MOBYDICK

1851
MOBY DICK;
OR THE WHALE
by Herman Melville
ETYMOLOGY
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 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

KETOS, Greek.
CETUS, Latin.
WHOEL, Anglo-Saxon.
HVALT, Danish.
WAL, Dutch.
HWAL, Swedish.
WHALE, Icelandic.
WHALE, English.
BALEINE, French.
BALLENA, Spanish.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.

EXTRACTS
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 more pains
ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever
go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the
Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the
royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are
clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long
pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye
strike but splintered hearts together- there, ye shall strike
unsplinterable glasses!

"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, A.D. 890.

"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that
enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are
immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it
in great security, and there sleeps."
MONTAIGNE. - APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.

"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan
described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job."
RABELAIS.

"This whale's liver was two cartloads."
STOWE'S ANNALS.

"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling
pan."
LORD BACON'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS.

"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received
nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an
incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale."
IBID. "HISTORY OF LIFE AND DEATH."

"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward
bruise."
KING HENRY.

"Very like a whale."
HAMLET.

"Which to secure, no skill of leach's art
Mote him availle, but to returne againe
To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart,
Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine,
Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine."
THE FAERIE QUEEN.

"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a
peaceful calm trouble the ocean til it boil."
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.

"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned
Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid
sit."
SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI
WHALE. VIDE HIS V. E.

"Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.
* * * *
Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,
And on his back a grove of pikes appears."
WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.

"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or
State- (in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man."
OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.

"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a
sprat in the mouth of a whale."
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

"That sea beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream."
PARADISE LOST.

--"There Leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, in the deep
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land; and at his gills
Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea."
IBID.

"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of
oil swimming in them."
FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE.

"So close behind some promontory lie
The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,
And give no chance, but swallow in the fry,
Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."
DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS.

"While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut
off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will
come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water."
THOMAS EDGE'S TEN VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN, IN PURCHAS.

"In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in
wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which
nature has placed on their shoulders."
SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO ASIA AND AFRICA.
HARRIS COLL.

"Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced
to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their
ship upon them."
SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION.

"We set sail from the Elbe, wind N. E. in the ship called The
Jonas-in-the-Whale. * * *
Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable. * * *
They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a
whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains. * * *
I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel
of herrings in his belly. * * *
One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in
Spitzbergen that was white all over."
A VOYAGE TO GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS COLL.

"Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one
eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I
was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight
of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of
Pitferren."
SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS.

"Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this
Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was
killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness."
RICHARD STRAFFORD'S LETTER FROM THE BERMUDAS. PHIL.
TRANS. A.D. 1668.

"Whales in the sea
God's voice obey."
N. E. PRIMER.

"We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those
southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to
the northward of us."
CAPTAIN COWLEY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, A.D. 1729.

* * * * * "and the breath of the whale is frequendy attended with
such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain."
ULLOA'S SOUTH AMERICA.

"To fifty chosen sylphs of special note,
We trust the important charge, the petticoat.
Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,
Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale."
RAPE OF THE LOCK.

"If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that
take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear
contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest
animal in creation."
GOLDSMITH, NAT. HIST.

"If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make
them speak like great wales."
GOLDSMITH TO JOHNSON.

"In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it
was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were
then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves
behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us."
COOK'S VOYAGES.

"The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in
so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid
to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood,
and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to
terrify and prevent their too near approach."
UNO VON TROIL'S LETTERS ON BANKS'S AND SOLANDER'S
VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772.

"The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce
animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen."
THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH
MINISTER IN 1778.

"And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?"
EDMUND BURKE'S REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO THE
NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY.

"Spain- a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe."
EDMUND BURKE. (SOMEWHERE.)

"A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be
grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the
seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are
whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught
near the coast, are the property of the king."
BLACKSTONE.

"Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:
Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and every turn attends."
FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK.

"Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,
And rockets blew self driven,
To hang their momentary fire
Around the vault of heaven.

"So fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves on high,
Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy."
COWPER, ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO LONDON.

"Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a
stroke, with immense velocity."
JOHN HUNTER'S ACCOUNT OF THE DISSECTION OF A WHALE.
(A SMALL SIZED ONE.)

"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of
the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage
through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood
gushing from the whale's heart."
PALEY'S THEOLOGY.

"The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet."
BARON CUVIER.

"In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take
any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them."
COLNETT'S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXTENDING THE
SPERMACETI WHALE FISHERY.

"In the free element beneath me swam,
Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle,
Fishes of every color, form, and kind;
Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Had never seen; from dread Leviathan
To insect millions peopling every wave:
Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands,
Led by mysterious instincts through that waste
And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,
Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw,
With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs."
MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.

"Io! Paean! Io! sing.
To the finny people's king.
Not a mightier whale than this
In the vast Atlantic is;
Not a fatter fish than he,
Flounders round the Polar Sea."
CHARLES LAMB'S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE.

"In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the
whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed:
there- pointing to the sea- is a green pasture where our children's
grand-children will go for bread."
OBED MACY'S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET.

"I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the
form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones."
HAWTHORNE'S TWICE TOLD TALES.

"She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been
killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago."
IBID.

"No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom; "I saw his sprout; he
threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to
look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!"
COOPER'S PILOT.

"The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that
whales had been introduced on the stage there."
ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE.

"My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?" I answered, "we have been
stove by a whale."
"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE SHIP ESSEX OF
NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY
A LARGE SPERM WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN." BY OWEN
CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF SAID VESSEL. NEW
YORK, 1821.

"A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,
The wind was piping free;
Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,
And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,
As it floundered in the sea."
ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

"The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the
capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or
nearly six English miles." * * *
"Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which,
cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four
miles."
SCORESBY.

"Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the
infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous
head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he
rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him
with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.
* * * It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of
the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so
important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so
entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among
the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late
years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient
opportunities of witnessing their habitudes."
THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, 1839.

"The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only better armed than the True
Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon
at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a
disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at
once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being
regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of
the whale tribe."
FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE
GLOBE, 1840.

October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the mast-head.
"Where away?" demanded the captain.
"Three points off the lee bow, sir."
"Raise up your wheel. Steady!"
"Steady, sir."
"Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?"
"Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she
breaches!"
"Sing out! sing out every time!"
"Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there- there- thar she blows -bowes
-bo-o-os!"
"How far off?"
"Two miles and a half."
"Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands."
J. ROSS BROWNE'S ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUIZE. 1846.

"The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the
horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island
of Nantucket."
"NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND HUSSEY SURVIVORS.
A.D. 1828.

Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the
assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at
length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved
by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable."
MISSIONARY JOURNAL OF TYERMAN AND BENNETT.

"Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a very striking and
peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of
eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding
largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most
persevering industry."
REPORT OF DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN THE U. S. SENATE,
ON THE APPLICATION FOR THE ERECTION OF A BREAKWATER AT
NANTUCKET. 1828.

"The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a
moment."
"THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, OR THE WHALEMAN'S
ADVENTURES AND THE WHALE'S BIOGRAPHY, GATHERED ON THE
HOMEWARD CRUISE OF THE COMMODORE PREBLE."
BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER.

"If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, "I will
send you to hell."
LIFE OF SAMUEL COMSTOCK (THE MUTINEER), BY HIS
BROTHER, WILLIAM COMSTOCK. ANOTHER VERSION OF THE
WHALE-SHIP GLOBE NARRATIVE.

"The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in
order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India,
though they failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the
whale."
MCCULLOCH'S COMMERCIAL DICTIONARY.

"These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound
forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the
whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same
mystic North-West Passage."
FROM "SOMETHING" UNPUBLISHED.

"It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being
struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with
look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse
around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular
voyage."
CURRENTS AND WHALING. U. S. EX. EX.

"Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect
having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to
form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may
perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales."
TALES OF A WHALE VOYAGER TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN.

"It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these
whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the
savages enrolled among the crew."
NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT OF THE TAKING AND RETAKING OF THE
WHALE-SHIP HOBOMACK.

"It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels
(American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they
departed."
CRUISE IN A WHALE BOAT.

"Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up
perpendicularly into the air. It was the while."
MIRIAM COFFIN OR THE WHALE FISHERMAN.

"The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would
manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope
tied to the root of his tail."
A CHAPTER ON WHALING IN RIBS AND TRUCKS.

"On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably
male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less
than a stone's throw of the shore" (Terra Del Fuego), "over which
the beech tree extended its branches."
DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST.

"'Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw
the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the
boat, threatening it with instant destruction;- 'Stern all, for your
lives!'"
WHARTON THE WHALE KILLER.

"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail,
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!"
NANTUCKET SONG.

"Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale
In his ocean home will be
A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea."
WHALE SONG.
CHAPTER 1
Loomings

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely-
having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to
interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see
the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the
spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly
November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing
before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral
I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me,
that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as
soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly
take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but
knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish
very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs- commerce surrounds it with her
surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme
downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of
land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around
the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in
ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon
the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China;
some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better
seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath
and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks.
How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,
and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of
yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the
water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles
of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys,
streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all
unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the
compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes.
Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in
a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic
in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
reveries- stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he
will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that
region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try
this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a
metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and
water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all
the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There
stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a
crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep
his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep
into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs
of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture
lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs
like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the
shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit
the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade
knee-deep among Tiger-lilies- what is the one charm wanting?- Water-
there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of
sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor
poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver,
deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest
his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost
every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some
time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a
passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first
told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the
old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a
separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not
without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of
Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image
he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same
image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of
the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I
begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of
my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a
passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a
purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides,
passengers get sea-sick- grow quarrelsome- don't sleep of nights- do
not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;- no, I never go as a
passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea
as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and
distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I
abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of
every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of
myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and
what not. And as for going as cook,- though I confess there is
considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on
ship-board- yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;- though once
broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and
peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say
reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the
idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and
roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in
their huge bakehouses the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the
mast, plumb down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal
mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump
from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first,
this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of
honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the
land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more
than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot,
you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest
boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure
you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear
it. But even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a
broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to,
weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think
the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I
promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular
instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old
sea-captains may order me about- however they may thump and punch me
about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that
everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way- either
in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the
universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's
shoulder-blades, and be content.
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point
of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a
single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers
themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world
between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most
uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon
us. But being paid,- what will compare with it? The urbane activity
with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that
we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills,
and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how
cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is,
if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part
the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand
from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first;
but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their
leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little
suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt
the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to
go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the
Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs
me, and influences me in some unaccountable way- he can better
answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling
voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was
drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude
and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part
of the bill must have run something like this:

"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers,
the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage,
when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and
short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces-
though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall
all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and
motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises,
induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me
into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own
unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great
whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all
my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his
island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these,
with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and
sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such
things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am
tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail
forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is
good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social
with it- would they let me- since it is but well to be on friendly
terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated
into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most
of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.
CHAPTER 2
The Carpet-Bag

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under
my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good
city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday
night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the
little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of
reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop
at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may
as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my
mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because
there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with
that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New
Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of
whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much
behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original- the Tyre of this
Carthage;- the place where the first dead American whale was stranded.
Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the
Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And
where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop
put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones- so goes the story-
to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh
enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?
Now having a night, a day, and still another night following
before me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, it
became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile.
It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night,
bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With
anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few
pieces of silver,- So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself,
as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and
comparing the towards the north with the darkness towards the south-
wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my
dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too
particular.
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of
"The Crossed Harpoons"- but it looked too expensive and jolly there.
Further on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish Inn," there
came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed
snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the
congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,-
rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty
projections, because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my
boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly,
again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the
street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on,
Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away from before the
door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now
by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for there,
doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.
Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either
hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a
tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that
quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a
smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which
stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for
the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to
stumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying
particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed
city, Gomorrah? But "The Crossed Harpoons," and the "The Sword-Fish?"-
this, then must needs be the sign of "The Trap." However, I picked
myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a
second, interior door.
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred
black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black
Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church;
and the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the
weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I,
backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!'
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the
docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw
a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly
representing tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words
underneath- "The Spouter Inn:- Peter Coffin."
Coffin?- Spouter?- Rather ominous in that particular connexion,
thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I
suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked
so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the
dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been
carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging
sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here
was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.
It was a queer sort of place- a gable-ended old house, one side
palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp
bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse
howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon,
nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with
his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. "In of that
tempestuous wind called Euroclydon," says an old writer- of whose
works I possess the only copy extant- "it maketh a marvellous
difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where
the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from
that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which
the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, thought I, as
this passage occurred to my mind- old black-letter, thou reasonest
well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house.
What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though,
and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late to
make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone
is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus
there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow,
and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both
ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that
would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old
Dives, in his red silken wrapper- (he had a redder one afterwards)
pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what
northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of
everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own
summer with my own coals.
But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding
them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in
Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise
along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery
pit itself, in order to keep out this frost?
Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone
before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an
iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he
too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being
a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of
orphans.
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and
there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our
frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be.
CHAPTER 3
The Spouter-Inn

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,
low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of
the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very
large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that
in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by
diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful
inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an
understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades
and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young
artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to
delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest
contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing
open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come
to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be
altogether unwarranted.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,
portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the
picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a
nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to
drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,
half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you
to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out
what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but,
alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It's the Black Sea in
a midnight gale.- It's the unnatural combat of the four primal
elements.- It's a blasted heath.- It's a Hyperborean winter scene.-
It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all
these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the
picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But
stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even
the great leviathan himself?
In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my
own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons
with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a
Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering
there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an
exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the
enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.
The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a
heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly
set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted
with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast
handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a
long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what
monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a
death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with
these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and
deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now
wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales
between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon- so like a
corkscrew now- was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a
whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original
iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning
in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found
imbedded in the hump.
Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way- cut
through what in old times must have been a great central chimney
with fireplaces all round- you enter the public room. A still
duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such
old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some
old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this
corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long,
low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with
dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks.
Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking
den- the bar- a rude attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it
may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide,
a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves,
ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of
swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed
they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their
money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.
Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though
true cylinders without- within, the villanous green goggling glasses
deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians
rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill
to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more;
and so on to the full glass- the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp
down for a shilling.
Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered
about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of
skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be
accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full-
not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his forehead,
"you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I
s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'd better get used to that
sort of thing."
I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I
should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be,
and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and
the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander
further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with
the half of any decent man's blanket.
"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?- you want supper?
Supper'll be ready directly."
I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench
on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning
it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at
the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under
full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought.
At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an
adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland- no fire at all- the landlord
said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles,
each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets,
and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen
fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind- not only
meat and potatoes, but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for
supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to
these dumplings in a most direful manner.
"My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to a dead
sartainty."
"Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?"
"Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the
harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he
don't- he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare."
"The devil he does," says I. "Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?"
"He'll be here afore long," was the answer.
I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this "dark
complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so
turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into
bed before I did.
Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing
not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the
evening as a looker on.
Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the
landlord cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the
offing this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah,
boys; now we'll have the latest news from the Feegees."
A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung
open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in
their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen
comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with
icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just
landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered.
No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale's mouth-
the bar- when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon
poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in
his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and
molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and
catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether
caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an
ice-island.
The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does
even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began
capering about most obstreperously.
I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and
though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates
by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making
as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since
the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate
(though but a sleeping partner one, so far as this narrative is
concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He
stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest
like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face
was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the
contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some
reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at
once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature,
I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the
Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry of his companions
had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw
no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes,
however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some
reason a huge favorite with them, they raised a cry of "Bulkington!
Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted out of the house in
pursuit of him.
It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost
supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate
myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the
entrance of the seamen.
No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal
rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but
people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to
sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange
town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections
indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a
sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for
sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do
ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you
have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and
sleep in your own skin.
The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated
the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being
a harpooneer, his linen or woolen, as the case might be, would not
be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all
over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought
to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon
me at midnight- how could I tell from what vile hole he had been
coming?
"Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.- I shan't
sleep with him. I'll try the bench here."
"Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth for a
mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"- feeling of the knots
and notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a carpenter's
plane there in the bar- wait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough." So
saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first
dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while
grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last
the plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The
landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's
sake to quit- the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know
how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine
plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing
them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his
business, and left me in a brown study.
I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot
too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot
too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches
higher than the planed one- so there was no yoking them. I then placed
the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the
wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down
in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over
me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at
all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one
from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds
in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the
night.
The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I
steal a march on him- bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not
to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea but
upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the
next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer
might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!
Still looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of
spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began
to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices
against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must
be dropping in before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and
perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all- there's no
telling.
But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and
threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.
"Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he- does he always keep
such late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to
be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he
answered, "generally he's an early bird- airley to bed and airley to
rise- yea, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went
out a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so
late, unless, may be, he can't sell his head."
"Can't sell his head?- What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you
are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say,
landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed
Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head
around this town?"
"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he
couldn't sell it here, the market's overstocked."
"With what?" shouted I.
"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?"
"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'd
better stop spinning that yarn to me- I'm not green."
"May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but I
rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you
a slanderin' his head."
"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again
at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's.
"It's broke a'ready," said he.
"Broke," said I- "broke, do you mean?"
"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess."
"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a
snowstorm- "landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one
another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a
bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other
half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer,
whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most
mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an
uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my
bedfellow- a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and
confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak
out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall
be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the
first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about
selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this
harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman;
and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me
to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liable to a
criminal prosecution."
"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a purty
long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy,
be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just
arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New
Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but
one, and that one he's trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow's
Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' human heads about the
streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wanted to last Sunday, but
I stopped him just as he was goin' out of the door with four heads
strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions."
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and
showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me-
but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out
of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a
cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators?
"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man."
"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's a nice bed:
Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's
plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big
bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little
Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one
night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near
breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along
here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a
candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood
irresolute; when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum
it's Sunday- you won't see that harpooneer to-night; he's come to
anchor somewhere- come along then; do come; won't ye come?"
I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and
I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure
enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four
harpooneers to sleep abreast.
"There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea
chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; "there,
make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye." I turned round
from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.
Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of
the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then
glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table,
could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf,
the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking
a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a
hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a
large seaman's bag, containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt
in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish
bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon
standing at the head of the bed.
But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to
the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible
to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare
it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with
little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round
an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this
mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be
possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and
parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I
put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being
uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though
this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I
went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never
saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry
that I gave myself a kink in the neck.
I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this
head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time
on the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then
stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and
thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel
very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what the
landlord said about the harpooneer's not coming home at all that
night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my
pantaloons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed,
and commended myself to the care of heaven.
Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or broken
crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and
could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze,
and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when
I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light
come into the room from under the door.
Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal
head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a
word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical
New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and
without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from
me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the
knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room.
I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some
time while employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished,
however, he turned round- when, good heavens; what a sight! Such a
face! It was of a dark, purplish, yellow color, here and there stuck
over with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought,
he's a terrible bedfellow; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut,
and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced
to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could
not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks.
They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to
make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I
remembered a story of a white man- a whaleman too- who, falling
among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that
this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met
with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all! It's
only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then,
what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean,
lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of
tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical
tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a
purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas;
and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon
the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like
lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some
difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and
presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with
the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of a room,
he then took the New Zealand head- a ghastly thing enough- and crammed
it down into the bag. He now took off his hat- a new beaver hat-
when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on
his head- none to speak of at least- nothing but a small scalp-knot
twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for
all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger stood
between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker than
ever I bolted a dinner.
Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window,
but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make
of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension.
Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and
confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of
him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at
the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game
enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer
concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.
Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last
showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him
were checkered with the same squares as his face, his back, too, was
all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty
Years' War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt.
Still more, his very legs were marked, as a parcel of dark green frogs
were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that
he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a
whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I
quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too- perhaps the heads of
his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mine- heavens! look at that
tomahawk!
But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went
about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced
me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or
wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he
fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little
deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the color of a
three days' old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first
I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved
some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and
that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it
must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For
now the savage goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the
papered fire-board, sets up this little hunch-backed image, like a
tenpin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks
inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fire-place made a
very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.
I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling
but ill at ease meantime- to see what was next to follow. First he
takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket,
and places them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship
biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the
shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty
snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers
(whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded
in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a
little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the
little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he
never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by
still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be
praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other,
during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner.
At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very
unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly
as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.
All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and
seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business
operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high
time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell
in which I had so long been bound.
But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal
one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it
for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at
the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next
moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk
between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not
help it now; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began
feeling me.
Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him
against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he
might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again.
But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill
comprehended my meaning.
"Who-e debel you?"- he at last said- "you no speak-e, dam-me, I
kill-e." And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me
in the dark.
"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord!
Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!"
"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" again
growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk
scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would
get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into
the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.
"Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg here
wouldn't harm a hair of your head."
"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell me that
that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?"
"I thought ye know'd it;- didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin'
heads around town?- but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg,
look here- you sabbee me, I sabbee- you this man sleepe you- you
sabbee?"
"Me sabbee plenty"- grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and
sitting up in bed.
"You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and
throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a
civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a
moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely
looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about,
thought I to myself- the man's a human being just as I am: he has just
as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep
with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
"Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or
pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and
I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed
with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured."
This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely
motioned me to get into bed- rolling over to one side as much as to
say- I won't touch a leg of ye."
"Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go."
I turned in, and never slept better in my life.
CHAPTER 4
The Counterpane

Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm
thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had
almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of
patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles; and
this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan
labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise
shade- owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in
sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various
times- this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a
strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as
the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt,
they so blended their hues together; and it was only by the sense of
weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.
My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a
child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me;
whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle.
The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or
other- I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen
a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who,
somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed
supperless,- my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and
packed me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in the
afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in year in our hemisphere.
I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so up stairs I went
to my little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as
possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the
sheets.
I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must
elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed!
the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too;
the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in
the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt
worse and worse- at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in
my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw
myself at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favor to give me
a good slippering for my misbehaviour: anything indeed but
condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But
she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had
to go to my room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a
great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest
subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled
nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from it- half steeped in
dreams- I opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped
in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my
frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a
supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the
counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom,
to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bed-side.
For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the
most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking
that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be
broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me;
but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for
days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding
attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often
puzzle myself with it.
Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the
supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in the strangeness, to
those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan arm
thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly
recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to
the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm- unlock
his bridegroom clasp- yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me
tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove
to rouse him- "Queequeg!"- but his only answer was a snore. I then
rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and
suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane,
there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were
a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here
in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk!
"Queequeg!- in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At length, by
dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the
unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort
of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew
back his arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from
the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me,
and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came
to be there, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about
me seemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing
him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly
observing so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed made
up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as it were,
reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor, and by certain
signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it pleased me, he
would dress first and then leave me to dress afterwards, leaving the
whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the
circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is,
these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will;
it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this
particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so
much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;
staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions;
for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding.
Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't see every day, he and
his ways were well worth unusual regarding.
He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very
tall one, by the by, and then- still minus his trowsers- he hunted up
his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but
his next movement was to crush himself- boots in hand, and hat on-
under the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I
inferred he was hard at work booting himself; though by no law of
propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required to be private when
putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in
the transition stage- neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just
enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest
possible manners. His education was not yet completed. He was an
undergraduate. If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very
probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but
then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of
getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emerged with his hat
very much dented and crushed down over his eyes, and began creaking
and limping about the room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots,
his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones- probably not made to order
either- rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a
bitter cold morning.
Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the
street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view
into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure
that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and
boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet
somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as
possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that
time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but
Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his
ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat,
and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table,
dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was
watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he
takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden
stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and
striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous
scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this
is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. Afterwards I wondered
the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine steel
the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp the long
straight edges are always kept.
The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out
of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting
his harpoon like a marshal's baton.
CHAPTER 5
Breakfast

I quickley followed suit, and descending into the bar-room
accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no
malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little
in the matter of my bedfellow.
However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too
scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his
own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him
not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and
to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully
laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you
perhaps think for.
The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in
the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They
were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third
mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and
harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with
bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for
morning gowns.
You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore.
This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue,
and would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three
days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few
shades lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In
the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly
bleached withal; he doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But
who could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various
tints, seemed like the Andes' western slope, to show forth in one
array, contrasting climates, zone by zone.
"Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in
we went to breakfast.
They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at
ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though:
Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch
one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But
perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as
Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach,
in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's
performances- this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best
mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that
sort of thing is to be had anywhere.
These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance
that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to
hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise nearly
every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they
looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom
without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high
seas- entire strangers to them- and duelled them dead without winking;
and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast table- all of the same
calling, all of kindred tastes- looking round as sheepishly at each
other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold
among the Green Mountains. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these
timid warrior whalemen!
But as for Queequeg- why, Queequeg sat there among them- at the head
of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I
cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not
have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast
with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table
with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the
beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very coolly done by
him, and every one knows that in most people's estimation, to do
anything coolly is to do it genteelly.
We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he
eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention
to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he
withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his
tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking
with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll.
CHAPTER 6
The Street

If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so
outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite
society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon
taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.
In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will
frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from
foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean
mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is
not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green,
live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats
all Water Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see
only sailors; in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at
street corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their
bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.
But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans,
Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the
whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see
other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There
weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New
Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are
mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and
now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green
as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would
think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting
round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat,
girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife. Here comes another with
a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one- I mean a
downright bumpkin dandy- a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow
his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now
when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a
distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you
should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In
bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats;
straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will
burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven,
straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.
But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals,
and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is
a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land
would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the
coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to
frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the
dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil,
true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine.
The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they
pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all
America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens
more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted
upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?
Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty
mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave
houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from
the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?
In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their
daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises
a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for,
they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every
night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.
In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-
long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the
beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer
the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So
omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has
superinduced bright terraces ot flowers upon the barren refuse rocks
thrown aside at creation's final day.
And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses.
But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their
cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere
match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they
tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts
smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the
odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.
CHAPTER 7
The Chapel

In the same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few
are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or
Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I
did not.
Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon
this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to
driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the
cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm.
Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and
sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at
times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed
purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were
insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and
there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing
several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on
either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the
following, but I do not pretend to quote:

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
JOHN TALBOT,
Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard
Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia,
November 1st, 1836.
THIS TABLET
Is erected to his Memory
BY HIS SISTER.

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY,
NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY,
AND SAMUEL GLEIG,
Forming one of the boats' crews
OF
THE SHIP ELIZA
Who were towed out of sight by a Whale,
On the Off-shore Ground in the
PACIFIC,
December 31st, 1839.
THIS MARBLE
Is here placed by their surviving
SHIPMATES.

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
The late
CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY,
Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a
Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan,
August 3d, 1833.
THIS TABLET
Is erected to his Memory
BY
HIS WIDOW.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated
myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see
Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was
a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This
savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance;
because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was
not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of
the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now
among the congregation, I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded
accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present
wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief,
that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose
unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically
caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.
Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing
among flowers can say- here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the
desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in
those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in
those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden
infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse
resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a
grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as
here.
In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are
included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they
tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin
Sands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other
world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not
thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this
living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures
upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly,
hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round
centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for
those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable
bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore
but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All
these things are not without their meanings.
But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these
dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a
Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky
light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen
who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine.
But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine
chance for promotion, it seems- aye, a stove boat will make me an
immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling- a
speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what
then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and
Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true
substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too
much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking
that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees
of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it
is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a
stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove
himself cannot.
CHAPTER 8
The Pulpit

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable
robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back
upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the
congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the
chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the
whalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite. He had been a
sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had
dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father
Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of
old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among
all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a
newly developing bloom- the spring verdure peeping forth even
beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard his history,
could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost
interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical
peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life
he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella,
and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat
ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed
almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had
absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed,
and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed
in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.
Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and
since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle
with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the
chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father
Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a
perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a
boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the chapel
with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder,
which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany
color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it
was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the
foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental
knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then
with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over
hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.
The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the
case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds
were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first
glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient
for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary.
For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the
height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit,
deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was
deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec.
I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for
this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and
sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any
mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober
reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something
unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he
signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward
worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and
wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a
self-containing stronghold- a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a
perennial well of water within the walls.
But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place,
borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between the marble
cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back
was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship
beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and
snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling
clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed
forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed a distant spot of
radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate
now inserted into Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship,"
the angel seemed to say, "beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and
bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are
rolling off- serenest azure is at hand."
Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that
had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the
likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a
projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's
fiddle-headed beak.
What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever this
earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit
leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is
first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From
thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for
favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a
voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
CHAPTER 9
The Sermon

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority
ordered the scattered people to condense. "Star board gangway,
there! side away to larboard- larboard gangway to starboard! Midships!
midships!"
There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a
still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again,
and every eye on the preacher.
He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his
large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and
offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and
praying at the bottom of the sea.
This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of
a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog- in such tones
he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner
towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing
exultation and joy-

The ribs and terrors in the whale,
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.

I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell-
Oh, I was plunging to despair.

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

With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.

My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power.

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the
howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned
over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down
upon the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the last
verse of the first chapter of Jonah- 'And God had prepared a great
fish to swallow up Jonah.'"
"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters- four yarns- is
one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet
what depths of the soul Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant
lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in
the fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel
the floods surging over us, we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of
the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But
what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a
two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to
me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us
all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly
awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally
the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the
sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the
command of God- never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed-
which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would
have us do are hard for us to do- remember that- and hence, he oftener
commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must
disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the
hardness of obeying God consists.
"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at
God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men,
will carry him into countries where God does not reign but only the
Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and
seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a
hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have
been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of
learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as
far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those
ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because
Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of
the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two
thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits
of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee
worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of
all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God;
prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the
seas. So disordered, self-condemning in his look, that had there
been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of
something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How
plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or
carpet-bag,- no friends accompany him to the wharf with their
adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship
receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see
its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from
hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees
this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain
essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the
mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious
way, one whispers to the other- "Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe,
do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the
adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the
missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's
stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored,
offering five hundred gold coins for the apprenhension of a parricide,
and containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from
Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round
Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frightened Jonah
trembles. and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so
much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but
that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and
when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they
let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.
"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making
out his papers for the Customs- 'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless
question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again.
But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon
sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah,
though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear
that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail
with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently
eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?'- 'Soon enough for any honest man that
goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly
calls away the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'- he
says,- 'the passage money how much is that?- I'll pay now.' For it
is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be
overlooked in this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the
craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.
"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects
crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless.
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely
and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all
frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's
purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum;
and it's assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive;
but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear
with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent
suspicions still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a
counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put
down for his passage. 'Point out my state-room, Sir,' says Jonah
now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.' 'Thou lookest like it,' says
the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah enters, and would lock the
door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling
there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something
about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed to be locked
within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into
his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost resting on
his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that
contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels
the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall
hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards.
"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly
oscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the
wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame
and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent
obliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly
straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among
which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his
berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far
successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But
that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor,
the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. 'Oh! so my conscience hangs
in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of
my soul are all in crookedness!'
"Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed,
still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the
plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his
steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns
and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit
be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor
steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience
is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after sore
wrestling in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags
him drowning down to sleep.
"And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables;
and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all
careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of
recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he
will not bare the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship
is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to
lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard;
when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank
thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this
raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky
and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he
or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open
mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone
down into the sides of the ship- a berth in the cabin as I have
taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him,
and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!'
Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to
his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon
the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow
leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship,
and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the
mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the
white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the
blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing
high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep.
"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his
cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The
sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of
him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole
matter to high Heaven, they all-outward to casting lots, to see for
whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that
discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions.
'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What
people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The
eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they
not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another
answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is
forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.
"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries- and then- 'I fear the Lord the God of
Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah?
Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now
goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became
more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet
supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of
his deserts,- when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and
cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this
great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek
by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale
howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the
other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.
"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the
sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the
sea is as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water
behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless
commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething
into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his
ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah
prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his
prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does
not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful
punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting
himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will
still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and
faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for
punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is
shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale.
Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin
but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not;
but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah."
While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,
slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who,
when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself.
His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed
the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from
off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his
simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.
There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the
leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless,
with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and
himself.
But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head
lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake
these words:
"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press
upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson
that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more
to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I
come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you
sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that
other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of
the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of
true things and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths
in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he
should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and
his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he
never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and
swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings
tore him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying
depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were
wrapped about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over
him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet- 'out of the
belly of hell'- when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones,
even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried.
Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and
blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and
pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited
out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a
second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two
sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did
the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the
Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot
of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms
from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters
when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please
rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than
goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to
him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation!
Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to
others is himself a castaway!
He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his
face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out
with a heavenly enthusiasm,- "But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand
of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that
delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck
higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him- a far, far upward,
and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of
this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to
him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base
treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who
gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all
sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and
Judges. Delight,- top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no
law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.
Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of
the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages.
And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay
him down, can say with his final breath- O Father!- chiefly known to
me by Thy rod- mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be
Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing:
I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out
the lifetime of his God?"
He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face
with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had
departed, and he was left alone in the place.
CHAPTER 10
A Bosom Friend

Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there
quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some
time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on
the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face
that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with
a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to
himself in his heathenish way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon,
going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on
his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at
every fiftieth page- as I fancied- stopping for a moment, looking
vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling
whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next
fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could
not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of
fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude
of pages was excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and
hideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- his countenance
yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You
cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I
thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large,
deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit
that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a
certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness
could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never
cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his
head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter
relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will
not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically
an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of
General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had
the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the
brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories
thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington
cannibalistically developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to
be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my
presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance;
but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous
book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night
previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had
found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this
indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at
times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are
overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems as
Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at
all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made
no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle
of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon
second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was
a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn,
that is- which was the only way he could get there- thrown among
people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter;
and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost
serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself.
Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had
never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true
philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so
striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself
out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old
woman, he must have "broken his digester."
As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in
that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it
then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms
gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary
twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be
sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my
splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish
world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very
indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized
hypocrisies and bland deceits. he was; a very sight of sights to
see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And
those same things that would have repelled most others, they were
the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll try a pagan friend, thought
I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew
my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my
best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these
advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night's
hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be
bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased,
perhaps a little complimented.
We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain
to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few
pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from
that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer
sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke;
and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff.
And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and
keeping it regularly passing between us.
If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the
Pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it
out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally
and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed
his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that
henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that
we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should
be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed
far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple
savage those old rules would not apply.
After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room
together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his
enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out
some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and
mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them
towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he
silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them
stay. He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and
removed the paper firebrand. By certain signs and symptoms, I
thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what
was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited
me, I would comply or otherwise.
I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible
Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in
worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do
you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and
earth- pagans and all included- can possibly be jealous of an
insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?-
to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of
God?- to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do
to me- that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And
what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me
in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must
then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled
the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him
burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice;
kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace
with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep
without some little chat.
How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for
confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some
old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.
Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg- a cosy,
loving pair.
CHAPTER 11
Nightgown

We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals,
and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed
legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and
free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations,
what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we
felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the
future.
Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent
position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found
ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning
against the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together, and
our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were
warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was
so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that
there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to
enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is
no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast.
Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all
over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be
said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the
bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly
chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel
most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping
apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the
luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of
deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your
snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the
one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all
at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets,
whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a
way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate
the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own
identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed
the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial
to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my
own pleasant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse
outer gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, I
experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the
hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing
that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to
have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I
had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the
night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when
once love comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to
have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full
of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for
the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the
condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket
with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders,
we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there
grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the
flame of the new-lit lamp.
Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to
far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island;
and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it.
He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a
few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more
familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the
whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.
CHAPTER 12
Biographical

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West
and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are.
When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in
a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green
sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong
desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler
or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High
Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives
of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins-
royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity
he nourished in his untutored youth.
A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a
passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement
of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's
influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe,
he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass
through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef;
on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that
grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these
thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle
low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he
darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot
capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing
himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there,
and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.
In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a
cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and
Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his
wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and
told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage-
this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They put
him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like
Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities,
Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily
gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at
bottom- so he told me- he was actuated by a profound desire to learn
among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still
happier than they were; and more than that, still better than they
were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that
even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; infinitely more
so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor;
and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket,
and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor
Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world in all
meridians; I'll die a pagan.
And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these
Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish.
Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home.
By hints I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and
having a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and
gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered
no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather
Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled
throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he
would return,- as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the
nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in
all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed
iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.
I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future
movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation.
Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him
of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most
promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at
once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same
vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me,
in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly
dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously
assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an
experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great
usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the
mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to
merchant seamen.
His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg
embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the
light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very
soon were sleeping.
CHAPTER 13
Wheelbarrow

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a
barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using,
however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the
boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which
had sprung up between me and Queequeg- especially as Peter Coffin's
cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me
concerning the very person whom I now companied with.
We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my
own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we
went down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored
at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at
Queequeg so much- for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in
their streets,- but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms.
But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns,
and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon
barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him
ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons.
To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was
true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon,
because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat,
and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many
reapers and mowers, who go into the farmer's meadows armed with
their own scythes- though in no wise obliged to furnish them- even so,
Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.
Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story
about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor.
The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to
carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant
about the thing- though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the
precise way in which to manage the barrow- Queequeg puts his chest
upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches
up the wharf. "Why," said I, "Queequeg, you might have known better
than that, one would think. Didn't the people laugh?"
Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of
Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water
of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and
this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the
braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship
once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander- from all accounts, a very
stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain- this
commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a
pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding
guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain
marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself
over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his
majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,- for those
people have their grace as well as we- though Queequeg told me that
unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters, they,
on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great
Giver of all feasts- Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens
the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island; that is, dipping
his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the
blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest,
and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself- being Captain of a
ship- as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially
in the King's own house- the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands
in the punch bowl;- taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass.
"Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now?- Didn't our people laugh?"
At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the
schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one
side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees
all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of
casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the
world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last;
while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended
noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that
new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long
voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins
a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness,
yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.
Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the
little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his
snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!- how I spurned that turnpike
earth!- that common highway all over dented with the marks of
slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of
the sea which will permit no records.
At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with
me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and
pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss did
homage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the
Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn
tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in
land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood
by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the
jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who
marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though
a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But
there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by their intense
greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure.
Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his
back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his
harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost
miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the
air; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow
landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning
his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a
puff.
"Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running toward that
officer; "Capting, Capting, here's the devil."
"Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea,
stalking up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't
you know you might have killed that chap?"
"What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.
"He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there,"
pointing to the still shivering greenhorn.
"Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an
unearthly expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e;
Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!"
"Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if
you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye."
But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the
Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the
main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was
now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after
part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so
roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to
attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from
right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and
every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters.
Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on
deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were
the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this
consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling
under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to
the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it
round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the
spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into
the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat,
Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long
living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming
like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by
turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I
looked at the grand and glorious but saw no one to be saved. The
greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the
water, Queequeg, now took an instant's glance around him, and
seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A
few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and
with the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up.
The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump;
the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like
a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.
Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that
he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous
Societies. He only asked for water- fresh water- something to wipe the
brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and
leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him,
seemed to be saying to himself- "It's a mutual, joint-stock world,
in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians."
CHAPTER 14
Nantucket

Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so,
after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real
corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off
shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it- a mere
hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There
is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a
substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that
they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally; that they
import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile
to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are
carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there
plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer
time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a
day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like
Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, belted about, every
way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean,
that to the very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found
adhering as to the backs of sea turtles. But these extravaganzas
only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was
settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an
eagle swooped down upon the New England coast and carried off an
infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their
child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow
in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous
passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty
ivory casket,- the poor little Indian's skeleton.
What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach,
should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and
quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for
mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod;
and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this
watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it;
peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans
declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has
survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That
Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of
unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than
his most fearless and malicious assaults!
And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing
from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world
like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let
America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the
English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from
the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's.
For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other
seamen having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but
extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and
privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road. they
but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like
themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless
deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea;
he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro
ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there
lies his business which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though
it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as
prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them
as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so
that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more
strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull,
that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows;
so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his
sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush
herds of walruses and whales.
CHAPTER 15
Chowder

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to
anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no
business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The
landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea
Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one
of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had
assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his
chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do
better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions hc had
given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till
we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the
larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and
that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was; these
crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially
as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse- our
first point of departure- must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I
had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However,
by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then
knocking up a peaceful inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last
came to something which there was no mistaking.
Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses'
ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in
front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off
on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little
like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at
the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague
misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two
remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me.
It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first
whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel, and
here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these
last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman
with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the
inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an
injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple
woollen shirt.
"Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing ye!"
"Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs. Hussey."
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but
leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs.
Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey,
postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a
little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a
recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said- "Clam or Cod?"
"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness.
"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.
"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs.
Hussey?" says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the
winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?"
But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the
purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to
hear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an
open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two,"
disappeared.
"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make a supper for us
both on one clam?"
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the
apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder
came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends,
hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger
than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut
up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully
seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the
frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite
fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent,
we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and
bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought
I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I
uttered the word "cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In
a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different
flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.
We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks
I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head?
What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? "But look,
Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?"
Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved
its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for
breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you
began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area
before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a
polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his
account books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy
flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till
one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some
fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish
remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's
decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye.
Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs.
Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about
to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and
demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. "Why
not? said I; "every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- but why
not?" "Because it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since young Stiggs
coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four
years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my
first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I
allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at
night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for she had learned his name), "I will
just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the
chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?"
"Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of
variety."
CHAPTER 16
The Ship

In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and
no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been
diligently consulting Yojo- the name of his black little god- and Yojo
had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it
everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet
in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say,
Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest
wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in
order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to
myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as
though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must
immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.
I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed
great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising
forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as
a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the
whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.
Now, this plan of Queequeg's or rather Yojo's, touching the
selection of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a
little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best
fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my
remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to
acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business with
a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly
settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving
Queequeg shut up with in our little bedroom- for it seemed that it was
some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and
prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day; how it was I never could
find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times, I never
could master his liturgies and XXXIX Articles- leaving Queequeg, then,
fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his
sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping.
After much prolonged sauntering, and many random inquiries, I learnt
that there were three ships up for three-years' voyages- The
Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-dam, I do not know the
origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod you will no doubt remember,
was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now
extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the
Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on
board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then decided
that this was the very ship for us.
You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I
know;- square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box
galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such
a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the
old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned
claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the
typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was
darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt
and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts- cut
somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost
overboard in a gale- her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the
three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and
wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury
Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities,
were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild
business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old
Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded
another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the
principal owners of the Pequod,- this old Peleg, during the term of
his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and
inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device,
unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or
bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor,
his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of
trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the
chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open
bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp
teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old
hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks
of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning
a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller;
and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow
lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered that
tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his
fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most
melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having
authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage,
at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of
tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It
seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical
shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of
limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws
of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a
circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each
other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy
fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie
Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the
ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward.
And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who
by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and
the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of
command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling
all over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a
stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was
constructed.
There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the
appearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like
most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the
Quaker style; only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of
the minutest wrinkles interlacing round eyes, which must have arisen
from his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking
to windward;- for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become
pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.
"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to the door
of the tent.
"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of
him?" he demanded.
"I was thinking of shipping."
"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer- ever been in a
stove boat?"
"No, Sir, I never have."
"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say- eh?
"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been
several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-"
"Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see
that leg?- I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou
talkest of the merchant service to me again. Marchant service
indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in
those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a
whaling, eh?- it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh?- Hast not
been a pirate, hast thou?- Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst
thou?- Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to
sea?"
I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the
mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an
insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices,
and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod
or the Vineyard.
"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think
of shipping ye."
"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world."
"Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain
Ahab?"
"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"
"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship."
"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain
himself."
"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg- that's who ye are speaking
to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod
fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs,
including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to
say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I
can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it,
past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt
find that he has only one leg."
"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?"
"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured,
chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a
boat!- ah, ah!"
I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little
touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as
calmly as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how
could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale,
though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of
the accident."
"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see;
thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now;
sure of that?"
"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in
the merchant-"
"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant service-
don't aggravate me- I won't have it. But let us understand each other.
I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye yet feel
inclined for it?"
"I do, sir."
"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live
whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!"
"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not
to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact."
"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to
find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in
order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so.
Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather
bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there."
For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not
knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest.
But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg
started me on the errand.
Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that
the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely
pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but
exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety
that I could see.
"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye
see?"
"Not much," I replied- "nothing but water; considerable horizon
though, and there's a squall coming up, I think."
"Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish
to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the
world where you stand?"
I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would;
and the Pequod was as good a ship as any- I thought the best- and
all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he
expressed his willingness to ship me.
"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added- "come
along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into the
cabin.
Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who along with
Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other
shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd
of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards;
each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a
nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in
whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state
stocks bringing in good interest.
Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a
Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to
this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure
peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified
by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same
Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They
are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.
So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with
Scripture names- a singularly common fashion on the island- and in
childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the
Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless
adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these
unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not
unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And
when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force,
with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the
stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest
waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north,
been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all
nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin
voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some
help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty
language- that man makes one in a whole nation's census- a mighty
pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all
detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other
circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling
morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great
are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young
ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not
to do with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man,
who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of
the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.
Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired
whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg- who cared not a rush for what
are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious
things the veriest of all trifles- Captain Bildad had not only been
originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket
Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many
unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn- all that had not
moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as
altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this immutableness,
was there some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain
Peleg. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear arms
against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded the
Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet
had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of
leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days,
the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not
know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he
had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's
religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This
world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin boy in short
clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad
shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief mate,
and captain, and finally a shipowner; Bildad, as I hinted before,
had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active
life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days
to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.
Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard
task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a
curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew,
upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital,
sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker,
he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never
used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an
inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them.
When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored eye intently
looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could
clutch something- a hammer or a marrling-spike, and go to work like
mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness
perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his
utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare
flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to
it, like that worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I
followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the
decks was small; and there, bolt upright, sat old Bildad, who always
sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails. His
broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his
drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he
seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume.
"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have
been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to
my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?"
As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,
Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up,
and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.
"He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants to ship."
"Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.
"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.
"What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg.
"He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away
at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as
Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I
said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a
chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink
before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to think
it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would be
willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in the
whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the
captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and
that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance
pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company. I was
also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be
very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer
a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I
had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay- that is, the
275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever that
might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they
call a rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing; and if we
had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would
wear out on it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for
which I would not have to pay one stiver.
It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a
princely fortune- and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am
one of those who never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite
content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am
putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I
thought the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not
have been surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of
a broad-shouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about
receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had
heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old
crony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of the
Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered
owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to
these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might
have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now
found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and
reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was
vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my
no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in
these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to
himself out of his book, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth, where moth-"
"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what
lay shall we give this young man?"
"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred
and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?- 'where moth and
rust do corrupt, but lay-'"
Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one,
shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt.
It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the
magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet
the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and
seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a
teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh part of a forthing is a good deal less than seven
hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the
time.
"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not want
to swindle this young man! he must have more than that."
"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without
lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling- "for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also."
"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said Peleg,
"do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say."
Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,
"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the
duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship- widows and
orphans, many of them- and that if we too abundantly reward the labors
of this young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and
those orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain
Peleg."
"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the
cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in
these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that
would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed
round Cape Horn."
"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be
drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou
art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy
conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee
foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg."
"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural
bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human
creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say
that again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'll- I'll- yes, I'll
swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the
cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun- a straight wake
with ye!"
As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a
marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.
Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and
responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all
idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily
commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad,
who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the
awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again
on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest
intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and
his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there
seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb,
though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. "Whew!" he
whistled at last- "the squall's gone off to leeward, I think.
Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen,
will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That's he; thank ye,
Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say?
Well then, down ye go here, for the three hundredth lay."
"Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to
ship too- shall I bring him down to-morrow?"
"To be sure," said Peleg. "Fetch him along, and we'll look at him."
"What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the Book
in which he had again been burying himself.
"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg. "Has he ever
whaled it any?" turning to me.
"Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg."
"Well, bring him along then."
And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that
I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the
identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round
the Cape.
But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the
Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though,
indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and
receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible
by arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so
prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief,
that if the captain have family, or any absorbing concernment of
that sort, he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port,
but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is
always as well to have a look at him before irrevocably committing
yourself into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg,
inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found.
"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough;
thou art shipped."
"Yes, but I should like to see him."
"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know
exactly what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the
house; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't
sick; but no, he isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't
always see me, so I don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man,
Captain Ahab- so some think- but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well
enough; no fear, no fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain
Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well
listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been
in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper
wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger
foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and surest that out of
all our isle! Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain
Peleg; he's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned
king!"
"And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did
they not lick his blood?"
"Come hither to me- hither, hither," said Peleg, with a significance
in his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on
board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name
himself .'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed
mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old
squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove
prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the
same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know Captain Ahab well;
I've sailed with him as mate years ago; know what he is- a good man-
not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good man- something
like me- only there's a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that
he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home he was
a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting
pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one
might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by
that accursed whale, he's been a kind of moody- desperate moody, and
savage sometimes; but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me
tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's better to sail with a moody
good captain than a laughing bad one. So good-bye to thee- and wrong
not Captain Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name. Besides,
my boy, he has a wife- not three voyages wedded- a sweet, resigned
girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold
ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad;
stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!"
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been
incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a
certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow,
at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't
know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also
felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all
describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt
it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience
at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known
to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other
directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
CHAPTER 17
The Ramadan

As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue
all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall;
for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious
obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart
to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or
those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree
of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before
the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the
inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.
I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these
things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals,
pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these
subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most
absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;- but what of that? Queequeg
thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content;
and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail;
let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all- Presbyterians
and Pagans alike- for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about
the head, and sadly need mending.
Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and
rituals must be over, I went to his room and knocked at the door;
but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside.
"Queequeg," said I softly through the key-hole:- all silent. "I say,
Queequeg! why don't you speak? It's I- Ishmael." But all remained
still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such
abundant time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked
through the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the
room, the key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I
could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the
wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against
the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady
the evening previous had taken from him, before our mounting to the
chamber. That's strange, thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon
stands yonder, and he seldom or never goes abroad without it,
therefore he must be inside here, and no possible mistake.
"Queequeg!- Queequeg!"- all still. Something must have happened.
Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly
resisted. Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the
first person I met- the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "I
thought something must the matter. I went to make the bed after
breakfast, and the door was locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and
it's been just so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, you had
both gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La! la,
ma'am!- Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!"- and with these
cries she ran towards the kitchen, I following.
Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a
vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the
occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little
black boy meantime.
"Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Run for God's sake, and
fetch something to pry open the door- the axe!- the axe! he's had a
stroke; depend upon it!"- and so saying I was unmethodically rushing
up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the
mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her
countenance.
"What's the matter with you, young man?"
"Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while
I pry it open!"
"Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down the
vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; "look here; are you
talking about prying open any of my doors?"- and with that she
seized my arm. "What's the matter with you? What's the matter with
you, shipmate?"
In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand
the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side
of her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed- "No! I
haven't seen it since I put it there." Running to a little closet
under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told
me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing. "He's killed himself," she
cried. "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done over again there goes another
counterpane- God pity his poor mother!- it will be the ruin of my
house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where's that girl?- there, Betty, go
to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with- "no
suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;"- might as well
kill both birds at once. Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost!
What's that noise there? You, young man, avast there!"
And running after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force
open the door.
"I won't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the
locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!" putting her
hand in her side pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess; let's
see." And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas! Queequeg's
supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.
"Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry a
little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing
I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with
a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark.
With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming
against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good
heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool on his hams, and
holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the
other way but sat like a carved image with scarce a sign of active
life.
"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's the matter
with you?"
"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the landlady.
But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost
felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was
almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally
constrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting
so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular
meals.
"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's alive at all events; so leave us, if
you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself."
Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon
Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he
could do- for all my polite arts and blandishments- he would not
move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice
my presence in the slightest way.
I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his
Ramadan; do they fast on their hams that way in his native land. It
must be so; yes, it's a part of his creed, I suppose; well, then,
let him rest; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last
for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I
don't believe it's very punctual then.
I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the
long stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding
voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a
schooner or brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic
Ocean only); after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly
eleven o'clock, I went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by
this time Queequeg must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a
termination. But no; there he was just where I had left him; he had
not stirred an inch. I began to grow vexed with him; it seemed so
downright senseless and insane to be sitting there all day and half
the night on his hams in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his
head.
"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up
and have some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself,
Queequeg." But not a word did he reply.
Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to
sleep; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But
previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw
it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night; and he had
nothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I
would, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the
candle; and the mere thought of Queequeg- not four feet off- sitting
there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and dark;
this made me really wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night in the
same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in this dreary,
unaccountable Ramadan!
But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till
break of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg,
as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the
first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff grating
joints, but with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay;
pressed his forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was
over.
Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's
religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or
insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it
also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a
positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an
uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take
that individual aside and argue the point with him.
And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "get into
bed now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginning with the
rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the
various religions of the present time, during which time I labored
to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged
ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for
the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious
laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in
other things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it
pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably
foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I,
fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all
thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved. This is
the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy
notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I,
rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested
apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary
dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.
I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with
dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take
it in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a
great feast given by his father the king on the gaining of a great
battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock
in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening.
"No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for I
knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a
sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was
the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all
the slain in the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one,
they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a
pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their
mouths, were sent round with the victor's compliments to all his
friends, just as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.
After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much
impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow
seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered
from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not
more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would;
and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the
true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending
concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such
a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan
piety.
At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously
hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should
not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board
the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut
bones.
CHAPTER 18
His Mark

As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship,
Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly
hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a
cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board
that craft, unless they previously produced their papers.
"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping on
the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.
"I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers."
"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head
from behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that he's
converted. Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art
thou at present in communion with any Christian church?"
"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church."
Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships
at last come to be converted into the churches.
"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worships in
Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying, taking out
his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana
handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the
wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look
at Queequeg.
"How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;
"not very long, I rather guess, young man."
"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it
would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face."
"Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular member
of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there, and I
pass it every Lord's day."
"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,"
said I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the
First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is."
"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me-
explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean?
answer me."
Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, "I mean, sir, the same
ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,
and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of
us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this
whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us
cherish some crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in that we
all join hands."
"Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawing nearer.
"Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast
hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy- why Father
Mapple himself couldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come
aboard, come aboard: never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog
there- what's that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the
great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there! looks like good stuff
that; and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your
name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you
ever strike a fish?"
Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped
upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats
hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his
harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:-
"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him?
well, spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it,
he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across
the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.
"Now," said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, "spos-ee him
whale-e eye; why, dad whale dead."
"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close
vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin
gangway. "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must
have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye,
Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was
given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket."
So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was
soon enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself
belonged.
When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything
ready for signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there
don't know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou
sign thy name or make thy mark?
But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken
part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the
offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact
counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm;
so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touching his
appellative, it stood something like this:-
Quohog.
his X mark.
Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing
Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets
of his broadskirted drab coat took out a bundle of tracts, and
selecting one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,"
placed it in Queequeg's hands, and then grasping them and the book
with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, "Son of
darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and
feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest
to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not
for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous
dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh!
goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!"
Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,
heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.
"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our
harpooneer," Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers- it
takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint
pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest
boat-header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the
meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy
soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of
after-claps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones."
"Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, "thou
thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest,
Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou
prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell
me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that
typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain
Ahab, did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?"
"Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the cabin,
and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,- "hear him, all
of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would
sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making
such an everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea
breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment
then? No! no time to think about death then. Life was what Captain
Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands how to rig
jury-masts how to get into the nearest port; that was what I was
thinking of."
Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,
where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some
sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he
stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which
otherwise might have been wasted.
CHAPTER 19
The Prophet

"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?"
Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering from
the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when
the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before
us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He
was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a
rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent smallpox
had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the
complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been
dried up.
"Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated.
"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain a
little more time for an uninterrupted look at him.
"Aye, the Pequod- that ship there," he said, drawing back his
whole arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, with the
fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.
"Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles."
"Anything down there about your souls?"
"About what?"
"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter
though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,- good luck to 'em; and
they are all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel
to a wagon."
"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I.
"He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that
sort in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous
emphasis upon the word he.
"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from
somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know."
"Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true- ye hav'n't seen Old
Thunder yet, have ye?"
"Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane
earnestness of his manner.
"Captain Ahab."
"What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?"
"Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye
hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?"
"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will
be all right again before long."
"All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly
derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then
this left arm of mine will be all right; not before."
"What do you know about him?"
"What did they tell you about him? Say that!"
"They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that
he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew."
"That's true, that's true- yes, both true enough. But you must
jump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go- that's
the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened
to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days
and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard
afore the altar in Santa?- heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about
the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg
last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about
them matters and something more, eh? No, I don't think ye did; how
could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever,
mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye
have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes, that every one knows
a'most- I mean they know he's only one leg; and that a parmacetti took
the other off."
"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I
don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be
a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab,
of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know
all about the loss of his leg."
"All about it, eh- sure you do? all?
"Pretty sure."
With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the
beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then
starting a little, turned and said:- "Ye've shipped, have ye? Names
down on the papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's
to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Any
how, it's all fixed and arranged already; and some sailors or other
must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God
pity 'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens
bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped ye."
"Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important to tell
us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are
mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say."
"And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that
way; you are just the man for him- the likes of ye. Morning to ye,
shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded not
to make one of 'em."
"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way- you can't fool
us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he
had a great secret in him."
"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning."
"Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this
crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?"
"Elijah."
Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each
other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was
nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone
perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and
looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following
us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that
I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with
my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same
corner that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was
dogging us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me
imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous,
half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me
all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all
connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he had
lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and what Captain
Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous; and
the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage we had bound
ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things.
I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was
really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with
Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed
on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and
finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.
CHAPTER 20
All Astir

A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod.
Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on
board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything
betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close.
Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam
keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing
and providing at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on
the rigging were working till long after night-fall.
On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given
at all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their
chests must be on board before night, for there was no telling how
soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our
traps, resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems
they always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not
sail for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be
done, and there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before
the Pequod was fully equipped.
Every one knows what a multitude of things- beds, sauce-pans, knives
and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are
indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling,
which necessitates a three-years' housekeeping upon the wide ocean,
far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And
though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any
means to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great
length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the
prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at
the remote harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that
of all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all
kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things
upon which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare
boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare
everythings, almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate ship.
At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage
of the Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread,
water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for
some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of
divers odds and ends of things, both large and small.
Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain
Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and
indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved
that, if she could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the
Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come
on board with a jar of pickles for the steward's pantry; another
time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate's desk, where he kept
his log; a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some
one's rheumatic back. Never did any woman better deserve her name,
which was Charity- Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a
sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither
and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that
promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a
ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which
she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars.
But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress
coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one
hand, and still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad
himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried
about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every
fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the
paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his
whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to
the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back
into his wigwam.
During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the
craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and
when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they
would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was
expected aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and
Bildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the
voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have
seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being
committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on
the man who was to be absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship
sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it
sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he
insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And
much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think
nothing.
At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would
certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early
start.
CHAPTER 21
Going Aboard

It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn,
when we drew nigh the wharf.
"There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right," said I
to Queequeg, "it can't be shadow; she's off by sunrise, I guess;
come on!"
"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close
behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating
himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the
uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was
Elijah.
"Going aboard?"
"Hands off, will you," said I.
"Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!"
"Aint going aboard, then?"
"Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours? Do you
know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?"
"No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and
wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable
glances.
"Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by
withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and
would prefer not to be detained."
"Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?"
"He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on."
"Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed
a few paces.
"Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on."
But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my
shoulder, said- "Did ye see anything looking like men going towards
that ship a while ago?"
Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying,
"Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be
sure."
"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye."
Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and
touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find 'em now, will
ye?
"Find who?"
"Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off.
"Oh! I was going to warn ye against- but never mind, never mind-
it's all one, all in the family too;- sharp frost this morning,
ain't it? Good-bye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess;
unless it's before the Grand Jury." And with these cracked words he
finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment
at his frantic impudence.
At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in
profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked
within; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging.
Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle
open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger
there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length
upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms.
The profoundest slumber slept upon him.
"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?"
said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when
on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to;
hence I would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in
that matter, were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question.
But I beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly
hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body;
telling him to establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the
sleeper's rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough; and then,
without more ado, sat quietly down there.
"Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there," said I.
"Oh; perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way; won't hurt
him face."
"Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenance
then; but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off,
Queequeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get
off, Queequeg! Look, he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't
wake."
Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and
lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing
over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning
him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his
land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the
king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of
fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a
house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten
lazy fellows, and lay them around in the piers and alcoves. Besides,
it was very convenient on an excursion; much better than those
garden-chairs which are convertible into walking sticks; upon
occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a
settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp
marshy place.
While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the
tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the
sleeper's head.
"What's that for, Queequeg?"
"Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!
He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe
which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and
soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping
rigger. The strong vapor now completely filling the contracted hole,
it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness;
then seemed troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice;
then sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smokers?"
"Shipped men," answered I, "when does she sail?"
"Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain
came aboard last night."
"What Captain?- Ahab?"
"Who but him indeed?"
I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab,
when we heard a noise on deck.
"Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a lively chief
mate that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn
to." And so saying he went on deck, and we followed.
It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and
threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively
engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various
last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly
enshrined within his cabin.
CHAPTER 22
Merry Christmas

At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's
riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf,
and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat,
with her last gift- a nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, her
brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward- after all this, the
two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning
to the chief mate, Peleg said:
"Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab
is all ready- just spoke to him- nothing more to be got from shore,
eh? Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here- blast 'em!"
"No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg," said
Bildad, "but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding."
How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage,
Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the
quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as
well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no
sign of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin.
But then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in
getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea.
Indeed, as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot's;
and as he was not yet completely recovered- so they said- therefore,
Captain Ahab stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough;
especially as in the merchant service many captains never show
themselves on deck for a considerable time after heaving up the
anchor, but remain over the cabin table, having a farewell
merry-making with their shore friends, before they quit the ship for
good with the pilot.
But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for
Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking
and commanding, and not Bildad.
"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors
lingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive aft."
"Strike the tent there!"- was the next order. As I hinted before,
this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on
board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was
well known to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor.
"Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!- jump!"- was the next
command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes.
Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the
pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with
Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers, was one of
the licensed pilots of the port- he being suspected to have got
himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all
the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft-
Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over
the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what
seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass,
who roared forth some sort of chorus about the girls in Booble
Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days previous,
Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board
the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh; and Charity, his
sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman's
berth.
Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg
ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought
he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up;
involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the
same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage
with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however,
with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation,
spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a
sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at
the apparition of Captain Peleg in the art of withdrawing his leg from
my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick.
"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared.
"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye
spring, I say, all of ye- spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the
red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants.
Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And so saying, he
moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely,
while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody.
Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.
At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It
was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into
night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose
freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of
teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white
ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended
from the bows.
Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as
the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering
frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his
steady notes were heard,-

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green.
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between."

Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They
were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in
the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there
was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and
meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the
spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.
At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no
longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging
alongside.
It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were
affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to
depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long
and perilous a voyage- beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which
some thousands of his hardearned dollars were invested; a ship, in
which an old shipmate sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he,
once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw;
loath to say good-bye to a thing so every way brimful of every
interest to him,- poor old Bildad lingered long; paced the deck with
anxious strides; ran down into the cabin to speak another farewell
word there; again came on deck, and looked to windward; looked towards
the wide and endless waters, only bound by the far-off unseen
Eastern Continents; looked towards the land; looked aloft; looked
right and left; looked everywhere and nowhere; and at last,
mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively grasped stout
Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a moment stood gazing
heroically in his face, as much as to say, "Nevertheless, friend
Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can."
As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for
all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the
lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from the
cabin to deck- now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the
chief mate.
But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look
about him,- "Captain Bildad- come, old shipmate, we must go. Back
the mainyard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside,
now! Careful, careful!- come, Bildad, boy- say your last. Luck to
ye, Starbuck- luck to ye, Mr. Stubb- luck to ye, Mr. Flask- good-bye
and good luck to ye all- and this day three years I'll have a hot
supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!"
"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmured old
Bildad, almost incoherently. "I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so
that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye- a pleasant sun is all
he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be
careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye
harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent
within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind
that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are
in the green locker. Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men;
but don't miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good
gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a
little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware
of fornication. Good-bye, good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long
down in the hold, Mr. Starbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the
butter- twenty cents the pound it was, and mind ye, if--"
"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,- away!" and with that,
Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.
Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between;
a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave
three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the
lone Atlantic.
CHAPTER 23
The Lee Shore

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall,
newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.
When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her
vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see
standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and
fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four
years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still
another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet.
Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield
no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of
Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the
storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The
port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is
safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all
that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the
land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality;
one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her
shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail
off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain
would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness
again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend
her bitterest foe!
Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally
intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid
effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the
wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the
treacherous, slavish shore?
But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,
indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howling infinite,
than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!
For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of
the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O
Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy
ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!
CHAPTER 24
The Advocate

As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of
whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be
regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable
pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of
the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales.
In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish
the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not
accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions.
If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan
society, it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his
merits, were he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and
if in emulation of the naval officers he should append the initials
S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his visting card, such a procedure
would be deemed preeminently presuming and ridiculous.
Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us
whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a
butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein,
we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are,
that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest
badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably
delights to honor. And as for the matter of the alleged
uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into certain
facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, upon the whole,
will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship at least among the
cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the charge
in question to be true; what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship
are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields
from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies' plaudits?
And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the
soldier's profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran who has
freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition
of the sperm whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his
head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the
interlinked terrors and wonders of God!
But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it
unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding
adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn
round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!
But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of
scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.
Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling
fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personal expense,
fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town
some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why
did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in
bounties upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we
whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest of the banded
whalemen in the world; sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred
vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000
of dollars; the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000!
and every year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest of
$7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not something puissant
in whaling?
But this is not the half; look again.
I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his
life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last
sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad
world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of
whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable
in themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential
issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who
bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be a
hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handful
suffice. For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in
ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has
explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cooke
or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and European men-of-war
now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to
the honor and glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed them
the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages. They
may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your
Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I say that scores of anonymous Captains
have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great, and greater, than
your Cooke and your Krusenstern. For in their succorless
empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the
beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders
and terrors that Cooke with all his marines and muskets would not have
willingly dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old
South Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of
our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates
three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in
the ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!
Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial,
scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe
and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific
coast. It was the whalemen who first broke through the jealous
policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space
permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at
last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the
yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in
those parts.
That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was
given to the enlightened world by whaleman. After its first
blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunned
those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched
there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony.
Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the
emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent
biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their
waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth,
and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for
the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the
primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that
double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the
whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on
the threshold.
But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling
has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I
ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a
split helmet every time.
The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler,
you will say.
The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who
wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job? And
who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less
a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down
the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And
who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund
Burke!
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have
no good blood in their veins.
No good blood in their veins? They have something better than
royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary
Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old
settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers
and harpooneers- all kith and kin to noble Benjamin- this day
darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.
Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not
respectable.
Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English
statutory law, the whale is declared "a royal fish."
Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in
any grand imposing way.
The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the
mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's
capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian
coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.*

*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.

Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is no real
dignity in whaling.
No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very heavens
attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south! No more! Drive down
your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No
more! I know a man that, in his lifetime has taken three hundred and
fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great
captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.
And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real
repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be
unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything upon the
whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at
my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any
precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the
honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College
and my Harvard.
CHAPTER 25
Postscript

In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but
substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who
should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell
eloquently upon his cause- such an advocate, would he not be
blame-worthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even
modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their
functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so
called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,
precisely- who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is
solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it
be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run
well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,
concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in
common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints
his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature
man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got
a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount
to much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here is this- what kind of oil
is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar
oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.
What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured,
unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and
queens with coronation stuff!
CHAPTER 26
Knights and Squires

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket,
and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born
on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his
flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies,
his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been
born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of
those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty and
summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical
superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more
the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the
indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the
man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary. His pure
tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and
embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian,
this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and
to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a
patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well
in all climates. Looking into his eves, you seemed to see there the
yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly
confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the
most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of
sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were
certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases
seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious
for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild
watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to
superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some
organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than
from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.
And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much
more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and
child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his
nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which,
in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so
often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the
fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not
afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most
reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair
estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless
man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
"Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Starbuck, there, is as
careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery." But we shall
ere long see what that word "careful" precisely means when used by a
man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.
Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a
sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon
all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that
in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple
outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be
foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales
after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much
persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this
critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by
them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed
Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father's? Where, in the
bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his brother?
With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain
superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck,
which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been
extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a man so
organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrances as he
had; it was not in nature that these things should fail in latently
engendering an element in him, which, under suitable circumstances,
would break out from its confinement, and burn all his courage up. And
brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible
in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the
conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary
irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more
terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you
from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man.
But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the
complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have
the heart to write it; but it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking,
to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem detestable as
joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers
there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but, man, in the
ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing
creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows
should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness
we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact
though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest
anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety
itself, at such a shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings
against the permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is
not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which
has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that
wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all
hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The great God absolute!
The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our
divine equality!
If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I
shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave around them
tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased,
among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts;
if I shall touch that workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I
shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against
all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality,
which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind!
Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse
to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst
clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and
paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson
from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst
thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly
marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly
commoners; bear me out in it, O God!
CHAPTER 27
Knights and Squires

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence,
according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky;
neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an
indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of
the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner
engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided
over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a
dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about
the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat, as an old
stage-driver is about the snugness of his box. When close to the
whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying
lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He
would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the
most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted
the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself,
there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be
a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after
a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a
sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves
there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the
order, and not sooner.
What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,
unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a
world fail of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their
packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of
his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his
short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his
face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his
bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of
pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his
hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in
succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter;
then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb
dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put
his pipe into his mouth.
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of
his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this early air,
whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless
miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as
in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated
handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal
tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of
disinfecting agent.
The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard.
A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales,
who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally
and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point
of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly
lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their
majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an
apprehension of any possible danger encountering them; that in his
poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse,
or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and
some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and
boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little
waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of
it; and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke
that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided
into wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided.
Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and
last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod;
because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber
known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many
radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship
against the icy concussions of those battering seas.
Now these three mates- Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous
men. They was who by universal prescription commanded three of the
Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which
Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the
whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or,
being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked
trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.
And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a
Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or
harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh
lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the
assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two,
a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in
this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to
what headsman each of them belonged.
First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had
selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most
westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the
last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the
neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring
harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of
Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek
bones, and black rounding eyes- for an Indian, Oriental in their
largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression- all this
sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of
those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England
moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main.
But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the
woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the
sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible
arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky
limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the
earlier Puritans and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the
Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second
mate's squire.
Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black
negro-savage, with a lion-like tread- an Ahasuerus to behold.
Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the
sailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail
halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board
of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never
having been anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the
pagan harbors most frequented by the whalemen; and having now led
for many years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners
uncommonly heedful of what manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained
all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the
decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a
corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing
before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress.
Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire
of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him. As for the
residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that at the present day
not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in
the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly
all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale
fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies,
and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the
American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these
cases the native American literally provides the brains, the rest of
the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of
these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound
Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the
hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland
whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands,
to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage
homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling,
but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all
Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging
the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate
continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set
these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the
isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab
in the Pequod to lay the world's grievances before that bar from which
not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip- he never
did- oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's
forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine;
prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great
quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his
tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!
CHAPTER 28
Ahab

For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches
was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at
the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they
seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes
issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after
all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yet, their supreme
lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not
permitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.
Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly
gazed aft to mark if any strange face was visible; for my first
vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion
of the sea became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened
at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly
recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before
conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other
moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that
outlandish prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of
apprehensiveness or uneasiness- to call it so- which I felt, yet
whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all
warranty to cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with
the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish,
and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my
previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed
this- and rightly ascribed it- to the fierce uniqueness of the very
nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so
abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect of the three
chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly
calculated to allay these colorless misgivings, and induce
confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage.
Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own
different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one
of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it
being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we
had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it
to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which
we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its
intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering,
but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with
a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive
sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck
at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance
towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran
apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.
There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of
the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake,
when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming
them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged
robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze,
and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus.
Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing
right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it
disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark,
lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made
in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning
tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels
and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the
soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether
that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some
desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By some tacit consent,
throughout the voyage little or no allusion was made to it, especially
by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among
the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty
years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him,
not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea.
Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey
Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before
sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab.
Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities,
popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of
discernment. So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when
he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out- which
might hardly come to pass, so he muttered- then, whoever should do
that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him from
crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the
livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly
noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to
the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously
come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the
polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he was dismasted off
Japan," said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but like his dismasted
craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a
quiver of 'em."
I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side
of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen
shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into
the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and
holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out
beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest
fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and
fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke;
nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest
gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not
painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not
only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a
crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity
of some mighty woe.
Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his
cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew;
either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he
had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed,
began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a
recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the
dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And,
by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air;
but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at
last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But
the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising;
nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were
fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of
himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for
that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon
his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile
themselves upon.
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the
pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him
from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April
and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest,
ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some
few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did,
in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that
girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a
look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a
smile.
CHAPTER 29
Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb

Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now
went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea, almost
perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the
Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing,
redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up-
flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed
haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride,
the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!
For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and
such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning
weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward
world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still
mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear
ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle
agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture.
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the
less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among
sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to
visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of
late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly
speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to
the planks. "It feels like going down into one's tomb,"- he would
mutter to himself- "for an old captain like me to be descending this
narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth."
So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night
were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band
below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the
sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some
cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their
slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to
prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the
cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at
the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of
humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained
from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates,
seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have
been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that their
dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, the
mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy,
lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to
mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a
certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain
Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but
there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something
indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the
insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know
Ahab then.
"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad me
that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly
grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the
filling one at last.- Down, dog, and kennel!"
Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so
suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said
excitedly, "I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less
than half like it, sir."
"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving
away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.
"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely be
called a dog, sir."
"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and
begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!"
As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing
terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.
"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,"
muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle.
"It's very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether
to go back and strike him, or- what's that?- down here on my knees and
pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it
would be the first time I ever did pray. It's queer; very queer; and
he's queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest
old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!- his eyes like
powder-pans! is he mad! Anyway there's something's on his mind, as
sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in
his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and
he don't sleep then. Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me
that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock clothes all
rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid
almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as
though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he's got
what some folks ashore call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row
they say- worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it
is, but the Lord keep me from catching it. He's full of riddles; I
wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy
tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should like to know? Who's
made appointments with him in the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But
there's no telling, it's the old game- Here goes for a snooze. Damn
me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only
to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the
first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but
all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But that's against my
principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when
you can, is my twelfth- So here goes again. But how's that? didn't
he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a
lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me,
and done with me. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was
so taken aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached
bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right on my
legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong
side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though- How? how?
how?- but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again;
and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over
by daylight."
CHAPTER 30
The Pipe

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the
bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a
sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also
his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the
stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings
were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How
could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without
bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the
plank, and a king of the sea and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his
mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his
face. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube,
"this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with
me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not
pleasuring- aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while;
to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying
whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What
business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for
sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not
among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more-"
He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in
the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking
pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.
CHAPTER 31
Queen Mab

Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.
"Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old
man's ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried
to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right
off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a blazing
fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask-
you know how curious all dreams are- through all this rage that I
was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all,
it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I,
'what's the row? It's not a real leg, only a false one.' And there's a
mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump. That's what
makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear
than a blow from a cane. The living member- that makes the living
insult, my little man. And thinks I to myself all the while, mind,
while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramid- so
confoundedly contradictory was it all, all the while, I say, I was
thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but a cane-. a whale-bone
cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful cudgelling- in fact, only
a whaleboning that he gave me- not a base kick. Besides,' thinks I,
'look at it once; why, the end of it- the foot part- what a small sort
of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a
devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled down to a point
only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I
was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of badger-haired old merman,
with a hump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me
round. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, but I was frightened.
Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright. 'What am
I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is that of yours, I
should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?' By the lord,
Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his stern to
me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a clout-
what do you think, I saw?- why thunder alive, man, his stern was stuck
full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I on second thought,
'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said he, 'wise
Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of his
gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying over
his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to
kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for
it, when he roared out, 'Stop that kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's
the matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue the
insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I-
'right here it was.' 'Very good,' says he- 'he used his ivory leg,
didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise
Stubb, what have you to complain of? Didn't he kick with right good
will? it wasn't a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No,
you were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb.
It's an honor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old
England the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a
queen, and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast, Stubb, that
ye were kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I
say; be kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account
kick back; for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that
pyramid?' With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some
queer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and
there I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream,
Flask?"
"I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'"
"May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see
Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best
thing you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to
him, whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark!"
"Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales
hereabouts!
If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him!
"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop of
something queer about that, eh? A white whale- did ye mark that,
man? Look ye- there's something special in the wind. Stand by for
it, Flask. Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes
this way."
CHAPTER 32
Cetology

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be
lost in its unshored harborless immensities. Ere that come to pass;
ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled
hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a
matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding
of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts
which are to follow.
It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera,
that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The
classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here
essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid
down.
"No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is
entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.
"It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the
inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups
and families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this
animal" (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.
"Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters."
"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A field
strewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve to
torture us naturalists."
Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and
Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of
real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and
so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many
are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who
have at large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:- The
Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne;
Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi;
Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron
Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett;
J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T.
Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have
written, the above cited extracts will show.
Of the names in this list of whale authors only those following Owen
ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional
harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate
subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing
authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great
sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost
unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale
is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means
the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his
claims, and the profound ignorance which till some seventy years back,
invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which
ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few
scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every
way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the
great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale,
without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time
has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear
ye! good people all,- the Greenland whale is deposed,- the great sperm
whale now reigneth!
There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the
living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest
degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and
Bennett's; both in their time surgeons to the English South-Sea
whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original matter
touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is necessarily
small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellent quality, though
mostly confined to scientific description. As yet, however, the
sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete in any
literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten
life.
Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular
comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the
present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by
subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter
in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing
complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for
that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute
anatomical description of the various species, or- in this space at
least- to much of any description. My object here is simply to project
the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect,
not the builder.
But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the
Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea
after them; to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations,
ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I
that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful
tauntings in Job might well appal me. "Will he (the leviathan) make
a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have
swam through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do
with whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try.
There are some preliminaries to settle.
First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of
Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some
quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In
his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I hereby separate
the whales from the fish." But of my own knowledge, I know that down
to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against
Linnaeus's express edict, were still found dividing the possession
of the same seas with the Leviathan.
The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the
whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their
warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, their
hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and finally,
"ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this to my friends
Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of
mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the
reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely
hinted they were humbug.
Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old
fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to
back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what
internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above,
Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these: lungs
and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.
Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as
conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short, then,
a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him.
However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded
meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a
fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is
still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have
noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but
a vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the
tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a
horizontal position.
By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude
from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto
identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on
the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively
regarded as alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting and horizontal
tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of cetology. Now,
then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host.

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

First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary
BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them
all, both small and large.
I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.
As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale; of the OCTAVO,
the Grampus; of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise.
FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:- I. The
Sperm Whale; II. the Right Whale; III. the Fin Back Whale; IV. the
Humpbacked Whale; V. the Razor Back Whale; VI. the Sulphur Bottom
Whale.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale).- This whale, among the
English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale and the Physeter
whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the
French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the
Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;
the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in
aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the
only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is
obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be
enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do.
Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when
the sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own proper
individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained from
the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was
popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the
one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was
the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor
of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word
literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was
exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an
ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as
you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the
course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its
original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance
its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so
the appellation must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale
from which this spermaceti was really derived.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale).- In one respect this
is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly
hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or
baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior
article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately
designated by all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland
Whale; the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right
Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning the Identity of the
species thus multitudinously baptized. What then is the whale, which I
include in the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus
of the English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English
whaleman; the Baliene Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the
Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale which for more than
two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the
Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen have long
pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' West
Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them
Right Whale Cruising Grounds.
Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of
the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely
agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented
a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical
distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most
inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history
become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere
treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the sperm
whale.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (Fin-Back).- Under this head I
reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back,
Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is
commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by
passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In
the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the
right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter color,
approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect,
formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His
grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name,
is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four feet
long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of an
angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not the
slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated fin
will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When
the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical
ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the
wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle
surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy
hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back.
The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men
are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising
to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight
and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a
barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in
swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan
seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his
mark that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth,
the Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a
theoretic species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with
baleen. Of these so-called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be
several varieties, most of which, however, are little known.
Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched
whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fisherman's
names for a few sorts.
In connexion with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of
great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be
convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is
in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded
upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding
that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted
to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other
detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents.
How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things
whose peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts
of whales, without any record to what may be the nature of their
structure in other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm
whale and the humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the
similitude ceases. Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland
whale, each of these has baleen; but there again the similitude
ceases. And it is just the same with the other parts above
mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such irregular
combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached, such an
irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general methodization
formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the
whale-naturalists has split.
But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of
the whale, in his anatomy- there, at least, we shall be able to hit
the right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in
the Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we
have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify
the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various
leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part
as available to the systematizer as those external ones already
enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the
whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them
that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and
it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is
practicable. To proceed.
BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back).- This whale is often seen
on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there,
and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or
you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the
popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since
the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not
very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and
light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white
water generally than any other of them.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razar Back).- Of this whale little is
known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of
a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though
no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back,
which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of
him, nor does anybody else.
BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom).- Another retiring
gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the
Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom
seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern
seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his
countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks
of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say
nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.
Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo).
OCTAVOES.* These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among
which present may be numbered:- I., the Grampus; II., the Black
Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer.

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

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus).- Though this fish, whose
loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to
landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not
popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand
distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have
recognised him for one. He is of moderate octave size, varying from
fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions
round the waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted,
though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light.
By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the
advance of the great sperm whale.
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish).- I give the popular
fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best.
Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so,
and suggest another. I do so now touching the Black Fish, so called
because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him
the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known and from
the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards,
he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale
averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in
almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal
hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose.
When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes
capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for
domestic employment- as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of
company, and quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead
of odorous wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these
whales will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale.-
Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from
his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The
creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages
five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet.
Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out
from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But
it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving
its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed
man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would
be hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the
sword-fish and bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the
Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea
for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer; for
the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it
sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through. But
you cannot prove either of these surmises to be correct. My own
opinion is, that however this one-sided horn may really be used by the
Narwhale- however that may be- it would certainly be very convenient
to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard
called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He
is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in almost
every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old
authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn was in
ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as
such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled
to a volatile salts for fainting ladies the same way that the horns of
the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in
itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me
that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen
Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of
Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; "when Sir
Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on bended
knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the
Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at
Windsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on
bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn,
pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.
The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a
milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of
black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little
of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the
circumpolar seas.
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).- Of this whale little is
precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the
professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I
should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very
savage- a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio
whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute
is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what
sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon
this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all
killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher).- This gentleman is
famous for his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his
foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works
his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the
world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than
of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas.
Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III, (Duodecimo.)
DUODECIMOES.- These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza
Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.
To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may
possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five
feet should be marshalled among WHALES- a word, which, in the
popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures
set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of
my definition of what a whale is- i.e. a spouting fish, with a
horizontal tail.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise).- This is the
common porpoise found all over the globe. The name is of my own
bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something
must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always
swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing
themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their
appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of
fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to
windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are
accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers
at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit
of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise
will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and
delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It
is in request among jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put in on their
hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may never have
occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so
small that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you
have a chance, watch him; and you will then see the great Sperm
whale himself in miniature.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise).- A pirate.
Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat
larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make.
Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him
many times, but never yet saw him captured.
BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise).- The
largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as
it is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been
designated, is that of the fisher- Right-Whale Porpoise, from the
circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio.
In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being
of a less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and
gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other
porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes
of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils him. Though his entire back
down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line,
distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called the "bright waist," that
line streaks him from stem to stern, with two separate colors, black
above and white below. The white comprises part of his head, and the
whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he had just escaped
from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect!
His oil is much like that of the common porpoise.

Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as
the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the
Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,
half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by
reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their
fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable
to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but
begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and
marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System,
according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:- The
Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the
Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the
Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale;
the Blue Whale; &c. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English
authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales,
blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as
altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere
sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.
Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not
be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I
have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus
unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with
the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For
small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones,
true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from
ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught- nay, but
the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
CHAPTER 33
The Specksynder

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a
place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on
ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of
officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the
whale-fleet.
The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is
evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two
centuries and more ago, the command of a whale-ship was not wholly
lodged in the person now called the captain, but was divided between
him and an officer called the Specksynder. Literally this word means
Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief
Harpooneer. In those days, the captain's authority was restricted to
the navigation and general management of the vessel; while over the
whale-hunting department and all its concerns, the Specksynder or
Chief Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery,
under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official
is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At
present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but
one of the captain's more inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon
the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage
largely depends, and since in the American Fishery he is not only an
important officer in the boat, but under certain circumstances
(night watches on a whaling ground) the command of the ship's deck
is also his; therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands,
that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast,
and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior;
though always, by them, familiarly regarded as their social equal.
Now, the grand distinction between officer and man at sea, is
this- the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and
merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and
so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in
the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in
the captain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating
with it.
Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the
longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils
of it, and the community of interest prevailing among a company, all
of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed
wages, but upon their common luck, together with their common
vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work; though all these things do in
some cases tend to beget a less rigorous discipline than in
merchantmen generally; yet, never mind how much like an old
Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitive instances,
live together; for all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of
the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance
done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will
see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur
not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as much
outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the
shabbiest of pilot-cloth.
And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the
least given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only
homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience;
though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere
stepping upon the quarter-deck; and though there were times when,
owing to peculiar circumstances connected with events hereafter to
be detailed, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether of
condescension or in terrorem, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab
was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the
sea.
Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind
those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself;
incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than
they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of
his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested;
through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an
irresistible dictatorship. For be a man's intellectual superiority
what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy
over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and
entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base.
This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire
from the world's hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air
can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite
inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than
through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass.
Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political
superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to
idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the
case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire
encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased
before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist
who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and
direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his
art, as the one now alluded to.
But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket
grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and
Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old
whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical
trappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in
thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the
deep, and featured in the unbodied air!
CHAPTER 34
The Cabin-Table

It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale
loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his
lord and master who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been
taking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the
latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that
daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete
inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not
heard his menial. But presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds,
he swings himself to the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice,
saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck," disappears into the cabin.
When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck,
the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then
Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks,
and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of
pleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends the scuttle. The
second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly
shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all right with
that important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a
rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows after his predecessors.
But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the
quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for,
tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and
kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of
a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a
dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a
shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains visible
from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing up the
rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he
pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then, independent, hilarious
little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, in the character of
Abjectus, or the Slave.
It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck
some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and
defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those
very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in
that same commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to
say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head
of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore
this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King
of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but
courteously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane
grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit
presides over his own private dinner-table of invited guests, that
man's unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for
the time; that man's royalty of state transcends Belshazzar's, for
Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who has but once dined his friends,
has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It is a witchery of social
czarship which there is no withstanding. Now, if to this consideration
you super-add the official supremacy of a ship-master, then, by
inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life
just mentioned.
Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned
sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-like but
still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to
be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab,
there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind,
their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he
carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the
world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest
observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when
reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was
locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate
received his meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a
little started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate;
and chewed it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without
circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where
the German Emperor profoundly dines with the seven imperial
electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in
awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade not conversation;
only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to choking Stubb,
when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And poor little
Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family
party. His were the shin-bones of the saline beef; his would have been
the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this
must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had
he helped himself at the table, doubtless, never more would he have
been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless,
strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped
himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it.
Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether
he thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of
its clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that,
on so long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a
premium, and therefore was not for him, a subaltern; however it was,
Flask, alas! was a butterless man!
Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and
Flask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was
badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start
of him; and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the
rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to
have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his
repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will not get more than
three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to
precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted
in private, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an
officer, from that moment he had never known what it was to be
otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate did not so much
relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. Peace and
satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from my stomach. I
am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned
beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was before the mast.
There's the fruit of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory:
there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere
sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official
capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample
vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime, and get a peep at Flask
through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before
awful Ahab.
Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first
table in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking place in
inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or
rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And
then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its
residuary legatees. They made a sort of temporary servants' hall of
the high and mighty cabin.
In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and
nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire
care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those
inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates,
seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the
harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that there was a
report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their bellies like
Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such portentous appetites
had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by
the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a
great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox.
And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a nimble
hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of
accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once
Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy's memory by
snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty
wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the
circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous,
shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the
progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the
standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical
tumultuous visitations of these three savages, Dough-Boy's whole
life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing the
harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he would escape
from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully
peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was over.
It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego,
opposing his filed teeth to the Indian's; crosswise to them, Daggoo
seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his
hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his
colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an
African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, the great
negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. It seemed
hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could
keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a
person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of
the abounding element of air; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed
in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by beef or by bread, are giants
made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of
the lip in eating- an ugly sound enough- so much so, that the
trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth
lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear Tashtego singing
out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked, the
simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging round him
in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the
whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their
lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they
would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did
not at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget
that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been
guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretion. Alas! Dough-Boy!
hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin
should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to
his great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and
depart; to his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial
bones jingling in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in
scabbards.
But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived
there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they
were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before
sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their own peculiar
quarters.
In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American
whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by
rights the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy
alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that,
in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more
properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when
they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor enters a house;
turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned out the next; and,
as a permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much
hereby; in the cabin was no companionship; socially, Ahab was
inaccessible. Though nominally included in the census of
Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as
the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when
Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods,
burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there,
sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab's
soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the
sullen paws of its gloom!
CHAPTER 35
The Mast-Head

It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with
the other seamen my first mast-head came round.
In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost
simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she may
have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper
cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years' voyage
she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her- say, an empty
vial even- then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last! and not
till her skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does
she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.
Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is
a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate
here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old
Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them.
For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless,
by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all
Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as
that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board,
in the dread gale of God's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these
Babel builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians
were a nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the
general belief among archaeologists, that the first pyramids were
founded for astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by
the peculiar stairlike formation of all four sides of those
edifices; whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs,
those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for
new stars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail,
or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous
Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in
the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its
summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we
have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who
was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail,
or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to the last, literally
died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads we have but a
lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who, though well
capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely incompetent
to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange sight.
There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column of Vendome stands
with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air;
careless, now, who rules the decks below, whether Louis Philippe,
Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high
aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of
Hercules' pillars, his column marks that point of human grandeur
beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan
of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and even
when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet given that a
hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, must be fire. But
neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a
single hail from below, however madly invoked to befriend by their
counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze; however it may
be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of
the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned.
It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head
standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is
not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole
historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells
us, that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were
regularly launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island
erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the look-outs
ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs
in a hen-house. A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the
Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice
to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now
become obsolete; turn we then to the one proper mast-head, that of a
whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads are kept manned from
sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their regular turns (as at
the helm), and relieving each other every two hours. In the serene
weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant the mast-head:
nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a
hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if
the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your
legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships
once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes.
There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with
nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls;
the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For
the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness
invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling
accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary
excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities;
fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you
shall have for dinner- for all your meals for three years and more are
snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.
In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years'
voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at
the mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to
be deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a
portion of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly
destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted
to breed a comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a
bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any
other of those small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily
isolate themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of
the t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks
(almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t' gallant crosstrees.
Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as
he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, in cold weather you
may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but
properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than
the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy
tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of
it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant
pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not
so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin
encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body,
and no more can you make a convenience closet of your watch-coat.
Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads
of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little
tents or pulpits, called crow's-nests, in which the look-outs of a
Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the
frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A
Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and
incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of
Old Greenland;" in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads
are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then
recently invented crow's-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of
Captain Sleet's good craft. He called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in
honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and
free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call
our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original
inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after
ourselves any other apparatus we may beret. In shape, the Sleet's
crow's-nest is something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open
above, however, where it is furnished with a movable sidescreen to
keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the
summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch
in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of the
ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas,
comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keep
your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical
conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this
crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him
(also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for
the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea
unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot
at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to
shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly
a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the
little detailed conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so
enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very
scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a
small compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the
errors resulting from what is called the "local attraction" of all
binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of
the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps,
to there having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I
say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here,
yet, for all his learned "binnacle deviations," "azimuth compass
observations," and "approximate errors," he knows very well, Captain
Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic
meditations, as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well
replenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his
crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole,
I greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learned
Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly
ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend and comforter
it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded head he
was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest within
three or four perches of the pole.
But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as
Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is
greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those
seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used
to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have
a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find
there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg
over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery
pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination.
Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept
but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how
could I- being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering
altitude- how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all
whaleships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out
every time."
And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of
Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with
lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and
who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head.
Beware of such an one, I say: your whales must be seen before they can
be killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes
round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer.
Nor are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the
whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and
absent-minded young men, disgusted with the corking care of earth, and
seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently
perches himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed
whale-ship, and in moody phrase ejaculates:-

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain."

Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded
young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling
sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so
hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret
souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in
vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is
imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the
visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home.
"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've
been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a
whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up
here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of
them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like
listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded
youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last
he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the
visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind
and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing
that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some
undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive
thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it.
In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came;
becomes diffused through time and space; like Crammer's sprinkled
Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round
globe over.
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted
by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea,
from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is
on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your
identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And
perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled
shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no
more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!
CHAPTER 36
The Quarter-Deck

(Enter Ahab: Then, all)

It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one
morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the
cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at
that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns
in the garden.
Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced
his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were
all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his
walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow;
there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints- the
foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.
But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even
as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of
his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now
at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that
thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so
completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward
mould of every outer movement.
"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in him
pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out."
The hours wore on;- Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon,
pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his
aspect.
It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the
bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and
with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody
aft.
"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given
on ship-board except in some extraordinary case.
"Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!"
When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious
and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked
not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab,
after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes
among the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not a
soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent
head and half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the
wondering whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to
Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of
witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently
pausing, he cried:-
"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?"
"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of
clubbed voices.
"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the
hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so
magnetically thrown them.
"And what do ye next, men?"
"Lower away, and after him!"
"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?"
"A dead whale or a stove boat!"
More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the
countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to
gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they
themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.
But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in
his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and
tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-
"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a
white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"- holding
up a broad bright coin to the sun- "it is a sixteen dollar piece, men.
D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was
slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as
if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile
lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and
inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of
his vitality in him.
Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the
main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold
with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of
ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked
jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three
holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye, whosoever of ye
raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my
boys!"
"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they
hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.
"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the
topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for
white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."
All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with
even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the
mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if
each was separately touched by some specific recollection.
"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same
that some call Moby Dick."
"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"
"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"
said the Gay-Header deliberately.
"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy, even
for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"
"And he have one, two, three- oh! good many iron in him hide, too,
Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk,
like him- him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round
and round as though uncorking a bottle- "like him- him-"
"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all
twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like
a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool
after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails
like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick
ye have seen- Moby Dick- Moby Dick!"
"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus
far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last
seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the
wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was not
Moby Dick that took off thy leg?"
"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye,
my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick
that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he
shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a
heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that
razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!"
Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted
out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the
Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames
before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to
chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of
earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men,
will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave."
"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to
the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance
for Moby Dick!"
"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God bless ye,
men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this
long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale!
art not game for Moby Dick?"
"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,
Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow;
but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many
barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain
Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."
"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a
little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the
accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by
girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then,
let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!"
"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks
it rings most vast, but hollow."
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee
from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,
Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."
"Hark ye yet again- the little lower layer. All visible objects,
man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the living
act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing
puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning
mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! How can the prisoner
reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white
whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's
naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him
outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That
inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale
agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon
him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it
insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other;
since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding
over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play.
Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more
intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou
reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But
look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself.
There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to
incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted
tawn- living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan
leopards- the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek,
and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man,
the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the
whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of
it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling
cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a
fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one
poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will
not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone.
Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but
speak!- Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside)
Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his
lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion."
"God keep me!- keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate,
Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh
from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the
cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as
for a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast
eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean
laugh died away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship
heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay
ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye
shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of
the fore-going things within. For with little external to constrain
us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.
"The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab.
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he
ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him
near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his
three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the
ship's company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an
instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild
eyes met his, as the bloodshot eves of the prairie wolves meet the eye
of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the
bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.
"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to
the nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round!
Short draughts- long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So,
so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the
serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went,
this way it comes. Hand it me- here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the
years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!
"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan;
and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand
there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I
may in some sort revive a noble custom of my fishermen fathers
before me. O men, you will yet see that- Ha! boy, come back? bad
pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run
brimming again, wert not thou St. Vitus' imp- away, thou ague!
"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let
me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three
level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,
suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile glancing intently from
Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some
nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them
the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own
magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained,
and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the
honest eye of Starbuck fell downright.
"In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three
but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing,
that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have
dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye
mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen
there- yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant
harpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the
feet of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals!
your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye;
ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!"
Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the
detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held,
barbs up, before him.
"Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know
ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye
cup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!"
Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed
the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.
"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices!
Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble
league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now
waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men
that man the deathful whaleboat's bow- Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us
all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!" The long, barbed steel
goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white
whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss.
Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally,
the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when,
waving his free hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired
within his cabin.
CHAPTER 37
Sunset

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

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er
I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let
them; but first I pass.
Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like
wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun- slow dived from
noon- goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill.
Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of
Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not
its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly
confounds. 'Tis iron- that I know- not gold. 'Tis split, too- that I
feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against
the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet
in the most brain-battering fight!
Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly
spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it
lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er
enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying
power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst
of Paradise! Good night-good night! (waving his hand, he moves from
the window.)
'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the
least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,
and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder,
they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire
others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared,
I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad-
Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild
madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I
should be dismembered; and- Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy
that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and
the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I
laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes
and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies-
Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked
me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth
from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come,
Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me?
ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there.
Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails,
whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through
the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I
rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
CHAPTER 38
Dusk

By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it.

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

[A burst of revelry from the forecastle.]

Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of
human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The
white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that
revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it
pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay,
embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where
he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of
the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long
howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh,
life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to
knowledge,- as wild, untutored things are forced to feed- Oh, life!
'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me!
that horror's out of me, and with the soft feeling of the human in me,
yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me,
hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!
CHAPTER 39
First Night Watch

(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)

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

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light,
To love, as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

A brave stave that- who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir-
(Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.- Aye,
aye, sir, just through with this job- coming.
CHAPTER 40
Midnight, Forecastle

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

Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!
Our captain's commanded.-

1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR
Oh, boys, don't be sentimental. it's bad for the digestion! Take a
tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow)
Our captain stood upon the deck,
A spy-glass in his hand,
A viewing of those gallant whales
That blew at every strand.
Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,
And by your braces stand,
And we'll have one of those fine whales,
Hand, boys, over hand!
So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail!
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!

MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK
Eight bells there, forward!

2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR
Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy? Strike the
bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the watch.
I've the sort of mouth for that- the hogshead mouth. So, so,
(thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! Eight
bells there below! Tumble up!

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

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

PIP (Sulky and sleepy)
Don't know where it is.

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

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

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

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

LONG-ISLAND SAILOR
Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you
may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music; now
for it!

AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.)
Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits; up you mount! Now,
boys!
(The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep
or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)

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

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

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

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

TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking)
That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat.

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

3D NANTUCKET SAILOR
Spell oh!- whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a
calm- give a whiff, Tash.
(They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens- the wind rises.)

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

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

SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining)
Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad- fleet interlacings of the limbs-
lithe swayings- coyings- flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)

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

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

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

4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must
always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a
pistol- fire your ship right into it!

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

ALL
Aye! aye!

OLD MANX SAILOR
How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to
live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but the
crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of
weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at
sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another
in the sky lurid- like, ye see, all else pitch black.

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

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

DAGGOO (Grimly)
None.

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

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
What's that I saw- lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR
No; Daggoo showing his teeth.

DAGGOO (Springing)
Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (Meeting him)
Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit!

ALL
A row! a row! a row!

TASHTEGO (With a whiff)
A row a'low, and a row aloft- Gods and men- both brawlers! Humph!

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

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

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

MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK
Hands by the halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef
topsails!

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

PIP (Shrinking under the windlass)
Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the
jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal
yard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day of
the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go,
all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're on the
road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But those
chaps there are worse yet- they are your white squalls, they. White
squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their chat
just now, and the white whale- shirr! shirr!- but spoken of once!
and only this evening- it makes me ingle all over like my
tambourine- that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him!
Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have
mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men
that have no bowels to feel fear!
CHAPTER 41
Moby Dick

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the
rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and
more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul.
A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless
feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that
murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our
oaths of violence and revenge.
For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied,
secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly
frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of
his existence; a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him;
while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to
him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of
whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire
watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest
along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole
twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling
sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the
irregularity of the times of sailing from home; all these, with
other circumstances, direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread
through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet of the special
individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick. It was hardly to be
doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or
such a time, or on such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of
uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great
mischief to his assailants, has completely escaped them; to some minds
it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in question
must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale
fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of
great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore
it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby
Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to
ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils
of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual cause.
In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the
whale had hitherto been popularly regarded.
And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by
chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had
every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him,
as for any other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities
did ensue in these assaults- not restricted to sprained wrists and
ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputations- but fatal to the
last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all
accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had
gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the
story of the White Whale had eventually come.
Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the
more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not
only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all
surprising terrible events,- as the smitten tree gives birth to its
fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma,
wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to
cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the
whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the
wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes
circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a body unexempt from
that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of
all sailors, they are by all odds the most directly brought into
contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to
face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give
battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed
a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not come
to any chiselled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath that part
of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a
calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all
tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No
wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over
the wildest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale
did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints,
and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which
eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from
anything that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic
did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had
heard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing to
encounter the perils of his jaw.
But there were still other and more vital practical influences at
work. Nor even at the present day has the original prestige of the
Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of
the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body.
There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and
courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right
whale, would perhaps- either from professional inexperience, or
incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale;
at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those
whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never
hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the
leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued
in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a
childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of
Southern whaling. Nor is the preeminent tremendousness of the great
Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of
those prows which stem him.
And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former
legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book
naturalists- Olassen and Povelson- declaring the Sperm Whale not
only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but
also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for
human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these
or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the
Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish
(sharks included) are "struck with the most lively terrors," and
"often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the
rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death." And however
the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as
these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item
of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes
of their vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.
So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a
few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the
earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard
to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of
this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although other
leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lances
at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man.
That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick
eternity. On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may
be consulted.
Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these
things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater
number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely,
without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without
superstitious accompaniments were sufficiently hardy not to flee
from the battle if offered.
One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be
linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously
inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous;
that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and
the same instant of time.
Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit
altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For
as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been
divulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the
Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part,
unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time have originated
the most curious and contradictory speculations regarding them,
especially concerning the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a
great depth, he transports himself with such vast swiftness to the
most widely distant points.
It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships,
and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by
Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the
Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons
darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some
of these instances it has been declared that the interval of time
between the two assaults could not have exceeded very many days.
Hence, by inference, it has been believed by some whalemen, that the
Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to
the whale. So that here, in the real living experience of living
men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello mountain
in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the
wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); and that still more
wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whose waters
were believed to have come from the Holy Land by an underground
passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by the
realities of the whalemen.
Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and
knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had
escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen
should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick
not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity
in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his
flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever
be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly
deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues
away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen.
But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough
in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to
strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much
his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm
whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out- a peculiar snow-white
wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were
his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless,
uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those
who knew him.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled
with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his
distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed,
literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high
noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam,
all spangled with golden gleamings.
Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet
his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural
terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according
to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his
assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of
dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting
pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times
been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either
stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to
their ship.
Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though
similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means
unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the
White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every
dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as
having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.
Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the
minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips
of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out
of the white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene,
exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal.
His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling
in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken
prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe,
blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of
the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly
sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped
away Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned
Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more
seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since
that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild
vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his
frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only
all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual
exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac
incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel
eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and
half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the
beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe
one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east
reverenced in their statue devil;- Ahab did not fall down and
worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the
abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it.
All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of
things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and
cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all
evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically
assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the
sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from
Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his
hot heart's shell upon it.
It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant
rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting
at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden,
passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that
tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but
nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home,
and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay
stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary,
howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed
soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That
it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that
the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact
that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and,
though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his
Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his
mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving
in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of
the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship,
with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and,
to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed left behind him with
the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the
blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected
front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his
mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab,
in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning
and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but
become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy
subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson,
when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through
the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one
jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad
madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That
before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a
furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general
sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon
its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab,
to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than
ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object.
This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains
unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is
profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this spiked
Hotel de Cluny where we here stand- however grand and wonderful, now
quit it;- and take your way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast
Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath the fantastic towers of
man's upper earth, his root of grandeur, his whole awful essence
sits in bearded state; an antique buried beneath antiquities, and
throned on torsoes! So with a broken throne, the great gods mock
that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on
his frozen brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye
prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, sad king! A family
likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from
your grim sire only will the old State-secret come.
Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely; all my
means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to
kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he
did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his
dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will
determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling,
that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer
thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the
quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken him.
The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise
popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added
moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the
Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so
very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness for another
whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, the calculating
people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor the conceit,
that for those very reasons he was all the better qualified and set on
edge, for a pursuit so full of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of
whales. Gnawed within and scorched without, with the infixed,
unrelenting fangs of some incurable idea; such an one, could he be
found, would seem the very man to dart his iron and lift his lance
against the most appalling of all brutes. Or, if for any reason
thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one
would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings
to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the
mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had
purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and
all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his
old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him
then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched
the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable
cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He
was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.
Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with
curses Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too,
chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals-
morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue
or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invunerable jollity of
indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity
in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and
packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac
revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old
man's ire- by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at
times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their
insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be- what the White Whale
was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some
dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon
of the seas of life,- all this to explain, would be to dive deeper
than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all,
how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled
sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What
skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself
up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all
a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but
the deadliest ill.
CHAPTER 42
The Whiteness of The Whale

What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times,
he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.
Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick,
which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some
alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror
concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered
all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that
I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the
whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how
can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way,
explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances
beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles,
japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way
recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric,
grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White
Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion;
and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped
in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one
figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire,
Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the
same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the
human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every
dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even
made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone
marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and
symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble
things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among
the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was
the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies
the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes
to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds;
though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it
has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by
the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the
holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself
being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble
Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far
the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful
creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great
Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though
directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive
the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn
beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish
faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion
of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given
to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white
before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there
white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with
whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an
elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes
more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness,
when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any
object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest
bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of
the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the
transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which
imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific,
to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged
tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the
white-shrouded bear or shark.*

*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him
who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the
whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable
hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness,
it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the
irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the
fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing
together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear
frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all
this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not
have that intensified terror.
As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in
that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies
with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most
vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish.
The Romish mass for the dead begins with "Requiem eternam" (eternal
rest), whence Requiem denominating the mass itself, and any other
funeral music. Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of
death in this shark, and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French
call him Requin.

Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual
wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all
imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great,
unflattering laureate, Nature.*

*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a
prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my
forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there,
dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of
unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At
intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to
embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it.
Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in
supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes,
methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham
before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its
wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the
miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at
that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that
darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and turning, asked a
sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! never had heard
that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious thing is
utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I learned
that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no
possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with
those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird
upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the
bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly
burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.
I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird
chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in
this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey
albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such
emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.
But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will
tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the
sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered,
leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and
then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant
for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the
wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!

Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of
the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger,
large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a
thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the
elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those
days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At
their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star
which every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing
cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him
with housings more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have
furnished him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that
unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and
hunters revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked
majestic as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed.
Whether marching amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless
cohorts that endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or
whether with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the
horizon, the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm
nostrils reddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he
presented himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object
of trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from what
stands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was his
spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness; and
that this divineness had that in it which, though commanding
worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror.
But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that
accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and
Albatross.
What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often
shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and
kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by
the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men- has no
substantive deformity- and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading
whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest
abortion. Why should this be so?
Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but
not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces
this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the
gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White
Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice
omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect
of that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of
their faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff
in the market-place!
Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all
mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It
cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect
of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor
lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the
badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation
here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue
of the shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions
do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all
ghosts rising in a milk-white fog- Yea, while these terrors seize
us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, when personified by the
evangelist, rides on his pallid horse.
Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or
gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its
profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition
to the soul.
But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to
account for it? To analyze it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by
the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of
whiteness- though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped
of all direct associations calculated to import to it aught fearful,
but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery,
however modified;- can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue
to conduct us to the hidden cause we seek?
Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety,
and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls.
And though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions
about to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few
perhaps were entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may
not be able to recall them now.
Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but
loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the
bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary,
speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded
with new-fallen snow? Or to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant
of the Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White
Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul?
Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and
kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White
Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an
untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its
neighbors- the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer
towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar
moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare
mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is
full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of
all latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert
such a spectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls
us with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the
waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to
choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy,
why, in reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does "the
tall pale man" of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor
unrustlingly glides through the green of the groves- why is this
phantom more terrible than all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg?
Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling
earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the
tearlessness of and skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide
field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all
adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban
avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of
cards;- it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the
strangest, saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the
white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe.
Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits
not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her
broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own
distortions.
I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of
whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the
terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is
there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to
another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially
when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or
universality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be
respectively elucidated by the following examples.
First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands,
if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and
feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but
under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his
hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky
whiteness- as if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white
bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious
dread; the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to
him as a real ghost; in vain the lead assures him he is still off
soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he never rests till
blue water is under him again. Yet where is the mariner who will
tell thee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks,
as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me?"
Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the
snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the
mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such
vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would
be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitude. Much the same is it
with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference
views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree
or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor,
beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some
infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he,
shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope
and solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard
grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses.
But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is
but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a
hypo, Ishmael.
Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful
valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey- why is it that
upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind
him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal
muskiness- why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the
ground in phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any
gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the
strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated
with the experience of former perils; for what knows he, this New
England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon?
No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of
the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of
miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending,
goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of
the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust.
Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings
of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the
windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking
of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!
Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the
mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt,
somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects
this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were
formed in fright.
But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and
learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange
and far more portentous- why, as we have seen, it is at once the
most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the
Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying
agent in things the most appalling to mankind.
Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless
voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind
with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of
the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a
color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the
concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a
dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a
colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we
consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other
earthly hues- every stately or lovely emblazoning- the sweet tinges of
sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies,
and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile
deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from
without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot,
whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when
we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which
produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever
remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without
medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses,
with its own blank tinge- pondering all this, the palsied universe
lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who
refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the
wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud
that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the
Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
CHAPTER 43
Hark!

"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?
It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were
standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in
the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they
passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most
part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful
not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went
in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a
sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.
It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon,
whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a
Cholo, the words above.
"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?"
"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?"
"There it is again- under the hatches- don't you hear it- a cough-
it sounded like a cough."
"Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket."
"There again- there it is!- it sounds like two or three sleepers
turning over, now!"
"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked
biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye- nothing else.
Look to the bucket!"
"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears."
"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old
Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're
the chap."
"Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is
somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck;
and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb
tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort
in the wind."
"Tish! the bucket!"
CHAPTER 44
The Chart

Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall
that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of
his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in
the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea
charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating
himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the
various lines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow
but steady pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before
were blank. At intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books
beside him, wherein were set down the seasons and places in which,
on various former voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been
captured or seen.
While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains
over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for
ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled
brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out
lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was
also tracing lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his
forehead.
But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his
cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they
were brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced,
and others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans
before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a
view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought
of his soul.
Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the
leviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out
one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not
so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents;
and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food;
and, also calling to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting
him in particular latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises,
almost approaching to certainties, concerning the timeliest day to
be upon this or that ground in search of his prey.
So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the
sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe
that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world;
were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully
collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to
correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the
flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to
construct elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.*

*Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out
by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National
Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it
appears that precisely such a chart is in course of completion; and
portions of it are presented in the circular. "This chart divides
the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees
of longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are
twelve columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of
which districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that
have been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to
show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been
seen."

Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another,
the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct- say, rather,
secret intelligence from the Deity- mostly swim in veins, as they
are called; continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such
undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any
chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these
cases, the direction taken by any one whale be straight as a
surveyor's parallel, and though the line of advance be strictly
confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary vein
in which at these times he is said to swim, generally embraces some
few miles in width (more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or
contract); but never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship's
mast-heads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The
sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and along
that path, migrating whales may with great confidence be looked for.
And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known
separate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but
in crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds he
could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even
then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting.
There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his
delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality,
perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons
for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the
herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year,
say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were
found there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and
unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true.
In general, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to
the solitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So
that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example,
on what is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano
Bay on the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow that were the
Pequod to visit either of those spots at any subsequent
corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter him there. So,
too, with some other feeding-grounds, where he had at times revealed
himself. But all these seemed only his casual stopping-places and
ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged abode. And
where Ahab's chances of accomplishing his object have hitherto been
spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever way-side,
antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular set time or
place were attained, when all possibilities would become
probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next
thing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were
conjoined in the one technical phrase- the Season-on-the-Line. For
there and then, for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been
periodically descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the
sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any
one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly
encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the waves
were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot where the
monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his vengeance. But in
the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering vigilance with which
Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering hunt, he would
not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one crowning fact
above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those hopes; nor in
the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his unquiet
heart as to postpone all intervening quest.
Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of
the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her
commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn,
and then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the
equatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait
for the next ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod's
sailing had, perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view
to this very complexion of things. Because, an interval of three
hundred and sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval
which, instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a
miscellaneous hunt; if by chance the White Whale, spending his
vacation in seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds,
should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the
Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his race.
So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Traders; any wind
but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the devious
zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake.
But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it
not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one
solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of
individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded
Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the
peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump,
could not but be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale,
Ahab would mutter to himself, as after poring over his charts till
long after midnight he would throw himself back in reveries- tallied
him, and shall he escape? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped
out like a lost sheep's are! And here, his mad mind would run on in
a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came
over him! and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his
strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who
is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with
clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.
Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably
vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts
through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and
whirled them round and round and round in his blazing brain, till
the very throbbing of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and
when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him
heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in
him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed
fiends beckoned him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself
yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and
with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though
escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of
being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright
at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity.
For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast
hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was
not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The
latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep,
being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which
at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it
spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the
frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral.
But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore
it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts
and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer
inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a
kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay, could
grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was
conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered
birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes,
when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a
vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light,
to be sure, but without an object to color, and therefore a
blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created
a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a
Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the
very creature he creates.
CHAPTER 45
The Affidavit

So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and,
indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious
particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in
its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this
volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further
and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately
understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound
ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the
natural verity of the main points of this affair.
I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall
be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations
of items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and
from these citations, I take it- the conclusion aimed at will
naturally follow of itself.
First: I have personally known three instances where a whale,
after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and,
after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been again
struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by
the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the
instance where three years intervened between the flinging of the
two harpoons; and I think it may have been something more than that;
the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading
ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery
party, and penetrated far into the interior, where he travelled for
a period of nearly two years, often endangered by serpents, savages,
tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other common perils incident
to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale
he had struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt it had
thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all the
coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this whale again
came together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have
known three instances similar to this; that is in two of them I saw
the whales struck; and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with
the respective marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish.
In the three-year instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both
times, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognized a
peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's eye, which I had observed
there three years previous. I say three years, but I am pretty sure it
was more than that. Here are three instances, then, which I personally
know the truth of; but I have heard of many other instances from
persons whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to
impeach.
Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however
ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several
memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean
has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such
a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally owing
to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for
however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon
put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down
into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the
fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of
perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo
Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise
him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered
lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more
intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that happen to
known an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive
salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the
acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their
presumption.
But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great
individual celebrity- nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown; not
only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories
after death, but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges,
and distinctions of a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or
Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like
a iceberg, who so long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that
name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it
not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed
their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O
Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed
the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so,
O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with
mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose, here are four
whales as well known to the students of Cetacean History as Marius
or Sylla to the classic scholar.
But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at
various times creating great havoc among the boats of different
vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out,
chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their
anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting out
through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his
mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the
headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.
I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to
make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important,
as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness
of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the
catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where
truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are
most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the
world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical
and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a
monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and
intolerable allegory.
First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general
perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid
conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur.
One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters
and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at
home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do
you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps
caught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried
down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan- do you
suppose that that poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper
obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the
mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you
ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect from
New Guinea? Yet I will tell you that upon one particular voyage
which I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty
different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some
of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat's crew. For
God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon
you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.
Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a
whale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found
that when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold
enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my
facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of
being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues
of Egypt.
But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established
upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The
Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and
judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in,
utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm
Whale has done it.
First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of
Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw
spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm
whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when,
suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from
the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his
forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than
"ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of
her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew
reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last,
Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another
ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and
breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith
forswearing the sea, he has never attempted it since. At this day
Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace,
who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have
read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his
son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*

*The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact
seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance
which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the
ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to
their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being
made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the
shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were
necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated
resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just
before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as
if fired with revenge for their sufferings." Again: "At all events,
the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own
eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided,
calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which
impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I
am correct in my opinion."
Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a
black night an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any
hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing;
the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed
upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful
contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the
dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the
whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its
appearance."
In another place- p.45,- he speaks of "the mysterious and mortal
attack of the animal."

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807
totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic
particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,
though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual
allusions to it.
Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J-- then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be
dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship
in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon
whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing
strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He
peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his
stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful.
Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks later, the Commodore
set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was
stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments'
confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching
the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going
he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am
not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview with
that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from
unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand
no nonsense.
I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little
circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof.
Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian
Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning
of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth
chapter:
"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next
day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather
was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were
obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very
little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the
northwest sprang up. An uncommonly large whale, the body of which
was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the
water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment
when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it
was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus
placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting
up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The
masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below
all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon
some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the
utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf applied immediately to
the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage
from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely
uninjured."
Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in
question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual
adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of
Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I
have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in
Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by
no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and
purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he
sailed from home.
In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so
full, too, of honest wonders- the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of
ancient Dampier's old chums- I found a little matter set down so
like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting
it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed.
Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he calls
the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says, "about
four o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and
fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible
shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could
hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every one began to
prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent,
that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a rock; but
when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded,
but found no ground. * * * The suddenness of the shock made the guns
leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of
their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was
thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to
an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating
that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do
great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder
if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was
after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from
beneath.
I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known
to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In
more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the
assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself,
and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The
English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his
strength, let me say, that there have been examples where the lines
attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to
the ship, and secured there! the whale towing her great hull through
the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often
observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to
rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with wilful,
deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without
conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being
attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that
dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content
with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and
most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only
is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain
facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels)
are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we
say amen with Solomon- Verily there is nothing new under the sun.
In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian
magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor
and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his
own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best
authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and
unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars, not
at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned.
Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the
term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was
captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having
destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more
than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot
easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what
precise species this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he
destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a
whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will
tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had
been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters
connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and
perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place
for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have
recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated
instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I
am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore
Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as
a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a
sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean
into the Propontis.
In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar
substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right
whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm
whale- squid or cuttle-fish-lurks at the bottom of that sea, because
large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been
found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements
together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive
that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster,
that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in
all probability have been a sperm whale.
CHAPTER 46
Surmises

Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his
thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby
Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that
one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and
long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether
to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if
this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more
influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even
considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the
White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to
all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the
more he multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered
whale would prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an
hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still additional
considerations which, though not so strictly according with the
wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of
swaying him.
To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools
used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of
order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in
some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the
complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal superiority
involves intellectual mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the
intellectual but stand in sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck's
body and Starbuck's coerced will were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his
magnet at Starbuck's brain; still he knew that for all this the
chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain's quest, and could he,
would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it.
It might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale
was seen. During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall
into open relapses of rebellion against his captain's leadership,
unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were
brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of
Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested
than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for
the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange
imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full
terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure
background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted
meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long
night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to
think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the
savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all
sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable-
they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its
fickleness- and when retained for any object remote and blank in the
pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is
above all things requisite that temporary interests and employments
should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash.
Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong
emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are
evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured
man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale
fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round
their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in
them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick,
they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For
even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not
content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy
sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining
other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to
their one final and romantic object- that final and romantic object,
too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these
men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash- aye, cash. They may scorn
cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of
it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in
them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.
Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more
related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and
perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of
the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so
doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable
charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal,
his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all
further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the
command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the
possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining
ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself.
That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain
and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention
to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his
crew to be subjected to.
For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be
verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good
degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's
voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force
himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the
general pursuit of his profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the
three mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and
not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long
without reward.
CHAPTER 47
The Mat-Maker

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging
about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters.
Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a
sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued
and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation
of revelry lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed
resolved into his own invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I
kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between
the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and
as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken
sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water,
carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strange
a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the
sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that
it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a
shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There
lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever
returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to
admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own.
This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I
ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable
threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword,
sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or
weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding
blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the
completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I, which thus finally
shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword
must be chance- aye, chance, free will, and necessity- wise
incompatible- all interweavingly working together. The straight warp
of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course- its every
alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still
free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though
restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and
sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus
prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the
last featuring blow at events.

Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so
strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball
of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds
whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees
was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly
forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden
intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that
very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of
whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those
lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous
cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's.
As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and
eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some
prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries
announcing their coming.
"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!"
"Where-away?"
"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!"
Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating
and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish
from other tribes of his genus.
"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared.
"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!"
Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the
exact minute to Ahab.
The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently
rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down
heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly
in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by
the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he
nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills around, and
swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter- this deceitfulness of his
could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that
the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed
knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected for
shipkeepers- that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time
relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and
mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the
cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats
swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the
rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look
the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on board
an enemy's ship.
But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that
took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab,
who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out
of air.
CHAPTER 48
The First Lowering

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other
side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose
the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had
always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called
the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter.
The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one
white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled
Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide
black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this
ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair
braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in
aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow
complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the
Manillas;- a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and
by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret
confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose
counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.
While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these
strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head,
"All ready there, Fedallah?"
"Ready," was the half-hissed reply.
"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower
away there, I say."
Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the
men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks;
with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a
dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the
sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the
tossed boats below.
Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a
fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the
stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing
erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to
spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But
with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his
crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command.
"Captain Ahab?-" said Starbuck.
"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats. Thou,
Flask, pull out more to leeward!"
"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his
great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. "There!-
there!- there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!- lay back!
"Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy."
"Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now.
Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it?
What say we, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask."
"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my
little ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some
of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you break your
backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder
boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help us never mind
from where the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the
brimstone devils are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now;
that's the stroke for a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep
the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three
cheers, men- all hearts alive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry-
don't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite
something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:- softly, softly! That's it-
that's it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil
fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep. Stop snoring,
ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, can't ye? pull, won't
ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes don't ye pull?-
pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! Here,"
whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's son of
ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's
it- that's it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits.
Start her- start her, my silverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!"
Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he
had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and
especially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not
suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew
into downright passions with his congregation. Not at all; and therein
consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things
to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun most terri and
fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the
fun, that no oarsmen could hear such queer invocations without pulling
for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing. Besides
he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly
managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped- open-mouthed at times-
that the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of
contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was
one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so
curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the
matter of obeying them.
In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely
across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were
pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.
"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye
please!"
"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he
spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face
set like a flint from Stubb's.
"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!
"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong,
strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud
again: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my
lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your
crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's
hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for.
(Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty;
duty and profit hand in hand."
"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the boats
diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and
that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy
long suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's at
the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right!
Give way men! It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!"
Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical
instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not
unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the
ship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time
previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,
this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took
off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this and
Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were
for the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affair
still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark
Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, I
silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on
board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the
enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.
Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the
furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a
circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger
yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five
trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength,
which periodically started the boat along the water like a
horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah,
who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black
jacket, and displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his
body above the gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating
depressions of the watery horizon; while at the other end of the
boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown half backward into
the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen
steadily managing his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings ere
the White Whale had torn him. All at once the outstretched arm gave
a peculiar motion and then remained fixed, while the boat's five
oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and crew sat motionless
on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the rear paused on
their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily down into the
blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the movement,
though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.
"Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou,
Queequeg, stand up!"
Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the
savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off
towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon
the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly
platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly
and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip
of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.
Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still;
its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a
stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet
above the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns
with the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a
man's hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed
perched at the mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her
trucks. But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same time
little King-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this
logger head stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.
"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me onto
that."
Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his
way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty
shoulders for a pedestal.
"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?"
"That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish
you fifty feet taller."
Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of
the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat
palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his
hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss,
with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his
shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm
furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself
by.
At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what
wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an
erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most
riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see
him giddily perched upon the logger head itself, under such
circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic
Daggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining himself with a cool,
indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro
to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his
broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked
nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous,
ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience;
but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly
chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living
magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her
seasons for that.
Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing
solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular
soundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the
case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to
solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his
hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded
it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had
he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when
Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like
two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude
to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, "Down, down
all, and give way!- there they are!"
To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have
been visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish
white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and
suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from
white rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled,
as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath
this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin
layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all
the other indications