, when it
has seemed needed. 


 The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the
Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many
terms still extant in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat
old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general
thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the
English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling good
cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular;
and, therefore, must have some special origin, which is here
pointed out, and will be still further elucidated. 


 During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled
upon an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of
it, I knew must be about whalers. The title was, "Dan Coopman,"
wherefore I concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of
some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must
carry its cooper. I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing that
it was the production of one "Fitz Swackhammer." But my friend Dr.
Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High
German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Potts, to whom I
handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm candles
for his trouble- this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the
book, assured me that "Dan Coopman" did not mean "The Cooper," but
"The Merchant." In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book
treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects,
contained a very interesting account of its 


whale fishery. And in this chapter it was, headed, "Smeer," or
"Fat," that I found a long detailed list of the outfits for the
larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list,
as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following:  


    400,000 lbs. of beef. 


     60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 


    150,000 lbs. of stock fish. 


    550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 


     72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 


      2,800 firkins of butter. 


     20,000 lbs. of Texel Leyden cheese. 


    144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article). 


        550 ankers of Geneva. 


     10,800 barrels of beer. 


 Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not
so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with
whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.



 At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of
all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts
were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and
Platonic application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary
tables of my own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish,
&c., consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient
Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery. In the first place, the
amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheese consumed, seems
amazing. I impute it, though, to their naturally unctuous natures,
being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their vocation,
and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar
Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the
convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil. 


 The quantity of the beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels.
Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short
summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these
Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the
Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and
reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400
Low Dutch seamen in 


all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per
man, for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair
proportion of that ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer
harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were
the right sort of men to stand up in a boat's head, and take good
aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they
did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be
it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon
the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the
harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and
grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. 


 But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch
whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that
the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example.
For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get
nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at
least. And this empties the decanter. 


 CHAPTER 102 


 A Bower in the Arsacides  


 Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have
chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately
and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a
large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me
now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his
hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the
eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in
his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton. 


 But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the
fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the
whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver
lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the
windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself,
Ishmael. Can 


you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a
cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you
hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege
of Jonah alone; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and
beams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings,
making up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the
tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels. 


 I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very
far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been
blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship
I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to
the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the
harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let the
chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and
breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub? 


 And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in
their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I
am indebted to my late royal friend Tranque, king of Tranque, one
of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to
the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the
Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm
villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what
our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital. 


 Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being
gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had
brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious
of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful
devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic
canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders,
the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his
shores. 


 Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after
an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded,
with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted 
droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last
been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become
dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up
the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now
sheltered it. 


 The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with
Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the
priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the
mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended
from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the
devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damocles. 


 It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy
Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap;
the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a
gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the
warp and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees,
with all their laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and
grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were
active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a
flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver!
unseen weaver!- pause!- one word!- whither flows the fabric? what
palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak,
weaver!- stay thy hand!- but one single word with thee! Nay- the
shuttle flies- the figures float from forth the loom; the
fresher-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he
weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal
voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are
deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand
voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material
factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying
spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the walls,
bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villainies 


been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this
din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be
overheard afar. 


 Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood,
the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging- a gigantic
idler! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and
hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the sunning weaver;
himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming
greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded
Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life,
and begat him curly-headed glories. 


 Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and
saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from
where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should
regard a chapel as an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I
marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was
genuine. To and fro I paced before this skeleton- brushed the vine
aside- broke through the ribs- and with a ball of Arsacidean twine,
wandered, eddied long amid its many winding, shaded colonnades and
arbors. But soon my line was out; and following back, I emerged
from the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within;
naught was there but bones. 


 Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the
skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived
me taking the altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted;
"Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests-
well, how long do ye make him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest
rose among them, concerning feet and inches; they cracked each
other's sconces with their yard-sticks- the great skull echoed- and
seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own
admeasurements. 


 These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first,
be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any
fancied measurements I please. Because there are skeleton 


authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a
Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the
whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens
of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, have heard that in the
museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the
proprietors call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River
Whale in the United States." Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire,
England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable
has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of
moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend
King Tranquo's. 


 In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons
belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar
grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir
Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir
Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a
great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony
cavities- spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan- and swing all
day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his
trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future
visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of
charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the
spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his
cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.



 The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are
copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in
my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of
preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for
space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page
for a poem I was then composing- at least, what untattooed parts
might remain- I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor,
indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement
of the whale. 


 CHAPTER 103 


 Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton  


 In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, 
plain statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose
skeleton we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove
useful here. 


 According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I
partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for
the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length;
according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the
largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length,
and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference,
such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons; so that, reckoning
thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably outweigh the combined
population of a whole village of one thousand one hundred
inhabitants. 


 Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put
to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's
imagination? 


 Having already in various ways put before you his skull,
spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other
parts, I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the
general bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull
embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent of the
skeleton; as it is by far the most complicated part; and as nothing
is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail
to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed,
otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the general
structure we are about to view. 


 In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured
seventy-two feet: so that when fully invested and extended in life,
he must have been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton
loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of
this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty
feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone. Attached to this
back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the
mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals. 


 To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved
spine, 


extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little
resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when
only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel
is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber. 


 The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck,
was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each
successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or
one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches.
From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and
last only spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness,
they all bore a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle
ribs were the most arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used
for beams whereon to lay footpath bridges over small streams. 


 In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with
the circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the
skeleton of the whale is by no means the mould of his invested
form. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones,
occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in
depth. Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this
particular whale must have been at least sixteen feet; whereas, the
corresponding rib measured but little more than eight feet. So that
this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the living
magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw but
a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of
added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the
ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of
the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank! 


 How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man
to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely pouring
over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood.
No. Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the
eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea,
can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out. 


  But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is,
with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy
enterprise. But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar. 


 There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton
are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed
blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry.
The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three
feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine
tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks
something like a white billiard-ball. I was told that there were
still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal
urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles
with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living
things tapers off at last into simple child's play. 


 CHAPTER 104 


 The Fossil Whale  


 From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme
whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you,
you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be
treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs
from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measured about the waist;
only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where
they lie in him like great cables and hawsers coiled away in the
subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship. 


 Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves
me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not
overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning
him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already
described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical
peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archaeological,
fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other
creature than the Leviathan- to an ant or a flea- such portly terms
might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when
Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to
this 


enterprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here
be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in
the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge
quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose;
because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal bulk more
fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like
me. 


 One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their
subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with
me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands
into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius'
crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act
of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make
me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if
to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the
generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and
to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and
throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and
so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We
expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a
mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on
the flea, though many there be who have tried it. 


 Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my
credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous
time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches,
canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts.
Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader,
that while in the earlier geological strata there are found the
fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct; the subsequent
relics discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem
the connecting, or at any rate intercepted links, between the
antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity are said
to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered
belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the 


superficial formations. And though none of them precisely answer
to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently
akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking rank as
Cetacean fossils. 


 Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of
their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at
various intervals, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy,
in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama. Among the more curious of such remains is
part of a skull, which in the year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue
Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the
palace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred in excavating the
great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time. Cuvier pronounced these
fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic
species. 


 But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the
almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the
year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The
awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones
of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge
reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some
specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the
English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a
whale, though of a departed species. A significant illustration of
the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton
of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully
invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in
his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it,
in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the
mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence. 


 When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls,
tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial
resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the
same 


time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the
annihilated antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors;
I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time
itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. Here
Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering
glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice
pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in all the 25,000
miles of this world's circumference, not an inhabitable hand's
breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the whale's;
and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of
the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like
Leviathan? Ahab's harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's.
Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with
Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of
the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all
time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over. 


 But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in
the stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl
bequeathed his ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose
antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous
character, we find the unmistakable print of his fin. In an
apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago,
there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a sculptured and
painted planisphere, similar to the grotesque figures on the
celestial globe of the moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan
swam as of yore; was there swimming in that planisphere, centuries
before Solomon was cradled. 


 Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the
antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous postdiluvian reality, as
set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller. 


 "Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and
Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous
size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People
imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no



Whale can pass it without immediate death. But the truth of the
matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that
shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light
upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib of an incredible length for a
Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with its convex part
uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a
Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have
layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians
affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this
Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was
cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple." 


 In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if
you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship
there. 


 CHAPTER 105 


 Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish? - Will He Perish?  


 Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us
from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired,
whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not
degenerated from the original bulk of his sires. 


 But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of
the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains
are found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological
period prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary
system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in size
those of its earlier ones. 


 Of all the pre-adamite whale yet exhumed, by far the largest is
the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less
than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have
already seen, that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the
skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on
whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a
hundred feet long at the time of capture. 


 But may it not be, that while the whales of the present  hour
are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological
periods; may it not be, that since Adam's time they have
degenerated? 


 Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts
of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally.
For Pliny tells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk,
and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in
length- Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the
days of Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish
member of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland
Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and
twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. And Lacepede,
the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, in the
very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at
one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this
work was published so late as A.D. 1825. 


 But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of
to-day is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go
where Pliny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to
tell him so. Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the
Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even
Pliny was born, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern
Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and other animals
sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the
relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove
that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only
equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat
kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of all animals
the whale alone should have degenerated. 


 But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the
more recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient
look-outs at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even
through Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and
lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances  darted
along all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan
can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc;
whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and
the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then
himself evaporate in the final puff. 


 Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of
buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of
thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their
iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the
sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells
you land at a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible
argument would seem furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot
now escape speedy extinction. 


 But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short
a period ago- not a good lifetime- the census of the buffalo in
Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at
the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that
region; and though the cause of this wondrous extermination was the
spear of man; yet the far different nature of the whale-hunt
peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty
men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months
think they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they
carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old
Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far
west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a
virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of
months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have
slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact
that, if need were, could be statistically stated. 


 Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favor of
the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in
former years (the latter part of the last century, say) these 
Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much oftener than at
present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged,
and were also much more remunerative. Because, as has been
elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by some views to
safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans, so that to a large
degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of
other days are now aggregated into vast but widely separated,
unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems the
conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer
haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that
species also is declining. For they are only being driven from
promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with
their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been
very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. 


 Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they
have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for
ever remain impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys,
the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from
the savannas and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales
can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the
ultimate glassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields
and floes! and in a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid
defiance to all pursuit from man. 


 But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned
for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have
concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously
diminished their battalions. But though for some time past a number
of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been annually slain on
the nor'west coast by the Americans alone; yet there are
considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no
account as an opposing argument in this matter. 


 Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the
populousness of the more enormous creatures of the globe,  yet what
shall we say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that
at one hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those
regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate
climes. And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants,
which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by
Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East-
if they still survive there in great numbers, much more may the
great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture to
expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia, both
Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the
sea combined. 


 Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great
longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century
and more, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct
adult generations must be contemporary. And what this is, we may
soon gain some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards,
cemeteries, and family vaults of creation yielding up the live
bodies of all the men, women, and children who were alive
seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to the
present human population of the globe. 


 Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal
in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam
the seas before the continents broke water; he once swam over the
site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In
Noah's flood he despised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be
again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the
eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost
crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the
skies. 


 CHAPTER 106 


 Ahab's Leg  


 The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the
Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small
violence to his own person. He had lighted with such energy  upon
a thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had received a
half-splintering shock. And when after gaining his own deck, and
his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an
urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about
his not steering inflexibly enough); then, the already shaken ivory
received such an additional twist and wrench, that though it still
remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not
deem it entirely trustworthy. 


 And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his
pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab, did at times give careful heed
to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For
it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from
Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon the
ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly
inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so
violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but
pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the
agonizing wound was entirely cured. 


 Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind,
that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the
direct issue of former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that
as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as
inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with
every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like.
Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab; since both tie ancestry and
posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of
Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is an inference from certain
canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments here shall
have no children born to them for the other world, but, on the
contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of all hell's
despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely
beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs
beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an 
inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab,
while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain
unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all
heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic
grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious
deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries,
carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods;
so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and
softcymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this:
that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable,
sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in
the signers. 


 Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might
more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many
other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery
to some, why it was, that for a certain period, both before and
after the sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with
such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval,
sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of
the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited reason for this thing appeared by
no means adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeper
part, every revelation partook more of significant darkness than of
explanatory light. But, in the end, it all came out; this one
matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at the bottom of his
temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that
ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who for any reason,
possessed the privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that
timid circle the above hinted casualty- remaining, as it did,
moodily unaccounted for by Ahab- invested itself with terrors, not
entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that,
through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in
them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others; and
hence it was, that not till a considerable 


interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks. 


 But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in
the air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to
do or not with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his
leg, he took plain practical procedures;- he called the carpenter. 


 And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him
without delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to
see him supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm
Whale) which had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, in order
that a careful selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff
might be secured. This done, the carpenter received orders to have
the leg completed that night; and to provide all the fittings for
it, independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use.
Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its
temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair, the
blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of
whatever iron contrivances might be needed. 


 CHAPTER 107 


 The Carpenter  


 Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take
high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and
a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the
most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both
contemporary and hereditary. But most humble though he was, and far
from furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the
Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate; hence, he now comes in person
on this stage. 


 Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those
belonging to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-hand,
practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and callings
collateral to his own; the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient
and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more
or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides
the application to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter
of the Pequod was 


singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical
emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or
four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to
speak of his readiness in ordinary duties:- repairing stove boats,
sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting
bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks, and
other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special
business; he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of
conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious. 


 The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so
manifold, was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished
with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of
wood. At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench
was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.



 A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its
hole: the carpenter claps it into one of his ever ready vices, and
straightway files it smaller. A lost landbird of strange plumage
strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of
right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the
carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. An oarsmen sprains
his wrist: the carpenter concocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed
for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar;
screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter
symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes a fancy to
wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. Another
has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand
upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow
unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round
the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his
jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth. 


 Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike
indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of
ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly
held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus 
variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in
him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of
intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was this man more
remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as it were;
impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding
infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity
discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly
active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and
ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was
this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it
appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness;- yet was it oddly dashed
at times, with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing
humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled
wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time during the
midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark. Was it that
this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose much
rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; but what is
more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have
originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract; an
unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living
without premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might
almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a
sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem
to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had
been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or
uneven; but merely by kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal
process. He was a pure manipulater; his brain, if he had ever had
one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers.
He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful,
multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior-
though a little swelled- of a common pocket knife; but containing,
not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-drivers,
cork-screws,  tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers,
countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter
for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of
him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the
legs, and there they were. 


 Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut
carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he
did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that
somehow anomalously did its duty. What that was, whether essence of
quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But
there it was; and there it had abided for now some sixty years or
more. And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning
life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a great part of
the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which
also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box
and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to
keep himself awake. 


 CHAPTER 108 


 Ahab and the Carpenter 


 The Deck - First Night Watch  


 (Carpenter standing before vice-bench, and by the light of two
lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is
firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads,
screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench.
Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith
is at work.)  


 Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be
soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old
jaws and shin bones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better
(sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)- why it's (sneezes)-
yes it's (sneezes)- bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is
what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live
tree, and you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you
don't get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a
hand, and let's have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready
for them presently. Lucky now (sneezes) there's no knee-joint to
make; that 


might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone- why it's easy as
making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on. Time,
time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a
leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those
buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't
compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of course get
rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and
lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, I must
call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all
right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are
in luck; here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain. 


                  AHAB (advancing) 


 (During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at
times)  


 Well, manmaker! 


 Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the
length. Let me measure, sir. 


 Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About
it! There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast
here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch
some. 


 Oh, sir, it will break bones- beware, beware! 


 No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this
slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?-
the blacksmith, I mean- what's he about? 


 He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now. 


 Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes
a fierce red flame there! 


 Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for his kind of fine work.



 Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that
that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have
been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in
fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the
soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans
of. Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to
forge a 


pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a
crushing pack. 


 Sir? 


 Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man
after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks;
then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots
to 'em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the
wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an
acre of fine brains; and let me see- shall I order eyes to see
outwards? No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate
inwards. There, take the order, and away. 


 Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I
should like know? Shall I keep standing here? (aside.) 


 'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's
one. No, no, no; I must have a lantern. 


 Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my
turn. 


 What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for,
man? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. 


 I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.  


 Carpenter? why that's- but no;- a very tidy, and, I may say, an
extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here,
carpenter;- or would'st thou rather work in clay? 


 Sir?- Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers,
sir. 


 The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about? 


 Bone is rather dusty, sir. 


 Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself
under living people's noses. 


 Sir?- oh! ah!- I guess so;- yes- dear! 


 Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good
workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well
for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I
shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place
with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood
one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away? 


 Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have
heard something curious on that score; how that a dismasted man
never 


entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still
pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? 


 It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine
was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to
the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there,
there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle? 


 I should humbly call it a poser, sir. 


 Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living,
thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly
standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there
in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear
eavesdroppers? Hold, don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of
my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayst
not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and
without a body? Hah! 


 Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate
over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. 


 Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.- How long
before the leg is done? 


 Perhaps an hour, sir. 


 Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh,
Life. Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to
this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal
inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be
free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich,
I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at
the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's); and yet I
owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get
a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small,
compendious vertebra. So.  


               CARPENTER (resuming work).  


 Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always
says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word
queer; he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer- queer, queer; and keeps
dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time- queer- sir- queer,
queer, very 


queer. And here's his leg. Yes, now that I think of it, here's
his bed-fellow! has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And
this is his leg; he'll stand on this. What was that now about one
leg standing in three places, and all three places standing in one
hell- how was that? Oh! I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me!
I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that's
only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me, should
never undertake to wade out into deep water with tall, heron-built
captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and
there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg!
long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs
lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them
mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old
coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg
to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone
legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with
those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow
comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as
brewery men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up
again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed
down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this to-morrow;
he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little
oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So,
so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now! 


 CHAPTER 109 


 Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin  


 According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and
lo! no inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below
must have sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck
went down into the cabin to report this unfavorable affair.*  


 *In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on
board, it is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the
hold, and 


drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying
intervals, is removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are
sought to be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of
the withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious
leakage in the precious cargo.  


 Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to
Formosa and the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the
tropical outlets from the China waters into the Pacific. And so
Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of the oriental
archipelagoes spread before him; and another separate one
representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islands-
Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new ivory leg
braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long
pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man,
with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and
tracing his old courses again. 


 "Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning
round to it. "On deck! Begone!" 


 "Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking,
sir. We must up Burtons and break out." 


 "Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan;
heave-to here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?" 


 "Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may
make good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is
worth saving, sir." 


 "So it is, so it is; if we get it." 


 "I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir." 


 "And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let
it leak! I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full
of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and
that's a far worse plight than the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop
to plug my leak; for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or
how hope to plug it, even if found, in this life's howling ale?
Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons hoisted." 


 "What will the owners say, sir?" 


 "Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the
Typhoons. 


What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me,
Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my
conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its
commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's keel.- On
deck!" 


 "Captain Ahab," said the reddening mate, moving further into the
cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it
almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest
outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than
half distrustful of itself; "A better man than I might well pass
over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man;
aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab." 


 "Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of
me?- On deck!" 


 "Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir- to be
forbearing! Shall we not understand each other better than
hitherto, Captain Ahab?" 


 Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most
South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,
exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one
Captain that is lord over the Pequod.- On deck!" 


 For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery
cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really received
the blaze of the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half
calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and
said: "Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask
thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let
Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man." 


 "He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery
that!" murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. "What's that he
said- Ahab beware of Ahab- there's something there!" Then
unconsciously using the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he
paced to and fro in the little cabin; but presently the thick
plaits of his forehead 


relaxed, and returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck. 


 "Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," he said lowly to the
mate; then raising his voice to the crew: "Furl the
t'gallant-sails, and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back
the main-yard; up Burtons, and break out in the main-hold." 


 It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as
respecting Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of
honesty in him; or mere prudential policy which, under the
circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of open
disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer of
his ship. However it was, his orders were executed; and the Burtons
were hoisted. 


 CHAPTER 110 


 Queequeg in His Coffin  


 Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the
hold were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off.
So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper,
disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from
that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into the daylight
above. So deep did they go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy
the aspect of the lowermost puncheons, that you almost looked next
for some mouldy corner-stone cask containing coins of Captain Noah,
with copies of the posted placards, vainly warning the infatuated
old world from the flood. Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and
bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoop,
were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks were hard to get
about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if you were
treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea
like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a
dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that
the Typhoons did not visit them then. 


 Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast
bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which  brought him
nigh to his endless end. 


 Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are
unknown; dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be
Captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor
Queequeg, who, as harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of
the living whale, but- as we have elsewhere seen- mount his dead
back in a rolling sea; and finally descend into the gloom of the
hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that subterraneous
confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see to
their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the
holders, so called. 


Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you
should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him
there; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage
was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green
spotted lizard at the bottom of a well. And a well, or an
ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan; where, strange to
say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he caught a terrible chill
which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after some days' suffering,
laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of the door of
death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few long-lingering
days, till there seemed but little left of him but his frame and
tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew
sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller;
they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply
looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to
that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened.
And like circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand;
so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of
Eternity. An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you
sat by the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in
his face, as any beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died.
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was
put 


into words or books. And the drawing near of Death, which alike
levels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only
an author from the dead could adequately tell. So that- let us say
it again- no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier thoughts
than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face
of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the
rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the
ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher towards
his destined heaven. 


 Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg
himself, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a
curious favor he asked. He called one to him in the grey morning
watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said
that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes
of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and upon
inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket,
were laid in those dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid
had much pleased him; for it was not unlike the custom of his own
race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his
canoe, and so left him to be floated away to the starry
archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are
isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild,
uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form
the white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at
the thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual
sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring
sharks. No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the
more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat
these coffin-canoes were without a keel; though that involved but
uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim ages. 


 Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the
carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever 


it might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-colored old
lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut
from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these
dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made. No sooner was
the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he
forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude of his character,
proceeded into the forecastle and took Queequeg's measure with
great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted
the rule. 


 "Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the Long
Island sailor. 


 Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and
general reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact
length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent
by cutting two notches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled
the planks and his tools, and to work. 


 When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and
fitted, he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it,
inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. 


 Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the
people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every
one's consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly
brought to him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all
mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly,
since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor
fellows ought to be indulged. 


 Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin
with an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the
wooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in
the coffin along with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his
own request, also, biscuits were then ranged round the sides
within; a flask of fresh water was placed at the head, and a small
bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot; and a piece
of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequeg now  entreated
to be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial of its
comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving a few minutes, then
told one to go to his bed and bring out his little god, Yojo. Then
crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he called for
the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. The head
part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg in
his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view.
"Rarmai" (it will do; it is easy) he murmured at last, and signed
to be replaced in his hammock. 


 But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by
all the while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft
sobbings, took him by the hand; in the other, holding his
tambourine. 


 "Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving?
where go ye now? But if the current carry ye to those sweet
Antilles where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye
do one little errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been
missing long: I think he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him,
then comfort him; for he must be very sad; for look! he's left his
tambourine behind;- I found it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg,
die; and I'll beat ye your dying march." 


 "I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle,
"that in violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient
tongues; and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always
that in their wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had
been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to
my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange sweetness of his lunacy,
brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenly homes. Where learned
he that, but there?- Hark! he speaks again; but more wildly now." 


 "Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his
harpoon? Lay it across here.- Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a
game cock now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!-
mind ye that; Queequeg dies game!- take ye good heed of that;
Queequeg dies game! I say; game, game, game! but base little Pip,
he died a 


coward; died all a'shiver;- out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find
Pip, tell all the Antilles he's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a
coward! Tell them he jumped from a whale-boat! I'd never beat my
tambourine over base Pip, and hail him General, if he were once
more dying here. No, no! shame upon all cowards- shame upon them!
Let'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a whale-boat. Shame!
shame!" 


 During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a
dream. Pip was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his
hammock. 


 But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death;
now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly
rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box; and
thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in
substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was
this;- at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty
ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his
mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him,
then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will
and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's
conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness
could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some
violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort. 


 Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and
civilized; that while a sick, civilized man may be six months
convalescing, generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well
again in a day. So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and
at length after sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days
(but eating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his
feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a good stretching,
yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his
hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a
fight. 


 With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest;
and emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order 


there. Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all
manner of grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby
he was striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted
tattooing on his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a
departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic
marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens
and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining
truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to
unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even
himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them;
and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder
away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so
be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must have been which
suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning
turning away from surveying poor Queequeg- "Oh, devilish
tantalization of the gods!" 


 CHAPTER 111 


 The Pacific  


 When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the
great South Sea; were it not for other things I could have greeted
my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long
supplication of my youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled
eastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue. 


 There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose
gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath;
like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried
Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures,
wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters' Fields of all four
continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow
unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows,
drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and
souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in
their beds; 


the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness. 


 To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once
beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the
midmost waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being
but its arms. The same waves wash the moles of the new-built
California towns, but yesterday planted by the recentest race of
men and lave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands,
older than Abraham; while all between float milky-ways of coral
isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and
impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the
world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the
tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you
needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. 


 But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing, like
an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging,
with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the
Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking),
and with the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new
found sea; that sea in which the hated White Whale must even then
be swimming. Launched at length upon these almost final waters, and
gliding towards the Japanese cruising-ground, the old man's purpose
intensified itself. His firm lips met like the lips of a vice; the
Delta of his forehead's veins swelled like overladen brooks; in his
very sleep, his ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, "Stern
all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!" 


 CHAPTER 112 


 The Blacksmith  


 Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now
reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly
active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed,
blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the
hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg,
but  still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the
foremast; being now almost incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and
harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them; altering,
or repairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat
furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an eager circle, all
waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pikeheads, harpoons, and
lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he
toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded
by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come
from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his
chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life
itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of
his heart. And so it was.- Most miserable! 


 A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful
appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage
excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of
their persisted questionings he had finally given in; and so it
came to pass that every one now knew the shameful story of his
wretched fate. 


 Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on
the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith
half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and
sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was, the
loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of this revelation, part
by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the
one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his
life's drama. 


 He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had
postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called
ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty
to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful,
daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every
Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But
one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most
cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, 
and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the
blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his
family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of
that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home.
Now, for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's
shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate
entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy
wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous
pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old husband's
hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors
and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so,
to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked
to slumber. 


 Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be
timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his
full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious
grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream
of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency.
But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose
whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other
family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the
hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest. 


 Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day
grew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter
than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless
eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children;
the bellows fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was
sold; the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her
children twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless
old man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe
unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls! 


 Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this;
but 


Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried;
it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense
Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the
death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them some
interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and
all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of
unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures;
and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids
sing to them- "Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life
without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders
supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in
a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed
world, is more oblivious than death. dome hither! put up thy
grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we
marry thee!" 


 Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and
by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And
so Perth went a-whaling. 


 CHAPTER 113 


 The Forge  


 With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron,
about mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the
latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a
pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs,
when Captain Ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small
rusty-looking leathern bag. While yet a little distance from the
forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron
from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvil- the red mass
sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which
flew close to Ahab. 


 "Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always
flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;- look
here, they burn; but thou- thou liv'st among them without a
scorch." 


 "Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab," answered  Perth,
resting for a moment on his hammer; "I am past scorching-, not
easily can'st thou scorch a scar." 


 "Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely
woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery
in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say,
why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad?
Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?- What
wert thou making there?" 


 "Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in
it." 


 "And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after
such hard usage as it had?" 


 "I think so, sir." 


 "And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents;
never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?" 


 "Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one." 


 "Look ye here then," cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and
leaning with both hands on Perth's shoulders; "look ye here- here-
can ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand
across his ribbed brow; "if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough
would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer
between my eyes. Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?" 


 "Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but
one?" 


 "Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable;
for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down
into the bone of my skull- that is all wrinkles! But, away with
child's play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!"
jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. "I,
too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could
not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own
fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging the pouch upon the anvil.
"Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the
steel shoes of racing horses." 


 "Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here,
then, 


the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work." 


 "I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue
from the melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon.
And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and
twist, and hammer these twelve together like the yarns and strands
of a tow-line. Quick! I'll blow the fire." 


 When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by
one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy
iron bolt. "A flaw!" rejecting the last one. "Work that over again,
Perth." 


 This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one,
when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As,
then, regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth
passing to him the glowing rods, after the other, and the hard
pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee
passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed
invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab
looked up, he slid aside. 


 "What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?"
muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. "That Parsee smells
fire like a fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's
powder-pan." 


 At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat;
and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of
water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face. 


 "Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the
pain; "have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?" 


 "Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not
this harpoon for the White Whale?" 


 "For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them
thyself, man. Here are my razors- the best of steel; here, and make
the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea." 


 For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he
would fain not use them. 


  "Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither
shave, sup, nor pray till- but here- to work!" 


 Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to
the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the
blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to
tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near. 


 "No, no- no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper.
Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will
ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high
up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made
in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were then
tempered. 


 "Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!"
deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured
the baptismal blood. 


 Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of
hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to
the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound,
and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a
great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like
a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no
strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good! and now for the seizings." 


 At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate
spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the
harpoon; the pole was then driven hard up into the socket; from the
lower end the rope was traced halfway along the pole's length, and
firmly secured so, with inter-twistings of twine. This done, pole,
iron, and rope- like the Three Fates- remained inseparable, and
Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; the sound of his ivory
leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along
every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, light, unnatural,
half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh! Pip, thy
wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange
mummeries not unmeaningly blended 


with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it! 


 CHAPTER 114 


 The Gilder  


 Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese
cruising ground the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery.
Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen,
and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats,
steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for
an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their
uprising; though with but small success for their pains. 


 At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth,
slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe;
and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like
hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the
times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and
brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that
pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this
velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. 


 These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly
feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the
sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant
ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling
forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass
of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only
show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade
through the amazing verdure. 


 The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over
these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that
play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad
May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this
mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way
meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole. 


  Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at
least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden
keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet
did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing. 


 Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the
soul; in ye,- though long parched by the dead drought of the
earthly life,- in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new
morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool
dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms
would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by
warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm.
There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not
advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:-
through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith,
adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then
disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But
once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys,
and men, and Ifs  eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we
unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the
weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden?
Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in
bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and
we must there to learn it. 


 And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side
into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:- 


 "Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's
eyes!- Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping
cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look
deep down and do believe." 


 And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scale, leaped up in that
same golden light:- 


 "I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes
oaths that he has always been jolly!" 


 CHAPTER 115 


  The Pequod Meets The Bachelor  


 And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came
bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon
had been welded. 


 It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in
her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and
now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat
vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on
the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home. 


 The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red
bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended,
bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the
long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns,
and jacks of all colors were flying from her rigging, on every
side. Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two
barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw
slender breakers of the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main
truck was a brazen lamp. 


 As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most
surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising
in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months
without securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and
bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm,
but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the
ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the
captain's and officers' state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself
had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off
the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a
centerpiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked
and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously added,
that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled
it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled
it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and
filled  them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except
the captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust
his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire
satisfaction. 


 As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod,
the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and
drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round
her huge try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like poke or
stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every
stroke of the clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the
mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who
had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in
an ornamental boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and
mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of
whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile,
others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry
of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed. You
would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed
Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and
mortar were being hurled into the sea. 


 Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on
the ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama
was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own
individual diversion. 


 And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and
black, with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each
other's wakes- one all jubilations for things passed, the other all
forebodings as to things to come- their two captains in themselves
impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene. 


 "Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander,
lifting a glass and a bottle in the air. 


 "Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply. 


 "No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said
the other good-humoredly. "Come aboard!" 


 "Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?" 


  "Not enough to speak of- two islanders, that's all;- but come
aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your
brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and
homeward-bound." 


 "How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud,
"Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then,
call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I
will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!" 


 And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze,
the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels
parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering
glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never
heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as
Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he
took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from
the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote
associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket
soundings. 


 CHAPTER 116 


 The Dying Whale  


 Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's
favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch
somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails
fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day after
encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were
slain; and one of them by Ahab. 


 It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the
crimson fight were done; and floating in the lovely sunset sea and
sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a
sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled
up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the
deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish
land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted
with these vesper hymns. 


 Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who  had
sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings
from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable
in all sperm whales dying- the turning sunwards of the head, and so
expiring- that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening,
somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before. 


 "He turns and turns him to it,- how slowly, but how steadfastly,
his homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying
motions. He too worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial
vassal of the sun!- Oh that these too-favoring eyes should see
these too-favoring sights. Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all
hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas;
where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long
Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and
unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger's unknown source;
here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith, but see! no sooner
dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other
way. 


 "Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast
builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these
unverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly
speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed
burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned
his dying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me. 


 "Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring,
rainbowed jet!- that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In
vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening
sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost
thou darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All
thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by
breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now. 


 "Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the
wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the
sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my 


foster-brothers!" 


 CHAPTER 117 


 The Whale Watch  


 The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far
to windward; one less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern.
These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the
windward one could not be reached till morning; and the boat that
had killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's. 


 The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's
spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled
flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the
midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like
soft surf upon a beach. 


 Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who
crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally
played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with
their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites
of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. 


 Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee;
and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men
in a flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he. 


 "Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse
nor coffin can be thine?" 


 "And who are hearsed that die on the sea?" 


 "But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage,
two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not
made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be
grown in America." 


 "Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee!- a hearse and its
plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers.
Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see." 


 "Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old
man." 


 "And what was that saying about thyself?" 


 "Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy
pilot." 


 "And when thou art so gone before- if that ever befall- then ere
I 


can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?- Was
it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I
have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive
it." 


 "Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes
lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom- "Hemp only can kill thee."



 "The gallows, ye mean.- I am immortal then, on land and on sea,"
cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;- "Immortal on land and on
sea!" 


 Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and
the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the
dead whale was brought to the ship. 


 CHAPTER 118 


 The Quadrant  


 The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when
Ahab, coming from his cabin cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant
helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager
mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all
their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for
the order to point the ship's prow for the equator. In good time
the order came. It was hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the
bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily
observation of the sun to determine his latitude. 


 Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of
effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing
focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky
looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and
this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable
splendors of God's throne. Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished
with colored glasses, through which to take sight of that solar
fire. So, swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and
with his astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he
remained in that posture for some moments to catch the precise
instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. Meantime
while his whole attention 


was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's
deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, was eyeing the same sun
with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his
wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the
desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory
leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise
instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up
towards the sun and murmured to himself: "Thou seamark! thou high
and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I am- but canst thou
cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some
other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick?
This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into
the very eye that is even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye
that is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown,
thither side of thee, thou sun!" 


 Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other,
its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and
muttered: "Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and
Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning
and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor,
pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide
planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou
canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be
to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun!
Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things
that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but
scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy
light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the
glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if
God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou
quadrant!" dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my
earthly way by thee; the level ship's 


compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line; these
shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," lighting
from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry
thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"



 As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his
live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab,
and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself- these
passed over the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose
and glided away; while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander,
the seamen clustered together on the forecastle, till Ahab,
troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out- "To the braces! Up helm!-
square in!" 


 In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship
half-wheeled upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts
erectly poised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three
Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient steed. 


 Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's
tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the
deck. 


 "I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow,
full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at
last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this
fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap
of ashes!" 


 "Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes- mind ye that, Mr.
Starbuck- sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard
Ahab mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old
hands of mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.' And
damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in
it!" 


 CHAPTER 119 


 The Candles  


 Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of
Bengal crouches in spaced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the
most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba
knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it
is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters
the direst 


of all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that
cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.



 Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas,
and bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her
directly ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split
with the thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the
disabled mast fluttering here and there with the rags which the
first fury of the tempest had left for its after sport. 


 Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck;
at every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what
additional disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there;
while Stubb and Flask were directing the men in the higher hoisting
and firmer lashing of the boats. But all their pains seemed naught.
Though lifted to the very top of the cranes, the windward quarter
boat (Ahab's) did not escape. A great rolling sea, dashing high up
against the reeling ship's high teetering side, stove in the boat's
bottom at the stern, and left it again, all dripping through like
a sieve. 


 "Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck," said Stubb, regarding the
wreck, "but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight
it. You see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start
before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes the
spring! But as for me, all the start I have to meet it, is just
across the deck here. But never mind; it's all in fun: so the old
song says;"- (sings.)  


                    Oh! jolly is the gale, 


                    And a joker is the whale, 


                    A' flourishin' his tail,- 


       Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 


         lad, is the Ocean, oh! 


                    The scud all a flyin', 


                    That's his flip only foamin'; 


                    When he stirs in the spicin',- 


       Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 


         lad, is the Ocean, oh! 


                    Thunder splits the ships, 


                    But he only smacks his lips, 


                    A tastin' of this flip,- 


       Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 


          lad, is the Ocean, oh!  


 "Avast Stubb," cried Starbuck, "let the Typhoon sing, and strike
his harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt
hold thy peace." 


 "But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a
coward; and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it
is, Mr. Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing in this world
but to cut my throat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye
the doxology for a wind-up." 


 "Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own." 


 "What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else,
never mind how foolish?" 


 "Here!" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and
pointing his hand towards the weather bow, "markest thou not that
the gale comes from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run
for Moby Dick? the very course he swung to this day noon? now mark
his boat there; where is that stove? In the stern-sheets, man;
where he is wont to stand- his stand-point is stove, man! Now jump
overboard, and sing away, if thou must! 


 "I don't half understand ye: what's in the wind?" 


 "Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to
Nantucket," soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's
question. "The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn
it into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to
windward, all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward- I see
it lightens up there; but not with the lightning." 


 At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness,
following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at
the same instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. 


 "Who's there?" 


 "Old Thunder!" said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to
his pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by
elbowed lances of fire. 


 Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to
carry off the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod 
which at sea some ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct
it into the water. But as this conductor must descend to
considerable depth, that its end may avoid all contact with the
hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly towing there, it would be
liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with some
of the rigging, and more or less impeding the vessel's way in the
water; because of all this, the lower parts of a ship's
lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made in
long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the
chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may
require. 


 "The rods! the rods!" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly
admonished to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been
darting flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. "Are they overboard?
drop them over, fore and aft. Quick!" 


 "Avast!" cried Ahab; "let's have fair play here, though we be
the weaker side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs
and Andes, that all the world may be secured; but out on
privileges! Let them be, sir." 


 "Look aloft!" cried Starbuck. "The corpusants! the corpusants! 


 All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at
each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white
flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that
sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar. 


 "Blast the boat! let it go!" cried Stubb at this instant, as a
swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft so that its
gunwale violently jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing.
"Blast it!"- but slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes
caught the flames; and immediately shifting his tone he cried- "The
corpusants have mercy on us all!" 


 To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the
trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will
imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter
over to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I
heard a  common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the
ship; when His "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin" has been woven into the
shrouds and the cordage. 


 While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard
from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the
forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence,
like a faraway constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly
light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real
stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had
come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth,
which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by
corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg's
tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body. 


 The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and
once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a
pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed
against some one. It was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I
heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song." 


 "No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all;
and I hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long
faces?- have they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck-
but it's too dark to look. Hear me, then; I take that mast-head
flame we saw for a sign of good luck; for those masts are rooted in
a hold that is going to be chock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see;
and so, all that sperm will work up into the masts, like sap in a
tree. Yes, our three masts will yet be as three spermaceti candles-
that's the good promise we saw." 


 At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly
beginning to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: "See!
see!" and once more the high tapering flames were beheld with what
seemed redoubled supernaturalness in their pallor. 


 "The corpusants have mercy on us all," cried Stubb, again. 


 At the base of the main-mast, full beneath the doubloon and the
flame, the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his  head
bowed away from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging
rigging, where they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number
of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and
hung pendulous, like a knot of numbed wasps from a drooping,
orchard twig. In various enchanted attitudes like the standing, or
stepping, or running skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained
rooted to the deck; but all their eyes upcast. 


 "Aye, aye, men!" cried Ahab. "Look up at it; mark it well; the
white flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those
mainmast links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine
beat against it; blood against fire! So." 


 Then turning- the last link held fast in his left hand, he put
his foot upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eve, and high-flung
right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of
flames. 


 "Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as
Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by
thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou
clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To
neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate
thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now
fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last
gasp of my earthquake life will dispute unconditional, unintegral
mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a
personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whenceso'er I
came; whereso'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly
personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is
pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will
kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal
power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds,
there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear
spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and 


like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee." 


 [Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; the nine flames leap
lengthwise to thrice their previous height; Ahab, with the rest,
closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them.] 


 "I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was
it wrung from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind;
but I can then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes.
Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not
take it. The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache
and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling in
some stunning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to
thee. Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am
darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee! The javelins
cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the flames! Oh, thou
magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou art but my
fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hast
thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater.
Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten;
certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun.
I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou
omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear
spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness
mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do
dimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou
too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here
again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick
the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded
with thee; defyingly I worship thee!" 


 "The boat! the boat!" cried Starbuck, "look at thy boat, old
man!" 


 Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly
lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his
whale-boat's bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused
the loose leather sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb
there 


now came a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent
harpoon burned there like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab
by the arm- "God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! 't is an
ill voyage! ill begun, ill continued; let me square the yards,
while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go
on a better voyage than this." 


 Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to
the braces- though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all
the aghast mate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half
mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck,
and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among
them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast
loose a rope's end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more
shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in
dismay, and Ahab again spoke:- 


 "All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine;
and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And
that ye may know to what tune this heart beats: look ye here; thus
I blow out the last fear!" And with one blast of his breath he
extinguished the flame. 


 As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the
neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and
strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the
more a mark for thunderbolts; so at those last words of Ahab's many
of the mariners did run from him in a terror of dismay. 


 CHAPTER 120 


 The Deck Toward the End of the First Night Watch  


    Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him.  


 We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is
working loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it,
sir?" 


 "Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway them
up now." 


 "Sir!- in God's name!- sir?" 


 "Well." 


 "The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?" 


 "Strike nothing, and stir nothing but lash everything. The  wind
rises, but it has not got up to my table-hands yet. Quick, and see
to it.- By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper
of some coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho,
gluepots! Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this
brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike
that? Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest
time. What a hooroosh aloft there! I would e'en take it for
sublime, did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take
medicine, take medicine!" 


 CHAPTER 121 


 Midnight - The Forecastle Bulwarks  


 Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings
over the anchors there hanging.  


 No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please,
but you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And
how long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you
once say that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay
something extra on its insurance policy, just as though it were
loaded with powder barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop,
now; didn't you say so?" 


 "Well, suppose I did? What then! I've part changed my flesh
since that time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we are loaded
with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could
the lucifers get afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little
man, you have pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now.
Shake yourself; you're Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might
fill pitchers at your coat collar. Don't you see, then, that for
these extra risks the Marine Insurance companies have extra
guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But hark, again, and I'll
answer ye the other thing. First take your leg of from the crown of
the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope; now listen. What's
the mighty difference between holding a mast's lightning-rod in the 
storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't got any
lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head,
that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is
first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a
hundred carries rods, and Ahab,- aye, man, and all of us,- were in
no more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten
thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I
suppose you would have every man in the world go about with a small
lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia
officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why
don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's easy to be sensible; why don't
ye, then? any man with half an eye can be sensible." 


 "I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard." 


 "Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible,
that's a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind;
catch the turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down
these anchors now as if they were never going to be used again.
Tying these two anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands
behind him. And what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These
are your iron fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder,
Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she
swings with an uncommon long cable, though. There, hammer that knot
down, and we've done. So; next to touching land, lighting on deck
is the most satisfactory. I say, just wring out my jacket skirts,
will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs so, Flask; but seems to
me, a long-tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms
afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the
water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end
eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me;
I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. Halloa!
whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that the winds
that come from 


heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad." 


 CHAPTER 122 


 Midnight Aloft.- Thunder and Lightning  


 The Main-top-sail yard - Tashtego passing new lashings around
it.  


 "Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here.
What's the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; we
want rum; give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!" 


 CHAPTER 123 


 The Musket  


 During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the
Pequod's jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to
the deck by its spasmodic motions even though preventer tackles had
been attached to it- for they were slack- because some play to the
tiller was indispensable. 


 In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed
shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the
needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was
thus with the Pequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not
failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved
upon the cards; it is a sight that hardly anyone can behold without
some sort of unwonted emotion. 


 Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that
through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb- one engaged
forward and the other aft- the shivered remnants of the jib and
fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars, and went
eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross, which
sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is on
the wing. 


 The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and
a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went
through the water with some precision again; and the course- for
the present, East-south-east- which he was to steer, if
practicable, was 


once more given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the
gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he
was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible, watching
the compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming
round astern; aye, the foul breeze became fair! 


 Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of "Ho! the
fair wind! oh-ye-ho cheerly, men!" the crew singing for joy, that
so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil
portends preceding it. 


 In compliance with the standing order of his commander- to
report immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any
decided change in the affairs of the deck,- Starbuck had no sooner
trimmed the yards to the breeze- however reluctantly and gloomily,-
that he mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the
circumstance. 


 Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before
it a moment. The cabin lamp- taking long swings this way and that-
was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's
bolted door,- a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of
upper panels. The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a
certain humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round
by all the roar of the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack
were shiningly revealed, as they stood upright against the forward
bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest, upright man; but out of
Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw the muskets, there
strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or
good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for
itself. 


 "He would have shot me once," he murmured, "yes, there's the
very musket that he pointed at me;- that one with the studded lock;
let me touch it- lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many
deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must
see. Aye, aye; and powder in the pan;- that's not good. Best spill
it?- wait. I'll cure myself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly
while I 


think.- I come to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair
for death and doom,- that's fair for Moby Dick. It's a fair wind
that's only fair for that accursed fish.- The very tube he pointed
at me!- the very one; this one- I hold it here; he would have
killed me with the very thing I handle now.- Aye and he would fain
kill all his crew. Does he not say he will not strike his spars to
any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant? and in these
same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of
the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did he not swear
that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed old man
be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with
him?- Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and
more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly
harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If,
then, he were this instant- put aside, that crime would not be his.
Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there,- in there, he's
sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I
can't withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning; not
remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou
scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou
breathest. Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow; say'st all
of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!- But is there no other way? no
lawful way?- Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to
wrest this old man's living power from his own living hands? Only
a fool would try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over
with ropes and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin
floor; he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could
not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his howlings; all
comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me on the
long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land is hundreds
of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone here
upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me 
and law.- Aye, aye, 'tis so.- Is heaven a murderer when its
lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets
and skin together?- And would I be a murderer, then, if"- and
slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded
musket's end against the door. 


 "On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way.
A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.-
Oh Mary! Mary!- boy! boy! boy!- But if I wake thee not to death,
old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this
day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou?
Shall I? shall I?- The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the
fore and main topsails are reefed and set! she heads her course." 


 "Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!" 


 Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old
man's tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long
dumb dream to speak. 


 The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the
panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel, but turning from
the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.



 "He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him,
and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to
say." 


 CHAPTER 124 


 The Needle  


 Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow
billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling
track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread. The strong
unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast
outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled
in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the
spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in
stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens,
reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold,
that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. 


 Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart;  and
every time the teetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit,
he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she
profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the
sun's rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending
with his undeviating wake. 


 "Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the
sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I
bring the sun to ye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem,
I drive the sea!" 


 But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried
towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. 


 "East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman. 


 "Thou liest!" smiting him with his clenched fist. "Heading East
at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern?" 


 Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just
then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but
its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause. 


 Thrusting his head half-way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one
glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a
moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck
looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was
as infallibly going West. 


 But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the
crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has
happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our
compasses- that's all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing,
I take it." 


 "Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the
pale mate, gloomily. 


 Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in
more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The
magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all
know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence
it is not to be much marvelled at, that such things should be.
Instances where the lightning has actually struck the vessel, so as
to smite  down some of the spars and rigging, the effect upon the
needle has at times been still more fatal; all its loathsome virtue
being annihilated, so that the before magnetic steel was of no more
use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in either case, the
needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue thus
marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, the same
fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were the
lowermost one inserted into the kelson. 


 Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the
transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended
hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that
the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the
ship's course to be changed accordingly. The yards were hard up;
and once more the Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the
opposing wind, for the supposed fair one had only been juggling
her. 


 Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said
nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb
and Flask- who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his
feelings- likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though
some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than
their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers
remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only
with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from
inflexible Ahab's. 


 For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But
chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper
sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the
deck. 


 "Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I
wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me.
So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr.
Starbuck- a lance without the pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of
the sail-maker's needles. Quick!" 


 Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was
now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object 
might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of
his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted
compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by
transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing
to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some
shudderings and evil portents. 


 "Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate
handed him the things he had demanded, "my men, the thunder turned
old Ahab's needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one
of his own, that will point as true as any." 


 Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors,
as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever
magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away. 


 With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of
the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod
remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck.
Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this
iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it,
and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still
holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange
motions with it- whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the
steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is
uncertain- he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle,
slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally
suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass
cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and
vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when
Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped
frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm
towards it, exclaimed,- "Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not
lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass
swears it!" 


 One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes



could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another
they slunk away. 


 In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all
his fatal pride. 


 CHAPTER 125 


 The Log and Line  


 While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage,
the log and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a
confident reliance upon other means of determining the vessel's
place, some merchantmen, and many whalemen, especially when
cruising, wholly neglect to heave the log; though at the same time,
and frequently more for form's sake than anything else, regularly
putting down upon the customary slate the course steered by the
ship, as well as the presumed average of progression every hour. It
had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log
attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of the
after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and wind had
warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung
so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he
happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet
scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled
his frantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing
plungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots. 


 "Forward, there! Heave the log!" 


 Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly
Manxman. "Take the reel, one of ye, I'll heave." 


 They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side,
where the deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost
dipping into the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea. 


 The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the
projecting handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of
line revolved, so stood with the angular log hanging downwards,
till Ahab advanced to him. 


 Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or
forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss  overboard,
when the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the
line, made bold to speak. 


 "Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet
have spoiled it." 


 "'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they
spoiled thee? Thou seem'st to hold. Oh, truer perhaps, life holds
thee; not thou it." 


 "I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these
grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with
a superior, who'll ne'er confess." 


 "What's that? there now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's
granite-founded College; but methinks he's too subservient. Where
wert thou born?" 


 "In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir." 


 "Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that." 


 "I know not, sir, but I was born there." 


 "In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's
a man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now
unmanned of Man; which is sucked in- by what? Up with the reel! The
dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it!
So." 


 The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in
a long dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to
whirl. In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling
billows, the towing resistance of the log caused the old reelman to
stagger strangely. 


 "Hold hard!" 


 Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the
tugging log was gone. 


 "I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now
the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in
here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter
make another log, and mend thou the line. See to it." 


 "There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the
skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in,
haul in, Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in
broken, and dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?" 


 "Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whaleboat.  Pip's
missing. Let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman.
It drags hard; I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him
off we haul in no cowards here. Ho! there's his arm just breaking
water. A hatchet! a hatchet! cut it off- we haul in no cowards
here. Captain Ahab! sir, sir! here's Pip, trying to get on board
again." 


 "Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman, seizing him by the
arm. "Away from the quarter-deck!" 


 "The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," muttered Ahab,
advancing. "Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip
was, boy? 


 "Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!" 


 "And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant
pupils of thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal
souls to sieve through! Who art thou, boy?" 


 "Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! One
hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high- looks
cowardly- quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip
the coward?" 


 "There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen
heavens! look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have
abandoned him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab's cabin
shall be Pip's home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my
inmost centre, boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven by my
heart-strings. Come, let's down." 


 "What's this? here's velvet shark-skin," intently gazing at
Ahab's hand, and feeling it. "Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so
kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems to
me, sir, as a man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh,
sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the
black one with the white, for I will not let this go." 


 "Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to
worse horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye
believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the
omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though
idiotic,  and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet
things of love and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder leading thee by
thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's!" 


 "There go two daft ones now," muttered the old Manxman. "One
daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the
end of the rotten line- all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we
had best have a new line altogether. I'll see Mr. Stubb about it." 


 CHAPTER 126 


 The Life-Buoy  


 Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her
progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod
held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage
through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long,
sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously
mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some
riotous and desperate scene. 


 At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were,
of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that
goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the
watch- then headed by Flask- was startled by a cry so plaintively
wild and unearthly- like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of
all Herod's murdered Innocents- that one and all, they started from
their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or
leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave,
while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or
civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but
the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman-
the oldest mariner of all- declared that the wild thrilling sounds
that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea. 


 Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn,
when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask,
not unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed,
and thus explained the wonder. 


  Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of
great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their
dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh
the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their
human sort of wall. But this only the more affected some of them,
because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about
seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress,
but also from the human look of their round heads and
semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water
alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more
than once been mistaken for men. 


 But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most
plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that
morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his
mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half
waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a
transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now
no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his
perch, when a cry was heard- a cry and a rushing- and looking up,
they saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little
tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea. 


 The life-buoy- a long slender cask- was dropped from the stern,
where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose
to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had
shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and that parched wood also
filled at its every pore; and the studded iron-bound cask followed
the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though in
sooth but a hard one. 


 And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to
look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar
ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps,
thought of that at the time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not
grieved at this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it,
not as a 


fore-shadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an
evil already presaged. They declared that now they knew the reason
of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again
the old Manxman said nay. 


 The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed
to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be
found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the
approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient of any
toil but what was directly connected with its final end, whatever
that might prove to be; therefore, they were going to leave the
ship's stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain strange signs
and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concerning his coffin. 


 "A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting. 


 "Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb. 


 "It will make a good enough one," said Flask, "the carpenter
here can arrange it easily." 


 "Bring it up; there's nothing else for it," said Starbuck, after
a melancholy pause. "Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so- the
coffin, I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it." 


 "And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving his hand as with a
hammer. 


 "Aye." 


 "And shall I caulk the seams, sir?" moving his hand as with a
caulking-iron. 


 "Aye." 


 "And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?" moving his
hand as with a pitch-pot. 


 "Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the
coffin, and no more.- Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me." 


 "He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he
baulks. Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and
he wears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg,
and he won't put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for
nothing with that coffin? And now I'm ordered to make a life-buoy
of it. It's like turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on
the other side now. I don't like this cobbling sort of business- I
don't like it at all; it's undignified; it's not my place. Let
tinkers' brats do 


tinkerings; we are their betters. I like to take in hand none but
clean, virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that
regularly begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when
midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not a cobbler's job,
that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end.
It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what
an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of
sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And
that's the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women
ashore when I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have
taken into their lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho!
there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the
lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them
down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern.
Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious
old carpenters, now, would be tied up in rigging, ere they would do
the job. But I'm made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge.
Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yard tray! But
never mind. We workers in woods make bridal bedsteads and
card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month,
or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and
wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and
then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly.
I'll have me- let's see- how many in the ship's company, all told?
But I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate,
Turk's-headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to
the coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively
fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often
beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and
marling-spike! Let's to it." 


 CHAPTER 127 


 The Deck  


 The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench  and
the open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of
twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in
the bosom of his frock.- Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway,
and hears Pip following him.  


 Back lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this
hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy.- Middle
aisle of a church! What's here?" 


 "Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware
the hatchway!" 


 "Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault." 


 "Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does." 


 "Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from
thy shop?" 


 "I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?" 


 "Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?" 


 "Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for
Queequeg; but they've set me now to turning it into something
else." 


 "Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping,
intermeddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day
making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet
again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as
unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades." 


 "But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do." 


 "The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about
a coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out
the craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings,
spade in hand. Dost thou never?" 


 "Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for
that; but the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been
because there was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet
is full of it. Hark to it." 


 "Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board; and
what in all things makes the sounding-board is this- there's naught
beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the
same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the 


coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in? 


 "Faith, sir, I've-" 


 "Faith? What's that?" 


 "Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like- that's
all, sir." 


 "Um, um; go on." 


 "I was about to say, sir, that-" 


 "Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of
thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of
sight." 


 "He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in
hot latitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albermarle, one of the
Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me
some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle.
He's always under the Line- fiery hot, I tell ye! He's looking this
way- come, oakum; quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is
the cork, and I'm the professor of musical glasses- tap, tap!"  


                      (Ahab to himself) 


 "There's a sight! There's a sound! The greyheaded wood-pecker
tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now.
See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most
malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how
immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but
imponderable thoughts? Here now's the very dreaded symbol of grim
death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope
of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go
further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is,
after all, but an immortality-preserver! I'll think of that. But
no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other
side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me.
Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed sound? I go
below; let me not see that thing here when I return again. Now,
then, Pip, we'll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous
philosophies from thee! Some unknown worlds must empty into thee!" 


 CHAPTER 128 


  The Pequod Meets The Rachel  


 Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing
directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering
with men. At the time the Pequod was making good speed through the
water; but as the broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her,
the boastful sails all fell together as blank bladders that are
burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull. 


 "Bad news; she brings bad news," muttered the old Manxman. But
ere her commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his
boat; ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was heard. 


 "Hast seen the White Whale?" 


 "Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?" 


 Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected
question; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the
stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen
descending her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon
clinched the Pequod's main-chains, and he sprang to the deck.
Immediately he was recognized by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew.
But no formal salutation was exchanged. 


 "Where was he?- not killed!- not killed!" cried Ahab, closely
advancing. "How was it?" 


 It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day
previous, while three of the stranger's boats were engaged with a
shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from
the ship; and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the
white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the
water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat-
a reserved one- had been instantly lowered in chase. After a keen
sail before the wind, this fourth boat- the swiftest keeled of all-
seemed to have succeeded in fastening- at least, as well as the man
at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the distance he
saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam of bubbling
white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was concluded
that the stricken whale must 


have indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens.
There was some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The
recall signals were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and
forced to pick up her three far to windward boats- ere going in
quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite direction- the
ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate
till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance
from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she
crowded all sail- stunsail on stunsail- after the missing boat;
kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man
aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a
sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones
when last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to
pull all around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on;
again paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus
continued doing till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the
missing keel had been seen. 


 The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to
reveal his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to
unite with his own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four
or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double
horizon, as it were. 


 "I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask, "that
some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat;
mayhap, his watch- he's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever
heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after one missing
whale-boat in the height of the whaling season? See, Flask, only
see how pale he looks-pale in the very buttons of his eyes- look-
it wasn't the coat- it must have been the-" 


 "My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake- I beg, I
conjure"- here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far
had but icily received his petition. "For eight-and-forty hours let
me charter your ship- I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for
it- 


if there be no other way- for eight-and-forty hours only- only
that- you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing." 


 "His son!" cried Stubb, "oh, it's his son he's lost! I take back
the coat and watch- what says Ahab? We must save that boy." 


 "He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night," said the old
Manx sailor standing behind them; "I heard; all of ye heard their
spirits." 


 Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the
Rachel's the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only
was one of the Captain's sons among the number of the missing
boat's crew; but among the number of the other boats' crews, at the
same time, but on the other hand, separated from the ship during
the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had been still another
son; as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged to the
bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved for him
by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure
of a whaleship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between
jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority
first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had
refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by
Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little
lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but
unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus
early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a
vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does
it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of
such tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four
years' voyage in some other ship than their own; so that their
first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall be unenervated by any
chance display of a father's natural but untimely partiality, or
undue apprehensiveness and concern. 


 Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of
Ahab; and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock,
but without the least quivering of his own. 


 "I will not go," said the stranger, "till you say aye to me. Do
to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too
have a 


boy, Captain Ahab- though but a child, and nestling safely at
home now- a child of your old age too- Yes, yes, you relent; I see
it- run, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards." 


 "Avast," cried Ahab- "touch not a rope-yarn"; then in a voice
that prolongingly moulded every word- "Captain Gardiner, I will not
do it. Even now I lose time, Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man,
and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the
binnacle watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn
off all strangers; then brace forward again, and let the ship sail
as before." 


 Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his
cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional
and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his
enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than
stepped into his boat, and returned to his ship. 


 Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange
vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every
dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards
were swung around; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack;
now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it;
while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered
with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying
among the boughs. 


 But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you
plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained
without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because
they were not. 


 CHAPTER 129 


 The Cabin  


 (Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches him hy the hand to
follow.) 


 Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is
coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have
thee by him. There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too 


curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my
malady becomes my most desired health. Do thou abide below here,
where they shall serve thee, as if thou wert the captain. Aye, lad,
thou shalt sit here in my own screwed chair; another screw to it,
thou must be." 


 "No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor
me for your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more,
so I remain a part of ye." 


 "Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the
fadeless fidelity of man!- and a black! and crazy!- but methinks
like-cures-like applies to him too; he grows so sane again." 


 "They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip,
whose drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his
living skin. But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him.
Sir, I must go with ye." 


 "If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up
in him. I tell thee no; it cannot be." 


 "Oh good master, master, master! 


 "Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is
mad. Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck,
and still know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!-
Met! True art thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So:
God for ever bless thee; and if it come to that,- God for ever save
thee, let what will befall."  


      (Ahab goes; Pip steps one step forward.)  


 "Here he this instant stood, I stand in his air,- but I'm alone.
Now were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he's missing.
Pip! Pip! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must be up here;
let's try the door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet
there's no opening it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay
here: Aye, and told me this screwed chair was mine. Here, then,
I'll seat me, against the transom, in the ship's full middle, all
her keel and her three masts before me. Here, our old sailors say,
in their black seventy-fours great admirals sometimes sit at table,
and lord it 


over rows of captains and lieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets!
epaulets! the epaulets all come crowding. Pass round the decanters;
glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when
a black boy's host to white men with gold lace upon their coats!-
Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip?- a little negro lad, five feet
high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a whale-boat once;-
seen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and let's drink
shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! Put one
foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards.- Hist! above there, I
hear ivory- Oh, master! master! I am indeed down-hearted when you
walk over me. But there I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks;
and they bulge through; and oysters come to join me." 


 CHAPTER 130 


 The Hat  


 And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and
wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab,- all other whaling waters swept-
seemed to have chased his foe into an oceanfold, to slay him the
more securely there; now, that he found himself hard by the very
latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound had been
inflicted; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day
preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick;- and now that all his
successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to
show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his
hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; now it was that there
lurked a something in the old man's eyes, which it was hardly
sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star,
which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its
piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly
gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It
domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts,
misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not
sprout forth a single spear or leaf. 


 In this foreshadowing interval, too, all humor, forced or
natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck
no  more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear,
seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the
clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly
moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye
was on them. 


 But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential
hours when he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would
have seen that even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the
inscrutable Parsee's glance awed his; or somehow, at least, in some
wild way, at times affected it. Such an added, gliding strangeness
began to invest the thin Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings
shook him; that the men looked dubious at him; half uncertain, as
it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a
tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being's body.
And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by night, even,
had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below. He
would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan but
wondrous eves did plainly say- We two watchmen never rest. 


 Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step
upon the deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his
pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating
limits,- the main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him standing
in the cabin-scuttle,- his living foot advanced upon the deck, as
if to step; his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however
motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added on,
that he had not swung in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that
slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly whether, for all
this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether he was still
intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in the
scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded
night-damp gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and
hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine
dried upon him; and  so, day after day, and night after night; he
went no more beneath the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin
that thing he sent for. 


 He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,-
breakfast and dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his
beard; which darkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees
blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base, though perished
in the upper verdure. But though his whole life was now become one
watch on deck; and though the Parsee's mystic watch was without
intermission as his own; yet these two never seemed to speak- one
man to the other- unless at long intervals some passing unmomentous
matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell seemed
secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew,
they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one
word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the
slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without
a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his
scuttle, the Parsee by the main-mast; but still fixedly gazing upon
each other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in
Ahab the Parsee his abandoned substance. 


 And yet, somehow, did Ahab- in his own proper self, as daily,
hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his
subordinates,- Ahab seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his
slave. Still again both seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant
driving them; the lean shade siding the solid rib. For be this
Parsee what he may, all rib and keel was solid Ahab. 


 At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was
heard from aft,- "Man the mast-heads!"- and all through the day,
till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at
the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard- "What d'ye see?-
sharp! sharp!" 


 But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the
children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the
monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; at 


least, of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to
doubt, even, whether Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook
the sight he sought. But if these suspicions were really his, he
sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing them, however his
actions might seem to hint them. 


 "I will have the first sight of the whale myself,"- he said.
"Aye! Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged
a nest of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a
single sheaved block, to secure to the mainmast head, he received
the two ends of the downwardreeved rope; and attaching one to his
basket prepared, pin for the other end, in order to fasten it at
the rail. This done, with that end yet in his hand and standing
beside the pin, he looked round upon his crew, sweeping from one to
the other; pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego;
but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon
the chief mate, said,- "Take the rope, sir- I give it into thy
hands, Starbuck." Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave
the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being the one
who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And
thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed
abroad upon the sea for miles and miles,- ahead astern, this side,
and that,- within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a
height. 


 When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated
place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the
sailor at sea is hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by
the rope; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is
always given in strict charge to some one man who has the special
watch of it. Because in such a wilderness of running rigging, whose
various different relations aloft cannot always be infallibly
discerned by what is seen of them at the deck; and when the
deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes cast down from
the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, unprovided
with a constant watchman, the 


hoisted sailor should by some carelessness of the crew be cast
adrift and fall all swooping to the sea. So Ahab's proceedings in
this matter were not unusual; the only strange thing about them
seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever
ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree
approaching to decision- one of those too, whose faithfulness on
the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat; it was strange, that
this was the very man he should select for his watchman; freely
giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's
hands. 


 Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been
there ten minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which
so often fly incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of
whalemen in these latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and
screaming round his head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings.
Then it darted a thousand feet straight up into the air; then
spiralized downwards, and went eddying again round his head. 


 But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab
seemed not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else
have marked it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now
almost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning
meaning in almost every sight. 


 "Your hat, your hat, sir!" suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman,
who being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind
Ahab, though somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of
air dividing them. 


 But already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes; the
long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted
away with his prize. 


 An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to
replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin
would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was
that omen accounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored; the wild
hawk flew on and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at
last disappeared; while from the point of that disappearance, a
minute black  spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast
height into the sea. 


 CHAPTER 131 


 The Pequod Meets The Delight  


 The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went
by; the life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship,
most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew
nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broad beams, called shears,
which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height
of eight or nine feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or
disabled boats. 


 Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white
ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a
whale-boat; but you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you
see through the peeled, half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a
horse. 


 "Hast seen the White Whale?" 


 "Look!" replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail;
and with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. 


 "Hast killed him?" 


 "The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that," answered
the other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose
gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together.



 "Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the
crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming- "Look ye, Nantucketer; here
in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by
lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in
that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his
accursed life!" 


 "Then God keep thee, old man- see'st thou that"- pointing to the
hammock- "I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only
yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only that one I bury; the rest
were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then
turning to his crew- "Are ye ready there? place the plank then on
the rail, and lift the body; so, then- Oh! God"- advancing towards
the hammock with uplifted hands- "may the resurrection and the
life-" 


  "Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.



 But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape
the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the
sea; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles
might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism. 


 As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange
life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous
relief. 


 "Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her
wake. "In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but
turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin!" 


 CHAPTER 132 


 The Symphony  


 It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea
were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the
pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look,
and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering
swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep. 


 Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of
small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the
feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the
bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks;
and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the
masculine sea. 


 But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in
shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the
sex, as it were, that distinguished them. 


 Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this
gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom.
And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous
motion- most seen here at the Equator- denoted the fond, throbbing
trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom
away. 


 Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles;
haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that
still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in
the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow
to the fair girl's forehead of heaven. 


  Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible
winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air
and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But
so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves,
heedlessly gambol around their old sire; sporting with the circle
of singed locks which grew on the marge of that burnt-out crater of
his brain. 


 Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the
side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his
gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the
profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last
seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That
glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress
him; the step-mother world, so long cruel- forbidding- now threw
affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously
sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she
could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath
his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the
Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. 


 Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over
the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the
measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity
around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew
near to him, and stood there. 


 Ahab turned. 


 "Starbuck!" 


 "Sir." 


 "Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky.
On such a day- very much such a sweetness as this- I struck my
first whale- a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty- forty- forty
years ago!- ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of
privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless
sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty
years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes,
Starbuck, out of those 


forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this
life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the
masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but
small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without- oh,
weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!-
when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known
to me before- and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted
fare- fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul!- when the
poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken
the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts- away, whole oceans
away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for
Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow-
wife? wife?- rather a widow with her husband alive? Aye, I widowed
that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness,
the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for
a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his
prey- more a demon than a man!- aye, aye! what a forty years' fool-
fool- old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase?
why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the
lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck!
is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg
should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair
aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never
grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very
old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I
were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise.
God! God! God!- crack my heart!- stave my brain!- mockery! mockery!
bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to
wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close
to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to
gaze into sea or sky; better 


than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright
hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my
child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board!- lower not
when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard
shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in
that eye!" 


 "Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after
all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with
me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child,
too, are Starbuck's- wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly,
play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of
thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!- this
instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O
my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I
think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in
Nantucket." 


 "They have, they have. I have seen them- some summer days in the
morning. About this time- yes, it is his noon nap now- the boy
vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me,
of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet
come back to dance him again." 


 "'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every
morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse
of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for
Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away!
See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the
hill!" 


 But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he
shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. 


 "What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it;
what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless
emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings,
I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the
time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper,
natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I,
God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of
himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can
revolve, but  by some invisible power; how then can this one small
heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does
that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By
heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like
yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo!
that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore!
who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do
murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged
to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky;
and the airs smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they
have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes,
Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay.
Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the
field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes
flung down, and left in the half-cut swarths- Starbuck!" 


 But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen
away. 


 Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but
started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there, Fedallah
was motionlessly leaning over the same rail. 


 CHAPTER 133 


 The Chase - First Day  


 That night, in the mid-watch when the old man- as his wont at
intervals- stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and
went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely,
snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in drawing
nigh to some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near.
Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth
by the living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was
any mariner surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then
the dog-vane, and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor
as nearly as possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be
slightly altered, and the sail to be shortened. 


  The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently
vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea
directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the
pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like
marks of some swift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.



 "Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!" 


 Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the
forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment
claps that they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so
instantaneously did they appear with their clothes in their hands. 


 "What d'ye see?" cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky. 


 "Nothing, nothing sir!" was the sound hailing down in reply. 


 "T'gallant sails!- stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both
sides!" 


 All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved
for swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments
they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the
way aloft, and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy
between the main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a
gull-like cry in the air. "There she blows!- there she blows! A
hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!" 


 Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the
three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold
the famous whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now
gained his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs,
Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the
top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's head was almost on a level
with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale was now seen some mile
or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his high sparkling
hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air. To the
credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had so long
ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans. 


 "And did none of ye see it before?" cried Ahab, hailing the
perched men all around him. 


  "I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab
did, and I cried out," said Tashtego. 


 "Not the same instant; not the same- no, the doubloon is mine,
Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have
raised the White Whale first. There she blows!- there she blows!-
there she blows! There again!- there again!" he cried, in
long-drawn, lingering, methodic tones, attuned to the gradual
prolongings of the whale's visible jets. "He's going to sound! In
stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand by three boats. Mr.
Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship. Helm there!
Luff, luff a point! So; steady, man, steady! There go flukes! No,
no; only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by, stand
by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower,- quick, quicker!" and he
slid through the air to the deck. 


 "He is heading straight to leeward, sir," cried Stubb, "right
away from us; cannot have seen the ship yet." 


 "Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!- brace
up! Shiver her!- shiver her!- So; well that! Boats, boats!" 


 Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped; all the
boat-sails set- all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness,
shooting to leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale,
death-glimmer lit up Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion
gnawed his mouth. 


 Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through
the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him,
the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its
waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the
breathless hunter came so nigh seemingly unsuspecting prey, that
his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the
sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving
ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved
wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out
on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow
from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully
accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably
flowed over into 


the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright
bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again
by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowls softly feathering the
sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some
flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but
shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's
back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls
hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish,
silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers
streaming like pennons. 


 A gentle joyousness- a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness,
invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming
away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his
lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth
bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in
Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the
glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam. 


 On each soft side- coincident with the parted swell, that but
once leaving him then flowed so wide away- on each bright side, the
whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the
hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this
serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that
quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh,
whale! thou glidest on, to all who for the first time eye thee, no
matter how many in that same way thou mayst have bejuggled and
destroyed before. 


 And thus, through the serene tranquilities of the tropical sea,
among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding
rapture, Moby Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full
terrors of his submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched
hideousness of his jaw. But soon the fore part of him slowly rose
from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a
high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his
bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded



and went out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the
wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool
that he left. 


 With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails
adrift, the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's
reappearance. 


 "An hour," said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern; and
he gazed beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and
wide wooing vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again
his eyes seemed whirling round in his head as he swept the watery
circle. The breeze now freshened; the sea began to swell. 


 "The birds!- the birds!" cried Tashtego. 


 In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds
were now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few
yards began fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and
round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their vision was keener than
man's; Ahab could discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he
peered down and down into its depths, he profoundly saw a white
living spot no bigger than a white weasel, with wonderful celerity
uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and then there
were plainly revealed two long crooked rows of white, glistening
teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby
Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast, shadowed bulk still
half blending with the blue of the sea. The glittering mouth yawned
beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb; and giving one
sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled the craft aside
from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon Fedallah to
change places with him, went forward to the bows, and seizing
Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and stand
by to stern. 


 Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its
axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head
while yet under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby
Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly
transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting  his
pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat. 


 Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it
thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in
the manner of a biting shark slowly and feelingly taking its bows
full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw
curled high up into the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a
row-lock. The bluish pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was
within six inches of Ahab's head, and reached higher than that. In
this attitude the White Whale now shook the slight cedar as a
mildly cruel cat her mouse. With unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed,
and crossed his arms; but the tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over
each other's heads to gain the uttermost stern. 


 And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out,
as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way;
and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be
darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as
it were; and while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before
a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac
Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which
placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated;
frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked
hands, and wildly strove to wrench from its gripe. As now he thus
vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the frail gunwales bent
in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears,
sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, and locked
themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two floating
wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at
the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast
to the oars to lash them across. 


 At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab,
the first to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising
of his head, a movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that 
moment his hand had made one final effort to push the boat out of
the bite. But only slipping further into the whale's mouth, and
tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his
hold on the jaw; spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push;
and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea. 


 Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a
little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and
down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his
whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose-
some twenty or more feet out of the water- the now rising swells,
with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it;
vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into the
air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only
recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its
summit with their scud.  


 *This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its
designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that
preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise
called pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale
must best and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be
encircling him.  


 But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam
swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the
water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still
another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat
seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast
before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile
Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent tail, and
too much of a cripple to swim,- though he could still keep afloat,
even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab's head
was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might
burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and
mildly eved him;  the clinging crew, at the other drifting end,
could not succor him; more than enough was it for them to look to
themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's
aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he
made, that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though
the other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared
not pull into the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal
for the instant destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and
all; nor in that case could they themselves hope to escape. With
straining eyes, then, they remained on the outer edge of the
direful zone, whose centre had now become the old man's head. 


 Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the
ship's mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon
the scene; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!-
"Sail on the"- but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from
Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it
again, and chancing to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,- "Sail
on the whale!- Drive him off!" 


 The Pequod's prows were pointed-, and breaking up the charmed
circle, she effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As
he sullenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue. 


 Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the
white brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's
bodily strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's
doom for a time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat,
like one trodden under foot of herds of elephants. Far inland,
nameless wails came from him, as desolate sounds from out ravines. 


 But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much
the more abbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts
sometimes condense to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow
pains kindly diffused through feebler men's whole lives. And so,
such hearts, though summary in each one suffering; still, if the
gods decree it, in their life-time aggregate a whole age of woe,
wholly made up  of instantaneous intensities; for even in their
pointless centres, those noble natures contain the entire
circumferences of inferior souls. 


 "The harpoon," said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly
leaning on one bended arm- "is it safe?" 


 "Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it," said Stubb,
showing it. 


 "Lay it before me;- any missing men?" 


 "One, two, three, four, five;- there were five oars, sir, and
here are five men." 


 "That's good.- Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him!
there! there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!- Hands
off from me! The eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the
sail; out oars; the helm!" 


 It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being
picked up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the
chase is thus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It
was thus now. But the added power of the boat did not equal the
added power of the whale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his
every fin; swimming with a velocity which plainly showed, that if
now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an
indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew
endure for so long a period, such an unintermitted, intense
straining at the oar; a thing barely tolerable only in some one
brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it sometimes happens,
offered the most promising intermediate means of overtaking the
chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were soon
swayed up to their cranes- the two parts of the wrecked boat having
been previously secured by her- and then hoisting everything to her
side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching
it with stunsails, like the double-jointed wings of an albatross;
the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby Dick. At the well
known, methodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout was
regularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would
be reported as just  gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then
pacing the deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second
of the allotted hour expired, his voice was heard.- "Whose is the
doubloon now? D'ye see him?" and if the reply was No, sir!
straightway he commanded them to lift him to his perch. In this way
the day wore on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly
pacing the planks. 


 As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the
men aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread
one to a still greater breadth- thus to and fro pacing, beneath his
slouched hat, at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which
had been dropped upon the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed;
broken bow to shattered stern. At last he paused before it; and as
in an already over-clouded sky fresh troops of clouds will
sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face there now stole
some such added gloom as this. 


 Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though,
to evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant
place in his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck
exclaimed- "The thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too
keenly, sir, ha! ha!" 


 "What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man,
man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical)
I could swear thou wert a paltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard
before a wreck." 


 "Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis a solemn sight; an
omen, and an ill one." 


 "Omen? omen?- the dictionary! If the gods think to speak
outright to man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake
their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.- Begone! Ye two
are the opposite poles of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed,
and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands
alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his
neighbors! Cold, cold- I shiver!- How now? Aloft there! D'ye see
him? Sing out for every spout, though he spout ten times a second!"



  The day was nearly done; only the helm of his golden robe was
rustling. Soon it was almost dark, but the look-out men still
remained unset. 


 "Can't see the spout now, sir;- too dark"- cried a voice from
the air. 


 "How heading when last seen?" 


 "As before, sir,- straight to leeward." 


 "Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals and
top-gallant stunsails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him
before morning; he's making a passage now, and may heave-to a
while. Helm there! keep her full before the wind!- Aloft! come
down!- Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see
it manned till morning."- Then advancing towards the doubloon in
the main-mast- "Men, this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I
shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; and then,
whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be killed,
this gold is that man's; and if on that day I shall again raise
him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away
now! the deck is thine, sir!" 


 And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle,
and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at
intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on. 


 CHAPTER 134 


 The Chase - Second Day  


 At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned
afresh. 


 "D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the
light to spread. 


 "See nothing, sir." 


 "Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I
thought for;- the top-gallant sails!- aye, they should have been
kept on her all night. But no matter- 'tis but resting for the
rush." 


 Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one
particular whale, continued through day into night, and through
night into day, is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South
sea fishery. For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of
experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great
natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders; that from the
simple observation of a 


whale when last descried, they will, under certain given
circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the direction in
which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight, as
well as his probable rate of progression during that period. And,
in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a
coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires
shortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this
pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the
cape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright
the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the
fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased,
and diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then,
when night obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through
the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the
hunter, as the pilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's
wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in
water, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as
the steadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern
railway is so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with
watches in their hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a
baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or the down train
will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour; even so,
almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that other
Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his
speed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will
have gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that
degree of latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at
all successful in the end, the wind and the sea must be the
whaleman's allies; for of what present avail to the becalmed or
wind-bound mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly
ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable from
these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the 
chase of whales. 


 The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a
cannonball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level
field. 


 "By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swift motion of the
deck creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and
I are two brave fellows!- Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch
me, spine-wise, on the sea,- for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel.
Ha, ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!" 


 "There she blows- she blows!- she blows!- right ahead!" was now
the mast-head cry. 


 "Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it- ye can't escape- blow on
and split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye!
blow your trump- blister your lungs!- Ahab will dam off your blood,
as a miller shuts his watergate upon the stream!" 


 And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The
frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up,
like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some
of them might have felt before; these were not only now kept out of
sight through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and
on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the
bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and
by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the past
night's suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in
which their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by
all these things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that
made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms
invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen
agency which so enslaved them to the race. 


 They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held
them all; though it was put together of all contrasting things-
oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp- yet all
these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on
its way, 


both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all
the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear;
guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and
were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and
keel did point to. 


 The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms,
were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar
with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings;
others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on
the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready
and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that
infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them! 


 "Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?" cried Ahab, when,
after the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had
been heard. "Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick
casts one odd jet that way, and then disappears." 


 It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had
mistaken some other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself
soon proved; for hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the
rope belayed to its pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an
orchestra, that made the air vibrate as with the combined discharge
of rifles. The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was
heard, as- much nearer to the ship than the place of the imaginary
jet, less than a mile ahead- Moby Dick bodily burst into view! For
not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not by the peaceable gush
of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal
his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching.
Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the Sperm
Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of air, and
piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the
distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn,
enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this
breaching is his act of  defiance. 


 "There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the cry, as in his
immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like
to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and
relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that
he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a
glacier; and stood there gradually fading and fading away from its
first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing
shower in a vale. 


 "Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy
hour and thy harpoon are at hand!- Down! down all of ye, but one
man at the fore. The boats!- stand by!" 


 Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men,
like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays
and halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was
dropped from his perch. 


 "Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat- a
spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. "Mr. Starbuck, the ship
is thine- away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!" 


 As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the
first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming
for the three crews. Ahab's boat was central; and cheering his men,
he told them he would take the whale head-and-head,- that is, pull
straight up to his forehead,- a not uncommon thing; for when within
a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the
whale's sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and
while yet all three boats were plain as the ship's three masts to
his eye; the White Whale churning himself into furious speed,
almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open
jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side;
and heedless of the iron darted at him from every boat, seemed only
intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats
were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like
trained chargers 


in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times,
but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's unearthly
slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. 


 But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so
crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack
of the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and,
of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons
in him; though now for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as
if to rally for a more tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity,
Ahab first paid out more line; and then was rapidly hauling and
jerking in upon it again- hoping that way to disencumber it of some
snarls- when lo!- a sight more savage than the embattled teeth of
sharks! 


 Caught and twisted- corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose
harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points,
came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's
boat. Only one thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he
critically reached within- through- and then, without- the rays of
steel; dragged in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the
bowsman, and then, twice sundering the rope near the chocks-
dropped the intercepted fagot of steel into the sea; and was all
fast again. That instant, the White Whale made a sudden rush among
the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so doing, irresistibly
dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his
flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a
surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared
in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar
chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg
in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch. 


 While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching
out after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating
furniture, while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an
empty vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws
of sharks; and 


Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and
while the old man's line- now parting- admitted of his pulling into
the creamy pool to rescue whom he could;- in that wild
simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils,- Ahab's yet
unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires,-
as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the sea, the White
Whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom, and sent it
turning over and over, into the air; till it fell again- gunwale
down- and Ahab and his men struggled out from under it, like seals
from a sea-side cave. 


 The first uprising momentum of the whale- modifying its
direction as he struck the surface- involuntarily launched him
along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction
he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment
slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a
stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats
touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways
smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that
time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean,
and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his
leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace. 


 As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight,
again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked
up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be
caught at, and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained
shoulders, wrists, and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons
and lances; inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and
planks; all these were there; but no fatal or even serious ill
seemed to have befallen any one. As with Fedallah the day before,
so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to his boat's broken half,
which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor did it so exhaust
him as the previous day's mishap. 


 But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon
him; as instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the
shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist 
him. His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short
sharp splinter. 


 "Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner
who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has." 


 "The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now coming
up; put good work into that leg." 


 "But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true
concern. 


 "Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!- d'ye see it.- But
even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no
living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's
lost. Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old
Ahab in his own proper and inaccessible being. Can any lead touch
yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof?- Aloft there! which
way?" 


 "Dead to leeward, sir." 


 "Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the
rest of the spare boats and rig them- Mr. Starbuck away, and muster
the boat's crews." 


 "Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir." 


 "Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that
the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven
mate!" 


 "Sir?" 


 "My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane- there,
that shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen
him yet. By heaven it cannot be!-missing?- quick! call them all." 


 The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the
company, the Parsee was not there. 


 "The Parsee!" cried Stubb- "he must have been caught in-" 


 "The black vomit wrench thee!- run all of ye above, alow, cabin,
forecastle- find him- not gone- not gone!" 


 But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the
Parsee was nowhere to be found. 


 "Aye, sir," said Stubb- "caught among the tangles of your line-
I thought I saw him dragging under." 


 "My line! my line? Gone?- gone? What means that little word?-
What death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were
the belfry. The harpoon, too!- toss over the litter there,- d'ye 
see it?- the forged iron, men, the white whale's- no, no, no,-
listered fool! this hand did dart it!- 'tis in the fish!- Aloft
there! Keep him nailed-Quick!- all hands to the rigging of the
boats- collect the oars- harpooneers! the irons, the irons!- hoist
royals higher- a pull on all the sheets!- helm there! steady,
steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe;
yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay him yet! 


 "Great God! but for one single instant show thyself," cried
Starbuck; "never, never wilt thou capture him, old man- In Jesus'
name no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days
chased; twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched
from under thee; thy evil shadow gone- all good angels mobbing thee
with warnings:- what more wouldst thou have?- Shall we keep chasing
this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be
dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him
to the infernal world? Oh, oh,- Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him
more!" 


 "Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since
that hour we both saw- thou know'st what, in one another's eyes.
But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as
the palm of this hand- a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for
ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed
by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am
the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling!
that thou obeyest mine.- Stand round men, men. Ye see an old man
cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on
a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab- his body's part; but Ahab's soul's a
centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained,
half-stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and
I may look so. But ere I break, yell hear me crack; and till ye
hear that, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe
ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry
encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the
surface; then rise  again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick-
two days he's floated- to-morrow will be the third. Aye, men, he'll
rise once more,- but only to spout his last! D'ye feel brave men,
brave?" 


 "As fearless fire," cried Stubb. 


 "And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men went
forward, he muttered on: "The things called omens! And yesterday I
talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh!
how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched
so fast in mine!- The Parsee- the Parsee!- gone, gone? and he was
to go before:- but still was to be seen again ere I could perish-
How's that?- There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers
backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judges:- like a hawk's
beak it pecks my brain. I'll, I'll solve it, though!" 


 When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward. 


 So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed
nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and
the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the
men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the
spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow.
Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter
made him another leg; while still as on the night before, slouched
Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance
anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due eastward for the
earliest sun. 


 CHAPTER 135 


 The Chase - Third Day  


 The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once
more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by
crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost
every spar. 


 "D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight. 


 "In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's
all. Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What
a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for a
summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its
throwing 


open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's
food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he
only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal man! to
think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking
is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts
throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I've
sometimes thought my brain was very calm- frozen calm, this old
skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice,
and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment
growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort of
common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of
Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they
whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed
ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this
through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and
ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as
fleeces. Out upon it!- it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no
more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a
cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the
wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and
bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha!
a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to
receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing- a nobler thing
than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things
that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are
bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a
most special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And
yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there's something all
glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at
least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and
steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however
the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest 
Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where
to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so
directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like
them- something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled
soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?" 


 "Nothing, sir." 


 "Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the
sun! Aye, aye, it must be so. I've over-sailed him. How, got the
start? Aye, he's chasing me now; not I, him- that's bad; I might
have known it, too. Fool! the lines- the harpoons he's towing. Aye,
aye, I have run him by last night. About! about! Come down, all of
ye, but the regular look outs! Man the braces!" 


 Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the
Pequod's quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse
direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she
rechurned the cream in her own white wake. 


 "Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," murmured
Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon
the rail. "God keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me,
and from the inside wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my
God in obeying him!" 


 "Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen
basket. "We should meet him soon." 


 "Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding,
and once more Ahab swung on high. 


 A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself
now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three
points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and
instantly from the three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the
tongues of fire had voiced it. 


 "Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick!
On deck there!- brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye.
He's too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand
over that helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I
must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at
the  sea; there's time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow
so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy,
from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same- the same!- the same to
Noah as to me. There's a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely
leewardings! They must lead somewhere- to something else than
common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the white whale
goes that way; look to windward, then; the better if the bitterer
quarter. But good bye, good bye, old mast-head! What's this?-
green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green
weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now between
man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old
together; sound in our hulls, though are we not, my ship? Aye,
minus a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of
my live flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known
some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the
most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said? he should
still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where?
Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend
those endless stairs? and all night I've been sailing from him,
wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou toldist
direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy
shot fell short. Good bye, mast-head- keep a good eye upon the
whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night,
when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail." 


 He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily
lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck. 


 In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his
shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent,
he waved to the mate,- who held one of the tackle- ropes on deck-
and bade him pause. 


 "Starbuck!" 


 "Sir?" 


 "For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage,
Starbuck." 


 "Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so." 


  "Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are
missing, Starbuck!" 


 "Truth, sir: saddest truth." 


 "Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full
of the flood;- and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested
comb, Starbuck. I am old;- shake hands with me, man." 


 Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue.



 "Oh, my captain, my captain!- noble heart- go not- go not!- see,
it's a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion
then!" 


 "Lower away!"-cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him.
"Stand by for the crew!" 


 In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. 


 "The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low
cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!" 


 But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then;
and the boat leaped on. 


 Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the
ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark
waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the
oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way
accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly
happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at
times apparently following them in the same prescient way that
vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east.
But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the
Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether
it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and
therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks- a
matter sometimes well known to affect them,- however it was, they
seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others. 


 "Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck gazing over the
side, and following with his eyes the receding boat- "canst thou
yet ring boldly to that sight?- lowering thy keel among ravening
sharks, and 


followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the
critical third day?- For when three days flow together in one
continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the
second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that
thing- be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that
shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant,-
fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in
empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim.
Mary, girl; thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to
see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life
seem clearing; but clouds sweep between- Is my journey's end
coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day.
Feel thy heart,- beat it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!- stave it
off- move, move! speak aloud!- Mast-head there! See ye my boy's
hand on the hill?- Crazed;- aloft there!- keep thy keenest eye upon
the boats:- mark well the whale!- Ho! again!- drive off that hawk!
see! he pecks- he tears the vane"- pointing to the red flag flying
at the main-truck- "Ha, he soars away with it!- Where's the old man
now? see'st thou that sight, oh Ahab!- shudder, shudder!" 


 The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the
mast-heads- a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had
sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held
on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew
maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-bent waves
hammered and hammered against the opposing bow. 


 "Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost
heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no
coffin and no hearse can be mine:- and hemp only can kill me! Ha!
ha!" 


 Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles;
then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg
of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was
heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as
bedraggled 


with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot
lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping
veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and
then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards,
the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then
brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface
creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale. 


 "Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted
forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that
corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the
angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons
overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent
skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his
tail among the boats; and once more flailed them apart; spilling
out the irons and lances from the two mates' boats, and dashing in
one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab's almost
without a scar. 


 While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and
as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire
flank as he shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up.
Lashed round and round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns
upon turns in which, during the past night, the whale had reeled
the involutions of the lines around him, the half torn body of the
Parsee was seen; his sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended
eyes turned full upon old Ahab. 


 The harpoon dropped from his hand. 


 "Befooled, befooled!"- drawing in a long lean breath- "Aye,
Parsee! I see thee again.- Aye, and thou goest before; and this,
this then is the hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to
the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away,
mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now; repair them if ye
can in time, and return to me; if not, Ahab is enough to die- Down,
men! the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand
in, 


that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my
legs; and so obey me.- Where's the whale? gone down again?" 


 But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping
with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last
encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was
now again steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the
ship,- which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to
him, though for the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed
swimming with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon
pursuing his own straight path in the sea. 


 "Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it, even now, the
third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou,
thou, that madly seekest him!" 


 Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly
impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab
was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish
Starbuck's face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn
the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious
interval. Glancing upwards he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo,
eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads; while the oarsmen were
rocking in the two staved boats which had just been hoisted to the
side, and were busily at work in repairing them. One after the
other, through the port-holes, as he sped, he also caught flying
glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among
bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard
the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving
a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the
vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to
Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for
another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. 


 Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the
resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or
whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: 
whichever was true, the White Whale's way now began to abate, as it
seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though
indeed the whale's last start had not been so long a one as before.
And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks
accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat; and so
continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged
and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every
dip. 


 "Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars.
Pull on! 'tis the better rest, the sharks' jaw than the yielding
water." 


 "But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and
smaller!" 


 "They will last long enough! pull on!- But who can tell"- he
muttered- "whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on
Ahab?- But pull on! Aye, all alive, now- we near him. The helm!
take the helm! let me pass,"- and so saying two of the oarsmen
helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat. 


 At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging
along with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious
of its advance- as the whale sometimes will- and Ahab was fairly
within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's
spout, curled round his great Monadnock hump; he was even thus
close to him; when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise
high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far
fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to
the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sidewise writhed;
spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without
staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it
not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then
clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it
was, three of the oarsmen- who foreknew not the precise instant of
the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects- these were
flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched
the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave,
hurled themselves  bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly
dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. 


 Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated,
instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the
weltering sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new
turns with the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn
round on their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment
the treacherous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in
the empty air! 


 "What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!- 'tis whole again; oars!
oars! Burst in upon him!" 


 Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale
wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that
evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship;
seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions;
bethinking it- it may be- a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he
bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery
showers of foam. 


 Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind;
hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't
night?" 


 "The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen. 


 "Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere it be
for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his
mark! I see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! will ye not save
my ship?" 


 But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the
sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two
planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily
disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading,
splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the
pouring water. 


 Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head
hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-
wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out
from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and
Stubb, standing upon 


the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster
just as soon as he. 


 "The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers
of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in
a woman's fainting fit. Up helm, I say- ye fools, the jaw! the jaw!
Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long
fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady.
Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable
brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.
My God, stand by me now!" 


 "Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will
now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou
grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but
Stubb's own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a
mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with
brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon,
and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted
up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with thee,
would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but
there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me,
off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most
mouldy and over salted death, though;- cherries! cherries!
cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!" 


 "Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb,
I hope my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few
coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up." 


 From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive;
hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained
in their hands, just as they had darted from their various
employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which
from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent
a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he
rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his
whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid
white  buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow,
till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like
dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their
bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as
mountain torrents down a flume. 


 "The ship! The hearse!- the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the
boat; "its wood could only be American!" 


 Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along
its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface
again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's
boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent. 


 "I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy
hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked
keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm,
and Pole-pointed prow,- death- glorious ship! must ye then perish,
and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest
shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I
feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from
all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my
whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death!
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to
the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for
hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all
hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me
then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee,
thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" 


 The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with
igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;- ran foul. Ahab
stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught
him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring
their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was
gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end
flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and
smiting  the sea, disappeared in its depths. 


 For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then
turned. "The ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through
dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the
gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while
fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty
perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking
look-outs on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone
boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every
lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round
in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of
sight. 


 But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over
the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches
of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards
of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings,
over the destroying billows they almost touched;- at that instant,
a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air,
in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the
subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the
main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking
at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced
to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the
wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the
submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen
there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his
imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in
the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would
not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along
with her, and helmeted herself with it. 


 Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a
sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed,
and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five
thousand  years ago. EPILOGUE 


 Epilogue  


      "AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE" 
                                           Job. 


 The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?-
Because one did survive the wreck.  


 It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he
whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when
that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the
last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat,
was dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing
scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the
sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the
closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy
pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the
button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling
circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital
centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason
of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising
with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the
sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin,
for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and
dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with
padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed
beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me
up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her
retracing search after her missing children, only found another
orphan.  


                             FINIS 