MOBY DICK

HERMAN MELVILLE
 SIE

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 In token

Of my admiration for his genius

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED

Το

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE .
 ETYMOLOGY

(SUPPLIED BY A Late Consumptive USHER TO A GRAMMAR SCHOOL)

The pale Usher-threadbare in coat , heart, body, and brain; I see

him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars,

with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the

gay flags of all the known nations of the world . He loved to dust

his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his

mortality.

“While you take in hand to school others, and to

teach them by what name a whale - fish is to be called

in our tongue , leaving out, through ignorance , the

letter H, which almost alone maketh up the

signification of the word , you deliver that which is
not true ."

Hackluyt.

"WHALE .... SW. and Dan. hval. This animal is named

from roundness or rolling; for in Dan . hvalt is arched

or vaulted ."

Webster's Dictionary.

"WHALE.... It is more immediately from the Dut . and

Ger. Wallen; a.s. Walw-ian, to roll , to wallow."
Richardson's Dictionary.

‫ חן‬, Hebrew.

ΚΗΤΟΣ, Greek.
CETUS, Latin.

WHEEL, Anglo-Saxon.
HVALT , Danish.

WAL, Dutch .

HWAL , Swedish.

WHALE, Icelandic.

WHALE, English.
BALEINE, French.

BALLENA, Spanish.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fiji.

PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.
 EXTRACTS

(SUPPLIED BY A SUB- SUB- LIBRARIAN )

It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-

worm of a poor devil of a Sub- Sub appears to have gone through

the long Vaticans and street- stalls of the earth, picking up

whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in

any book whatsoever, sacred or profane . Therefore you must not ,

in every case at least , take the higgledy- piggledy whale

statements , however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable

gospel cetology. Far from it . As touching the ancient authors

generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are

solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's eye

view of what has been promiscuously said , thought , fancied, and

sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including

our own .

So fare thee well , poor devil of a Sub- Sub, whose commentator

I am . Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine

of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry

would be too rosy- strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to
sit, and feel poor- devilish, too ; and grow convivial upon tears;

and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in

not altogether unpleasant sadness —Give it up , Sub- Subs ! For by

how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so

much the more shall ye forever go thankless ! Would that I could

clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye ! But gulp down

your tears and hie aloft to the royal - mast with your hearts; for

your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-
storied heavens , and making refugees of long- pampered Gabriel ,

Michael, and Raphael , against your coming. Here ye strike but

splintered hearts together-there , ye shall strike unsplinterable

glasses!

EXTRACTS

"And God created great whales ."

Genesis.

"Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One

would think the deep to be hoary."

Job.

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow

up Jonah. "

Jonah.

"There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom

thou hast made to play therein. "

Psalms.

“In that day, the Lord with his sore , and great, and

strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing

serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent ; and he

shall slay the dragon that is in the sea ."

Isaiah.

"And what thing soever besides cometh within the

chaos of this monster's mouth, be it beast , boat, or

stone , down it goes all incontinently that foul great

swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of
his paunch ."

Holland's Plutarch's Morals.

"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest

fishes that are : among which the Whales and

Whirlpooles called Balaene , take up as much in

length as four acres or arpens of land ."

Holland's Pliny.

"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea ,

when about sunrise a great many Whales and other

monsters of the sea, appeared . Among the former,

one was of a most monstrous size .... This came

towards us, open- mouthed , raising the waves on all

""
sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam .'
Tooke's Lucian. The True History.

“He visited this country also with a view of catching

horse- whales, which had bones of very great value

for their teeth, of which he brought some to the

king.... The best whales were catched in his own

country, of which some were forty- eight, some fifty

yards long. He said that he was one of six who had

killed sixty in two days."

Other or Octher's verbal narrative taken down from his mouth

by King Alfred, AD 890.

"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or

vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this

monster's (whale's) mouth, are immediately lost and

swallowed up, the sea -gudgeon retires into it in

great security, and there sleeps ."

 Montaigne, "Apologyfor Raimond Sebond."

"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not

Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in

the life of patient Job."

Rabelais.

"This whale's liver was two cartloads."

Stowe's Annals.

"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe

like boiling pan."

Lord Bacon's Version ofthe Psalms.

"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork

we have received nothing certain . They grow

exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity

of oil will be extracted out of one whale ."

Ibid. History of Life and Death.

"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an

inward bruise ."

King Henry.

"Very like a whale .”

Hamlet.

"Which to secure , no skill of leach's art

Mote him availle , but to returne againe

To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart ,

Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine ,

Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the

maine ."

The Fairie Queen.

"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies

can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil ."

Sir William Davenant. Preface to Gondibert.

"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt , since

the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years,

saith plainly, Nescio quid sit."

Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti

Whale. Vide his V.E.

"Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail

He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail .

...

Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,

And on his back a grove of pikes appears."

Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands.

"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a

Commonwealth or State-(in Latin , Civitas) which is

but an artificial man ."

Opening sentence ofHobbes's Leviathan.

"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it

had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale .”

Pilgrim's Progress.

"That sea beast

Leviathan , which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim the ocean stream ."

Paradise Lost.

"There Leviathan ,

Hugest of living creatures, in the deep

Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,

And seems a moving land ; and at his gills

Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea ."

Ibid.

"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water,

and have a sea of oil swimming in them."
Fuller's Profane and Holy State.

"So close behind some promontory lie

The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,

And give no chance , but swallow in the fry,

Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."

Dryden's Annus Mirabilis.

"While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship ,

they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near

the shore as it will come ; but it will be aground in

twelve or thirteen feet water."

Thomas Edge's Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas.

"In their way they saw many whales sporting in the

ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water

through their pipes and vents, which nature has
placed on their shoulders."

Sir T. Herbert's Voyages Into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll.

"Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they

were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution

for fear they should run their ship upon them."

Schouten's Sixth Circumnavigation .
"We set sail from the Elbe , wind N.E. in the ship

called The Jonas-in- the- Whale.... Some say the whale

can't open his mouth, but that is a fable .... They

frequently climb up the masts to see whether they

can see a whale , for the first discoverer has a ducat

for his pains.... I was told of a whale taken near

Shetland , that had above a barrel of herrings in his

belly .... One of our harpooneers told me that he

caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white
all over ."

A Voyage to Greenland, AD 1671. Harris Coll.

"Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife)

Anno 1652 , one eighty feet in length of the

whalebone kind came in, which (as I was informed) ,

besides a vast quantity of oil , did afford 500 weight of

baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden

of Pitferren ."

Sibbald's Fife and Kinross.

"Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and

kill this Spermaceti whale , for I could never hear of

any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is

his fierceness and swiftness ."

Richard Strafford's Letter from the Bermudas.

Phil. Trans. AD 1668.

"Whales in the sea

God's voice obey."

N. E. Primer.

"We saw also abundance of large whales, there being

more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a
hundred to one ; than we have to the northward of
us. "

Captain Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe, AD 1729.

"... and the breath of the whale is frequently

attended with such an insupportable smell , as to

bring on a disorder of the brain . ”
Ulloa's South America.

"To fifty chosen sylphs of special note ,

We trust the important charge , the petticoat .

Oft have we known that seven- fold fence to fail ,

Though stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of

whale ."

Rape of the Lock.

"If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude ,

with those that take up their abode in the deep , we

shall find they will appear contemptible in the

comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest

animal in creation."

Goldsmith, Nat . Hist .

"If you should write a fable for little fishes, you

would make them speak like great whales. "

Goldsmith to Johnson.

“In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a

rock, but it was found to be a dead whale , which some

Asiatics had killed , and were then towing ashore .

They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves

behind the whale , in order to avoid being seen by

us. "
 Cook's Voyages.

"The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack.

They stand in so great dread of some of them, that

when out at sea they are afraid to mention even

their names, and carry dung, limestone , juniper-

wood, and some other articles of the same nature in

their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too

near approach."

Uno Von Troil's Letters on Banks's and Solander's Voyage to

Iceland in 1772.

"The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is

an active , fierce animal , and requires vast address

and boldness in the fishermen ."

Thomas Jefferson's Whale Memorial to the French minister in

1778.

"And pray , sir, what in the world is equal to it?"

Edmund Burke's reference in Parliament to the Nantucket

Whale- Fishery.

"Spain-a great whale stranded on the shores of

Europe .'
Edmund Burke. (somewhere.)

"A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue , said

to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding

and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is

the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon .

And these , when either thrown ashore or caught near

the coast, are the property of the king."

Blackstone.
"Soon to the sport of death the crews repair :

Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends

The barbed steel , and every turn attends."

Falconer's Shipwreck.

"Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,

And rockets blew self driven,

To hang their momentary fire

Around the vault of heaven.

"So fire with water to compare,

The ocean serves on high,

Up -spouted by a whale in air ,

To express unwieldy joy."

Cowper, on the Queen's Visit to London.

"Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the

heart at a stroke , with immense velocity."

John Hunter's account ofthe dissection ofa whale. (A small

sized one.)

"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the

main pipe of the waterworks at London Bridge , and

the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is

inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing

from the whale's heart."

Paley's Theology.

"The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind

feet ."

Baron Cuvier.
"In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but

did not take any till the first of May, the sea being
then covered with them .”

Colnett's Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the

Spermacetti Whale Fishery.

"In the free element beneath me swam ,

Floundered and dived , in play, in chase , in battle ,

Fishes of every colour , form, and kind ;

Which language cannot paint, and mariner

Had never seen; from dread Leviathan

To insect millions peopling every wave :

Gather'd in shoals immense , like floating islands,

Led by mysterious instincts through that waste

And trackless region, though on every side

Assaulted by voracious enemies,

Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw,

With swords , saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs."

Montgomery's World Before the Flood.

"Io! Paean ! Io! sing,

To the finny people's king.

Not a mightier whale than this

In the vast Atlantic is ;

Not a fatter fish than he ,

Flounders round the Polar Sea ."

Charles Lamb's Triumph of the Whale.

"In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill

observing the whales spouting and sporting with

each other, when one observed : there -pointing to

the sea-is a green pasture where our children's

grandchildren will go for bread ."

 Obed Macy's History of Nantucket.

"I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a

gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a

whale's jaw bones ."

Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales.

"She came to bespeak a monument for her first love ,

who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean,

no less than forty years ago . "

Ibid.

"No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale ,” answered Tom; “I saw his

spout ; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a

Christian would wish to look at . He's a raal oil - butt ,

that fellow!"

Cooper's Pilot.

"The papers were brought in, and we saw in the

Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on

the stage there. "

Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe .

"My God! Mr. Chace , what is the matter?" I answered ,

"we have been stove by a whale . "

Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of

Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed

by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean. By Owen

Chace ofNantucket, first mate ofsaid vessel. New York, 1821.

“A mariner sat in the shrouds one night ,

The wind was piping free ;

Now bright , now dimmed , was the moonlight pale ,

And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale ,
As it floundered in the sea."

Elizabeth Oakes Smith.

"The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats

engaged in the capture of this one whale , amounted

altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English

miles....

...

"Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail

in the air, which, cracking like a whip , resounds to

the distance of three or four miles."

Scoresby.

"Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh

attacks , the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and

over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide

expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he

rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled

before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes

utterly destroyed .... It is a matter of great

astonishment that the consideration of the habits of

so interesting, and , in a commercial point of view, so

important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should

have been so entirely neglected , or should have

excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and

many of them competent observers, that of late

years, must have possessed the most abundant and

the most convenient opportunities of witnessing

their habitudes."

Thomas Beale's History of the Sperm Whale, 1839.

"The Cachalot " (Sperm Whale) "is not only better
armed than the True Whale " (Greenland or Right

Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon at either

extremity of its body, but also more frequently

displays a disposition to employ these weapons

offensively and in manner at once so artful , bold , and

mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the

most dangerous to attack of all the known species of

the whale tribe ."

Frederick Debell Bennett's Whaling Voyage Round the

Globe, 1840.

October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the

masthead .

"Where away?" demanded the captain.

"Three points off the lee bow, sir ."

"Raise up your wheel . Steady! "

"Steady , sir."

"Masthead ahoy! Do you see that whale now?"

"Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales ! There she
blows! There she breaches!"

"Sing out! sing out every time ! "

"Ay Ay, sir! There she blows ! there -there -thar she

blows-bowes-bo- o- os ! "

"How far off? "

"Two miles and a half.”

"Thunder and lightning! so near ! Call all hands ! ”

J. Ross Browne's Etchings of a Whaling Cruize . 1846.

"The Whale - ship Globe, on board of which vessel

occurred the horrid transactions we are about to

relate , belonged to the island of Nantucket . "

 Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by Lay and Hussey
survivors . AD 1828.

"Being once pursued by a whale which he had

wounded , he parried the assault for some time with a

lance ; but the furious monster at length rushed on

the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved

by leaping into the water when they saw the onset

was inevitable ."

Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett.

"Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a very

striking and peculiar portion of the National

interest. There is a population of eight or nine

thousand persons living here in the sea , adding

largely every year to the National wealth by the

boldest and most persevering industry."

Report ofDaniel Webster's Speech in the U.S. Senate, on the

applicationforthe Erection ofa Breakwater at Nantucket.
1828.

"The whale fell directly over him, and probably

killed him in a moment ."

The Whale and His Captors, or the Whaleman's

Adventures and the Whale's Biography, Gathered on

the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble . By

Rev. Henry T. Cheever.

"If you make the least damn bit of noise ," replied

Samuel , "I will send you to hell . "

Life of Samuel Comstock (The Mutineer), by his brother,

William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship Globe

narrative.
"The voyages of the Dutch and English to the

Northern Ocean, in order, if possible , to discover a

passage through it to India , though they failed of

their main object, laid- open the haunts of the

whale ."

McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary.

"These things are reciprocal ; the ball rebounds, only

to bound forward again; for now in laying open the

haunts of the whale , the whalemen seem to have

indirectly hit upon new clues to that same mystic

Northwest Passage . "

From "Something" unpublished.

"It is impossible to meet a whale - ship on the ocean

without being struck by her near appearance . The

vessel under short sail , with lookouts at the

mastheads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse

around them, has a totally different air from those

engaged in regular voyage ."

Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex.

"Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere

may recollect having seen large curved bones set

upright in the earth, either to form arches over

gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may

perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of

whales ."

Tales ofa Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean.

"It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of

these whales , that the whites saw their ship in bloody

possession ofthe savages enrolled among the crew."
 Newspaper Account ofthe Taking and Retaking ofthe Whale-
Ship Hobomack.

"It is generally well known that out of the crews of

Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the

ships on board of which they departed ."

Cruise in a Whale Boat.

"Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water,

and shot up perpendicularly into the air . It was the

whale ."

Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman.

"The Whale is harpooned to be sure ; but bethink you,

how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt ,

with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of

his tail ."

A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks.

"On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales)

probably male and female , slowly swimming, one

after the other, within less than a stone's throw of

the shore" (Terra Del Fuego) , "over which the beech

tree extended its branches."

Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist.

" Stern all !' exclaimed the mate , as upon turning his

head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm

Whale close to the head of the boat , threatening it

with instant destruction; -' Stern all, for your lives!""

Wharton the Whale Killer.

"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail ,

While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!”
Nantucket Song.

“Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale

In his ocean home will be
A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea.”
Whale Song.
MOBY DICK

OR, THE WHALE

 I

LOOMINGS

Call me Ishmael . Some years ago-never mind how long

precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing

particular to interest me on shore , I thought I would sail about a

little and see the watery part of the world . It is a way I have of

driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation . Whenever I

find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a

damp , drizzly November in my soul ; whenever I find myself

involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up

the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my

hypos get such an upper hand of me , that it requires a strong

moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into

the street , and methodically knocking people's hats off-then, I

account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can . This is my

substitute for pistol and ball . With a philosophical flourish Cato

throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship . There
is nothing surprising in this . If they but knew it, almost all men

in their degree , some time or other, cherish very nearly the

same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round

by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs -commerce surrounds it

with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward . Its

extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is

washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours

previous were out of sight of land . Look at the crowds of water-

gazers there.
 Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go
from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by
Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent
sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands
of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the
spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if
striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all
landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this?
Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the
water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will
content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering
under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No.
They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without
falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues.
Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and
avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.
Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the
compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of
lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries
you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream.
There is magic in it. Let the most absentminded 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
everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.
 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 hillside 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 seasick-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 whatnot . And as for going as cook-though I

confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of

officer on shipboard -yet , somehow, I never fancied broiling

fowls ; -though once broiled, judiciously buttered , and

judgmatically salted and peppered , there is no one who will

speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled

fowl than I will . It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old

Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse , that you see

the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake - houses the

pyramids.

No, when I go to sea , I go as a simple sailor , right before the

mast , plumb down into the forecastle , aloft there to the royal

masthead . 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 forecastle deck. For as in this world,
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that
is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most
part the Commodore on the quarterdeck 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 anyone
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 AFGHANISTAN.”

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
free-will 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 floodgates 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.
 II

THE CARPETBAG

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpetbag, tucked it under my

arm , and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific . Quitting the

good city of old Manhatto , I duly arrived in New Bedford . It was a

Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon

learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed ,

and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the

following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of

whaling stop at this same New Bedford , thence to embark on

their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one , had no

idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other

than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine , boisterous

something about everything connected with that famous old

island, which amazingly pleased me . Besides though New

Bedford has of late been gradually monopolising the business of

whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now

much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original —the Tyre

of this Carthage ; the place where the first dead American whale
was stranded . Where else but from Nantucket did those

aboriginal whalemen, the Red- Men , first sally out in canoes to

give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too ,
did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden

with imported cobblestones -so goes the story-to throw at the

whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk

a harpoon from the bowsprit?

 Now having a night, a day, and still another night following

before me in New Bedford , ere I could embark for my destined

port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and

sleep meanwhile . It was a very dubious- looking, nay, a very dark

and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless . I knew no one in

the place . With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket , and

only brought up a few pieces of silver -So , wherever you go,

Ishmael , said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary

street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards

the north with the darkness towards the south-wherever in

your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night , my dear

Ishmael , be sure to inquire the price , and don't be too particular .

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of

"The Crossed Harpoons" -but it looked too expensive and jolly

there . Further on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-

Fish Inn," there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have

melted the packed snow and ice from before the house , for

everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a

hard, asphaltic pavement -rather weary for me , when I struck

my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard,

remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most

miserable plight . Too expensive and jolly, again thought I,

pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and
hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within . But go on,

Ishmael , said I at last ; don't you hear? get away from before the

door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went . I

now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward , for

there , doubtless , were the cheapest , if not the cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets ! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either

hand, and here and there a candle , like a candle moving about in

a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that

quarter of the town proved all but deserted . But presently I

came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the
door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it
were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first
thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha!
thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these
ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But “The Crossed
Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then must needs be the
sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and hearing a
loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A
hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and
beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It
was a negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the
blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-
gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched
entertainment at the sign of “The Trap!”
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the
docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up,
saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it,
faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these
words underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”
Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular
connection, 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 anyone
indoors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. “In
judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” says an old
writer—of whose works I possess the only copy extant—“it
maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it
from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or
whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the
frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only
glazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my
mind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are
windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they
didn’t stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in
a little lint here and there. But it’s too late to make any
improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone is on,
and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus
there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow,
and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up
both ears with rags, and put a corncob 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.
 III
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 cross-lights by which
you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of
systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that
you could anyway arrive at an understanding of its purpose.
Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first
you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of
the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos
bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and
oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the
little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to
the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be
altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,
portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of
the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in
a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough
to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of
indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that
fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with
yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever
and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you
 -
through. It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale . It's the

unnatural combat of the four primal elements.-It's a blasted

heath . It's a Hyperborean winter scene . —It's the breaking- up of

the icebound stream of Time . But at last all these fancies yielded

to that one portentous something in the picture's midst . That

once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop ; does it not
bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great

leviathan himself?

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

own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged

persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture

represents a Cape - Horner in a great hurricane; the half-

foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts

alone visible ; and an exasperated whale , purposing to spring

clean over the craft , is in the enormous act of impaling himself

upon the three mastheads .

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 villainous 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 hain't 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 jackknife , 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 ain't 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
"1
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 barroom, 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 Fijis ."

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 cofferdam. I have seldom seen such
brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making
his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep
shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not
seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he
was a Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be
one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in
Virginia. When the revelry of his companions had mounted to its
height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of
him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes,
however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for
some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised a cry of
“Bulkington! Bulkington! where’s Bulkington?” and darted out of
the house in pursuit of him.
It was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost
supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate
myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous
to the entrance of the seamen.
 No man prefers to sleep two in a bed . In fact, you would a good

deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it

is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And

when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a

strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer,

then your objections indefinitely multiply . Nor was there any

earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more

than anybody else ; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea ,
than bachelor Kings do ashore . To be sure they all sleep together

in one apartment , but you have your own hammock, and cover

yourself with your own blanket , and sleep in your own skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I

abominated the thought of sleeping with him . It was fair to

presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the

case might be , would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the

finest . I began to twitch all over. Besides , it was getting late , and

my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards.

Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight-how

could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?

"Landlord ! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.—I

shan't sleep with him . I'll try the bench here .”

"Just as you please ; I'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a

mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here " -feeling of the
knots and notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a

carpenter's plane there in the bar -wait , I say, and I'll make ye
snug enough." So saying he procured the plane; and with his old

silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to

planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape . The

shavings flew right and left; till at last the plane- iron came

bump against an indestructible knot . The landlord was near

spraining his wrist , and I told him for heaven's sake to quit -the
bed was soft enough to suit me , and I did not know how all the
planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So
gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them
into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his
business, and left me in a brown study.
I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a
foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was
a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about
four inches higher than the planed one—so there was no yoking
them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only
clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for
my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such
a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window,
that this plan would never do at all, especially as another
current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and
both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the
immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the
night.
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I
steal a march on him—bolt his door inside, and jump into his
bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed
no bad idea; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who
could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of
the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all
ready to knock me down!
Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of
spending a sufferable night unless in some other person’s bed, I
began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable
prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait
awhile; he must be dropping in before long. I’ll have a good look
at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows
after all—there’s no telling.
 But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos,

and threes, and going to bed , yet no sign of my harpooneer .

“Landlord ! ” said I , “what sort of a chap is he does he always

keep such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.

The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle , and

seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my

comprehension. "No," he answered , "generally he's an early

bird-airley to bed and airley to rise -yes, he's the bird what
catches the worm . But tonight 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 connection, 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 tonight,
cause tomorrow’s Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin’
human heads about the streets when folks is goin’ to churches.
He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin’
out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the
airth like a string of inions.”
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery,
and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of
fooling me—but at the same time what could I think of a
harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the

holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the

heads of dead idolators?

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

man."

"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come , it's getting

dreadful late , you had better be turning flukes-it's a nice bed;

Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced .

There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed ; it's an

almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put

our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it . But I got a dreaming

and sprawling about one night , and somehow, Sam got pitched

on the floor , and came near breaking his arm. Arter that , Sal
said it wouldn't do . Come along here , I'll give ye a glim in a

jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me ,

offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute ; when looking at a

clock in the corner, he exclaimed “I vum it's Sunday-you won't

see that harpooneer tonight ; he's come to anchor somewhere-

come along then; do come; won't ye come?"

I considered the matter a moment , and then upstairs 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 washstand 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 fireplace, 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 bedside, 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 colour, here and there stuck over
with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought,
he’s a terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut,
and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he
chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw
they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on
his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew
not what to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth
occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man—a
whaleman too—who, falling among the cannibals, had been
tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the
course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar
adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his
outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what
to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean,
lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of
tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of
tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun’s tanning a white
man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in
the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these
extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas
were passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never
noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his
bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a
sort of tomahawk, and a sealskin wallet with the hair on. Placing
these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took
the New Zealand head—a ghastly thing enough—and crammed it
down into the bag. He now took off his hat—a new beaver hat—
when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no
hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a small
scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head
now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the
stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out
of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.
Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the
window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but
what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether
passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and
being completely nonplussed and confounded about the
stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was
the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead
of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game
enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory
answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.
 Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at
last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of
him were checkered with the same squares as his face; his back,
too, was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been
in a Thirty Years’ War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-
plaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel
of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms.
It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage
or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so
landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A
peddler of heads too—perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He
might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk!
But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went
about something that completely fascinated my attention, and
convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his
heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had
previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and
produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch
on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days’ old Congo
baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought
that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some
similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that
it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it
must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be.
For now the savage goes up to the empty fireplace, and removing
the papered fire-board, sets up this little hunchbacked image,
like a tenpin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all
the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fireplace
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 singsong or else

singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face

twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last

the fire ,,
fire he took the idol up very
extinguishing

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 ofye ."

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

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

 IV
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 particoloured squares and
triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an
interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which
were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his keeping his
arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves
irregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I
say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork
quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first
awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their
hues together; and it was only by the sense of weight and
pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.
My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When
I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance
that befell me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could
entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up
some caper or other—I think it was trying to crawl up the
chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and
my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time
whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless—my mother
dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to
bed, though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st
June, the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt
dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so upstairs I went to my
little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as
possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the
sheets.
I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must
elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in
bed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light
too; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of
coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the
house. I felt worse and worse—at last I got up, dressed, and softly
going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother,
and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseeching her as a
particular favour to give me a good slippering for my
misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed
such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and
most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my
room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great
deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest
subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a
troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from it—half
steeped in dreams—I opened my eyes, and the before 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 bedside. For what seemed
ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears,
not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I
could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be
broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away
from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly
remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months
afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the
mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.
Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling
the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their
strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking up and
seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm thrown round me. But at length all
the past night’s events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed
reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament. For
though I tried to move his arm—unlock his bridegroom clasp—
yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though
naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse
him—“Queequeg!”—but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled
over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and
suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane,
there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage’s side, as if it
were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed
here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a
tomahawk! “Queequeg!—in the name of goodness, Queequeg,
wake!” At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and
incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his
hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I
succeeded in extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his
arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from
the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pikestaff, 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 trousers—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 washstand 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.

 V
BREAKFAST

I quickly followed suit, and descending into the barroom

accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no
malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not
a little in the matter of my bedfellow.
However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too
scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in
his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody,
let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to
spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything
bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that
man than you perhaps think for.
The barroom 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 everyone 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.
 VI

THE STREET

If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so

outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the

polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon

departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets
of New Bedford .

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will

frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from

foreign parts . Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets,

Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted

ladies. Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and

at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared

the natives . But New Bedford beats all Water Street and

Wapping. In these last - mentioned haunts you see only sailors;

but in New Bedford , actual cannibals stand chatting at street

corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their

bones unholy flesh . It makes a stranger stare .

But , besides the Fijians, Tongatobooarrs , Erromangoans,

Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens

of the whaling- craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you

will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical .

There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and

New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery.
They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have

felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the

whale- lance . Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence

they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours
old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a
beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt
and sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a
bombazine cloak.
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one—I
mean a downright bumpkin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-
days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of
tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it
into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the
great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does
upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he
orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvas
trousers. 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
springtime 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 apiece. 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 passerby their tapering upright cones of congregated
blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New
Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the
barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation’s final day.
And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red
roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine
carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh
heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save
in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk,
their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though
they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the
Puritanic sands.
 VII

THE CHAPEL

In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and

few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian

Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot . I am

sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out

upon this special errand . The sky had changed from clear, sunny

cold, to driving sleet and mist . Wrapping myself in my shaggy

jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the

stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation

of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence

reigned , only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm . Each

silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the

other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable .
The chaplain had not yet arrived ; and there these silent islands

of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets,

with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the

pulpit . Three of them ran something like the following, but I do

not pretend to quote :-

SACRED

To the memory

OF

JOHN TALBOT,

Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard,

Near the Isle of Desolation , off Patagonia ,
 November 1st, 1836.

THIS TABLET

Is erected to his Memory

BY HIS SISTER.

SACRED

To the memory
OF

ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN,

WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY , AND SAMUEL GLEIG,

Forming one of the boats' crews

OF

THE SHIP ELIZA

Who were towed out of sight by a Whale ,

On the Off- shore Ground in the

PACIFIC,
December 31st, 1839.

THIS MARBLE

Is here placed by their surviving

SHIPMATES.

SACRED

To the memory

OF

The late

CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY,

Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm

Whale on the coast ofJapan,

August 3rd, 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.
 VIII
THE PULPIT

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable
robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew
back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all
the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was
the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by
the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He
had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many
years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I
now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy
old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second
flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there
shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom—the
spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No
one having previously heard his history, could for the first time
behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because
there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him,
imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When
he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly
had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with
melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to
drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had
absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one
removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner;
when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the
pulpit.
 Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and
since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle
with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the
chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of
Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs,
substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in
mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain
had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted
man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and
stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance,
considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means
in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and
with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-
ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly
sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand,
mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.
The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the
case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the
rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At
my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that
however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present
instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see
Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and
stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by
step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him
impregnable in his little Quebec.
I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason
for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for
sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting
notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there
must be some sober reason for this thing; furthermore, it must
symbolize something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of
physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the
time, from all outward worldly ties and connections? Yes, for
replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful
man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold—a
lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the
walls.
But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the
place, borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between
the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall
which formed its back was adorned with a large painting
representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a
lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the
flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of
sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s face; and this
bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship’s tossed
deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the
Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel
seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a
hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are
rolling off—serenest azure is at hand.”
Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste
that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front
was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible
rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a
ship’s fiddle-headed beak.
What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever
this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the
pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick
wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt.
From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked
for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out,
and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
 IX

THE SERMON

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority

ordered the scattered people to condense . "Starboard gangway,

there ! side away to larboard -larboard gangway to starboard !

Midships! midships! "

There was a low rumbling of heavy sea -boots among the

benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes , and all

was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded

his large brown hands across his chest , uplifted his closed eyes,

and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling

and praying at the bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual

tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog-in

such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but

changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth

with a pealing exultation and joy-

"The ribs and terrors in the whale ,

Arched over me a dismal gloom ,

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

And lift me deepening down to doom.

"I saw the opening maw of hell ,

With endless pains and sorrows there ;

Which none but they that feel can tell-

Oh, I was plunging to despair .

 “In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints—
No more the whale did me confine.

“With speed he flew to my relief,

As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

“My song for ever shall record

That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power.”

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high

above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the
preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last,
folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: “Beloved
shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of
Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.’”
“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four
yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the
Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine
sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a
noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like
and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us; we
sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; seaweed 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, hardheartedness, 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 is his look, that had there been policemen in
those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong,
had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a
fugitive ! no baggage , not a hatbox, valise , or carpetbag -no
friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last ,

after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving

the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its
Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from

hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye . Jonah sees
this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence ; in vain

essays his wretched smile . Strong intuitions of the man assure

the mariners he can be no innocent . In their gamesome but still

serious way, one whispers to the other- Jack, he's robbed a

widow;' or, 'Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist ;' or , ' Harry lad ,

I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or

belike , one of the missing murderers from Sodom. ' Another runs

to read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to

which the ship is moored , offering five hundred gold coins for

the apprehension of a parricide , and containing a description of

his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill ; while all

his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to

lay their hands upon him . Frighted Jonah trembles, and

summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the

more a coward . He will not confess himself suspected ; but that

itself is strong suspicion . So he makes the best of it; and when the

sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised , they let
him pass, and he descends into the cabin.

" Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly

making out his papers for the Customs-'Who's there?' Oh! how

that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost

turns to flee again. But he rallies . ' I seek a passage in this ship to

Tarshish; how soon sail ye , sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had

not looked up to Jonah , though the man now stands before him;

but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice , than he darts a

scrutinizing glance . 'We sail with the next coming tide ,' at last
he slowly answered , still intently eyeing him . ' No sooner ,

sir?'-' Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger .'

Ha ! Jonah, that's another stab . But he swiftly calls away the

Captain from that scent . 'I'll sail with ye ,'-he says 'the passage

money how much is that? —I'll pay now.' For it is particularly

written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in

this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof ere the craft did sail .
And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.

"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment

detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the

penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can

travel freely, and without a passport ; whereas Virtue , if a

pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares

to test the length of Jonah's purse , ere he judge him openly. He

charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented to . Then the

Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive ; but at the same time

resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold . Yet when

Jonah fairly takes out his purse , prudent suspicions still molest
the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit . Not a

forger, anyway, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his

passage . 'Point out my stateroom, 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 stateroom ceiling

almost resting on his forehead . The air is close , and Jonah gasps .

Then, in that contracted hole , sunk, too , beneath the ship's

waterline , 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 appalls 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 racehorse but so much the more strike
his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still
turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation
until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels,
a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to
death, for conscience is the wound, and there’s naught to
staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah’s prodigy
of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.
“And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her
cables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for
Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was
the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But
the sea rebels; he will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful
storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the
boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and
jars are clattering overboard ; when the wind is shrieking, and

the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling

feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah
sleeps his hideous sleep . He sees no black sky and raging sea,

feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the

far rush of the mighty whale , which even now with open mouth
is cleaving the seas after him. Aye , shipmates, Jonah was gone

down into the sides of the ship—a berth in the cabin as I have

taken it, and was fast asleep . But the frightened master comes to

him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest thou , O sleeper !

arise !' Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah

staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud,

to look out upon the sea . But at that moment he is sprung upon

by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave

thus leaps into the ship , and finding no speedy vent runs roaring

fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet

afloat . And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face

from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead , aghast Jonah

sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward , but soon beat

downward again towards the tormented deep .

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul . In all his

cringing attitudes, the God - fugitive is now too plainly known.

The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their

suspicions of him, and at last , fully to test the truth, by referring

the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots , to see

for whose cause this great tempest was upon them . The lot is

Jonah's; that discovered , then how furiously they mob him with

their questions . 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou?

Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the

behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he

is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to

those questions , but likewise another answer to a question not

put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by
the hard hand of God that is upon him.

" I am a Hebrew,' he cries-and then-' I fear the Lord the God

of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land !' Fear him, O
Jonah? Aye , well mightest thou fear the Lord God then!

Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession ;

whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled , but

still are pitiful . For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for
mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts-

when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him

forth into the sea , for he knew that for his sake this great
tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek

by other means to save the ship . But all in vain; the indignant

gale howls louder; then , with one hand raised invokingly to God ,

with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold ofJonah .

“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped

into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the

east , and the sea is still , as Jonah carries down the gale with him,

leaving smooth water behind . He goes down in the whirling

heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the

moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting

him; and the whale shoots- to all his ivory teeth, like so many

white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a

weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail
for direct deliverance . He feels that his dreadful punishment is

just . He leaves all his deliverance to God , contenting himself

with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look

towards His holy temple . And here , shipmates, is true and

faithful repentance ; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for

punishment . And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah,

is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the
whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied
for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for
repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like
Jonah.”
While he was speaking these words, the howling of the
shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to
the preacher, who, when describing Jonah’s sea-storm, seemed
tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a
ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at
work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy
brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple
hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.
There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over
the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing
motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed
communing with God and himself.
But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his
head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility,
he spake these words:
“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his
hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be
mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore
to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye.
And now how gladly would I come down from this masthead and
sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen,
while someone 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 engulfed, 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
seashells, 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 appall! Woe to him
whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who,
in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be
true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him
who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is
himself a castaway!”
He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then
lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he
cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm—“But oh! shipmates! on
the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and
higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is
deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low?
Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who
against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever
stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose
strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base
treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him,
who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys
all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators
and Judges. Delight—topgallant 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.
 X
A BOSOM FRIEND

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

there quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the
benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire,
with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding
close up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into
its face, and with a jackknife gently whittling away at its nose,
meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty
soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing
it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate
regularity; at every fiftieth page—as I fancied—stopping a
moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a
long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then
begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number
one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and
it was only by such a large number of fifties being found
together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was
excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was,
and hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his
countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means
disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his
unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple
honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold,
there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand
devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing
about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not
altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed
and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head
being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter
relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I
will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was
phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it
reminded me of General Washington’s head, as seen in the
popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded
retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very
projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top.
Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending
meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he
never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much
as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting
the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we
had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially
considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me
upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his
very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not
know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing;
their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic
wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all,
or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no
advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the
circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular;
yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime
in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by
the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only way he could
get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though he
were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his
ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own
companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch
of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there
was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers,
we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So
soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a
philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he
must have “broken his digester.”
As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in
that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air,
it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and
phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon
us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn
swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting
in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were
turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had
redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a
nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland
deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to
feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same
things that would have repelled most others, they were the very
magnets that thus drew me. I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I,
since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew
my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints,
doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little
noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his
last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we
were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he
looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.
We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to
explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of
the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest;
and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the
various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I
proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch and
tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat
exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it
regularly passing between us.
If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the
Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed
it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as
naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was
over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round
the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning,
in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would
gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this
sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too
premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple
savage those old rules would not apply.
After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to
our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head;
took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the
tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading
them on the table, and mechanically dividing them into two
equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and said it was
mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring
them into my trousers’ pockets. I let them stay. He then went
about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the
paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he
seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to
follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I
would comply or otherwise.
 I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the
infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this
wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is
worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the
magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all
included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black
wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do the will of God—
that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow
man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the
will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish
that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my
particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must
then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I
kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol;
offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him
twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and
went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the
world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.
How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for
confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and
some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly
morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and
Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.
 XI
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 daybreak 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
kneepans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the
more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of
bedclothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The
more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small
part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that
is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you
flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been
so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any
more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your
nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then,
indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully
and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment
should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the
luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of

deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and

your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie

like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal .

We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time ,

when all at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when

between sheets , whether by day or by night , and whether asleep

or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order

the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed . Because no

man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be

closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our

essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant

and self- created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer

gloom of the unilluminated twelve - o'clock- at - night , I

experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to

the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a

light, seeing that we were so wide awake ; and besides he felt a

strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it

said , that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his

smoking in the bed the night before , yet see how elastic our stiff
prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them. For now I

liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me , even

in bed , because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy

then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord's policy of

insurance . I was only alive to the condensed confidential

comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real

friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we

now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other , till slowly
there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke , illuminated

by the flame of the new- lit lamp .

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

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the

West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.
When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native
woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if
he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious
soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of
Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a
High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal
side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable
warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff;
though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he
nourished in his untutored youth.
A Sag Harbor ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg
sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full
complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his
father’s influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow.
Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he
knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On
one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land,
covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water.
Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow
seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when
the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her
side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his
canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length
upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there , and swore not to let it

go, though hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard ;

suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son

of a King, and Queequeg budged not . Struck by his desperate

dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the

captain at last relented , and told him he might make himself at

home . But this fine young savage —this sea Prince of Wales, never

saw the Captain's cabin . They put him down among the sailors,
and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toil

in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no

seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of

enlightening his untutored countrymen . For at bottom-so he

told me he was actuated by a profound desire to learn among

the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still happier

than they were; and more than that, still better than they were .

But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that

even Christians could be both miserable and wicked ; infinitely

more so, than all his father's heathens . Arrived at last in old Sag

Harbor ; and seeing what the sailors did there ; and then going on

to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that

place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost . Thought he , it's a
wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.

And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these

Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish .

Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from
home .

By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back,

and having a coronation; since he might now consider his father

dead and gone , he being very old and feeble at the last accounts.

He answered no , not yet; and added that he was fearful

Christianity, or
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.
 XIII
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 carpetbag, and Queequeg’s canvas sack
and hammock, away we went down to the Moss, the little
Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were
going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so much—for
they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets—but
at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we
heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and
Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his
harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome
thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not
find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied, that
though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular
affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff,
well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with
the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and
mowers, who go into the farmers’ meadows armed with their
own scythes—though in no wise obliged to furnish them—even so,

Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own

harpoon.

Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny

story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag

Harbor . The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one , in

which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house . Not to seem

ignorant about the thing-though in truth he was entirely so ,

concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow-

Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then

shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,” said I,

"Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would

think. Didn't the people laugh?"

Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island

of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the

fragrant water of young coconuts into a large stained calabash

like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great

central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held .

Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko ,

and its commander-from all accounts, a very stately punctilious

gentleman, at least for a sea captain-this commander was

invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young

princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding guests

were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage , this Captain

marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself

over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his

majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said -for those

people have their grace as well as we -though Queequeg told me

that unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters,

they, on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the

great Giver of all feasts -Grace , I say, being said , the High Priest

opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island ;

that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the

bowl before the blessed beverage circulates . Seeing himself

placed next the Priest , and noting the ceremony, and thinking

himself-being Captain of a ship -as having plain precedence

over a mere island King, especially in the King's own house -the

Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowl; -

taking it I suppose for a huge finger- glass . “Now,” said Queequeg,

"what you tink now? -Didn't our people laugh?"

At last, passage paid , and luggage safe , we stood on board the

schooner. Hoisting sail , it glided down the Acushnet river . On

one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-

covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and

mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and

side by side the world - wandering whale ships lay silent and
safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of
carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges

to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the

start ; that one most perilous and long voyage ended , only begins

a second ; and a second ended , only begins a third , and so on,

forever and for aye . Such is the endlessness, yea , the

intolerableness of all earthly effort.

Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh;

the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young

colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air ! -how I spurned

that turnpike earth ! —that common highway all over dented with
the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire

the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records.

At the same foam - fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and

reel with me . His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his

filed and pointed teeth . On, on we flew; and our offing gained ,

the Moss did homage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a
slave before the Sultan . Sideways leaning, we sideways darted;
every ropeyarn tingling like a wire ; the two tall masts buckling
like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene

were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some

time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a

lubber - like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings

should be so companionable ; as though a white man were

anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro . But there

were some boobies and bumpkins there , who, by their intense

greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all

verdure . Queequeg caught one of these young saplings

mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of

doom was come . Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage

caught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity

and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly
tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with

bursting lungs upon his feet , while Queequeg, turning his back

upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a

puff.

"Capting! Capting! " yelled the bumpkin, running towards that

officer; "Capting, Capting, here's the devil .”

"Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain , a gaunt rib of the sea,

stalking up to Queequeg, “what in thunder do you mean by that?

Don't you know you might have killed that chap?”

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

"He say," said I, "that you came near kill -e that man there ,"

pointing to the still shivering greenhorn.

"Kill- e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an

unearthly expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small- e fish- e ;

Queequeg no kill - e so small - e fish - e ; Queequeg kill - e big whale ! ”

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

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

Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to

think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and

Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water-fresh water-

something to wipe the brine off; that done , he put on dry clothes ,

lighted his pipe , and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly

eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to himself—“It's a

mutual, joint-stock world , in all meridians . We cannibals must

help these Christians."

 XIV
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 snowshoes; that they are so shut up, belted about,
every way enclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by
the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will
sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But
these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island
was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times
an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried
off an infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents
saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They
resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their
canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and
there they found an empty ivory casket—the poor little Indian’s
skeleton.
What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach,
should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs
and quohogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets
for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and
captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the
sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of
circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Bering’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 Himalayan, 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 anthill 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.
 XV

CHOWDER

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly

to anchor , and Queequeg and I went ashore ; so we could attend

to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed . The

landlord of the Spouter- Inn had recommended us to his cousin

Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the

proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and

moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him,

was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we

could not possibly do better than try potluck at the Try Pots . But

the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse

on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the

larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we

made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done , then

ask the first man we met where the place was: these crooked

directions of his very much puzzled us at first , especially as, at

the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse -our

first point of departure -must be left on the larboard hand,

whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the

starboard . However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark,

and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire

the way, we at last came to something which there was no

mistaking .

Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by

asses ' ears , swung from the cross- trees of an old topmast, planted

in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross- trees were

sawed off on the other side, so that this old topmast looked not a
little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such
impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this
gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as
I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for
Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my
Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones
staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel; and here a gallows! and
a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out
oblique hints touching Tophet?
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled
woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the
porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that
looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding
with a man in a purple woollen shirt.
“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing
ye!”
“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.”
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but
leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his
affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed,
Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present,
ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread
with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to
us and said—“Clam or Cod?”
“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness.
“Clam or Cod?” she repeated.
“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean,
Mrs. Hussey?” says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy
reception in the winter time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?”
But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the
purple Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to
hear nothing but the word "clam, " Mrs. Hussey hurried towards
an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for

two," disappeared .

“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make out a

supper for us both on one clam? "

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to

belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us . But when that

smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully

explained . Oh, sweet friends ! hearken to me . It was made of

small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with

pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes;

the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with

pepper and salt . Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty

voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing

food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent ,

we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a

moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod

announcement , I thought I would try a little experiment .

Stepping to the kitchen door , I uttered the word "cod" with

great emphasis, and resumed my seat . In a few moments the

savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor , and

in good time a fine cod - chowder was placed before us .

We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl ,
thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the

head? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed

people ? "But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl?
Where's your harpoon?”

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well
deserved its name ; for the pots there were always boiling

chowders. Chowder for breakfast , and chowder for dinner , and

chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish -bones coming

through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with
clamshells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish

vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in

superior old sharkskin. 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 tomorrow for breakfast , men?"

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

way of variety."
 XVI
THE SHIP

In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my

surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to
understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo—the
name of his black little god—and Yojo had told him two or three
times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead
of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in
concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly
enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with
me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to
do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself,
I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as
though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must
immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of
Queequeg.
I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg
placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and
surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with
considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps
meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not
succeed in his benevolent designs.
Now, this plan of Queequeg’s, or rather Yojo’s, touching the
selection of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a
little relied upon Queequeg’s sagacity to point out the whaler
best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my
remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged
to acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business
with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should
quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early,
leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bedroom—for it
seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of
fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that
day; how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied
myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and
XXXIX Articles—leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his
tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire
of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much
prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that
there were three ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-
Dam, the Tit-Bit, and the Pequod. Devil-Dam, I do not know the
origin of; Tit-Bit is obvious; Pequod, you will no doubt remember,
was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now
extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-
Dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-Bit; and finally, going on
board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then
decided that this was the very ship for us.
You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught
I know;—square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks;
butter-box galliots, and whatnot; 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 flagstone in Canterbury Cathedral
where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities, were
added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild
business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old
Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded
another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of
the principal owners of the Pequod—this old Peleg, during the
term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original
grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of
material and device, unmatched by anything except it be
Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled
like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with
pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A
cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of
her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were
garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of
the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old
hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base
blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-
ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she
sported there a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously
carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe.
The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like
the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its
jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble
things are touched with that.
Now when I looked about the quarterdeck, for someone 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 mainmast. 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 topknot 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 network of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round

his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in

many hard gales, and always looking to windward; -for this

causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together .

Such eye- wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

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

door of the tent .

"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou

want of him?" he demanded .

"I was thinking of shipping."

"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer - ever

been in a stove boat?"
 "No, Sir, I never have . "

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

"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn . I've been

several voyages in the merchant service , and I think that-"

"Merchant service be damned . Talk not that lingo to me. Dost

see that leg?—I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou

talkest of the marchant service to me again . Marchant service

indeed ! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having

served in those marchant ships. But flukes ! man, what makes

thee want to go a whaling, eh? -it looks a little suspicious, don't

it, eh?-Hast not been a pirate , hast thou? -Didst not rob thy last

Captain, didst thou ? -Dost not think of murdering the officers

when thou gettest to sea?”

I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the
mask of these half humorous innuendoes , this old seaman, as an

insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular

prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed

from Cape Cod or the Vineyard .

"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I

think of shipping ye ."

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

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

Captain Ahab?"

"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"

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

ship ."

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

himself."

"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg -that's who ye are

speaking to, young man . It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to

see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage , and supplied with all
her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents . But

as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as

thou tellest ye do , I can put ye in a way of finding it out before

ye bind yourself to it, past backing out . Clap eye on Captain

Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg."

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

"Lost by a whale ! Young man , come nearer to me : it was

devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty

that ever chipped a boat ! -ah, ah! "

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little

touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation , but

said as calmly as I could , "What you say is no doubt true enough,

sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that

particular whale , though indeed I might have inferred as much

from the simple fact of the accident ."

"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see;

thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now;
sure of that?”

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

"Hard down out of that ! Mind what I said about the marchant

service -don't aggravate me -I won't have it . But let us

understand each other . I have given thee a hint about what

whaling is; do ye yet feel inclined for it?”

"I do , sir ."

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

“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not

to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact . ”

"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a- whaling,

to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go

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

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request,

not knowing exactly how to take it , whether humorously or in

earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl ,
Captain Peleg started me on the errand .

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived

that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood - tide , was

now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean . The prospect

was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not

the slightest variety that I could see .

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

"Not much," I replied "nothing but water; considerable

horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think."

“Well , what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye

wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye
see the world where you stand?"

I was a little staggered , but go a- whaling I must , and I would ;

and the Pequod was as good a ship as any—I thought the best —and

all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined , he

expressed his willingness to ship me .

"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he

added "come along with ye ." And so saying, he led the way
below deck into the cabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most

uncommon and surprising figure . It turned out to be Captain

Bildad , who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest
owners of the vessel ; the other shares, as is sometimes the case in

these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants; widows,

fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning about the

value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the
ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels,
the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks
bringing in good interest.
Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers,
was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that
sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an
uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only
variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien
and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most
sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting
Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.
So that there are instances among them of men, who, named
with Scripture names—a singularly common fashion on the
island—and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic
thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious,
daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives,
strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand
bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king,
or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a
man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and
a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of
many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath
constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think
untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet
or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and
confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from
accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language—that man makes one in a whole nation’s census—a
mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it
at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth
or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful
overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men
tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be
sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but
disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with
quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only
results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by
individual circumstances.
Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired
whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for
what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those
selfsame serious things the veriest of all trifles—Captain Bildad
had not only been originally educated according to the strictest
sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life,
and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the
Horn—all that had not moved this native born Quaker one single
jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all
this immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency
about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from
conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet
himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and
though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his
straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore.
How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious
Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not
know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very
probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible
conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical
world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a
little cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a
harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that
becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a
ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his
adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the
goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the
quiet receiving of his well-earned income.
Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in his seagoing days, a bitter, hard
taskmaster. 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
hardhearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at
his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of
cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a
chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at
you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch
something—a hammer or a marlinspike, and go to work like mad,
at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness
perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment
of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried
no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft,
economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his broad-brimmed
hat.
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom
when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space
between the decks was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old
Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his
coat tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were
stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and
spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a
ponderous volume.
“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have
been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to
my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”
As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old
shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence,
quietly looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly
towards Peleg.
“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.”
“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round
to me.
“I dost,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.
“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg.
“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling
away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as
Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But
I said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw
open a chest, and drawing forth the ship’s articles, placed pen
and ink before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began
to think it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I
would be willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware
that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands,
including the captain, received certain shares of the profits
called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree
of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s
company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling,
my own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was
used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I
made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at
least the 275th lay—that is, the 275th part of the clear net
proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount
to. And though the 275th lay was what they call a rather long lay,
yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage,
might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it,
not to speak of my three years’ beef and board, for which I would
not have to pay one stiver.
It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a
princely fortune—and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am
one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am
quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I
am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the
whole, I thought that the 275th lay would be about the fair thing,
but would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th,
considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful
about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I
had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his
unaccountable old crony Bildad; how that they being the
principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and
more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole
management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not
know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to
say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board
the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his
Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying
to mend a pen with his jackknife, old Bildad, to my no small
surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in
these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on
mumbling to himself out of his book, “Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth, where moth—”
“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say,
what lay shall we give this young man?”
“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven
hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would
it?—‘where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay—’”
 Lay, indeed, thought I , and such a lay! the seven hundred and

seventy- seventh! Well , old Bildad , you are determined that I, for

one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust

do corrupt . It was an exceedingly long lay that , indeed; and

though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive

a landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that

though seven hundred and seventy- seven is a pretty large

number , yet , when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then

see , I say, that the seven hundred and seventy- seventh part of a

farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-

seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time .

“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad , ” cried Peleg, "thou dost not

want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that ."

“Seven hundred and seventy- seventh, " again said Bildad ,

without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling-"for where

your treasure is, there will your heart be also ."

"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth, " said

Peleg, "do ye hear that, Bildad ! The three hundredth lay, I say."

Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him

said, “Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must

consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship—

widows and orphans, many of them- and that if we too

abundantly reward the labors of this young man, we may be

taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The
seven hundred and seventy- seventh lay, Captain Peleg."

"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about

the cabin . "Blast ye , Captain Bildad , if I had followed thy advice

in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about

that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that

ever sailed round Cape Horn."

"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be

drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as

thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear
lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink
thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.”
“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural
bearing, ye insult me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human
creature that he’s bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say
that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll
swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the
cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—a straight
wake with ye!”
As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a
marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded
him.
Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal
and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to
give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and
temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give
egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to
vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my
astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly,
and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing.
He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for
Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more
left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched
a little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at
last—“the squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used
to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My
jackknife here needs the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad.
Now then, my young man, Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say?
Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth
lay.”
 "Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to

ship too-shall I bring him down tomorrow?"

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

"What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad , glancing up from

the book in which he had again been burying himself.

"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad ," said Peleg . "Has he

ever whaled it any?" turning to me .

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

"Well , bring him along then."

And, after signing the papers, off I went ; nothing doubting but

that I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was

the identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and
me round the Cape .

But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that

the Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me;

though, indeed , in many cases , a whale - ship will be completely

fitted out, and receive all her crew on board , ere the captain

makes himself visible by arriving to take command; for

sometimes these voyages are so prolonged , and the shore

intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have a

family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort , he does not

trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the

owners till all is ready for sea . However , it is always as well to

have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into

his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring

where Captain Ahab was to be found.

"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right

enough; thou art shipped ."

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

"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present . I don't know

exactly what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the
house ; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so . In fact, he ain't

sick; but no, he isn't well either. Anyhow, 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, godlike

man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does

speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye , be forewarned ; Ahab's

above the common ; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as ' mong the

cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his

fiery lance in mightier , stranger foes than whales . His lance ! aye ,
the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle ! Oh ! he ain't

Captain Bildad ; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's Ahab , boy; and

Ahab of old , thou knowest, was a crowned king!"

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

"Come hither to me -hither, hither," said Peleg, with a

significance in his eye that almost startled me . "Look ye , lad ;

never say that on board the Pequod . Never say it anywhere .

Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant

whim of his crazy, widowed mother , who died when he was only

a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead ,

said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And ,

perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same . I wish to

warn thee . It's a lie . I know Captain Ahab well ; I've sailed with

him as mate years ago; I know what he is a good man-not a

pious, good man, like Bildad , but a swearing good man-

something like me-only there's a good deal more of him. Aye,

aye , I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the

passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell ; but it

was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought

that about , as anyone 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 goodbye to thee -and wrong not Captain

Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name . Besides, my

boy, he has a wife -not three voyages wedded -a sweet, resigned

girl . Think of that ; by that sweet girl that old man has a child :
hold ye then there can be any utter , hopeless harm in Ahab ? No,

no, my lad; stricken, blasted , if he be , Ahab has his humanities ! "

As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been

incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab , filled me with a

certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him . And

somehow, at the time , I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but

for I don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And

yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe , which I

cannot at all describe , was not exactly awe ; I do not know what it
was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him;

though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so

imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts

were at length carried in other directions, so that for the

present dark Ahab slipped my mind.

 XVII
THE RAMADAN

As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to

continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards
nightfall; 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 toadstool; 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 whatnot, because of their half-crazy
conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly
entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his
Ramadan;—but what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he
was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him
rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him be, I say:
and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans
alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the
head, and sadly need mending.
Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances
and rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at
the door; but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened
inside. “Queequeg,” said I softly through the keyhole:—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 keyhole ; but the door

opening into an odd corner of the room, the keyhole prospect

was but a crooked and sinister one . I could only see part of the
footboard 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 downstairs , I quickly stated my

suspicions to the first person I met -the chambermaid . "La ! La! "

she cried, "I thought something must be the matter . I went to

make the bed after breakfast, and the door was locked ; and not a

mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silent ever since . But I
thought , may be , you had both gone off and locked your baggage

in for safe keeping. La! La, ma'am! -Mistress ! murder !

Mrs. Hussey ! apoplexy! ” —and with these cries, she ran towards
the kitchen , I following .

Mrs. Hussey soon appeared , with a mustard- pot in one hand

and a vinegar - cruet in the other, having just broken away from

the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little

black boy meantime .

"Wood- house ! ” cried I , "which way to it? Run for God's sake ,

and fetch something to pry open the door-the axe ! -the axe !

he's had a stroke ; depend upon it! "-and so saying I was

unmethodically rushing upstairs 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 , someone ,

while I pry it open! "

"Look here ," said the landlady, quickly putting down the

vinegar- cruet, so as to have one hand free ; "look here ; are you
talking about prying open any of my doors?"-and with that she

seized my arm. "What's the matter with you? What's the matter

with you , shipmate?"

In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible , I gave her to

understand the whole case . Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-

cruet to one side of her nose , she ruminated for an instant; then
exclaimed-"No! I haven't seen it since I put it there ." Running

to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in,

and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing .

"He's killed himself," she cried . "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over

again-there goes another counterpane -God pity his poor

mother ! —it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a

sister? Where's that girl ? -there , Betty, go to Snarles the

Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with ' no suicides

permitted here , and no smoking in the parlor ;' -might as well

kill both birds at once . Kill ? The Lord be merciful to his ghost !

What's that noise there? You , young man , avast there ! ”

And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying

to force open the door.

"I don't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled . Go for the
locksmith, there's one about a mile from here . But avast !"

putting her hand in her side - pocket, "here's a key that'll fit , I
guess; let's see . " And with that, she turned it in the lock; but,
alas ! Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn
within .

"Have to burst it open," said I , and was running down the

entry a little , for a good start, when the landlady caught at me,

again vowing I should not break down her premises ; but I tore

from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full
against the mark.

With a prodigious noise the door flew open , and the knob

slamming against the wall , sent the plaster to the ceiling; and

there, good heavens ! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and

self- collected; right in the middle of the room ; squatting on his

hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head . He looked neither one

way nor the other way, but sat like a carved image with scarce a
sign of active life .

"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's the

matter with you?"

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

But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost

felt like pushing him over , so as to change his position, for it was
almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally

constrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting

so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his

regular meals.

"Mrs. Hussey," said I , “he's alive at all events; so leave us, if you

please, and I will see to this strange affair myself. "

Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail

upon Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat ; and all

he could do-for all my polite arts and blandishments —he would

not move a peg, nor say a single word , nor even look at me , nor

notice my presence in the slightest way.

I wonder, thought I , if this can possibly be a part of his

Ramadan; do they fast on their hams that way in his native

island . It must be so; yes, it's part of his creed, I suppose ; well ,

then, let him rest ; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't

last forever, 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 upstairs to go to bed , feeling

quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly have brought

his Ramadan to a termination . But no; there he was just where I

had left him; he had not stirred an inch . I began to grow vexed

with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be

sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold
room , holding a piece of wood on his head .

"For heaven's sake , Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get

up and have some supper . You'll starve ; you'll kill yourself,

Queequeg. " But not a word did he reply.

Despairing of him, therefore , I determined to go to bed and to

sleep ; and no doubt , before a great while , he would follow me .

But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket , and

threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night; and he

had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on . For some time , do
all I would , I could not get into the faintest doze . I had blown out

the candle ; and the mere thought of Queequeg-not four feet

off-sitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold

and dark; this made me really wretched . Think of it; sleeping all

night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in
this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!

But somehow I dropped off at last , and knew nothing more till

break of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted

Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as
soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got,
with stiff and grating joints, but with a cheerful look; limped
towards me where I lay; pressed his forehead again against mine;
and said his Ramadan was over.
Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person’s
religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or
insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe
it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it
is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of
ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time
to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.
And just so I now did with Queequeg. “Queequeg,” said I, “get
into bed now, and lie and listen to me.” I then went on,
beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions,
and coming down to the various religions of the present time,
during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these
Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold,
cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless
for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene
and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things
such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me,
very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about
this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes
the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born
of a fast must necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why
most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions
about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather
digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-
dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary
dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.
 I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled
with dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he
could take it in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion.
It was after a great feast given by his father the king, on the
gaining of a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been
killed by about two o’clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and
eaten that very evening.
“No more, Queequeg,” said I, shuddering; “that will do;” for I
knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen
a sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it
was the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to
barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor; and
then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers,
and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit and coconuts;
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.
 XVIII

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 meetinghouse?" and

so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his

great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very

carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the
bulwarks , took a good long look at Queequeg .
 "How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to

me; "not very long, I rather guess , young man.”

"No," said Peleg, “and he hasn't been baptized right either, or

it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face ."

"Do tell , now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular

member of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him

going there , and I pass it every Lord's day."

"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his

meeting,” said I ; "all I know is , that Queequeg here is a born

member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon

himself, Queequeg is."

"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with

me -explain thyself, thou young Hittite . What church dost thee

mean? answer me ."

Finding myself thus hard pushed , I replied . “I mean , sir, the

same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain

Peleg there , and Queequeg here , and all of us , and every

mother's son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting

First Congregation of this whole worshipping world ; we all

belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets no

ways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands."

"Splice , thou mean'st splice hands, " cried Peleg, drawing

nearer. "Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead

of a foremast 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 whaleboat? 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 whaleboats 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 mark.

Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing

Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge
pockets of his broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of
tracts, and selecting one entitled The Latter Day Coming; or No Time
to Lose, placed it in Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them
and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and
said, “Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part
owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its
crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I
beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the
idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come;
mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the
fiery pit!”
Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s
language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic
phrases.
“Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our
harpooneer,” cried Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good
voyagers—it takes the shark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a
straw who ain’t 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,
canst 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 topsail 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 .

 XIX

THE PROPHET

"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?"

Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering

away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his

own thoughts , when the above words were put to us by a

stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger

at the vessel in question . He was but shabbily apparelled in

faded jacket and patched trousers; 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 haven't got any," he said quickly. “No matter

though, I know many chaps that haven't got any-good luck to

'em ; and they are all the better off for it . A soul's a sort of a fifth
11
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 haven'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 haven't seen him yet, have ye?"

"No , we haven'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 everyone knows a’most —I

mean they know he's only one leg; and that a parmacetti took
the other off."

"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I

don't know, and I don't much care ; for it seems to me that you

must be a little damaged in the head . But if you are speaking of

Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you ,
that I know all about the loss of his leg."

“All about it , eh—sure you do? —all ? ”

"Pretty sure ."

With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the

beggar- like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie ;

then starting a little , turned and said : “Ye've shipped , have ye?

Names down on the papers? Well , well, what's signed , is signed;

and what's to be , will be ; and then again, perhaps it won't be ,

after all . Anyhow, it's all fixed and arranged a’ready; and some
sailors or other must go with him, I suppose ; as well these as any

other men , God pity ' em ! Morning to ye , shipmates, morning; the

ineffable heavens bless ye ; I'm sorry I stopped ye ."

"Look here , friend," said I, "if you have anything important to

tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us,

you are mistaken in your game ; that's all I have to say."

"And it's said very well , and I like to hear a chap talk up that

way; you are just the man for him—the likes of ye . Morning to ye,

shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there , tell ' em I've

concluded not to make one of ' em."

"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way-you can't fool

us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he

had a great secret in him.”
 “Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.”
“Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this
crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?”
“Elijah.”
Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after
each other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that
he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had
not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn
a corner, and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but
Elijah following us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of
him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being
behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether
the stranger would turn the same corner that we did. He did;
and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, but with what
intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance,
coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing,
shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague
wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all connected with
the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the
Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleg
had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous; and the
prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage we had bound
ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things.
I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was
really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way
with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But
Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me;
and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him
in my heart, a humbug.
 XX

ALL ASTIR

A day or two passed , and there was great activity aboard the

Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended , but new sails

were coming on board , and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging;

in short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were

hurrying to a close . Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore ,

but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp lookout 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 nightfall .

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 .
Everyone knows what a multitude of things-beds , saucepans ,

knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nutcrackers, and

whatnot , 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 someone's rheumatic back. Never did

any woman better deserve her name , which was Charity-Aunt

Charity, as everybody called her . And like a sister of charity did

this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither,

ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to

yield safety, comfort , and consolation to all on board a ship in

which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which
she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars.
But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress
coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in
one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was
Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad,
he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and
at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article
upon the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out
of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways,
roaring up to the riggers at the masthead, and then concluded
by roaring back into his wigwam.
During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited
the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he
was, and when he was going to come on board his ship. To these
questions they would answer, that he was getting better and
better, and was expected aboard every day; meantime, the two
captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to everything necessary
to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been downright honest
with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I
did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage,
without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the
absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the
open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes
happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he
insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself.
And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to
think nothing.
At last it was given out that some time next day the ship
would certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a
very early start.
 XXI

GOING ABOARD

It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn ,

when we drew nigh the wharf.

"There are some sailors running ahead there , if I see right,"

said I to Queequeg, “it can't be shadows; she's off by sunrise , I

guess; come on!"

"Avast! ” cried a voice , whose owner at the same time coming

close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then

insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little ,

in the uncertain twilight , strangely peering from Queequeg to

me. It was Elijah.

"Going aboard?"

"Hands off, will you , " said I.

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

"Ain't going aboard , then?"

"Yes, we are ,” said I, “but what business is that of yours? Do

you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?"

“No , no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and

wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most

unaccountable glances.

“Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by

withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and

would prefer not to be detained . "

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

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

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

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

But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on

my shoulder, said "Did ye see anything looking like men going

towards that ship a while ago?"

Struck by this plain matter- of-fact question , I answered ,

saying, “Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too
dim to be sure ."

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

Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after

us; and touching my shoulder again, said , “See if you can find

'em now, will ye?"

"Find who?"

"Morning to ye! morning to ye ! " he rejoined , again moving off.

"Oh ! I was going to warn ye against -but never mind , never

mind -it's all one , all in the family too; -sharp frost this

morning, ain't it? Goodbye 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
enclosed in his folded arms . The profoundest slumber slept upon
him.

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

to?" said I , looking dubiously at the sleeper . But it seemed that ,

when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now
alluded to; hence I would have thought myself to have been
optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah’s
otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down; and
again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that
perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish
himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper’s rear, as
though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado,
sat quietly down there.
“Gracious! Queequeg, don’t sit there,” said I.
“Oh! perry dood seat,” said Queequeg, “my country way; won’t
hurt him face.”
“Face!” said I, “call that his face? very benevolent countenance
then; but how hard he breathes, he’s heaving himself; get off,
Queequeg, you are heavy, it’s grinding the face of the poor. Get
off, Queequeg! Look, he’ll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don’t
wake.”
Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the
sleeper, and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept
the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the other.
Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion,
Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, owing to the
absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and
great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some of
the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house
comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten
lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves.
Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion; much better
than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-
sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring
him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps
in some damp marshy place.
 While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received
the tomahawk from me , he flourished the hatchet- side of it over

the sleeper's head .

"What's that for, Queequeg?"

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

He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his

tomahawk- pipe, which, it seemed, had in its two uses both

brained his foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly

attracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now

completely filling the contracted hole , it began to tell upon him.

He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed troubled in

the nose ; then revolved over once or twice ; then sat up and
rubbed his eyes .

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

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

“Aye , aye, ye are going in her, be ye ? She sails today. 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.

 XXII

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

whaleboat , 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 quarterdeck, 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 underway, 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 merrymaking 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 mainmast . “Mr. Starbuck, drive ' em aft .”

"Strike the tent there ! "-was the next order . As I hinted

before , this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in

port; and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to
strike the tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up
the anchor .

"Man the capstan ! Blood and thunder ! -jump ! " -was the next

command , and the crew sprang for the handspikes .

Now in getting underway, the station generally occupied by

the pilot is the forward part of the ship . And here Bildad , who,

with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers , was one

of the licensed pilots of the port -he being suspected to have got

himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot- fee to

all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other

craft -Bildad , I say, might now be seen actively engaged in

looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at

intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to

cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of a

chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will.
Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that

no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod,

particularly in getting underway; and Charity, his sister , had

placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman's berth .

 Meantime , overseeing the other part of the ship , Captain

Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I

almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could
be got up; involuntarily I paused on my handspike , and told

Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in

starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot . I was

comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious

Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred

and seventy- seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my

rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of

Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my

immediate vicinity . That was my first kick.

"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service ?" he

roared . "Spring, thou sheep - head; spring, and break thy

backbone ! Why don't ye spring, I say, all of ye -spring! Quohog!

spring, thou chap with the red whiskers; spring there , Scotch-

cap ; spring, thou green pants . Spring, I say, all of ye , and spring
your eyes out ! " And so saying, he moved along the windlass, here

and there using his leg very freely, while imperturbable Bildad

kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I , Captain Peleg must

have been drinking something today.

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

Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can."

As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for

all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye , when

the lantern came too near . And he , too, did not a little run from

cabin to deck—now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck,

the chief mate .

But, at last , he turned to his comrade , with a final sort of look

about him-"Captain Bildad -come , old shipmate , we must go.

Back the main-yard there ! Boat ahoy ! Stand by to come close

alongside , now! Careful, careful ! —come , Bildad , boy-say your

last . Luck to ye , Starbuck-luck to ye , Mr. Stubb-luck to ye ,

Mr. Flask-goodbye 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 percent 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 . Goodbye , goodbye ! 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 heavyhearted cheers, and blindly plunged
like fate into the lone Atlantic.
 XXIII
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 midwinter 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 !
 XXIV

THE ADVOCATE

As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of

whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be

regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and

disreputable pursuit; therefore , I am all anxiety to convince ye ,

ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of
whales.

In the first place , it may be deemed almost superfluous to

establish the fact , that among people at large , the business of

whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the

liberal professions . If a stranger were introduced into any

miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly

advance the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to

the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the

naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale

Fishery) to his visiting card , such a procedure would be deemed

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
battlefields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all
ladies’ plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the
popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure ye that
many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would
quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale’s vast tail,
fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the
comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked
terrors and wonders of God!
But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it
unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-
abounding adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and
candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many
shrines, to our glory!
But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of
scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.
Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s time have admirals of their
whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personal
expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite
to that town some score or two of families from our own island of
Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788
pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards of £1,000,000? And
lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now
outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world;
sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by
eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars;
the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000; and every
year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest of
$7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not something
puissant in whaling?
But this is not the half; look again.
I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for
his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the
last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole
broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty
business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events
so remarkable in themselves, and so continuously momentous in
their sequential issues, that whaling may well be regarded as
that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant
from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue
all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past the
whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest
and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and
archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver
had ever sailed. If American and European men-of-war now
peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to
the honor and glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed
them the way, and first interpreted between them and the
savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring
Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I say that scores
of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were
as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For
in their succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish
sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin
islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cook with
all his marines and muskets would not willingly have dared. All
that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages,
those things were but the lifetime commonplaces of our heroic
Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates
three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set
down in the ship’s common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!
Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but
colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on
between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish
provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first
broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching
those colonies; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly
shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the
liberation of Peru, Chile, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain,
and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.
That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia,
was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its
first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long
shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-
ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that
now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first
Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved
from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship
luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles
of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial
homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the
missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the
primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-
bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-
ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on
the threshold.
But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has
no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I
ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with
a split helmet every time.
 The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous
chronicler, you will say.
The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who
wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job!
And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who,
but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own
royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian
whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing
eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils;
they have no good blood in their veins.
No good blood in their veins? They have something better than
royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was
Mary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the
old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of
Folgers and harpooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—
this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to
the other.
Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not
respectable.
Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English
statutory law, the whale is declared “a royal fish.”
Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale himself has never figured
in any grand imposing way.
The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the
mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the
world’s capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from
the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the
cymballed procession.1
Grant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no
real dignity in whaling.
 No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very
heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more!
Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to
Queequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken
three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more
honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of
taking as many walled towns.
And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real
repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be
unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that,
upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left
undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my
creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I
prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for
a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
 XXV
POSTSCRIPT

In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught

but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an
advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable
surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause—such an
advocate, would he not be blameworthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,
even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them
for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state,
so called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the
salt, precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s
head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad.
Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its
interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be
ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal
process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and
contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells
of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil,
unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in
him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in
his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of
oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor
macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-
liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its
unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
 Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings
and queens with coronation stuff!
 XXVI
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket,

and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and
though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot
latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit.
Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like
bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general
drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his
state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen;
those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But
this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of
wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any
bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was
by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary. His pure tight skin
was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed
with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this
Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and
to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like
a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do
well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see
there the yet lingering images of those thousandfold perils he
had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man,
whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action,
and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety
and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times
affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all
the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued
with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his
life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to
that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems
rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from
ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were
his. And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul,
much more did his faraway 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 daredevil 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 sundown; nor for persisting in fighting
a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought
Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my
living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds
of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was
his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find
the torn limbs of his brother?
With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a
certain superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this
Starbuck which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed
have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a
man so organized, and with such terrible experiences and
remembrances as he had; it was not in nature that these things
should fail in latently engendering an element in him, which,
under suitable circumstances, would break out from its
confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might
be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid
men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with
seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational
horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific,
because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you
from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man.
But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the
complete abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I
have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay
shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem
detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools,
and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre
faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a
grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish
in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.
That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far
within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character
seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped
spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a
shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings against the
permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is not the
dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has
no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that
wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on
all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The great God
absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His
omnipresence, our divine equality!
If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I
shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round
them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the
most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the
exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman’s arm with some
ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set
of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just
Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of
humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great
democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict,
Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with
doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and
paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew
Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a warhorse;
who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all
Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest
champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God!
 XXVII

KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES

Stubb was the second mate . He was a native of Cape Cod ; and

hence, according to local usage , was called a Cape- Cod- man. A

happy- go- lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they

came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most

imminent crisis of the chase , toiling away, calm and 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 arrangement

of his part of the boat, as an old stage - driver is about the

snugness of his box. When close to the whale , in the very death-

lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and

offhandedly, 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

easygoing, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the

burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the

ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost
impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe.
For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the
regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have
expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without
his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck
in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he
turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one
from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them
again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead
of first putting his legs into his trousers, he put his pipe into his
mouth.
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at
least, of his peculiar disposition; for everyone knows that this
earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with
the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died
exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about
with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise,
against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have
operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.
The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s
Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious
concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great
leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and
therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy
them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense
of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and
mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of
any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor
opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified
mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little
circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in
order to kill and boil . This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of

his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he

followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage

round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of

time . As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought nails and

cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided . Little Flask was

one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They

called him King- Post on board of the Pequod; because , in form, he

could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that

name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many

radiating side timbers inserted into it , serves to brace the ship

against the icy concussions of those battering seas.

Now these three mates-Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were

momentous men . They it was who by universal prescription

commanded three of the Pequod's boats as headsmen . In that

grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably

marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three

headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with

their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of

lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers ofjavelins .

And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like

a Gothic Knight of old , is always accompanied by his boat - steerer

or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a

fresh lance , when the former one has been badly twisted , or

elbowed in the assault ; and moreover , as there generally subsists

between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is

therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the
Pequod's harpooneers were , and to what headsman each of them

belonged .

First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate , had

selected for his squire . But Queequeg is already known.

 Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the
most westerly promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there
still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has
long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of
her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by
the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego’s long, lean, sable
hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes—for an
Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their
glittering expression—all this sufficiently proclaimed him an
inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters,
who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow
in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer
snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego
now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the
unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow
of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs,
you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the
earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of
the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the
second mate’s squire.
Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-
black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread—an Ahasuerus to
behold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large
that the sailors called them ring-bolts, and would talk of
securing the topsail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had
voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay
on his native coast. And never having been anywhere in the
world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most
frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the
bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly
heedful of what manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained
all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the
decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a
corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man
standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a
fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo,
was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chessman beside
him. As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it said, that
at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men
before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are
Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein
it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the
American army and military and merchant navies, and the
engineering forces employed in the construction of the
American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all
these cases the native American liberally provides the brains,
the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No
small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores,
where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to
augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky
shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull
or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to receive the full
complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, they
drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but
Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all
Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not
acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato
living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated
along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis
Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of
the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the
world’s grievances before that bar from which not very many of
them ever come back. Black Little Pip—he never did—oh, no! he
went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod’s forecastle,
ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine; prelusive of
the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarterdeck on
high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in
glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!
 XXVIII
AHAB

For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches

was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each
other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the
contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship;
only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden
and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded
vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was there,
though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate
into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.
Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I
instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for
my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now
in the seclusion of the sea, became almost a perturbation. This
was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah’s
diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a
subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly
could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost
ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish
prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness
or uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, yet whenever I came to
look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to
cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the
great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish,
and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies
which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with,
still I ascribed this—and rightly ascribed it—to the fierce
uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation
in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially
the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates,
which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colourless
misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every
presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers
and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be
found, and they were every one of them Americans; a
Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas
when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had
biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it
to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude
which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all
its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less
lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the
transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through
the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy
rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the
forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the
taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran
apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarterdeck.
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 birthmark on him from crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me,
and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few
moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing
grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he
partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had
at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm
whale’s jaw. “Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,” said the old Gay-
Head Indian once; “but like his dismasted craft, he shipped
another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of
’em.”
I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon
each side of the Pequod’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the
mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an
inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one
arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood
erect, looking straight out beyond the ship’s ever-pitching prow.
There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate,
unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward
dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his
officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures
and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful,
consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not
only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a
crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing
dignity of some mighty woe.
Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his
cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the
crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory
stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less
gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less
and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home,
nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept
him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was
almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or
perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as
unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only
making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling
preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully
competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself,
to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one
interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his
brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile
themselves upon.
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of
the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to
charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked,
dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry,
misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-
cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to
welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a
little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More
than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in
any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
 XXIX

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 quarterdeck;

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 cannonball , Stubb," said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad

me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot . Below to thy

nightly grave ; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye

to the filling one at last . -Down , dog, and kennel ! "

Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so

suddenly scornful old man , Stubb was speechless a moment ; then

said excitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do

but less than half like it, sir."
 “Avast! ” gritted Ahab between his set teeth , and violently

moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.

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

"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule , and an ass,

and begone , or I'll clear the world of thee !"

As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such

overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily

retreated .

"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for

it," muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-

scuttle . "It's very queer . Stop , Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well

know whether to go back and strike him, or -what's that? -down

here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought
coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.

It's queer ; very queer; and he's queer too; aye , take him fore and

aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with . How

he flashed at me !-his eyes like powder- pans! is he mad? Anyway

there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be

something on a deck when it cracks . He ain't in his bed now,

either, more than three hours out of the twenty- four; and he

don't sleep then. Didn't that Dough -Boy, the steward , tell me

that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock clothes

all rumpled and tumbled , and the sheets down at the foot , and

the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of

frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it ? A hot old

man ! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience ;

it's a kind of Tic- Dolly- row they say-worse nor a toothache .

Well , well ; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me from

catching it. He's full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the

after hold for, every night , as Dough- Boy tells me he suspects ;

what's that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments
with him in the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no
telling, it's the old game -Here goes for a snooze . Damn me , it's

worth a fellow's while to be born into the world , if only to fall

right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the first

thing babies do , and that's a sort of queer, too . Damn me , but all

things are queer, come to think of ' em. But that's against my

principles. Think not , is my eleventh commandment; and sleep

when you can, is my twelfth-So here goes again. But how's that ?

didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey,

and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have

kicked me, and done with it . Maybe he did kick me , and I didn't
observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It

flashed like a bleached bone . What the devil's the matter with

me? I don't stand right on my legs . Coming afoul of that old man

has a sort of turned me wrong side out . By the Lord , I must have

been dreaming, though-How? how? how? -but the only way's to

stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, I'll

see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight."

 XXX
THE PIPE

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over
the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late,
calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory
stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp
and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat
and smoked.
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings
were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale.
How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones,
without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan
of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans
was Ahab.
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came
from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back
again into his face. “How now,” he soliloquized at last,
withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my
pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I
been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantly
smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such
nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the
strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this
pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild
white vapors among mild white 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.
 XXXI

QUEEN MAB

Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.

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

man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it ; and when I

tried to kick back, upon my soul , my little man , I kicked my leg

right off! And then, presto ! Ahab seemed a pyramid , and I , like a

blazing fool , kept kicking at it . But what was still more curious,

Flask-you know how curious all dreams are -through all this

rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself,

that after all , it was not much of an insult , that kick from Ahab.

'Why,' thinks I, ' what's the row? It's not a real leg, only a false

leg .' And there's a mighty difference between a living thump and

a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand , Flask,
fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane . The

living member -that makes the living insult , my little man . And

thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my

silly toes against that cursed pyramid -so confoundedly

contradictory was it all , all the while , I say, I was thinking to

myself, 'what's his leg now, but a cane -a whalebone cane . Yes,'

thinks I, ' it was only a playful cudgelling-in fact, only a

whaleboning that he gave me-not a base kick. Besides ,' thinks I ,

'look at it once ; why, the end of it -the foot part -what a small
sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me ,

there's a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled down to

a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the dream,

Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of

badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me

by the shoulders, and slews me round . 'What are you ' bout? ' says

he . Slid ! man, but I was frightened . Such a phiz ! But , somehow,

next moment I was over the fright . 'What am I about?' says I at

last . ' And what business is that of yours, I should like to know,

Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?' By the lord , Flask, I had no

sooner said that , than he turned round his stern to me , bent

over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a clout -what

do you think I saw? —why thunder alive , man , his stern was stuck

full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second

thoughts, ' I guess I won't kick you , old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said

he, 'wise Stubb; ' and kept muttering it all the time , a sort of

eating of his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't

going to stop saying over his ' wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I

might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again . But I had only

just lifted my foot for it, when he roared out, ' Stop that kicking!'
'Halloa , ' says I, 'what's the matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye

here ,' says he ; 'let's argue the insult . Captain Ahab kicked ye ,

didn't he?' 'Yes, he did ,' says I -‘ right here it was .' 'Very good,'

says he 'he used his ivory leg, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I.

'Well then,' says he , 'wise Stubb, what have you to complain of?
Didn't he kick with right good will ? it wasn't a common pitch

pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were kicked by a great

man , and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb . It's an honor ; I

consider it an honor . Listen, wise Stubb . In old England the

greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and

made garter-knights of; but, be your boast , Stubb, that ye were

kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I

say; be kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no

account kick back; for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb . Don't
you see that pyramid?' With that, he all of a sudden seemed

somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into the air . I

snored ; rolled over ; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what
do you think of that dream, Flask? "

“I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me , though .”

"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! "

"Masthead , 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."
 XXXII

CETOLOGY

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep ; but soon we shall

be lost in its unshored , harbourless immensities . Ere that come

to pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the

barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to

attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough

appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic

revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow.

It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad

genera, that I would now fain put before you . Yet is it no easy
task. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less

is here essayed . Listen to what the best and latest authorities

have laid down.

"No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is

entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, AD 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 , AD 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; Lacépède; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron
Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale;
Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead;
and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing
purpose all these have written, the above cited extracts will
show.
Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following
Owen ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real
professional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain
Scoresby. On the separate subject of the Greenland or right-
whale, he is the best existing authority. But Scoresby knew
nothing and says nothing of the great sperm whale, compared
with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy mentioning.
And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon
the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of
the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the
profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested
the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which
ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few
scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been
every way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic
allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the
Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of
the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation.
This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all—the Greenland
whale is deposed—the great sperm whale now reigneth!
 There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put
the living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the
remotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale’s
and Bennett’s; both in their time surgeons to English South-Sea
whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original
matter touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is
necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellent quality,
though mostly confined to scientific description. As yet,
however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not
complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales,
his is an unwritten life.
Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular
comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the
present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by
subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this
matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I
promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed
to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I
shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the
various species, or—in this place at least—to much of any
description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a
systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.
But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the
Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the
sea after them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable
foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful
thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this
leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appall 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, AD 1776, Linnaeus declares, “I
hereby separate the whales from the fish.” But of my own
knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad,
alewives and herring, against Linnaeus’s express edict, were still
found dividing the possession of the same seas with the
Leviathan.
The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished
the whales from the waters, he states as follows: “On account of
their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids,
their hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and
finally, “ex lege naturae jure meritoque.” I submitted all this to my
friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both
messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the
opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient.
Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.
Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old
fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy
Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point
is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish.
Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief, they are
these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless
and cold blooded.
Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals,
so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short,
then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have
him. However contracted, that definition is the result of
expanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but
the walrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last

term of the definition is still more cogent , as coupled with the

first . Almost anyone 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.2 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.

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 Foшo I present the "Sperm Whale "; of the

OCTAVO, the "Grampus"; of the DUODECIMO, the "Porpoise ."

FOLIOS . Among these I here include the following chapters:-1 ,

The "Sperm Whale "; II , the "Right Whale "; III , the " Finback

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

baptised . What then is the whale , which I include in the second

species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English

naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the
Baleine Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish
of the Swedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries
past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas;
it is the whale which the American fishermen have long pursued
in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor’ West Coast,
and various other parts of the world, designated by them Right
Whale Cruising Grounds.
Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland
whale of the English and the right whale of the Americans. But
they precisely agree in all their grand features; nor has there
yet been presented a single determinate fact upon which to
ground a radical distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based
upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments
of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The right
whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with
reference to elucidating the sperm whale.
BOOK I (“Folio”), CHAPTER III (“Finback”).—Under this head I
reckon a monster which, by the various names of Finback, 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 Finback resembles
the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter colour,
approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect,
formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His
grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his
name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four
feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of
an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not
the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated
fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface.
When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with
spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts
shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that
the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with
its style and wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the
shadow often goes back. The Finback 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 Finback
is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic
species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with
baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there would seem
to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little known.
Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales;
bunched whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are
the fishermen’s names for a few sorts.
In connection with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it
is of great importance to mention, that however such a
nomenclature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to
some kind of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear
classification of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen,
or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those marked
parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford
the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other
detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds,
presents. How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth;
these are things whose peculiarities are indiscriminately
dispersed among all sorts of whales, without any regard to what
may be the nature of their structure in other and more essential
particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked whale,
each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. Then, this
same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these
has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just
the same with the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts
of whales, they form such irregular combinations; or, in the case
of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation; as
utterly to defy all general methodization formed upon such a
basis. On this rock everyone 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 lighthearted of all the
whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than
any other of them.

Book I ("Folio"), CHAPTER V (" Razor Back") .-Of this whale little is

known but his name . I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn.

Of a retiring nature , he eludes both hunters and philosophers.

Though no coward , he has never yet shown any part of him but

his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge . Let him go . I know

little more of him, nor does anybody else .

Book I ("Folio") , CHAPTER VI ("Sulphur Bottom") .—Another

retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by

scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder

divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen him except

in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a

distance to study his countenance . He is never chased ; he would

run away with rope - walks of line . Prodigies are told of him.

Adieu , Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye,
nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

Thus ends Book I ("Folio") , and now begins Book II (“ Octavo”) .

OCTAVOES.3-These embrace the whales of middling magnitude ,

among which present may be numbered : -1 , the "Grampus "; II,

the "Black Fish"; III , the "Narwhale "; IV, the "Thrasher"; V, the
"Killer."

Book II (" Octavo"), CHAPTER I ("Grampus") .—Though this fish,

whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished

a proverb to landsmen , is so well known a denizen of the deep ,

yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all

the grand distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists

have recognised him for one . He is of moderate octavo size ,

varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length , and of

corresponding dimensions round the waist . He swims in herds;

he is never regularly hunted , though his oil is considerable in

quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his

approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great
sperm whale.

Book II ( "Octavo ") , CHAPTER II (“Black Fish ”) .—I give the popular

fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the

best . Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive , I

shall say so, and suggest another . I do so now, touching the Black

Fish, so- called , because blackness is the rule among almost all

whales. So, call him the Hyena Whale , if you please . His voracity

is well known, and from the circumstance that the inner angles

of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting

Mephistophelean grin on his face . This whale averages some

sixteen or eighteen feet in length . He is found in almost all

latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin

in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose . When

not more
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
swordfish and billfish; though some sailors tell me that the
Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the
sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer;
for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and
finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks
through. But you cannot prove either of these surmises to be
correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided horn
may really be used by the Narwhale—however that may be—it
would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in
reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the
Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He is
certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in
almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain
cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-
unicorn’s horn was in ancient days regarded as the great
antidote against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought
immense prices. It was also distilled to a volatile salts for
fainting ladies, the same way that the horns of the male deer are
manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in itself
accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that
Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when
Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a
window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the
Thames; “when Sir Martin returned from that voyage,” saith
Black Letter, “on bended knees he presented to her highness a
prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period
after hung in the castle at Windsor.” An Irish author avers that
the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to
her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the
unicorn nature.
 The Narwhale has a very picturesque , leopard - like look, being

of a milk-white ground colour , dotted with round and oblong

spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine ; but there is

little of it , and he is seldom hunted . He is mostly found in the

circumpolar seas.
Book II ( "Octavo ") , CHAPTER IV ( "Killer ") .—Of this whale little is

precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the

professed naturalist . From what I have seen of him at a distance ,

I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is

very savage -a sort of Fiji 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 “Mealymouthed

Porpoise ."

To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject,

it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly

exceeding four or five feet should be marshalled among WHALES -a

word, which, in the popular sense , always conveys an idea of

hugeness. But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are

infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a whale
is—i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal tail.
BOOK III (“Duodecimo”), CHAPTER I (“Huzza Porpoise”).—This is
the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name
is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of
porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I
call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which
upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps
in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed
with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably
come from the breezy billows to windward. They are the lads
that always live before the wind. They are accounted a lucky
omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding
these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly
gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise
will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and
delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It
is in request among jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on
their hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may
never have occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his
spout is so small that it is not very readily discernible. But the
next time you have a chance, watch him; and you will then see
the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.
BOOK III (“Duodecimo”), CHAPTER II (“Algerine Porpoise”).—A
pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is
somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same
general make. Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have
lowered for him many times, but never yet saw him captured.
BOOK III (“Duodecimo”), CHAPTER III (“Mealymouthed
Porpoise”).—The largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the
Pacific, so far as it is known. The only English name, by which he
has hitherto been designated, is that of the fishers—Right-Whale
Porpoise, from the circumstance that he is chiefly found in the
vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs in some degree from
the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly girth;
indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-like figure. He has
no fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely
tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-
mouth spoils all. Though his entire back down to his side fins is
of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a
ship’s hull, called the “bright waist,” that line streaks him from
stem to stern, with two separate colours, black above and white
below. The white comprises part of his head, and the whole of his
mouth, which makes him look as if he had just escaped from a
felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect! His
oil is much like that of the common porpoise.

Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as

the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all
the Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain,
fugitive, half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman,
I know by reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them
by their forecastle appellations; for possibly such a list may be
valuable to future investigators, who may complete what I have
here but begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be
caught and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into
this System, according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo
magnitude:—The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the
Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the
Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the
Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue
Whale; etc. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English authorities,
there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales, blessed
with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as altogether
obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds,
full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.
Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not
be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I
have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System
standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne
was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the
uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their
first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone
to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This
whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught.
Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
 XXXIII
THE SPECKSNYDER

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a

place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on
shipboard, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of
officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the
whale-fleet.
The large importance attached to the harpooneer’s vocation is
evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two
centuries and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not
wholly lodged in the person now called the captain, but was
divided between him and an officer called the Specksnyder.
Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time
made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the
captain’s authority was restricted to the navigation and general
management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting
department and all its concerns, the Specksnyder or Chief
Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery,
under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official
is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At
present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but
one of the captain’s more inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as
upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a
whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the American
Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, but under
certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the
command of the ship’s deck is also his; therefore the grand
political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally
live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way
distinguished as their professional superior; though always, by
them, familiarly regarded as their social equal.
Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at
sea, is this—the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-
ships and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters
with the captain; and so, too, in most of the American whalers
the harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is
to say, they take their meals in the captain’s cabin, and sleep in
a place indirectly communicating with it.
Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far
the longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the
peculiar perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing
among a company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their
profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck,
together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard
work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a
less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet,
never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family these
whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together; for all
that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarterdeck 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 quarterdeck 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 quarterdeck; 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 forever 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!
 XXXIV

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 mizzen 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

quarterdeck, 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 mizzentop for
a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains
visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by
bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin
doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and,
then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab’s
presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.
It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck
some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and
defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let
those very officers the next moment go down to their customary
dinner in that same commander’s cabin, and straightway their
inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him,
as he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes
most comical. Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps
not. To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon; and to have been
Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, therein certainly
must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he who in
the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own
private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s unchallenged
power and dominion of individual influence for the time; that
man’s royalty of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was
not the greatest. Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted
what it is to be Caesar. It is a witchery of social czarship which
there is no withstanding. Now, if to this consideration you
superadd the official supremacy of a ship-master, then, by
inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life
just mentioned.
Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned
sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but
still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited
to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet,
in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance.
With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man’s
knife, as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose
that for the world they would have profaned that moment with
the slightest observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the
weather. No! And when reaching out his knife and fork, between
which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned
Starbuck’s plate towards him, the mate received his meat as
though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started if,
perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it
noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For,
like the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German
Emperor profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so
these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful
silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade not conversation; only
he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to choking Stubb, when
a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And poor little
Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family
party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have
been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself,
this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first
degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never
more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest
world; nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And
had Flask helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so
much as noticed it. Least of all, did Flask presume to help
himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners of the ship
denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, sunny
complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in
such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore
was not for him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a
butterless man!
Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner,
and Flask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask’s dinner
was badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had
the start of him; and yet they also have the privilege of lounging
in the rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask,
happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms
of concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will
not get more than three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holy
usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was
that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he had
arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had
never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or
less. For what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep
it immortal in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have
forever departed from my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I
wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I
used to when I was before the mast. There’s the fruits of
promotion now; there’s the vanity of glory: there’s the insanity
of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere sailor of the Pequod
had a grudge against Flask in Flask’s official capacity, all that
sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, was to go
aft at dinnertime, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin
skylight, sitting silly and dumbfoundered 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 carefree license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of
those inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the
mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own
jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that
there was a report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their
bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such
portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out
the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale
Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk,
seemingly quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively
about it, if he did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then
Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by
darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo,
seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy’s memory by
snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great
empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began
laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was
naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this
bread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a
hospital nurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black
terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these
three savages, Dough-Boy’s whole life was one continual lip-
quiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished with
all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches
into his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them
through the blinds of its door, till all was over.
It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,
opposing his filed teeth to the Indian’s: crosswise to them,
Daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his
hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his
colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as
when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all
this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say
dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively
small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through
so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this
noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding
element of air; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the
sublime life of the worlds. Not by beef or by bread, are giants
made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric
smack of the lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so much so,
that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any
marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would
hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his
bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all but
shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his
sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the
harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other
weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would
ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not
at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget
that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have
been guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas!
Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon
cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm, but a
buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, the three
salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous, fable-
mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every
step, like Moorish scimitars in scabbards.
But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and
nominally lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in
their habits, they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes,
and just before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to
their own peculiar quarters.
In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most
American whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the
opinion that by rights the ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that
it is by courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time,
permitted there. So that, in real truth, the mates and
harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to have
lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it
was something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards
for a moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a
permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nor did they lose
much hereby; in the cabin was no companionship; socially, Ahab
was inaccessible. Though nominally included in the census of
Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as
the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when
Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods,
burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter
there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old
age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed
upon the sullen paws of its gloom!
 XXXV

THE MASTHEAD

It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation

with the other seamen my first masthead came round .

In most American whalemen the mastheads 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

mastheads 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 mastheads , 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 mastheads

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 masthead 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 masthead

standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among

archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for

astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the

peculiar stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices;
whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old
astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for
new stars; even as the lookouts 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-
mastheads; 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-
mastheads 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 mainmast 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
gunmetal, stands his masthead in Trafalgar Square; and ever
when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet given
that a hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, must be
fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson,
will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to
befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they
gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate
through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and
what rocks must be shunned.
 It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the
masthead 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 lookouts ascended by means of nailed cleats,
something as fowls go upstairs in a henhouse. 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 masthead, that
of a whale-ship at sea. The three mastheads are kept manned
from sunrise to sunset; 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
masthead; 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 masthead would amount to several entire months.
And it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote
so considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life,
should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy
inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of
feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry
box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug
contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your
most usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast,
where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to
whalemen) called the t’ gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by
the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on
a bull’s horns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your
house aloft with you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but properly
speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than the
unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy
tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move
out of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an
ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-
coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or
additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of
drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient
closet of your watch-coat.
Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the
mastheads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those
enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow’s-nests, in which the
lookouts 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 Rediscovery of the Lost Icelandic
Colonies of Old Greenland; in this admirable volume, all standers of
mastheads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial
account of the then recently invented crow’s-nest of the Glacier,
which was the name of Captain Sleet’s good craft. He called it
the Sleet’s crow’s-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original
inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false
delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our
own names (we fathers being the original inventors and
patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any
other apparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet’s crow’s-nest
is something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above,
however, where it is furnished with a movable side-screen to
keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the
summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a little trap-
hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of
the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for
umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in
which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other
nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his
masthead 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 counterbalanced 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

anyone else off duty whom I might find there ; then ascending a

little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the topsail yard ,

take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last

mount to my ultimate destination.

Let me make a clean breast of it here , and frankly admit that I

kept but sorry guard . With the problem of the universe

revolving in me, how could I -being left completely to myself at

such a thought-engendering altitude—how could I but lightly
hold my obligations to observe all whale-ships’ standing orders,
“Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time.”
And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye
shipowners 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
absentminded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of
earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold
not unfrequently perches himself upon the masthead 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

absentminded 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 shortsighted; 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 absentminded youth by the blending cadence of
waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the
mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue,
bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every
strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him;
every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form,
seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only
people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this
enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came;
becomes diffused through time and space; like Cranmer’s
sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore
the round globe over.
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted
by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the
sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this
dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at
all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian
vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest
weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that
transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise forever.
Heed it well, ye Pantheists!
 XXXVI
THE QUARTERDECK

(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 footprints—
the footprints 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 mainmast 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 shipboard except in some extraordinary case.
“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mastheads, 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 mainmast 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 fantail 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 sheepshearing; aye , Tashtego, and he

fantails like a split jib in a squall . Death and devils ! men , it is

Moby Dick ye have seen-Moby Dick-Moby Dick! "

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

thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise , but at

last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all

the wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick-but it

was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?"

"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye ,

Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that

dismasted me ; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I

stand on now. Aye, aye,” he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal
sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; “Aye, aye! it was that
accursed white whale that razed me; made a poor pegging
lubber of me forever 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
countinghouse the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to
every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my
vengeance will fetch a great premium here!”
“He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for?
methinks it rings most vast, but hollow.”
 "Vengeance on a dumb brute! ” cried Starbuck, "that simply

smote thee from blindest instinct ! Madness ! To be enraged with

a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous. ”

"Hark ye yet again-the little lower layer . All visible objects,

man, are but as pasteboard masks . But in each event -in the

living act, the undoubted deed —there , some unknown but still
reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from

behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike , strike through

the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by

thrusting through the wall ? To me , the white whale is that wall ,

shoved near to me . Sometimes I think there's naught beyond . But

'tis enough . He tasks me ; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous

strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it . That

inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate ; and be the white whale

agent, or be the white whale principal , I will wreak that hate

upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man ; I'd strike the sun if
it insulted me . For could the sun do that, then could I do the

other ; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy

presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even

that fair play. Who's over me ? Truth hath no confines. Take off

thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish

stare ! So, so; thou reddenest and palest ; my heat has melted thee
to anger- glow. But look ye , Starbuck, what is said in heat, that

thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are

small indignity. I meant not to incense thee . Let it go . Look! see

yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn-living, breathing

pictures painted by the sun . The Pagan leopards —the unrecking

and unworshipping things, that live ; and seek, and give no

reasons for the torrid life they feel ! The crew, man, the crew!

Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale?

See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilean! he snorts to think of

it. Stand up amid the general hurricane , thy one tossed sapling
cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to help
strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more?
From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all
Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-
hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I
see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! thy
silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside.) Something shot from my
dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is
mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”
“God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly.
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate,
Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low
laugh from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the
winds in the cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against
the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For again
Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of
life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds blew on; the
sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye
admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But
rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so
much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing
things within. For with little external to constrain us, the
innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.
“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab.
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the
harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then
ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons
in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their
lances, and the rest of the ship’s company formed a circle round
the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man
of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of
the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on
at their head in the trail of the bison; but , alas! only to fall into
the hidden snare of the Indian .

"Drink and pass! " he cried , handing the heavy charged flagon
to the nearest seaman . “The crew alone now drink. Round with

it, round ! Short draughts-long swallows, men; ' tis hot as Satan's
hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks

out at the serpent- snapping eye . Well done ; almost drained .

That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me-here's a hollow!

Men, ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone .

Steward, refill !

“Attend now, my braves . I have mustered ye all round this

capstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye

harpooneers, stand there with your irons; and ye , stout

mariners, ring me in , that I may in some sort revive a noble

custom of my fisherman fathers before me . O men, you will yet

see that -Ha ! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner.

Hand it me . Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again ,

wer't not thou St. Vitus' imp -away, thou ague !

"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me . Well

done ! Let me touch the axis . " So saying, with extended arm, he

grasped the three level , radiating lances at their crossed centre ;

while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them ;

meanwhile , glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb

to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless , interior

volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery

emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic

life . The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained , and

mystic aspect . Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the
honest eye of Starbuck fell downright .

"In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe , 'tis well . For did ye three

but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric

thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance , too , it
would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down
lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to
my three pagan kinsmen there—yon three most honorable
gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain the
task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars,
using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own
condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will
it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!”
Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood
with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet
long, held, barbs up, before him.
“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over!
know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye
cupbearers, 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.
 XXXVII
SUNSET

(The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.)
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,
where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my
track; let them; but first I pass.
Yonder, by 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 anthills 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 someone 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!
 XXXVIII
DUSK

(By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it.)

My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a
madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on
such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason
out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help
him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him;
tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man!
Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he would be a democrat to all
above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my
miserable office—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with
touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel
me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The
hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small
goldfish 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!
 XXXIX

FIRST NIGHT-WATCH

FORETOP .

(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)

Ha ! ha! ha! ha ! hem! clear my throat ! -I've been thinking over it

ever since , and that ha, ha's the final consequence . Why so?

Because a laugh's the wisest , easiest answer to all that's queer;

and come what will, one comfort's always left -that unfailing

comfort is , it's all predestinated . I heard not all his talk with

Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as

I the other evening felt . Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too .

I twigged it , knew it; had had the gift , might readily have

prophesied it -for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it .

Well, Stubb, wise Stubb-that's my title -well , Stubb, what of it ,

Stubb? Here's a carcase . I know not all that may be coming, but

be it what it will , I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as

lurks in all your horribles ! I feel funny. Fa , la ! lirra , skirra !

What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes

out? —Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say,

gay as a frigate's pennant, and so am I —fa , la ! lirra, skirra ! Oh—

We'll drink tonight 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.

 XL

MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE

HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS .

(Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and

lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)

Farewell and adieu to you , Spanish ladies !

Farewell and adieu to you , ladies of Spain !

Our captain's commanded.-

1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR.

Oh, boys, don't be sentimental ; it's bad for the digestion! Take a
tonic, follow me!

(Sings, and all follow.)

Our captain stood upon the deck,

A spy-glass in his hand,

A viewing of those gallant whales

That blew at every strand .

Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,

And by your braces stand ,

And we'll have one of those fine whales,

Hand, boys, over hand!

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

While the bold harpooner is striking the whale !

MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTERDECK .

Eight bells there , forward !

 2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR.

Avast the chorus! Eight bells there ! d'ye hear, bellboy? 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 tonight, maty; fat night for that . I mark this in

our old Mogul's wine ; it's quite as deadening to some as filliping

to others. We sing; they sleep -aye , lie down there , like ground-
tier butts. At ' em again! There , take this copper - pump , and hail

'em through it. Tell ' em to avast dreaming of their lasses . Tell

'em it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to

judgment. That's the way-that's it; thy throat ain't spoiled with
eating Amsterdam butter.

FRENCH SAILOR.

Hist, boys ! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in

Blanket Bay . What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand
by all legs! Pip ! little Pip ! hurrah with your tambourine !

PIP .

(Sulky and sleepy.) Don't know where it is.

FRENCH SAILOR.

Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say; merry's

the word; hurrah ! Damn me , won't you dance? Form, now,

Indian-file , and gallop into the double - shuffle? Throw

yourselves ! Legs! legs!

ICELAND SAILOR.
I don't like your floor , maty; it's too springy to my taste . I'm used

to ice -floors . I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject ; but
excuse me .

MALTESE SAILOR.

Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his left

hand by his right , and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I
must have partners !

SICILIAN SAILOR .

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

grasshopper !

LONG-ISLAND SAILOR .

Well , well , ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when
you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon . Ah ! here comes the
music; now for it!

AZORE SAILOR.

(Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.) Here you are ,

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

(The halfof them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep or lie

among the coils ofrigging. Oaths aplenty.)

AZORE SAILOR.

(Dancing.) Go it, Pip ! Bang it , bellboy ! Rig it , dig it, stig it , quig it,

bellboy! Make fireflies; break the jinglers!

PIP .

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

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

FRENCH SAILOR.

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

jibs ! tear yourselves !

TASHTEGO .

(Quietly smoking.) That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph ! I

save my sweat .

OLD MANX SAILOR.

I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are

dancing over. I'll dance over your grave , I will -that's the

bitterest threat of your night -women, that beat headwinds

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 .

3RD NANTUCKET SAILOR.

Spell oh! -whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a

calm -give us a whiff, Tash.

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

LASCAR SAILOR.

By Brahma ! boys, it'll be douse sail soon . The sky-born, high- tide

Ganges turned to wind ! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva !

MALTESE SAILOR .

(Reclining and shaking his cap.) It's the waves-the snow's caps turn
to jig it now. They'll shake their tassels soon. Now would all the
waves were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them

evermore! There's naught so sweet on earth-heaven may not

match it ! —as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the

dance , when the over - arboring arms hide such ripe , bursting

grapes.

SICILIAN SAILOR.

(Reclining.) Tell me not of it ! Hark ye , lad -fleet interlacings of

the limbs-lithe swayings-coyings-flutterings ! lip ! heart ! hip !

all graze : unceasing touch and go! not taste , observe ye, else

come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)

TAHITAN SAILOR.

(Reclining on a mat.) Hail , holy nakedness of our dancing girls! -the

Heeva - Heeva ! Ah ! low veiled , high palmed Tahiti ! I still rest me

on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid ! I saw thee woven in the

wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence ; now worn

and wilted quite . Ah me ! —not thou nor I can bear the change !

How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring

streams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down

the crags and drown the villages?-The blast ! the blast ! Up,

spine , and meet it ! (Leaps to his feet.)

PORTUGUESE SAILOR.

How the sea rolls swashing ' gainst the side ! Stand by for reefing,

hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell - mell they'll go

lunging presently.

DANISH SAILOR.

Crack, crack, old ship ! so long as thou crackest , thou holdest !

Well done ! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more

afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat , put there to fight the Baltic

with storm -lashed guns, on which the sea - salt cakes !

 4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR.

He has his orders, mind ye that . I heard old Ahab tell him he

must always kill a squall , something as they burst a waterspout

with a pistol-fire your ship right into it !

ENGLISH SAILOR.

Blood ! but that old man's a grand old cove ! We are the lads to

hunt him up his whale !

ALL.

Aye! aye !

OLD MANX SAILOR .

How the three pines shake ! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to

live when shifted to any other soil , and here there's none but the

crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman ! steady. This is the sort of

weather when brave hearts snap ashore , and keeled hulls split at

sea . Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's
another in the sky-lurid -like , ye see , all else pitch black.

DAGGOO .

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

out of it!

SPANISH SAILOR.

(Aside.) He wants to bully, ah! -the old grudge makes me touchy.

(Advancing.) Aye , harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark

side of mankind -devilish dark at that . No offence .

DAGGOO (grimly).
None .

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

working.

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR.

What's that I saw-lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR.

No; Daggoo showing his teeth .

DAGGOO (springing) .
Swallow thine , mannikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (meeting him).

Knife thee heartily! big frame , small spirit !

ALL.

A row! a row! a row!

TASHTEGO (with a whiff).

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

Humph!

BELFAST SAILOR.

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

ye !

ENGLISH SAILOR.

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

OLD MANX SAILOR.

Ready formed . There ! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain

struck Abel . Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God , mad'st
thou the ring?
 MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTERDECK .

Hands by the halyards ! in topgallant sails ! Stand by to reef

topsails !

ALL .

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

PIP (shrinking under the windlass.)

Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the jib-

stay! Blang- whang! God ! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal

yard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods , the last day of

the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they

go, all cursing, and here I don't . Fine prospects to ' em; they're on
the road to heaven . Hold on hard ! Jimmini , what a squall ! But

those chaps there are worse yet-they are your white squalls,

they. White squalls? white whale , shirr ! shirr ! Here have I heard

all their chat just now, and the white whale -shirr ! shirr ! -but

spoken of once ! and only this evening-it makes me jingle all

over like my tambourine -that anaconda of an old man swore

' em in to hunt him ! Oh, thou big white God aloft there

somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy

down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to

feel fear !
 XLI
MOBY DICK

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the
rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I
shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of
the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was
in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I
learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I
and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge.
For some time past, though at intervals only, the
unaccompanied, secluded White Whale had haunted those
uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale
fishermen. But not all of them knew of his existence; only a few
of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him; while the
number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to
him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whale-
cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire
watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing
their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a
whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single
news-telling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each
separate voyage; the irregularity of the times of sailing from
home; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect,
long obstructed the spread through the whole worldwide
whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning
Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels
reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such
or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and
malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his
assailants, had completely escaped them; to some minds it was
not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in question must
have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm
Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent
instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster
attacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly
gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most
part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more,
as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than
to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous
encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been
popularly regarded.
And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale,
by chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they
had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered
for him, as for any other whale of that species. But at length,
such calamities did ensue in these assaults—not restricted to
sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring
amputations—but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those
repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their
terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the
fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White
Whale had eventually come.
Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the
more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For
not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body
of all surprising terrible events—as the smitten tree gives birth
to its fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra
firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate
reality for them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in
this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of
maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the
rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are
whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and
superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they
are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with
whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they
not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to
them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed a
thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not
come to any chiseled hearthstone, or aught hospitable beneath
that part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing
too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by
influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a
mighty birth.
No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere
transit over the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of
the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all
manner of morbid hints, and half-formed foetal suggestions of
supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick
with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly
appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally strike,
that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White
Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils
of his jaw.
But there were still other and more vital practical influences
at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige of
the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other
species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen
as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though
intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the
Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from
professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline
a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of
whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing
under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered
the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is
restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the
North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a
childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of
Southern whaling. Nor is the 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 lance at such an apparition as
the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it,
would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this
head, there are some remarkable documents that may be
consulted.
Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these
things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater
number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely,
without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without
superstitious accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to
flee from the battle if offered.
One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be
linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously
inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was
ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite
latitudes at one and the same instant of time.
Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit
altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability.
For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been
divulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways
of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great
part, unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time have
originated the most curious and contradictory speculations
regarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes
whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself
with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points.
It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-
ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years
ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north
in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of
harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid,
that in some of these instances it has been declared that the
interval of time between the two assaults could not have
exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been
believed by some whalemen, that the Nor’ West Passage, so long
a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that
here, in the real living experience of living men, the prodigies
related in old times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal
(near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks
of ships floated up to the surface); and that still more wonderful
story of the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whose waters were
believed to have come from the Holy Land by an underground
passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by
the realities of the whalemen.
Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and
knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale
had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that
some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions;
declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for
immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears
should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away
unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick
blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in
unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied
jet would once more be seen.
But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was
enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the
monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it
was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished
him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown
out—a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high,
pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features; the
tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he
revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled
with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his
distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed,
literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high
noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of
creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.
Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue,
nor yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale
with natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity
which, according to specific accounts, he had over and over
again evinced in his assaults. More than all, his treacherous
retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught else. For,
when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every
apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to
turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave
their boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to
their ship.
Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though
similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no
means unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such
seemed the White Whale’s infernal aforethought of ferocity, that
every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly
regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.
Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the
minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid
the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn
comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale’s
direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled
on, as if at a birth or a bridal.
 His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both
whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from
his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas
duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach
the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And
then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw
beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower
a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired
Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming
malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since
that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild
vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his
frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only
all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual
exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the
monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which
some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on
with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity
which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the
modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the
ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil;—
Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously
transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted
himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and
torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with
malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all
the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab,
were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby
Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the
general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down;
and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot
heart’s shell upon it.
 It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant
rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in
darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a
sudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received
the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing
bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision
forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and
weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one
hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling
Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul
bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That it
was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter,
that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from
the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving
lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength
yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified
by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even
there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a straitjacket, he
swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into
more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread,
floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the
old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn
swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed
light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front,
however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his
mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even
then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is
oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it
fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler
form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly
contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble
Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the
Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not
one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that
broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had
perished. That before living agent, now became the living
instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy
stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its
concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from
having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a
thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to
bear upon any one reasonable object.
This is much; yet Ahab’s larger, darker, deeper part remains
unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is
profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this
spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand—however grand and
wonderful, now quit it;—and take your way, ye nobler, sadder
souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath
the fantastic towers of man’s upper earth, his root of grandeur,
his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buried
beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken
throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid,
he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled
entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder
souls! question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he
did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire
only will the old State-secret come.
Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all
my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without
power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that
to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But
that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his
perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well
did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he
stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise
than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the
terrible casualty which had overtaken him.
The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise
popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added
moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in
the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor
is it so very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness for
another whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, the
calculating people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor
the conceit, that for those very reasons he was all the better
qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of rage and
wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and
scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some
incurable idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the
very man to dart his iron and lift his lance against the most
appalling of all brutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be
corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem
superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to
the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the
mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him,
Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one
only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had
any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of
what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast and
righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish
man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the profit to be
counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an
audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.
Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing
with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew,
too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and
cannibals -morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere
unaided virtue or right - mindedness in Starbuck, the

invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb,

and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered ,

seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to

help him to his monomaniac revenge . How it was that they so

aboundingly responded to the old man's ire-by what evil magic

their souls were possessed , that at times his hate seemed almost
theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his ;

how all this came to be -what the White Whale was to them, or

how to their unconscious understandings, also , in some dim,

unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great

demon of the seas of life —all this to explain, would be to dive

deeper than Ishmael can go . The subterranean miner that works

in us all , how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever

shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the

irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can

stand still ? For one , I gave myself up to the abandonment of the

time and the place ; but while yet all a- rush to encounter the
whale , could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill .
 XLII
THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE

What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at
times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.
Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby
Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul
some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague,
nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity
completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and
well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a
comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that
above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain
myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I
must, else all these chapters might be naught.
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly
enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own,
as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations
have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this
hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title
“Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other
magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of
Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal
standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a
snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian,
heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the
same imperial hue; and though this preeminence 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.4
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.5
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 marketplace!
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 appalls the gazer, is the marble
pallor lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like
the badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal
trepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow
the expressive hue of the shroud in which we wrap them. Nor
even in our superstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy
mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a milk-white
fog—Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even the
king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his
pallid horse.
Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or
gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its
profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar
apparition to the soul.
But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal
man to account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can
we, then, by the citation of some of those instances wherein this
thing of whiteness—though for the time either wholly or in great
part stripped of all direct associations calculated to impart to it
aught fearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the
same sorcery, however modified;—can we thus hope to light
upon some chance clue to conduct us to the hidden cause we
seek?
Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to
subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another
into these halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of the
imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been
shared by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of
them at the time, and therefore may not be able to recall them
now.
Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but
loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does
the bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long,
dreary, speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, downcast
and hooded with new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread,
unsophisticated Protestant of the Middle American States, why
does the passing mention of a White Friar or a White Nun, evoke
such an eyeless statue in the soul?
Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned
warriors and kings (which will not wholly account for it) that
makes the White Tower of London tell so much more strongly on
the imagination of an untravelled American, than those other
storied structures, its neighbors—the Byward Tower, or even the
Bloody? And those sublimer towers, the White Mountains of New
Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, comes that gigantic
ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of that name, while
the thought of Virginia’s Blue Ridge is full of a soft, dewy, distant
dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and longitudes,
does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness over
the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal
thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves,
followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to
choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the
fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does
“the tall pale man” of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor
unrustlingly glides through the green of the groves—why is this
phantom more terrible than all the whooping imps of the
Blocksburg?
Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-
toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas;
nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of
her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and
crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her
suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a
tossed pack of cards;—it is not these things alone which make
tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou canst 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 forever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of
complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid
pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.
I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of
whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating
the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative
mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose
awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one
phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all
approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean by these
two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the
following examples.
First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign
lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance,
and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties;
but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called
from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight
sea of milky whiteness—as if from encircling headlands shoals of
combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a
silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom of the
whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the
lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they
both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again.
Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, “Sir, it was not so
much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that
hideous whiteness that so stirred me?”
Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the
snow-howdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except,
perhaps, in the mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness
reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a
fearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes.
Much the same is it with the backwoodsman of the West, who
with comparative indifference views an unbounded prairie
sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig to break the
fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the
scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal
trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering
and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and
solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard
grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and splintered
crosses.
But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about
whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou
surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael.
Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful
valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey—why is it
that upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe
behind him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild
animal muskiness—why will he start, snort, and with bursting
eyes paw the ground in frenzies of affright? There is no
remembrance in him of any gorings of wild creatures in his
green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he smells
cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of
former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the
black bisons of distant Oregon?
No: but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct
of the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though
thousands of miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage
musk, the rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the
deserted wild foal of the prairies, which this instant they may be
trampling into dust.
Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak
rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate
shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to
Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened
colt!
Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which
the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the
colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its
aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible
spheres were formed in fright.
But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness,
and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and
more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it
is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the
very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the
intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.
Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless
voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from
behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the
white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence
whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour;
and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these
reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a
wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism from
which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the
natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately
or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and
woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the
butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle 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, forever remains white or colorless in
itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would
touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank
tinge—pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a
leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear
coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched
infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that
wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the
Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
 XLIII

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 freshwater butts

in the waist , to the scuttlebutt near the taffrail . In this manner,

they passed the buckets to fill the scuttlebutt . Standing, for the

most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarterdeck, 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 ! "

 XLIV
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 logbooks 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 forever 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 anyone 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.6
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 mastheads, 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 wayside, antecedent, extra prospects were his,
ere a particular set time or place were attained, when all
possibilities would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly
thought, every possibility the next thing to a certainty. That
particular set time and place were conjoined in the one
technical phrase—the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then,
for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically
descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its
annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of
the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters
with the white whale had taken place; there the waves were
storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot where the
monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his
vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and
unloitering vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul
into this unfaltering hunt, he would not permit himself to rest
all his hopes upon the one crowning fact above mentioned,
however flattering it might be to those hopes; nor in the
sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his unquiet
heart as to postpone all intervening quest.
Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very
beginning of the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then
could enable her commander to make the great passage
southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running down sixty
degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time to
cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing
season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod’s sailing had,
perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this
very complexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred
and sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval which,
instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a
miscellaneous hunt; if by chance the White Whale, spending his
vacation in seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds,
should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the
Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his
race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor’-Westers, Harmattans,
Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby
Dick into the devious zigzag world-circle of the Pequod’s
circumnavigating wake.
But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly,
seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless
ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be
thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even
as a white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of
Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby
Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable.
And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself,
as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he would
throw himself back in reveries—tallied him, and shall he escape?
His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep’s
ear! And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race;
till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and
in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength.
Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is
consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with
clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his
palms.
Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and
intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own
intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a
clashing of frenzies, and whirled them round and round and
round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot
became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the
case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its
base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked
flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him
to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned
beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and
with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as
though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps,
instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent
weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest
tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the
scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale;
this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that
so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the
eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for
the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at
other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it
spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of
the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an
integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the
soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s case, yielding
up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that
purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against
gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of
its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common
vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the
unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit
that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed
from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless
somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but
without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in itself.
God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in
thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a
Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; that
vulture the very creature he creates.
 XLV

THE AFFIDAVIT

So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and ,

indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and

curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing

chapter, in its earlier part , is as important a one as will be 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 cipher, have been taken from the

body. In the instance where three years intervened between the

flinging of the two harpoons; and I think it may have been

something more than that; the man who darted them happening,

in the interval , to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa ,

went ashore there , joined a discovery party, and penetrated far

into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two
years, often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous
miasmas, with all the other common perils incident to
wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the
whale he had struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt
it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks
all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this
whale again came together, and the one vanquished the other. I
say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that is
in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second
attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them,
afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance,
it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and
the last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole
under the whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years
previous. I say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than
that. Here are three instances, then, which I personally know the
truth of; but I have heard of many other instances from persons
whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to
impeach.
Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery,
however ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have
been several memorable historical instances where a particular
whale in the ocean has been at distant times and places
popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was
not altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as
distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar in that
respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his
peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a
peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the
fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of
perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo
Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to
recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he
would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without
seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some
poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man,
they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street,
lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might
receive a summary thump for their presumption.
But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great
individual celebrity—Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown;
not only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle
stories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights,
privileges, and distinctions of a name; had as much a name
indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou
famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long did’st lurk
in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen
from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand
Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the
vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of
Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of
a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel!
thou Chilean 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 tomorrow at your breakfast? No: because
the mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In
fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct
or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you that upon one
particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many
others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had
had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three
that had each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical
with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn , but at least

one drop of man's blood was spilled for it .

Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that

a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have

ever found that when narrating to them some specific example

of this twofold enormousness, they have significantly

complimented me upon my facetiousness ; when, I declare upon

my soul , I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, when

he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt .

But fortunately the special point I here seek can be

established upon testimony entirely independent of my own.

That point is this : The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently

powerful , knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with direct

aforethought to stave in , utterly destroy, and sink a large ship ;

and what is more , the Sperm Whale has done it .

First : In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard , of

Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw

spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm

whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded ; when,

suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued

from the shoal , and bore directly down upon the ship . Dashing

his forehead against her hull , he so stove her in, that in less than
"ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving

plank of her has been seen since . After the severest exposure ,

part of the crew reached the land in their boats . Being returned

home at last , Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in

command of another ship , but the gods shipwrecked him again

upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship

was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea , he has never
tempted it since . At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of

Nantucket . I have seen Owen Chace , who was chief mate of the

Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and
faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this
within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.7
Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year
1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the
authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to
encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then
heard casual allusions to it.
Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——,
then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class,
happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on
board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands.
Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased
to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them
by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied
for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war
as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but
there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail
in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on
the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’
confidential business with him. That business consisted in
fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his
pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave
down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the
Commodore’s interview with that whale as providential. Was not
Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell
you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.
I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little
circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer
hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to
the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s famous Discovery Expedition
in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus
begins his seventeenth chapter:
 “By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the
next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh.
The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that
we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we
had very little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk
gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommon large whale,
the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at
the surface of the water, but was not perceived by anyone 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
everyone 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 cuttlefish-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 .
 XLVI

SURMISES

Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose , Ahab in all

his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture

of Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal

interests to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that

he was by nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery

whaleman's ways, altogether to abandon the collateral

prosecution of the voyage . Or at least if this were otherwise ,

there were not wanting other motives much more influential
with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even

considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness

towards the White Whale might have possibly extended itself in

some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he

slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each

subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated

one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed

exceptionable , there were still additional considerations which,

though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling

passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him .

To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools

used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of

order . He knew, for example , that however magnetic his

ascendency in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that
ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any more
than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual

mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand

in a sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s
coerced will were Ahab’s, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at
Starbuck’s brain; still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in
his soul, abhorred his captain’s quest, and could he, would
joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It
might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale
was seen. During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt
to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his captain’s
leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial
influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the
subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more
significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and
shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should
in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness
which naturally invested it; that the full terror of the voyage
must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few
men’s courage is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved
by action); that when they stood their long night watches, his
officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than
Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage
crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of
all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable—they live in
the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness—and
when retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit,
however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all
things requisite that temporary interests and employments
should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the
final dash.
Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong
emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times
are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the
manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that
the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew,
and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain
generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it
they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their
more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and
chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two
thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without
committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious
perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one
final and romantic object—that final and romantic object, too
many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these
men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash—aye, cash. They may
scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective
promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at
once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.
Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive
more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is
probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the
prime but private purpose of the Pequod’s voyage, Ahab was now
entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid
himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with
perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed,
and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to
him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From
even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the
possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining
ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect
himself. That protection could only consist in his own
predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by a heedful,
closely calculating attention to every minute atmospheric
influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected to.
 For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to
be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still
in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose
of the Pequod’s voyage; observe all customary usages; and not
only that, but force himself to evince all his well known
passionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the
three mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright
lookout, and not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance
was not long without reward.
 XLVII
THE MAT-MAKER

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily

lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-
coloured waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving
what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat.
So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the
scene, and such an incantation of reverie lurked in the air, that
each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the
mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of
marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand
for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and
anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly
looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove
home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did there then
reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the
intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this
were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically
weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed
threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning,
unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to
admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its
own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my
own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into
these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg’s impulsive,
indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or
crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by
this difference in the concluding blow producing a
corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed
fabric; this savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes
and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword
must be chance—aye, chance, free will, and necessity—no 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 lookouts
perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that
accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as
from Tashtego the Indian’s.
As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly
and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have
thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of
Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming.
 "There she blows! there ! there ! there ! she blows! she blows! "

"Where- away?"
"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them! "

Instantly all was commotion .

The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks , with the same

undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen

distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus.

"There go flukes! " was now the cry from Tashtego; and the
whales disappeared .

"Quick, steward !" cried Ahab. "Time! time !"

Dough- Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported

the exact minute to Ahab.

The ship was now kept away from the wind , and she went

gently rolling before it . Tashtego reporting that the whales had

gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see

them again directly in advance of our bows . For that singular

craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when , sounding with

his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed

beneath the surface , mills round, and swiftly swims off in the
opposite quarter-this deceitfulness of his could not now be in

action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen
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 mainmast 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.
 XLVIII

THE FIRST LOWERING

The phantoms, for so they then seemed , were flitting on the

other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were

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 trousers 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 subtlety, 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 , offhanded daring, unknown in

any other vocation , the sailors , goat- like, leaped down the
rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below.

Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee , when a

fourth keel , coming from the windward side , pulled round under

the stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who,

standing erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and

Flask, to spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse

of water . But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart

Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not
the command.

"Captain Ahab?—” said Starbuck.

"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats .

Thou , Flask, pull out more to leeward!"

“Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King- Post , sweeping round
his great steering oar . “Lay back! " addressing his crew. “There ! —

there ! there again! There she blows right ahead, boys ! -lay
back!"

"Never heed yonder yellow boys , Archy."

“Oh, I don't mind ' em, sir,” said Archy; "I knew it all before
now. Didn't I hear ' em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here

of it? What say ye , Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask. ”

“Pull , pull , my fine hearts- alive ; pull, my children; pull , my

little ones ," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew,

some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you

break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at ? Those

chaps in yonder boat? Tut ! They are only five more hands come

to help us never mind from where -the more the merrier . Pull ,

then, do pull ; never mind the brimstone -devils are good fellows
enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke for a

thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah

for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men—all

hearts alive ! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry-don't be in a hurry.

Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you
dogs! So, so, so, then: -softly, softly! That's it -that's it ! long and

strong. Give way there , give way! The devil fetch ye , ye

ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep . Stop snoring, ye
sleepers, and pull . Pull , will ye? pull , can't ye? pull , won't ye?

Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger - cakes don't ye pull?—

pull and break something! pull , and start your eyes out ! Here ! "

whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's

son of ye draw his knife , and pull with the blade between his

teeth. That's it—that's it . Now ye do something; that looks like it,

my steel-bits. Start her -start her, my silver- spoons! Start her,

marlinspikes ! "

Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large , because he

had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general , and

especially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not

suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew

into downright passions with his congregation . Not at all ; and

therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most

terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of

fun and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a

spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such queer

invocations without pulling for dear life , and yet pulling for the

mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and
indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering- oar , and so

broadly gaped -open-mouthed at times-that the mere sight of

such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast , acted like

a charm upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd

sort of humorists , whose jollity is sometimes so curiously

ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of

obeying them .

In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling

obliquely across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the

two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.

"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there , ahoy! a word with ye , sir ,

if ye please !"

“Halloa ! ” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch

as he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his

face set like a flint from Stubb's.

"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir! "

“Smuggled on board , somehow, before the ship sailed . (Strong,

strong, boys!) " in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud

again: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my

lads! ) but never mind , Mr. Stubb, all for the best . Let all your

crew pull strong, come what will . (Spring, my men, spring ! )

There's hogsheads of sperm ahead , Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye

came for. (Pull , my boys ! ) Sperm , sperm's the play! This at least

is duty; duty and profit hand in hand .”

"Aye , aye, I thought as much, " soliloquized Stubb, when the

boats diverged , “as soon as I clapt eye on ' em, I thought so . Aye ,
and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as

Dough- Boy long suspected . They were hidden down there . The

White Whale's at the bottom of it . Well , well , so be it ! Can't be

helped ! All right ! Give way, men ! It ain't the White Whale today!
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 masthead of some ship which

had sunk to all but her trucks . But little King - Post was small and

short, and at the same time little King- Post was full of a large

and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead standpoint of his did

by no means satisfy King- Post.

“I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there , and let me on
to that. "

Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to

steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself
volunteered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal .
“Good a masthead as any, sir . Will you mount?"

"That I will , and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I

wish you fifty feet taller."

Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite

planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little ,

presented his flat palm to Flask's foot , and then putting Flask's
hand on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he
himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little
man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now
standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a
breastband to lean against and steady himself by.
At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what
wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will
maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about
by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more
strange to see him giddily perched upon the loggerhead itself,
under such circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted
upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining
himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric
majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously
rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask
seemed a snowflake. 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 frenzy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give
way!—there they are!”
To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would
have been visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of
greenish white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering
over it, and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused
scud from white rolling billows. The air around suddenly
vibrated and tingled, as it were, like the air over intensely
heated plates of iron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and
curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of water, also, the
whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other
indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their
forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders.
All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of
troubled water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew
on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid
stream from the hills.
“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible
but intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp
fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow,
almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle
compasses. He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his
crew say anything to him. Only the silence of the boat was at
intervals startlingly pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now
harsh with command, now soft with entreaty.
How different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say
something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach
me, beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and
I’ll sign over to you my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys;
including wife and children, boys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord,
Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white
water!” And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and
stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it far off

upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the

boat's stern like a crazed colt from the prairie .

"Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who,

with his unlighted short pipe , mechanically retained between

his teeth, at a short distance , followed after-"He's got fits, that

Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fits-that's the very word -pitch fits

into ' em . Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive . Pudding for supper, you

know; -merry's the word . Pull , babes-pull , sucklings -pull, all .

But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly, and

steadily, my men. Only pull , and keep pulling; nothing more .

Crack all your backbones, and bite your knives in two—that's all .

Take it easy-why don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your
livers and lungs! "

But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow

crew of his-these were words best omitted here ; for you live

under the blessed light of the evangelical land . Only the infidel

sharks in the audacious seas may give ear to such words, when,

with tornado brow, and eyes of red murder, and foam-glued lips,
Ahab leaped after his prey.

Meanwhile , all the boats tore on. The repeated specific

allusions of Flask to "that whale ," as he called the fictitious

monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his

boat's bow with its tail-these allusions of his were at times so

vivid and lifelike , that they would cause some one or two of his
men to snatch a fearful look over the shoulder. But this was

against all rule ; for the oarsmen must put out their eyes, and

ram a skewer through their necks ; usage pronouncing that they

must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but arms, in these
critical moments .

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of

the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made , as they
rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a
boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat,
as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the
sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two;
the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the
keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill;
the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;—all these, with
the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering
gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod
bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild
hen after her screaming brood;—all this was thrilling. Not the
raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever
heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering
the first unknown phantom in the other world;—neither of these
can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who
for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed,
churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.
The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming
more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the
dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no
longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the
whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled
more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead
to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind,
we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through the
water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough
to escape being torn from the rowlocks.
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.
 XLIX

THE HYENA

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange

mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe

for a vast practical joke , though the wit thereof he but dimly

discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's

expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing

seems worth while disputing . He bolts down all events, all

creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and

invisible , never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent

digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints . And as for small

difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of

life and limb; all these , and death itself, seem to him only sly,

good- natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the

unseen and unaccountable old joker . That odd sort of wayward

mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of

extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his

earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a

thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke .

There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and

easy sort of genial , desperado philosophy; and with it I now

regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White
Whale its object.

"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me , the last man,

to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off

the water; "Queequeg, my fine friend , does this sort of thing

often happen?" Without much emotion, though soaked through

just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did often

happen.

“Mr. Stubb, ” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up

in his oil -jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain ;

"Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you

ever met, our chief mate , Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful

and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale

with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's

discretion?"

"Certain . I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale

off Cape Horn ."

"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King- Post , who was

standing close by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am

not . Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this

fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling
himself back- foremost into death's jaws?"

"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the law.

I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale

face foremost . Ha , ha ! the whale would give them squint for

squint , mind that!"

Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate

statement of the entire case . Considering, therefore , that squalls

and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the

deep, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life ;

considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on

to the whale I must resign my life into the hands of him who
steered the boat -oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is

in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with

his own frantic stampings; considering that the particular

disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed to

Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall ,

and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for

his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged
to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat; and finally
considering in what a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching
the White Whale: taking all things together, I say, I thought I
might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.
“Queequeg,” said I, “come along, you shall be my lawyer,
executor, and legatee.”
It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering
at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the
world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in
my nautical life that I had done the same thing. After the
ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the
easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the
days I should now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus
lived after his resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so
many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived myself;
my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked round
me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean
conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.
Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of
my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and
destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.
 L

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 plughole with my timber toe . Oh! he's a wonderful old man! "

"I don't think it so strange , after all , on that account," said

Flask. "If his leg were off at the hip , now, it would be a different

thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee , and good

part of the other left, you know. "

"I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel .”

Among whale - wise people it has often been argued whether,

considering the paramount importance of his life to the success

of the voyage , it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that

life in the active perils of the chase . So Tamerlane's soldiers

often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable

life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight .

But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect .

Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all

times of danger ; considering that the pursuit of whales is always

under great and extraordinary difficulties ; that every individual

moment , indeed, then comprises a peril; under these

circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a

whaleboat in the hunt? As a general thing, the joint- owners of

the Pequod must have plainly thought not.

 Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think
little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless
vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of
action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to
have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman
in the hunt—above all for Captain Ahab to be supplied with five
extra men, as that same boat’s crew, he well knew that such
generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the
Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s crew from them,
nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head.
Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching
all that matter. Until Cabaco’s published discovery, the sailors
had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little
while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary
business of fitting the whaleboats for service; when some time
after this Ahab was now and then found bestirring himself in the
matter of making tholepins 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 semicircular 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 whatnot; that
Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into
the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any
unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.
But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the
subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew,
though still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that
hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last.
Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of
unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with
Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a
half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been
even authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot
sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a
creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone
only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of
whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic
communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the
continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries,
which even in these modern days still preserve much of the
ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the
memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men
his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as
real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they
were created and to what end; when though, according to
Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men,
the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in
mundane amours.
 LI
THE SPIRIT-SPOUT

Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had
slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the
Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off
the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an
unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St. Helena.
It was while gliding through these latter waters that one
serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like
scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made
what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent
night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at
the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some
plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first
descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to
mount to the mainmast head, and stand a lookout 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, moonlit 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 masthead 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 forever 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 foam-flakes flew
over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went
away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.
Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither
and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the
inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our
stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings,
for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they
deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing
appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for
their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly
heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and
the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the
long sin and suffering it had bred.
Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoso,
as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that
before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this
tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls
and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly
without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any
horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its
fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before,
the solitary jet would at times be descried.
During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though
assuming for the time the almost continual command of the
drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve;
and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous
times like these, after everything above and aloft has been
secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the
issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical
fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole,
and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and
hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional
squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes
together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of
the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows,
stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to
guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself
into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in
a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent
ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore

on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac

waves. By night the same muteness of humanity before the

shrieks of the ocean prevailed ; still in silence the men swung in

the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up to the blast . Even

when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not

seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget

the old man's aspect , when one night going down into the cabin
to mark how the barometer stood , he saw him with closed eyes

sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-

melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before

emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat .

On the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides

and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern
swung from his tightly clenched hand . Though the body was

erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were

pointed towards the needle of the telltale that swung from a

8
beam in the ceiling.Ⓡ

Terrible old man ! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping

in this gale , still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose .

 LII

THE ALBATROSS

Southeastward 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 foremast- 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 hoarfrost . Only her lower sails

were set . A wild sight it was to see her long -bearded lookouts at

those three mastheads. 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 mastheads 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 lookouts , while the quarterdeck hail
was being heard from below.

"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?"

But as the strange captain , leaning over the pallid bulwarks,

was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow

fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain,
he in vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his
ship was still increasing the distance between. While in various
silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their
observance of this ominous incident at the first mere mention of
the White Whale’s name to another ship, Ahab for a moment
paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a
boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind
forbade. But taking advantage of his windward position, he again
seized his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger
vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly
hailed—“Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world!
Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific ocean! and
this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address
them to ———”
At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and
instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of
small harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly
swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed
shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the
stranger’s flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyagings
Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any
monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry
meanings.
“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over
into the water. There seemed but little in the words, but the
tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old
man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who
thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish her
headway, he cried out in his old lion voice—“Up helm! Keep her
off round the world!”
 Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud
feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct?
Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we
started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the
time before us.
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we
could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more
sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon,
then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those
far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon
phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human
hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either
lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
 LIII

THE GAM

The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the

whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened
storms. But even had this not been the case , he would not after

all , perhaps, have boarded her-judging by his subsequent

conduct on similar occasions-if so it had been that, by the

process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the

question he put . For, as it eventually turned out , he cared not to

consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except

he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly

sought . But all this might remain inadequately estimated , were

not something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling- vessels

when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a

common cruising-ground .

If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State ,

or the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England ; if casually

encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain,

for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and

stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps,

sitting down for a while and resting in concert : then, how much

more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and

Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each

other at the ends of the earth-off lone Fanning's Island , or the

far away King's Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under

such circumstances these ships should not only interchange

hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and sociable
contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of course,
in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains,
officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each
other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to
talk about.
For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has
letters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have
some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on
her blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that
courtesy, the outward-bound ship would receive the latest
whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to which she may
be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And in
degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels
crossing each other’s track on the cruising-ground itself, even
though they are equally long absent from home. For one of them
may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now
far remote vessel; and some of those letters may be for the
people of the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange
the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat. For not only
would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but likewise
with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common
pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils.
Nor would difference of country make any very essential
difference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as
is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from
the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very
often occur, and when they do occur there is too apt to be a sort
of shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather
reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing
in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes
affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American
whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his
nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where
this superiority in the English whalemen does really consist, it
would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day,
collectively, kill more whales than all the English, collectively, in
ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in the English whale-
hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart;
probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself.
So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the
whalers have most reason to be sociable—and they are so.
Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other’s wake in the
mid-Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single
word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high
seas, like a brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time
indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other’s rig. As
for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go
through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a
ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-
down hearty goodwill 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 crossbones,
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
villainous 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 suchlike pretty

exclamations . Why it is that all Merchant - seamen, and also all

Pirates and Man- of-War's men, and Slave - ship sailors, cherish
such a scornful feeling towards Whale - ships ; this is a question it

would be hard to answer . Because , in the case of pirates , say, I

should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any

peculiar glory about it . It sometimes ends in uncommon

elevation , indeed ; but only at the gallows. And besides , when a

man is elevated in that odd fashion , he has no proper foundation

for his superior altitude . Hence , I conclude , that in boasting

himself to be high lifted above a whaleman , in that assertion the

pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index -finger

running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find

the word. Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah

Webster's ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same

expressive word has now for many years been in constant use

among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees . Certainly, it

needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon.

With that view, let me learnedly define it.

GAM. NOUN —A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a

cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by

boats 'crews: the two captains remaining, for the time, on board ofone ship,

and the two chiefmates 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 whaleboat 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 whaleboat 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 trousers’ 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.
 LIV

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 mainmast. Interweaving in
its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly
narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now
proceed to put on lasting record.
For my humor’s sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once
narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends,
one saint’s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the
Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and
Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the
interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly
answered at the time.
“Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I
am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm
Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very
many days’ sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn.
She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One 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 swordfish 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 landlocked 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
freshwater seas of ours—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and
Superior, and Michigan—possess an ocean-like expansiveness,
with many of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed
varieties of races and of climes. They contain round
archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters
do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as
the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our
numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round
their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, and
by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard
the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield
their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash
from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are
flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines
stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same
woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures
whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror
the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as
Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant
ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech
canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful
as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are,
for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full
many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus,
gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born,
and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as
any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him
down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea;
though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic
and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and
full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the
latitudes of buck-horn handled Bowie knives. Yet was this
Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this
Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might
yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common
decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave’s right;
thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and
docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was
doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall
hear.
“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after
pointing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho’s leak
seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or
more at the pumps every day. You must know that in a settled
and civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers
think little of pumping their whole way across it; though of a
still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget
his duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his
shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all
hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and
savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it
altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-
handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length;
that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other
reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky
vessel is in some very out of the way part of those waters, some
really landless latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little
anxious.
“Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak
was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small
concern manifested by several of her company; especially by
Radney the mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well
hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way expanded to the
breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a coward, and
as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness
touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on
land or on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen.
Therefore when he betrayed this solicitude about the safety of
the ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only on
account of his being a part owner in her. So when they were
working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no
small gamesomeness slyly going on among them, as they stood
with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear
water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen—that bubbling
from the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in

steady spouts at the lee scupper- holes .

"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this

conventional world of ours-watery or otherwise ; that when a

person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them

to be very significantly his superior in general pride of

manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an
unconquerable dislike and bitterness ; and if he have a chance he

will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower , and make a

little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may,

gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal

with a head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the

tasseled housings of your last viceroy's snorting charger; and a

brain , and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had

made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to

Charlemagne's father . But Radney, the mate , was ugly as a mule ;

yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious . He did not love Steelkilt ,

and Steelkilt knew it .

"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump

with the rest , the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but

unawed , went on with his gay banterings .

“ Aye , aye , my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a

cannikin, one of ye , and let's have a taste . By the Lord , it's worth

bottling! I tell ye what , men, old Rad's investment must go for it!

he had best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home . The

fact is, boys, that swordfish only began the job; he's come back
again with a gang of ship- carpenters, sawfish, and filefish, and

whatnot; and the whole posse of ' em are now hard at work

cutting and slashing at the bottom; making improvements, I

suppose . If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump

overboard and scatter ' em. They're playing the devil with his

estate , I can tell him. But he's a simple old soul -Rad , and a
beauty too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in

looking- glasses . I wonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the

model of his nose .'

" Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared
Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder

away at it!'

“ Aye , aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket . ‘Lively, boys,

lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-

engines; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that

peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes the

fullest tension of life's utmost energies.

"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band , the

Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the

windlass; his face fiery red , his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the

profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was ,

gentlemen , that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in

that corporeally exasperated state , I know not ; but so it

happened . Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate

commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and
also a shovel , and remove some offensive matters consequent

upon allowing a pig to run at large .

"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of

household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly

attended to every evening; it has been known to be done in the

case of ships actually foundering at the time . Such, gentlemen, is

the inflexibility of sea- usages and the instinctive love of

neatness in seamen; some of whom would not willingly drown

without first washing their faces . But in all vessels this broom

business is the prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be

aboard. Besides , it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had

been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being

the most athletic seaman of them all , Steelkilt had been

regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he
should have been freed from any trivial business not connected

with truly nautical duties, such being the case with his
comrades. I mention all these particulars so that you may

understand exactly how this affair stood between the two men .
"But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was

almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though

Radney had spat in his face . Any man who has gone sailor in a

whale - ship will understand this; and all this and doubtless much

more , the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered

his command . But as he sat still for a moment, and as he

steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived

the stacks of powder- casks heaped up in him and the slow - match

silently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all

this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the

deeper passionateness in any already ireful being—a repugnance

most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when

aggrieved this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over

Steelkilt .

“Therefore , in his ordinary tone , only a little broken by the

bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him

saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would

not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel , he

pointed to three lads as the customary sweepers; who , not being

billeted at the pumps , had done little or nothing all day. To this,

Radney replied with an oath, in a most domineering and

outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command ;

meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman , with an

uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a
cask near by.

"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the

pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the
sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate;
but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him,
without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at
last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches
of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding.
“Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass,
steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer,
deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however,
that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and
unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off the
foolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose. And in this
way the two went once slowly round the windlass; when,
resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had
now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the
Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer:
“‘Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or
look to yourself.’ But the predestinated mate coming still closer
to him, where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy
hammer within an inch of his teeth; meanwhile repeating a
string of insufferable maledictions. Retreating not the
thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye with the
unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his right
hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his
persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt)
would murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded
for the slaughter by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched
the cheek; the next instant the lower jaw of the mate was stove
in his head; he fell on the hatch spouting blood like a whale.
“Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the
backstays leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were
standing their mastheads. They were both Canallers.
 “ Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whale-

ships in our harbours, but never heard of your Canallers . Pardon :

who and what are they?'

" Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie
Canal . You must have heard of it .'

" Nay, Señor; 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 sidelight 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 barroom; through the holy- of-

holies of great forests; on Roman arches over Indian rivers;

through sun and shade ; by happy hearts or broken ; through all

the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk counties;

and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires

stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of

Venetianly corrupt and often lawless life . There's your true

Ashantee , gentlemen; there howl your pagans; where you ever

find them, next door to you; under the long- flung shadow, and
the snug patronising lee of churches. For by some curious

fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters

that they ever encamp around the halls of justice , so sinners,

gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities .

" Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards

into the crowded piazza , with humorous concern .

" Well for our northern friend , Dame Isabella's Inquisition

wanes in Lima ,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed , Señor .'

 “‘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 forever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too, Venice; I have
been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. Mark!—
St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you
pour out again.’
“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller
would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and
picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days
along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly
toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot
thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is
dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly
sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand
features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages
through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are
not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I
have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank
him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of
the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at
times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as
to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness
of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild
whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates,
and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so
much distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all
diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands
of our rural boys and young men born along its line, the
probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition
between quietly reaping in a Christian cornfield, and recklessly
ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.
“‘I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his
chicha upon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s
one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate North the
generations were cold and holy as the hills.—But the story.’
“I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay.
Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three
junior mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to
the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two
Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man
out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with
them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while
standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain danced up and
down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle
that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the
quarterdeck. 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 cutthroats!’
“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
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

quarterdeck. Twice every day for three days this was repeated ;
but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and then a
scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered;
and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they
were ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a
famishing diet, united perhaps to some fears of ultimate
retribution, had constrained them to surrender at discretion.
Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his demand to the
rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to stop his
babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth
morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air
from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain them.
Only three were left.
“‘Better turn to, now?’ said the Captain with a heartless jeer.
“‘Shut us up again, will ye!’ cried Steelkilt.
“‘Oh! certainly,’ said the Captain, and the key clicked.
“It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection
of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice
that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment
in a place as black as the bowels of despair; it was then that
Steelkilt proposed to the two Canallers, thus far apparently of
one mind with him, to burst out of their hole at the next
summoning of the garrison; and armed with their keen mincing
knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle at each
end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any
devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself,
he would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That
was the last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme
met with no opposition on the part of the other two; they swore
they were ready for that, or for any other mad thing, for
anything in short but a surrender. And what was more, they each
insisted upon being the first man on deck, when the time to
make the rush should come. But to this their leader as fiercely
objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly as his
two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the
matter; and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would
but admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play
of these miscreants must come out.
“Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his
own separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the
same piece of treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out,
in order to be the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to
surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon
such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his
determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by
some subtle chemistry of villainy, mixed their before secret
treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze,
verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences; and
bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; and
shrieked out for the Captain at midnight.
“Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the
blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for
the forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and,
bound hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved
up into the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the
honor of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder. But
all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like dead
cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging,
like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning.
‘Damn ye,’ cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, ‘the
vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!’
“At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who
had rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he
told the former that he had a good mind to flog them all round—
thought, upon the whole, he would do so—he ought to—justice
demanded it; but for the present, considering their timely

surrender, he would let them go with a reprimand , which he

accordingly administered in the vernacular .

“ But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men

in the rigging-'for you , I mean to mince ye up for the try- pots ;'
and, seizing a rope , he applied it with all his might to the backs

of the two traitors , till they yelled no more , but lifelessly hung

their heads sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn .

" My wrist is sprained with ye ! ' he cried , at last; 'but there is

still rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give
up. Take that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can

say for himself.'

"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous

motion of his cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round

his head, said in a sort of hiss, ' What I say is this—and mind it

well -if you flog me , I murder you !'

" Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me ' -and the Captain

drew off with the rope to strike .

" Best not,' hissed the Lakeman.

" But I must,'—and the rope was once more drawn back for the
stroke .

"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the

Captain; who, to the amazement of all hands , started back, paced

the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing
down his rope , said , 'I won't do it -let him go-cut him down:
d'ye hear?'

"But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a

pale man, with a bandaged head, arrested them-Radney the

chief mate . Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that

morning, hearing the tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and
thus far had watched the whole scene . Such was the state of his

mouth , that he could hardly speak; but mumbling something

about his being willing and able to do what the captain dared not

attempt , he snatched the rope and advanced to his pinioned foe .

" You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman.

“ So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of

striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused :

and then pausing no more , made good his word, spite of

Steelkilt's threat , whatever that might have been. The three

men were then cut down, all hands were turned to , and , sullenly
worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as before .

"Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a

clamor was heard in the forecastle ; and the two trembling

traitors running up, besieged the cabin door , saying they durst

not consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not

drive them back, so at their own instance they were put down in

the ship's run for salvation . Still, no sign of mutiny reappeared

among the rest . On the contrary, it seemed , that mainly at

Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain the

strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last , and , when the

ship reached port , desert her in a body. But in order to insure

the speediest end to the voyage , they all agreed to another

thing—namely, not to sing out for whales, in case any should be

discovered. For , spite of her leak, and spite of all her other

perils, the Town-Ho still maintained her mastheads, and her

captain was just as willing to lower for a fish that moment , as on

the day his craft first struck the cruising ground; and Radney the

mate was quite as ready to change his berth for a boat, and with

his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the vital jaw of the
whale .

"But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt

this sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel

(at least till all was over) concerning his own proper and private
revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ventricles of his
heart. He was in Radney the chief mate's watch; and as if the

infatuated man sought to run more than half way to meet his

doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted , against the

express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head of his

watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances,

Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge .

"During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting

on the bulwarks of the 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 foreordaining

soul of Steelkilt , the mate was already stark and stretched as a

corpse, with his forehead crushed in.

"But , gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the

bloody deed he had planned . Yet complete revenge he had, and

without being the avenger . For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven

itself seemed to step in to take out of his hands into its own the
damning thing he would have done .

"It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of

the second day, when they were washing down the decks, that a

stupid Teneriffe man, drawing water in the main- chains, all at

once shouted out , 'There she rolls! there she rolls ! ' Jesu , what a

whale ! It was Moby Dick.

" Moby Dick! ' cried Don Sebastian; ' St. Dominic ! Sir sailor , but

do whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?'

" A very white , and famous , and most deadly immortal

monster, Don; -but that would be too long a story.'

" How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards , crowding.

" Nay, Dons, Dons-nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let

me get more into the air, Sirs.'

" The chicha! the chicha! ' cried Don Pedro; ' our vigorous
friend looks faint ;-fill up his empty glass!'

"No need, gentlemen ; one moment, and I proceed . —Now,

gentlemen, so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty

yards of the ship -forgetful of the compact among the crew-in

the excitement of the moment, the Teneriffe man had

instinctively and involuntarily lifted his voice for the monster,

though for some little time past it had been plainly beheld from

the three sullen mastheads . All was now a frenzy. 'The White
Whale—the White Whale!’ was the cry from captain, mates, and
harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all
anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the
dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty
of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun,
shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea.
Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole career of these
events, as if verily mapped out before the world itself was
charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and when
fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney stood
up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the line, at
the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were
lowered, the mate’s got the start; and none howled more fiercely
with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a
stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney
sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a
boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale’s
topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up,
through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till
of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and
keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he
fell on the whale’s slippery back, the boat righted, and was
dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the
sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the
spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil,
wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But
the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the
swimmer between his jaws; and rearing high up with him,
plunged headlong again, and went down.
“Meantime, at the first tap of the boat’s bottom, the Lakeman
had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool;
calmly looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden,
terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife
to the line. He cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some
distance, Moby Dick rose again, with some tatters of Radney’s red
woollen shirt, caught in the teeth that had destroyed him. All
four boats gave chase again; but the whale eluded them, and
finally wholly disappeared.
“In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port—a savage,
solitary place—where no civilized creature resided. There,
headed by the Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen
deliberately deserted among the palms; eventually, as it turned
out, seizing a large double war-canoe of the savages, and setting
sail for some other harbor.
“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the
captain called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious
business of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to such
unresting vigilance over their dangerous allies was this small
band of whites necessitated, both by night and by day, and so
extreme was the hard work they underwent, that upon the
vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a weakened
condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so
heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he
anchored the ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out
his two cannon from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop;
and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at their
peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his best
whaleboat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five
hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew.
“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried,
which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered
away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon
the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run
him under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot
on each prow of the yoke war - canoes , the Lakema laughed him
d n
to scorn ; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the

lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam .

" What do you want of me?' cried the captain.

" Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?'
demanded Steelkilt; ' no lies .'
" I am bound to Tahiti for more men.'

" Very good. Let me board you a moment -I come in peace .'

With that he leaped from the canoe , swam to the boat ; and

climbing the gunwale , stood face to face with the captain.

" Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head . Now, repeat after
me . As soon as Steelkilt leaves me , I swear to beach this boat on

yonder island , and remain there six days . If I do not, may

lightnings strike me! '

"A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. ' Adios, Señor!' 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 coconut 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 forever 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 whaleboat

arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more
civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea .

Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to

his vessel; and finding all right there , again resumed his
cruisings .
"Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the

island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea

which refuses to give up its dead ; still in dreams sees the awful
white whale that destroyed him ....

“ Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly.

“ I am, Don.'

" Then I entreat you , tell me if to the best of your own

convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so

passing wonderful ! Did you get it from an unquestionable

source ? Bear with me if I seem to press.'

“ Also bear with all of us, sir sailor ; for we all join in Don

Sebastian's suit ,' cried the company, with exceeding interest .

" Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn ,

gentlemen?'

" Nay,' said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by,

who will quickly procure one for me . I go for it ; but are you well
advised? this may grow too serious .'

" Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?'

“ Though there are no Auto - da- Fés in Lima now,' said one of
the company to another; ' I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the

archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight . I

see no need of this .'

" Excuse me for running after you , Don Sebastian; but may I

also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized

Evangelists you can .'

" This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don

Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure .

" Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest , further into

the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it .

" So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told

ye, gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true . I know it

to be true; it happened on this ball ; I trod the ship ; I knew the
crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of

Radney.""
 LV

OF THE MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES

I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas,

something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears

to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the

whale is moored alongside the whale - ship so that he can be

fairly stepped upon there . It may be worth while, therefore ,

previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him

which even down to the present day confidently challenge the

faith of the landsman . It is time to set the world right in this

matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong.

It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial

delusions will be found among the oldest Hindu , Egyptian , and

Grecian sculptures . For ever since those inventive but

unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of temples,

the pedestals of statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and

coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain- armor like

Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St. George's; ever since then

has something of the same sort of license prevailed , not only in

most popular pictures of the whale , but in many scientific

presentations of him.

Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways

purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous

cavern- pagoda of Elephanta , in India . The Brahmins maintain

that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial

pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation

of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came

into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble
profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth.
The Hindu whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of
the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of
leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this
sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of
the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong. It looks
more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the broad palms
of the true whale’s majestic flukes.
But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian
painter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the
antediluvian Hindu. 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 bookbinder’s whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock
of a descending anchor—as stamped and gilded on the backs and
title-pages of many books both old and new—that is a very
picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it,
from the like figures on antique vases. Though universally
denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this bookbinder’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, AD 1671, entitled A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in
the Ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, Master. In one of
those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented
lying among ice-isles, with white bears running over their living
backs. In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of
representing the whale with perpendicular flukes.
Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one
Captain Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled A
Voyage Round Cape Horn Into the South Seas, for the Purpose of Extending
the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries. In this book is an outline purporting
to be a Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti Whale, Drawn by Scale from
One Killed on the Coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and Hoisted on Deck. I
doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the
benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me
say that it has an eye which applied, according to the
accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make
the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my
gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of that
eye!
 Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History
for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same
heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work Goldsmith’s
Animated Nature. In the abridged London edition of 1807, there
are plates of an alleged “whale” and a “narwhale.” I do not wish
to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an
amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is
enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a
hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent
public of schoolboys.
Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a
great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book,
wherein are several pictures of the different species of the
Leviathan. All these are not only incorrect, but the picture of the
Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say, the Right whale),
even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching that species,
declares not to have its counterpart in nature.
But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business
was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the
famous Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in
which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale.
Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best
provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word,
Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a
squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage
(such men seldom have), but whence he derived that picture,
who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in
the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions;
that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with
the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers
inform us.
 As for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging
over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They
are generally Richard III whales, with dromedary humps, and
very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is
whaleboats full of mariners: their deformities floundering in
seas of blood and blue paint.
But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so
very surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific
drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; and these are
about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken
back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its
undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood
for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly
floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full
majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in
unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of
sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element
it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him
bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and
undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable
difference of contour between a young sucking whale and a full-
grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the case of one of those
young sucking whales hoisted to a ship’s deck, such is then the
outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that his
precise expression the devil himself could not catch.
But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the
stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true
form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about
this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his
general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, which hangs
for candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly
conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman,
with all Jeremy’s other leading personal characteristics; yet
nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan’s
articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere
skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully
invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis
that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly
evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be
incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side
fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the
human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular
bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all
these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the
human fingers in an artificial covering. “However recklessly the
whale may sometimes serve us,” said humorous Stubb one day,
“he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens.”
For all these reasons, then, anyway you may look at it, you
must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one
creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.
True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another,
but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of
exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely
what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you
can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going
a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of
being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to
me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching
this Leviathan.
 LVI

OF THE LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES OF WHALES, AND THE TRUE PICTURES

OF WHALING SCENES

In connection with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am

strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous

stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both

ancient and modern , especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt ,

Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass that matter by.

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm

Whale ; Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In

the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to.

Huggins's is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is

the best . All Beale's drawings of this whale are good , excepting

the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various

attitudes, capping his second chapter . His frontispiece , boats

attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite

the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and

lifelike 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, shellfish,
and other sea candies and macaroni, which the Right Whale
sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the
thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons
of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight
boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-
wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging
commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the
glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of
the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a
conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from
the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for
it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else
marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The
French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the
paintings of Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of
living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal
hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell,
through the consecutive great battles of France; where every
sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive
armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned
centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are
these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.
The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the
picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what
paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes.
With not one tenth of England’s experience in the fishery, and
not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have
nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished
sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale
hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale
draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the
mechanical outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the
whale; which, so far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is
about tantamount to sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even
Scoresby, the justly renowned Right whaleman, after giving us a

stiff full length of the Greenland whale , and three or four

delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a

series of classical engravings of boat hooks , chopping knives, and

grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck

submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety- six
facsimiles of magnified Arctic snow crystals . I
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 someone who

subscribes himself "H. Durand . " One of them , though not

precisely adapted to our present purpose , nevertheless deserves

mention on other accounts. It is a quiet noon- scene among the

isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored , inshore , in a calm,

and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails of the ship ,

and the long leaves of the palms in the background , both

drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine ,

when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy

fishermen under one of their few aspects of oriental repose . The

other engraving is quite a different affair: the ship hove - to upon

the open sea, and in the very heart of the Leviathanic life , with a

Right Whale alongside ; the vessel (in the act of cutting- in) hove

over to the monster as if to a quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing

off from this scene of activity, is about giving chase to whales in

the distance . The harpoons and lances lie levelled for use ; three
oarsmen are just setting the mast in its hole ; while from a

sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands half- erect out of the

water, like a rearing horse . From the ship , the smoke of the

torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a

village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up
with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of
the excited seamen.
 LVII

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 forever 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

Whalebone , 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 jackknives 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
seashell or a shark’s tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden
network 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 jackknife, he will carve you a bit of
bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in
its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles’s shield; and
full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that
fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.
Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark
slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with
in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done
with much accuracy.
At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass
whales hung by the tail for knockers to the roadside 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 standpoint, else so chance-like are such
observations of the hills, that your precise, previous standpoint
would require a laborious rediscovery; like the Soloma Islands,
which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed Mendanna
trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.
Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to
trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in
pursuit of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the
Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds.
Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the
Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined
him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have
boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry
Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying
Fish .

With a frigate's anchors for my bridle -bitts and fasces of

harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the
topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their

countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight !

 LVIII
BRIT

Steering northeastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast

meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the
Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated
round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless
fields of ripe and golden wheat.
On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who,
secure from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with
open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to
the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their
mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that
escaped at the lip.
As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly
advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy
meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy,
cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue
upon the yellow sea.10
But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit
which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mastheads,
especially when they paused and were stationary for a while,
their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock
than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of
India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the
plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such,
taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so,
often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the
leviathans of the sea . And even when recognised at last , their

immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that

such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all

parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures

of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore .
For though some old naturalists have maintained that all

creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though

taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be ;

yet coming to specialties, where , for example, does the ocean

.

furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious

kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic

respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.

But though , to landsmen in general , the native inhabitants of

the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably

unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an

everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over

numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial

western one ; though, by vast odds , the most terrific of all mortal

disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens

and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the

waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that

however baby man may brag of his science and skill , and

however much, in a flattering future , that science and skill may

augment ; yet forever and forever, 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
forever; 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 offspring; worse than the Persian
host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures
which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in
the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the
mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side
by side with the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its
own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed
that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, 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!
 LIX
SQUID

Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held
on her way northeastward 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 mainmast-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 reappearing 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 yardarms, as in
swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bareheaded in the
sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand

pushed far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the

helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft

by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary

jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now

prepared to connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the

first sight of the particular whale he pursued ; however this was ,

or whether his eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might

have been, no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass,

than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance , and

all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and
while , with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance ,

lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose .

Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we

now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret

seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass,

furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream- colour , lay

floating on the water , innumerable long arms radiating from its

centre , and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if

blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No

perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of

either sensation or instinct ; but undulated there on the billows,

an unearthly, formless, chance - like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again,

Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk,

with a wild voice exclaimed-" Almost rather had I seen Moby

Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee , thou white ghost ! "
"What was it, Sir?" said Flask.

"The great live squid, which, they say, few whale - ships ever

beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it ."

 But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the
vessel; the rest as silently following.
Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have
connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a
glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone
far to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that
though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated
thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most
vague ideas concerning its true nature and form;
notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale
his only food. For though other species of whales find their food
above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the
spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below
the surface; and only by inference is it that anyone 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 cuttlefish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects
it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.
 LX
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 whaleboat is like critical ice , which will bear up a

considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a

concentrated one . When the painted canvas cover is clapped on

the American line - tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off

with a prodigious great wedding- cake to present to the whales.

Both ends of the line are exposed ; the lower end terminating

in an eye -splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the

side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged

from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary

on two accounts. First : In order to facilitate the fastening to it of

an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken

whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire

line originally attached to the harpoon . In these instances, the

whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale , as it were , from the

one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at
hand to assist its consort . Second: This arrangement is

indispensable for common safety's sake ; for were the lower end

of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale

then to run the line out to the end almost in a single , smoking

minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there , for the

doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into

the profundity of the sea ; and in that case no town-crier would

ever find her again.

Before lowering the boat for the chase , the upper end of the
line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead

there , is again carried forward the entire length of the boat,

resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so

that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between

the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales , to the

leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the

boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common quill ,

prevents it from slipping out . From the chocks it hangs in a

slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat

again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box- line ) being

coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the

gunwale still a little further aft , and is then attached to the

short-warp -the rope which is immediately connected with the

harpoon; but previous to that connection , 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, ever-present
perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the
whaleboat, 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.
 LXI

STUBB KILLS A WHALE

If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents,

to Queequeg it was quite a different object .

"When you see him ' quid," said the savage , honing his harpoon
in the bow of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him ' parm
whale ."

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with

nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly

resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea . For this

part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging

is not what whalemen call a lively ground ; that is, it affords

fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying fish, and other

vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio

de la Plata, or the inshore 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 mizzenmast -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 immediate
ly
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.11

"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take

plenty of time -—but start her; start her like thunderclaps, 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 ofyour clutch .
"Wet the line! wet the line !" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman
.

(him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat , dashed
12
seawater 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.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the

upper part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a
harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keels -one

cleaving the water , the other the air-as the boat churned on

through both opposing elements at once . A continual cascade

played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake ; and,

at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little finger,

the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale

into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main
clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the
tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost
double, in order to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole
Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their way,
till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight.
“Haul in—haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing
round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to
him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by
his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat,
darted dart after dart into the flying fish; at the word of
command, the boat alternately sterning out of the way of the
whale’s horrible wallow, and then ranging up for another fling.
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like
brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in
blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their
wake. The slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the
sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all
glowed to each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet
of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the
whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the
excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked
lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and
again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and
again sent it into the whale.
“Pull up—pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the
waning whale relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up!—close to!” and the
boat ranged along the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the
bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and
kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously
seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have
swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could
hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life

of the fish . And now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into

that unspeakable thing called his “flurry," the monster horribly

wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable ,

mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly

dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that

frenzied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out

into view; surging from side to side ; spasmodically dilating and

contracting his spout- hole , with sharp , cracking, agonized

respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore , as if it

had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air;

and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks
into the sea. His heart had burst!

"He's dead , Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo .

"Yes; both pipes smoked out ! " and withdrawing his own from
his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water ; and ,

for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had

made .
 LXII
THE DART

A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.

According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whaleboat
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 everyone 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 shoul