Moby Dick

Herman Melville

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CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mindhow long precisely—having little or no moneyin my purse, and nothing particular to interestme on shore, I thought I would sail about alittle and see the watery part of the world. It isa way I have of driving off the spleen and regu-lating the circulation. Whenever I find myselfgrowing grim about the mouth; whenever it isa damp, drizzly November in my soul; when-ever I find myself involuntarily pausing beforecoffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear ofevery funeral I meet; and especially whenevermy hypos get such an upper hand of me, that itrequires a strong moral principle to prevent mefrom deliberately stepping into the street, andmethodically knocking people's hats off—then,I account it high time to get to sea as soon as Ican. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.With a philosophical flourish Cato throws him-

self upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.There is nothing surprising in this. If they butknew it, almost all men in their degree, sometime or other, cherish very nearly the same feel-ings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhat-toes, belted round by wharves as Indian islesby coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with hersurf. Right and left, the streets take you water-ward. Its extreme downtown is the battery,where that noble mole is washed by waves, andcooled by breezes, which a few hours previouswere out of sight of land. Look at the crowds ofwater-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbathafternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to CoentiesSlip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward.What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinelsall around the town, stand thousands uponthousands of mortal men fixed in ocean rever-ies. Some leaning against the spiles; some

seated upon the pier-heads; some looking overthe bulwarks of ships from China; some highaloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a stillbetter seaward peep. But these are all lands-men; of week days pent up in lath and plas-ter—tied to counters, nailed to benches,clinched to desks. How then is this? Are thegreen fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacingstraight for the water, and seemingly bound fora dive. Strange! Nothing will content them butthe extremest limit of the land; loitering underthe shady lee of yonder warehouses will notsuffice. No. They must get just as nigh the wa-ter as they possibly can without falling in. Andthere they stand—miles of them—leagues.Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys,streets and avenues—north, east, south, andwest. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does themagnetic virtue of the needles of the compassesof all those ships attract them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the country; in somehigh land of lakes. Take almost any path youplease, and ten to one it carries you down in adale, and leaves you there by a pool in thestream. There is magic in it. Let the most ab-sent-minded of men be plunged in his deepestreveries—stand that man on his legs, set hisfeet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you towater, if water there be in all that region.Should you ever be athirst in the great Ameri-can desert, try this experiment, if your caravanhappen to be supplied with a metaphysicalprofessor. Yes, as every one knows, meditationand water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you thedreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchantingbit of romantic landscape in all the valley of theSaco. 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; andhere sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his

cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes asleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlandswinds a mazy way, reaching to overlappingspurs of mountains bathed in their hill-sideblue. But though the picture lies thus tranced,and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighslike leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet allwere vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixedupon the magic stream before him. Go visit thePrairies in June, when for scores on scores ofmiles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—thereis not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but acataract of sand, would you travel your thou-sand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet ofTennessee, upon suddenly receiving two hand-fuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him acoat, which he sadly needed, or invest hismoney in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?Why is almost every robust healthy boy with arobust healthy soul in him, at some time orother crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first

voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feelsuch a mystical vibration, when first told thatyou and your ship were now out of sight ofland? Why did the old Persians hold the seaholy? Why did the Greeks give it a separatedeity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all thisis not without meaning. And still deeper themeaning of that story of Narcissus, who be-cause he could not grasp the tormenting, mildimage he saw in the fountain, plunged into itand was drowned. But that same image, weourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is theimage of the ungraspable phantom of life; andthis is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of goingto sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about theeyes, and begin to be over conscious of mylungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that Iever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as apassenger you must needs have a purse, and apurse is but a rag unless you have something in

it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow quar-relsome—don't sleep of nights—do not enjoythemselves much, as a general thing;—no, Inever go as a passenger; nor, though I amsomething of a salt, do I ever go to sea as aCommodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I aban-don the glory and distinction of such offices tothose who like them. For my part, I abominateall honourable respectable toils, trials, andtribulations of every kind whatsoever. It isquite 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 ascook,—though I confess there is considerableglory in that, a cook being a sort of officer onship-board—yet, somehow, I never fanciedbroiling fowls;—though once broiled, judi-ciously buttered, and judgmatically salted andpeppered, there is no one who will speak morerespectfully, not to say reverentially, of abroiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idola-trous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled

ibis and roasted river horse, that you see themummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor,right before the mast, plumb down into theforecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.True, they rather order me about some, andmake me jump from spar to spar, like a grass-hopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sortof thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one'ssense of honour, particularly if you come of anold established family in the land, the VanRensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes.And more than all, if just previous to puttingyour hand into the tar-pot, you have been lord-ing it as a country schoolmaster, making thetallest boys stand in awe of you. The transitionis a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmasterto a sailor, and requires a strong decoction ofSeneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin andbear it. But even this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captainorders me to get a broom and sweep down thedecks? What does that indignity amount to,weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Tes-tament? Do you think the archangel Gabrielthinks anything the less of me, because Ipromptly and respectfully obey that old hunksin that particular instance? Who ain't a slave?Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however theymay thump and punch me about, I have thesatisfaction of knowing that it is all right; thateverybody else is one way or other served inmuch the same way—either in a physical ormetaphysical point of view, that is; and so theuniversal thump is passed round, and all handsshould rub each other's shoulder-blades, and becontent.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, becausethey 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 isall the difference in the world between payingand being paid. The act of paying is perhapsthe most uncomfortable infliction that the twoorchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEINGPAID,—what will compare with it? The urbaneactivity with which a man receives money isreally marvellous, considering that we so ear-nestly believe money to be the root of allearthly ills, and that on no account can a mon-ied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully weconsign ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because ofthe wholesome exercise and pure air of thefore-castle deck. For as in this world, headwinds are far more prevalent than winds fromastern (that is, if you never violate the Pythago-rean maxim), so for the most part the Commo-dore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere atsecond hand from the sailors on the forecastle.

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. Inmuch the same way do the commonalty leadtheir leaders in many other things, at the sametime that the leaders little suspect it. But where-fore it was that after having repeatedly smeltthe sea as a merchant sailor, I should now takeit into my head to go on a whaling voyage; thisthe invisible police officer of the Fates, who hasthe constant surveillance of me, and secretlydogs me, and influences me in some unac-countable way—he can better answer than anyone else. And, doubtless, my going on thiswhaling voyage, formed part of the grand pro-gramme of Providence that was drawn up along time ago. It came in as a sort of brief inter-lude and solo between more extensive per-formances. I take it that this part of the billmust have run something like this:

"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FORTHE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES.

"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly thatthose stage managers, the Fates, put me downfor this shabby part of a whaling voyage, whenothers were set down for magnificent parts inhigh tragedies, and short and easy parts in gen-teel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—thoughI cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now thatI recall all the circumstances, I think I can see alittle into the springs and motives which beingcunningly presented to me under various dis-guises, induced me to set about performing thepart I did, besides cajoling me into the delusionthat it was a choice resulting from my own un-biased freewill and discriminating judgment.

Chief among these motives was the over-whelming idea of the great whale himself. Sucha portentous and mysterious monster rousedall my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seaswhere he rolled his island bulk; the undeliver-able, nameless perils of the whale; these, withall the attending marvels of a thousand Patago-

nian sights and sounds, helped to sway me tomy wish. With other men, perhaps, such thingswould not have been inducements; but as forme, I am tormented with an everlasting itch forthings remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, andland on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what isgood, I am quick to perceive a horror, andcould still be social with it—would they letme—since it is but well to be on friendly termswith all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then, the whalingvoyage was welcome; the great flood-gates ofthe wonder-world swung open, and in the wildconceits that swayed me to my purpose, twoand two there floated into my inmost soul, end-less processions of the whale, and, mid most ofthem all, one grand hooded phantom, like asnow 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 CapeHorn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city ofold Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. Itwas a Saturday night in December. Much was Idisappointed upon learning that the littlepacket for Nantucket had already sailed, andthat no way of reaching that place would offer,till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains andpenalties of whaling stop at this same NewBedford, thence to embark on their voyage, itmay as well be related that I, for one, had noidea of so doing. For my mind was made up tosail in no other than a Nantucket craft, becausethere was a fine, boisterous something abouteverything connected with that famous oldisland, which amazingly pleased me. Besides

though New Bedford has of late been graduallymonopolising the business of whaling, andthough in this matter poor old Nantucket isnow much behind her, yet Nantucket was hergreat original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—theplace where the first dead American whale wasstranded. Where else but from Nantucket didthose aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, firstsally out in canoes to give chase to the Levia-than? And where but from Nantucket, too, didthat first adventurous little sloop put forth,partly laden with imported cobblestones—sogoes the story—to throw at the whales, in orderto discover when they were nigh enough to riska harpoon from the bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still anothernight following before me in New Bedford, ereI could embark for my destined port, it becamea matter of concernment where I was to eat andsleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night,

bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one inthe place. With anxious grapnels I had soundedmy pocket, and only brought up a few pieces ofsilver,—So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I tomyself, as I stood in the middle of a drearystreet shouldering my bag, and comparing thegloom towards the north with the darknesstowards the south—wherever in your wisdomyou may conclude to lodge for the night, mydear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, anddon't be too particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, andpassed the sign of "The Crossed Harpoons"—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Fur-ther on, from the bright red windows of the"Sword-Fish Inn," there came such fervent rays,that it seemed to have melted the packed snowand ice from before the house, for everywhereelse the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in ahard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary forme, when I struck my foot against the flinty

projections, because from hard, remorselessservice the soles of my boots were in a mostmiserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, againthought I, pausing one moment to watch thebroad glare in the street, and hear the sounds ofthe tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael,said I at last; don't you hear? get away frombefore the door; your patched boots are stop-ping the way. So on I went. I now by instinctfollowed the streets that took me waterward,for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if notthe cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, nothouses, on either hand, and here and there acandle, like a candle moving about in a tomb.At this hour of the night, of the last day of theweek, that quarter of the town proved all butdeserted. But presently I came to a smoky lightproceeding from a low, wide building, the doorof which stood invitingly open. It had a carelesslook, as if it were meant for the uses of the pub-

lic; so, entering, the first thing I did was tostumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha!thought I, ha, as the flying particles almostchoked me, are these ashes from that destroyedcity, Gomorrah? But "The Crossed Harpoons,"and "The Sword-Fish?"—this, then must needsbe the sign of "The Trap." However, I pickedmyself up and hearing a loud voice within,pushed on and opened a second, interior door.

It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting inTophet. A hundred black faces turned round intheir rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angelof Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It wasa negro church; and the preacher's text wasabout the blackness of darkness, and the weep-ing and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha,Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretchedentertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!'

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of lightnot far from the docks, and heard a forlorncreaking in the air; and looking up, saw a

swinging sign over the door with a white paint-ing upon it, faintly representing a tall straightjet of misty spray, and these words under-neath—"The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin."

Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in thatparticular connexion, thought I. But it is acommon name in Nantucket, they say, and Isuppose this Peter here is an emigrant fromthere. As the light looked so dim, and the place,for the time, looked quiet enough, and the di-lapidated little wooden house itself looked as ifit might have been carted here from the ruins ofsome burnt district, and as the swinging signhad a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, Ithought that here was the very spot for cheaplodgings, and the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended oldhouse, one side palsied as it were, and leaningover sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner,where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon keptup a worse howling than ever it did about poor

Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, isa mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors,with his feet on the hob quietly toasting forbed. "In judging of that tempestuous windcalled Euroclydon," says an old writer—ofwhose works I possess the only copy extant—"it maketh a marvellous difference, whetherthou lookest out at it from a glass windowwhere the frost is all on the outside, or whetherthou observest it from that sashless window,where the frost is on both sides, and of whichthe wight Death is the only glazier." Trueenough, thought I, as this passage occurred tomy mind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well.Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body ofmine is the house. What a pity they didn't stopup the chinks and the crannies though, andthrust in a little lint here and there. But it's toolate to make any improvements now. The uni-verse is finished; the copestone is on, and thechips were carted off a million years ago. PoorLazarus there, chattering his teeth against the

curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off histatters with his shiverings, he might plug upboth ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into hismouth, and yet that would not keep out thetempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says oldDives, in his red silken wrapper—(he had aredder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a finefrosty night; how Orion glitters; what northernlights! Let them talk of their oriental summerclimes of everlasting conservatories; give methe privilege of making my own summer withmy own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm hisblue hands by holding them up to the grandnorthern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be inSumatra than here? Would he not far rather layhim down lengthwise along the line of theequator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pititself, in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there onthe curbstone before the door of Dives, this is

more wonderful than that an iceberg should bemoored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives him-self, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palacemade of frozen sighs, and being a president of atemperance society, he only drinks the tepidtears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we aregoing a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yetto come. Let us scrape the ice from our frostedfeet, and see what sort of a place this "Spouter"may be.

CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, youfound yourself in a wide, low, straggling entrywith old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one

of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft.On one side hung a very large oilpainting sothoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced,that in the unequal crosslights by which youviewed it, it was only by diligent study and aseries of systematic visits to it, and careful in-quiry of the neighbors, that you could any wayarrive at an understanding of its purpose. Suchunaccountable masses of shades and shadows,that at first you almost thought some ambitiousyoung artist, in the time of the New Englandhags, had endeavored to delineate chaos be-witched. But by dint of much and earnest con-templation, and oft repeated ponderings, andespecially by throwing open the little windowtowards the back of the entry, you at last cometo the conclusion that such an idea, howeverwild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded youwas a long, limber, portentous, black mass ofsomething hovering in the centre of the picture

over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines float-ing in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy,squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nerv-ous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of in-definite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimityabout it that fairly froze you to it, till you in-voluntarily took an oath with yourself to findout what that marvellous painting meant. Everand anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive ideawould dart you through.—It's the Black Sea ina midnight gale.—It's the unnatural combat ofthe four primal elements.—It's a blastedheath.—It's a Hyperborean winter scene.—It'sthe breaking-up of the icebound stream ofTime. But at last all these fancies yielded to thatone portentous something in the picture'smidst. THAT once found out, and all the restwere plain. But stop; does it not bear a faintresemblance to a gigantic fish? even the greatleviathan himself?

In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a finaltheory of my own, partly based upon the ag-gregated opinions of many aged persons withwhom I conversed upon the subject. The pic-ture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurri-cane; the half-foundered ship weltering therewith its three dismantled masts alone visible;and an exasperated whale, purposing to springclean over the craft, is in the enormous act ofimpaling himself upon the three mast-heads.

The opposite wall of this entry was hung allover with a heathenish array of monstrousclubs and spears. Some were thickly set withglittering teeth resembling ivory saws; otherswere tufted with knots of human hair; and onewas sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweepinground like the segment made in the new-mowngrass by a long-armed mower. You shudderedas you gazed, and wondered what monstrouscannibal and savage could ever have gone adeath-harvesting with such a hacking, horrify-

ing implement. Mixed with these were rustyold whaling lances and harpoons all brokenand deformed. Some were storied weapons.With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed,fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteenwhales between a sunrise and a sunset. Andthat harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—wasflung in Javan seas, and run away with by awhale, years afterwards slain off the Cape ofBlanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail,and, like a restless needle sojourning in thebody of a man, travelled full forty feet, and atlast was found imbedded in the hump.

Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yonlow-arched way—cut through what in oldtimes must have been a great central chimneywith fireplaces all round—you enter the publicroom. A still duskier place is this, with suchlow ponderous beams above, and such oldwrinkled planks beneath, that you would al-most fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits,

especially of such a howling night, when thiscorner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously.On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like tablecovered with cracked glass cases, filled withdusty rarities gathered from this wide world'sremotest nooks. Projecting from the furtherangle 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 archedbone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach mightalmost drive beneath it. Within are shabbyshelves, ranged round with old decanters, bot-tles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruc-tion, like another cursed Jonah (by which nameindeed they called him), bustles a little with-ered old man, who, for their money, dearlysells the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which hepours his poison. Though true cylinders with-out—within, the villanous green gogglingglasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a

cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudelypecked into the glass, surround these footpads'goblets. Fill to THIS mark, and your charge isbut a penny; to THIS a penny more; and so onto the full glass—the Cape Horn measure,which you may gulp down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number ofyoung seamen gathered about a table, examin-ing by a dim light divers specimens of SKRIM-SHANDER. I sought the landlord, and tellinghim I desired to be accommodated with aroom, received for answer that his house wasfull—not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," headded, tapping his forehead, "you haint no ob-jections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, haveye? I s'pose you are goin' a-whalin', so you'dbetter get used to that sort of thing."

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in abed; that if I should ever do so, it would de-pend upon who the harpooneer might be, andthat if he (the landlord) really had no other

place for me, and the harpooneer was not de-cidedly objectionable, why rather than wanderfurther about a strange town on so bitter anight, I would put up with the half of any de-cent 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 allover like a bench on the Battery. At one end aruminating tar was still further adorning itwith his jack-knife, stooping over and dili-gently working away at the space between hislegs. He was trying his hand at a ship underfull sail, but he didn't make much headway, Ithought.

At last some four or five of us were summonedto our meal in an adjoining room. It was cold asIceland—no fire at all—the landlord said hecouldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tal-low candles, each in a winding sheet. We were

fain to button up our monkey jackets, and holdto our lips cups of scalding tea with our halffrozen fingers. But the fare was of the mostsubstantial kind—not only meat and potatoes,but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings forsupper! One young fellow in a green box coat,addressed himself to these dumplings in a mostdireful manner.

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

"Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the har-pooneer is it?"

"Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolicallyfunny, "the harpooneer is a dark complexionedchap. He never eats dumplings, he don't—heeats nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare."

"The devil he does," says I. "Where is that har-pooneer? Is he here?"

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

I could not help it, but I began to feel suspi-cious of this "dark complexioned" harpooneer.At any rate, I made up my mind that if it soturned out that we should sleep together, hemust undress and get into bed before I did.

Supper over, the company went back to thebar-room, when, knowing not what else to dowith myself, I resolved to spend the rest of theevening as a looker on.

Presently a rioting noise was heard without.Starting up, the landlord cried, "That's theGrampus's crew. I seed her reported in the off-ing this morning; a three years' voyage, and afull ship. Hurrah, boys; now we'll have the lat-est news from the Feegees."

A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry;the door was flung open, and in rolled a wildset of mariners enough. Enveloped in their

shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muf-fled in woollen comforters, all bedarned andragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, theyseemed an eruption of bears from Labrador.They had just landed from their boat, and thiswas the first house they entered. No wonder,then, that they made a straight wake for thewhale's mouth—the bar—when the wrinkledlittle old Jonah, there officiating, soon pouredthem out brimmers all round. One complainedof a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonahmixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and mo-lasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure forall colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mindof how long standing, or whether caught off thecoast of Labrador, or on the weather side of anice-island.

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as itgenerally does even with the arrantest topersnewly landed from sea, and they began caper-ing about most obstreperously.

I observed, however, that one of them heldsomewhat aloof, and though he seemed desir-ous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates byhis own sober face, yet upon the whole he re-frained from making as much noise as the rest.This man interested me at once; and since thesea-gods had ordained that he should soonbecome my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is con-cerned), I will here venture upon a little de-scription 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, makinghis white teeth dazzling by the contrast; whilein the deep shadows of his eyes floated somereminiscences that did not seem to give himmuch joy. His voice at once announced that hewas a Southerner, and from his fine stature, Ithought he must be one of those tall mountain-eers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia.When the revelry of his companions had

mounted to its height, this man slipped awayunobserved, and I saw no more of him till hebecame my comrade on the sea. In a few min-utes, however, he was missed by his shipmates,and being, it seems, for some reason a hugefavourite with them, they raised a cry of "Bulk-ington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" anddarted out of the house in pursuit of him.

It was now about nine o'clock, and the roomseeming almost supernaturally quiet after theseorgies, I began to congratulate myself upon alittle plan that had occurred to me just previousto the entrance of the seamen.

No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact,you would a good deal rather not sleep withyour own brother. I don't know how it is, butpeople like to be private when they are sleep-ing. And when it comes to sleeping with anunknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strangetown, and that stranger a harpooneer, thenyour objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was

there any earthly reason why I as a sailorshould sleep two in a bed, more than anybodyelse; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed atsea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be surethey all sleep together in one apartment, butyou have your own hammock, and cover your-self with your own blanket, and sleep in yourown skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, themore I abominated the thought of sleeping withhim. It was fair to presume that being a har-pooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case mightbe, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none ofthe finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, itwas getting late, and my decent harpooneerought to be home and going bedwards. Sup-pose now, he should tumble in upon me atmidnight—how could I tell from what vile holehe had been coming?

"Landlord! I've changed my mind about thatharpooneer.—I shan't sleep with him. I'll try thebench here."

"Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare ye atablecloth for a mattress, and it's a plaguyrough board here"—feeling of the knots andnotches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've gota carpenter's plane there in the bar—wait, I say,and I'll make ye snug enough." So saying heprocured the plane; and with his old silk hand-kerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously setto planing away at my bed, the while grinninglike an ape. The shavings flew right and left; tillat last the plane-iron came bump against anindestructible knot. The landlord was nearspraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven'ssake to quit—the bed was soft enough to suitme, and I did not know how all the planing inthe world could make eider down of a pineplank. So gathering up the shavings with an-other grin, and throwing them into the great

stove in the middle of the room, he went abouthis business, and left me in a brown study.

I now took the measure of the bench, andfound that it was a foot too short; but thatcould be mended with a chair. But it was a foottoo narrow, and the other bench in the roomwas about four inches higher than the planedone—so there was no yoking them. I thenplaced the first bench lengthwise along the onlyclear space against the wall, leaving a little in-terval between, for my back to settle down in.But I soon found that there came such adraught of cold air over me from under the sillof the window, that this plan would never do atall, especially as another current from the rick-ety door met the one from the window, andboth together formed a series of small whirl-winds in the immediate vicinity of the spotwhere I had thought to spend the night.

The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, butstop, couldn't I steal a march on him—bolt his

door inside, and jump into his bed, not to bewakened by the most violent knockings? Itseemed no bad idea; but upon second thoughtsI dismissed it. For who could tell but what thenext morning, so soon as I popped out of theroom, the harpooneer might be standing in theentry, all ready to knock me down!

Still, looking round me again, and seeing nopossible chance of spending a sufferable nightunless in some other person's bed, I began tothink that after all I might be cherishing unwar-rantable prejudices against this unknown har-pooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must bedropping in before long. I'll have a good look athim then, and perhaps we may become jollygood bedfellows after all—there's no telling.

But though the other boarders kept coming inby ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yetno sign of my harpooneer.

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

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

"Can't sell his head?—What sort of a bambooz-ingly story is this you are telling me?" gettinginto a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say,landlord, that this harpooneer is actually en-gaged this blessed Saturday night, or ratherSunday morning, in peddling his head aroundthis town?"

"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and Itold him he couldn't sell it here, the market'soverstocked."

"With what?" shouted I.

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

"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quitecalmly, "you'd better stop spinning that yarn tome—I'm not green."

"May be not," taking out a stick and whittling atoothpick, "but I rayther guess you'll be doneBROWN if that ere harpooneer hears you aslanderin' his head."

"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into apassion again at this unaccountable farrago ofthe 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 sellit, I guess."

"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool asMt. Hecla in a snow-storm—"landlord, stopwhittling. You and I must understand one an-other, and that too without delay. I come toyour house and want a bed; you tell me youcan only give me half a one; that the other halfbelongs to a certain harpooneer. And about thisharpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, youpersist in telling me the most mystifying andexasperating stories tending to beget in me anuncomfortable feeling towards the man whomyou design for my bedfellow—a sort of connex-ion, landlord, which is an intimate and confi-dential one in the highest degree. I now de-mand of you to speak out and tell me who andwhat this harpooneer is, and whether I shall bein 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 iftrue I take to be good evidence that this har-pooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleep-ing with a madman; and you, sir, YOU I mean,landlord, YOU, sir, by trying to induce me todo so knowingly, would thereby render your-self liable to a criminal prosecution."

"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a longbreath, "that's a purty long sarmon for a chapthat rips a little now and then. But be easy, beeasy, 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 Zea-land heads (great curios, you know), and he'ssold all on 'em but one, and that one he's tryingto sell to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, andit would not do to be sellin' human heads aboutthe streets when folks is goin' to churches. Hewanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him justas he was goin' out of the door with four heads

strung on a string, for all the airth like a stringof inions."

This account cleared up the otherwise unac-countable mystery, and showed that the land-lord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me—but at the same time what could I think of aharpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday nightclean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such acannibal business as selling the heads of deadidolators?

"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is adangerous man."

"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come,it's getting dreadful late, you had better beturning flukes—it's a nice bed; Sal and me sleptin that ere bed the night we were spliced.There's plenty of room for two to kick about inthat bed; it's an almighty big bed that. Why,afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Samand little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a

dreaming and sprawling about one night, andsomehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, andcame near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal saidit wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye aglim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a can-dle and held it towards me, offering to lead theway. But I stood irresolute; when looking at aclock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it'sSunday—you won't see that harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere—comealong then; DO come; WON'T ye come?"

I considered the matter a moment, and then upstairs we went, and I was ushered into a smallroom, cold as a clam, and furnished, sureenough, with a prodigious bed, almost bigenough indeed for any four harpooneers tosleep abreast.

"There," said the landlord, placing the candleon a crazy old sea chest that did double duty asa wash-stand and centre table; "there, makeyourself comfortable now, and good night to

ye." I turned round from eyeing the bed, but hehad disappeared.

Folding back the counterpane, I stooped overthe bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yetstood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glancedround the room; and besides the bedstead andcentre table, could see no other furniture be-longing to the place, but a rude shelf, the fourwalls, and a papered fireboard representing aman striking a whale. Of things not properlybelonging to the room, there was a hammocklashed up, and thrown upon the floor in onecorner; also a large seaman's bag, containingthe harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu ofa land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel ofoutlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf overthe fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing atthe head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest? I took it up, andheld 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 cancompare it to nothing but a large door mat,ornamented at the edges with little tinklingtags something like the stained porcupinequills round an Indian moccasin. There was ahole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you seethe same in South American ponchos. Butcould it be possible that any sober harpooneerwould get into a door mat, and parade thestreets of any Christian town in that sort ofguise? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed medown like a hamper, being uncommonlyshaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp,as though this mysterious harpooneer had beenwearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bitof glass stuck against the wall, and I never sawsuch a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it insuch a hurry that I gave myself a kink in theneck.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and com-menced thinking about this head-peddling

harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinkingsome time on the bed-side, I got up and tookoff my monkey jacket, and then stood in themiddle of the room thinking. I then took off mycoat, and thought a little more in my shirtsleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now,half undressed as I was, and rememberingwhat the landlord said about the harpooneer'snot coming home at all that night, it being sovery late, I made no more ado, but jumped outof my pantaloons and boots, and then blowingout the light tumbled into bed, and com-mended myself to the care of heaven.

Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, butI rolled about a good deal, and could not sleepfor a long time. At last I slid off into a lightdoze, and had pretty nearly made a good offingtowards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavyfootfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer oflight come into the room from under the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the har-pooneer, the infernal head-peddler. But I layperfectly still, and resolved not to say a wordtill spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, andthat identical New Zealand head in the other,the stranger entered the room, and withoutlooking towards the bed, placed his candle agood way off from me on the floor in one cor-ner, and then began working away at the knot-ted cords of the large bag I before spoke of asbeing in the room. I was all eagerness to see hisface, but he kept it averted for some time whileemployed in unlacing the bag's mouth. Thisaccomplished, however, he turned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face!It was of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, hereand there stuck over with large blackish look-ing squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's aterrible bedfellow; he's been in a fight, gotdreadfully cut, and here he is, just from thesurgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turnhis face so towards the light, that I plainly saw

they could not be sticking-plasters at all, thoseblack squares on his cheeks. They were stainsof some sort or other. At first I knew not whatto make of this; but soon an inkling of the truthoccurred to me. I remembered a story of awhite man—a whaleman too—who, fallingamong the cannibals, had been tattooed bythem. I concluded that this harpooneer, in thecourse of his distant voyages, must have metwith a similar adventure. And what is it,thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a mancan be honest in any sort of skin. But then, whatto make of his unearthly complexion, that partof it, I mean, lying round about, and completelyindependent of the squares of tattooing. To besure, it might be nothing but a good coat oftropical tanning; but I never heard of a hotsun's tanning a white man into a purplish yel-low one. However, I had never been in theSouth Seas; and perhaps the sun there pro-duced these extraordinary effects upon theskin. Now, while all these ideas were passing

through me like lightning, this harpooneernever noticed me at all. But, after some diffi-culty having opened his bag, he commencedfumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sortof tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with thehair on. Placing these on the old chest in themiddle of the room, he then took the New Zea-land head—a ghastly thing enough—andcrammed it down into the bag. He now took offhis hat—a new beaver hat—when I came nighsinging out with fresh surprise. There was nohair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up onhis forehead. His bald purplish head nowlooked for all the world like a mildewed skull.Had not the stranger stood between me and thedoor, I would have bolted out of it quicker thanever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of slippingout of the window, but it was the second floorback. I am no coward, but what to make of this

head-peddling purple rascal altogether passedmy comprehension. Ignorance is the parent offear, and being completely nonplussed andconfounded about the stranger, I confess I wasnow as much afraid of him as if it was the devilhimself who had thus broken into my room atthe dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of himthat I was not game enough just then to addresshim, and demand a satisfactory answer con-cerning what seemed inexplicable in him.

Meanwhile, he continued the business of un-dressing, and at last showed his chest andarms. As I live, these covered parts of him werecheckered with the same squares as his face; hisback, 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-plastershirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, asif a parcel of dark green frogs were running upthe trunks of young palms. It was now quiteplain that he must be some abominable savage

or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in theSouth Seas, and so landed in this Christiancountry. I quaked to think of it. A peddler ofheads too—perhaps the heads of his ownbrothers. He might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk!

But there was no time for shuddering, for nowthe savage went about something that com-pletely fascinated my attention, and convincedme that he must indeed be a heathen. Going tohis heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught,which he had previously hung on a chair, hefumbled in the pockets, and produced at lengtha curious little deformed image with a hunchon its back, and exactly the colour of a threedays' old Congo baby. Remembering the em-balmed head, at first I almost thought that thisblack manikin was a real baby preserved insome similar manner. But seeing that it was notat all limber, and that it glistened a good deallike polished ebony, I concluded that it must be

nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed itproved to be. For now the savage goes up tothe empty fire-place, and removing the paperedfire-board, sets up this little hunch-backed im-age, like a tenpin, between the andirons. Thechimney jambs and all the bricks inside werevery sooty, so that I thought this fire-placemade a very appropriate little shrine or chapelfor his Congo idol.

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the halfhidden image, feeling but ill at ease mean-time—to see what was next to follow. First hetakes about a double handful of shavings out ofhis grego pocket, and places them carefullybefore the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuiton top and applying the flame from the lamp,he kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze.Presently, after many hasty snatches into thefire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers(whereby he seemed to be scorching thembadly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the

biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes alittle, he made a polite offer of it to the littlenegro. But the little devil did not seem to fancysuch dry sort of fare at all; he never moved hislips. All these strange antics were accompaniedby still stranger guttural noises from the devo-tee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song orelse singing some pagan psalmody or other,during which his face twitched about in themost unnatural manner. At last extinguishingthe fire, he took the idol up very unceremoni-ously, and bagged it again in his grego pocketas carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagginga dead woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my un-comfortableness, and seeing him now exhibit-ing strong symptoms of concluding his busi-ness operations, and jumping into bed with me,I thought it was high time, now or never, beforethe light was put out, to break the spell inwhich I had so long been bound.

But the interval I spent in deliberating what tosay, was a fatal one. Taking up his tomahawkfrom the table, he examined the head of it foran instant, and then holding it to the light, withhis mouth at the handle, he puffed out greatclouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment thelight was extinguished, and this wild cannibal,tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bedwith me. I sang out, I could not help it now;and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment hebegan feeling me.

Stammering out something, I knew not what, Irolled away from him against the wall, andthen conjured him, whoever or whatever hemight be, to keep quiet, and let me get up andlight the lamp again. But his guttural responsessatisfied me at once that he but ill compre-hended my meaning.

"Who-e debel you?"—he at last said—"you nospeak-e, dam-me, I kill-e." And so saying the

lighted tomahawk began flourishing about mein 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, Ikill-e!" again growled the cannibal, while hishorrid flourishings of the tomahawk scatteredthe hot tobacco ashes about me till I thoughtmy linen would get on fire. But thank heaven,at that moment the landlord came into theroom light in hand, and leaping from the bed Iran up to him.

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

"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why did-n't you tell me that that infernal harpooneerwas a cannibal?"

"I thought ye know'd it;—didn't I tell ye, he wasa peddlin' heads around town?—but turnflukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, lookhere—you sabbee me, I sabbee—you this mansleepe you—you sabbee?"

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

"You gettee in," he added, motioning to mewith his tomahawk, and throwing the clothesto one side. He really did this in not only a civilbut a really kind and charitable way. I stoodlooking at him a moment. For all his tattooingshe was on the whole a clean, comely lookingcannibal. What's all this fuss I have been mak-ing about, thought I to myself—the man's ahuman being just as I am: he has just as muchreason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him.Better sleep with a sober cannibal than adrunken Christian.

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

This being told to Queequeg, he at once com-plied, and again politely motioned me to getinto bed—rolling over to one side as much as tosay—"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, Ifound Queequeg's arm thrown over me in themost loving and affectionate manner. You hadalmost thought I had been his wife. The coun-terpane was of patchwork, full of odd littleparti-coloured squares and triangles; and thisarm of his tattooed all over with an intermina-ble Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts ofwhich were of one precise shade—owing Isuppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmeth-odically in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves ir-regularly rolled up at various times—this samearm of his, I say, looked for all the world like astrip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed,partly lying on it as the arm did when I firstawoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, theyso blended their hues together; and it was onlyby the sense of weight and pressure that I couldtell that Queequeg was hugging me.

My sensations were strange. Let me try to ex-plain them. When I was a child, I well remem-ber a somewhat similar circumstance that befellme; whether it was a reality or a dream, I nevercould entirely settle. The circumstance was this.I had been cutting up some caper or other—Ithink it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as Ihad 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 tobed supperless,—my mother dragged me bythe legs out of the chimney and packed me offto bed, though it was only two o'clock in theafternoon of the 21st June, the longest day inthe year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully.But there was no help for it, so up stairs I wentto my little room in the third floor, undressedmyself 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 en-tire hours must elapse before I could hope for a

resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small ofmy back ached to think of it. And it was so lighttoo; the sun shining in at the window, and agreat rattling of coaches in the streets, and thesound of gay voices all over the house. I feltworse and worse—at last I got up, dressed, andsoftly going down in my stockinged feet,sought out my stepmother, and suddenlythrew myself at her feet, beseeching her as aparticular favour to give me a good slipperingfor my misbehaviour; anything indeed butcondemning me to lie abed such an unendur-able length of time. But she was the best andmost conscientious of stepmothers, and back Ihad to go to my room. For several hours I laythere broad awake, feeling a great deal worsethan I have ever done since, even from thegreatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I musthave fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze;and slowly waking from it—half steeped indreams—I opened my eyes, and the before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness.

Instantly I felt a shock running through all myframe; nothing was to be seen, and nothing wasto be heard; but a supernatural hand seemedplaced in mine. My arm hung over the coun-terpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silentform or phantom, to which the hand belonged,seemed closely seated by my bed-side. Forwhat seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there,frozen with the most awful fears, not daring todrag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if Icould but stir it one single inch, the horrid spellwould be broken. I knew not how this con-sciousness at last glided away from me; butwaking in the morning, I shudderingly remem-bered it all, and for days and weeks andmonths afterwards I lost myself in confoundingattempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to thisvery hour, I often puzzle myself with it.

Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensa-tions at feeling the supernatural hand in minewere very similar, in their strangeness, to those

which I experienced on waking up and seeingQueequeg's pagan arm thrown round me. Butat length all the past night's events soberly re-curred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then Ilay only alive to the comical predicament. Forthough I tried to move his arm—unlock hisbridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as he was, hestill hugged me tightly, as though naught butdeath should part us twain. I now strove torouse him—"Queequeg!"—but his only answerwas a snore. I then rolled over, my neck feelingas if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felta slight scratch. Throwing aside the counter-pane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by thesavage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby.A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in astrange house in the broad day, with a cannibaland a tomahawk! "Queequeg!—in the name ofgoodness, Queequeg, wake!" At length, by dintof much wriggling, and loud and incessant ex-postulations upon the unbecomingness of hishugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort

of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt; andpresently, he drew back his arm, shook himselfall over like a Newfoundland dog just from thewater, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff,looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he didnot altogether remember how I came to bethere, though a dim consciousness of knowingsomething about me seemed slowly dawningover him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him,having no serious misgivings now, and bentupon narrowly observing so curious a creature.When, at last, his mind seemed made up touch-ing the character of his bedfellow, and he be-came, as it were, reconciled to the fact; hejumped out upon the floor, and by certain signsand sounds gave me to understand that, if itpleased me, he would dress first and then leaveme to dress afterwards, leaving the wholeapartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, un-der the circumstances, this is a very civilizedoverture; but, the truth is, these savages havean 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 civilityand consideration, while I was guilty of greatrudeness; staring at him from the bed, andwatching all his toilette motions; for the timemy curiosity getting the better of my breeding.Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don'tsee every day, he and his ways were well worthunusual regarding.

He commenced dressing at top by donning hisbeaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, andthen—still minus his trowsers—he hunted uphis boots. What under the heavens he did it for,I cannot tell, but his next movement was tocrush himself—boots in hand, and hat on—under the bed; when, from sundry violentgaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hardat work booting himself; though by no law ofpropriety that I ever heard of, is any man re-quired to be private when putting on his boots.

But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature inthe transition stage—neither caterpillar norbutterfly. He was just enough civilized to showoff his outlandishness in the strangest possiblemanners. His education was not yet completed.He was an undergraduate. If he had not been asmall degree civilized, he very probably wouldnot have troubled himself with boots at all; butthen, if he had not been still a savage, he neverwould have dreamt of getting under the bed toput them on. At last, he emerged with his hatvery much dented and crushed down over hiseyes, and began creaking and limping aboutthe room, as if, not being much accustomed toboots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhideones—probably not made to order either—rather pinched and tormented him at the firstgo off of a bitter cold morning.

Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to thewindow, and that the street being very narrow,the house opposite commanded a plain view

into the room, and observing more and morethe indecorous figure that Queequeg made,staving about with little else but his hat andboots on; I begged him as well as I could, toaccelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularlyto get into his pantaloons as soon as possible.He complied, and then proceeded to wash him-self. At that time in the morning any Christianwould have washed his face; but Queequeg, tomy amazement, contented himself with restrict-ing his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands.He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up apiece of hard soap on the wash-stand centretable, dipped it into water and commencedlathering his face. I was watching to see wherehe kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takesthe harpoon from the bed corner, slips out thelong wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whetsit a little on his boot, and striding up to the bitof mirror against the wall, begins a vigorousscraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best

cutlery with a vengeance. Afterwards I won-dered the less at this operation when I came toknow of what fine steel the head of a harpoonis made, and how exceedingly sharp the longstraight edges are always kept.

The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and heproudly marched out of the room, wrapped upin his great pilot monkey jacket, and sportinghis harpoon like a marshal's baton.

CHAPTER 5. Breakfast.

I quickly followed suit, and descending into thebar-room accosted the grinning landlord verypleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him,though he had been skylarking with me not alittle in the matter of my bedfellow.

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing,and rather too scarce a good thing; the more'sthe pity. So, if any one man, in his own properperson, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody,let him not be backward, but let him cheerfullyallow himself to spend and be spent in thatway. And the man that has anything bounti-fully laughable about him, be sure there is morein that man than you perhaps think for.

The bar-room was now full of the boarderswho 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 seacarpenters, and sea coopers, and sea black-smiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers; abrown and brawny company, with boskybeards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearingmonkey jackets for morning gowns.

You could pretty plainly tell how long each onehad been ashore. This young fellow's healthy

cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, andwould seem to smell almost as musky; he can-not have been three days landed from his In-dian voyage. That man next him looks a fewshades lighter; you might say a touch of satinwood is in him. In the complexion of a thirdstill lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleachedwithal; HE doubtless has tarried whole weeksashore. But who could show a cheek like Que-equeg? which, barred with various tints,seemed like the Andes' western slope, to showforth in one array, contrasting climates, zone byzone.

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

They say that men who have seen the world,thereby become quite at ease in manner, quiteself-possessed in company. Not always,though: Ledyard, the great New England trav-eller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of allmen, they possessed the least assurance in the

parlor. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberiain a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, orthe taking a long solitary walk on an emptystomach, in the negro heart of Africa, whichwas the sum of poor Mungo's performances—this kind of travel, I say, may not be the verybest mode of attaining a high social polish. Still,for the most part, that sort of thing is to be hadanywhere.

These reflections just here are occasioned by thecircumstance that after we were all seated atthe table, and I was preparing to hear somegood stories about whaling; to my no smallsurprise, nearly every man maintained a pro-found silence. And not only that, but theylooked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set ofsea-dogs, many of whom without the slightestbashfulness had boarded great whales on thehigh seas—entire strangers to them—and du-elled them dead without winking; and yet, herethey sat at a social breakfast table—all of the

same calling, all of kindred tastes—lookinground as sheepishly at each other as thoughthey had never been out of sight of some sheep-fold among the Green Mountains. A curioussight; these bashful bears, these timid warriorwhalemen!

But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat thereamong them—at the head of the table, too, it sochanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannotsay much for his breeding. His greatest admirercould not have cordially justified his bringinghis harpoon into breakfast with him, and usingit there without ceremony; reaching over thetable with it, to the imminent jeopardy of manyheads, and grappling the beefsteaks towardshim. But THAT was certainly very coolly doneby him, and every one knows that in most peo-ple's estimation, to do anything coolly is to doit genteelly.

We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiari-ties here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls,

and applied his undivided attention to beef-steaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfastwas over he withdrew like the rest into thepublic room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, andwas sitting there quietly digesting and smokingwith his inseparable hat on, when I sallied outfor a stroll.

CHAPTER 6. The Street.

If I had been astonished at first catching aglimpse of so outlandish an individual as Que-equeg circulating among the polite society of acivilized town, that astonishment soon de-parted upon taking my first daylight strollthrough the streets of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any consider-able seaport will frequently offer to view thequeerest looking nondescripts from foreignparts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets,Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostlethe affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not un-known to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay,in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have oftenscared the natives. But New Bedford beats allWater Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; but inNew Bedford, actual cannibals stand chattingat street corners; savages outright; many ofwhom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. Itmakes a stranger stare.

But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs,Erromanggoans, Pannangians, andBrighggians, and, besides the wild specimensof the whaling-craft which unheeded reel aboutthe streets, you will see other sights still morecurious, certainly more comical. There weekly

arrive in this town scores of green Vermontersand New Hampshire men, all athirst for gainand glory in the fishery. They are mostlyyoung, of stalwart frames; fellows who havefelled forests, and now seek to drop the axe andsnatch the whale-lance. Many are as green asthe Green Mountains whence they came. Insome things you would think them but a fewhours old. Look there! that chap struttinground the corner. He wears a beaver hat andswallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-beltand sheath-knife. Here comes another with asou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.

No town-bred dandy will compare with acountry-bred one—I mean a downright bump-kin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-days, willmow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fearof tanning his hands. Now when a countrydandy like this takes it into his head to make adistinguished reputation, and joins the greatwhale-fishery, you should see the comical

things he does upon reaching the seaport. Inbespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvastrowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly willburst 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 onlyharpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to showher visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is aqueer place. Had it not been for us whalemen,that tract of land would this day perhaps havebeen in as howling condition as the coast ofLabrador. As it is, parts of her back country areenough to frighten one, they look so bony. Thetown itself is perhaps the dearest place to livein, in all New England. It is a land of oil, trueenough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, ofcorn and wine. The streets do not run withmilk; nor in the spring-time do they pave themwith fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in

all America will you find more patrician-likehouses; parks and gardens more opulent, thanin New Bedford. Whence came they? howplanted upon this once scraggy scoria of acountry?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical har-poons round yonder lofty mansion, and yourquestion will be answered. Yes; all these bravehouses and flowery gardens came from theAtlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One andall, they were harpooned and dragged uphither from the bottom of the sea. Can HerrAlexander perform a feat like that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whalesfor dowers to their daughters, and portion offtheir nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. Youmust go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wed-ding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil inevery house, and every night recklessly burntheir lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full offine maples—long avenues of green and gold.And in August, high in air, the beautiful andbountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise,proffer the passer-by their tapering uprightcones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotentis art; which in many a district of New Bedfordhas superinduced bright terraces of flowersupon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside atcreation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloomlike their own red roses. But roses only bloomin summer; whereas the fine carnation of theircheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventhheavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs,ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me theyoung girls breathe such musk, their sailorsweethearts smell them miles off shore, asthough they were drawing nigh the odorousMoluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

CHAPTER 7. The Chapel.

In this same New Bedford there stands a Wha-leman's Chapel, and few are the moody fisher-men, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean orPacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to thespot. I am sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I againsallied out upon this special errand. The skyhad changed from clear, sunny cold, to drivingsleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggyjacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought myway against the stubborn storm. Entering, Ifound a small scattered congregation of sailors,and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled si-lence reigned, only broken at times by the

shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipperseemed purposely sitting apart from the other,as if each silent grief were insular and incom-municable. The chaplain had not yet arrived;and there these silent islands of men andwomen sat steadfastly eyeing several marbletablets, with black borders, masoned into thewall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ransomething like the following, but I do not pre-tend to quote:—

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TAL-BOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lostoverboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, offPatagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLETIs erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERTLONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLE-MAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, ANDSAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats'crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towedout of sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore

Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839.THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviv-ing SHIPMATES.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The lateCAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bowsof his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on thecoast of Japan, AUGUST 3d, 1833. THIS TAB-LET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hatand jacket, I seated myself near the door, andturning sideways was surprised to see Que-equeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of thescene, there was a wondering gaze of incredu-lous curiosity in his countenance. This savagewas the only person present who seemed tonotice my entrance; because he was the onlyone who could not read, and, therefore, was notreading those frigid inscriptions on the wall.Whether any of the relatives of the seamenwhose names appeared there were now amongthe congregation, I knew not; but so many are

the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and soplainly did several women present wear thecountenance if not the trappings of some un-ceasing grief, that I feel sure that here beforeme were assembled those, in whose unhealinghearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympa-thetically caused the old wounds to bleedafresh.

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the greengrass; who standing among flowers can say—here, HERE lies my beloved; ye know not thedesolation that broods in bosoms like these.What bitter blanks in those black-borderedmarbles which cover no ashes! What despair inthose immovable inscriptions! What deadlyvoids and unbidden infidelities in the lines thatseem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resur-rections to the beings who have placelessly per-ished without a grave. As well might those tab-lets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.

In what census of living creatures, the dead ofmankind are included; why it is that a univer-sal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales,though containing more secrets than theGoodwin Sands; how it is that to his name whoyesterday departed for the other world, weprefix so significant and infidel a word, and yetdo not thus entitle him, if he but embarks forthe remotest Indies of this living earth; why theLife Insurance Companies pay death-forfeituresupon immortals; in what eternal, unstirringparalysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet liesantique Adam who died sixty round centuriesago; how it is that we still refuse to be com-forted for those who we nevertheless maintainare dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all theliving so strive to hush all the dead; whereforebut the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will ter-rify a whole city. All these things are not with-out their meanings.

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

It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings,on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regardedthose marble tablets, and by the murky light ofthat darkened, doleful day read the fate of thewhalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ish-mael, the same fate may be thine. But somehowI grew merry again. Delightful inducements toembark, fine chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal bybrevet. Yes, there is death in this business ofwhaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bun-dling of a man into Eternity. But what then?Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matterof Life and Death. Methinks that what they callmy shadow here on earth is my true substance.Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, weare too much like oysters observing the sunthrough the water, and thinking that thick wa-

ter the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is butthe lees of my better being. In fact take mybody who will, take it I say, it is not me. Andtherefore three cheers for Nantucket; and comea stove boat and stove body when they will, forstave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.

I had not been seated very long ere a man of acertain venerable robustness entered; immedi-ately as the storm-pelted door flew back uponadmitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of himby all the congregation, sufficiently attestedthat this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, itwas the famous Father Mapple, so called by thewhalemen, among whom he was a very greatfavourite. He had been a sailor and a harpoon-

eer in his youth, but for many years past haddedicated his life to the ministry. At the time Inow write of, Father Mapple was in the hardywinter of a healthy old age; that sort of old agewhich seems merging into a second floweringyouth, for among all the fissures of his wrin-kles, there shone certain mild gleams of anewly developing bloom—the spring verdurepeeping forth even beneath February's snow.No one having previously heard his history,could for the first time behold Father Mapplewithout the utmost interest, because there werecertain engrafted clerical peculiarities abouthim, imputable to that adventurous maritimelife he had led. When he entered I observedthat he carried no umbrella, and certainly hadnot come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hatran down with melting sleet, and his great pilotcloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to thefloor with the weight of the water it had ab-sorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoeswere one by one removed, and hung up in a

little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayedin a decent suit, he quietly approached the pul-pit.

Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a verylofty one, and since a regular stairs to such aheight would, by its long angle with the floor,seriously contract the already small area of thechapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted uponthe hint of Father Mapple, and finished thepulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpen-dicular side ladder, like those used in mountinga ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whalingcaptain had provided the chapel with a hand-some pair of red worsted man-ropes for thisladder, which, being itself nicely headed, andstained with a mahogany colour, the wholecontrivance, considering what manner ofchapel 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 ornamentalknobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a

look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-likebut still reverential dexterity, hand over hand,mounted the steps as if ascending the main-topof his vessel.

The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, asis usually the case with swinging ones, were ofcloth-covered rope, only the rounds were ofwood, so that at every step there was a joint. Atmy first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not es-caped me that however convenient for a ship,these joints in the present instance seemed un-necessary. For I was not prepared to see FatherMapple after gaining the height, slowly turnround, and stooping over the pulpit, deliber-ately drag up the ladder step by step, till thewhole was deposited within, leaving him im-pregnable in his little Quebec.

I pondered some time without fully compre-hending the reason for this. Father Mapple en-joyed such a wide reputation for sincerity andsanctity, that I could not suspect him of court-

ing notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage.No, thought I, there must be some sober reasonfor this thing; furthermore, it must symbolizesomething unseen. Can it be, then, that by thatact of physical isolation, he signifies his spiri-tual withdrawal for the time, from all outwardworldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replen-ished with the meat and wine of the word, tothe faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is aself-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreit-stein, with a perennial well of water within thewalls.

But the side ladder was not the only strangefeature of the place, borrowed from the chap-lain's former sea-farings. Between the marblecenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wallwhich formed its back was adorned with alarge painting representing a gallant ship beat-ing against a terrible storm off a lee coast ofblack rocks and snowy breakers. But highabove the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds,

there floated a little isle of sunlight, from whichbeamed forth an angel's face; and this brightface shed a distinct spot of radiance upon theship's tossed deck, something like that silverplate now inserted into the Victory's plankwhere Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angelseemed to say, "beat on, beat on, thou nobleship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun isbreaking through; the clouds are rolling off—serenest azure is at hand."

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of thesame sea-taste that had achieved the ladder andthe picture. Its panelled front was in the like-ness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Biblerested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fash-ioned after a ship's fiddle-headed beak.

What could be more full of meaning?—for thepulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all therest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads theworld. From thence it is the storm of God'squick wrath is first descried, and the bow must

bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is theGod of breezes fair or foul is first invoked forfavourable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on itspassage out, and not a voyage complete; andthe pulpit is its prow.

CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of un-assuming authority ordered the scattered peo-ple to condense. "Starboard gangway, there!side away to larboard—larboard gangway tostarboard! Midships! midships!"

There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-bootsamong the benches, and a still slighter shufflingof women's shoes, and all was quiet again, andevery eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit'sbows, folded his large brown hands across hischest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered aprayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneel-ing and praying at the bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like thecontinual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foun-dering at sea in a fog—in such tones he com-menced reading the following hymn; butchanging his manner towards the concludingstanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultationand 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, whichswelled high above the howling of the storm. Abrief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turnedover the leaves of the Bible, and at last, foldinghis hand down upon the proper page, said:"Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the

first chapter of Jonah—'And God had prepareda great fish to swallow up Jonah.'"

"Shipmates, this book, containing only fourchapters—four yarns—is one of the smalleststrands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures.Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deepsealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us isthis prophet! What a noble thing is that canticlein the fish's belly! How billow-like and boister-ously grand! We feel the floods surging overus; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom ofthe waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the seais about us! But WHAT is this lesson that thebook 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 itis a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenlyawakened fears, the swift punishment, repen-tance, prayers, and finally the deliverance andjoy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men,

the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilfuldisobedience of the command of God—nevermind now what that command was, or howconveyed—which he found a hard command.But all the things that God would have us doare hard for us to do—remember that—andhence, he oftener commands us than endeavorsto persuade. And if we obey God, we must dis-obey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying our-selves, wherein the hardness of obeying Godconsists.

"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonahstill further flouts at God, by seeking to fleefrom Him. He thinks that a ship made by menwill carry him into countries where God doesnot reign, but only the Captains of this earth.He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, andseeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. Therelurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaninghere. By all accounts Tarshish could have beenno 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 sailedin those ancient days, when the Atlantic was analmost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the mod-ern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterlycoast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; andTarshish or Cadiz more than two thousandmiles to the westward from that, just outsidethe Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, ship-mates, that Jonah sought to flee world-widefrom God? Miserable man! Oh! most con-temptible and worthy of all scorn; withslouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from hisGod; prowling among the shipping like a vileburglar hastening to cross the seas. So disor-dered, self-condemning is his look, that hadthere been policemen in those days, Jonah, onthe mere suspicion of something wrong, hadbeen arrested ere he touched a deck. Howplainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accom-

pany him to the wharf with their adieux. Atlast, after much dodging search, he finds theTarshish ship receiving the last items of hercargo; and as he steps on board to see its Cap-tain in the cabin, all the sailors for the momentdesist from hoisting in the goods, to mark thestranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vainhe tries to look all ease and confidence; in vainessays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions ofthe man assure the mariners he can be no inno-cent. In their gamesome but still serious way,one whispers to the other—"Jack, he's robbed awidow;" or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's abigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the adul-terer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike,one of the missing murderers from Sodom."Another runs to read the bill that's stuckagainst the spile upon the wharf to which theship is moored, offering five hundred goldcoins for the apprehension of a parricide, andcontaining a description of his person. Hereads, and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all

his sympathetic shipmates now crowd roundJonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him.Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning allhis boldness to his face, only looks so much themore a coward. He will not confess himselfsuspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. Sohe makes the best of it; and when the sailorsfind him not to be the man that is advertised,they let him pass, and he descends into thecabin.

"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busydesk, hurriedly making out his papers for theCustoms—'Who's there?' Oh! how that harm-less question mangles Jonah! For the instant healmost turns to flee again. But he rallies. 'I seeka passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon sailye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had notlooked up to Jonah, though the man nowstands before him; but no sooner does he hearthat hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizingglance. 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at

last he slowly answered, still intently eyeinghim. 'No sooner, sir?'—'Soon enough for anyhonest man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah,that's another stab. But he swiftly calls awaythe Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'—he says,—'the passage money how much isthat?—I'll pay now.' For it is particularly writ-ten, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to beoverlooked in this history, 'that he paid the farethereof' ere the craft did sail. And taken withthe context, this is full of meaning.

"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was onewhose discernment detects crime in any, butwhose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless.In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its waycan travel freely, and without a passport;whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at allfrontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to testthe length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge himopenly. 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 timeresolves to help a flight that paves its rear withgold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse,prudent suspicions still molest the Captain. Herings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not aforger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is putdown for his passage. 'Point out my state-room,Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I needsleep.' 'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain,'there's thy room.' Jonah enters, and would lockthe door, but the lock contains no key. Hearinghim foolishly fumbling there, the Captainlaughs lowly to himself, and mutters somethingabout the doors of convicts' cells being neverallowed to be locked within. All dressed anddusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into hisberth, and finds the little state-room ceilingalmost resting on his forehead. The air is close,and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole,sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonahfeels the heralding presentiment of that stifling

hour, when the whale shall hold him in thesmallest of his bowels' wards.

"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinginglamp slightly oscillates in Jonah's room; and theship, heeling over towards the wharf with theweight of the last bales received, the lamp,flame and all, though in slight motion, stillmaintains a permanent obliquity with referenceto the room; though, in truth, infallibly straightitself, it but made obvious the false, lying levelsamong which it hung. The lamp alarms andfrightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tor-mented eyes roll round the place, and this thusfar successful fugitive finds no refuge for hisrestless glance. But that contradiction in thelamp more and more appals him. The floor, theceiling, and the side, are all awry. 'Oh! so myconscience hangs in me!' he groans, 'straightupwards, so it burns; but the chambers of mysoul are all in crookedness!'

"Like one who after a night of drunken revelryhies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscienceyet pricking him, as the plungings of the Ro-man race-horse but so much the more strike hissteel tags into him; as one who in that miser-able plight still turns and turns in giddy an-guish, praying God for annihilation until the fitbe passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe hefeels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over theman who bleeds to death, for conscience is thewound, and there's naught to staunch it; so,after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prod-igy of ponderous misery drags him drowningdown to sleep.

"And now the time of tide has come; the shipcasts off her cables; and from the desertedwharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all ca-reening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends,was the first of recorded smugglers! the contra-band was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will notbear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm

comes on, the ship is like to break. But nowwhen the boatswain calls all hands to lightenher; when boxes, bales, and jars are clatteringoverboard; when the wind is shrieking, and themen are yelling, and every plank thunders withtrampling feet right over Jonah's head; in allthis raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideoussleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feelsnot the reeling timbers, and little hears he orheeds he the far rush of the mighty whale,which even now with open mouth is cleavingthe seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah wasgone down into the sides of the ship—a berthin the cabin as I have taken it, and was fastasleep. But the frightened master comes to him,and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanestthou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his leth-argy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to hisfeet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps ashroud, to look out upon the sea. But at thatmoment he is sprung upon by a panther billowleaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave

thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedyvent runs roaring fore and aft, till the marinerscome nigh to drowning while yet afloat. Andever, as the white moon shows her affrightedface from the steep gullies in the blacknessoverhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bow-sprit pointing high upward, but soon beatdownward again towards the tormented deep.

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through hissoul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailorsmark him; more and more certain grow theirsuspicions of him, and at last, fully to test thetruth, by referring the whole matter to highHeaven, they fall to casting lots, to see forwhose cause this great tempest was upon them.The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then howfuriously they mob him with their questions.'What is thine occupation? Whence comestthou? Thy country? What people? But marknow, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jo-

nah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is,and where from; whereas, they not only receivean answer to those questions, but likewise an-other answer to a question not put by them, butthe unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah bythe hard hand of God that is upon him.

"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries—and then—'I fearthe Lord the God of Heaven who hath madethe sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah?Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord GodTHEN! Straightway, he now goes on to make afull confession; whereupon the mariners be-came more and more appalled, but still are piti-ful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating Godfor mercy, since he but too well knew the dark-ness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah criesout to them to take him and cast him forth intothe sea, for he knew that for HIS sake this greattempest was upon them; they mercifully turnfrom him, and seek by other means to save theship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls

louder; then, with one hand raised invokinglyto God, with the other they not unreluctantlylay hold of Jonah.

"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchorand dropped into the sea; when instantly anoily calmness floats out from the east, and thesea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale withhim, leaving smooth water behind. He goesdown in the whirling heart of such a masterlesscommotion that he scarce heeds the momentwhen he drops seething into the yawning jawsawaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all hisivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon hisprison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out ofthe fish's belly. But observe his prayer, andlearn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonahdoes not weep and wail for direct deliverance.He feels that his dreadful punishment is just.He leaves all his deliverance to God, contentinghimself with this, that spite of all his pains andpangs, he will still look towards His holy tem-

ple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithfulrepentance; not clamorous for pardon, butgrateful for punishment. And how pleasing toGod was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in theeventual deliverance of him from the sea andthe whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah be-fore you to be copied for his sin but I do placehim before you as a model for repentance. Sinnot; but if you do, take heed to repent of it likeJonah."

While he was speaking these words, the howl-ing of the shrieking, slanting storm withoutseemed to add new power to the preacher,who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm,seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deepchest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossedarms seemed the warring elements at work;and the thunders that rolled away from off hisswarthy brow, and the light leaping from hiseye, made all his simple hearers look on himwith a quick fear that was strange to them.

There now came a lull in his look, as he silentlyturned over the leaves of the Book once more;and, at last, standing motionless, with closedeyes, for the moment, seemed communing withGod and himself.

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

"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand uponyou; both his hands press upon me. I have readye by what murky light may be mine the lessonthat Jonah teaches to all sinners; and thereforeto ye, and still more to me, for I am a greatersinner than ye. And now how gladly would Icome down from this mast-head and sit on thehatches there where you sit, and listen as youlisten, while some one of you reads ME thatother and more awful lesson which Jonahteaches to ME, as a pilot of the living God. Howbeing an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of

true things, and bidden by the Lord to soundthose unwelcome truths in the ears of a wickedNineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility heshould raise, fled from his mission, and soughtto escape his duty and his God by taking shipat Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish henever reached. As we have seen, God cameupon him in the whale, and swallowed himdown to living gulfs of doom, and with swiftslantings tore him along 'into the midst of theseas,' where the eddying depths sucked him tenthousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds werewrapped about his head,' and all the wateryworld of woe bowled over him. Yet even thenbeyond the reach of any plummet—'out of thebelly of hell'—when the whale grounded uponthe ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heardthe engulphed, repenting prophet when hecried. Then God spake unto the fish; and fromthe shuddering cold and blackness of the sea,the whale came breeching up towards thewarm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of

air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon thedry land;' when the word of the Lord came asecond time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten—his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudi-nously murmuring of the ocean—Jonah did theAlmighty's bidding. And what was that, ship-mates? To preach the Truth to the face of False-hood! That was it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; andwoe to that pilot of the living God who slightsit. Woe to him whom this world charms fromGospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oilupon the waters when God has brewed theminto a gale! Woe to him who seeks to pleaserather than to appal! Woe to him whose goodname is more to him than goodness! Woe tohim who, in this world, courts not dishonour!Woe to him who would not be true, eventhough to be false were salvation! Yea, woe tohim who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, whilepreaching to others is himself a castaway!"

He dropped and fell away from himself for amoment; then lifting his face to them again,showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried outwith a heavenly enthusiasm,—"But oh! ship-mates! on the starboard hand of every woe,there is a sure delight; and higher the top ofthat delight, than the bottom of the woe isdeep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kel-son is low? Delight is to him—a far, far up-ward, and inward delight—who against theproud gods and commodores of this earth, everstands forth his own inexorable self. Delight isto him whose strong arms yet support him,when the ship of this base treacherous worldhas 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 itout from under the robes of Senators andJudges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him,who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lordhis God, and is only a patriot to heaven. De-light is to him, whom all the waves of the bil-

lows of the seas of the boisterous mob cannever shake from this sure Keel of the Ages.And eternal delight and deliciousness will behis, who coming to lay him down, can say withhis final breath—O Father!—chiefly known tome by Thy rod—mortal or immortal, here I die.I have striven to be Thine, more than to be thisworld's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: Ileave eternity to Thee; for what is man that heshould live out the lifetime of his God?"

He said no more, but slowly waving a benedic-tion, covered his face with his hands, and soremained kneeling, till all the people had de-parted, and he was left alone in the place.

CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.

Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, Ifound Queequeg there quite alone; he havingleft the Chapel before the benediction sometime. He was sitting on a bench before the fire,with his feet on the stove hearth, and in onehand was holding close up to his face that littlenegro idol of his; peering hard into its face, andwith a jack-knife gently whittling away at itsnose, meanwhile humming to himself in hisheathenish way.

But being now interrupted, he put up the im-age; and pretty soon, going to the table, took upa large book there, and placing it on his lapbegan counting the pages with deliberate regu-larity; at every fiftieth page—as I fancied—stopping a moment, looking vacantly aroundhim, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gur-gling whistle of astonishment. He would then

begin again at the next fifty; seeming to com-mence at number one each time, as though hecould not count more than fifty, and it was onlyby such a large number of fifties being foundtogether, that his astonishment at the multitudeof pages was excited.

With much interest I sat watching him. Savagethough he was, and hideously marred aboutthe face—at least to my taste—his countenanceyet had a something in it which was by nomeans disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul.Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thoughtI saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and inhis large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, thereseemed tokens of a spirit that would dare athousand devils. And besides all this, there wasa certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, whicheven his uncouthness could not altogethermaim. He looked like a man who had nevercringed and never had had a creditor. Whetherit was, too, that his head being shaved, his

forehead was drawn out in freer and brighterrelief, and looked more expansive than it oth-erwise would, this I will not venture to decide;but certain it was his head was phrenologicallyan excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but itreminded me of General Washington's head, asseen in the popular busts of him. It had thesame long regularly graded retreating slopefrom above the brows, which were likewisevery projecting, like two long promontoriesthickly wooded on top. Queequeg was GeorgeWashington cannibalistically developed.

Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at thestorm from the casement, he never heeded mypresence, never troubled himself with so muchas a single glance; but appeared wholly occu-pied with counting the pages of the marvellousbook. Considering how sociably we had beensleeping together the night previous, and espe-cially considering the affectionate arm I had

found thrown over me upon waking in themorning, I thought this indifference of his verystrange. But savages are strange beings; attimes you do not know exactly how to takethem. At first they are overawing; their calmself-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socraticwisdom. I had noticed also that Queequegnever consorted at all, or but very little, withthe other seamen in the inn. He made no ad-vances whatever; appeared to have no desire toenlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All thisstruck me as mighty singular; yet, upon secondthoughts, there was something almost sublimein it. Here was a man some twenty thousandmiles from home, by the way of Cape Horn,that is—which was the only way he could getthere—thrown among people as strange to himas though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yethe seemed entirely at his ease; preserving theutmost serenity; content with his own compan-ionship; always equal to himself. Surely thiswas a touch of fine philosophy; though no

doubt he had never heard there was such athing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philoso-phers, we mortals should not be conscious of soliving or so striving. So soon as I hear that suchor such a man gives himself out for a philoso-pher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic oldwoman, he must have "broken his digester."

As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fireburning low, in that mild stage when, after itsfirst intensity has warmed the air, it then onlyglows to be looked at; the evening shades andphantoms gathering round the casements, andpeering in upon us silent, solitary twain; thestorm booming without in solemn swells; I be-gan to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt amelting in me. No more my splintered heartand maddened hand were turned against thewolfish world. This soothing savage had re-deemed it. There he sat, his very indifferencespeaking a nature in which there lurked nocivilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he

was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began tofeel myself mysteriously drawn towards him.And those same things that would have re-pelled most others, they were the very magnetsthat thus drew me. I'll try a pagan friend,thought I, since Christian kindness has provedbut hollow courtesy. I drew my bench nearhim, and made some friendly signs and hints,doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. Atfirst he little noticed these advances; but pres-ently, upon my referring to his last night's hos-pitalities, he made out to ask me whether wewere again to be bedfellows. I told him yes;whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps alittle complimented.

We then turned over the book together, and Iendeavored to explain to him the purpose ofthe printing, and the meaning of the few pic-tures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged hisinterest; and from that we went to jabbering thebest we could about the various outer sights to

be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed asocial smoke; and, producing his pouch andtomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. Andthen we sat exchanging puffs from that wildpipe of his, and keeping it regularly passingbetween us.

If there yet lurked any ice of indifference to-wards me in the Pagan's breast, this pleasant,genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, andleft us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite asnaturally and unbiddenly as I to him; andwhen our smoke was over, he pressed his fore-head against mine, clasped me round the waist,and said that henceforth we were married;meaning, in his country's phrase, that we werebosom friends; he would gladly die for me, ifneed should be. In a countryman, this suddenflame of friendship would have seemed far toopremature, a thing to be much distrusted; butin this simple savage those old rules would notapply.

After supper, and another social chat andsmoke, we went to our room together. He mademe a present of his embalmed head; took outhis enormous tobacco wallet, and groping un-der the tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars insilver; then spreading them on the table, andmechanically dividing them into two equalportions, pushed one of them towards me, andsaid it was mine. I was going to remonstrate;but he silenced me by pouring them into mytrowsers' pockets. I let them stay. He then wentabout his evening prayers, took out his idol,and removed the paper fireboard. By certainsigns and symptoms, I thought he seemed anx-ious for me to join him; but well knowing whatwas to follow, I deliberated a moment whether,in case he invited me, I would comply or oth-erwise.

I was a good Christian; born and bred in thebosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church.How then could I unite with this wild idolator

in worshipping his piece of wood? But what isworship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ish-mael, that the magnanimous God of heavenand earth—pagans and all included—can pos-sibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of blackwood? Impossible! But what is worship?—todo the will of God—THAT is worship. Andwhat is the will of God?—to do to my fellowman what I would have my fellow man to do tome—THAT is the will of God. Now, Queequegis my fellow man. And what do I wish that thisQueequeg would do to me? Why, unite withme in my particular Presbyterian form of wor-ship. Consequently, I must then unite with himin his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindledthe shavings; helped prop up the innocent littleidol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg;salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed hisnose; and that done, we undressed and went tobed, at peace with our own consciences and allthe world. But we did not go to sleep withoutsome little chat.

How it is I know not; but there is no place like abed for confidential disclosures betweenfriends. Man and wife, they say, there open thevery bottom of their souls to each other; andsome old couples often lie and chat over oldtimes till nearly morning. Thus, then, in ourhearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—acosy, loving pair.

CHAPTER 11. Nightgown.

We had lain thus in bed, chatting and nappingat short intervals, and Queequeg now and thenaffectionately throwing his brown tattooed legsover mine, and then drawing them back; soentirely sociable and free and easy were we;when, at last, by reason of our confabulations,what little nappishness remained in us alto-

gether departed, and we felt like getting upagain, though day-break was yet some waydown the future.

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so thatour recumbent position began to grow weari-some, and by little and little we found our-selves sitting up; the clothes well tuckedaround us, leaning against the head-board withour four knees drawn up close together, andour two noses bending over them, as if ourkneepans were warming-pans. We felt verynice and snug, the more so since it was so chillyout of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too,seeing that there was no fire in the room. Themore so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodilywarmth, some small part of you must be cold,for there is no quality in this world that is notwhat it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists initself. If you flatter yourself that you are all overcomfortable, and have been so a long time, thenyou cannot be said to be comfortable any more.

But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tipof your nose or the crown of your head beslightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the gen-eral consciousness you feel most delightfullyand unmistakably warm. For this reason asleeping apartment should never be furnishedwith a fire, which is one of the luxurious dis-comforts of the rich. For the height of this sortof deliciousness is to have nothing but theblanket between you and your snugness andthe cold of the outer air. Then there you lie likethe one warm spark in the heart of an arcticcrystal.

We had been sitting in this crouching mannerfor some time, when all at once I thought Iwould open my eyes; for when between sheets,whether by day or by night, and whetherasleep or awake, I have a way of always keep-ing my eyes shut, in order the more to concen-trate the snugness of being in bed. Because noman can ever feel his own identity aright ex-

cept his eyes be closed; as if darkness were in-deed the proper element of our essences,though light be more congenial to our clayeypart. Upon opening my eyes then, and comingout of my own pleasant and self-created dark-ness into the imposed and coarse outer gloomof the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, Iexperienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did Iat all object to the hint from Queequeg thatperhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing thatwe were so wide awake; and besides he felt astrong desire to have a few quiet puffs from hisTomahawk. Be it said, that though I had feltsuch a strong repugnance to his smoking in thebed the night before, yet see how elastic ourstiff prejudices grow when love once comes tobend them. For now I liked nothing better thanto have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed,because he seemed to be full of such serenehousehold joy then. I no more felt unduly con-cerned for the landlord's policy of insurance. Iwas only alive to the condensed confidential

comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanketwith a real friend. With our shaggy jacketsdrawn about our shoulders, we now passed theTomahawk from one to the other, till slowlythere grew over us a blue hanging tester ofsmoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-litlamp.

Whether it was that this undulating testerrolled the savage away to far distant scenes, Iknow not, but he now spoke of his native is-land; and, eager to hear his history, I beggedhim to go on and tell it. He gladly complied.Though at the time I but ill comprehended nota few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures,when I had become more familiar with his bro-ken phraseology, now enable me to present thewhole story such as it may prove in the mereskeleton I give.

CHAPTER 12. Biographical.

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

When a new-hatched savage running wildabout his native woodlands in a grass clout,followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were agreen sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambi-tious soul, lurked a strong desire to see some-thing more of Christendom than a specimenwhaler or two. His father was a High Chief, aKing; his uncle a High Priest; and on the ma-ternal side he boasted aunts who were thewives of unconquerable warriors. There wasexcellent blood in his veins—royal stuff;though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibalpropensity he nourished in his untutoredyouth.

A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, andQueequeg sought a passage to Christian lands.But the ship, having her full complement ofseamen, spurned his suit; and not all the Kinghis father's influence could prevail. But Que-equeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, hepaddled off to a distant strait, which he knewthe ship must pass through when she quittedthe island. On one side was a coral reef; on theother a low tongue of land, covered with man-grove thickets that grew out into the water.Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among thesethickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down inthe stern, paddle low in hand; and when theship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out;gained her side; with one backward dash of hisfoot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed upthe chains; and throwing himself at full lengthupon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, andswore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw himoverboard; suspended a cutlass over his nakedwrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, andQueequeg budged not. Struck by his desperatedauntlessness, and his wild desire to visitChristendom, the captain at last relented, andtold him he might make himself at home. Butthis fine young savage—this sea Prince ofWales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They puthim down among the sailors, and made a wha-leman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toilin the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequegdisdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby hemight happily gain the power of enlighteninghis untutored countrymen. For at bottom—sohe told me—he was actuated by a profounddesire to learn among the Christians, the artswhereby to make his people still happier thanthey were; and more than that, still better thanthey were. But, alas! the practices of whalemensoon convinced him that even Christians couldbe both miserable and wicked; infinitely more

so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at lastin old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailorsdid there; and then going on to Nantucket, andseeing how they spent their wages in that placealso, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost.Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridi-ans; I'll die a pagan.

And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet livedamong these Christians, wore their clothes, andtried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queerways about him, though now some time fromhome.

By hints, I asked him whether he did not pro-pose going back, and having a coronation; sincehe might now consider his father dead andgone, he being very old and feeble at the lastaccounts. He answered no, not yet; and addedthat he was fearful Christianity, or rather Chris-tians, had unfitted him for ascending the pureand undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kingsbefore him. But by and by, he said, he would

return,—as soon as he felt himself baptizedagain. For the nonce, however, he proposed tosail about, and sow his wild oats in all fouroceans. They had made a harpooneer of him,and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptrenow.

I asked him what might be his immediate pur-pose, touching his future movements. He an-swered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation.Upon this, I told him that whaling was my owndesign, and informed him of my intention tosail out of Nantucket, as being the most promis-ing port for an adventurous whaleman to em-bark from. He at once resolved to accompanyme to that island, ship aboard the same vessel,get into the same watch, the same boat, thesame mess with me, in short to share my everyhap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip intothe Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joy-ously assented; for besides the affection I nowfelt for Queequeg, he was an experienced har-

pooneer, and as such, could not fail to be ofgreat usefulness to one, who, like me, waswholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling,though well acquainted with the sea, as knownto merchant seamen.

His story being ended with his pipe's last dyingpuff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his fore-head against mine, and blowing out the light,we rolled over from each other, this way andthat, and very soon were sleeping.

CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of theembalmed head to a barber, for a block, I set-tled my own and comrade's bill; using, how-ever, my comrade's money. The grinning land-

lord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazinglytickled at the sudden friendship which hadsprung up between me and Queequeg—especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull storiesabout him had previously so much alarmed meconcerning the very person whom I now com-panied with.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarkingour things, including my own poor carpet-bag,and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock,away we went down to "the Moss," the littleNantucket packet schooner moored at thewharf. As we were going along the peoplestared; not at Queequeg so much—for theywere used to seeing cannibals like him in theirstreets,—but at seeing him and me upon suchconfidential terms. But we heeded them not,going along wheeling the barrow by turns, andQueequeg now and then stopping to adjust thesheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him whyhe carried such a troublesome thing with him

ashore, and whether all whaling ships did notfind their own harpoons. To this, in substance,he replied, that though what I hinted was trueenough, yet he had a particular affection for hisown harpoon, because it was of assured stuff,well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeplyintimate with the hearts of whales. In short, likemany inland reapers and mowers, who go intothe farmers' meadows armed with their ownscythes—though in no wise obliged to furnishthem—even so, Queequeg, for his own privatereasons, preferred his own harpoon.

Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, hetold me a funny story about the first wheelbar-row he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. Theowners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one,in which to carry his heavy chest to his board-ing house. Not to seem ignorant about thething—though in truth he was entirely so, con-cerning the precise way in which to manage thebarrow—Queequeg puts his chest upon it;

lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrowand marches up the wharf. "Why," said I, "Que-equeg, you might have known better than that,one would think. Didn't the people laugh?"

Upon this, he told me another story. The peopleof his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at theirwedding feasts express the fragrant water ofyoung cocoanuts into a large stained calabashlike a punchbowl; and this punchbowl alwaysforms the great central ornament on thebraided mat where the feast is held. Now acertain grand merchant ship once touched atRokovoko, and its commander—from all ac-counts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, atleast for a sea captain—this commander wasinvited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sis-ter, a pretty young princess just turned of ten.Well; when all the wedding guests were as-sembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, thisCaptain marches in, and being assigned thepost of honour, placed himself over against the

punchbowl, and between the High Priest andhis majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Gracebeing said,—for those people have their graceas well as we—though Queequeg told me thatunlike us, who at such times look downwardsto our platters, they, on the contrary, copyingthe ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver ofall feasts—Grace, I say, being said, the HighPriest opens the banquet by the immemorialceremony of the island; that is, dipping his con-secrated and consecrating fingers into the bowlbefore the blessed beverage circulates. Seeinghimself placed next the Priest, and noting theceremony, and thinking himself—being Cap-tain of a ship—as having plain precedence overa mere island King, especially in the King'sown house—the Captain coolly proceeds towash his hands in the punchbowl;—taking it Isuppose for a huge finger-glass. "Now," saidQueequeg, "what you tink now?—Didn't ourpeople laugh?"

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, westood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, itglided down the Acushnet river. On one side,New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, theirice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, coldair. Huge hills and mountains of casks on caskswere piled upon her wharves, and side by sidethe world-wandering whale ships lay silent andsafely moored at last; while from others came asound of carpenters and coopers, with blendednoises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, allbetokening that new cruises were on the start;that one most perilous and long voyage ended,only begins a second; and a second ended, onlybegins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye.Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerablenessof all earthly effort.

Gaining the more open water, the bracingbreeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed thequick foam from her bows, as a young colt hissnortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!—how

I spurned that turnpike earth!—that commonhighway all over dented with the marks ofslavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to ad-mire the magnanimity of the sea which willpermit no records.

At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemedto drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrilsswelled apart; he showed his filed and pointedteeth. On, on we flew; and our offing gained,the Moss did homage to the blast; ducked anddived her bows as a slave before the Sultan.Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; everyropeyarn tingling like a wire; the two tall mastsbuckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. Sofull of this reeling scene were we, as we stoodby the plunging bowsprit, that for some timewe did not notice the jeering glances of the pas-sengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelledthat two fellow beings should be so compan-ionable; as though a white man were anythingmore dignified than a whitewashed negro. But

there were some boobies and bumpkins there,who, by their intense greenness, must havecome from the heart and centre of all verdure.Queequeg caught one of these young saplingsmimicking him behind his back. I thought thebumpkin's hour of doom was come. Droppinghis harpoon, the brawny savage caught him inhis arms, and by an almost miraculous dexter-ity and strength, sent him high up bodily intothe air; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungsupon his feet, while Queequeg, turning hisback upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe andpassed it to me for a puff.

"Capting! Capting!" yelled the bumpkin, run-ning towards that officer; "Capting, Capting,here's the devil."

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

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

"He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e thatman there," pointing to the still shiveringgreenhorn.

"Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooedface 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 tricksaboard here; so mind your eye."

But it so happened just then, that it was hightime for the Captain to mind his own eye. Theprodigious strain upon the main-sail hadparted the weather-sheet, and the tremendousboom was now flying from side to side, com-pletely sweeping the entire after part of thedeck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had

handled so roughly, was swept overboard; allhands were in a panic; and to attempt snatch-ing at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. Itflew from right to left, and back again, almostin one ticking of a watch, and every instantseemed on the point of snapping into splinters.Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capa-ble of being done; those on deck rushed to-wards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom asif it were the lower jaw of an exasperatedwhale. In the midst of this consternation, Que-equeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawl-ing under the path of the boom, whipped holdof a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, andthen flinging the other like a lasso, caught itround the boom as it swept over his head, andat the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped,and all was safe. The schooner was run into thewind, and while the hands were clearing awaythe stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist,darted from the side with a long living arc of aleap. For three minutes or more he was seen

swimming like a dog, throwing his long armsstraight out before him, and by turns revealinghis brawny shoulders through the freezingfoam. I looked at the grand and glorious fellow,but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn hadgone down. Shooting himself perpendicularlyfrom the water, Queequeg, now took an in-stant's glance around him, and seeming to seejust how matters were, dived down and disap-peared. A few minutes more, and he rose again,one arm still striking out, and with the otherdragging a lifeless form. The boat soon pickedthem up. The poor bumpkin was restored. Allhands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the cap-tain begged his pardon. From that hour I cloveto Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Que-equeg took his last long dive.

Was there ever such unconsciousness? He didnot seem to think that he at all deserved amedal from the Humane and MagnanimousSocieties. He only asked for water—fresh wa-

ter—something to wipe the brine off; that done,he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, andleaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eye-ing those around him, seemed to be saying tohimself—"It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in allmeridians. We cannibals must help these Chris-tians."

CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.

Nothing more happened on the passage wor-thy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, wesafely 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, morelonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at

it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach,without a background. There is more sandthere than you would use in twenty years as asubstitute for blotting paper. Some gamesomewights will tell you that they have to plantweeds there, they don't grow naturally; thatthey import Canada thistles; that they have tosend beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in anoil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket arecarried about like bits of the true cross in Rome;that people there plant toadstools before theirhouses, to get under the shade in summer time;that one blade of grass makes an oasis, threeblades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wearquicksand shoes, something like Laplandersnow-shoes; that they are so shut up, beltedabout, every way inclosed, surrounded, andmade an utter island of by the ocean, that totheir very chairs and tables small clams willsometimes be found adhering, as to the backsof sea turtles. But these extravaganzas onlyshow that Nantucket is no Illinois.

Look now at the wondrous traditional story ofhow this island was settled by the red-men.Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagleswooped down upon the New England coast,and carried off an infant Indian in his talons.With loud lament the parents saw their childborne out of sight over the wide waters. Theyresolved to follow in the same direction. Settingout in their canoes, after a perilous passagethey discovered the island, and there theyfound an empty ivory casket,—the poor littleIndian's skeleton.

What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers,born on a beach, should take to the sea for alivelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogsin the sand; grown bolder, they waded out withnets for mackerel; more experienced, theypushed off in boats and captured cod; and atlast, launching a navy of great ships on the sea,explored this watery world; put an incessantbelt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at

Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and alloceans declared everlasting war with themightiest animated mass that has survived theflood; most monstrous and most mountainous!That Himmalehan, salt-sea Mastodon, clothedwith such portentousness of unconsciouspower, that his very panics are more to bedreaded than his most fearless and maliciousassaults!

And thus have these naked Nantucketers, thesesea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in thesea, overrun and conquered the watery worldlike so many Alexanders; parcelling out amongthem the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, asthe three pirate powers did Poland. Let Amer-ica add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba uponCanada; let the English overswarm all India,and hang out their blazing banner from thesun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe arethe Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it,as Emperors own empires; other seamen hav-

ing but a right of way through it. Merchantships are but extension bridges; armed ones butfloating forts; even pirates and privateers,though following the sea as highwaymen theroad, they but plunder other ships, other frag-ments of the land like themselves, withoutseeking to draw their living from the bottom-less deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone re-sides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Biblelanguage, goes down to it in ships; to and froploughing 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 inChina. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks inthe prairie; he hides among the waves, heclimbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps.For years he knows not the land; so that whenhe comes to it at last, it smells like anotherworld, more strangely than the moon would toan Earthsman. With the landless gull, that atsunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep

between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantuck-eter, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and layshim to his rest, while under his very pillowrush herds of walruses and whales.

CHAPTER 15. Chowder.

It was quite late in the evening when the littleMoss came snugly to anchor, and Queequegand I went ashore; so we could attend to nobusiness that day, at least none but a supperand a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn hadrecommended us to his cousin Hosea Husseyof the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be theproprietor of one of the best kept hotels in allNantucket, and moreover he had assured usthat Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was fa-mous for his chowders. In short, he plainly

hinted that we could not possibly do betterthan try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the direc-tions he had given us about keeping a yellowwarehouse on our starboard hand till weopened a white church to the larboard, andthen keeping that on the larboard hand till wemade a corner three points to the starboard,and that done, then ask the first man we metwhere the place was: these crooked directionsof his very much puzzled us at first, especiallyas, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that theyellow warehouse—our first point of depar-ture—must be left on the larboard hand,whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say itwas on the starboard. However, by dint of beat-ing about a little in the dark, and now and thenknocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquirethe way, we at last came to something whichthere was no mistaking.

Two enormous wooden pots painted black, andsuspended by asses' ears, swung from the

cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in frontof an old doorway. The horns of the cross-treeswere sawed off on the other side, so that thisold top-mast looked not a little like a gallows.Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impres-sions at the time, but I could not help staring atthis gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort ofcrick was in my neck as I gazed up to the tworemaining horns; yes, TWO of them, one forQueequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinksI. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in myfirst whaling port; tombstones staring at me inthe whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! anda pair of prodigious black pots too! Are theselast throwing out oblique hints touching To-phet?

I was called from these reflections by the sightof a freckled woman with yellow hair and ayellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn,under a dull red lamp swinging there, thatlooked much like an injured eye, and carrying

on a brisk scolding with a man in a purplewoollen shirt.

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

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

And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey beingfrom home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirelycompetent to attend to all his affairs. Uponmaking known our desires for a supper and abed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scoldingfor the present, ushered us into a little room,and seating us at a table spread with the relicsof a recently concluded repast, turned round tous and said—"Clam or Cod?"

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

"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.

"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is THAT whatyou mean, Mrs. Hussey?" says I, "but that's arather cold and clammy reception in the wintertime, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?"

But being in a great hurry to resume scoldingthe man in the purple Shirt, who was waitingfor it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothingbut the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried to-wards an open door leading to the kitchen, andbawling out "clam for two," disappeared.

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

However, a warm savory steam from thekitchen served to belie the apparently cheerlessprospect before us. But when that smokingchowder came in, the mystery was delightfullyexplained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. Itwas made of small juicy clams, scarcely biggerthan hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship bis-cuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the

whole enriched with butter, and plentifullyseasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetitesbeing sharpened by the frosty voyage, and inparticular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fish-ing food before him, and the chowder beingsurpassingly excellent, we despatched it withgreat expedition: when leaning back a momentand bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam andcod announcement, I thought I would try alittle experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door,I uttered the word "cod" with great emphasis,and resumed my seat. In a few moments thesavoury steam came forth again, but with adifferent flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.

We resumed business; and while plying ourspoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wondernow 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 har-poon?"

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots,which well deserved its name; for the potsthere were always boiling chowders. Chowderfor breakfast, and chowder for dinner, andchowder for supper, till you began to look forfish-bones coming through your clothes. Thearea before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace ofcodfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had hisaccount 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 onemorning happening to take a stroll along thebeach among some fishermen's boats, I sawHosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants,and marching along the sand with each foot ina cod's decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, I assure ye.

Supper concluded, we received a lamp, anddirections from Mrs. Hussey concerning thenearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg wasabout to precede me up the stairs, the ladyreached forth her arm, and demanded his har-poon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers."Why not?" said I; "every true whaleman sleepswith his harpoon—but why not?" "Because it'sdangerous," says she. "Ever since young Stiggscoming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, whenhe was gone four years and a half, with onlythree barrels of ile, was found dead in my firstfloor back, with his harpoon in his side; eversince then I allow no boarders to take sich dan-gerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr.Queequeg" (for she had learned his name), "Iwill just take this here iron, and keep it for youtill morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?"

"Both," says I; "and let's have a couple ofsmoked 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, Que-equeg now gave me to understand, that he hadbeen diligently consulting Yojo—the name ofhis black little god—and Yojo had told him twoor three times over, and strongly insisted uponit everyway, that instead of our going togetheramong the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in con-cert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say,Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of theship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch asYojo purposed befriending us; and, in order todo so, had already pitched upon a vessel,which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infal-libly light upon, for all the world as though it

had turned out by chance; and in that vessel Imust immediately ship myself, for the presentirrespective of Queequeg.

I have forgotten to mention that, in manythings, Queequeg placed great confidence inthe excellence of Yojo's judgment and surpris-ing forecast of things; and cherished Yojo withconsiderable esteem, as a rather good sort ofgod, who perhaps meant well enough upon thewhole, but in all cases did not succeed in hisbenevolent designs.

Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's,touching the selection of our craft; I did not likethat plan at all. I had not a little relied uponQueequeg's sagacity to point out the whalerbest fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely.But as all my remonstrances produced no effectupon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce;and accordingly prepared to set about thisbusiness with a determined rushing sort of en-ergy and vigor, that should quickly settle that

trifling little affair. Next morning early, leavingQueequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bed-room—for it seemed that it was some sort ofLent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humilia-tion, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo thatday; HOW it was I never could find out, for,though I applied myself to it several times, Inever could master his liturgies and XXXIXArticles—leaving Queequeg, then, fasting onhis tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himselfat his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied outamong the shipping. After much prolongedsauntering and many random inquiries, I learntthat there were three ships up for three-years'voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and thePequod. DEVIL-DAM, I do not know the originof; TIT-BIT is obvious; PEQUOD, you will nodoubt remember, was the name of a celebratedtribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct asthe ancient Medes. I peered and pryed aboutthe Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to theTit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod,

looked around her for a moment, and then de-cided that this was the very ship for us.

You may have seen many a quaint craft in yourday, for aught I know;—square-toed luggers;mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box gal-liots, and what not; but take my word for it,you never saw such a rare old craft as this samerare old Pequod. She was a ship of the oldschool, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Longseasoned and weather-stained in the typhoonsand calms of all four oceans, her old hull'scomplexion was darkened like a French grena-dier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Sibe-ria. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Hermasts—cut somewhere on the coast of Japan,where her original ones were lost overboard ina gale—her masts stood stiffly up like thespines of the three old kings of Cologne. Herancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like thepilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury

Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all theseher old antiquities, were added new and mar-vellous features, pertaining to the wild businessthat for more than half a century she had fol-lowed. Old Captain Peleg, many years herchief-mate, before he commanded another ves-sel of his own, and now a retired seaman, andone of the principal owners of the Pequod,—this old Peleg, during the term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original gro-tesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with aquaintness both of material and device, un-matched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She wasapparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian em-peror, his neck heavy with pendants of pol-ished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A can-nibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in thechased bones of her enemies. All round, herunpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished likeone continuous jaw, with the long sharp teethof the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to

fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to.Those thews ran not through base blocks ofland wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves ofsea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her rev-erend helm, she sported there a tiller; and thattiller was in one mass, curiously carved fromthe long narrow lower jaw of her hereditaryfoe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller ina tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holdsback his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A no-ble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! Allnoble things are touched with that.

Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, forsome one having authority, in order to proposemyself as a candidate for the voyage, at first Isaw nobody; but I could not well overlook astrange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitcheda little behind the main-mast. It seemed only atemporary erection used in port. It was of aconical shape, some ten feet high; consisting ofthe long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken

from the middle and highest part of the jaws ofthe right-whale. Planted with their broad endson the deck, a circle of these slabs laced to-gether, mutually sloped towards each other,and at the apex united in a tufted point, wherethe loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like thetop-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem'shead. A triangular opening faced towards thebows of the ship, so that the insider com-manded a complete view forward.

And half concealed in this queer tenement, I atlength found one who by his aspect seemed tohave authority; and who, it being noon, and theship's work suspended, was now enjoying res-pite from the burden of command. He wasseated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wrig-gling all over with curious carving; and thebottom of which was formed of a stout interlac-ing of the same elastic stuff of which the wig-wam 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 sea-men, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth,cut in the Quaker style; only there was a fineand almost microscopic net-work of the minut-est wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, whichmust have arisen from his continual sailings inmany hard gales, and always looking to wind-ward;—for this causes the muscles about theeyes to become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, ad-vancing 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 Nan-tucketer—ever been in a stove boat?"

"No, Sir, I never have."

"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I daresay—eh?

"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soonlearn. I've been several voyages in the merchantservice, and I think that—"

"Merchant service be damned. Talk not thatlingo to me. Dost see that leg?—I'll take that legaway from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of themarchant service to me again. Marchant serviceindeed! I suppose now ye feel considerableproud of having served in those marchantships. But flukes! man, what makes thee wantto go a whaling, eh?—it looks a little suspi-cious, don't it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hastthou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didstthou?—Dost not think of murdering the officerswhen thou gettest to sea?"

I protested my innocence of these things. I sawthat under the mask of these half humorousinnuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulatedQuakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insularprejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens,unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vine-yard.

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

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

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

"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"

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

"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speakingto the Captain himself."

"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg—that'swho ye are speaking to, young man. It belongsto me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequodfitted out for the voyage, and supplied with allher needs, including crew. We are part ownersand agents. But as I was going to say, if thouwantest to know what whaling is, as thou tell-est ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it outbefore ye bind yourself to it, past backing out.Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, andthou wilt find that he has only one leg."

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

"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer tome: it was devoured, chewed up, crunched bythe monstrousest parmacetty that ever chippeda boat!—ah, ah!"

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhapsalso a little touched at the hearty grief in hisconcluding 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 pecu-liar ferocity in that particular whale, thoughindeed I might have inferred as much from thesimple fact of the accident."

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

"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I hadbeen four voyages in the merchant—"

"Hard down out of that! Mind what I saidabout the marchant service—don't aggravateme—I won't have it. But let us understand eachother. I have given thee a hint about whatwhaling is; do ye yet feel inclined for it?"

"I do, sir."

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

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

"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantestto go a-whaling, to find out by experience whatwhaling is, but ye also want to go in order tosee the world? Was not that what ye said? Ithought so. Well then, just step forward there,and take a peep over the weather-bow, andthen back to me and tell me what ye see there."

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

Going forward and glancing over the weatherbow, I perceived that the ship swinging to heranchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquelypointing towards the open ocean. The prospectwas unlimited, but exceedingly monotonousand forbidding; not the slightest variety that Icould see.

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

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

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

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling Imust, and I would; and the Pequod was asgood a ship as any—I thought the best—and all

this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so de-termined, he expressed his willingness to shipme.

"And thou mayest as well sign the papers rightoff," he added—"come along with ye." And sosaying, he led the way below deck into thecabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to mea most uncommon and surprising figure. Itturned out to be Captain Bildad, who alongwith Captain Peleg was one of the largest own-ers of the vessel; the other shares, as is some-times the case in these ports, being held by acrowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherlesschildren, and chancery wards; each owningabout the value of a timber head, or a foot ofplank, or a nail or two in the ship. People inNantucket invest their money in whaling ves-sels, the same way that you do yours in ap-proved state stocks bringing in good interest.

Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed manyother Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the islandhaving been originally settled by that sect; andto this day its inhabitants in general retain in anuncommon measure the peculiarities of theQuaker, only variously and anomalously modi-fied by things altogether alien and heterogene-ous. For some of these same Quakers are themost sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they areQuakers with a vengeance.

So that there are instances among them of men,who, named with Scripture names—a singu-larly common fashion on the island—and inchildhood naturally imbibing the stately dra-matic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still,from the audacious, daring, and boundless ad-venture of their subsequent lives, strangelyblend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, athousand bold dashes of character, not unwor-thy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pa-

gan Roman. And when these things unite in aman of greatly superior natural force, with aglobular brain and a ponderous heart; who hasalso by the stillness and seclusion of many longnight-watches in the remotest waters, and be-neath constellations never seen here at thenorth, been led to think untraditionally andindependently; receiving all nature's sweet orsavage impressions fresh from her own virginvoluntary and confiding breast, and therebychiefly, but with some help from accidentaladvantages, to learn a bold and nervous loftylanguage—that man makes one in a whole na-tion's census—a mighty pageant creature,formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at alldetract from him, dramatically regarded, if ei-ther by birth or other circumstances, he havewhat seems a half wilful overruling morbidnessat the bottom of his nature. For all men tragi-cally great are made so through a certain mor-bidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, allmortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we

have not to do with such an one, but with quiteanother; and still a man, who, if indeed pecu-liar, it only results again from another phase ofthe Quaker, modified by individual circum-stances.

Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. But unlike CaptainPeleg—who cared not a rush for what arecalled serious things, and indeed deemed thoseself-same serious things the veriest of all tri-fles—Captain Bildad had not only been origi-nally educated according to the strictest sect ofNantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequentocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovelyisland creatures, round the Horn—all that hadnot moved this native born Quaker one singlejot, had not so much as altered one angle of hisvest. Still, for all this immutableness, was theresome lack of common consistency about wor-thy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from con-scientious scruples, to bear arms against land

invaders, yet himself had illimitably invadedthe Atlantic and Pacific; and though a swornfoe to human bloodshed, yet had he in hisstraight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns ofleviathan gore. How now in the contemplativeevening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciledthese things in the reminiscence, I do not know;but it did not seem to concern him much, andvery probably he had long since come to thesage and sensible conclusion that a man's relig-ion is one thing, and this practical world quiteanother. This world pays dividends. Risingfrom a little cabin-boy in short clothes of thedrabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally aship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had con-cluded his adventurous career by wholly retir-ing from active life at the goodly age of sixty,and dedicating his remaining days to the quietreceiving of his well-earned income.

Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputa-tion of being an incorrigible old hunks, and inhis sea-going days, a bitter, hard task-master.They told me in Nantucket, though it certainlyseems a curious story, that when he sailed theold Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arrivinghome, were mostly all carried ashore to thehospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For apious man, especially for a Quaker, he was cer-tainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. Henever used to swear, though, at his men, theysaid; but somehow he got an inordinate quan-tity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out ofthem. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to havehis drab-coloured eye intently looking at you,made you feel completely nervous, till youcould clutch something—a hammer or a mar-ling-spike, and go to work like mad, at some-thing or other, never mind what. Indolence andidleness perished before him. His own personwas the exact embodiment of his utilitariancharacter. On his long, gaunt body, he carried

no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chinhaving a soft, economical nap to it, like theworn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.

Such, then, was the person that I saw seated onthe transom when I followed Captain Pelegdown into the cabin. The space between thedecks was small; and there, bolt-upright, satold Bildad, who always sat so, and neverleaned, and this to save his coat tails. Hisbroad-brim was placed beside him; his legswere stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was but-toned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, heseemed absorbed in reading from a ponderousvolume.

"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bil-dad, eh? Ye have been studying those Scrip-tures, now, for the last thirty years, to my cer-tain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?"

As if long habituated to such profane talk fromhis old shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his

present irreverence, quietly looked up, andseeing me, glanced again inquiringly towardsPeleg.

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

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

"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intensea Quaker.

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

"He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and thenwent on spelling away at his book in a mum-bling tone quite audible.

I thought him the queerest old Quaker I eversaw, especially as Peleg, his friend and oldshipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I saidnothing, only looking round me sharply. Pelegnow 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 tothink it was high time to settle with myself atwhat terms I would be willing to engage for thevoyage. I was already aware that in the whal-ing business they paid no wages; but all hands,including the captain, received certain shares ofthe profits called lays, and that these lays wereproportioned to the degree of importance per-taining to the respective duties of the ship'scompany. I was also aware that being a greenhand at whaling, my own lay would not bevery large; but considering that I was used tothe sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and allthat, I made no doubt that from all I had heardI should be offered at least the 275th lay—thatis, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of thevoyage, whatever that might eventuallyamount to. And though the 275th lay was whatthey call a rather LONG LAY, yet it was betterthan 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 threeyears' beef and board, for which I would nothave to pay one stiver.

It might be thought that this was a poor way toaccumulate a princely fortune—and so it was, avery poor way indeed. But I am one of thosethat never take on about princely fortunes, andam quite content if the world is ready to boardand lodge me, while I am putting up at thisgrim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon thewhole, I thought that the 275th lay would beabout the fair thing, but would not have beensurprised had I been offered the 200th, consid-ering I was of a broad-shouldered make.

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me alittle distrustful about receiving a generousshare of the profits was this: Ashore, I hadheard something of both Captain Peleg and hisunaccountable old crony Bildad; how that theybeing the principal proprietors of the Pequod,therefore the other and more inconsiderable

and scattered owners, left nearly the wholemanagement of the ship's affairs to these two.And I did not know but what the stingy oldBildad might have a mighty deal to say aboutshipping hands, especially as I now found himon board the Pequod, quite at home there in thecabin, and reading his Bible as if at his ownfireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying tomend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, tomy no small surprise, considering that he wassuch an interested party in these proceedings;Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumblingto himself out of his book, "LAY not up foryourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—"

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

"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply,"the seven hundred and seventy-seventh

wouldn't be too much, would it?—'where mothand rust do corrupt, but LAY—'"

LAY, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! theseven hundred and seventy-seventh! Well, oldBildad, you are determined that I, for one, shallnot LAY up many LAYS here below, wheremoth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceed-ingly LONG LAY that, indeed; and thoughfrom the magnitude of the figure it might atfirst deceive a landsman, yet the slightest con-sideration will show that though seven hun-dred and seventy-seven is a pretty large num-ber, yet, when you come to make a TEENTH ofit, you will then see, I say, that the seven hun-dred and seventy-seventh part of a farthing is agood deal less than seven hundred and sev-enty-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought atthe 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," againsaid Bildad, without lifting his eyes; and thenwent on mumbling—"for where your treasureis, there will your heart be also."

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

Bildad laid down his book, and turning sol-emnly towards him said, "Captain Peleg, thouhast a generous heart; but thou must considerthe duty thou owest to the other owners of thisship—widows and orphans, many of them—and that if we too abundantly reward the la-bors of this young man, we may be taking thebread from those widows and those orphans.The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay,Captain Peleg."

"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up andclattering about the cabin. "Blast ye, CaptainBildad, if I had followed thy advice in these

matters, I would afore now had a conscience tolug about that would be heavy enough tofounder the largest ship that ever sailed roundCape Horn."

"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy con-science may be drawing ten inches of water, orten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou art still animpenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fearlest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and willin the end sink thee foundering down to thefiery pit, Captain Peleg."

"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past allnatural bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-firedoutrage to tell any human creature that he'sbound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, saythat again to me, and start my soul-bolts, butI'll—I'll—yes, I'll swallow a live goat with allhis hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye cant-ing, drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—astraight wake with ye!"

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

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between thetwo principal and responsible owners of theship, and feeling half a mind to give up all ideaof sailing in a vessel so questionably ownedand temporarily commanded, I stepped asidefrom the door to give egress to Bildad, who, Imade no doubt, was all eagerness to vanishfrom before the awakened wrath of Peleg. Butto my astonishment, he sat down again on thetransom very quietly, and seemed to have notthe slightest intention of withdrawing. Heseemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and hisways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage ashe had, there seemed no more left in him, andhe, too, sat down like a lamb, though hetwitched a little as if still nervously agitated."Whew!" he whistled at last—"the squall's goneoff to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be

good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, willye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone.That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, myyoung man, Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say?Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for thethree hundredth lay."

"Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with mewho wants to ship too—shall I bring him downto-morrow?"

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

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

"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," saidPeleg. "Has he ever whaled it any?" turning tome.

"Killed more whales than I can count, CaptainPeleg."

"Well, bring him along then."

And, after signing the papers, off I went; noth-ing doubting but that I had done a good morn-ing's work, and that the Pequod was the identi-cal ship that Yojo had provided to carry Que-equeg and me round the Cape.

But I had not proceeded far, when I began tobethink me that the Captain with whom I wasto sail yet remained unseen by me; though,indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will becompletely fitted out, and receive all her crewon board, ere the captain makes himself visibleby arriving to take command; for sometimesthese voyages are so prolonged, and the shoreintervals at home so exceedingly brief, that ifthe captain have a family, or any absorbingconcernment of that sort, he does not troublehimself much about his ship in port, but leaves

her to the owners till all is ready for sea. How-ever, it is always as well to have a look at himbefore irrevocably committing yourself into hishands. 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 pre-sent. I don't know exactly what's the matterwith him; but he keeps close inside the house; asort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, heain't sick; but no, he isn't well either. Any how,young man, he won't always see me, so I don'tsuppose he will thee. He's a queer man, Cap-tain Ahab—so some think—but a good one.Oh, thou'lt like him well enough; no fear, nofear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Cap-tain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when hedoes speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye,

be forewarned; Ahab's above the common;Ahab's been in colleges, as well as 'mong thecannibals; been used to deeper wonders thanthe waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier,stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, thekeenest and the surest that out of all our isle!Oh! he ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain'tCaptain Peleg; HE'S AHAB, boy; and Ahab ofold, thou knowest, was a crowned king!"

"And a very vile one. When that wicked kingwas slain, the dogs, did they not lick hisblood?"

"Come hither to me—hither, hither," said Peleg,with a significance in his eye that almost star-tled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on boardthe Pequod. Never say it anywhere. CaptainAhab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish,ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother,who died when he was only a twelvemonthold. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead,said that the name would somehow prove pro-

phetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her maytell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie.I know Captain Ahab well; I've sailed with himas mate years ago; I know what he is—a goodman—not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but aswearing good man—something like me—onlythere's a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, Iknow that he was never very jolly; and I knowthat on the passage home, he was a little out ofhis mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shoot-ing pains in his bleeding stump that broughtthat about, as any one might see. I know, too,that ever since he lost his leg last voyage bythat accursed whale, he's been a kind ofmoody—desperate moody, and savage some-times; but that will all pass off. And once forall, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man,it's better to sail with a moody good captainthan a laughing bad one. So good-bye to thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he hap-pens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy,he has a wife—not three voyages wedded—a

sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by thatsweet girl that old man has a child: hold yethen there can be any utter, hopeless harm inAhab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if hebe, Ahab has his humanities!"

As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness;what had been incidentally revealed to me ofCaptain Ahab, filled me with a certain wildvagueness of painfulness concerning him. Andsomehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and asorrow for him, but for I don't know what,unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet Ialso felt a strange awe of him; but that sort ofawe, which I cannot at all describe, was notexactly awe; I do not know what it was. But Ifelt it; and it did not disincline me towards him;though I felt impatience at what seemed likemystery in him, so imperfectly as he wasknown to me then. However, my thoughtswere at length carried in other directions, so

that for the present dark Ahab slipped mymind.

CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.

As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Hu-miliation, was to continue all day, I did notchoose to disturb him till towards night-fall; forI cherish the greatest respect towards every-body's religious obligations, never mind howcomical, and could not find it in my heart toundervalue even a congregation of ants wor-shipping a toad-stool; or those other creaturesin certain parts of our earth, who with a degreeof footmanism quite unprecedented in otherplanets, bow down before the torso of a de-ceased landed proprietor merely on account of

the inordinate possessions yet owned andrented in his name.

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians shouldbe charitable in these things, and not fancy our-selves so vastly superior to other mortals, pa-gans and what not, because of their half-crazyconceits on these subjects. There was Que-equeg, now, certainly entertaining the mostabsurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;—but what of that? Queequeg thought he knewwhat he was about, I suppose; he seemed to becontent; and there let him rest. All our arguingwith him would not avail; let him be, I say: andHeaven have mercy on us all—Presbyteriansand Pagans alike—for we are all somehowdreadfully cracked about the head, and sadlyneed mending.

Towards evening, when I felt assured that allhis performances and rituals must be over, Iwent up to his room and knocked at the door;but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fas-

tened inside. "Queequeg," said I softly throughthe key-hole:—all silent. "I say, Queequeg! whydon't you speak? It's I—Ishmael." But all re-mained still as before. I began to grow alarmed.I had allowed him such abundant time; Ithought he might have had an apoplectic fit. Ilooked through the key-hole; but the dooropening into an odd corner of the room, thekey-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinis-ter one. I could only see part of the foot-boardof the bed and a line of the wall, but nothingmore. I was surprised to behold resting againstthe wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's har-poon, which the landlady the evening previoushad taken from him, before our mounting tothe chamber. That's strange, thought I; but atany rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, andhe seldom or never goes abroad without it,therefore he must be inside here, and no possi-ble mistake.

"Queequeg!—Queequeg!"—all still. Somethingmust have happened. Apoplexy! I tried to burstopen the door; but it stubbornly resisted. Run-ning down stairs, I quickly stated my suspi-cions to the first person I met—the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "I thought somethingmust be the matter. I went to make the bed af-ter breakfast, and the door was locked; and nota mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silentever since. But I thought, may be, you had bothgone off and locked your baggage in for safekeeping. 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 theother, having just broken away from the occu-pation of attending to the castors, and scoldingher little black boy meantime.

"Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Runfor God's sake, and fetch something to pry

open the door—the axe!—the axe! he's had astroke; depend upon it!"—and so saying I wasunmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed themustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entirecastor 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 puttingdown the vinegar-cruet, so as to have one handfree; "look here; are you talking about pryingopen any of my doors?"—and with that sheseized my arm. "What's the matter with you?What's the matter with you, shipmate?"

In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, Igave her to understand the whole case. Uncon-sciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one sideof her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then

exclaimed—"No! I haven't seen it since I put itthere." Running to a little closet under the land-ing 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'nateStiggs done over again there goes anothercounterpane—God pity his poor mother!—itwill be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad asister? Where's that girl?—there, Betty, go toSnarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me asign, with—"no suicides permitted here, and nosmoking in the parlor;"—might as well kill bothbirds at once. Kill? The Lord be merciful to hisghost! What's that noise there? You, youngman, avast there!"

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

"I don't allow it; I won't have my premisesspoiled. Go for the locksmith, there's one abouta mile from here. But avast!" putting her handin her side-pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I

guess; let's see." And with that, she turned it inthe lock; but, alas! Queequeg's supplementalbolt remained unwithdrawn within.

"Have to burst it open," said I, and was runningdown the entry a little, for a good start, whenthe landlady caught at me, again vowing Ishould not break down her premises; but I torefrom her, and with a sudden bodily rushdashed myself full against the mark.

With a prodigious noise the door flew open,and the knob slamming against the wall, sentthe plaster to the ceiling; and there, good heav-ens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool andself-collected; right in the middle of the room;squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on topof his head. He looked neither one way nor theother way, but sat like a carved image withscarce a sign of active life.

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

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

But all we said, not a word could we drag outof him; I almost felt like pushing him over, soas to change his position, for it was almost in-tolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnatu-rally constrained; especially, as in all probabil-ity he had been sitting so for upwards of eightor ten hours, going too without his regularmeals.

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

Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeav-ored 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—hewould not move a peg, nor say a single word,nor even look at me, nor notice my presence inthe slightest way.

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

I went down to supper. After sitting a long timelistening to the long stories of some sailors whohad just come from a plum-pudding voyage, asthey called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage ina schooner or brig, confined to the north of theline, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after listeningto these plum-puddingers till nearly eleveno'clock, I went up stairs to go to bed, feelingquite sure by this time Queequeg must cer-tainly have brought his Ramadan to a termina-tion. But no; there he was just where I had lefthim; he had not stirred an inch. I began to growvexed with him; it seemed so downright sense-

less and insane to be sitting there all day andhalf the night on his hams in a cold room, hold-ing a piece of wood on his head.

"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up andshake 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 togo to bed and to sleep; and no doubt, before agreat while, he would follow me. But previousto turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket,and threw it over him, as it promised to be avery cold night; and he had nothing but hisordinary round jacket on. For some time, do allI would, I could not get into the faintest doze. Ihad blown out the candle; and the merethought of Queequeg—not four feet off—sittingthere in that uneasy position, stark alone in thecold 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 thisdreary, unaccountable Ramadan!

But somehow I dropped off at last, and knewnothing more till break of day; when, lookingover the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, asif he had been screwed down to the floor. Butas soon as the first glimpse of sun entered thewindow, up he got, with stiff and grating joints,but with a cheerful look; limped towards mewhere I lay; pressed his forehead again againstmine; and said his Ramadan was over.

Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection toany person's religion, be it what it may, so longas that person does not kill or insult any otherperson, because that other person don't believeit also. But when a man's religion becomesreally frantic; when it is a positive torment tohim; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours anuncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think ithigh time to take that individual aside and ar-gue the point with him.

And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Que-equeg," said I, "get into bed now, and lie andlisten to me." I then went on, beginning withthe rise and progress of the primitive religions,and coming down to the various religions ofthe present time, during which time I laboredto show Queequeg that all these Lents,Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings incold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; badfor the health; useless for the soul; opposed, inshort, to the obvious laws of Hygiene andcommon sense. I told him, too, that he being inother things such an extremely sensible andsagacious savage, it pained me, very badlypained me, to see him now so deplorably fool-ish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Be-sides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in;hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts bornof a fast must necessarily be half-starved. Thisis the reason why most dyspeptic religionistscherish such melancholy notions about theirhereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I,

rather digressively; hell is an idea first born onan undigested apple-dumpling; and since thenperpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsiasnurtured by Ramadans.

I then asked Queequeg whether he himself wasever troubled with dyspepsia; expressing theidea very plainly, so that he could take it in. Hesaid no; only upon one memorable occasion. Itwas after a great feast given by his father theking, on the gaining of a great battle whereinfifty of the enemy had been killed by about twoo'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked andeaten that very evening.

"No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "thatwill do;" for I knew the inferences without hisfurther hinting them. I had seen a sailor whohad visited that very island, and he told methat it was the custom, when a great battle hadbeen gained there, to barbecue all the slain inthe yard or garden of the victor; and then, oneby one, they were placed in great wooden

trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau,with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with someparsley in their mouths, were sent round withthe victor's compliments to all his friends, justas though these presents were so many Christ-mas turkeys.

After all, I do not think that my remarks aboutreligion made much impression upon Que-equeg. Because, in the first place, he somehowseemed dull of hearing on that important sub-ject, unless considered from his own point ofview; and, in the second place, he did not morethan one third understand me, couch my ideassimply as I would; and, finally, he no doubtthought he knew a good deal more about thetrue religion than I did. He looked at me with asort of condescending concern and compassion,as though he thought it a great pity that such asensible young man should be so hopelesslylost to evangelical pagan piety.

At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg,taking a prodigiously hearty breakfast ofchowders of all sorts, so that the landladyshould not make much profit by reason of hisRamadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod,sauntering along, and picking our teeth withhalibut bones.

CHAPTER 18. His Mark.

As we were walking down the end of the wharftowards the ship, Queequeg carrying his har-poon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudlyhailed us from his wigwam, saying he had notsuspected my friend was a cannibal, and fur-thermore announcing that he let no cannibalson board that craft, unless they previously pro-duced their papers.

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

"I mean," he replied, "he must show his pa-pers."

"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice,sticking his head from behind Peleg's, out ofthe wigwam. "He must show that he's con-verted. Son of darkness," he added, turning toQueequeg, "art thou at present in communionwith any Christian church?"

"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Con-gregational Church." Here be it said, that manytattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships atlast come to be converted into the churches.

"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad,"what! that worships in Deacon DeuteronomyColeman's meeting-house?" and so saying, tak-ing out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his

great yellow bandana handkerchief, and put-ting them on very carefully, came out of thewigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks,took a good long look at Queequeg.

"How long hath he been a member?" he thensaid, turning to me; "not very long, I ratherguess, young man."

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

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

"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuter-onomy or his meeting," said I; "all I know is,that Queequeg here is a born member of theFirst Congregational Church. He is a deaconhimself, Queequeg is."

"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou artskylarking with me—explain thyself, thouyoung Hittite. What church dost thee mean?answer me."

Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. "Imean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church towhich you and I, and Captain Peleg there, andQueequeg here, and all of us, and everymother's son and soul of us belong; the greatand everlasting First Congregation of thiswhole worshipping world; we all belong tothat; only some of us cherish some queercrotchets no ways touching the grand belief; inTHAT we all join hands."

"Splice, thou mean'st SPLICE hands," cried Pe-leg, drawing nearer. "Young man, you'd bettership for a missionary, instead of a fore-masthand; I never heard a better sermon. DeaconDeuteronomy—why Father Mapple himselfcouldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something.Come aboard, come aboard; never mind about

the papers. I say, tell Quohog there—what'sthat you call him? tell Quohog to step along. Bythe great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there!looks like good stuff that; and he handles itabout right. I say, Quohog, or whatever yourname is, did you ever stand in the head of awhale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?"

Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wildsort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, fromthence into the bows of one of the whale-boatshanging to the side; and then bracing his leftknee, and poising his harpoon, cried out insome such way as this:—

"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on waterdere? You see him? well, spose him one whaleeye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it, hedarted the iron right over old Bildad's broadbrim, clean across the ship's decks, and struckthe glistening tar spot out of sight.

"Now," said Queequeg, quietly hauling in theline, "spos-ee him whale-e eye; why, dad whaledead."

"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who,aghast at the close vicinity of the flying har-poon, had retreated towards the cabin gang-way. "Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get theship's papers. We must have Hedgehog there, Imean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye,Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, andthat's more than ever was given a harpooneeryet out of Nantucket."

So down we went into the cabin, and to mygreat joy Queequeg was soon enrolled amongthe same ship's company to which I myself be-longed.

When all preliminaries were over and Peleghad got everything ready for signing, he turnedto me and said, "I guess, Quohog there don'tknow how to write, does he? I say, Quohog,

blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or make thymark?"

But at this question, Queequeg, who had twiceor thrice before taken part in similar ceremo-nies, looked no ways abashed; but taking theoffered pen, copied upon the paper, in theproper place, an exact counterpart of a queerround figure which was tattooed upon his arm;so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mis-take touching his appellative, it stood some-thing like this:—

Quohog. his X mark.

Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly andsteadfastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last risingsolemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets ofhis broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundleof tracts, and selecting one entitled "The LatterDay Coming; or No Time to Lose," placed it inQueequeg's hands, and then grasping them andthe book with both his, looked earnestly into

his eyes, and said, "Son of darkness, I must domy 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 Isadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye aBelial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and thehideous 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 oldBildad's language, heterogeneously mixed withScriptural and domestic phrases.

"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast nowspoiling our harpooneer," Peleg. "Pious har-pooneers never make good voyagers—it takesthe shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth astraw who aint pretty sharkish. There wasyoung 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, forfear of after-claps, in case he got stove and wentto Davy Jones."

"Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes andhands, "thou thyself, as I myself, hast seenmany 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. Thoubeliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, whenthis same Pequod here had her three mastsoverboard in that typhoon on Japan, that samevoyage when thou went mate with CaptainAhab, did'st thou not think of Death and theJudgment then?"

"Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, march-ing across the cabin, and thrusting his hands fardown into his pockets,—"hear him, all of ye.Think of that! When every moment we thoughtthe ship would sink! Death and the Judgmentthen? What? With all three masts making suchan everlasting thundering against the side; and

every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Thinkof Death and the Judgment then? No! no timeto think about Death then. Life was what Cap-tain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how tosave all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how toget into the nearest port; that was what I wasthinking of."

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

CHAPTER 19. The Prophet.

"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?"

Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, andwere sauntering away from the water, for themoment each occupied with his own thoughts,when the above words were put to us by astranger, who, pausing before us, levelled hismassive forefinger at the vessel in question. Hewas but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket andpatched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchiefinvesting his neck. A confluent small-pox hadin all directions flowed over his face, and left itlike 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 uninter-rupted look at him.

"Aye, the Pequod—that ship there," he said,drawing back his whole arm, and then rapidlyshoving it straight out from him, with the fixedbayonet of his pointed finger darted full at theobject.

"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 saidquickly. "No matter though, I know manychaps that hav'n't got any,—good luck to 'em;and they are all the better off for it. A soul's asort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."

"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" saidI.

"HE'S got enough, though, to make up for alldeficiencies of that sort in other chaps,"

abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervousemphasis upon the word HE.

"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow hasbroken loose from somewhere; he's talkingabout something and somebody we don'tknow."

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

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

"Captain Ahab."

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

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

"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is get-ting better, and will be all right again beforelong."

"All right again before long!" laughed thestranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh."Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, thenthis left arm of mine will be all right; not be-fore."

"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 wordwith Captain Ahab. But nothing about thatthing that happened to him off Cape Horn,

long ago, when he lay like dead for three daysand nights; nothing about that deadly skrim-mage with the Spaniard afore the altar inSanta?—heard nothing about that, eh? Nothingabout the silver calabash he spat into? Andnothing about his losing his leg last voyage,according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear aword 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. Buthows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about theleg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard ofthat, I dare say. Oh yes, THAT every oneknows a'most—I mean they know he's only oneleg; and that a parmacetti took the other off."

"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish ofyours is about, I don't know, and I don't muchcare; for it seems to me that you must be a littledamaged in the head. But if you are speaking ofCaptain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod,

then let me tell you, that I know all about theloss of his leg."

"ALL about it, eh—sure you do?—all?"

"Pretty sure."

With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pe-quod, 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'ssigned, is signed; and what's to be, will be; andthen again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Any-how, it's all fixed and arranged a'ready; andsome sailors or other must go with him, I sup-pose; as well these as any other men, God pity'em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; theineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stoppedye."

"Look here, friend," said I, "if you have any-thing important to tell us, out with it; but if you

are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mis-taken in your game; that's all I have to say."

"And it's said very well, and I like to hear achap talk up that way; you are just the man forhim—the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates,morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I'veconcluded not to make one of 'em."

"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us thatway—you can't fool us. It is the easiest thing inthe world for a man to look as if he had a greatsecret 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 yourname, will you?"

"Elijah."

Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, bothcommenting, after each other's fashion, upon

this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he wasnothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear.But we had not gone perhaps above a hundredyards, when chancing to turn a corner, andlooking back as I did so, who should be seenbut Elijah following us, though at a distance.Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that Isaid nothing to Queequeg of his being behind,but passed on with my comrade, anxious to seewhether the stranger would turn the same cor-ner that we did. He did; and then it seemed tome that he was dogging us, but with what in-tent I could not for the life of me imagine. Thiscircumstance, coupled with his ambiguous,half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort oftalk, now begat in me all kinds of vague won-derments and half-apprehensions, and all con-nected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab;and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit;and the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleghad said of him, when I left the ship the dayprevious; and the prediction of the squaw

Tistig; and the voyage we had bound ourselvesto sail; and a hundred other shadowy things.

I was resolved to satisfy myself whether thisragged Elijah was really dogging us or not, andwith that intent crossed the way with Que-equeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps.But Elijah passed on, without seeming to noticeus. This relieved me; and once more, and fi-nally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him inmy heart, a humbug.

CHAPTER 20. All Astir.

A day or two passed, and there was great activ-ity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the oldsails being mended, but new sails were comingon board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rig-

ging; in short, everything betokened that theship's preparations were hurrying to a close.Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore,but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-outupon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasingand providing at the stores; and the men em-ployed in the hold and on the rigging wereworking till long after night-fall.

On the day following Queequeg's signing thearticles, word was given at all the inns wherethe ship's company were stopping, that theirchests must be on board before night, for therewas no telling how soon the vessel might besailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps,resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last.But it seems they always give very long noticein these cases, and the ship did not sail for sev-eral days. But no wonder; there was a gooddeal to be done, and there is no telling howmany things to be thought of, before the Pe-quod was fully equipped.

Every one knows what a multitude of things—beds, sauce-pans, knives and forks, shovels andtongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, areindispensable to the business of housekeeping.Just so with whaling, which necessitates athree-years' housekeeping upon the wideocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doc-tors, bakers, and bankers. And though this alsoholds true of merchant vessels, yet not by anymeans to the same extent as with whalemen.For besides the great length of the whalingvoyage, the numerous articles peculiar to theprosecution of the fishery, and the impossibilityof replacing them at the remote harbors usuallyfrequented, it must be remembered, that of allships, whaling vessels are the most exposed toaccidents of all kinds, and especially to the de-struction and loss of the very things uponwhich the success of the voyage most depends.Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and sparelines and harpoons, and spare everythings,almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate ship.

At the period of our arrival at the Island, theheaviest storage of the Pequod had been almostcompleted; comprising her beef, bread, water,fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as beforehinted, for some time there was a continualfetching and carrying on board of divers oddsand ends of things, both large and small.

Chief among those who did this fetching andcarrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean oldlady of a most determined and indefatigablespirit, but withal very kindhearted, whoseemed resolved that, if SHE could help it,nothing should be found wanting in the Pe-quod, after once fairly getting to sea. At onetime she would come on board with a jar ofpickles for the steward's pantry; another timewith a bunch of quills for the chief mate's desk,where he kept his log; a third time with a roll offlannel for the small of some one's rheumaticback. Never did any woman better deserve hername, which was Charity—Aunt Charity, as

everybody called her. And like a sister of char-ity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustleabout hither and thither, ready to turn her handand heart to anything that promised to yieldsafety, comfort, and consolation to all on boarda ship in which her beloved brother Bildad wasconcerned, and in which she herself owned ascore or two of well-saved dollars.

But it was startling to see this excellent heartedQuakeress coming on board, as she did the lastday, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and astill longer whaling lance in the other. Nor wasBildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all back-ward. As for Bildad, he carried about with hima long list of the articles needed, and at everyfresh arrival, down went his mark opposite thatarticle upon the paper. Every once in a whilePeleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den,roaring at the men down the hatchways, roar-ing up to the riggers at the mast-head, and thenconcluded by roaring back into his wigwam.

During these days of preparation, Queequegand I often visited the craft, and as often Iasked about Captain Ahab, and how he was,and when he was going to come on board hisship. To these questions they would answer,that he was getting better and better, and wasexpected aboard every day; meantime, the twocaptains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to eve-rything necessary to fit the vessel for the voy-age. If I had been downright honest with my-self, I would have seen very plainly in my heartthat I did but half fancy being committed thisway to so long a voyage, without once layingmy eyes on the man who was to be the absolutedictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed outupon the open sea. But when a man suspectsany wrong, it sometimes happens that if he bealready involved in the matter, he insensiblystrives to cover up his suspicions even fromhimself. And much this way it was with me. Isaid nothing, and tried to think nothing.

At last it was given out that some time next daythe 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 imper-fect misty dawn, when we drew nigh thewharf.

"There are some sailors running ahead there, ifI see right," said I to Queequeg, "it can't beshadows; she's off by sunrise, I guess; comeon!"

"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the sametime coming close behind us, laid a hand uponboth our shoulders, and then insinuating him-

self between us, stood stooping forward a little,in the uncertain twilight, strangely peeringfrom Queequeg to me. It was Elijah.

"Going aboard?"

"Hands off, will you," said I.

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

"Ain't going aboard, then?"

"Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is thatof yours? Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I con-sider you a little impertinent?"

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

"Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend andme by withdrawing. We are going to the Indian

and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to bedetained."

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

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

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

"Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, comeon."

But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clap-ping his hand on my shoulder, said—"Did yesee anything looking like men going towardsthat ship a while ago?"

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

"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning toye."

Once more we quitted him; but once more hecame softly after us; and touching my shoulderagain, said, "See if you can find 'em now, willye?

"Find who?"

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

At last, stepping on board the Pequod, wefound everything in profound quiet, not a soulmoving. The cabin entrance was locked within;the hatches were all on, and lumbered withcoils of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle,

we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing alight, we went down, and found only an oldrigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket.He was thrown at whole length upon twochests, his face downwards and inclosed in hisfolded arms. The profoundest slumber sleptupon him.

"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where canthey have gone to?" said I, looking dubiously atthe sleeper. But it seemed that, when on thewharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what Inow alluded to; hence I would have thoughtmyself to have been optically deceived in thatmatter, were it not for Elijah's otherwise inex-plicable question. But I beat the thing down;and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hintedto Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit upwith the body; telling him to establish himselfaccordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper'srear, as though feeling if it was soft enough;

and then, without more ado, sat quietly downthere.

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

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

"Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevo-lent countenance then; but how hard hebreathes, he's heaving himself; get off, Que-equeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face ofthe poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, he'll twitchyou off soon. I wonder he don't wake."

Queequeg removed himself to just beyond thehead of the sleeper, and lighted his tomahawkpipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passingover the sleeper, from one to the other. Mean-while, upon questioning him in his brokenfashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that,in his land, owing to the absence of settees andsofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great

people generally, were in the custom of fatten-ing some of the lower orders for ottomans; andto furnish a house comfortably in that respect,you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fel-lows, and lay them round in the piers and al-coves. Besides, it was very convenient on anexcursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his atten-dant, and desiring him to make a settee of him-self under a spreading tree, perhaps in somedamp marshy place.

While narrating these things, every time Que-equeg received the tomahawk from me, heflourished the hatchet-side of it over thesleeper's head.

"What's that for, Queequeg?"

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

He was going on with some wild reminiscencesabout his tomahawk-pipe, which, it seemed,had in its two uses both brained his foes andsoothed his soul, when we were directly at-tracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong va-pour now completely filling the contractedhole, it began to tell upon him. He breathedwith a sort of muffledness; then seemed trou-bled in the nose; then revolved over once ortwice; then sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smok-ers?"

"Shipped men," answered I, "when does shesail?"

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

"What Captain?—Ahab?"

"Who but him indeed?"

I was going to ask him some further questionsconcerning Ahab, when we heard a noise ondeck.

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

It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew cameon board in twos and threes; the riggers be-stirred themselves; the mates were actively en-gaged; and several of the shore people werebusy in bringing various last things on board.Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisiblyenshrined within his cabin.

CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas.

At length, towards noon, upon the final dis-missal of the ship's riggers, and after the Pe-quod had been hauled out from the wharf, andafter the ever-thoughtful Charity had come offin a whale-boat, with her last gift—a night-capfor Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law,and a spare Bible for the steward—after all this,the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issuedfrom the cabin, and turning to the chief mate,Peleg said:

"Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything isright? Captain Ahab is all ready—just spoke tohim—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 thehurry, Peleg," said Bildad, "but away with thee,friend Starbuck, and do our bidding."

How now! Here upon the very point of startingfor the voyage, Captain Peleg and Captain Bil-dad were going it with a high hand on thequarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as well as to all appear-ances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, nosign of him was yet to be seen; only, they saidhe was in the cabin. But then, the idea was, thathis presence was by no means necessary in get-ting the ship under weigh, and steering herwell out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all hisproper business, but the pilot's; and as he wasnot yet completely recovered—so they said—therefore, Captain Ahab stayed below. And allthis seemed natural enough; especially as in themerchant service many captains never showthemselves on deck for a considerable time af-ter heaving up the anchor, but remain over thecabin table, having a farewell merry-makingwith their shore friends, before they quit theship for good with the pilot.

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

"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as thesailors lingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Star-buck, drive'em aft."

"Strike the tent there!"—was the next order. AsI hinted before, this whalebone marquee wasnever pitched except in port; and on board thePequod, for thirty years, the order to strike thetent was well known to be the next thing toheaving up the anchor.

"Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!—jump!"—was the next command, and the crewsprang for the handspikes.

Now in getting under weigh, the station gener-ally occupied by the pilot is the forward part ofthe ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be

it known, in addition to his other officers, wasone of the licensed pilots of the port—he beingsuspected to have got himself made a pilot inorder to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all theships he was concerned in, for he never pilotedany other craft—Bildad, I say, might now beseen actively engaged in looking over the bowsfor the approaching anchor, and at intervalssinging what seemed a dismal stave of psalm-ody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, whoroared forth some sort of a chorus about thegirls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will.Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildadhad told them that no profane songs would beallowed on board the Pequod, particularly ingetting under weigh; and Charity, his sister,had placed a small choice copy of Watts in eachseaman's berth.

Meantime, overseeing the other part of theship, Captain Peleg ripped and swore astern inthe most frightful manner. I almost thought he

would sink the ship before the anchor could begot up; involuntarily I paused on my hand-spike, and told Queequeg to do the same,thinking of the perils we both ran, in startingon the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. Iwas comforting myself, however, with thethought that in pious Bildad might be foundsome salvation, spite of his seven hundred andseventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharppoke in my rear, and turning round, was horri-fied at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the actof withdrawing his leg from my immediatevicinity. That was my first kick.

"Is that the way they heave in the marchantservice?" he roared. "Spring, thou sheep-head;spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't yespring, I say, all of ye—spring! Quohog! spring,thou chap with the red whiskers; spring there,Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, Isay, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And sosaying, he moved along the windlass, here and

there using his leg very freely, while imper-turbable Bildad kept leading off with hispsalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must havebeen drinking something to-day.

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set,and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christ-mas; and as the short northern day merged intonight, we found ourselves almost broad uponthe wintry ocean, whose freezing spray casedus in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows ofteeth on the bulwarks glistened in themoonlight; and like the white ivory tusks ofsome huge elephant, vast curving icicles de-pended from the bows.

Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch,and ever and anon, as the old craft deep divedinto the green seas, and sent the shivering frostall over her, and the winds howled, and thecordage rang, his steady notes were heard,—

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Standdressed in living green. So to the Jews old Ca-naan stood, While Jordan rolled between."

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

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

It was curious and not unpleasing, how Pelegand Bildad were affected at this juncture, espe-cially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet;very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on

so long and perilous a voyage—beyond bothstormy Capes; a ship in which some thousandsof his hard earned dollars were invested; aship, in which an old shipmate sailed as cap-tain; a man almost as old as he, once more start-ing to encounter all the terrors of the pitilessjaw; loath to say good-bye to a thing so everyway brimful of every interest to him,—poor oldBildad lingered long; paced the deck with anx-ious strides; ran down into the cabin to speakanother farewell word there; again came ondeck, and looked to windward; looked towardsthe wide and endless waters, only bounded bythe far-off unseen Eastern Continents; lookedtowards the land; looked aloft; looked right andleft; looked everywhere and nowhere; and atlast, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin,convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand,and holding up a lantern, for a moment stoodgazing heroically in his face, as much as to say,"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, Ican."

As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a phi-losopher; but for all his philosophy, there was atear twinkling in his eye, when the lanterncame too near. And he, too, did not a little runfrom cabin to deck—now a word below, andnow a word with Starbuck, the chief mate.

But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with afinal sort of look about him,—"Captain Bil-dad—come, old shipmate, we must go. Backthe main-yard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by tocome 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 suppersmoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah andaway!"

"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping,men," murmured old Bildad, almost incoher-ently. "I hope ye'll have fine weather now, sothat Captain Ahab may soon be moving among

ye—a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye'llhave plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go.Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave theboats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good whitecedar plank is raised full three per cent. withinthe year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr.Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste thespare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in thegreen locker! Don't whale it too much a' Lord'sdays, men; but don't miss a fair chance either,that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have aneye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was alittle leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands,Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye,good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too longdown in the hold, Mr. Starbuck; it'll spoil. Becareful with the butter—twenty cents thepound it was, and mind ye, if—"

"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palaver-ing,—away!" and with that, Peleg hurried himover the side, and both dropt into the boat.

Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp nightbreeze blew between; a screaming gull flewoverhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gavethree heavy-hearted cheers, and blindlyplunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.

CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spo-ken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encounteredin New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pe-quod thrust her vindictive bows into the coldmalicious waves, who should I see standing ather helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympa-thetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, whoin mid-winter just landed from a four years'

dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly pushoff again for still another tempestuous term.The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonder-fullest things are ever the unmentionable; deepmemories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chap-ter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let meonly say that it fared with him as with thestorm-tossed ship, that miserably drives alongthe leeward land. The port would fain give suc-cor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, com-fort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets,friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But inthat gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direstjeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touchof land, though it but graze the keel, wouldmake her shudder through and through. Withall her might she crowds all sail off shore; in sodoing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fainwould blow her homeward; seeks all the lashedsea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake for-lornly rushing into peril; her only friend herbitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do yeseem to see of that mortally intolerable truth;that all deep, earnest thinking is but the in-trepid effort of the soul to keep the open inde-pendence of her sea; while the wildest winds ofheaven and earth conspire to cast her on thetreacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highesttruth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so, better isit to perish in that howling infinite, than be in-gloriously dashed upon the lee, even if thatwere safety! For worm-like, then, oh! whowould craven crawl to land! Terrors of the ter-rible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, takeheart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demi-god! 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 inthis business of whaling; and as this business ofwhaling has somehow come to be regardedamong landsmen as a rather unpoetical anddisreputable pursuit; therefore, I am all anxietyto convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injusticehereby done to us hunters of whales.

In the first place, it may be deemed almost su-perfluous to establish the fact, that among peo-ple at large, the business of whaling is not ac-counted on a level with what are called the lib-eral professions. If a stranger were introducedinto any miscellaneous metropolitan society, itwould but slightly advance the general opinionof his merits, were he presented to the com-pany as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulationof the naval officers he should append the ini-tials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his visit-

ing card, such a procedure would be deemedpre-eminently presuming and ridiculous.

Doubtless one leading reason why the worlddeclines honouring us whalemen, is this: theythink that, at best, our vocation amounts to abutchering sort of business; and that when ac-tively engaged therein, we are surrounded byall manner of defilements. Butchers we are, thatis true. But butchers, also, and butchers of thebloodiest badge have been all Martial Com-manders whom the world invariably delightsto honour. And as for the matter of the allegeduncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon beinitiated into certain facts hitherto pretty gen-erally unknown, and which, upon the whole,will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-shipat least among the cleanliest things of this tidyearth. But even granting the charge in questionto be true; what disordered slippery decks of awhale-ship are comparable to the unspeakablecarrion of those battle-fields from which so

many soldiers return to drink in all ladies'plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much en-hances the popular conceit of the soldier's pro-fession; let me assure ye that many a veteranwho has freely marched up to a battery, wouldquickly recoil at the apparition of the spermwhale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the airover his head. For what are the comprehensibleterrors of man compared with the interlinkedterrors and wonders of God!

But, though the world scouts at us whale hunt-ers, yet does it unwittingly pay us the pro-foundest homage; yea, an all-abounding adora-tion! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and can-dles that burn round the globe, burn, as beforeso many shrines, to our glory!

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

Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have ad-mirals of their whaling fleets? Why did LouisXVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fitout whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politelyinvite to that town some score or two of fami-lies from our own island of Nantucket? Whydid Britain between the years 1750 and 1788pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards ofL1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that wewhalemen of America now outnumber all therest of the banded whalemen in the world; saila navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels;manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly con-suming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, atthe time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every yearimporting into our harbors a well reaped har-vest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if therebe not something puissant in whaling?

But this is not the half; look again.

I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosophercannot, for his life, point out one single peace-

ful influence, which within the last sixty yearshas operated more potentially upon the wholebroad world, taken in one aggregate, than thehigh and mighty business of whaling. One wayand another, it has begotten events so remark-able in themselves, and so continuously mo-mentous in their sequential issues, that whalingmay well be regarded as that Egyptian mother,who bore offspring themselves pregnant fromher womb. It would be a hopeless, endless taskto catalogue all these things. Let a handful suf-fice. For many years past the whale-ship hasbeen the pioneer in ferreting out the remotestand least known parts of the earth. She has ex-plored seas and archipelagoes which had nochart, where no Cook or Vancouver had eversailed. If American and European men-of-warnow peacefully ride in once savage harbors, letthem fire salutes to the honour and glory of thewhale-ship, which originally showed them theway, and first interpreted between them andthe savages. They may celebrate as they will the

heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks,your Krusensterns; but I say that scores ofanonymous Captains have sailed out of Nan-tucket, that were as great, and greater thanyour Cook and your Krusenstern. For in theirsuccourless empty-handedness, they, in theheathenish sharked waters, and by the beachesof unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with vir-gin wonders and terrors that Cook with all hismarines and muskets would not willingly havedared. All that is made such a flourish of in theold South Sea Voyages, those things were butthe life-time commonplaces of our heroic Nan-tucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouverdedicates three chapters to, these men ac-counted unworthy of being set down in theship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, theworld!

Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, nocommerce but colonial, scarcely any intercoursebut colonial, was carried on between Europe

and the long line of the opulent Spanish prov-inces on the Pacific coast. It was the whalemanwho first broke through the jealous policy ofthe Spanish crown, touching those colonies;and, if space permitted, it might be distinctlyshown how from those whalemen at last even-tuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Boliviafrom the yoke of Old Spain, and the establish-ment of the eternal democracy in those parts.

That great America on the other side of thesphere, Australia, was given to the enlightenedworld by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other shipslong shunned those shores as pestiferouslybarbarous; but the whale-ship touched there.The whale-ship is the true mother of that nowmighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of thefirst Australian settlement, the emigrants wereseveral times saved from starvation by the be-nevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckilydropping an anchor in their waters. The un-

counted isles of all Polynesia confess the sametruth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionaryand the merchant, and in many cases carriedthe primitive missionaries to their first destina-tions. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is everto become hospitable, it is the whale-ship aloneto whom the credit will be due; for already sheis on the threshold.

But if, in the face of all this, you still declarethat whaling has no aesthetically noble associa-tions connected with it, then am I ready toshiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorseyou with a split helmet every time.

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

THE WHALE NO FAMOUS AUTHOR, ANDWHALING 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, butno less a prince than Alfred the Great, who,with his own royal pen, took down the wordsfrom Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter ofthose times! And who pronounced our glowingeulogy in Parliament? Who, but EdmundBurke!

True enough, but then whalemen themselvesare poor devils; they have no good blood intheir veins.

NO GOOD BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS? Theyhave something better than royal blood there.The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin wasMary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, MaryFolger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, andthe ancestress to a long line of Folgers and har-pooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the barbed iron from one sideof the world to the other.

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

WHALING NOT RESPECTABLE? Whaling isimperial! By old English statutory law, thewhale is declared "a royal fish."*

Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself hasnever figured in any grand imposing way.

THE WHALE NEVER FIGURED IN ANYGRAND IMPOSING WAY? In one of themighty triumphs given to a Roman generalupon his entering the world's capital, the bonesof a whale, brought all the way from the Syriancoast, were the most conspicuous object in thecymballed procession.*

*See subsequent chapters for something moreon this head.

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

NO DIGNITY IN WHALING? The dignity ofour calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is aconstellation in the South! No more! Drivedown your hat in presence of the Czar, andtake it off to Queequeg! No more! I know a manthat, in his lifetime, has taken three hundredand fifty whales. I account that man more hon-ourable than that great captain of antiquitywho boasted of taking as many walled towns.

And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there beany as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if Ishall ever deserve any real repute in that smallbut high hushed world which I might not beunreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shalldo anything that, upon the whole, a man mightrather have done than to have left undone; if, atmy death, my executors, or more properly mycreditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk,then here I prospectively ascribe all the honourand the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship wasmy Yale College and my Harvard.

CHAPTER 25. Postscript.

In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fainadvance naught but substantiated facts. Butafter embattling his facts, an advocate whoshould wholly suppress a not unreasonablesurmise, which might tell eloquently upon hiscause—such an advocate, would he not beblameworthy?

It is well known that at the coronation of kingsand queens, even modern ones, a certain curi-ous process of seasoning them for their func-tions is gone through. There is a saltcellar ofstate, so called, and there may be a castor ofstate. How they use the salt, precisely—whoknows? Certain I am, however, that a king's

head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, evenas a head of salad. Can it be, though, that theyanoint it with a view of making its interior runwell, as they anoint machinery? Much might beruminated here, concerning the essential dig-nity of this regal process, because in commonlife we esteem but meanly and contemptibly afellow who anoints his hair, and palpablysmells of that anointing. In truth, a mature manwho uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that manhas probably got a quoggy spot in him some-where. As a general rule, he can't amount tomuch in his totality.

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

Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemensupply your kings and queens with coronationstuff!

CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, anative of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent.He was a long, earnest man, and though bornon an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endurehot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, hislive blood would not spoil like bottled ale. Hemust have been born in some time of generaldrought and famine, or upon one of those fastdays for which his state is famous. Only somethirty arid summers had he seen; those sum-mers had dried up all his physical superfluous-

ness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemedno more the token of wasting anxieties andcares, than it seemed the indication of any bod-ily blight. It was merely the condensation of theman. He was by no means ill-looking; quite thecontrary. His pure tight skin was an excellentfit; and closely wrapped up in it, and em-balmed with inner health and strength, like arevivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed pre-pared to endure for long ages to come, and toendure always, as now; for be it Polar snow ortorrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his inte-rior vitality was warranted to do well in allclimates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed tosee there the yet lingering images of thosethousand-fold perils he had calmly confrontedthrough life. A staid, steadfast man, whose lifefor the most part was a telling pantomime ofaction, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet,for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, therewere certain qualities in him which at timesaffected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to

overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscien-tious for a seaman, and endued with a deepnatural reverence, the wild watery loneliness ofhis life did therefore strongly incline him tosuperstition; but to that sort of superstition,which in some organizations seems rather tospring, somehow, from intelligence than fromignorance. Outward portents and inward pre-sentiments were his. And if at times thesethings bent the welded iron of his soul, muchmore did his far-away domestic memories ofhis young Cape wife and child, tend to bendhim still more from the original ruggedness ofhis nature, and open him still further to thoselatent influences which, in some honest-heartedmen, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, sooften evinced by others in the more perilousvicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no manin my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid ofa whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not onlythat the most reliable and useful courage wasthat which arises from the fair estimation of the

encountered peril, but that an utterly fearlessman is a far more dangerous comrade than acoward.

"Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Star-buck, there, is as careful a man as you'll findanywhere in this fishery." But we shall ere longsee what that word "careful" precisely meanswhen used by a man like Stubb, or almost anyother whale hunter.

Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in himcourage was not a sentiment; but a thing sim-ply useful to him, and always at hand upon allmortally practical occasions. Besides, hethought, perhaps, that in this business of whal-ing, courage was one of the great staple outfitsof the ship, like her beef and her bread, and notto be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had nofancy for lowering for whales after sun-down;nor for persisting in fighting a fish that toomuch persisted in fighting him. For, thoughtStarbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill

whales for my living, and not to be killed bythem for theirs; and that hundreds of men hadbeen so killed Starbuck well knew. What doomwas his own father's? Where, in the bottomlessdeeps, could he find the torn limbs of hisbrother?

With memories like these in him, and, more-over, given to a certain superstitiousness, as hasbeen said; the courage of this Starbuck whichcould, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeedhave been extreme. But it was not in reasonablenature that a man so organized, and with suchterrible experiences and remembrances as hehad; it was not in nature that these thingsshould fail in latently engendering an elementin him, which, under suitable circumstances,would break out from its confinement, andburn all his courage up. And brave as he mightbe, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible insome intrepid men, which, while generallyabiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds,

or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational hor-rors of the world, yet cannot withstand thosemore terrific, because more spiritual terrors,which sometimes menace you from the concen-trating brow of an enraged and mighty man.

But were the coming narrative to reveal in anyinstance, the complete abasement of poor Star-buck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heartto write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nayshocking, to expose the fall of valour in thesoul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, andmurderers there may be; men may have meanand meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is sonoble and so sparkling, such a grand and glow-ing creature, that over any ignominious blem-ish in him all his fellows should run to throwtheir costliest robes. That immaculate manli-ness we feel within ourselves, so far within us,that it remains intact though all the outer char-acter 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 thepermitting stars. But this august dignity I treatof, is not the dignity of kings and robes, butthat abounding dignity which has no robedinvestiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the armthat wields a pick or drives a spike; that de-mocratic dignity which, on all hands, radiateswithout end from God; Himself! The great Godabsolute! The centre and circumference of alldemocracy! His omnipresence, our divineequality!

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegadesand castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe highqualities, though dark; weave round themtragic graces; if even the most mournful, per-chance the most abased, among them all, shallat times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if Ishall touch that workman's arm with someethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over

his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortalcritics bear me out in it, thou Just Spirit ofEquality, which hast spread one royal mantle ofhumanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it,thou great democratic God! who didst not re-fuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, po-etic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doublyhammered leaves of finest gold, the stumpedand paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou whodidst pick up Andrew Jackson from the peb-bles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse;who didst thunder him higher than a throne!Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly march-ings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions fromthe kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God!

CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native ofCape Cod; and hence, according to local usage,was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perilsas they came with an indifferent air; and whileengaged in the most imminent crisis of thechase, toiling away, calm and collected as ajourneyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided overhis whale-boat as if the most deadly encounterwere but a dinner, and his crew all invitedguests. He was as particular about the comfort-able arrangement of his part of the boat, as anold stage-driver is about the snugness of hisbox. When close to the whale, in the verydeath-lock of the fight, he handled his unpity-ing lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whis-tling tinker his hammer. He would hum overhis old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with

the most exasperated monster. Long usage had,for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death intoan easy chair. What he thought of death itself,there is no telling. Whether he ever thought ofit at all, might be a question; but, if he ever didchance to cast his mind that way after a com-fortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, hetook it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumblealoft, and bestir themselves there, about some-thing which he would find out when he obeyedthe order, and not sooner.

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubbsuch an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerilytrudging off with the burden of life in a worldfull of grave pedlars, all bowed to the groundwith their packs; what helped to bring aboutthat almost impious good-humor of his; thatthing must have been his pipe. For, like hisnose, his short, black little pipe was one of theregular features of his face. You would almostas soon have expected him to turn out of his

bunk without his nose as without his pipe. Hekept 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 themall out in succession, lighting one from theother to the end of the chapter; then loadingthem again to be in readiness anew. For, whenStubb dressed, instead of first putting his legsinto his trowsers, he put his pipe into hismouth.

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

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury,in Martha's Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddyyoung fellow, very pugnacious concerningwhales, who somehow seemed to think that thegreat leviathans had personally and hereditar-ily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort ofpoint of honour with him, to destroy themwhenever encountered. So utterly lost was heto all sense of reverence for the many marvelsof their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and sodead to anything like an apprehension of anypossible danger from encountering them; thatin his poor opinion, the wondrous whale wasbut a species of magnified mouse, or at leastwater-rat, requiring only a little circumventionand some small application of time and troublein order to kill and boil. This ignorant, uncon-scious fearlessness of his made him a littlewaggish in the matter of whales; he followedthese fish for the fun of it; and a three years'voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly jokethat lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's

nails are divided into wrought nails and cutnails; so mankind may be similarly divided.Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; madeto clinch tight and last long. They called himKing-Post on board of the Pequod; because, inform, he could be well likened to the short,square timber known by that name in Arcticwhalers; and which by the means of many ra-diating side timbers inserted into it, serves tobrace the ship against the icy concussions ofthose battering seas.

Now these three mates—Starbuck, Stubb, andFlask, were momentous men. They it was whoby universal prescription commanded three ofthe Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grandorder of battle in which Captain Ahab wouldprobably marshal his forces to descend on thewhales, these three headsmen were as captainsof companies. Or, being armed with their longkeen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio

of lancers; even as the harpooneers were fling-ers of javelins.

And since in this famous fishery, each mate orheadsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is al-ways accompanied by his boat-steerer or har-pooneer, who in certain conjunctures provideshim with a fresh lance, when the former onehas been badly twisted, or elbowed in the as-sault; and moreover, as there generally subsistsbetween the two, a close intimacy and friendli-ness; it is therefore but meet, that in this placewe set down who the Pequod's harpooneerswere, and to what headsman each of them be-longed.

First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, thechief mate, had selected for his squire. ButQueequeg is already known.

Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian fromGay Head, the most westerly promontory ofMartha's Vineyard, where there still exists the

last remnant of a village of red men, which haslong supplied the neighboring island of Nan-tucket with many of her most daring harpoon-eers. In the fishery, they usually go by the ge-neric name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long,lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and blackrounding eyes—for an Indian, Oriental in theirlargeness, but Antarctic in their glittering ex-pression—all this sufficiently proclaimed himan inheritor of the unvitiated blood of thoseproud warrior hunters, who, in quest of thegreat New England moose, had scoured, bowin hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. Butno longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beastsof the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in thewake of the great whales of the sea; the unerr-ing harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infal-lible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawnybrawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would al-most have credited the superstitions of some ofthe earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wildIndian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of

the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate'ssquire.

Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, agigantic, coal-black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread—an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspendedfrom his ears were two golden hoops, so largethat the sailors called them ring-bolts, andwould talk of securing the top-sail halyards tothem. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarilyshipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonelybay on his native coast. And never having beenanywhere in the world but in Africa, Nan-tucket, and the pagan harbors most frequentedby whalemen; and having now led for manyyears the bold life of the fishery in the ships ofowners uncommonly heedful of what mannerof men they shipped; Daggoo retained all hisbarbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, movedabout the decks in all the pomp of six feet fivein his socks. There was a corporeal humility inlooking up at him; and a white man standing

before him seemed a white flag come to begtruce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperialnegro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire oflittle Flask, who looked like a chess-man besidehim. As for the residue of the Pequod's com-pany, be it said, that at the present day not onein two of the many thousand men before themast employed in the American whale fishery,are Americans born, though pretty nearly allthe officers are. Herein it is the same with theAmerican whale fishery as with the Americanarmy and military and merchant navies, andthe engineering forces employed in the con-struction of the American Canals and Rail-roads. The same, I say, because in all thesecases the native American liberally providesthe brains, the rest of the world as generouslysupplying the muscles. No small number ofthese whaling seamen belong to the Azores,where the outward bound Nantucket whalersfrequently touch to augment their crews fromthe hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In

like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing outof Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Is-lands, to receive the full complement of theircrew. Upon the passage homewards, they dropthem 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 acknowledg-ing the common continent of men, but eachISOLATO living on a separate continent of hisown. Yet now, federated along one keel, what aset these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootzdeputation from all the isles of the sea, and allthe ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahabin the Pequod to lay the world's grievancesbefore that bar from which not very many ofthem ever come back. Black Little Pip—henever did—oh, no! he went before. Poor Ala-bama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, yeshall ere long see him, beating his tambourine;prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, tothe great quarter-deck on high, he was bid

strike in with angels, and beat his tambourinein glory; called a coward here, hailed a herothere!

CHAPTER 28. Ahab.

For several days after leaving Nantucket, noth-ing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab.The mates regularly relieved each other at thewatches, and for aught that could be seen to thecontrary, they seemed to be the only com-manders of the ship; only they sometimes is-sued from the cabin with orders so sudden andperemptory, that after all it was plain they butcommanded vicariously. Yes, their supremelord and dictator was there, though hithertounseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrateinto the now sacred retreat of the cabin.

Every time I ascended to the deck from mywatches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark ifany strange face were visible; for my first vaguedisquietude touching the unknown captain,now in the seclusion of the sea, became almosta perturbation. This was strangely heightenedat times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical inco-herences uninvitedly recurring to me, with asubtle energy I could not have before conceivedof. But poorly could I withstand them, much asin other moods I was almost ready to smile atthe solemn whimsicalities of that outlandishprophet of the wharves. But whatever it was ofapprehensiveness or uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, yet whenever I came to look aboutme in the ship, it seemed against all warrantryto cherish such emotions. For though the har-pooneers, with the great body of the crew, werea far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley setthan any of the tame merchant-ship companieswhich my previous experiences had made meacquainted with, still I ascribed this—and

rightly ascribed it—to the fierce uniqueness ofthe very nature of that wild Scandinavian voca-tion in which I had so abandonedly embarked.But it was especially the aspect of the threechief officers of the ship, the mates, which wasmost forcibly calculated to allay these colour-less misgivings, and induce confidence andcheerfulness in every presentment of the voy-age. Three better, more likely sea-officers andmen, each in his own different way, could notreadily be found, and they were every one ofthem Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder,a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when theship shot from out her harbor, for a space wehad biting Polar weather, though all the timerunning away from it to the southward; and byevery degree and minute of latitude which wesailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter,and all its intolerable weather behind us. It wasone of those less lowering, but still grey andgloomy enough mornings of the transition,when with a fair wind the ship was rushing

through the water with a vindictive sort ofleaping and melancholy rapidity, that as Imounted to the deck at the call of the forenoonwatch, so soon as I levelled my glance towardsthe taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me.Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahabstood upon his quarter-deck.

There seemed no sign of common bodily illnessabout him, nor of the recovery from any. Helooked like a man cut away from the stake,when the fire has overrunningly wasted all thelimbs without consuming them, or taking awayone particle from their compacted aged robust-ness. His whole high, broad form, seemedmade of solid bronze, and shaped in an unal-terable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus.Threading its way out from among his greyhairs, and continuing right down one side ofhis tawny scorched face and neck, till it disap-peared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that

perpendicular seam sometimes made in thestraight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when theupper lightning tearingly darts down it, andwithout wrenching a single twig, peels andgrooves out the bark from top to bottom, ererunning off into the soil, leaving the tree stillgreenly alive, but branded. Whether that markwas born with him, or whether it was the scarleft by some desperate wound, no one couldcertainly say. By some tacit consent, throughoutthe voyage little or no allusion was made to it,especially by the mates. But once Tashtego'ssenior, an old Gay-Head Indian among thecrew, superstitiously asserted that not till hewas full forty years old did Ahab become thatway branded, and then it came upon him, notin the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemen-tal strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed infer-entially negatived, by what a grey Manxmaninsinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, havingnever before sailed out of Nantucket, had neverere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless,

the old sea-traditions, the immemorial creduli-ties, popularly invested this old Manxman withpreternatural powers of discernment. So thatno white sailor seriously contradicted himwhen he said that if ever Captain Ahab shouldbe tranquilly laid out—which might hardlycome to pass, so he muttered—then, whoevershould do that last office for the dead, wouldfind a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.

So powerfully did the whole grim aspect ofAhab affect me, and the livid brand whichstreaked it, that for the first few moments Ihardly noted that not a little of this overbearinggrimness was owing to the barbaric white legupon which he partly stood. It had previouslycome to me that this ivory leg had at sea beenfashioned from the polished bone of the spermwhale's jaw. "Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,"said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but likehis 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 main-tained. Upon each side of the Pequod's quarterdeck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds,there was an auger hole, bored about half aninch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadiedin that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by ashroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, lookingstraight out beyond the ship's ever-pitchingprow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude,a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, inthe fixed and fearless, forward dedication ofthat glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did hisofficers say aught to him; though by all theirminutest gestures and expressions, they plainlyshowed the uneasy, if not painful, conscious-ness of being under a troubled master-eye. Andnot only that, but moody stricken Ahab stoodbefore them with a crucifixion in his face; in all

the nameless regal overbearing dignity of somemighty woe.

Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he with-drew into his cabin. But after that morning, hewas every day visible to the crew; either stand-ing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivorystool he had; or heavily walking the deck. Asthe sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began togrow a little genial, he became still less and lessa recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed fromhome, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness ofthe sea had then kept him so secluded. And, byand by, it came to pass, that he was almost con-tinually in the air; but, as yet, for all that hesaid, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunnydeck, he seemed as unnecessary there as an-other mast. But the Pequod was only making apassage now; not regularly cruising; nearly allwhaling preparatives needing supervision themates were fully competent to, so that therewas little or nothing, out of himself, to employ

or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, forthat one interval, the clouds that layer uponlayer were piled upon his brow, as ever allclouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile them-selves upon.

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warblingpersuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weatherwe came to, seemed gradually to charm himfrom his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked,dancing girls, April and May, trip home to thewintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest,ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will atleast send forth some few green sprouts, towelcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahabdid, in the end, a little respond to the playfulallurings of that girlish air. More than once didhe put forth the faint blossom of a look, which,in any other man, would have soon floweredout in a smile.

CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.

Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs allastern, the Pequod now went rolling throughthe bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almostperpetually reigns on the threshold of the eter-nal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool,clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redun-dant days, were as crystal goblets of Persiansherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose-watersnow. The starred and stately nights seemedhaughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing athome in lonely pride, the memory of their ab-sent conquering Earls, the golden helmetedsuns! For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choosebetween such winsome days and such seducingnights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning

weather did not merely lend new spells andpotencies to the outward world. Inward theyturned upon the soul, especially when the stillmild hours of eve came on; then, memory shother crystals as the clear ice most forms of noise-less twilights. And all these subtle agencies,more and more they wrought on Ahab's tex-ture.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longerlinked with life, the less man has to do withaught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenestleave their berths to visit the night-cloakeddeck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, oflate, he seemed so much to live in the open air,that truly speaking, his visits were more to thecabin, than from the cabin to the planks. "Itfeels like going down into one's tomb,"—hewould mutter to himself—"for an old captainlike me to be descending this narrow scuttle, togo to my grave-dug berth."

So, almost every twenty-four hours, when thewatches of the night were set, and the band ondeck sentinelled the slumbers of the band be-low; and when if a rope was to be hauled uponthe forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudelydown, as by day, but with some cautiousnessdropt it to its place for fear of disturbing theirslumbering shipmates; when this sort of steadyquietude would begin to prevail, habitually, thesilent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle;and ere long the old man would emerge, grip-ping at the iron banister, to help his crippledway. Some considering touch of humanity wasin him; for at times like these, he usually ab-stained from patrolling the quarter-deck; be-cause to his wearied mates, seeking reposewithin six inches of his ivory heel, such wouldhave been the reverberating crack and din ofthat bony step, that their dreams would havebeen on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once,the mood was on him too deep for commonregardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like

pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail tomainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came upfrom below, with a certain unassured, depre-cating humorousness, hinted that if CaptainAhab was pleased to walk the planks, then, noone could say nay; but there might be someway of muffling the noise; hinting somethingindistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe oftow, 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, "thatthou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thyways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave;where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to useye to the filling one at last.—Down, dog, andkennel!"

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

"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, andviolently moving away, as if to avoid somepassionate temptation.

"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "Iwill 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 ofthee!"

As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him withsuch overbearing terrors in his aspect, thatStubb involuntarily retreated.

"I was never served so before without giving ahard blow for it," muttered Stubb, as he foundhimself descending the cabin-scuttle. "It's veryqueer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't wellknow whether to go back and strike him, or—what's that?—down here on my knees and prayfor him? Yes, that was the thought coming upin 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 queer-est old man Stubb ever sailed with. How heflashed at me!—his eyes like powder-pans! ishe mad? Anyway there's something on hismind, as sure as there must be something on adeck 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 thatDough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morn-ing he always finds the old man's hammockclothes all rumpled and tumbled, and thesheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almosttied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightfulhot, as though a baked brick had been on it? Ahot old man! I guess he's got what some folksashore 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 keepme from catching it. He's full of riddles; I won-der what he goes into the after hold for, everynight, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects;

what's that for, I should like to know? Who'smade appointments with him in the hold? Ain'tthat queer, now? But there's no telling, it's theold game—Here goes for a snooze. Damn me,it's worth a fellow's while to be born into theworld, if only to fall right asleep. And now thatI think of it, that's about the first thing babiesdo, 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, ismy eleventh commandment; and sleep whenyou can, is my twelfth—So here goes again. Buthow's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! hecalled me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot ofjackasses on top of THAT! He might as wellhave kicked me, and done with it. Maybe heDID kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was sotaken all aback with his brow, somehow. Itflashed like a bleached bone. What the devil'sthe matter with me? I don't stand right on mylegs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort ofturned 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 heregoes to hammock again; and in the morning, I'llsee how this plaguey juggling thinks over bydaylight."

CHAPTER 30. The Pipe.

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for awhile leaning over the bulwarks; and then, ashad been usual with him of late, calling a sailorof the watch, he sent him below for his ivorystool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at thebinnacle lamp and planting the stool on theweather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.

In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tra-

dition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How couldone look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod ofbones, without bethinking him of the royalty itsymbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and aking of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathanswas Ahab.

Some moments passed, during which the thickvapour came from his mouth in quick and con-stant puffs, which blew back again into his face."How now," he soliloquized at last, withdraw-ing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes.Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thycharm be gone! Here have I been unconsciouslytoiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantlysmoking to windward all the while; to wind-ward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, likethe dying whale, my final jets were the strong-est and fullest of trouble. What business have Iwith this pipe? This thing that is meant for se-reneness, to send up mild white vapours

among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more—"

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. Thefire hissed in the waves; the same instant theship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made.With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced theplanks.

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 Idreamed he kicked me with it; and when I triedto kick back, upon my soul, my little man, Ikicked 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 curi-ous, Flask—you know how curious all dreamsare—through all this rage that I was in, I some-how seemed to be thinking to myself, that afterall, it was not much of an insult, that kick fromAhab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not areal leg, only a false leg.' And there's a mightydifference between a living thump and a deadthump. That's what makes a blow from thehand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bearthan a blow from a cane. The living member—that makes the living insult, my little man. Andthinks I to myself all the while, mind, while Iwas stubbing my silly toes against that cursedpyramid—so confoundedly contradictory wasit all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to my-self, 'what's his leg now, but a cane—a whale-bone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playfulcudgelling—in fact, only a whaleboning that hegave 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, ifa broad footed farmer kicked me, THERE'S adevilish broad insult. But this insult is whittleddown to a point only.' But now comes thegreatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I wasbattering away at the pyramid, a sort ofbadger-haired old merman, with a hump on hisback, takes me by the shoulders, and slews meround. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man,but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, some-how, next moment I was over the fright. 'Whatam I about?' says I at last. 'And what business isthat 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 turnedround his stern to me, bent over, and draggingup a lot of seaweed he had for a clout—whatdo you think, I saw?—why thunder alive, man,his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, withthe points out. Says I, on second thoughts, 'Iguess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'WiseStubb,' said he, 'wise Stubb;' and kept mutter-

ing it all the time, a sort of eating of his owngums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't go-ing to stop saying over his 'wise Stubb, wiseStubb,' I thought I might as well fall to kickingthe pyramid again. But I had only just lifted myfoot for it, when he roared out, 'Stop that kick-ing!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's the matter now, oldfellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue theinsult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes,he did,' says I—'right HERE it was.' 'Verygood,' says he—'he used his ivory leg, didn'the?' '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 acommon pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it?No, you were kicked by a great man, and witha beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an honour; Iconsider it an honour. Listen, wise Stubb. In oldEngland the greatest lords think it great gloryto be slapped by a queen, and made garter-knights of; but, be YOUR boast, Stubb, that yewere kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise

man of. Remember what I say; BE kicked byhim; account his kicks honours; and on no ac-count kick back; for you can't help yourself,wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?' Withthat, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, insome queer fashion, to swim off into the air. Isnored; rolled over; and there I was in myhammock! Now, what do you think of thatdream, 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 ofme, Flask. D'ye see Ahab standing there, side-ways looking over the stern? Well, the bestthing you can do, Flask, is to let the old manalone; never speak to him, whatever he says.Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark!"

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

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

"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain'tthere a small drop of something queer aboutthat, eh? A white whale—did ye mark that,man? Look ye—there's something special in thewind. Stand by for it, Flask. Ahab has thatthat's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comesthis way."

CHAPTER 32. Cetology.

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep;but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, har-bourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; erethe Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side withthe barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the out-set it is but well to attend to a matter almost

indispensable to a thorough appreciative un-derstanding of the more special leviathanicrevelations and allusions of all sorts which areto follow.

It is some systematized exhibition of the whalein his broad genera, that I would now fain putbefore you. Yet is it no easy task. The classifica-tion of the constituents of a chaos, nothing lessis here essayed. Listen to what the best andlatest authorities have laid down.

"No branch of Zoology is so much involved asthat which is entitled Cetology," says CaptainScoresby, A.D. 1820.

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

"Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfa-thomable waters." "Impenetrable veil coveringour knowledge of the cetacea." "A field strewnwith thorns." "All these incomplete indicationsbut serve to torture us naturalists."

Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, andJohn Hunter, and Lesson, those lights of zool-ogy and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of realknowledge there be little, yet of books there area plenty; and so in some small degree, withcetology, or the science of whales. Many are themen, small and great, old and new, landsmenand seamen, who have at large or in little, writ-ten of the whale. Run over a few:—The Authorsof the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; SirThomas Browne; Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Ron-deletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald;Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Des-marest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; JohnHunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. RossBrowne; the Author of Miriam Coffin;

Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to whatultimate generalizing purpose all these havewritten, the above cited extracts will show.

Of the names in this list of whale authors, onlythose following Owen ever saw living whales;and but one of them was a real professionalharpooneer and whaleman. I mean CaptainScoresby. On the separate subject of theGreenland or right-whale, he is the best exist-ing authority. But Scoresby knew nothing andsays nothing of the great sperm whale, com-pared with which the Greenland whale is al-most unworthy mentioning. And here be itsaid, that the Greenland whale is an usurperupon the throne of the seas. He is not even byany means the largest of the whales. Yet, owingto the long priority of his claims, and the pro-found ignorance which, till some seventy yearsback, invested the then fabulous or utterly un-known sperm-whale, and which ignorance tothis present day still reigns in all but some few

scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpa-tion has been every way complete. Reference tonearly all the leviathanic allusions in the greatpoets of past days, will satisfy you that theGreenland whale, without one rival, was tothem the monarch of the seas. But the time hasat last come for a new proclamation. This isCharing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—theGreenland whale is deposed,—the great spermwhale now reigneth!

There are only two books in being which at allpretend to put the living sperm whale beforeyou, and at the same time, in the remotest de-gree succeed in the attempt. Those books areBeale's and Bennett's; both in their time sur-geons to English South-Sea whale-ships, andboth exact and reliable men. The original mat-ter touching the sperm whale to be found intheir volumes is necessarily small; but so far asit goes, it is of excellent quality, though mostlyconfined to scientific description. As yet, how-

ever, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, livesnot complete in any literature. Far above allother hunted whales, his is an unwritten life.

Now the various species of whales need somesort of popular comprehensive classification, ifonly an easy outline one for the present, hereaf-ter to be filled in all its departments by subse-quent laborers. As no better man advances totake this matter in hand, I hereupon offer myown poor endeavors. I promise nothing com-plete; because any human thing supposed to becomplete, must for that very reason infalliblybe faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute ana-tomical description of the various species, or—in this place at least—to much of any descrip-tion. My object here is simply to project thedraught of a systematization of cetology. I amthe architect, not the builder.

But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office is equal to it. To gropedown into the bottom of the sea after them; to

have one's hands among the unspeakablefoundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world;this is a fearful thing. What am I that I shouldessay to hook the nose of this leviathan! Theawful tauntings in Job might well appal me.Will he the (leviathan) make a covenant withthee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I haveswam through libraries and sailed throughoceans; I have had to do with whales with thesevisible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try.There are some preliminaries to settle.

First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of thisscience of Cetology is in the very vestibule at-tested by the fact, that in some quarters it stillremains a moot point whether a whale be afish. In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Lin-naeus declares, "I hereby separate the whalesfrom the fish." But of my own knowledge, Iknow that down to the year 1850, sharks andshad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus's

express edict, were still found dividing the pos-session of the same seas with the Leviathan.

The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fainhave banished the whales from the waters, hestates as follows: "On account of their warmbilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eye-lids, their hollow ears, penem intrantem femi-nam mammis lactantem," and finally, "ex legenaturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this tomy friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin,of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a cer-tain voyage, and they united in the opinion thatthe reasons set forth were altogether insuffi-cient. Charley profanely hinted they werehumbug.

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I takethe good old fashioned ground that the whaleis a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.This fundamental thing settled, the next pointis, in what internal respect does the whale dif-fer from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given

you those items. But in brief, they are these:lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fishare lungless and cold blooded.

Next: how shall we define the whale, by hisobvious externals, so as conspicuously to labelhim for all time to come? To be short, then, awhale is A SPOUTING FISH WITH A HORI-ZONTAL TAIL. There you have him. Howevercontracted, that definition is the result of ex-panded meditation. A walrus spouts much likea whale, but the walrus is not a fish, because heis amphibious. But the last term of the defini-tion is still more cogent, as coupled with thefirst. Almost any one must have noticed that allthe 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 besimilarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizon-tal position.

By the above definition of what a whale is, I doby no means exclude from the leviathanic

brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identi-fied with the whale by the best informed Nan-tucketers; nor, on the other hand, link with itany fish hitherto authoritatively regarded asalien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting, andhorizontal tailed fish must be included in thisground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come thegrand divisions of the entire whale host.

*I am aware that down to the present time, thefish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish andSow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are in-cluded by many naturalists among the whales.But as these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptibleset, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, andfeeding on wet hay, and especially as they donot spout, I deny their credentials as whales;and have presented them with their passportsto quit the Kingdom of Cetology.

First: According to magnitude I divide thewhales into three primary BOOKS (subdivisible

into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehendthem all, both small and large.

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

As the type of the FOLIO I present the SPERMWHALE; of the OCTAVO, the GRAMPUS; ofthe DUODECIMO, the PORPOISE.

FOLIOS. Among these I here include the fol-lowing chapters:—I. The SPERM WHALE; II.the RIGHT WHALE; III. the FIN-BACKWHALE; IV. the HUMP-BACKED WHALE; V.the RAZOR-BACK WHALE; VI. the SUL-PHUR-BOTTOM WHALE.

BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER I. (SPERMWHALE).—This whale, among the English ofold vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, andthe Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headedwhale, is the present Cachalot of the French,and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Mac-

rocephalus of the Long Words. He is, withoutdoubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; themost formidable of all whales to encounter; themost majestic in aspect; and lastly, by far themost valuable in commerce; he being the onlycreature from which that valuable substance,spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiaritieswill, in many other places, be enlarged upon. Itis chiefly with his name that I now have to do.Philologically considered, it is absurd. Somecenturies ago, when the Sperm whale was al-most wholly unknown in his own proper indi-viduality, and when his oil was only acciden-tally obtained from the stranded fish; in thosedays spermaceti, it would seem, was popularlysupposed to be derived from a creature identi-cal with the one then known in England as theGreenland or Right Whale. It was the idea also,that this same spermaceti was that quickeninghumor of the Greenland Whale which the firstsyllable of the word literally expresses. In thosetimes, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce,

not being used for light, but only as an oint-ment and medicament. It was only to be hadfrom the druggists as you nowadays buy anounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in thecourse of time, the true nature of spermacetibecame known, its original name was still re-tained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance itsvalue by a notion so strangely significant of itsscarcity. And so the appellation must at lasthave come to be bestowed upon the whalefrom which this spermaceti was really derived.

BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER II. (RIGHTWHALE).—In one respect this is the most ven-erable of the leviathans, being the one firstregularly hunted by man. It yields the articlecommonly known as whalebone or baleen; andthe oil specially known as "whale oil," an infe-rior article in commerce. Among the fishermen,he is indiscriminately designated by all the fol-lowing titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale;the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True

Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of ob-scurity concerning the identity of the speciesthus multitudinously baptised. What then is thewhale, which I include in the second species ofmy Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the Eng-lish naturalists; the Greenland Whale of theEnglish whalemen; the Baliene Ordinaire of theFrench whalemen; the Growlands Walfish ofthe Swedes. It is the whale which for more thantwo centuries past has been hunted by theDutch and English in the Arctic seas; it is thewhale which the American fishermen havelong pursued in the Indian ocean, on the BrazilBanks, on the Nor' West Coast, and variousother parts of the world, designated by themRight Whale Cruising Grounds.

Some pretend to see a difference between theGreenland whale of the English and the rightwhale of the Americans. But they preciselyagree in all their grand features; nor has thereyet been presented a single determinate fact

upon which to ground a radical distinction. It isby endless subdivisions based upon the mostinconclusive differences, that some depart-ments of natural history become so repellinglyintricate. The right whale will be elsewheretreated of at some length, with reference to elu-cidating the sperm whale.

BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER III. (FIN-BACK).—Under this head I reckon a monsterwhich, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost inevery sea and is commonly the whale whosedistant jet is so often descried by passengerscrossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and in his ba-leen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale,but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter colour,approaching to olive. His great lips present acable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting,slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand dis-tinguishing feature, the fin, from which he de-

rives his name, is often a conspicuous object.This fin is some three or four feet long, growingvertically from the hinder part of the back, ofan angular shape, and with a very sharppointed end. Even if not the slightest other partof the creature be visible, this isolated fin will,at times, be seen plainly projecting from thesurface. When the sea is moderately calm, andslightly marked with spherical ripples, and thisgnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadowsupon the wrinkled surface, it may well be sup-posed that the watery circle surrounding itsomewhat resembles a dial, with its style andwavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Backis not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, assome men are man-haters. Very shy; alwaysgoing solitary; unexpectedly rising to the sur-face in the remotest and most sullen waters; hisstraight and single lofty jet rising like a tallmisanthropic spear upon a barren plain; giftedwith such wondrous power and velocity in

swimming, as to defy all present pursuit fromman; this leviathan seems the banished andunconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for hismark that style upon his back. From having thebaleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimesincluded with the right whale, among a theo-retic species denominated WHALEBONEWHALES, that is, whales with baleen. Of theseso called Whalebone whales, there would seemto be several varieties, most of which, however,are little known. Broad-nosed whales andbeaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunchedwhales; under-jawed whales and rostratedwhales, are the fishermen's names for a fewsorts.

In connection with this appellative of "Whale-bone whales," it is of great importance to men-tion, that however such a nomenclature may beconvenient in facilitating allusions to some kindof whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clearclassification of the Leviathan, founded upon

either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; not-withstanding that those marked parts or fea-tures very obviously seem better adapted toafford the basis for a regular system of Cetol-ogy than any other detached bodily distinc-tions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents.How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, andteeth; these are things whose peculiarities areindiscriminately dispersed among all sorts ofwhales, without any regard to what may be thenature of their structure in other and more es-sential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale andthe humpbacked whale, each has a hump; butthere the similitude ceases. Then, this samehumpbacked whale and the Greenland whale,each of these has baleen; but there again thesimilitude ceases. And it is just the same withthe other parts above mentioned. In varioussorts of whales, they form such irregular com-binations; or, in the case of any one of themdetached, such an irregular isolation; as utterlyto defy all general methodization formed upon

such a basis. On this rock every one of thewhale-naturalists has split.

But it may possibly be conceived that, in theinternal parts of the whale, in his anatomy—there, at least, we shall be able to hit the rightclassification. Nay; what thing, for example, isthere in the Greenland whale's anatomy morestriking than his baleen? Yet we have seen thatby his baleen it is impossible correctly to clas-sify the Greenland whale. And if you descendinto the bowels of the various leviathans, whythere you will not find distinctions a fiftiethpart as available to the systematizer as thoseexternal ones already enumerated. What thenremains? nothing but to take hold of the whalesbodily, in their entire liberal volume, andboldly sort them that way. And this is the Bib-liographical system here adopted; and it is theonly one that can possibly succeed, for it aloneis practicable. To proceed.

BOOK I. (FOLIO) CHAPTER IV. (HUMP-BACK).—This whale is often seen on the north-ern American coast. He has been frequentlycaptured there, and towed into harbor. He hasa great pack on him like a peddler; or youmight call him the Elephant and Castle whale.At any rate, the popular name for him does notsufficiently distinguish him, since the spermwhale also has a hump though a smaller one.His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. Heis the most gamesome and light-hearted of allthe whales, making more gay foam and whitewater generally than any other of them.

BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER V. (RAZOR-BACK).—Of this whale little is known but hisname. I have seen him at a distance off CapeHorn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes bothhunters and philosophers. Though no coward,he has never yet shown any part of him but hisback, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him

go. I know little more of him, nor does anybodyelse.

BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER VI. (SULPHUR-BOTTOM).—Another retiring gentleman, witha brimstone belly, doubtless got by scrapingalong the Tartarian tiles in some of his pro-founder divings. He is seldom seen; at least Ihave never seen him except in the remotersouthern seas, and then always at too great adistance to study his countenance. He is neverchased; he would run away with rope-walks ofline. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, SulphurBottom! I can say nothing more that is true ofye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

Thus ends BOOK I. (FOLIO), and now beginsBOOK II. (OCTAVO).

OCTAVOES.*—These embrace the whales ofmiddling magnitude, among which presentmay be numbered:—I., the GRAMPUS; II., the

BLACK FISH; III., the NARWHALE; IV., theTHRASHER; V., the KILLER.

*Why this book of whales is not denominatedthe Quarto is very plain. Because, while thewhales of this order, though smaller than thoseof the former order, nevertheless retain a pro-portionate likeness to them in figure, yet thebookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimen-sioned form does not preserve the shape of theFolio volume, but the Octavo volume does.

BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER I. (GRAM-PUS).—Though this fish, whose loud sonorousbreathing, or rather blowing, has furnished aproverb to landsmen, is so well known a deni-zen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classedamong whales. But possessing all the granddistinctive features of the leviathan, most natu-ralists have recognised him for one. He is ofmoderate octavo size, varying from fifteen totwenty-five feet in length, and of correspondingdimensions round the waist. He swims in

herds; he is never regularly hunted, though hisoil is considerable in quantity, and pretty goodfor light. By some fishermen his approach isregarded as premonitory of the advance of thegreat sperm whale.

BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER II. (BLACKFISH).—I give the popular fishermen's namesfor all these fish, for generally they are the best.Where any name happens to be vague or inex-pressive, I shall say so, and suggest another. Ido so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called,because blackness is the rule among almost allwhales. So, call him the Hyena Whale, if youplease. His voracity is well known, and fromthe circumstance that the inner angles of hislips are curved upwards, he carries an everlast-ing Mephistophelean grin on his face. Thiswhale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet inlength. He is found in almost all latitudes. Hehas a peculiar way of showing his dorsalhooked fin in swimming, which looks some-

thing like a Roman nose. When not more prof-itably employed, the sperm whale hunterssometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keepup the supply of cheap oil for domestic em-ployment—as some frugal housekeepers, in theabsence of company, and quite alone by them-selves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odor-ous wax. Though their blubber is very thin,some of these whales will yield you upwards ofthirty gallons of oil.

BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER III. (NAR-WHALE), that is, NOSTRIL WHALE.—Another instance of a curiously named whale,so named I suppose from his peculiar horn be-ing originally mistaken for a peaked nose. Thecreature is some sixteen feet in length, while itshorn averages five feet, though some exceedten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictlyspeaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk,growing out from the jaw in a line a little de-pressed from the horizontal. But it is only

found on the sinister side, which has an ill ef-fect, giving its owner something analogous tothe aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. Whatprecise purpose this ivory horn or lance an-swers, it would be hard to say. It does not seemto be used like the blade of the sword-fish andbill-fish; though some sailors tell me that theNarwhale employs it for a rake in turning overthe bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffinsaid it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Nar-whale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea,and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his hornup, and so breaks through. But you cannotprove either of these surmises to be correct. Myown opinion is, that however this one-sidedhorn may really be used by the Narwhale—however that may be—it would certainly bevery convenient to him for a folder in readingpamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard calledthe Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and theUnicorn whale. He is certainly a curious exam-ple of the Unicornism to be found in almost

every kingdom of animated nature. From cer-tain cloistered old authors I have gathered thatthis same sea-unicorn's horn was in ancientdays regarded as the great antidote againstpoison, and as such, preparations of it broughtimmense prices. It was also distilled to a vola-tile salts for fainting ladies, the same way thatthe horns of the male deer are manufacturedinto hartshorn. Originally it was in itself ac-counted an object of great curiosity. Black Let-ter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his re-turn from that voyage, when Queen Bess didgallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from awindow of Greenwich Palace, as his bold shipsailed down the Thames; "when Sir Martin re-turned from that voyage," saith Black Letter,"on bended knees he presented to her highnessa prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, whichfor a long period after hung in the castle atWindsor." An Irish author avers that the Earl ofLeicester, on bended knees, did likewise pre-

sent to her highness another horn, pertaining toa land beast of the unicorn nature.

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

BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER IV. (KIL-LER).—Of this whale little is precisely knownto the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to theprofessed naturalist. From what I have seen ofhim at a distance, I should say that he wasabout the bigness of a grampus. He is very sav-age—a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takesthe great Folio whales by the lip, and hangsthere like a leech, till the mighty brute is wor-ried to death. The Killer is never hunted. Inever heard what sort of oil he has. Exceptionmight be taken to the name bestowed upon thiswhale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For

we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bona-partes and Sharks included.

BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER V.(THRASHER).—This gentleman is famous forhis tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashinghis foes. He mounts the Folio whale's back, andas he swims, he works his passage by flogginghim; as some schoolmasters get along in theworld by a similar process. Still less is knownof the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both are out-laws, even in the lawless seas.

Thus ends BOOK II. (OCTAVO), and beginsBOOK III. (DUODECIMO).

DUODECIMOES.—These include the smallerwhales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. II. The AlgerinePorpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.

To those who have not chanced specially tostudy the subject, it may possibly seem strange,that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five

feet should be marshalled among WHALES—aword, which, in the popular sense, always con-veys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures setdown above as Duodecimoes are infalliblywhales, by the terms of my definition of what awhale is—i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontaltail.

BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER 1.(HUZZA PORPOISE).—This is the commonporpoise found almost all over the globe. Thename is of my own bestowal; for there are morethan one sort of porpoises, and something mustbe done to distinguish them. I call him thus,because he always swims in hilarious shoals,which upon the broad sea keep tossing them-selves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-Julycrowd. Their appearance is generally hailedwith delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits,they invariably come from the breezy billows towindward. They are the lads that always livebefore the wind. They are accounted a lucky

omen. If you yourself can withstand threecheers at beholding these vivacious fish, thenheaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesome-ness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump HuzzaPorpoise will yield you one good gallon ofgood oil. But the fine and delicate fluid ex-tracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. Itis in request among jewellers and watchmak-ers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise meatis good eating, you know. It may never haveoccurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed,his spout is so small that it is not very readilydiscernible. But the next time you have achance, watch him; and you will then see thegreat Sperm whale himself in miniature.

BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER II. (AL-GERINE PORPOISE).—A pirate. Very savage.He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He issomewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, butmuch 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 himcaptured.

BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER III.(MEALY-MOUTHED PORPOISE).—The larg-est kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pa-cific, so far as it is known. The only Englishname, by which he has hitherto been desig-nated, is that of the fishers—Right-Whale Por-poise, from the circumstance that he is chieflyfound in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, hediffers in some degree from the Huzza Por-poise, being of a less rotund and jolly girth;indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-likefigure. He has no fins on his back (most otherporpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and senti-mental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But hismealy-mouth spoils all. Though his entire backdown to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet aboundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship'shull, called the "bright waist," that line streakshim from stem to stern, with two separate col-

ours, black above and white below. The whitecomprises part of his head, and the whole of hismouth, which makes him look as if he had justescaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. Amost mean and mealy aspect! His oil is muchlike that of the common porpoise.

Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system doesnot proceed, inasmuch as the Porpoise is thesmallest of the whales. Above, you have all theLeviathans of note. But there are a rabble ofuncertain, fugitive, half-fabulous whales,which, as an American whaleman, I know byreputation, but not personally. I shall enumer-ate them by their fore-castle appellations; forpossibly such a list may be valuable to futureinvestigators, who may complete what I havehere but begun. If any of the following whales,shall hereafter be caught and marked, then hecan readily be incorporated into this System,according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimomagnitude:—The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk

Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the CapeWhale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale;the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; theElephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the QuogWhale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic,Dutch, and old English authorities, there mightbe quoted other lists of uncertain whales,blessed with all manner of uncouth names. ButI omit them as altogether obsolete; and canhardly help suspecting them for mere sounds,full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.

Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this sys-tem would not be here, and at once, perfected.You cannot but plainly see that I have kept myword. But I now leave my cetological Systemstanding thus unfinished, even as the greatCathedral of Cologne was left, with the cranestill standing upon the top of the uncompletedtower. For small erections may be finished bytheir first architects; grand ones, true ones, everleave the copestone to posterity. God keep me

from ever completing anything. This wholebook is but a draught—nay, but the draught ofa draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Pa-tience!

CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder.

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, thisseems as good a place as any to set down a littledomestic peculiarity on ship-board, arisingfrom the existence of the harpooneer class ofofficers, a class unknown of course in any othermarine than the whale-fleet.

The large importance attached to the harpoon-eer's vocation is evinced by the fact, that origi-nally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuriesand more ago, the command of a whale ship

was not wholly lodged in the person nowcalled the captain, but was divided betweenhim and an officer called the Specksnyder. Lit-erally this word means Fat-Cutter; usage, how-ever, in time made it equivalent to Chief Har-pooneer. In those days, the captain's authoritywas restricted to the navigation and generalmanagement of the vessel; while over thewhale-hunting department and all its concerns,the Specksnyder or Chief Harpooneer reignedsupreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, un-der the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this oldDutch official is still retained, but his formerdignity is sadly abridged. At present he rankssimply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, isbut one of the captain's more inferior subal-terns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conductof the harpooneers the success of a whalingvoyage largely depends, and since in theAmerican Fishery he is not only an importantofficer in the boat, but under certain circum-stances (night watches on a whaling ground)

the command of the ship's deck is also his;therefore the grand political maxim of the seademands, that he should nominally live apartfrom the men before the mast, and be in someway distinguished as their professional supe-rior; though always, by them, familiarly re-garded as their social equal.

Now, the grand distinction drawn betweenofficer and man at sea, is this—the first lives aft,the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships andmerchantmen alike, the mates have their quar-ters with the captain; and so, too, in most of theAmerican whalers the harpooneers are lodgedin the after part of the ship. That is to say, theytake their meals in the captain's cabin, andsleep in a place indirectly communicating withit.

Though the long period of a Southern whalingvoyage (by far the longest of all voyages nowor 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 withtheir common vigilance, intrepidity, and hardwork; though all these things do in some casestend to beget a less rigorous discipline than inmerchantmen generally; yet, never mind howmuch like an old Mesopotamian family thesewhalemen may, in some primitive instances,live together; for all that, the punctilious exter-nals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldommaterially relaxed, and in no instance doneaway. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships inwhich you will see the skipper parading hisquarter-deck with an elated grandeur not sur-passed in any military navy; nay, extorting al-most as much outward homage as if he worethe imperial purple, and not the shabbiest ofpilot-cloth.

And though of all men the moody captain ofthe Pequod was the least given to that sort of

shallowest assumption; and though the onlyhomage he ever exacted, was implicit, instanta-neous obedience; though he required no man toremove the shoes from his feet ere steppingupon the quarter-deck; and though there weretimes when, owing to peculiar circumstancesconnected with events hereafter to be detailed,he addressed them in unusual terms, whetherof condescension or IN TERROREM, or other-wise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no meansunobservant of the paramount forms and us-ages of the sea.

Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually per-ceived, that behind those forms and usages, asit were, he sometimes masked himself; inciden-tally making use of them for other and moreprivate ends than they were legitimately in-tended to subserve. That certain sultanism ofhis brain, which had otherwise in a good de-gree remained unmanifested; through thoseforms that same sultanism became incarnate in

an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man's intel-lectual superiority what it will, it can neverassume the practical, available supremacy overother men, without the aid of some sort of ex-ternal arts and entrenchments, always, in them-selves, more or less paltry and base. This it is,that for ever keeps God's true princes of theEmpire from the world's hustings; and leavesthe highest honours that this air can give, tothose men who become famous more throughtheir infinite inferiority to the choice hiddenhandful of the Divine Inert, than through theirundoubted superiority over the dead level ofthe mass. Such large virtue lurks in these smallthings when extreme political superstitionsinvest them, that in some royal instances evento idiot imbecility they have imparted potency.But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar,the ringed crown of geographical empire encir-cles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herdscrouch abased before the tremendous centrali-zation. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who

would depict mortal indomitableness in its ful-lest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint,incidentally so important in his art, as the onenow alluded to.

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

CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.

It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrust-ing his pale loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and mas-ter; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has justbeen taking an observation of the sun; and isnow mutely reckoning the latitude on thesmooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved forthat daily purpose on the upper part of hisivory leg. From his complete inattention to thetidings, you would think that moody Ahab hadnot heard his menial. But presently, catchinghold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himselfto the deck, and in an even, unexhilaratedvoice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. Starbuck," disap-pears into the cabin.

When the last echo of his sultan's step has diedaway, and Starbuck, the first Emir, has everyreason to suppose that he is seated, then Star-

buck rouses from his quietude, takes a fewturns along the planks, and, after a grave peepinto the binnacle, says, with some touch ofpleasantness, "Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and des-cends the scuttle. The second Emir loungesabout the rigging awhile, and then slightlyshaking the main brace, to see whether it willbe all right with that important rope, he like-wise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid"Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows after his predeces-sors.

But the third Emir, now seeing himself all aloneon the quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved fromsome curious restraint; for, tipping all sorts ofknowing winks in all sorts of directions, andkicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp butnoiseless squall of a hornpipe right over theGrand Turk's head; and then, by a dexteroussleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentopfor a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far atleast as he remains visible from the deck, re-

versing all other processions, by bringing upthe rear with music. But ere stepping into thecabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a newface altogether, and, then, independent, hila-rious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence,in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.

It is not the least among the strange things bredby the intense artificialness of sea-usages, thatwhile in the open air of the deck some officerswill, upon provocation, bear themselves boldlyand defyingly enough towards their command-er; yet, ten to one, let those very officers thenext moment go down to their customary din-ner in that same commander's cabin, andstraightway their inoffensive, not to say depre-catory and humble air towards him, as he sitsat the head of the table; this is marvellous,sometimes most comical. Wherefore this differ-ence? A problem? Perhaps not. To have beenBelshazzar, King of Babylon; and to have beenBelshazzar, not haughtily but courteously,

therein certainly must have been some touch ofmundane grandeur. But he who in the rightlyregal and intelligent spirit presides over hisown private dinner-table of invited guests, thatman's unchallenged power and dominion ofindividual influence for the time; that man'sroyalty of state transcends Belshazzar's, forBelshazzar was not the greatest. Who has butonce dined his friends, has tasted what it is tobe Caesar. It is a witchery of social czarshipwhich there is no withstanding. Now, if to thisconsideration you superadd the official supre-macy of a ship-master, then, by inference, youwill derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.

Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided likea mute, maned sea-lion on the white coralbeach, surrounded by his warlike but still defe-rential cubs. In his own proper turn, each offic-er waited to be served. They were as littlechildren before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there

seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrog-ance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fas-tened upon the old man's knife, as he carvedthe chief dish before him. I do not suppose thatfor the world they would have profaned thatmoment with the slightest observation, evenupon so neutral a topic as the weather. No!And when reaching out his knife and fork, be-tween which the slice of beef was locked, Ahabthereby motioned Starbuck's plate towardshim, the mate received his meat as though re-ceiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a littlestarted if, perchance, the knife grazed againstthe plate; and chewed it noiselessly; and swal-lowed it, not without circumspection. For, likethe Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where theGerman Emperor profoundly dines with theseven Imperial Electors, so these cabin mealswere somehow solemn meals, eaten in awfulsilence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade notconversation; only he himself was dumb. Whata relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat

made a sudden racket in the hold below. Andpoor little Flask, he was the youngest son, andlittle boy of this weary family party. His werethe shinbones of the saline beef; his would havebeen the drumsticks. For Flask to have pre-sumed to help himself, this must have seemedto him tantamount to larceny in the first de-gree. Had he helped himself at that table,doubtless, never more would he have been ableto hold his head up in this honest world; never-theless, strange to say, Ahab never forbadehim. And had Flask helped himself, the chanceswere Ahab had never so much as noticed it.Least of all, did Flask presume to help himselfto butter. Whether he thought the owners of theship denied it to him, on account of its clottinghis clear, sunny complexion; or whether hedeemed that, on so long a voyage in such mar-ketless waters, butter was at a premium, andtherefore was not for him, a subaltern; howeverit was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man!

Another thing. Flask was the last person downat the dinner, and Flask is the first man up.Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badlyjammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubbboth had the start of him; and yet they alsohave the privilege of lounging in the rear. IfStubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask,happens to have but a small appetite, and soonshows symptoms of concluding his repast, thenFlask must bestir himself, he will not get morethan three mouthfuls that day; for it is againstholy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to thedeck. Therefore it was that Flask once admittedin private, that ever since he had arisen to thedignity of an officer, from that moment he hadnever known what it was to be otherwise thanhungry, more or less. For what he ate did not somuch relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal inhim. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, havefor ever departed from my stomach. I am anofficer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to

when I was before the mast. There's the fruitsof promotion now; there's the vanity of glory:there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were sothat any mere sailor of the Pequod had agrudge against Flask in Flask's official capacity,all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain am-ple vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time,and get a peep at Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered beforeawful Ahab.

Now, Ahab and his three mates formed whatmay be called the first table in the Pequod'scabin. After their departure, taking place ininverted order to their arrival, the canvas clothwas cleared, or rather was restored to somehurried order by the pallid steward. And thenthe three harpooneers were bidden to the feast,they being its residuary legatees. They made asort of temporary servants' hall of the high andmighty cabin.

In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable con-straint and nameless invisible domineerings ofthe captain's table, was the entire care-free li-cense and ease, the almost frantic democracy ofthose inferior fellows the harpooneers. Whiletheir masters, the mates, seemed afraid of thesound of the hinges of their own jaws, the har-pooneers chewed their food with such a relishthat there was a report to it. They dined likelords; they filled their bellies like Indian shipsall day loading with spices. Such portentousappetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that tofill out the vacancies made by the previous re-past, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain tobring on a great baron of salt-junk, seeminglyquarried out of the solid ox. And if he were notlively about it, if he did not go with a nimblehop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an un-gentlemanly way of accelerating him by dart-ing a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And onceDaggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assistedDough-Boy's memory by snatching him up

bodily, and thrusting his head into a great emp-ty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife inhand, began laying out the circle preliminary toscalping him. He was naturally a very nervous,shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-facedsteward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and ahospital nurse. And what with the standingspectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and theperiodical tumultuous visitations of these threesavages, Dough-Boy's whole life was one con-tinual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing theharpooneers furnished with all things they de-manded, he would escape from their clutchesinto his little pantry adjoining, and fearfullypeep out at them through the blinds of its door,till all was over.

It was a sight to see Queequeg seated overagainst Tashtego, opposing his filed teeth to theIndian's: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated onthe floor, for a bench would have brought hishearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at

every motion of his colossal limbs, making thelow cabin framework to shake, as when anAfrican elephant goes passenger in a ship. Butfor all this, the great negro was wonderfullyabstemious, not to say dainty. It seemed hardlypossible that by such comparatively smallmouthfuls he could keep up the vitality dif-fused through so broad, baronial, and superb aperson. But, doubtless, this noble savage fedstrong and drank deep of the abounding ele-ment of air; and through his dilated nostrilssnuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Notby beef or by bread, are giants made or nou-rished. But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbar-ic smack of the lip in eating—an ugly soundenough—so much so, that the tremblingDough-Boy almost looked to see whether anymarks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms.And when he would hear Tashtego singing outfor him to produce himself, that his bonesmight be picked, the simple-witted steward allbut shattered the crockery hanging round him

in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy.Nor did the whetstone which the harpooneerscarried in their pockets, for their lances andother weapons; and with which whetstones, atdinner, they would ostentatiously sharpen theirknives; that grating sound did not at all tend totranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could heforget that in his Island days, Queequeg, forone, must certainly have been guilty of somemurderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas!Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter whowaits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should hecarry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time,though, to his great delight, the three salt-seawarriors would rise and depart; to his credul-ous, fable-mongering ears, all their martialbones jingling in them at every step, like Moo-rish scimetars in scabbards.

But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin,and nominally lived there; still, being anythingbut sedentary in their habits, they were scarcely

ever in it except at mealtimes, and just beforesleeping-time, when they passed through it totheir own peculiar quarters.

In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exceptionto most American whale captains, who, as a set,rather incline to the opinion that by rights theship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is bycourtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time,permitted there. So that, in real truth, the matesand harpooneers of the Pequod might moreproperly be said to have lived out of the cabinthan in it. For when they did enter it, it wassomething as a street-door enters a house; turn-ing inwards for a moment, only to be turnedout the next; and, as a permanent thing, resid-ing in the open air. Nor did they lose muchhereby; in the cabin was no companionship;socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nomi-nally included in the census of Christendom, hewas still an alien to it. He lived in the world, asthe last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Mis-

souri. And as when Spring and Summer haddeparted, that wild Logan of the woods, bury-ing himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out thewinter there, sucking his own paws; so, in hisinclement, howling old age, Ahab's soul, shutup in the caved trunk of his body, there fedupon the sullen paws of its gloom!

CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.

It was during the more pleasant weather, thatin due rotation with the other seamen my firstmast-head came round.

In most American whalemen the mast-headsare manned almost simultaneously with thevessel's leaving her port; even though she mayhave fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail

ere reaching her proper cruising ground. Andif, after a three, four, or five years' voyage she isdrawing nigh home with anything empty inher—say, an empty vial even—then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not tillher skysail-poles sail in among the spires of theport, does she altogether relinquish the hope ofcapturing one whale more.

Now, as the business of standing mast-heads,ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interest-ing one, let us in some measure expatiate here. Itake it, that the earliest standers of mast-headswere the old Egyptians; because, in all my re-searches, I find none prior to them. For thoughtheir progenitors, the builders of Babel, mustdoubtless, by their tower, have intended to rearthe loftiest mast-head in all Asia, or Africa ei-ther; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) asthat great stone mast of theirs may be said tohave gone by the board, in the dread gale ofGod's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these

Babel builders priority over the Egyptians. Andthat the Egyptians were a nation of mast-headstanders, is an assertion based upon the generalbelief among archaeologists, that the first py-ramids were founded for astronomical purpos-es: a theory singularly supported by the pecu-liar stair-like formation of all four sides of thoseedifices; whereby, with prodigious long uplift-ings of their legs, those old astronomers werewont to mount to the apex, and sing out fornew stars; even as the look-outs of a modernship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearingin sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christianhermit of old times, who built him a lofty stonepillar in the desert and spent the whole latterportion of his life on its summit, hoisting hisfood from the ground with a tackle; in him wehave a remarkable instance of a dauntlessstander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be dri-ven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail,or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out tothe last, literally died at his post. Of modern

standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifelessset; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who,though well capable of facing out a stiff gale,are still entirely incompetent to the business ofsinging out upon discovering any strange sight.There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of thecolumn of Vendome, stands with arms folded,some one hundred and fifty feet in the air; care-less, now, who rules the decks below; whetherLouis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil.Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on histowering main-mast in Baltimore, and like oneof Hercules' pillars, his column marks thatpoint of human grandeur beyond which fewmortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on acapstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head inTrafalgar Square; and ever when most ob-scured by that London smoke, token is yet giv-en that a hidden hero is there; for where thereis smoke, must be fire. But neither great Wash-ington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answera single hail from below, however madly in-

voked to befriend by their counsels the dis-tracted decks upon which they gaze; however itmay be surmised, that their spirits penetratethrough the thick haze of the future, and descrywhat shoals and what rocks must be shunned.

It may seem unwarrantable to couple in anyrespect the mast-head standers of the land withthose of the sea; but that in truth it is not so, isplainly evinced by an item for which Obed Ma-cy, the sole historian of Nantucket, stands ac-countable. The worthy Obed tells us, that in theearly times of the whale fishery, ere ships wereregularly launched in pursuit of the game, thepeople of that island erected lofty spars alongthe sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascendedby means of nailed cleats, something as fowlsgo upstairs in a hen-house. A few years ago thissame plan was adopted by the Bay whalemenof New Zealand, who, upon descrying thegame, gave notice to the ready-manned boatsnigh the beach. But this custom has now be-

come obsolete; turn we then to the one propermast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. Thethree mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their regularturns (as at the helm), and relieving each otherevery two hours. In the serene weather of thetropics it is exceedingly pleasant the mast-head;nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is de-lightful. There you stand, a hundred feet abovethe silent decks, striding along the deep, as ifthe masts were gigantic stilts, while beneathyou and between your legs, as it were, swimthe hugest monsters of the sea, even as shipsonce sailed between the boots of the famousColossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lostin the infinite series of the sea, with nothingruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indo-lently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; eve-rything resolves you into languor. For the mostpart, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime un-eventfulness invests you; you hear no news;read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts

of commonplaces never delude you into unne-cessary excitements; you hear of no domesticafflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks;are never troubled with the thought of whatyou shall have for dinner—for all your mealsfor three years and more are snugly stowed incasks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

In one of those southern whalesmen, on a longthree or four years' voyage, as often happens,the sum of the various hours you spend at themast-head would amount to several entiremonths. And it is much to be deplored that theplace to which you devote so considerable aportion of the whole term of your natural life,should be so sadly destitute of anything ap-proaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adaptedto breed a comfortable localness of feeling, suchas pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, asentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other ofthose small and snug contrivances in whichmen temporarily isolate themselves. Your most

usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallelsticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called thet' gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by thesea, the beginner feels about as cosy as hewould standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, incold weather you may carry your house aloftwith you, in the shape of a watch-coat; butproperly speaking the thickest watch-coat is nomore of a house than the unclad body; for asthe soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle,and cannot freely move about in it, nor evenmove out of it, without running great risk ofperishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing thesnowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not somuch of a house as it is a mere envelope, oradditional skin encasing you. You cannot put ashelf or chest of drawers in your body, and nomore can you make a convenient closet of yourwatch-coat.

Concerning all this, it is much to be deploredthat the mast-heads of a southern whale shipare unprovided with those enviable little tentsor pulpits, called CROW'S-NESTS, in which thelook-outs of a Greenland whaler are protectedfrom the inclement weather of the frozen seas.In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, en-titled "A Voyage among the Icebergs, in questof the Greenland Whale, and incidentally forthe re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Coloniesof Old Greenland;" in this admirable volume,all standers of mast-heads are furnished with acharmingly circumstantial account of the thenrecently invented CROW'S-NEST of the Glaci-er, which was the name of Captain Sleet's goodcraft. He called it the SLEET'S CROW'S-NEST,in honour of himself; he being the original in-ventor and patentee, and free from all ridicul-ous false delicacy, and holding that if we callour own children after our own names (we fa-thers being the original inventors and paten-tees), so likewise should we denominate after

ourselves any other apparatus we may beget.In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is somethinglike a large tierce or pipe; it is open above,however, where it is furnished with a movableside-screen to keep to windward of your headin a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of themast, you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or sidenext the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat,with a locker underneath for umbrellas, com-forters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, inwhich 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 thathe always had a rifle with him (also fixed in therack), together with a powder flask and shot,for the purpose of popping off the stray narw-hales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting thosewaters; for you cannot successfully shoot atthem from the deck owing to the resistance ofthe water, but to shoot down upon them is a

very different thing. Now, it was plainly a laborof 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 ofthese, and though he treats us to a very scientif-ic account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for thepurpose of counteracting the errors resultingfrom what is called the "local attraction" of allbinnacle magnets; an error ascribable to thehorizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship'splanks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps, tothere having been so many broken-downblacksmiths among her crew; I say, that thoughthe Captain is very discreet and scientific here,yet, for all his learned "binnacle deviations,""azimuth compass observations," and "approx-imate errors," he knows very well, CaptainSleet, that he was not so much immersed inthose profound magnetic meditations, as to failbeing attracted occasionally towards that wellreplenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in

on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reachof his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatlyadmire and even love the brave, the honest,and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of himthat he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle,seeing what a faithful friend and comforter itmust have been, while with mittened fingersand hooded head he was studying the mathe-matics aloft there in that bird's nest withinthree or four perches of the pole.

But if we Southern whale-fishers are not sosnugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and hisGreenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage isgreatly counter-balanced by the widely con-trasting serenity of those seductive seas inwhich we South fishers mostly float. For one, Iused to lounge up the rigging very leisurely,resting in the top to have a chat with Quee-queg, or any one else off duty whom I mightfind 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 destina-tion.

Let me make a clean breast of it here, andfrankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. Withthe problem of the universe revolving in me,how could I—being left completely to myself atsuch a thought-engendering altitude—howcould I but lightly hold my obligations to ob-serve all whale-ships' standing orders, "Keepyour weather eye open, and sing out everytime."

And let me in this place movingly admonishyou, ye ship-owners of Nantucket! Beware ofenlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad withlean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasona-ble meditativeness; and who offers to ship withthe Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head.Beware of such an one, I say; your whales mustbe seen before they can be killed; and this sun-ken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten

wakes round the world, and never make youone pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these mo-nitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, thewhale-fishery furnishes an asylum for manyromantic, melancholy, and absent-mindedyoung men, disgusted with the carking cares ofearth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber.Childe Harold not unfrequently perches him-self upon the mast-head of some luckless dis-appointed whale-ship, and in moody phraseejaculates:—

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

Very often do the captains of such ships takethose absent-minded young philosophers totask, upbraiding them with not feeling suffi-cient "interest" in the voyage; half-hinting thatthey are so hopelessly lost to all honourableambition, as that in their secret souls theywould rather not see whales than otherwise.

But all in vain; those young Platonists have anotion that their vision is imperfect; they areshort-sighted; what use, then, to strain the vis-ual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses athome.

"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to oneof these lads, "we've been cruising now hardupon three years, and thou hast not raised awhale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teethwhenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were;or perhaps there might have been shoals ofthem in the far horizon; but lulled into such anopium-like listlessness of vacant, unconsciousreverie is this absent-minded youth by theblending cadence of waves with thoughts, thatat last he loses his identity; takes the mysticocean at his feet for the visible image of thatdeep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading man-kind and nature; and every strange, half-seen,gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; everydimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undis-

cernible form, seems to him the embodiment ofthose elusive thoughts that only people the soulby continually flitting through it. In this enc-hanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence itcame; becomes diffused through time andspace; like Crammer's sprinkled Pantheisticashes, forming at last a part of every shore theround globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rockinglife imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her,borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from theinscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep,this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand aninch; slip your hold at all; and your identitycomes back in horror. Over Descartian vorticesyou hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in thefairest weather, with one half-throttled shriekyou drop through that transparent air into thesummer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed itwell, ye Pantheists!

CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.

(ENTER AHAB: THEN, ALL)

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

Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as toand fro he paced his old rounds, upon planksso familiar to his tread, that they were all overdented, like geological stones, with the peculiarmark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too,upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also,

you would see still stranger foot-prints—thefoot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacingthought.

But on the occasion in question, those dentslooked deeper, even as his nervous step thatmorning left a deeper mark. And, so full of histhought was Ahab, that at every uniform turnthat he made, now at the main-mast and now atthe binnacle, you could almost see that thoughtturn in him as he turned, and pace in him as hepaced; so completely possessing him, indeed,that it all but seemed the inward mould ofevery outer movement.

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

The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up withinhis cabin; anon, pacing the deck, with the sameintense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he cameto a halt by the bulwarks, and inserting hisbone leg into the auger-hole there, and withone hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Star-buck to send everybody aft.

"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order sel-dom or never given on ship-board except insome extraordinary case.

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

When the entire ship's company were assem-bled, and with curious and not wholly unap-prehensive faces, were eyeing him, for helooked not unlike the weather horizon when astorm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly glanc-ing over the bulwarks, and then darting hiseyes among the crew, started from his stand-point; and as though not a soul were nigh himresumed his heavy turns upon the deck. Withbent head and half-slouched hat he continued

to pace, unmindful of the wondering whisper-ing among the men; till Stubb cautiously whis-pered to Flask, that Ahab must have sum-moned them there for the purpose of witness-ing 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 rejoinderfrom a score of clubbed voices.

"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in histones; observing the hearty animation intowhich his unexpected question had so magneti-cally 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 andapproving, grew the countenance of the oldman at every shout; while the mariners beganto gaze curiously at each other, as if marvellinghow it was that they themselves became so ex-cited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

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

"All ye mast-headers have before now heardme give orders about a white whale. Look ye!d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"—holdingup a broad bright coin to the sun—"it is a six-teen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Star-buck, hand me yon top-maul."

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab,without speaking, was slowly rubbing the goldpiece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to

heighten its lustre, and without using anywords was meanwhile lowly humming to him-self, producing a sound so strangely muffledand inarticulate that it seemed the mechanicalhumming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he ad-vanced towards the main-mast with the ham-mer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the goldwith the other, and with a high raised voiceexclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raises me awhite-headed whale with a wrinkled brow anda crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me thatwhite-headed whale, with three holes punc-tured in his starboard fluke—look ye, who-soever of ye raises me that same white whale,he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as withswinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nail-ing the gold to the mast.

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

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Quee-queg had looked on with even more intenseinterest and surprise than the rest, and at themention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jawthey had started as if each was separatelytouched by some specific recollection.

"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that whitewhale must be the same that some call MobyDick."

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

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

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

"And he have one, two, three—oh! good manyiron in him hide, too, Captain," cried Queequegdisjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk, like him—him—" faltering hard for a word, and screwinghis hand round and round as though uncorkinga bottle—"like him—him—"

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

"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, withStubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his

superior with increasing surprise, but at lastseemed struck with a thought which somewhatexplained all the wonder. "Captain Ahab, Ihave heard of Moby Dick—but it was not MobyDick that took off thy leg?"

"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing,"Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; itwas Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dickthat brought me to this dead stump I stand onnow. Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud,animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose;"Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whalethat razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber ofme 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 NorwayMaelstrom, and round perdition's flames beforeI give him up. And this is what ye haveshipped for, men! to chase that white whale onboth 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 sea-men, running closer to the excited old man: "Asharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance forMoby Dick!"

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

"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for thejaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairlycomes in the way of the business we follow; butI came here to hunt whales, not my command-er's vengeance. How many barrels will thyvengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much inour Nantucket market."

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

"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what'sthat for? methinks it rings most vast, but hol-low."

"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. Allvisible objects, man, are but as pasteboardmasks. But in each event—in the living act, theundoubted deed—there, some unknown butstill reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings

of its features from behind the unreasoningmask. If man will strike, strike through themask! How can the prisoner reach outside ex-cept by thrusting through the wall? To me, thewhite 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 inhim outrageous strength, with an inscrutablemalice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing ischiefly what I hate; and be the white whaleagent, or be the white whale principal, I willwreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me ofblasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insultedme. For could the sun do that, then could I dothe other; since there is ever a sort of fair playherein, jealousy presiding over all creations.But not my master, man, is even that fair play.Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Takeoff thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glar-ings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenestand palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in

heat, that thing unsays itself. There are menfrom whom warm words are small indignity. Imeant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! seeyonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living,breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pa-gan leopards—the unrecking and unworship-ping things, that live; and seek, and give noreasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew,man, the crew! Are they not one and all withAhab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! helaughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to thinkof it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thyone tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what isit? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; nowondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more?From this one poor hunt, then, the best lanceout of all Nantucket, surely he will not hangback, when every foremast-hand has clutched awhetstone? 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 no-

strils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbucknow is mine; cannot oppose me now, withoutrebellion."

"God keep me!—keep us all!" murmured Star-buck, lowly.

But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquies-cence of the mate, Ahab did not hear his fore-boding invocation; nor yet the low laugh fromthe hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of thewinds in the cordage; nor yet the hollow flap ofthe sails against the masts, as for a momenttheir hearts sank in. For again Starbuck'sdowncast eyes lighted up with the stubborn-ness of life; the subterranean laugh died away;the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the shipheaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admoni-tions and warnings! why stay ye not when yecome? But rather are ye predictions than warn-ings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictionsfrom without, as verifications of the foregoingthings within. For with little external to con-

strain us, the innermost necessities in our be-ing, these still drive us on.

"The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab.

Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning tothe harpooneers, he ordered them to producetheir weapons. Then ranging them before himnear the capstan, with their harpoons in theirhands, while his three mates stood at his sidewith their lances, and the rest of the ship'scompany formed a circle round the group; hestood for an instant searchingly eyeing everyman of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, asthe bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meetthe eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at theirhead in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only tofall into the hidden snare of the Indian.

"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavycharged flagon to the nearest seaman. "Thecrew alone now drink. Round with it, round!Short draughts—long swallows, men; 'tis hot as

Satan's hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. Itspiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. Thatway it went, this way it comes. Hand it me—here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; sobrimming life is gulped and gone. Steward,refill!

"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye allround this capstan; and ye mates, flank mewith your lances; and ye harpooneers, standthere with your irons; and ye, stout mariners,ring me in, that I may in some sort revive anoble custom of my fisherman fathers beforeme. O men, you will yet see that—Ha! boy,come back? bad pennies come not sooner.Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had runbrimming again, were't not thou St. Vitus'imp—away, thou ague!

"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full be-fore me. Well done! Let me touch the axis." Sosaying, with extended arm, he grasped the

three level, radiating lances at their crossedcentre; while so doing, suddenly and nervouslytwitched them; meanwhile, glancing intentlyfrom Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. Itseemed as though, by some nameless, interiorvolition, he would fain have shocked into themthe same fiery emotion accumulated within theLeyden jar of his own magnetic life. The threemates quailed before his strong, sustained, andmystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sidewaysfrom him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell down-right.

"In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. Fordid ye three but once take the full-forced shock,then mine own electric thing, THAT had per-haps expired from out me. Perchance, too, itwould have dropped ye dead. Perchance yeneed it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, Ido appoint ye three cupbearers to my threepagan kinsmen there—yon three most honour-able gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant har-

pooneers. Disdain the task? What, when thegreat Pope washes the feet of beggars, using histiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! yourown condescension, THAT shall bend ye to it. Ido not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizingsand draw the poles, ye harpooneers!"

Silently obeying the order, the three harpoo-neers now stood with the detached iron part oftheir 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 whileI fill!" Forthwith, slowly going from one officerto the other, he brimmed the harpoon socketswith the fiery waters from the pewter.

"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend themurderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who arenow made parties to this indissoluble league.

Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratify-ing sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye har-pooneers! drink and swear, ye men that manthe deathful whaleboat's bow—Death to MobyDick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt MobyDick to his death!" The long, barbed steel gob-lets were lifted; and to cries and maledictionsagainst the white whale, the spirits were simul-taneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuckpaled, and turned, and shivered. Once more,and finally, the replenished pewter went therounds among the frantic crew; when, wavinghis free hand to them, they all dispersed; andAhab 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 bil-lows sidelong swell to whelm my track; letthem; but first I pass.

Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, thewarm waves blush like wine. The gold browplumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow divedfrom noon—goes down; my soul mounts up!she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, thecrown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crownof Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem;I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darklyfeel 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, mybrain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye,

steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmetin the most brain-battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, whenas the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunsetsoothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights notme; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I canne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, Ilack the low, enjoying power; damned, mostsubtly and most malignantly! damned in themidst of Paradise! Good night—good night!(WAVING HIS HAND, HE MOVES FROMTHE WINDOW.)

'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find onestubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circlefits into all their various wheels, and they re-volve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills ofpowder, they all stand before me; and I theirmatch. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the matchitself must needs be wasting! What I've dared,I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! Theythink me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm demo-

niac, I am madness maddened! That wild mad-ness that's only calm to comprehend itself! Theprophecy was that I should be dismembered;and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that Iwill dismember my dismemberer. Now, then,be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's morethan ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh andhoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, yedeaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will notsay as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some oneof your own size; don't pommel ME! No, ye'veknocked me down, and I am up again; but YEhave run and hidden. Come forth from behindyour cotton bags! I have no long gun to reachye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come andsee if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannotswerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man hasye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixedpurpose is laid with iron rails, whereon mysoul is grooved to run. Over unsoundedgorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains,under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!

Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to theiron way!

CHAPTER 38. Dusk.

BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEAN-ING 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 myreason 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 mewith a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible oldman! Who's over him, he cries;—aye, he wouldbe a democrat to all above; look, how he lords itover all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable

office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, tohate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I readsome lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. Thehated whale has the round watery world toswim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassyglobe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God maywedge aside. I would up heart, were it not likelead. But my whole clock's run down; my heartthe all-controlling weight, I have no key to liftagain.

[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FO-RECASTLE.]

Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew thathave small touch of human mothers in them!Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. Thewhite whale is their demigorgon. Hark! theinfernal orgies! that revelry is forward! markthe unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictureslife. Foremost through the sparkling sea shootson the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only

to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broodswithin his sternward cabin, builded over thedead water of the wake, and further on, huntedby its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrillsme through! Peace! ye revellers, and set thewatch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, withsoul beat down and held to knowledge,—aswild, untutored things are forced to feed—Oh,life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror inthee! 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 fu-tures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O yeblessed influences!

CHAPTER 39. First Night Watch.

Fore-Top.

(STUBB SOLUS, AND MENDING ABRACE.)

Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I've beenthinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha's thefinal consequence. Why so? Because a laugh'sthe wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer;and come what will, one comfort's alwaysleft—that unfailing comfort is, it's all predesti-nated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; butto my poor eye Starbuck then looked some-thing as I the other evening felt. Be sure the oldMogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it;had had the gift, might readily have prophesiedit—for when I clapped my eye upon his skull Isaw it. Well, Stubb, WISE Stubb—that's mytitle—well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's acarcase. I know not all that may be coming, but

be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such awaggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! Ifeel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my juicylittle pear at home doing now? Crying its eyesout?—Giving a party to the last arrived har-pooneers, 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, Tolove, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim,on the beaker's brim, And break on the lipswhile meeting.

A brave stave that—who calls? Mr. Starbuck?Aye, aye, sir—(ASIDE) he's my superior, he hashis too, if I'm not mistaken.—Aye, aye, sir, justthrough with this job—coming.

CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.

HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.

(FORESAIL RISES AND DISCOVERS THEWATCH STANDING, LOUNGING, LEAN-ING, 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 besentimental; it's bad for the digestion! Take atonic, 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 nev-er fail! While the bold harpooner is striking thewhale!

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 thebell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let mecall the watch. I've the sort of mouth for that—the hogshead mouth. So, so, (THRUSTS HISHEAD 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 oldMogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to someas 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 oftheir lasses. Tell 'em it's the resurrection; theymust kiss their last, and come to judgment.That's the way—THAT'S it; thy throat ain'tspoiled with eating Amsterdam butter.

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

PIP. (SULKY AND SLEEPY) Don't know whereit is.

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

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

MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where's your girls?Who but a fool would take his left hand by hisright, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Part-ners! 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 sul-kies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn whenyou may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah!here comes the music; now for it!

AZORE SAILOR. (ASCENDING, AND PITCH-ING THE TAMBOURINE UP THE SCUTTLE.)Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bitts; up you mount! Now, boys! (THE HALFOF THEM DANCE TO THE TAMBOURINE;

SOME GO BELOW; SOME SLEEP OR LIEAMONG THE COILS OF RIGGING. OATHSA-PLENTY.)

AZORE SAILOR. (DANCING) Go it, Pip! Bangit, 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, andpound away; make a pagoda of thyself.

FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thyhoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split jibs! tearyourselves!

TASHTEGO. (QUIETLY SMOKING) That's awhite man; he calls that fun: humph! I save mysweat.

OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether thosejolly lads bethink them of what they are danc-

ing 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 wholeworld'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 acalm—give us a whiff, Tash.

(THEY CEASE DANCING, AND GATHER INCLUSTERS. MEANTIME THE SKY DAR-KENS—THE WIND RISES.)

LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it'll bedouse sail soon. The sky-born, high-tideGanges turned to wind! Thou showest thyblack brow, Seeva!

MALTESE SAILOR. (RECLINING ANDSHAKING HIS CAP.) It's the waves—thesnow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shaketheir tassels soon. Now would all the waveswere women, then I'd go drown, and chasseewith them evermore! There's naught so sweeton earth—heaven may not match it!—as thoseswift glances of warm, wild bosoms in thedance, when the over-arboring arms hide suchripe, bursting grapes.

SICILIAN SAILOR. (RECLINING.) Tell me notof it! Hark ye, lad—fleet interlacings of thelimbs—lithe swayings—coyings—flutterings!lip! heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch andgo! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety. Eh,Pagan? (NUDGING.)

TAHITAN SAILOR. (RECLINING ON AMAT.) Hail, holy nakedness of our dancinggirls!—the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, highpalmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but thesoft 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 thounor I can bear the change! How then, if so betransplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaringstreams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, whenthey leap down the crags and drown the villag-es?—The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it!(LEAPS TO HIS FEET.)

PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rollsswashing '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! solong as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done!The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's nomore afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, putthere 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 awaterspout with a pistol—fire your ship rightinto it!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man's agrand old cove! We are the lads to hunt him uphis whale!

ALL. Aye! aye!

OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pinesshake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to livewhen shifted to any other soil, and here there'snone but the crew's cursed clay. Steady,helmsman! steady. This is the sort of weatherwhen brave hearts snap ashore, and keeledhulls 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 ofblack's afraid of me! I'm quarried out of it!

SPANISH SAILOR. (ASIDE.) He wants to bul-ly, ah!—the old grudge makes me touchy (AD-VANCING.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is theundeniable dark side of mankind—devilishdark at that. No offence.

DAGGOO (GRIMLY). None.

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

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What's that Isaw—lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing histeeth.

DAGGOO (SPRINGING). Swallow thine, man-nikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (MEETING HIM). Knifethee 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 braw-lers! Humph!

BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! TheVirgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in with ye!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spa-niard's knife! A ring, a ring!

OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There!the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain struckAbel. 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'sworse than being in the whirled woods, the lastday of the year! Who'd go climbing after chest-nuts now? But there they go, all cursing, andhere I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're onthe road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini,what a squall! But those chaps there are worseyet—they are your white squalls, they. Whitesqualls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have Iheard all their chat just now, and the whitewhale—shirr! shirr!—but spoken of once! andonly this evening—it makes me jingle all overlike my tambourine—that anaconda of an oldman swore 'em in to hunt him! Oh, thou bigwhite God aloft there somewhere in yon dark-ness, have mercy on this small black boy downhere; preserve him from all men that have nobowels to feel fear!

CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick.

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts hadgone up with the rest; my oath had beenwelded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, andmore did I hammer and clinch my oath, be-cause of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical,sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab'squenchless feud seemed mine. With greedyears I learned the history of that murderousmonster against whom I and all the others hadtaken our oaths of violence and revenge.

For some time past, though at intervals only,the unaccompanied, secluded White Whale hadhaunted those uncivilized seas mostly fre-quented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But

not all of them knew of his existence; only afew of them, comparatively, had knowinglyseen him; while the number who as yet hadactually and knowingly given battle to him,was small indeed. For, owing to the large num-ber of whale-cruisers; the disorderly way theywere sprinkled over the entire watery circum-ference, many of them adventurously pushingtheir quest along solitary latitudes, so as sel-dom or never for a whole twelvemonth or moreon a stretch, to encounter a single news-tellingsail of any sort; the inordinate length of eachseparate voyage; the irregularity of the times ofsailing from home; all these, with other cir-cumstances, direct and indirect, long ob-structed the spread through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualiz-ing tidings concerning Moby Dick. It was hard-ly to be doubted, that several vessels reportedto have encountered, at such or such a time, oron such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale ofuncommon magnitude and malignity, which

whale, after doing great mischief to his assai-lants, had completely escaped them; to someminds it was not an unfair presumption, I say,that the whale in question must have been noother than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the SpermWhale fishery had been marked by various andnot unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cun-ning, and malice in the monster attacked; there-fore it was, that those who by accident igno-rantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters,perhaps, for the most part, were content to as-cribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as itwere, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fisheryat large, than to the individual cause. In thatway, mostly, the disastrous encounter betweenAhab and the whale had hitherto been popular-ly regarded.

And as for those who, previously hearing of theWhite Whale, by chance caught sight of him; inthe beginning of the thing they had every oneof them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lo-

wered for him, as for any other whale of thatspecies. But at length, such calamities did ensuein these assaults—not restricted to sprainedwrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouringamputations—but fatal to the last degree offatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, allaccumulating and piling their terrors uponMoby Dick; those things had gone far to shakethe fortitude of many brave hunters, to whomthe story of the White Whale had eventuallycome.

Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exagge-rate, and still the more horrify the true historiesof these deadly encounters. For not only dofabulous rumors naturally grow out of the verybody of all surprising terrible events,—as thesmitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in ma-ritime life, far more than in that of terra firma,wild rumors abound, wherever there is anyadequate reality for them to cling to. And as thesea surpasses the land in this matter, so the

whale fishery surpasses every other sort of ma-ritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearful-ness of the rumors which sometimes circulatethere. For not only are whalemen as a bodyunexempt from that ignorance and supersti-tiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sai-lors, they are by all odds the most directlybrought into contact with whatever is appall-ingly astonishing in the sea; face to face theynot only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand tojaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remot-est waters, that though you sailed a thousandmiles, and passed a thousand shores, youwould not come to any chiseled hearth-stone,or aught hospitable beneath that part of thesun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuingtoo such a calling as he does, the whaleman iswrapped by influences all tending to make hisfancy pregnant with many a mighty birth.

No wonder, then, that ever gathering volumefrom the mere transit over the widest watery

spaces, the outblown rumors of the WhiteWhale did in the end incorporate with them-selves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernaturalagencies, which eventually invested Moby Dickwith new terrors unborrowed from anythingthat visibly appears. So that in many cases sucha panic did he finally strike, that few who bythose rumors, at least, had heard of the WhiteWhale, few of those hunters were willing toencounter the perils of his jaw.

But there were still other and more vital prac-tical influences at work. Not even at the presentday has the original prestige of the SpermWhale, as fearfully distinguished from all otherspecies of the leviathan, died out of the mindsof the whalemen as a body. There are those thisday among them, who, though intelligent andcourageous enough in offering battle to theGreenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or in-

competency, or timidity, decline a contest withthe Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plentyof whalemen, especially among those whalingnations not sailing under the American flag,who have never hostilely encountered theSperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of theleviathan is restricted to the ignoble monsterprimitively pursued in the North; seated ontheir hatches, these men will hearken with achildish fireside interest and awe, to the wild,strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is thepre-eminent tremendousness of the greatSperm Whale anywhere more feelingly com-prehended, than on board of those prowswhich stem him.

And as if the now tested reality of his mighthad in former legendary times thrown its sha-dow before it; we find some book naturalists—Olassen and Povelson—declaring the SpermWhale not only to be a consternation to everyother creature in the sea, but also to be so in-

credibly ferocious as continually to be athirstfor human blood. Nor even down to so late atime as Cuvier's, were these or almost similarimpressions effaced. For in his Natural History,the Baron himself affirms that at sight of theSperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are"struck with the most lively terrors," and "oftenin the precipitancy of their flight dash them-selves against the rocks with such violence as tocause instantaneous death." And however thegeneral experiences in the fishery may amendsuch reports as these; yet in their full terrible-ness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson,the superstitious belief in them is, in some vi-cissitudes of their vocation, revived in theminds of the hunters.

So that overawed by the rumors and portentsconcerning him, not a few of the fishermen re-called, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlierdays of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it wasoftentimes hard to induce long practised Right

whalemen to embark in the perils of this newand daring warfare; such men protesting thatalthough other leviathans might be hopefullypursued, yet to chase and point lance at such anapparition as the Sperm Whale was not formortal man. That to attempt it, would be in-evitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On thishead, there are some remarkable documentsthat may be consulted.

Nevertheless, some there were, who even in theface of these things were ready to give chase toMoby Dick; and a still greater number who,chancing only to hear of him distantly and va-guely, without the specific details of any certaincalamity, and without superstitious accompa-niments, were sufficiently hardy not to fleefrom the battle if offered.

One of the wild suggestions referred to, as atlast coming to be linked with the White Whalein the minds of the superstitiously inclined,was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was

ubiquitous; that he had actually been encoun-tered in opposite latitudes at one and the sameinstant of time.

Nor, credulous as such minds must have been,was this conceit altogether without some faintshow of superstitious probability. For as thesecrets of the currents in the seas have neveryet been divulged, even to the most eruditeresearch; so the hidden ways of the SpermWhale when beneath the surface remain, ingreat part, unaccountable to his pursuers; andfrom time to time have originated the mostcurious and contradictory speculations regard-ing them, especially concerning the mysticmodes whereby, after sounding to a greatdepth, he transports himself with such vastswiftness to the most widely distant points.

It is a thing well known to both American andEnglish whale-ships, and as well a thing placedupon authoritative record years ago by Scores-by, that some whales have been captured far

north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have beenfound the barbs of harpoons darted in theGreenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that insome of these instances it has been declaredthat the interval of time between the two as-saults could not have exceeded very manydays. Hence, by inference, it has been believedby some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage,so long a problem to man, was never a problemto the whale. So that here, in the real living ex-perience of living men, the prodigies related inold times of the inland Strello mountain in Por-tugal (near whose top there was said to be alake in which the wrecks of ships floated up tothe surface); and that still more wonderful storyof the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whosewaters were believed to have come from theHoly Land by an underground passage); thesefabulous narrations are almost fully equalledby the realities of the whalemen.

Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodi-gies as these; and knowing that after repeated,intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escapedalive; it cannot be much matter of surprise thatsome whalemen should go still further in theirsuperstitions; declaring Moby Dick not onlyubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality isbut ubiquity in time); that though groves ofspears should be planted in his flanks, hewould still swim away unharmed; or if indeedhe should ever be made to spout thick blood,such a sight would be but a ghastly deception;for again in unensanguined billows hundredsof leagues away, his unsullied jet would oncemore be seen.

But even stripped of these supernatural surmis-ings, there was enough in the earthly make andincontestable character of the monster to strikethe imagination with unwonted power. For, itwas not so much his uncommon bulk that somuch distinguished him from other sperm

whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out—apeculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and ahigh, pyramidical white hump. These were hisprominent features; the tokens whereby, evenin the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed hisidentity, at a long distance, to those who knewhim.

The rest of his body was so streaked, and spot-ted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue,that, in the end, he had gained his distinctiveappellation of the White Whale; a name, in-deed, literally justified by his vivid aspect,when seen gliding at high noon through a darkblue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamyfoam, all spangled with golden gleamings.

Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor hisremarkable hue, nor yet his deformed lowerjaw, that so much invested the whale with nat-ural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent ma-lignity which, according to specific accounts, hehad over and over again evinced in his assaults.

More than all, his treacherous retreats struckmore of dismay than perhaps aught else. For,when swimming before his exulting pursuers,with every apparent symptom of alarm, he hadseveral times been known to turn round sud-denly, and, bearing down upon them, eitherstave their boats to splinters, or drive themback in consternation to their ship.

Already several fatalities had attended hischase. But though similar disasters, howeverlittle bruited ashore, were by no means unusualin the fishery; yet, in most instances, suchseemed the White Whale's infernal afore-thought of ferocity, that every dismembering ordeath that he caused, was not wholly regardedas having been inflicted by an unintelligentagent.

Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, dis-tracted fury the minds of his more desperatehunters were impelled, when amid the chips ofchewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn

comrades, they swam out of the white curds ofthe whale's direful wrath into the serene, exas-perating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birthor a bridal.

His three boats stove around him, and oars andmen both whirling in the eddies; one captain,seizing the line-knife from his broken prow,had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duel-list at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inchblade to reach the fathom-deep life of thewhale. That captain was Ahab. And then itwas, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shapedlower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reapedaway Ahab's leg, as a mower a blade of grass inthe field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetianor Malay, could have smote him with moreseeming malice. Small reason was there todoubt, then, that ever since that almost fatalencounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindic-tiveness against the whale, all the more fell forthat in his frantic morbidness he at last came to

identify with him, not only all his bodily woes,but all his intellectual and spiritual exaspera-tions. The White Whale swam before him as themonomaniac incarnation of all those maliciousagencies which some deep men feel eating inthem, till they are left living on with half aheart and half a lung. That intangible malignitywhich has been from the beginning; to whosedominion even the modern Christians ascribeone-half of the worlds; which the ancientOphites of the east reverenced in their statuedevil;—Ahab did not fall down and worship itlike them; but deliriously transferring its ideato the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself,all mutilated, against it. All that most maddensand torments; all that stirs up the lees of things;all truth with malice in it; all that cracks thesinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle de-monisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazyAhab, were visibly personified, and made prac-tically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled uponthe whale's white hump the sum of all the gen-

eral rage and hate felt by his whole race fromAdam down; and then, as if his chest had beena mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

It is not probable that this monomania in himtook its instant rise at the precise time of hisbodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at themonster, knife in hand, he had but given looseto a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity;and when he received the stroke that tore him,he probably but felt the agonizing bodily lace-ration, but nothing more. Yet, when by thiscollision forced to turn towards home, and forlong months of days and weeks, Ahab and an-guish lay stretched together in one hammock,rounding in mid winter that dreary, howlingPatagonian Cape; then it was, that his tornbody and gashed soul bled into one another;and so interfusing, made him mad. That it wasonly then, on the homeward voyage, after theencounter, that the final monomania seizedhim, seems all but certain from the fact that, at

intervals during the passage, he was a ravinglunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet suchvital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest,and was moreover intensified by his delirium,that his mates were forced to lace him fast, eventhere, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In astrait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings ofthe gales. And, when running into more suffer-able latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sailsspread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and,to all appearances, the old man's deliriumseemed left behind him with the Cape Hornswells, and he came forth from his dark deninto the blessed light and air; even then, whenhe bore that firm, collected front, however pale,and issued his calm orders once again; and hismates thanked God the direful madness wasnow gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self,raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cun-ning and most feline thing. When you think itfled, it may have but become transfigured intosome still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy sub-

sided not, but deepeningly contracted; like theunabated Hudson, when that noble Northmanflows narrowly, but unfathomably through theHighland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowingmonomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad mad-ness had been left behind; so in that broadmadness, not one jot of his great natural intel-lect had perished. That before living agent, nowbecame the living instrument. If such a furioustrope may stand, his special lunacy stormed hisgeneral sanity, and carried it, and turned all itsconcentred cannon upon its own mad mark; sothat far from having lost his strength, Ahab, tothat one end, did now possess a thousand foldmore potency than ever he had sanely broughtto bear upon any one reasonable object.

This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeperpart remains unhinted. But vain to popularizeprofundities, and all truth is profound.Winding far down from within the very heartof this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here

stand—however grand and wonderful, nowquit it;—and take your way, ye nobler, saddersouls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes;where far beneath the fantastic towers of man'supper earth, his root of grandeur, his wholeawful essence sits in bearded state; an antiqueburied beneath antiquities, and throned on tor-soes! So with a broken throne, the great godsmock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, hepatient sits, upholding on his frozen brow thepiled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there,ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud,sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did begetye, ye young exiled royalties; and from yourgrim sire only will the old State-secret come.

Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse ofthis, namely: all my means are sane, my motiveand my object mad. Yet without power to kill,or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knewthat to mankind he did long dissemble; in somesort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling

was only subject to his perceptibility, not to hiswill determinate. Nevertheless, so well did hesucceed in that dissembling, that when withivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nan-tucketer thought him otherwise than but natu-rally grieved, and that to the quick, with theterrible casualty which had overtaken him.

The report of his undeniable delirium at seawas likewise popularly ascribed to a kindredcause. And so too, all the added moodinesswhich always afterwards, to the very day ofsailing in the Pequod on the present voyage, satbrooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlike-ly, that far from distrusting his fitness foranother whaling voyage, on account of suchdark symptoms, the calculating people of thatprudent isle were inclined to harbor the conceit,that for those very reasons he was all the betterqualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so fullof rage and wildness as the bloody hunt ofwhales. Gnawed within and scorched without,

with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of someincurable idea; such an one, could he be found,would seem the very man to dart his iron andlift his lance against the most appalling of allbrutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be cor-poreally incapacitated for that, yet such an onewould seem superlatively competent to cheerand howl on his underlings to the attack. But beall this as it may, certain it is, that with the madsecret of his unabated rage bolted up andkeyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed uponthe present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale.Had any one of his old acquaintances on shorebut half dreamed of what was lurking in himthen, how soon would their aghast and righ-teous souls have wrenched the ship from sucha fiendish man! They were bent on profitablecruises, the profit to be counted down in dol-lars from the mint. He was intent on an auda-cious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly oldman, chasing with curses a Job's whale roundthe world, at the head of a crew, too, chieflymade up of mongrel renegades, and castaways,and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by theincompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invunerable jollityof indifference and recklessness in Stubb, andthe pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew,so officered, seemed specially picked andpacked by some infernal fatality to help him tohis monomaniac revenge. How it was that theyso aboundingly responded to the old man'sire—by what evil magic their souls were pos-sessed, that at times his hate seemed almosttheirs; the White Whale as much their insuffer-able foe as his; how all this came to be—whatthe White Whale was to them, or how to theirunconscious understandings, also, in somedim, unsuspected way, he might have seemedthe gliding great demon of the seas of life,—allthis to explain, would be to dive deeper than

Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner thatworks in us all, how can one tell whither leadshis shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound ofhis pick? Who does not feel the irresistible armdrag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four canstand still? For one, I gave myself up to the ab-andonment of the time and the place; but whileyet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could seenaught in that brute but the deadliest ill.

CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of TheWhale.

What the white whale was to Ahab, has beenhinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet re-mains unsaid.

Aside from those more obvious considerationstouching Moby Dick, which could not but occa-sionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm,there was another thought, or rather vague,nameless horror concerning him, which attimes by its intensity completely overpoweredall the rest; and yet so mystical and well nighineffable was it, that I almost despair of puttingit in a comprehensible form. It was the white-ness of the whale that above all things appalledme. But how can I hope to explain myself here;and yet, in some dim, random way, explainmyself I must, else all these chapters might benaught.

Though in many natural objects, whiteness re-finingly enhances beauty, as if imparting somespecial virtue of its own, as in marbles, japoni-cas, and pearls; and though various nationshave in some way recognised a certain royalpreeminence in this hue; even the barbaric,grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord

of the White Elephants" above all their othermagniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and themodern kings of Siam unfurling the samesnow-white quadruped in the royal standard;and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figureof a snow-white charger; and the great Aus-trian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlordingRome, having for the imperial colour the sameimperial hue; and though this pre-eminence init applies to the human race itself, giving thewhite man ideal mastership over every duskytribe; and though, besides, all this, whitenesshas been even made significant of gladness, foramong the Romans a white stone marked ajoyful day; and though in other mortal sympa-thies and symbolizings, this same hue is madethe emblem of many touching, noble things—the innocence of brides, the benignity of age;though among the Red Men of America thegiving of the white belt of wampum was thedeepest pledge of honour; though in manyclimes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice

in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes tothe daily state of kings and queens drawn bymilk-white steeds; though even in the highermysteries of the most august religions it hasbeen made the symbol of the divine spotless-ness and power; by the Persian fire worship-pers, the white forked flame being held theholiest on the altar; and in the Greek mytholo-gies, Great Jove himself being made incarnatein a snow-white bull; and though to the nobleIroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacredWhite Dog was by far the holiest festival oftheir theology, that spotless, faithful creaturebeing held the purest envoy they could send tothe Great Spirit with the annual tidings of theirown fidelity; and though directly from the Lat-in word for white, all Christian priests derivethe name of one part of their sacred vesture, thealb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; andthough among the holy pomps of the Romishfaith, white is specially employed in the cele-bration of the Passion of our Lord; though in

the Vision of St. John, white robes are given tothe redeemed, and the four-and-twenty eldersstand clothed in white before the great-whitethrone, and the Holy One that sitteth therewhite like wool; yet for all these accumulatedassociations, with whatever is sweet, and ho-nourable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elu-sive something in the innermost idea of thishue, which strikes more of panic to the soulthan that redness which affrights in blood.

This elusive quality it is, which causes thethought of whiteness, when divorced frommore kindly associations, and coupled with anyobject terrible in itself, to heighten that terror tothe furthest bounds. Witness the white bear ofthe poles, and the white shark of the tropics;what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makesthem the transcendent horrors they are? Thatghastly whiteness it is which imparts such anabhorrent mildness, even more loathsome thanterrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So

that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldiccoat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.*

*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possi-bly be urged by him who would fain go stilldeeper into this matter, that it is not the white-ness, separately regarded, which heightens theintolerable hideousness of that brute; for, ana-lysed, that heightened hideousness, it might besaid, only rises from the circumstance, that theirresponsible ferociousness of the creaturestands invested in the fleece of celestial inno-cence and love; and hence, by bringing togethertwo such opposite emotions in our minds, thePolar bear frightens us with so unnatural a con-trast. But even assuming all this to be true; yet,were it not for the whiteness, you would nothave that intensified terror.

As for the white shark, the white gliding ghost-liness of repose in that creature, when beheld inhis ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the

same quality in the Polar quadruped. This pe-culiarity is most vividly hit by the French in thename they bestow upon that fish. The Romishmass for the dead begins with "Requiem eter-nam" (eternal rest), whence REQUIEM deno-minating the mass itself, and any other funeralmusic. Now, in allusion to the white, silentstillness of death in this shark, and the milddeadliness of his habits, the French call himREQUIN.

Bethink thee of the albatross, whence comethose clouds of spiritual wonderment and paledread, in which that white phantom sails in allimaginations? Not Coleridge first threw thatspell; but God's great, unflattering laureate,Nature.*

*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. Itwas during a prolonged gale, in waters hardupon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoonwatch below, I ascended to the overcloudeddeck; and there, dashed upon the main hatches,

I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspottedwhiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sub-lime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast arc-hangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark.Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it.Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, assome king's ghost in supernatural distress.Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, me-thought I peeped to secrets which took hold ofGod. As Abraham before the angels, I bowedmyself; the white thing was so white, its wingsso wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, Ihad lost the miserable warping memories oftraditions and of towns. Long I gazed at thatprodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint,the things that darted through me then. But atlast I awoke; and turning, asked a sailor whatbird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! nev-er had heard that name before; is it conceivablethat this glorious thing is utterly unknown tomen ashore! never! But some time after, Ilearned that goney was some seaman's name

for albatross. So that by no possibility couldColeridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to dowith those mystical impressions which weremine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. Forneither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knewthe bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, Ido but indirectly burnish a little brighter thenoble merit of the poem and the poet.

I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodilywhiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret ofthe spell; a truth the more evinced in this, thatby a solecism of terms there are birds calledgrey albatrosses; and these I have frequentlyseen, but never with such emotions as when Ibeheld the Antarctic fowl.

But how had the mystic thing been caught?Whisper it not, and I will tell; with a treacher-ous hook and line, as the fowl floated on thesea. 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, whenthe white fowl flew to join the wing-folding,the invoking, and adoring cherubim!

Most famous in our Western annals and Indiantraditions is that of the White Steed of the Prai-ries; a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with thedignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty,overscorning carriage. He was the electedXerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pas-tures in those days were only fenced by theRocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At theirflaming head he westward trooped it like thatchosen star which every evening leads on thehosts of light. The flashing cascade of his mane,the curving comet of his tail, invested him withhousings more resplendent than gold and sil-ver-beaters could have furnished him. A mostimperial and archangelical apparition of thatunfallen, western world, which to the eyes of

the old trappers and hunters revived the gloriesof those primeval times when Adam walkedmajestic as a god, bluff-browed and fearless asthis mighty steed. Whether marching amid hisaides and marshals in the van of countless co-horts that endlessly streamed it over the plains,like an Ohio; or whether with his circumam-bient subjects browsing all around at the hori-zon, the White Steed gallopingly reviewedthem with warm nostrils reddening through hiscool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presentedhimself, always to the bravest Indians he wasthe object of trembling reverence and awe. Norcan it be questioned from what stands on le-gendary record of this noble horse, that it washis spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothedhim with divineness; and that this divinenesshad that in it which, though commanding wor-ship, at the same time enforced a certain name-less terror.

But there are other instances where this white-ness loses all that accessory and strange glorywhich invests it in the White Steed and Alba-tross.

What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarlyrepels and often shocks the eye, as that some-times he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It isthat whiteness which invests him, a thing ex-pressed by the name he bears. The Albino is aswell made as other men—has no substantivedeformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strange-ly hideous than the ugliest abortion. Whyshould this be so?

Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in herleast palpable but not the less malicious agen-cies, fail to enlist among her forces this crown-ing attribute of the terrible. From its snowyaspect, the gauntleted ghost of the SouthernSeas 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 pas-sage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowysymbol of their faction, the desperate WhiteHoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in themarket-place!

Nor, in some things, does the common, heredi-tary experience of all mankind fail to bear wit-ness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It can-not well be doubted, that the one visible qualityin the aspect of the dead which most appals thegazer, is the marble pallor lingering there; as ifindeed that pallor were as much like the badgeof consternation in the other world, as of mortaltrepidation here. And from that pallor of thedead, we borrow the expressive hue of theshroud in which we wrap them. Nor even inour superstitions do we fail to throw the samesnowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghostsrising in a milk-white fog—Yea, while theseterrors 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 what-ever grand or gracious thing he will by white-ness, no man can deny that in its profoundestidealized significance it calls up a peculiar ap-parition to the soul.

But though without dissent this point be fixed,how is mortal man to account for it? To analyseit, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by thecitation of some of those instances wherein thisthing of whiteness—though for the time eitherwholly or in great part stripped of all directassociations calculated to impart to it aughtfearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert overus the same sorcery, however modified;—canwe thus hope to light upon some chance clue toconduct us to the hidden cause we seek?

Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtletyappeals to subtlety, and without imagination

no man can follow another into these halls.And though, doubtless, some at least of theimaginative impressions about to be presentedmay have been shared by most men, yet fewperhaps were entirely conscious of them at thetime, and therefore may not be able to recallthem now.

Why to the man of untutored ideality, whohappens to be but loosely acquainted with thepeculiar character of the day, does the baremention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancysuch long, dreary, speechless processions ofslow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hoodedwith new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unso-phisticated Protestant of the Middle AmericanStates, why does the passing mention of aWhite Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eye-less statue in the soul?

Or what is there apart from the traditions ofdungeoned warriors and kings (which will notwholly account for it) that makes the White

Tower of London tell so much more stronglyon the imagination of an untravelled American,than those other storied structures, its neigh-bors—the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody?And those sublimer towers, the White Moun-tains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiarmoods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over thesoul at the bare mention of that name, while thethought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft,dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespectiveof all latitudes and longitudes, does the nameof the White Sea exert such a spectralness overthe fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls uswith mortal thoughts of long lacquered mildafternoons on the waves, followed by the gau-diest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choosea wholly unsubstantial instance, purely ad-dressed to the fancy, why, in reading the oldfairy tales of Central Europe, does "the tall paleman" of the Hartz forests, whose changelesspallor unrustlingly glides through the green of

the groves—why is this phantom more terriblethan all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg?

Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of hercathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stam-pedoes of her frantic seas; nor the tearlessnessof arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of herwide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop (like cantedyards of anchored fleets); and her suburbanavenues of house-walls lying over upon eachother, as a tossed pack of cards;—it is not thesethings alone which make tearless Lima, thestrangest, saddest city thou can'st see. For Limahas taken the white veil; and there is a higherhorror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pi-zarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for evernew; admits not the cheerful greenness of com-plete decay; spreads over her broken rampartsthe rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes itsown distortions.

I know that, to the common apprehension, thisphenomenon of whiteness is not confessed tobe the prime agent in exaggerating the terror ofobjects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimagin-ative mind is there aught of terror in those ap-pearances whose awfulness to another mindalmost solely consists in this one phenomenon,especially when exhibited under any form at allapproaching to muteness or universality. WhatI mean by these two statements may perhapsbe respectively elucidated by the followingexamples.

First: The mariner, when drawing nigh thecoasts of foreign lands, if by night he hear theroar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feelsjust enough of trepidation to sharpen all hisfaculties; but under precisely similar circums-tances, let him be called from his hammock toview his ship sailing through a midnight sea ofmilky whiteness—as if from encircling head-lands shoals of combed white bears were

swimming round him, then he feels a silent,superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom ofthe whitened waters is horrible to him as a realghost; in vain the lead assures him he is still offsoundings; heart and helm they both go down;he never rests till blue water is under himagain. Yet where is the mariner who will tellthee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of strikinghidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous white-ness that so stirred me?"

Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the conti-nual sight of the snowhowdahed Andes con-veys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in themere fancying of the eternal frosted desolate-ness reigning at such vast altitudes, and thenatural conceit of what a fearfulness it wouldbe to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes.Much the same is it with the backwoodsman ofthe West, who with comparative indifferenceviews an unbounded prairie sheeted with dri-ven 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 leger-demain in the powers of frost and air, he, shi-vering and half shipwrecked, instead of rain-bows speaking hope and solace to his misery,views what seems a boundless churchyardgrinning upon him with its lean ice monumentsand splintered crosses.

But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chap-ter about whiteness is but a white flag hung outfrom a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hy-po, Ishmael.

Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled insome peaceful valley of Vermont, far removedfrom all beasts of prey—why is it that upon thesunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalorobe behind him, so that he cannot even see it,but only smells its wild animal muskiness—why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyespaw the ground in phrensies of affright? There

is no remembrance in him of any gorings ofwild creatures in his green northern home, sothat the strange muskiness he smells cannotrecall to him anything associated with the ex-perience of former perils; for what knows he,this New England colt, of the black bisons ofdistant Oregon?

No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumbbrute, the instinct of the knowledge of the de-monism in the world. Though thousands ofmiles from Oregon, still when he smells thatsavage musk, the rending, goring bison herdsare as present as to the deserted wild foal of theprairies, which this instant they may be tram-pling into dust.

Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea;the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts ofmountains; the desolate shiftings of the win-drowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael,are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to thefrightened colt!

Though neither knows where lie the namelessthings of which the mystic sign gives forth suchhints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewherethose things must exist. Though in many of itsaspects this visible world seems formed in love,the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

But not yet have we solved the incantation ofthis whiteness, and learned why it appeals withsuch power to the soul; and more strange andfar more portentous—why, as we have seen, itis at once the most meaning symbol of spiritualthings, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Dei-ty; and yet should be as it is, the intensifyingagent in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forththe heartless voids and immensities of the un-iverse, and thus stabs us from behind with thethought of annihilation, when beholding thewhite depths of the milky way? Or is it, that asin essence whiteness is not so much a colour asthe visible absence of colour; and at the same

time the concrete of all colours; is it for thesereasons that there is such a dumb blankness,full of meaning, in a wide landscape ofsnows—a colourless, all-colour of atheism fromwhich we shrink? And when we consider thatother theory of the natural philosophers, thatall other earthly hues—every stately or lovelyemblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skiesand woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of but-terflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls;all these are but subtile deceits, not actuallyinherent in substances, but only laid on fromwithout; so that all deified Nature absolutelypaints like the harlot, whose allurements covernothing but the charnel-house within; andwhen we proceed further, and consider that themystical cosmetic which produces every one ofher hues, the great principle of light, for everremains white or colourless in itself, and if op-erating without medium upon matter, wouldtouch all objects, even tulips and roses, with itsown blank tinge—pondering all this, the pal-

sied universe lies before us a leper; and likewilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wearcoloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes,so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind atthe monumental white shroud that wraps allthe prospect around him. And of all thesethings the Albino whale was the symbol. Won-der ye then at the fiery hunt?

CHAPTER 43. Hark!

"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?"

It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; theseamen were standing in a cordon, extendingfrom one of the fresh-water butts in the waist,to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this man-ner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-

butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hal-lowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they werecareful not to speak or rustle their feet. Fromhand to hand, the buckets went in the deepestsilence, only broken by the occasional flap of asail, and the steady hum of the unceasinglyadvancing keel.

It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy,one of the cordon, whose post was near theafter-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, aCholo, the words above.

"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?"

"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noised'ye mean?"

"There it is again—under the hatches—don'tyou hear it—a cough—it sounded like acough."

"Cough be damned! Pass along that returnbucket."

"There again—there it is!—it sounds like two orthree sleepers turning over, now!"

"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It'sthe three soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turn-ing over inside of ye—nothing else. Look to thebucket!"

"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears."

"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard thehum of the old Quakeress's knitting-needlesfifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're thechap."

"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 Isuspect our old Mogul knows something of ittoo. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning

watch, that there was something of that sort inthe wind."

"Tish! the bucket!"

CHAPTER 44. The Chart.

Had you followed Captain Ahab down into hiscabin after the squall that took place on thenight succeeding that wild ratification of hispurpose with his crew, you would have seenhim go to a locker in the transom, and bringingout a large wrinkled roll of yellowish seacharts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before it, youwould have seen him intently study the variouslines and shadings which there met his eye; andwith slow but steady pencil trace additional

courses over spaces that before were blank. Atintervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down theseasons and places in which, on various formervoyages of various ships, sperm whales hadbeen captured or seen.

While thus employed, the heavy pewter lampsuspended in chains over his head, continuallyrocked with the motion of the ship, and for everthrew shifting gleams and shadows of linesupon his wrinkled brow, till it almost seemedthat while he himself was marking out linesand courses on the wrinkled charts, some invis-ible pencil was also tracing lines and coursesupon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.

But it was not this night in particular that, inthe solitude of his cabin, Ahab thus ponderedover his charts. Almost every night they werebrought out; almost every night some pencilmarks were effaced, and others were substi-tuted. For with the charts of all four oceans be-

fore him, Ahab was threading a maze of cur-rents and eddies, with a view to the more cer-tain accomplishment of that monomaniacthought of his soul.

Now, to any one not fully acquainted with theways of the leviathans, it might seem an ab-surdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solita-ry creature in the unhooped oceans of this pla-net. But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knewthe sets of all tides and currents; and therebycalculating the driftings of the sperm whale'sfood; and, also, calling to mind the regular,ascertained seasons for hunting him in particu-lar latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmis-es, almost approaching to certainties, concern-ing the timeliest day to be upon this or thatground in search of his prey.

So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning theperiodicalness of the sperm whale's resorting togiven waters, that many hunters believe that,could he be closely observed and studied

throughout the world; were the logs for onevoyage of the entire whale fleet carefully col-lated, then the migrations of the sperm whalewould be found to correspond in invariabilityto those of the herring-shoals or the flights ofswallows. On this hint, attempts have beenmade to construct elaborate migratory charts ofthe sperm whale.*

*Since the above was written, the statementis happily borne out by an official circular, issued by Lieute-nant Maury, of the National Observatory, Washington,April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it appears that precisely such achart is in course of completion; and portions of it arepresented in the circular. "This chart divides the oceaninto districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees oflongitude;

perpendicularly through each of which dis-tricts are twelve columns for the twelve months; and hori-zontally through each of which districts are three lines; one toshow the number of days that have been spent in each monthin every district, and the two others to show thenumber of days in which whales, sperm or right, have beenseen."

Besides, when making a passage from one feed-ing-ground to another, the sperm whales,guided by some infallible instinct—say, rather,secret intelligence from the Deity—mostlyswim in VEINS, as they are called; continuingtheir way along a given ocean-line with suchundeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailedher course, by any chart, with one tithe of suchmarvellous precision. Though, in these cases,the direction taken by any one whale be

straight as a surveyor's parallel, and though theline of advance be strictly confined to its ownunavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitraryVEIN in which at these times he is said toswim, generally embraces some few miles inwidth (more or less, as the vein is presumed toexpand or contract); but never exceeds the vis-ual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads,when circumspectly gliding along this magiczone. The sum is, that at particular seasonswithin that breadth and along that path, mi-grating whales may with great confidence belooked for.

And hence not only at substantiated times,upon well known separate feeding-grounds,could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but incrossing the widest expanses of water betweenthose grounds he could, by his art, so place andtime himself on his way, as even then not to bewholly without prospect of a meeting.

There was a circumstance which at first sightseemed to entangle his delirious but still me-thodical scheme. But not so in the reality, per-haps. Though the gregarious sperm whaleshave their regular seasons for particulargrounds, yet in general you cannot concludethat the herds which haunted such and such alatitude or longitude this year, say, will turnout to be identically the same with those thatwere found there the preceding season; thoughthere are peculiar and unquestionable instanceswhere the contrary of this has proved true. Ingeneral, the same remark, only within a lesswide limit, applies to the solitaries and hermitsamong the matured, aged sperm whales. Sothat though Moby Dick had in a former yearbeen seen, for example, on what is called theSeychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volca-no Bay on the Japanese Coast; yet it did notfollow, that were the Pequod to visit either ofthose spots at any subsequent correspondingseason, she would infallibly encounter him

there. So, too, with some other feedinggrounds, where he had at times revealed him-self. But all these seemed only his casual stop-ping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not hisplaces of prolonged abode. And where Ahab'schances of accomplishing his object have hi-therto been spoken of, allusion has only beenmade to whatever way-side, antecedent, extraprospects were his, ere a particular set time orplace were attained, when all possibilitieswould become probabilities, and, as Ahabfondly thought, every possibility the next thingto a certainty. That particular set time and placewere conjoined in the one technical phrase—theSeason-on-the-Line. For there and then, for sev-eral consecutive years, Moby Dick had beenperiodically descried, lingering in those watersfor awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loi-ters for a predicted interval in any one sign ofthe Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of thedeadly encounters with the white whale hadtaken place; there the waves were storied with

his deeds; there also was that tragic spot wherethe monomaniac old man had found the awfulmotive to his vengeance. But in the cautiouscomprehensiveness and unloitering vigilancewith which Ahab threw his brooding soul intothis unfaltering hunt, he would not permithimself to rest all his hopes upon the onecrowning fact above mentioned, however flat-tering it might be to those hopes; nor in thesleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquil-lize his unquiet heart as to postpone all inter-vening quest.

Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket atthe very beginning of the Season-on-the-Line.No possible endeavor then could enable hercommander to make the great passage south-wards, double Cape Horn, and then runningdown sixty degrees of latitude arrive in theequatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. There-fore, 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 six-ty-five days and nights was before him; an in-terval which, instead of impatiently enduringashore, he would spend in a miscellaneoushunt; if by chance the White Whale, spendinghis vacation in seas far remote from his period-ical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrin-kled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the BengalBay, or China Seas, or in any other watershaunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pam-pas, Nor'-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; anywind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blowMoby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake.

But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetlyand coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this;that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitarywhale, even if encountered, should be thoughtcapable of individual recognition from his

hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in thethronged thoroughfares of Constantinople?Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of MobyDick, and his snow-white hump, could not butbe unmistakable. And have I not tallied thewhale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as afterporing over his charts till long after midnighthe would throw himself back in reveries—tallied him, and shall he escape? His broad finsare bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep'sear! And here, his mad mind would run on in abreathless race; till a weariness and faintness ofpondering came over him; and in the open airof the deck he would seek to recover hisstrength. Ah, God! what trances of tormentsdoes that man endure who is consumed withone unachieved revengeful desire. He sleepswith clenched hands; and wakes with his ownbloody nails in his palms.

Often, when forced from his hammock by ex-hausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the

night, which, resuming his own intensethoughts through the day, carried them onamid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled themround and round and round in his blazingbrain, till the very throbbing of his life-spotbecame insufferable anguish; and when, as wassometimes the case, these spiritual throes inhim heaved his being up from its base, and achasm seemed opening in him, from whichforked flames and lightnings shot up, and ac-cursed fiends beckoned him to leap downamong them; when this hell in himself yawnedbeneath him, a wild cry would be heardthrough the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahabwould burst from his state room, as thoughescaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these,perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressablesymptoms of some latent weakness, or fright athis own resolve, were but the plainest tokens ofits intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, thescheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of thewhite whale; this Ahab that had gone to his

hammock, was not the agent that so causedhim to burst from it in horror again. The latterwas the eternal, living principle or soul in him;and in sleep, being for the time dissociatedfrom the characterizing mind, which at othertimes employed it for its outer vehicle or agent,it spontaneously sought escape from thescorching contiguity of the frantic thing, ofwhich, for the time, it was no longer anintegral. But as the mind does not exist unlessleagued with the soul, therefore it must havebeen that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all histhoughts and fancies to his one supreme pur-pose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracyof will, forced itself against gods and devilsinto a kind of self-assumed, independent beingof its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn,while the common vitality to which it was con-joined, fled horror-stricken from the unbiddenand unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormentedspirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when whatseemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for

the time but a vacated thing, a formless som-nambulistic being, a ray of living light, to besure, but without an object to colour, and there-fore a blankness in itself. God help thee, oldman, thy thoughts have created a creature inthee; and he whose intense thinking thusmakes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds uponthat heart for ever; that vulture the very crea-ture he creates.

CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.

So far as what there may be of a narrative inthis book; and, indeed, as indirectly touchingone or two very interesting and curious parti-culars in the habits of sperm whales, the fore-going chapter, in its earlier part, is as importanta one as will be found in this volume; but the

leading matter of it requires to be still furtherand more familiarly enlarged upon, in order tobe adequately understood, and moreover totake away any incredulity which a profoundignorance of the entire subject may induce insome minds, as to the natural verity of the mainpoints of this affair.

I care not to perform this part of my task me-thodically; but shall be content to produce thedesired impression by separate citations ofitems, practically or reliably known to me as awhaleman; and from these citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow ofitself.

First: I have personally known three instanceswhere a whale, after receiving a harpoon, haseffected a complete escape; and, after an inter-val (in one instance of three years), has beenagain struck by the same hand, and slain; whenthe two irons, both marked by the same privatecypher, have been taken from the body. In the

instance where three years intervened betweenthe flinging of the two harpoons; and I think itmay have been something more than that; theman who darted them happening, in the inter-val, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Afri-ca, went ashore there, joined a discovery party,and penetrated far into the interior, where hetravelled for a period of nearly two years, oftenendangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poi-sonous miasmas, with all the other commonperils incident to wandering in the heart of un-known regions. Meanwhile, the whale he hadstruck must also have been on its travels; nodoubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe,brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa;but to no purpose. This man and this whaleagain came together, and the one vanquishedthe other. I say I, myself, have known threeinstances similar to this; that is in two of them Isaw the whales struck; and, upon the secondattack, saw the two irons with the respectivemarks cut in them, afterwards taken from the

dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fellout that I was in the boat both times, first andlast, and the last time distinctly recognised apeculiar sort of huge mole under the whale'seye, which I had observed there three yearsprevious. I say three years, but I am pretty sureit was more than that. Here are three instances,then, which I personally know the truth of; butI have heard of many other instances from per-sons whose veracity in the matter there is nogood ground to impeach.

Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm WhaleFishery, however ignorant the world ashoremay be of it, that there have been several me-morable historical instances where a particularwhale in the ocean has been at distant timesand places popularly cognisable. Why such awhale became thus marked was not altogetherand originally owing to his bodily peculiaritiesas distinguished from other whales; for howev-er peculiar in that respect any chance whale

may be, they soon put an end to his peculiari-ties by killing him, and boiling him down into apeculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this:that from the fatal experiences of the fisherythere hung a terrible prestige of perilousnessabout such a whale as there did about RinaldoRinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen werecontent to recognise him by merely touchingtheir tarpaulins when he would be discoveredlounging by them on the sea, without seekingto cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Likesome poor devils ashore that happen to knowan irascible great man, they make distant unob-trusive salutations to him in the street, lest ifthey pursued the acquaintance further, theymight receive a summary thump for their pre-sumption.

But not only did each of these famous whalesenjoy great individual celebrity—Nay, you maycall it an ocean-wide renown; not only was hefamous in life and now is immortal in forecastle

stories after death, but he was admitted into allthe rights, privileges, and distinctions of aname; had as much a name indeed as Cambys-es or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thoufamed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, whoso long did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of thatname, whose spout was oft seen from the pal-my beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O NewZealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers thatcrossed their wakes in the vicinity of the TattooLand? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Ja-pan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumedthe semblance of a snow-white cross against thesky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilianwhale, marked like an old tortoise with mystichieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose,here are four whales as well known to the stu-dents of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla tothe classic scholar.

But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and DonMiguel, after at various times creating great

havoc among the boats of different vessels,were finally gone in quest of, systematicallyhunted out, chased and killed by valiant whal-ing captains, who heaved up their anchors withthat express object as much in view, as in set-ting out through the Narragansett Woods, Cap-tain Butler of old had it in his mind to capturethat notorious murderous savage Annawon,the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.

I do not know where I can find a better placethan just here, to make mention of one or twoother things, which to me seem important, as inprinted form establishing in all respects thereasonableness of the whole story of the WhiteWhale, more especially the catastrophe. For thisis one of those disheartening instances wheretruth requires full as much bolstering as error.So ignorant are most landsmen of some of theplainest and most palpable wonders of theworld, that without some hints touching theplain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fi-

shery, they might scout at Moby Dick as amonstrous fable, or still worse and more de-testable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.

First: Though most men have some vague flit-ting ideas of the general perils of the grand fi-shery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vividconception of those perils, and the frequencywith which they recur. One reason perhaps is,that not one in fifty of the actual disasters anddeaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds apublic record at home, however transient andimmediately forgotten that record. Do yousuppose that that poor fellow there, who thismoment perhaps caught by the whale-line offthe coast of New Guinea, is being carried downto the bottom of the sea by the sounding levia-than—do you suppose that that poor fellow'sname will appear in the newspaper obituaryyou will read to-morrow at your breakfast? No:because the mails are very irregular betweenhere and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever

hear what might be called regular news director indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell youthat upon one particular voyage which I madeto the Pacific, among many others we spokethirty different ships, every one of which hadhad a death by a whale, some of them morethan one, and three that had each lost a boat'screw. For God's sake, be economical with yourlamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, butat least one drop of man's blood was spilled forit.

Secondly: People ashore have indeed some in-definite idea that a whale is an enormous crea-ture of enormous power; but I have ever foundthat when narrating to them some specific ex-ample of this two-fold enormousness, theyhave significantly complimented me upon myfacetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, Ihad no more idea of being facetious than Mos-es, when he wrote the history of the plagues ofEgypt.

But fortunately the special point I here seek canbe established upon testimony entirely inde-pendent of my own. That point is this: TheSperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently po-werful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, aswith direct aforethought to stave in, utterlydestroy, and sink a large ship; and what ismore, the Sperm Whale HAS done it.

First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, CaptainPollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacif-ic Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered herboats, and gave chase to a shoal of spermwhales. Ere long, several of the whales werewounded; when, suddenly, a very large whaleescaping from the boats, issued from the shoal,and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashinghis forehead against her hull, he so stove her in,that in less than "ten minutes" she settled downand fell over. Not a surviving plank of her hasbeen seen since. After the severest exposure,part of the crew reached the land in their boats.

Being returned home at last, Captain Pollardonce more sailed for the Pacific in command ofanother ship, but the gods shipwrecked himagain upon unknown rocks and breakers; forthe second time his ship was utterly lost, andforthwith forswearing the sea, he has nevertempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard isa resident of Nantucket. I have seen OwenChace, who was chief mate of the Essex at thetime of the tragedy; I have read his plain andfaithful narrative; I have conversed with hisson; and all this within a few miles of the sceneof the catastrophe.*

*The following are extracts from Chace's narra-tive: "Every fact seemed to warrant me in con-cluding that it was anything but chance whichdirected his operations; he made two severalattacks upon the ship, at a short interval be-tween them, both of which, according to theirdirection, were calculated to do us the mostinjury, by being made ahead, and thereby com-

bining the speed of the two objects for theshock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvreswhich he made were necessary. His aspect wasmost horrible, and such as indicated resent-ment and fury. He came directly from the shoalwhich we had just before entered, and in whichwe had struck three of his companions, as iffired with revenge for their sufferings." Again:"At all events, the whole circumstances takentogether, all happening before my own eyes,and producing, at the time, impressions in mymind of decided, calculating mischief, on thepart of the whale (many of which impressions Icannot now recall), induce me to be satisfiedthat I am correct in my opinion."

Here are his reflections some time after quittingthe ship, during a black night an open boat,when almost despairing of reaching any hos-pitable shore. "The dark ocean and swellingwaters were nothing; the fears of being swal-lowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed

upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinarysubjects of fearful contemplation, seemedscarcely entitled to a moment's thought; thedismal looking wreck, and THE HORRID AS-PECT AND REVENGE OF THE WHALE,wholly engrossed my reflections, until dayagain made its appearance."

In another place—p. 45,—he speaks of "THEMYSTERIOUS AND MORTAL ATTACK OFTHE ANIMAL."

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket,was in the year 1807 totally lost off the Azoresby a similar onset, but the authentic particularsof this catastrophe I have never chanced to en-counter, though from the whale hunters I havenow and then heard casual allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years agoCommodore J—-, then commanding an Ameri-can sloop-of-war of the first class, happened tobe dining with a party of whaling captains, on

board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu,Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning uponwhales, the Commodore was pleased to besceptical touching the amazing strength as-cribed to them by the professional gentlemenpresent. 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 athimbleful. Very good; but there is more com-ing. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sailin this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But hewas stopped on the way by a portly spermwhale, that begged a few moments' confidentialbusiness with him. That business consisted infetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack,that with all his pumps going he made straightfor the nearest port to heave down and repair. Iam not superstitious, but I consider the Com-modore's interview with that whale as provi-dential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted fromunbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, thesperm whale will stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyagesfor a little circumstance in point, peculiarlyinteresting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, youmust know by the way, was attached to theRussian Admiral Krusenstern's famous Discov-ery Expedition in the beginning of the presentcentury. Captain Langsdorff thus begins hisseventeenth chapter:

"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready tosail, and the next day we were out in the opensea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather wasvery clear and fine, but so intolerably cold thatwe were obliged to keep on our fur clothing.For some days we had very little wind; it wasnot till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from thenorthwest sprang up. An uncommon largewhale, the body of which was larger than theship itself, lay almost at the surface of the wa-ter, but was not perceived by any one on boardtill the moment when the ship, which was infull sail, was almost upon him, so that it was

impossible to prevent its striking against him.We were thus placed in the most imminentdanger, as this gigantic creature, setting up itsback, raised the ship three feet at least out ofthe water. The masts reeled, and the sails fellaltogether, while we who were below allsprang instantly upon the deck, concluding thatwe had struck upon some rock; instead of thiswe saw the monster sailing off with the utmostgravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf appliedimmediately to the pumps to examine whetheror not the vessel had received any damagefrom the shock, but we found that very happilyit had escaped entirely uninjured."

Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to ascommanding the ship in question, is a NewEnglander, who, after a long life of unusualadventures as a sea-captain, this day resides inthe village of Dorchester near Boston. I have thehonour of being a nephew of his. I have partic-ularly questioned him concerning this passage

in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word.The ship, however, was by no means a largeone: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast,and purchased by my uncle after barteringaway the vessel in which he sailed from home.

In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honestwonders—the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one ofancient Dampier's old chums—I found a littlematter set down so like that just quoted fromLangsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting ithere for a corroborative example, if such beneeded.

Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdi-nando," as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes."In our way thither," he says, "about fouro'clock in the morning, when we were aboutone hundred and fifty leagues from the Main ofAmerica, our ship felt a terrible shock, whichput our men in such consternation that theycould 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 vio-lent, that we took it for granted the ship hadstruck against a rock; but when the amazementwas a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded,but found no ground..... The suddenness of theshock made the guns leap in their carriages,and several of the men were shaken out of theirhammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with hishead on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!"Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to anearthquake, and seems to substantiate the im-putation by stating that a great earthquake,somewhere about that time, did actually dogreat mischief along the Spanish land. But Ishould not much wonder if, in the darkness ofthat early hour of the morning, the shock wasafter all caused by an unseen whale verticallybumping 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 totheir ships, but to pursue the ship itself, andlong withstand all the lances hurled at himfrom its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall cantell a story on that head; and, as for hisstrength, let me say, that there have been ex-amples where the lines attached to a runningsperm whale have, in a calm, been transferredto the ship, and secured there; the whale tow-ing her great hull through the water, as a horsewalks off with a cart. Again, it is very oftenobserved that, if the sperm whale, once struck,is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not sooften with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberatedesigns of destruction to his pursuers; nor is itwithout conveying some eloquent indication ofhis character, that upon being attacked he willfrequently open his mouth, and retain it in thatdread expansion for several consecutive mi-nutes. But I must be content with only one

more and a concluding illustration; a remarka-ble and most significant one, by which you willnot fail to see, that not only is the most mar-vellous event in this book corroborated byplain facts of the present day, but that thesemarvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitionsof the ages; so that for the millionth time wesay amen with Solomon—Verily there is noth-ing new under the sun.

In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, aChristian magistrate of Constantinople, in thedays when Justinian was Emperor and Belisa-rius general. As many know, he wrote the his-tory of his own times, a work every way of un-common value. By the best authorities, he hasalways been considered a most trustworthyand unexaggerating historian, except in someone or two particulars, not at all affecting thematter presently to be mentioned.

Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentionsthat, during the term of his prefecture at Con-

stantinople, a great sea-monster was capturedin the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmo-ra, after having destroyed vessels at intervals inthose waters for a period of more than fiftyyears. A fact thus set down in substantial histo-ry cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there anyreason it should be. Of what precise species thissea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as hedestroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, hemust have been a whale; and I am strongly in-clined to think a sperm whale. And I will tellyou why. For a long time I fancied that thesperm whale had been always unknown in theMediterranean and the deep waters connectingwith it. Even now I am certain that those seasare not, and perhaps never can be, in thepresent constitution of things, a place for hishabitual gregarious resort. But further investi-gations have recently proved to me, that inmodern times there have been isolated in-stances of the presence of the sperm whale inthe Mediterranean. I am told, on good authori-

ty, that on the Barbary coast, a CommodoreDavis of the British navy found the skeleton ofa sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readilypasses through the Dardanelles, hence a spermwhale could, by the same route, pass out of theMediterranean into the Propontis.

In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none ofthat peculiar substance called BRIT is to befound, the aliment of the right whale. But Ihave every reason to believe that the food ofthe sperm whale—squid or cuttle-fish—lurks atthe bottom of that sea, because large creatures,but by no means the largest of that sort, havebeen found at its surface. If, then, you properlyput these statements together, and reason uponthem a bit, you will clearly perceive that, ac-cording to all human reasoning, Procopius'ssea-monster, that for half a century stove theships of a Roman Emperor, must in all proba-bility have been a sperm whale.

CHAPTER 46. Surmises.

Though, consumed with the hot fire of his pur-pose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions everhad in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortalinterests to that one passion; nevertheless itmay have been that he was by nature and longhabituation far too wedded to a fiery whale-man's ways, altogether to abandon the collater-al prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if thiswere otherwise, there were not wanting othermotives much more influential with him. Itwould be refining too much, perhaps, evenconsidering his monomania, to hint that hisvindictiveness towards the White Whale mighthave possibly extended itself in some degree to

all sperm whales, and that the more monstershe slew by so much the more he multiplied thechances that each subsequently encounteredwhale would prove to be the hated one hehunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeedexceptionable, there were still additional con-siderations which, though not so strictly ac-cording with the wildness of his ruling passion,yet were by no means incapable of swayinghim.

To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools;and of all tools used in the shadow of themoon, men are most apt to get out of order. Heknew, for example, that however magnetic hisascendency in some respects was over Star-buck, yet that ascendency did not cover thecomplete spiritual man any more than merecorporeal superiority involves intellectual mas-tership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellec-tual but stand in a sort of corporeal relation.Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will

were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnetat Starbuck's brain; still he knew that for all thisthe chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his cap-tain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disin-tegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. Itmight be that a long interval would elapse erethe White Whale was seen. During that longinterval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall intoopen relapses of rebellion against his captain'sleadership, unless some ordinary, prudential,circumstantial influences were brought to bearupon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanityof Ahab respecting Moby Dick was nowaysmore significantly manifested than in his super-lative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that,for the present, the hunt should in some way bestripped of that strange imaginative impious-ness which naturally invested it; that the fullterror of the voyage must be kept withdrawninto the obscure background (for few men'scourage is proof against protracted meditationunrelieved by action); that when they stood

their long night watches, his officers and menmust have some nearer things to think of thanMoby Dick. For however eagerly and impe-tuously the savage crew had hailed the an-nouncement of his quest; yet all sailors of allsorts are more or less capricious and unrelia-ble—they live in the varying outer weather,and they inhale its fickleness—and when re-tained for any object remote and blank in thepursuit, however promissory of life and pas-sion in the end, it is above all things requisitethat temporary interests and employmentsshould intervene and hold them healthily sus-pended for the final dash.

Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. Intimes of strong emotion mankind disdain allbase considerations; but such times are evanes-cent. The permanent constitutional condition ofthe manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sor-didness. Granting that the White Whale fullyincites the hearts of this my savage crew, and

playing round their savageness even breeds acertain generous knight-errantism in them, still,while for the love of it they give chase to MobyDick, they must also have food for their morecommon, daily appetites. For even the highlifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times werenot content to traverse two thousand miles ofland to fight for their holy sepulchre, withoutcommitting burglaries, picking pockets, andgaining other pious perquisites by the way.Had they been strictly held to their one finaland romantic object—that final and romanticobject, too many would have turned from indisgust. I will not strip these men, thoughtAhab, of all hopes of cash—aye, cash. Theymay scorn cash now; but let some months goby, and no perspective promise of it to them,and then this same quiescent cash all at oncemutinying in them, this same cash would sooncashier Ahab.

Nor was there wanting still another precautio-nary motive more related to Ahab personally.Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhapssomewhat prematurely revealed the prime butprivate purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahabwas now entirely conscious that, in so doing, hehad indirectly laid himself open to the unans-werable charge of usurpation; and with perfectimpunity, both moral and legal, his crew if sodisposed, and to that end competent, couldrefuse all further obedience to him, and evenviolently wrest from him the command. Fromeven the barely hinted imputation of usurpa-tion, and the possible consequences of such asuppressed impression gaining ground, Ahabmust of course have been most anxious to pro-tect himself. That protection could only consistin his own predominating brain and heart andhand, backed by a heedful, closely calculatingattention to every minute atmospheric influ-ence which it was possible for his crew to besubjected to.

For all these reasons then, and others perhapstoo analytic to be verbally developed here,Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a gooddegree continue true to the natural, nominalpurpose of the Pequod's voyage; observe allcustomary usages; and not only that, but forcehimself to evince all his well known passionateinterest in the general pursuit of his profession.

Be all this as it may, his voice was now oftenheard hailing the three mast-heads and admo-nishing them to keep a bright look-out, and notomit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilancewas not long without reward.

CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamenwere lazily lounging about the decks, or va-cantly gazing over into the lead-coloured wa-ters. Queequeg and I were mildly employedweaving what is called a sword-mat, for anadditional lashing to our boat. So still and sub-dued and yet somehow preluding was all thescene, and such an incantation of reverie lurkedin the air, that each silent sailor seemed re-solved into his own invisible self.

I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, whilebusy at the mat. As I kept passing and repass-ing the filling or woof of marline between thelong yarns of the warp, using my own hand forthe shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing side-ways, ever and anon slid his heavy oakensword between the threads, and idly lookingoff upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly

drove home every yarn: I say so strange adreaminess did there then reign all over theship and all over the sea, only broken by theintermitting dull sound of the sword, that itseemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and Imyself were a shuttle mechanically weavingand weaving away at the Fates. There lay thefixed threads of the warp subject to but onesingle, ever returning, unchanging vibration,and that vibration merely enough to admit ofthe crosswise interblending of other threadswith its own. This warp seemed necessity; andhere, thought I, with my own hand I ply myown shuttle and weave my own destiny intothese unalterable threads. Meantime, Quee-queg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimeshitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, orstrongly, or weakly, as the case might be; andby this difference in the concluding blow pro-ducing a corresponding contrast in the finalaspect of the completed fabric; this savage'ssword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and

fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indiffe-rent sword must be chance—aye, chance, freewill, and necessity—nowise incompatible—allinterweavingly working together. The straightwarp of necessity, not to be swerved from itsultimate course—its every alternating vibra-tion, indeed, only tending to that; free will stillfree to ply her shuttle between given threads;and chance, though restrained in its play withinthe right lines of necessity, and sideways in itsmotions directed by free will, though thus pre-scribed to by both, chance by turns rules either,and has the last featuring blow at events.

Thus we were weaving and weaving awaywhen I started at a sound so strange, longdrawn, and musically wild and unearthly, thatthe ball of free will dropped from my hand,and I stood gazing up at the clouds whencethat voice dropped like a wing. High aloft inthe cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header,Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly for-

ward, his hand stretched out like a wand, andat brief sudden intervals he continued his cries.To be sure the same sound was that very mo-ment perhaps being heard all over the seas,from hundreds of whalemen's look-outsperched as high in the air; but from few ofthose lungs could that accustomed old cry havederived such a marvellous cadence as fromTashtego the Indian's.

As he stood hovering over you half suspendedin air, so wildly and eagerly peering towardsthe horizon, you would have thought him someprophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate,and by those wild cries announcing their com-ing.

"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows!she blows!"

"Where-away?"

"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a schoolof them!"

Instantly all was commotion.

The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, withthe same undeviating and reliable uniformity.And thereby whalemen distinguish this fishfrom other tribes of his genus.

"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tash-tego; and the whales disappeared.

"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!"

Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at thewatch, and reported the exact minute to Ahab.

The ship was now kept away from the wind,and she went gently rolling before it. Tashtegoreporting that the whales had gone down head-ing to leeward, we confidently looked to seethem again directly in advance of our bows. Forthat singular craft at times evinced by the

Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head inone direction, he nevertheless, while concealedbeneath the surface, mills round, and swiftlyswims off in the opposite quarter—this deceit-fulness of his could not now be in action; forthere was no reason to suppose that the fishseen by Tashtego had been in any wayalarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity.One of the men selected for shipkeepers—thatis, those not appointed to the boats, by this timerelieved the Indian at the main-mast head. Thesailors at the fore and mizzen had come down;the line tubs were fixed in their places; thecranes were thrust out; the mainyard wasbacked, and the three boats swung over the sealike three samphire baskets over high cliffs.Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews withone hand clung to the rail, while one foot wasexpectantly poised on the gunwale. So look thelong line of man-of-war's men about to throwthemselves on board an enemy's ship.

But at this critical instant a sudden exclamationwas heard that took every eye from the whale.With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who wassurrounded by five dusky phantoms thatseemed fresh formed out of air.

CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering.

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, wereflitting on the other side of the deck, and, witha noiseless celerity, were casting loose thetackles and bands of the boat which swungthere. This boat had always been deemed oneof the spare boats, though technically called thecaptain's, on account of its hanging from thestarboard quarter. The figure that now stood byits bows was tall and swart, with one whitetooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips.

A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton fune-really invested him, with wide black trowsersof the same dark stuff. But strangely crowningthis ebonness was a glistening white plaitedturban, the living hair braided and coiledround and round upon his head. Less swart inaspect, the companions of this figure were ofthat vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar tosome of the aboriginal natives of the Manil-las;—a race notorious for a certain diabolism ofsubtilty, and by some honest white marinerssupposed to be the paid spies and secret confi-dential agents on the water of the devil, theirlord, whose counting-room they suppose to beelsewhere.

While yet the wondering ship's company weregazing upon these strangers, Ahab cried out tothe white-turbaned old man at their head, "Allready there, Fedallah?"

"Ready," was the half-hissed reply.

"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting acrossthe deck. "Lower away there, I say."

Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite oftheir amazement the men sprang over the rail;the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with awallow, 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 sideinto the tossed boats below.

Hardly had they pulled out from under theship's lee, when a fourth keel, coming from thewindward side, pulled round under the stern,and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab,who, standing erect in the stern, loudly hailedStarbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread them-selves widely, so as to cover a large expanse ofwater. But with all their eyes again rivetedupon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the in-mates of the other boats obeyed not the com-mand.

"Captain Ahab?—" said Starbuck.

"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, allfour boats. Thou, Flask, pull out more to lee-ward!"

"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post,sweeping round his great steering oar. "Layback!" 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 knewit all before now. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold?And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it? What say ye,Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask."

"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my child-ren; pull, my little ones," drawlingly and soo-thingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some ofwhom still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why

don't you break your backbones, my boys?What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonderboat? Tut! They are only five more hands cometo help us—never mind from where—the morethe merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind thebrimstone—devils are good fellows enough. So,so; there you are now; that's the stroke for athousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep thestakes! 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 ahurry. Why don't you snap your oars, you ras-cals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so,then:—softly, softly! That's it—that's it! longand strong. Give way there, give way! The de-vil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye areall 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-cakesdon't ye pull?—pull and break something! pull,and start your eyes out! Here!" whipping outthe sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's

son of ye draw his knife, and pull with theblade between his teeth. That's it—that's it.Now ye do something; that looks like it, mysteel-bits. Start her—start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!"

Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here atlarge, because he had rather a peculiar way oftalking to them in general, and especially ininculcating the religion of rowing. But youmust not suppose from this specimen of hissermonizings that he ever flew into downrightpassions with his congregation. Not at all; andtherein consisted his chief peculiarity. Hewould say the most terrific things to his crew,in a tone so strangely compounded of fun andfury, and the fury seemed so calculated merelyas a spice to the fun, that no oarsman couldhear such queer invocations without pulling fordear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke ofthe thing. Besides he all the time looked so easyand indolent himself, so loungingly managed

his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped—open-mouthed at times—that the mere sight of sucha yawning commander, by sheer force of con-trast, acted like a charm upon the crew. Thenagain, Stubb was one of those odd sort of hu-morists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiouslyambiguous, as to put all inferiors on theirguard in the matter of obeying them.

In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck wasnow pulling obliquely across Stubb's bow; andwhen for a minute or so the two boats werepretty near to each other, Stubb hailed themate.

"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! aword with ye, sir, if ye please!"

"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round nota single inch as he spoke; still earnestly butwhisperingly urging his crew; his face set like aflint from Stubb's.

"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!

"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the shipsailed. (Strong, strong, boys!)" in a whisper tohis crew, then speaking out loud again: "A sadbusiness, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, mylads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for thebest. Let all your crew pull strong, come whatwill. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogs-heads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that'swhat ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm,sperm's the play! This at least is duty; duty andprofit hand in hand."

"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquizedStubb, when the boats diverged, "as soon as Iclapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and that'swhat he went into the after hold for, so often, asDough-Boy long suspected. They were hiddendown there. The White Whale's at the bottomof it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! Allright! Give way, men! It ain't the White Whaleto-day! Give way!"

Now the advent of these outlandish strangersat such a critical instant as the lowering of theboats from the deck, this had not unreasonablyawakened a sort of superstitious amazement insome of the ship's company; but Archy's fan-cied discovery having some time previous gotabroad among them, though indeed not cre-dited then, this had in some small measureprepared them for the event. It took off the ex-treme edge of their wonder; and so what withall this and Stubb's confident way of accountingfor their appearance, they were for the timefreed from superstitious surmisings; though theaffair still left abundant room for all manner ofwild conjectures as to dark Ahab's preciseagency in the matter from the beginning. Forme, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows Ihad seen creeping on board the Pequod duringthe dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enig-matical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.

Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers,having sided the furthest to windward, wasstill ranging ahead of the other boats; a cir-cumstance bespeaking how potent a crew waspulling him. Those tiger yellow creatures of hisseemed all steel and whalebone; like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokesof strength, which periodically started the boatalong the water like a horizontal burst boilerout of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah,who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, hehad thrown aside his black jacket, and dis-played his naked chest with the whole part ofhis body above the gunwale, clearly cut againstthe alternating depressions of the watery hori-zon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab,with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown halfbackward into the air, as if to counterbalanceany tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadilymanaging his steering oar as in a thousand boatlowerings ere the White Whale had torn him.All at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar

motion and then remained fixed, while theboat's five oars were seen simultaneouslypeaked. Boat and crew sat motionless on thesea. Instantly the three spread boats in the rearpaused on their way. The whales had irregular-ly settled bodily down into the blue, thus giv-ing no distantly discernible token of the move-ment, though from his closer vicinity Ahab hadobserved it.

"Every man look out along his oars!" cried Star-buck. "Thou, Queequeg, stand up!"

Nimbly springing up on the triangular raisedbox in the bow, the savage stood erect there,and with intensely eager eyes gazed off to-wards the spot where the chase had last beendescried. Likewise upon the extreme stern ofthe boat where it was also triangularly plat-formed level with the gunwale, Starbuck him-self was seen coolly and adroitly balancinghimself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a

craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye ofthe sea.

Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lyingbreathlessly still; its commander recklesslystanding upon the top of the loggerhead, astout sort of post rooted in the keel, and risingsome two feet above the level of the stern plat-form. It is used for catching turns with thewhale line. Its top is not more spacious than thepalm of a man's hand, and standing upon sucha base as that, Flask seemed perched at themast-head of some ship which had sunk to allbut her trucks. But little King-Post was smalland short, and at the same time little King-Postwas full of a large and tall ambition, so that thisloggerhead stand-point of his did by no meanssatisfy King-Post.

"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there,and let me on to that."

Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon thegunwale to steady his way, swiftly slid aft, andthen erecting himself volunteered his loftyshoulders for a pedestal.

"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will youmount?"

"That I will, and thank ye very much, my finefellow; only I wish you fifty feet taller."

Whereupon planting his feet firmly against twoopposite planks of the boat, the gigantic negro,stooping a little, presented his flat palm toFlask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand onhis hearse-plumed head and bidding himspring as he himself should toss, with one dex-terous fling landed the little man high and dryon his shoulders. And here was Flask nowstanding, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnish-ing him with a breastband to lean against andsteady himself by.

At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro tosee with what wondrous habitude of uncons-cious skill the whaleman will maintain an erectposture in his boat, even when pitched aboutby the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him gid-dily perched upon the loggerhead itself, undersuch circumstances. But the sight of little Flaskmounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet morecurious; for sustaining himself with a cool, in-different, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty,the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmo-niously rolled his fine form. On his broad back,flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. Thebearer looked nobler than the rider. Thoughtruly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious littleFlask would now and then stamp with impa-tience; but not one added heave did he therebygive to the negro's lordly chest. So have I seenPassion and Vanity stamping the living mag-nanimous earth, but the earth did not alter hertides and her seasons for that.

Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed nosuch far-gazing solicitudes. The whales mighthave made one of their regular soundings, nota temporary dive from mere fright; and if thatwere the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases,it seems, was resolved to solace the languishinginterval with his pipe. He withdrew it from hishatband, where he always wore it aslant like afeather. He loaded it, and rammed home theloading with his thumb-end; but hardly had heignited his match across the rough sandpaperof his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer,whose eyes had been setting to windward liketwo fixed stars, suddenly dropped like lightfrom his erect attitude to his seat, crying out ina quick phrensy of hurry, "Down, down all,and give way!—there they are!"

To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a her-ring, would have been visible at that moment;nothing but a troubled bit of greenish whitewater, and thin scattered puffs of vapour ho-

vering over it, and suffusingly blowing off toleeward, like the confused scud from whiterolling billows. The air around suddenly vi-brated and tingled, as it were, like the air overintensely heated plates of iron. Beneath thisatmospheric waving and curling, and partiallybeneath a thin layer of water, also, the whaleswere swimming. Seen in advance of all the oth-er indications, the puffs of vapour theyspouted, seemed their forerunning couriers anddetached flying outriders.

All four boats were now in keen pursuit of thatone spot of troubled water and air. But it badefair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, as amass of interblending bubbles borne down arapid stream from the hills.

"Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in thelowest possible but intensest concentratedwhisper to his men; while the sharp fixedglance from his eyes darted straight ahead ofthe bow, almost seemed as two visible needles

in two unerring binnacle compasses. He didnot say much to his crew, though, nor did hiscrew say anything to him. Only the silence ofthe boat was at intervals startlingly pierced byone of his peculiar whispers, now harsh withcommand, now soft with entreaty.

How different the loud little King-Post. "Singout and say something, my hearties. Roar andpull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me ontheir black backs, boys; only do that for me, andI'll sign over to you my Martha's Vineyardplantation, boys; including wife and children,boys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord, Lord! butI shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that whitewater!" And so shouting, he pulled his hat fromhis head, and stamped up and down on it; thenpicking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea; andfinally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat'sstern like a crazed colt from the prairie.

"Look at that chap now," philosophicallydrawled Stubb, who, with his unlighted short

pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth,at a short distance, followed after—"He's gotfits, that Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fits—that's the very word—pitch fits into 'em. Merri-ly, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper,you know;—merry's the word. Pull, babes—pull, sucklings—pull, all. But what the devil areyou hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily,my men. Only pull, and keep pulling; nothingmore. Crack all your backbones, and bite yourknives in two—that's all. Take it easy—whydon't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all yourlivers and lungs!"

But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said tothat tiger-yellow crew of his—these werewords best omitted here; for you live under theblessed light of the evangelical land. Only theinfidel sharks in the audacious seas may giveear to such words, when, with tornado brow,and eyes of red murder, and foam-glued lips,Ahab leaped after his prey.

Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeatedspecific allusions of Flask to "that whale," as hecalled the fictitious monster which he declaredto be incessantly tantalizing his boat's bow withits tail—these allusions of his were at times sovivid and life-like, that they would cause someone or two of his men to snatch a fearful lookover the shoulder. But this was against all rule;for the oarsmen must put out their eyes, andram a skewer through their necks; usage pro-nouncing that they must have no organs butears, and no limbs but arms, in these criticalmoments.

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe!The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surg-ing, hollow roar they made, as they rolledalong the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls ina boundless bowling-green; the brief sus-pended agony of the boat, as it would tip for aninstant on the knife-like edge of the sharperwaves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it

in two; the sudden profound dip into the wa-tery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings andgoadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; theheadlong, sled-like slide down its other side;—all these, with the cries of the headsmen andharpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of theoarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivoryPequod bearing down upon her boats with out-stretched sails, like a wild hen after her scream-ing brood;—all this was thrilling.

Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosomof his wife into the fever heat of his first battle;not the dead man's ghost encountering the firstunknown phantom in the other world;—neither of these can feel stranger and strongeremotions than that man does, who for the firsttime finds himself pulling into the charmed,churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.

The dancing white water made by the chasewas now becoming more and more visible, ow-ing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-

shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapourno longer blended, but tilted everywhere toright and left; the whales seemed separatingtheir wakes. The boats were pulled more apart;Starbuck giving chase to three whales runningdead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and,with the still rising wind, we rushed along; theboat going with such madness through the wa-ter, that the lee oars could scarcely be workedrapidly enough to escape being torn from therow-locks.

Soon we were running through a suffusingwide veil of mist; neither ship nor boat to beseen.

"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawingstill further aft the sheet of his sail; "there istime to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.There's white water again!—close to! Spring!"

Soon after, two cries in quick succession oneach side of us denoted that the other boats had

got fast; but hardly were they overheard, whenwith a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbucksaid: "Stand up!" and Queequeg, harpoon inhand, sprang to his feet.

Though not one of the oarsmen was then facingthe life and death peril so close to them ahead,yet with their eyes on the intense countenanceof the mate in the stern of the boat, they knewthat the imminent instant had come; theyheard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as offifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhilethe boat was still booming through the mist,the waves curling and hissing around us likethe erected crests of enraged serpents.

"That's his hump. THERE, THERE, give it tohim!" whispered Starbuck.

A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; itwas the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all inone welded commotion came an invisible pushfrom astern, while forward the boat seemed

striking on a ledge; the sail collapsed and ex-ploded; a gush of scalding vapour shot up nearby; something rolled and tumbled like anearthquake beneath us. The whole crew werehalf suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of thesquall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had allblended together; and the whale, merely grazedby the iron, escaped.

Though completely swamped, the boat wasnearly unharmed. Swimming round it wepicked up the floating oars, and lashing themacross the gunwale, tumbled back to our places.There we sat up to our knees in the sea, thewater covering every rib and plank, so that toour downward gazing eyes the suspended craftseemed a coral boat grown up to us from thebottom of the ocean.

The wind increased to a howl; the wavesdashed their bucklers together; the wholesquall roared, forked, and crackled around us

like a white fire upon the prairie, in which, un-consumed, we were burning; immortal in thesejaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats;as well roar to the live coals down the chimneyof a flaming furnace as hail those boats in thatstorm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, andmist, grew darker with the shadows of night;no sign of the ship could be seen. The rising seaforbade all attempts to bale out the boat. Theoars were useless as propellers, performingnow the office of life-preservers. So, cutting thelashing of the waterproof match keg, aftermany failures Starbuck contrived to ignite thelamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waifpole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat,holding up that imbecile candle in the heart ofthat almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat,the sign and symbol of a man without faith,hopelessly holding up hope in the midst ofdespair.

Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold,despairing of ship or boat, we lifted up oureyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spreadover the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed inthe bottom of the boat. Suddenly Queequegstarted to his feet, hollowing his hand to hisear. We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropesand yards hitherto muffled by the storm. Thesound came nearer and nearer; the thick mistswere dimly parted by a huge, vague form. Af-frighted, we all sprang into the sea as the shipat last loomed into view, bearing right downupon us within a distance of not much morethan its length.

Floating on the waves we saw the abandonedboat, as for one instant it tossed and gaped be-neath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of acataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it,and it was seen no more till it came up welter-ing astern. Again we swam for it, were dashedagainst it by the seas, and were at last taken up

and safely landed on board. Ere the squall cameclose to, the other boats had cut loose fromtheir fish and returned to the ship in good time.The ship had given us up, but was still cruising,if haply it might light upon some token of ourperishing,—an oar or a lance pole.

CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.

There are certain queer times and occasions inthis strange mixed affair we call life when aman takes this whole universe for a vast prac-tical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimlydiscerns, and more than suspects that the jokeis at nobody's expense but his own. However,nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worthwhile disputing. He bolts down all events, allcreeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard

things visible and invisible, never mind howknobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gob-bles down bullets and gun flints. And as forsmall difficulties and worryings, prospects ofsudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these,and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bes-towed by the unseen and unaccountable oldjoker. That odd sort of wayward mood I amspeaking of, comes over a man only in sometime of extreme tribulation; it comes in the verymidst of his earnestness, so that what just be-fore might have seemed to him a thing mostmomentous, now seems but a part of the gen-eral joke. There is nothing like the perils ofwhaling to breed this free and easy sort ofgenial, desperado philosophy; and with it Inow regarded this whole voyage of the Pe-quod, and the great White Whale its object.

"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me,the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking

myself in my jacket to fling off the water;"Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort ofthing often happen?" Without much emotion,though soaked through just like me, he gaveme to understand that such things did oftenhappen.

"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy,who, buttoned up in his oil-jacket, was nowcalmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb,I think I have heard you say that of all whale-men you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Star-buck, is by far the most careful and prudent. Isuppose then, that going plump on a flyingwhale with your sail set in a foggy squall is theheight of a whaleman's discretion?"

"Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leakingship in a gale off Cape Horn."

"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post,who was standing close by; "you are expe-rienced in these things, and I am not. Will you

tell me whether it is an unalterable law in thisfishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break hisown back pulling himself back-foremost intodeath's jaws?"

"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes,that's the law. I should like to see a boat's crewbacking water up to a whale face foremost. Ha,ha! the whale would give them squint forsquint, mind that!"

Here then, from three impartial witnesses, Ihad a deliberate statement of the entire case.Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsiz-ings in the water and consequent bivouacks onthe deep, were matters of common occurrencein this kind of life; considering that at the su-perlatively critical instant of going on to thewhale I must resign my life into the hands ofhim who steered the boat—oftentimes a fellowwho at that very moment is in his impetuous-ness upon the point of scuttling the craft withhis own frantic stampings; considering that the

particular disaster to our own particular boatwas chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's drivingon to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall,and considering that Starbuck, notwithstand-ing, was famous for his great heedfulness in thefishery; considering that I belonged to this un-commonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finallyconsidering in what a devil's chase I was impli-cated, touching the White Whale: taking allthings together, I say, I thought I might as wellgo below and make a rough draft of my will."Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall bemy lawyer, executor, and legatee."

It may seem strange that of all men sailorsshould be tinkering at their last wills and tes-taments, but there are no people in the worldmore fond of that diversion. This was thefourth time in my nautical life that I had donethe same thing. After the ceremony was con-cluded upon the present occasion, I felt all theeasier; a stone was rolled away from my heart.

Besides, all the days I should now live wouldbe as good as the days that Lazarus lived afterhis resurrection; a supplementary clean gain ofso many months or weeks as the case might be.I survived myself; my death and burial werelocked up in my chest. I looked round me tran-quilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with aclean conscience sitting inside the bars of asnug family vault.

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling upthe sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool,collected dive at death and destruction, and thedevil fetch the hindmost.

CHAPTER 50. Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fe-dallah.

"Who would have thought it, Flask!" criedStubb; "if I had but one leg you would not catchme in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderfulold man!"

"I don't think it so strange, after all, on that ac-count," said Flask. "If his leg were off at the hip,now, it would be a different thing. That woulddisable him; but he has one knee, and good partof the other left, you know."

"I don't know that, my little man; I never yetsaw him kneel."

Among whale-wise people it has often beenargued whether, considering the paramountimportance of his life to the success of thevoyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeo-

pardize that life in the active perils of the chase.So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tearsin their eyes, whether that invaluable life of hisought to be carried into the thickest of the fight.

But with Ahab the question assumed a mod-ified aspect. Considering that with two legsman is but a hobbling wight in all times ofdanger; considering that the pursuit of whalesis always under great and extraordinary diffi-culties; that every individual moment, indeed,then comprises a peril; under these circums-tances is it wise for any maimed man to enter awhale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, thejoint-owners of the Pequod must have plainlythought not.

Ahab well knew that although his friends athome would think little of his entering a boat incertain comparatively harmless vicissitudes ofthe chase, for the sake of being near the scene ofaction and giving his orders in person, yet forCaptain Ahab to have a boat actually appor-

tioned to him as a regular headsman in thehunt—above all for Captain Ahab to be sup-plied with five extra men, as that same boat'screw, he well knew that such generous conceitsnever entered the heads of the owners of thePequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat'screw from them, nor had he in any way hintedhis desires on that head. Nevertheless he hadtaken private measures of his own touching allthat matter. Until Cabaco's published discov-ery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though tobe sure when, after being a little while out ofport, all hands had concluded the customarybusiness of fitting the whaleboats for service;when some time after this Ahab was now andthen found bestirring himself in the matter ofmaking thole-pins with his own hands for whatwas thought to be one of the spare boats, andeven solicitously cutting the small woodenskewers, which when the line is running outare pinned over the groove in the bow: whenall this was observed in him, and particularly

his solicitude in having an extra coat of sheath-ing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make itbetter withstand the pointed pressure of hisivory limb; and also the anxiety he evinced inexactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsycleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontalpiece in the boat's bow for bracing the kneeagainst in darting or stabbing at the whale;when it was observed how often he stood up inthat boat with his solitary knee fixed in thesemi-circular depression in the cleat, and withthe carpenter's chisel gouged out a little hereand straightened it a little there; all thesethings, I say, had awakened much interest andcuriosity at the time. But almost everybodysupposed that this particular preparative heed-fulness in Ahab must only be with a view to theultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had al-ready revealed his intention to hunt that mortalmonster in person. But such a supposition didby no means involve the remotest suspicion asto any boat's crew being assigned to that boat.

Now, with the subordinate phantoms, whatwonder remained soon waned away; for in awhaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now andthen such unaccountable odds and ends ofstrange nations come up from the unknownnooks and ash-holes of the earth to man thesefloating outlaws of whalers; and the shipsthemselves often pick up such queer castawaycreatures found tossing about the open sea onplanks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes,blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; thatBeelzebub himself might climb up the side andstep down into the cabin to chat with the cap-tain, and it would not create any unsubduableexcitement in the forecastle.

But be all this as it may, certain it is that whilethe subordinate phantoms soon found theirplace among the crew, though still as it weresomehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mysteryto the last. Whence he came in a mannerly

world like this, by what sort of unaccountabletie he soon evinced himself to be linked withAhab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to havesome sort of a half-hinted influence; Heavenknows, but it might have been even authorityover him; all this none knew. But one cannotsustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah.He was such a creature as civilized, domesticpeople in the temperate zone only see in theirdreams, and that but dimly; but the like ofwhom now and then glide among the unchang-ing Asiatic communities, especially the Orientalisles to the east of the continent—those insu-lated, immemorial, unalterable countries,which even in these modern days still preservemuch of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth'sprimal generations, when the memory of thefirst man was a distinct recollection, and allmen his descendants, unknowing whence hecame, eyed each other as real phantoms, andasked of the sun and the moon why they werecreated and to what end; when though, accord-

ing to Genesis, the angels indeed consortedwith the daughters of men, the devils also, addthe uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundaneamours.

CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout.

Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, theivory Pequod had slowly swept across fourseveral cruising-grounds; that off the Azores;off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called),being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; andthe Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locali-ty, southerly from St. Helena.

It was while gliding through these latter watersthat one serene and moonlight night, when allthe waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and,

by their soft, suffusing seethings, made whatseemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on sucha silent night a silvery jet was seen far in ad-vance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit upby the moon, it looked celestial; seemed someplumed and glittering god uprising from thesea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of thesemoonlight nights, it was his wont to mount tothe main-mast head, and stand a look-out there,with the same precision as if it had been day.And yet, though herds of whales were seen bynight, not one whaleman in a hundred wouldventure a lowering for them. You may thinkwith what emotions, then, the seamen beheldthis old Oriental perched aloft at such unusualhours; his turban and the moon, companions inone sky. But when, after spending his uniforminterval there for several successive nightswithout uttering a single sound; when, after allthis silence, his unearthly voice was heard an-nouncing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclin-ing mariner started to his feet as if some

winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, andhailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Hadthe trump of judgment blown, they could nothave quivered more; yet still they felt no terror;rather pleasure. For though it was a most un-wonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry,and so deliriously exciting, that almost everysoul on board instinctively desired a lowering.

Walking the deck with quick, side-lungingstrides, Ahab commanded the t'gallant sailsand royals to be set, and every stunsail spread.The best man in the ship must take the helm.Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. Thestrange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taf-frail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails,made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like airbeneath the feet; while still she rushed along, asif two antagonistic influences were strugglingin her—one to mount direct to heaven, the oth-er to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal.

And had you watched Ahab's face that night,you would have thought that in him also twodifferent things were warring. While his onelive leg made lively echoes along the deck,every stroke of his dead limb sounded like acoffin-tap. On life and death this old manwalked. But though the ship so swiftly sped,and though from every eye, like arrows, theeager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was nomore seen that night. Every sailor swore he sawit once, but not a second time.

This midnight-spout had almost grown a for-gotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at thesame silent hour, it was again announced:again it was descried by all; but upon makingsail to overtake it, once more it disappeared asif it had never been. And so it served us nightafter night, till no one heeded it but to wonderat it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moon-light, or starlight, as the case might be; disap-pearing again for one whole day, or two days,

or three; and somehow seeming at every dis-tinct repetition to be advancing still further andfurther in our van, this solitary jet seemed forever alluring us on.

Nor with the immemorial superstition of theirrace, and in accordance with the preternatural-ness, as it seemed, which in many things in-vested the Pequod, were there wanting some ofthe seamen who swore that whenever andwherever descried; at however remote times, orin however far apart latitudes and longitudes,that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For atime, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiardread at this flitting apparition, as if it weretreacherously beckoning us on and on, in orderthat the monster might turn round upon us,and rend us at last in the remotest and mostsavage seas.

These temporary apprehensions, so vague butso awful, derived a wondrous potency from the

contrasting serenity of the weather, in which,beneath all its blue blandness, some thoughtthere lurked a devilish charm, as for days anddays we voyaged along, through seas so weari-ly, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repug-nance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacatingitself of life before our urn-like prow.

But, at last, when turning to the eastward, theCape winds began howling around us, and werose and fell upon the long, troubled seas thatare there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharp-ly bowed to the blast, and gored the darkwaves in her madness, till, like showers of sil-ver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bul-warks; then all this desolate vacuity of life wentaway, but gave place to sights more dismalthan before.

Close to our bows, strange forms in the waterdarted hither and thither before us; while thickin our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. Andevery morning, perched on our stays, rows of

these birds were seen; and spite of our hoot-ings, for a long time obstinately clung to thehemp, as though they deemed our ship somedrifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed todesolation, and therefore fit roosting-place fortheir homeless selves. And heaved and heaved,still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if itsvast tides were a conscience; and the greatmundane soul were in anguish and remorse forthe long sin and suffering it had bred.

Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? RatherCape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for longallured by the perfidious silences that beforehad attended us, we found ourselves launchedinto this tormented sea, where guilty beingstransformed into those fowls and these fish,seemed condemned to swim on everlastinglywithout any haven in store, or beat that blackair without any horizon. But calm, snow-white,and unvarying; still directing its fountain offeathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from

before, the solitary jet would at times be de-scried.

During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab,though assuming for the time the almost conti-nual command of the drenched and dangerousdeck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; andmore seldom than ever addressed his mates. Intempestuous times like these, after everythingabove and aloft has been secured, nothing morecan be done but passively to await the issue ofthe gale. Then Captain and crew become prac-tical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted intoits accustomed hole, and with one hand firmlygrasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hourswould stand gazing dead to windward, whilean occasional squall of sleet or snow would allbut congeal his very eyelashes together. Mean-time, the crew driven from the forward part ofthe ship by the perilous seas that burstinglybroke over its bows, stood in a line along thebulwarks in the waist; and the better to guard

against the leaping waves, each man hadslipped himself into a sort of bowline securedto the rail, in which he swung as in a loosenedbelt. Few or no words were spoken; and thesilent ship, as if manned by painted sailors inwax, day after day tore on through all the swiftmadness and gladness of the demoniac waves.By night the same muteness of humanity beforethe shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in si-lence the men swung in the bowlines; stillwordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Evenwhen wearied nature seemed demanding re-pose he would not seek that repose in hishammock. Never could Starbuck forget the oldman's aspect, when one night going down intothe cabin to mark how the barometer stood, hesaw him with closed eyes sitting straight in hisfloor-screwed chair; the rain and half-meltedsleet of the storm from which he had some timebefore emerged, still slowly dripping from theunremoved hat and coat. On the table besidehim lay unrolled one of those charts of tides

and currents which have previously been spo-ken of. His lantern swung from his tightlyclenched hand. Though the body was erect, thehead was thrown back so that the closed eyeswere pointed towards the needle of the tell-talethat swung from a beam in the ceiling.*

*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, be-cause without going to the compass at thehelm, the Captain, while below, can informhimself of the course of the ship.

Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with ashudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou stead-fastly eyest thy purpose.

CHAPTER 52. The Albatross.

South-eastward from the Cape, off the distantCrozetts, a good cruising ground for RightWhalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney(Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh,from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, Ihad a good view of that sight so remarkable toa tyro in the far ocean fisheries—a whaler atsea, and long absent from home.

As if the waves had been fullers, this craft wasbleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus.All down her sides, this spectral appearancewas traced with long channels of reddenedrust, while all her spars and her rigging werelike the thick branches of trees furred over withhoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. Awild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemedclad in the skins of beasts, so torn and be-

patched the raiment that had survived nearlyfour years of cruising. Standing in iron hoopsnailed to the mast, they swayed and swungover a fathomless sea; and though, when theship slowly glided close under our stern, we sixmen in the air came so nigh to each other thatwe might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet,those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeingus as they passed, said not one word to ourown look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail wasbeing heard from below.

"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?"

But as the strange captain, leaning over thepallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting histrumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from hishand into the sea; and the wind now risingamain, he in vain strove to make himself heardwithout it. Meantime his ship was still increas-ing the distance between. While in various si-lent ways the seamen of the Pequod were

evincing their observance of this ominous inci-dent at the first mere mention of the WhiteWhale's name to another ship, Ahab for a mo-ment paused; it almost seemed as though hewould have lowered a boat to board the stran-ger, had not the threatening wind forbade. Buttaking advantage of his windward position, heagain seized his trumpet, and knowing by heraspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantuck-eter and shortly bound home, he loudlyhailed—"Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, boundround the world! Tell them to address all futureletters to the Pacific ocean! and this time threeyears, if I am not at home, tell them to addressthem to—"

At that moment the two wakes were fairlycrossed, and instantly, then, in accordance withtheir singular ways, shoals of small harmlessfish, that for some days before had been placid-ly swimming by our side, darted away withwhat seemed shuddering fins, and ranged

themselves fore and aft with the stranger'sflanks. Though in the course of his continualvoyagings Ahab must often before have noticeda similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man,the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.

"Swim away from me, do ye?" murmuredAhab, gazing over into the water. Thereseemed but little in the words, but the toneconveyed more of deep helpless sadness thanthe insane old man had ever before evinced.But turning to the steersman, who thus far hadbeen holding the ship in the wind to diminishher headway, he cried out in his old lionvoice,—"Up helm! Keep her off round theworld!"

Round the world! There is much in that soundto inspire proud feelings; but whereto does allthat circumnavigation conduct? Only throughnumberless perils to the very point whence westarted, where those that we left behind secure,were all the time before us.

Were this world an endless plain, and by sail-ing eastward we could for ever reach new dis-tances, and discover sights more sweet andstrange than any Cyclades or Islands of KingSolomon, then there were promise in thevoyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries wedream of, or in tormented chase of that demonphantom that, some time or other, swims be-fore all human hearts; while chasing such overthis round globe, they either lead us on in bar-ren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.

CHAPTER 53. The Gam.

The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go onboard of the whaler we had spoken was this:the wind and sea betokened storms. But evenhad this not been the case, he would not after

all, perhaps, have boarded her—judging by hissubsequent conduct on similar occasions—if soit had been that, by the process of hailing, hehad obtained a negative answer to the questionhe put. For, as it eventually turned out, hecared not to consort, even for five minutes, withany stranger captain, except he could contri-bute some of that information he so absorbing-ly sought. But all this might remain inadequate-ly estimated, were not something said here ofthe peculiar usages of whaling-vessels whenmeeting each other in foreign seas, and espe-cially on a common cruising-ground.

If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens inNew York State, or the equally desolate Salis-bury Plain in England; if casually encounteringeach other in such inhospitable wilds, thesetwain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid amutual salutation; and stopping for a momentto interchange the news; and, perhaps, sittingdown for a while and resting in concert: then,

how much more natural that upon the illimita-ble Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea,two whaling vessels descrying each other at theends of the earth—off lone Fanning's Island, orthe far away King's Mills; how much more nat-ural, I say, that under such circumstances theseships should not only interchange hails, butcome into still closer, more friendly and socia-ble contact. And especially would this seem tobe a matter of course, in the case of vesselsowned in one seaport, and whose captains,officers, and not a few of the men are personal-ly known to each other; and consequently, haveall sorts of dear domestic things to talk about.

For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder,perhaps, has letters on board; at any rate, shewill be sure to let her have some papers of adate a year or two later than the last one on herblurred and thumb-worn files. And in returnfor that courtesy, the outward-bound shipwould receive the latest whaling intelligence

from the cruising-ground to which she may bedestined, a thing of the utmost importance toher. And in degree, all this will hold true con-cerning whaling vessels crossing each other'strack on the cruising-ground itself, even thoughthey are equally long absent from home. Forone of them may have received a transfer ofletters from some third, and now far remotevessel; and some of those letters may be for thepeople of the ship she now meets. Besides, theywould exchange the whaling news, and havean agreeable chat. For not only would theymeet with all the sympathies of sailors, butlikewise with all the peculiar congenialitiesarising from a common pursuit and mutuallyshared privations and perils.

Nor would difference of country make anyvery essential difference; that is, so long as bothparties speak one language, as is the case withAmericans and English. Though, to be sure,from the small number of English whalers,

such meetings do not very often occur, andwhen they do occur there is too apt to be a sortof shyness between them; for your Englishmanis rather reserved, and your Yankee, he doesnot fancy that sort of thing in anybody buthimself. Besides, the English whalers some-times affect a kind of metropolitan superiorityover the American whalers; regarding the long,lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provin-cialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where thissuperiority in the English whalemen does real-ly consist, it would be hard to say, seeing thatthe Yankees in one day, collectively, kill morewhales than all the English, collectively, in tenyears. But this is a harmless little foible in theEnglish whale-hunters, which the Nantucketerdoes not take much to heart; probably, becausehe knows that he has a few foibles himself.

So, then, we see that of all ships separately sail-ing the sea, the whalers have most reason to besociable—and they are so. Whereas, some mer-

chant ships crossing each other's wake in themid-Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on withoutso much as a single word of recognition, mu-tually cutting each other on the high seas, like abrace of dandies in Broadway; and all the timeindulging, perhaps, in finical criticism uponeach other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when theychance to meet at sea, they first go throughsuch a string of silly bowings and scrapings,such a ducking of ensigns, that there does notseem to be much right-down hearty good-willand brotherly love about it at all. As touchingSlave-ships meeting, why, they are in such aprodigious hurry, they run away from eachother as soon as possible. And as for Pirates,when they chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is—"How many skulls?"—the same way that whalers hail—"How manybarrels?" And that question once answered,pirates straightway steer apart, for they areinfernal villains on both sides, and don't like to

see overmuch of each other's villanous like-nesses.

But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious,hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler!What does the whaler do when she meetsanother whaler in any sort of decent weather?She has a "GAM," a thing so utterly unknownto all other ships that they never heard of thename even; and if by chance they should hearof it, they only grin at it, and repeat gamesomestuff about "spouters" and "blubber-boilers,"and such like pretty exclamations. Why it isthat all Merchant-seamen, and also all Piratesand Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors,cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to an-swer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, Ishould like to know whether that profession oftheirs has any peculiar glory about it. It some-times ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; butonly at the gallows. And besides, when a man

is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no prop-er foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, Iconclude, that in boasting himself to be highlifted above a whaleman, in that assertion thepirate has no solid basis to stand on.

But what is a GAM? You might wear out yourindex-finger running up and down the columnsof dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr.Johnson never attained to that erudition; NoahWebster's ark does not hold it. Nevertheless,this same expressive word has now for manyyears been in constant use among some fifteenthousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needsa definition, and should be incorporated intothe Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedlydefine it.

GAM. NOUN—A SOCIAL MEETING OFTWO (OR MORE) WHALESHIPS, GENERAL-LY ON A CRUISING-GROUND; WHEN, AF-TER EXCHANGING HAILS, THEY EX-CHANGE VISITS BY BOATS' CREWS; THE

TWO CAPTAINS REMAINING, FOR THETIME, ON BOARD OF ONE SHIP, AND THETWO CHIEF MATES ON THE OTHER.

There is another little item about Gammingwhich must not be forgotten here. All profes-sions have their own little peculiarities of de-tail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when the captain isrowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits inthe stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimescushioned seat there, and often steers himselfwith a pretty little milliner's tiller decoratedwith gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boathas no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatev-er, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, ifwhaling captains were wheeled about the wa-ter on castors like gouty old aldermen in patentchairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat neveradmits of any such effeminacy; and therefore asin gamming a complete boat's crew must leavethe ship, and hence as the boat steerer or har-

pooneer is of the number, that subordinate isthe steersman upon the occasion, and the cap-tain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off tohis visit all standing like a pine tree. And oftenyou will notice that being conscious of the eyesof the whole visible world resting on him fromthe sides of the two ships, this standing captainis all alive to the importance of sustaining hisdignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this anyvery easy matter; for in his rear is the immenseprojecting steering oar hitting him now andthen in the small of his back, the after-oar reci-procating by rapping his knees in front. He isthus completely wedged before and behind,and can only expand himself sideways by set-tling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden,violent pitch of the boat will often go far totopple him, because length of foundation isnothing without corresponding breadth. Mere-ly make a spread angle of two poles, and youcannot stand them up. Then, again, it wouldnever do in plain sight of the world's riveted

eyes, it would never do, I say, for this strad-dling captain to be seen steadying himself theslightest particle by catching hold of anythingwith his hands; indeed, as token of his entire,buoyant self-command, he generally carries hishands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhapsbeing generally very large, heavy hands, hecarries them there for ballast. Neverthelessthere have occurred instances, well authenti-cated ones too, where the captain has beenknown for an uncommonly critical moment ortwo, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold ofthe nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on therelike grim death.

CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story.

(AS TOLD AT THE GOLDEN INN)

The Cape of Good Hope, and all the wateryregion round about there, is much like somenoted four corners of a great highway, whereyou meet more travellers than in any otherpart.

It was not very long after speaking the Goneythat another homeward-bound whaleman, theTown-Ho,* was encountered. She was mannedalmost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gamthat ensued she gave us strong news of MobyDick. To some the general interest in the WhiteWhale was now wildly heightened by a cir-cumstance of the Town-Ho's story, whichseemed obscurely to involve with the whale acertain wondrous, inverted visitation of one ofthose so called judgments of God which attimes are said to overtake some men. This lattercircumstance, with its own particular accom-paniments, forming what may be called thesecret part of the tragedy about to be narrated,never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his

mates. For that secret part of the story was un-known to the captain of the Town-Ho himself.It was the private property of three confederatewhite seamen of that ship, one of whom, itseems, communicated it to Tashtego with Ro-mish injunctions of secrecy, but the followingnight Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and re-vealed so much of it in that way, that when hewas wakened he could not well withhold therest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence didthis thing have on those seamen in the Pequodwho came to the full knowledge of it, and bysuch a strange delicacy, to call it so, were theygoverned in this matter, that they kept the se-cret among themselves so that it never trans-pired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweav-ing in its proper place this darker thread withthe story as publicly narrated on the ship, thewhole of this strange affair I now proceed toput on lasting record.

*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting awhale from the mast-head, still used bywhalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagosterrapin.

For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the stylein which I once narrated it at Lima, to a loung-ing circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve,smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of theGolden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the youngDons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closerterms with me; and hence the interluding ques-tions they occasionally put, and which are dulyanswered at the time.

"Some two years prior to my first learning theevents which I am about rehearsing to you,gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler ofNantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here,not very many days' sail eastward from theeaves of this good Golden Inn. She was some-where to the northward of the Line. One morn-ing upon handling the pumps, according to

daily usage, it was observed that she mademore water in her hold than common. Theysupposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gen-tlemen. But the captain, having some unusualreason for believing that rare good luckawaited him in those latitudes; and thereforebeing very averse to quit them, and the leak notbeing then considered at all dangerous, though,indeed, they could not find it after searchingthe hold as low down as was possible in ratherheavy weather, the ship still continued hercruisings, the mariners working at the pumpsat wide and easy intervals; but no good luckcame; more days went by, and not only was theleak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased.So much so, that now taking some alarm, thecaptain, making all sail, stood away for thenearest harbor among the islands, there to havehis hull hove out and repaired.

"Though no small passage was before her, yet,if the commonest chance favoured, he did not

at all fear that his ship would founder by theway, because his pumps were of the best, andbeing periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the shipfree; never mind if the leak should double onher. In truth, well nigh the whole of this pas-sage being attended by very prosperous breez-es, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived inperfect safety at her port without the occur-rence of the least fatality, had it not been for thebrutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vi-neyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeanceof Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado fromBuffalo.

"'Lakeman!—Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman,and where is Buffalo?' said Don Sebastian, ris-ing in his swinging mat of grass.

"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don;but—I crave your courtesy—may be, you shallsoon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen,in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships,

well-nigh as large and stout as any that eversailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla; thisLakeman, in the land-locked heart of ourAmerica, had yet been nurtured by all thoseagrarian freebooting impressions popularlyconnected with the open ocean. For in theirinterflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-waterseas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron,and Superior, and Michigan,—possess anocean-like expansiveness, with many of theocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmedvarieties of races and of climes. They containround archipelagoes of romantic isles, even asthe Polynesian waters do; in large part, areshored by two great contrasting nations, as theAtlantic is; they furnish long maritime ap-proaches to our numerous territorial coloniesfrom the East, dotted all round their banks;here and there are frowned upon by batteries,and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mack-inaw; they have heard the fleet thunderings ofnaval victories; at intervals, they yield their

beaches to wild barbarians, whose red paintedfaces flash from out their peltry wigwams; forleagues and leagues are flanked by ancient andunentered forests, where the gaunt pines standlike serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies;those same woods harboring wild Afric beastsof prey, and silken creatures whose exportedfurs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirrorthe paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, aswell as Winnebago villages; they float alike thefull-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser ofthe State, the steamer, and the beech canoe;they are swept by Borean and dismasting blastsas direful as any that lash the salted wave; theyknow what shipwrecks are, for out of sight ofland, however inland, they have drowned fullmany a midnight ship with all its shriekingcrew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander,Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-oceannurtured; as much of an audacious mariner asany. And for Radney, though in his infancy hemay have laid him down on the lone Nantucket

beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though inafter life he had long followed our austere At-lantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet washe quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel asthe backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudesof buck-horn handled bowie-knives. Yet wasthis Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner,who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet byinflexible firmness, only tempered by thatcommon decency of human recognition whichis the meanest slave's right; thus treated, thisSteelkilt had long been retained harmless anddocile. At all events, he had proved so thus far;but Radney was doomed and made mad, andSteelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

"It was not more than a day or two at the fur-thest after pointing her prow for her island ha-ven, that the Town-Ho's leak seemed againincreasing, but only so as to require an hour ormore at the pumps every day. You must know

that in a settled and civilized ocean like ourAtlantic, for example, some skippers think littleof pumping their whole way across it; thoughof a still, sleepy night, should the officer of thedeck happen to forget his duty in that respect,the probability would be that he and his ship-mates would never again remember it, on ac-count of all hands gently subsiding to the bot-tom. Nor in the solitary and savage seas farfrom you to the westward, gentlemen, is it al-together unusual for ships to keep clanging attheir pump-handles in full chorus even for avoyage of considerable length; that is, if it liealong a tolerably accessible coast, or if any oth-er reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is onlywhen a leaky vessel is in some very out of theway part of those waters, some really landlesslatitude, that her captain begins to feel a littleanxious.

"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho;so when her leak was found gaining once more,

there was in truth some small concern mani-fested by several of her company; especially byRadney the mate. He commanded the uppersails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew,and every way expanded to the breeze. Nowthis Radney, I suppose, was as little of a co-ward, and as little inclined to any sort of nerv-ous apprehensiveness touching his own personas any fearless, unthinking creature on land oron sea that you can conveniently imagine, gen-tlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this solici-tude about the safety of the ship, some of theseamen declared that it was only on account ofhis being a part owner in her. So when theywere working that evening at the pumps, therewas on this head no small gamesomeness slilygoing on among them, as they stood with theirfeet continually overflowed by the ripplingclear water; clear as any mountain spring, gen-tlemen—that bubbling from the pumps ranacross the deck, and poured itself out in steadyspouts at the lee scupper-holes.

"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom thecase in this conventional world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placedin command over his fellow-men finds one ofthem to be very significantly his superior ingeneral pride of manhood, straightway againstthat man he conceives an unconquerable dislikeand bitterness; and if he have a chance he willpull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower,and make a little heap of dust of it. Be this con-ceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all eventsSteelkilt was a tall and noble animal with ahead like a Roman, and a flowing golden beardlike the tasseled housings of your last viceroy'ssnorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, anda soul in him, gentlemen, which had madeSteelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son toCharlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate,was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn,as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, andSteelkilt knew it.

"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toil-ing at the pump with the rest, the Lakemanaffected not to notice him, but unawed, wenton with his gay banterings.

"'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this;hold a cannikin, one of ye, and let's have ataste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell yewhat, men, old Rad's investment must go for it!he had best cut away his part of the hull andtow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fishonly began the job; he's come back again with agang of ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish,and what not; and the whole posse of 'em arenow hard at work cutting and slashing at thebottom; making improvements, I suppose. Ifold Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jumpoverboard and scatter 'em. They're playing thedevil with his estate, I can tell him. But he's asimple old soul,—Rad, and a beauty too. Boys,they say the rest of his property is invested in

looking-glasses. I wonder if he'd give a poordevil like me the model of his nose.'

"'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stoppingfor?' roared Radney, pretending not to haveheard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!'

"'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket.'Lively, boys, lively, now!' And with that thepump clanged like fifty fire-engines; the mentossed their hats off to it, and ere long that pe-culiar gasping of the lungs was heard whichdenotes the fullest tension of life's utmost ener-gies.

"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of hisband, the Lakeman went forward all panting,and sat himself down on the windlass; his facefiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping theprofuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozen-ing fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessedRadney to meddle with such a man in that cor-poreally exasperated state, I know not; but so it

happened. Intolerably striding along the deck,the mate commanded him to get a broom andsweep down the planks, and also a shovel, andremove some offensive matters consequentupon allowing a pig to run at large.

"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at seais a piece of household work which in all timesbut raging gales is regularly attended to everyevening; it has been known to be done in thecase of ships actually foundering at the time.Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness inseamen; some of whom would not willinglydrown without first washing their faces. But inall vessels this broom business is the prescrip-tive province of the boys, if boys there beaboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in theTown-Ho that had been divided into gangs,taking turns at the pumps; and being the mostathletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had beenregularly assigned captain of one of the gangs;

consequently he should have been freed fromany trivial business not connected with trulynautical duties, such being the case with hiscomrades. I mention all these particulars so thatyou may understand exactly how this affairstood between the two men.

"But there was more than this: the order aboutthe shovel was almost as plainly meant to stingand insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spatin his face. Any man who has gone sailor in awhale-ship will understand this; and all thisand doubtless much more, the Lakeman fullycomprehended when the mate uttered hiscommand. But as he sat still for a moment, andas he steadfastly looked into the mate's malig-nant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-matchsilently burning along towards them; as he in-stinctively saw all this, that strange forbearanceand unwillingness to stir up the deeper passio-nateness in any already ireful being—a repug-

nance most felt, when felt at all, by really va-liant men even when aggrieved—this namelessphantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steel-kilt.

"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a littlebroken by the bodily exhaustion he was tempo-rarily in, he answered him saying that sweep-ing the deck was not his business, and hewould not do it. And then, without at all allud-ing to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as thecustomary sweepers; who, not being billeted atthe pumps, had done little or nothing all day.To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a mostdomineering and outrageous manner uncondi-tionally reiterating his command; meanwhileadvancing upon the still seated Lakeman, withan uplifted cooper's club hammer which he hadsnatched from a cask near by.

"Heated and irritated as he was by his spas-modic toil at the pumps, for all his first name-less feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt

could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; butsomehow still smothering the conflagrationwithin him, without speaking he remaineddoggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the in-censed Radney shook the hammer within a fewinches of his face, furiously commanding himto do his bidding.

"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round thewindlass, steadily followed by the mate withhis menacing hammer, deliberately repeatedhis intention not to obey. Seeing, however, thathis forbearance had not the slightest effect, byan awful and unspeakable intimation with histwisted hand he warned off the foolish andinfatuated man; but it was to no purpose. Andin this way the two went once slowly round thewindlass; when, resolved at last no longer toretreat, bethinking him that he had now for-borne as much as comported with his humor,the Lakeman paused on the hatches and thusspoke to the officer:

"'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take thathammer away, or look to yourself.' But thepredestinated mate coming still closer to him,where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook theheavy hammer within an inch of his teeth;meanwhile repeating a string of insufferablemaledictions. Retreating not the thousandthpart of an inch; stabbing him in the eye with theunflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt,clenching his right hand behind him and cree-pingly drawing it back, told his persecutor thatif the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steel-kilt) would murder him. But, gentlemen, thefool had been branded for the slaughter by thegods. Immediately the hammer touched thecheek; the next instant the lower jaw of themate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatchspouting blood like a whale.

"Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shakingone of the backstays leading far aloft to where

two of his comrades were standing their mast-heads. They were both Canallers.

"'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seenmany whale-ships in our harbours, but neverheard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and whatare they?'

"'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging toour grand Erie Canal. You must have heard ofit.'

"'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm,most lazy, and hereditary land, we know butlittle of your vigorous North.'

"'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chi-cha's very fine; and ere proceeding further Iwill tell ye what our Canallers are; for suchinformation may throw side-light upon mystory.'

"For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen,through the entire breadth of the state of NewYork; through numerous populous cities andmost thriving villages; through long, dismal,uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivatedfields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-roomand bar-room; through the holy-of-holies ofgreat forests; on Roman arches over Indian riv-ers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts orbroken; through all the wide contrasting sce-nery of those noble Mohawk counties; and es-pecially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whosespires stand almost like milestones, flows onecontinual stream of Venetianly corrupt andoften lawless life. There's your true Ashantee,gentlemen; there howl your pagans; where youever find them, next door to you; under thelong-flung shadow, and the snug patronisinglee of churches. For by some curious fatality, asit is often noted of your metropolitan freeboo-ters that they ever encamp around the halls of

justice, so sinners, gentlemen, most abound inholiest vicinities.

"'Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, look-ing downwards into the crowded plazza, withhumorous concern.

"'Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella'sInquisition wanes in Lima,' laughed Don Sebas-tian. 'Proceed, Senor.'

"'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the com-pany. 'In the name of all us Limeese, I but de-sire to express to you, sir sailor, that we haveby no means overlooked your delicacy in notsubstituting present Lima for distant Venice inyour corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow andlook surprised; you know the proverb all alongthis coast—"Corrupt as Lima." It but bears outyour saying, too; churches more plentiful thanbilliard-tables, and for ever open—and "Cor-rupt as Lima." So, too, Venice; I have beenthere; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St.

Mark!—St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup!Thanks: here I refill; now, you pour out again.'

"Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentle-men, the Canaller would make a fine dramatichero, so abundantly and picturesquely wickedis he. Like Mark Antony, for days and daysalong his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indo-lently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thighupon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effe-minacy is dashed. The brigandish guise whichthe Canaller so proudly sports; his slouchedand gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand fea-tures. A terror to the smiling innocence of thevillages through which he floats; his swart vi-sage and bold swagger are not unshunned incities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, Ihave received good turns from one of theseCanallers; I thank him heartily; would fain benot ungrateful; but it is often one of the primeredeeming qualities of your man of violence,

that at times he has as stiff an arm to back apoor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a weal-thy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildnessof this canal life is, is emphatically evinced bythis; that our wild whale-fishery contains somany of its most finished graduates, and thatscarce any race of mankind, except Sydneymen, are so much distrusted by our whalingcaptains. Nor does it at all diminish the cu-riousness of this matter, that to many thou-sands of our rural boys and young men bornalong its line, the probationary life of the GrandCanal furnishes the sole transition betweenquietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, andrecklessly ploughing the waters of the mostbarbaric seas.

"'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pe-dro, spilling his chicha upon his silvery ruffles.'No need to travel! The world's one Lima. I hadthought, now, that at your temperate North the

generations were cold and holy as the hills.—But the story.'

"I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shookthe backstay. Hardly had he done so, when hewas surrounded by the three junior mates andthe four harpooneers, who all crowded him tothe deck. But sliding down the ropes like bale-ful comets, the two Canallers rushed into theuproar, and sought to drag their man out of ittowards the forecastle. Others of the sailorsjoined with them in this attempt, and a twistedturmoil ensued; while standing out of harm'sway, the valiant captain danced up and downwith a whale-pike, calling upon his officers tomanhandle that atrocious scoundrel, andsmoke him along to the quarter-deck. At inter-vals, he ran close up to the revolving border ofthe confusion, and prying into the heart of itwith his pike, sought to prick out the object ofhis resentment. But Steelkilt and his despera-does were too much for them all; they suc-

ceeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where,hastily slewing about three or four large casksin a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisiansentrenched themselves behind the barricade.

"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the cap-tain, now menacing them with a pistol in eachhand, just brought to him by the steward.'Come out of that, ye cut-throats!'

"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and stridingup and down there, defied the worst the pistolscould do; but gave the captain to understanddistinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would bethe signal for a murderous mutiny on the partof all hands. Fearing in his heart lest this mightprove but too true, the captain a little desisted,but still commanded the insurgents instantly toreturn to their duty.

"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?'demanded their ringleader.

"'Turn to! turn to!—I make no promise;—toyour duty! Do you want to sink the ship, byknocking off at a time like this? Turn to!' and heonce more raised a pistol.

"'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let hersink. Not a man of us turns to, unless youswear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. Whatsay ye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fiercecheer was their response.

"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, allthe while keeping his eye on the Captain, andjerking out such sentences as these:—'It's notour fault; we didn't want it; I told him to takehis hammer away; it was boy's business; hemight have known me before this; I told himnot to prick the buffalo; I believe I have brokena finger here against his cursed jaw; ain't thosemincing knives down in the forecastle there,men? look to those handspikes, my hearties.Captain, by God, look to yourself; say theword; don't be a fool; forget it all; we are ready

to turn to; treat us decently, and we're yourmen; but we won't be flogged.'

"'Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!'

"'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flingingout his arm towards him, 'there are a few of ushere (and I am one of them) who have shippedfor the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know,sir, we can claim our discharge as soon as theanchor is down; so we don't want a row; it's notour interest; we want to be peaceable; we areready to work, but we won't be flogged.'

"'Turn to!' roared the Captain.

"Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, andthen said:—'I tell you what it is now, Captain,rather than kill ye, and be hung for such ashabby rascal, we won't lift a hand against yeunless ye attack us; but till you say the wordabout not flogging us, we don't do a hand'sturn.'

"'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye,I'll keep ye there till ye're sick of it. Down yego.'

"'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men.Most of them were against it; but at length, inobedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him downinto their dark den, growlingly disappearing,like bears into a cave.

"As the Lakeman's bare head was just levelwith the planks, the Captain and his posseleaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing overthe slide of the scuttle, planted their group ofhands upon it, and loudly called for the ste-ward to bring the heavy brass padlock belong-ing to the companionway.

"Then opening the slide a little, the Captainwhispered something down the crack, closed it,and turned the key upon them—ten in num-ber—leaving on deck some twenty or more,who thus far had remained neutral.

"All night a wide-awake watch was kept by allthe officers, forward and aft, especially aboutthe forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; atwhich last place it was feared the insurgentsmight emerge, after breaking through the bulk-head below. But the hours of darkness passedin peace; the men who still remained at theirduty toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinkingand clanking at intervals through the drearynight dismally resounded through the ship.

"At sunrise the Captain went forward, andknocking on the deck, summoned the prisonersto work; but with a yell they refused. Waterwas then lowered down to them, and a coupleof handfuls of biscuit were tossed after it; whenagain turning the key upon them and pocketingit, the Captain returned to the quarter-deck.Twice every day for three days this was re-peated; but on the fourth morning a confusedwrangling, and then a scuffling was heard, asthe customary summons was delivered; and

suddenly four men burst up from the forecas-tle, saying they were ready to turn to. The fetidcloseness of the air, and a famishing diet, unit-ed perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribu-tion, had constrained them to surrender at dis-cretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reite-rated his demand to the rest, but Steelkiltshouted up to him a terrific hint to stop hisbabbling and betake himself where he be-longed. On the fifth morning three others of themutineers bolted up into the air from the des-perate arms below that sought to restrain them.Only three were left.

"'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with aheartless jeer.

"'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt.

"'Oh certainly,' the Captain, and the keyclicked.

"It was at this point, gentlemen, that enragedby the defection of seven of his former asso-ciates, and stung by the mocking voice that hadlast hailed him, and maddened by his long en-tombment in a place as black as the bowels ofdespair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed tothe two Canallers, thus far apparently of onemind with him, to burst out of their hole at thenext summoning of the garrison; and armedwith their keen mincing knives (long, crescen-tic, heavy implements with a handle at eachend) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taf-frail; and if by any devilishness of desperationpossible, seize the ship. For himself, he woulddo this, he said, whether they joined him or not.That was the last night he should spend in thatden. But the scheme met with no opposition onthe part of the other two; they swore they wereready for that, or for any other mad thing, foranything in short but a surrender. And whatwas more, they each insisted upon being thefirst man on deck, when the time to make the

rush should come. But to this their leader asfiercely objected, reserving that priority forhimself; particularly as his two comradeswould not yield, the one to the other, in thematter; and both of them could not be first, forthe ladder would but admit one man at a time.And here, gentlemen, the foul play of thesemiscreants must come out.

"Upon hearing the frantic project of their lead-er, each in his own separate soul had suddenlylighted, it would seem, upon the same piece oftreachery, namely: to be foremost in breakingout, in order to be the first of the three, thoughthe last of the ten, to surrender; and therebysecure whatever small chance of pardon suchconduct might merit. But when Steelkilt madeknown his determination still to lead them tothe last, they in some way, by some subtlechemistry of villany, mixed their before secrettreacheries together; and when their leader fellinto a doze, verbally opened their souls to each

other in three sentences; and bound the sleeperwith cords, and gagged him with cords; andshrieked out for the Captain at midnight.

"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in thedark for the blood, he and all his armed matesand harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In afew minutes the scuttle was opened, and,bound hand and foot, the still struggling rin-gleader was shoved up into the air by his perfi-dious allies, who at once claimed the honour ofsecuring a man who had been fully ripe formurder. But all these were collared, anddragged along the deck like dead cattle; and,side by side, were seized up into the mizzenrigging, like three quarters of meat, and therethey hung till morning. 'Damn ye,' cried theCaptain, pacing to and fro before them, 'thevultures would not touch ye, ye villains!'

"At sunrise he summoned all hands; and sepa-rating those who had rebelled from those whohad taken no part in the mutiny, he told the

former that he had a good mind to flog them allround—thought, upon the whole, he would doso—he ought to—justice demanded it; but forthe present, considering their timely surrender,he would let them go with a reprimand, whichhe accordingly administered in the vernacular.

"'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning tothe three men in the rigging—'for you, I meanto mince ye up for the try-pots;' and, seizing arope, he applied it with all his might to thebacks of the two traitors, till they yelled nomore, but lifelessly hung their heads sideways,as the two crucified thieves are drawn.

"'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last;'but there is still rope enough left for you, myfine bantam, that wouldn't give up. Take thatgag from his mouth, and let us hear what hecan say for himself.'

"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made atremulous motion of his cramped jaws, and

then painfully twisting round his head, said ina sort of hiss, 'What I say is this—and mind itwell—if you flog me, I murder you!'

"'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'—andthe Captain drew off with the rope to strike.

"'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman.

"'But I must,'—and the rope was once moredrawn back for the stroke.

"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudibleto all but the Captain; who, to the amazementof all hands, started back, paced the deck rapid-ly two or three times, and then suddenlythrowing down his rope, said, 'I won't do it—let him go—cut him down: d'ye hear?'

"But as the junior mates were hurrying to ex-ecute the order, a pale man, with a bandagedhead, arrested them—Radney the chief mate.Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth;

but that morning, hearing the tumult on thedeck, he had crept out, and thus far had watch-ed the whole scene. Such was the state of hismouth, that he could hardly speak; but mum-bling something about his being willing andable to do what the captain dared not attempt,he snatched the rope and advanced to his pi-nioned foe.

"'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman.

"'So I am, but take that.' The mate was in thevery act of striking, when another hiss stayedhis uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausingno more, made good his word, spite of Steel-kilt's threat, whatever that might have been.The three men were then cut down, all handswere turned to, and, sullenly worked by themoody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as be-fore.

"Just after dark that day, when one watch hadretired below, a clamor was heard in the fore-

castle; and the two trembling traitors runningup, besieged the cabin door, saying they durstnot consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, andkicks could not drive them back, so at theirown instance they were put down in the ship'srun for salvation. Still, no sign of mutiny reap-peared among the rest. On the contrary, itseemed, that mainly at Steelkilt's instigation,they had resolved to maintain the strictestpeacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and,when the ship reached port, desert her in abody. But in order to insure the speediest endto the voyage, they all agreed to anotherthing—namely, not to sing out for whales, incase any should be discovered. For, spite of herleak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still maintained her mast-heads, and hercaptain was just as willing to lower for a fishthat moment, as on the day his craft first struckthe cruising ground; and Radney the mate wasquite as ready to change his berth for a boat,

and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag indeath the vital jaw of the whale.

"But though the Lakeman had induced theseamen to adopt this sort of passiveness in theirconduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till allwas over) concerning his own proper and pri-vate revenge upon the man who had stung himin the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radneythe chief mate's watch; and as if the infatuatedman sought to run more than half way to meethis doom, after the scene at the rigging, he in-sisted, against the express counsel of the cap-tain, upon resuming the head of his watch atnight. Upon this, and one or two other circums-tances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan ofhis revenge.

"During the night, Radney had an unseaman-like way of sitting on the bulwarks of the quar-ter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gun-wale of the boat which was hoisted up there, alittle above the ship's side. In this attitude, it

was well known, he sometimes dozed. Therewas a considerable vacancy between the boatand the ship, and down between this was thesea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found thathis next trick at the helm would come round attwo o'clock, in the morning of the third dayfrom that in which he had been betrayed. At hisleisure, he employed the interval in braidingsomething very carefully in his watches below.

"'What are you making there?' said a shipmate.

"'What do you think? what does it look like?'

"'Like a lanyard for your bag; but it's an oddone, seems to me.'

"'Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holdingit at arm's length before him; 'but I think it willanswer. Shipmate, I haven't enough twine,—have you any?'

"But there was none in the forecastle.

"'Then I must get some from old Rad;' and herose to go aft.

"'You don't mean to go a begging to HIM!' saida sailor.

"'Why not? Do you think he won't do me aturn, when it's to help himself in the end,shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked athim quietly, and asked him for some twine tomend his hammock. It was given him—neithertwine nor lanyard were seen again; but the nextnight an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolledfrom the pocket of the Lakeman's monkey jack-et, as he was tucking the coat into his hammockfor a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trickat the silent helm—nigh to the man who wasapt to doze over the grave always ready dug tothe seaman's hand—that fatal hour was then tocome; and in the fore-ordaining soul of Steel-kilt, the mate was already stark and stretchedas a corpse, with his forehead crushed in.

"But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-bemurderer from the bloody deed he hadplanned. Yet complete revenge he had, andwithout being the avenger. For by a mysteriousfatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in to takeout of his hands into its own the damning thinghe would have done.

"It was just between daybreak and sunrise ofthe morning of the second day, when they werewashing down the decks, that a stupid Tene-riffe man, drawing water in the main-chains, allat once shouted out, 'There she rolls! there sherolls!' Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick.

"'Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian; 'St. Dominic!Sir sailor, but do whales have christenings?Whom call you Moby Dick?'

"'A very white, and famous, and most deadlyimmortal monster, Don;—but that would betoo long a story.'

"'How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards,crowding.

"'Nay, Dons, Dons—nay, nay! I cannot rehearsethat now. Let me get more into the air, Sirs.'

"'The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro; 'ourvigorous friend looks faint;—fill up his emptyglass!'

"No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I pro-ceed.—Now, gentlemen, so suddenly perceiv-ing the snowy whale within fifty yards of theship—forgetful of the compact among thecrew—in the excitement of the moment, theTeneriffe man had instinctively and involunta-rily lifted his voice for the monster, though forsome little time past it had been plainly beheldfrom the three sullen mast-heads. All was nowa phrensy. 'The White Whale—the WhiteWhale!' was the cry from captain, mates, andharpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful ru-mours, were all anxious to capture so famous

and precious a fish; while the dogged creweyed askance, and with curses, the appallingbeauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by ahorizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistenedlike a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gen-tlemen, a strange fatality pervades the wholecareer of these events, as if verily mapped outbefore the world itself was charted. The muti-neer was the bowsman of the mate, and whenfast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him,while Radney stood up with his lance in theprow, and haul in or slacken the line, at theword of command. Moreover, when the fourboats were lowered, the mate's got the start;and none howled more fiercely with delightthan did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. Af-ter a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and,spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. Hewas always a furious man, it seems, in a boat.And now his bandaged cry was, to beach himon the whale's topmost back. Nothing loath, hisbowsman hauled him up and up, through a

blinding foam that blent two whitenesses to-gether; till of a sudden the boat struck asagainst a sunken ledge, and keeling over,spilled out the standing mate. That instant, ashe fell on the whale's slippery back, the boatrighted, and was dashed aside by the swell,while Radney was tossed over into the sea, onthe other flank of the whale. He struck outthrough the spray, and, for an instant, was dim-ly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to re-move himself from the eye of Moby Dick. Butthe whale rushed round in a sudden mael-strom; seized the swimmer between his jaws;and rearing high up with him, plunged head-long again, and went down.

"Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom,the Lakeman had slackened the line, so as todrop astern from the whirlpool; calmly lookingon, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden,terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quicklybrought his knife to the line. He cut it; and the

whale was free. But, at some distance, MobyDick rose again, with some tatters of Radney'sred woollen shirt, caught in the teeth that haddestroyed him. All four boats gave chase again;but the whale eluded them, and finally whollydisappeared.

"In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port—a savage, solitary place—where no civilizedcreature resided. There, headed by the Lake-man, all but five or six of the foremastmen de-liberately deserted among the palms; eventual-ly, as it turned out, seizing a large double war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for someother harbor.

"The ship's company being reduced to but ahandful, the captain called upon the Islandersto assist him in the laborious business of heav-ing down the ship to stop the leak. But to suchunresting vigilance over their dangerous allieswas this small band of whites necessitated,both by night and by day, and so extreme was

the hard work they underwent, that upon thevessel being ready again for sea, they were insuch a weakened condition that the captaindurst not put off with them in so heavy a ves-sel. After taking counsel with his officers, heanchored the ship as far off shore as possible;loaded and ran out his two cannon from thebows; stacked his muskets on the poop; andwarning the Islanders not to approach the shipat their peril, took one man with him, and set-ting the sail of his best whale-boat, steeredstraight before the wind for Tahiti, five hun-dred miles distant, to procure a reinforcementto his crew.

"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe wasdescried, which seemed to have touched at alow isle of corals. He steered away from it; butthe savage craft bore down on him; and soonthe voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, orhe would run him under water. The captainpresented a pistol. With one foot on each prow

of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughedhim to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol somuch as clicked in the lock, he would bury himin bubbles and foam.

"'What do you want of me?' cried the captain.

"'Where are you bound? and for what are youbound?' demanded Steelkilt; 'no lies.'

"'I am bound to Tahiti for more men.'

"'Very good. Let me board you a moment—Icome in peace.' With that he leaped from thecanoe, swam to the boat; and climbing thegunwale, stood face to face with the captain.

"'Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head.Now, repeat after me. As soon as Steelkiltleaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonderisland, and remain there six days. If I do not,may lightning strike me!'

"'A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman.'Adios, Senor!' and leaping into the sea, heswam back to his comrades.

"Watching the boat till it was fairly beached,and drawn up to the roots of the cocoa-nuttrees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due timearrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination.There, luck befriended him; two ships wereabout to sail for France, and were providential-ly in want of precisely that number of menwhich the sailor headed. They embarked; andso for ever got the start of their former captain,had he been at all minded to work them legalretribution.

"Some ten days after the French ships sailed,the whale-boat arrived, and the captain wasforced to enlist some of the more civilized Tahi-tians, who had been somewhat used to the sea.Chartering a small native schooner, he returnedwith them to his vessel; and finding all rightthere, again resumed his cruisings.

"Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know;but upon the island of Nantucket, the widow ofRadney still turns to the sea which refuses togive up its dead; still in dreams sees the awfulwhite whale that destroyed him.

"'Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quiet-ly.

"'I am, Don.'

"'Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best ofyour own convictions, this your story is in sub-stance really true? It is so passing wonderful!Did you get it from an unquestionable source?Bear with me if I seem to press.'

"'Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we alljoin in Don Sebastian's suit,' cried the company,with exceeding interest.

"'Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in theGolden Inn, gentlemen?'

"'Nay,' said Don Sebastian; 'but I know a wor-thy priest near by, who will quickly procureone for me. I go for it; but are you well ad-vised? this may grow too serious.'

"'Will you be so good as to bring the priest also,Don?'

"'Though there are no Auto-da-Fe's in Limanow,' said one of the company to another; 'Ifear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepis-copacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moon-light. I see no need of this.'

"'Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebas-tian; but may I also beg that you will be partic-ular in procuring the largest sized Evangelistsyou can.'

"'This is the priest, he brings you the Evangel-ists,' said Don Sebastian, gravely, returningwith a tall and solemn figure.

"'Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest,further into the light, and hold the Holy Bookbefore me that I may touch it.

"'So help me Heaven, and on my honour thestory I have told ye, gentlemen, is in substanceand its great items, true. I know it to be true; ithappened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knewthe crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkiltsince the death of Radney.'"

CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Picturesof Whales.

I shall ere long paint to you as well as one canwithout canvas, something like the true form ofthe whale as he actually appears to the eye ofthe whaleman when in his own absolute body

the whale is moored alongside the whale-shipso that he can be fairly stepped upon there. Itmay be worth while, therefore, previously toadvert to those curious imaginary portraits ofhim which even down to the present day confi-dently challenge the faith of the landsman. It istime to set the world right in this matter, byproving such pictures of the whale all wrong.

It may be that the primal source of all thosepictorial delusions will be found among theoldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculp-tures. For ever since those inventive but un-scrupulous times when on the marble panel-lings of temples, the pedestals of statues, andon shields, medallions, cups, and coins, thedolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armorlike Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St.George's; ever since then has something of thesame sort of license prevailed, not only in mostpopular pictures of the whale, but in manyscientific presentations of him.

Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant por-trait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is tobe found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Ele-phanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that inthe almost endless sculptures of that imme-morial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits,every conceivable avocation of man, were pre-figured ages before any of them actually cameinto being. No wonder then, that in some sortour noble profession of whaling should havebeen there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whalereferred to, occurs in a separate department ofthe wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu inthe form of leviathan, learnedly known as theMatse Avatar. But though this sculpture is halfman and half whale, so as only to give the tailof the latter, yet that small section of him is allwrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of ananaconda, than the broad palms of the truewhale's majestic flukes.

But go to the old Galleries, and look now at agreat Christian painter's portrait of this fish; forhe succeeds no better than the antediluvianHindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus res-cuing Andromeda from the sea-monster orwhale. Where did Guido get the model of sucha strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, inpainting the same scene in his own "PerseusDescending," make out one whit better. Thehuge corpulence of that Hogarthian monsterundulates on the surface, scarcely drawing oneinch of water. It has a sort of howdah on itsback, and its distended tusked mouth intowhich the billows are rolling, might be takenfor the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thamesby water into the Tower. Then, there are theProdromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, andJonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of oldBibles and the cuts of old primers. What shallbe said of these? As for the book-binder's whalewinding like a vine-stalk round the stock of adescending anchor—as stamped and gilded on

the backs and title-pages of many books bothold and new—that is a very picturesque butpurely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it,from the like figures on antique vases. Thoughuniversally denominated a dolphin, I neverthe-less call this book-binder's fish an attempt at awhale; because it was so intended when thedevice was first introduced. It was introducedby an old Italian publisher somewhere aboutthe 15th century, during the Revival of Learn-ing; and in those days, and even down to acomparatively late period, dolphins were po-pularly supposed to be a species of the Levia-than.

In the vignettes and other embellishments ofsome ancient books you will at times meet withvery curious touches at the whale, where allmanner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs andcold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bub-bling up from his unexhausted brain. In thetitle-page of the original edition of the "Ad-

vancement of Learning" you will find somecurious whales.

But quitting all these unprofessional attempts,let us glance at those pictures of leviathan pur-porting to be sober, scientific delineations, bythose who know. In old Harris's collection ofvoyages there are some plates of whales ex-tracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D.1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzber-gen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peter-son of Friesland, master." In one of those platesthe whales, like great rafts of logs, arerepresented lying among ice-isles, with whitebears running over their living backs. In anoth-er plate, the prodigious blunder is made ofrepresenting the whale with perpendicularflukes.

Then again, there is an imposing quarto, writ-ten by one Captain Colnett, a Post Captain inthe English navy, entitled "A Voyage roundCape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose

of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries."In this book is an outline purporting to be a"Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale,drawn by scale from one killed on the coast ofMexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." Idoubt not the captain had this veracious picturetaken for the benefit of his marines. To mentionbut one thing about it, let me say that it has aneye which applied, according to the accompa-nying scale, to a full grown sperm whale,would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallantcaptain, why did ye not give us Jonah lookingout of that eye!

Nor are the most conscientious compilations ofNatural History for the benefit of the youngand tender, free from the same heinousness ofmistake. Look at that popular work"Goldsmith's Animated Nature." In the ab-ridged London edition of 1807, there are platesof an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale." I do not

wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightlywhale looks much like an amputated sow; and,as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enoughto amaze one, that in this nineteenth centurysuch a hippogriff could be palmed for genuineupon any intelligent public of schoolboys.

Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Countde Lacepede, a great naturalist, published ascientific systemized whale book, wherein areseveral pictures of the different species of theLeviathan. All these are not only incorrect, butthe picture of the Mysticetus or Greenlandwhale (that is to say, the Right whale), evenScoresby, a long experienced man as touchingthat species, declares not to have its counter-part in nature.

But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blun-dering business was reserved for the scientificFrederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron.In 1836, he published a Natural History ofWhales, in which he gives what he calls a pic-

ture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing thatpicture to any Nantucketer, you had best pro-vide for your summary retreat from Nantucket.In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale isnot a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, henever had the benefit of a whaling voyage(such men seldom have), but whence he de-rived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he gotit as his scientific predecessor in the same field,Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions;that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sortof lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are,many queer cups and saucers inform us.

As for the sign-painters' whales seen in thestreets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers,what shall be said of them? They are generallyRichard III. whales, with dromedary humps,and very savage; breakfasting on three or foursailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners:their deformities floundering in seas of bloodand blue paint.

But these manifold mistakes in depicting thewhale are not so very surprising after all. Con-sider! Most of the scientific drawings have beentaken from the stranded fish; and these areabout as correct as a drawing of a wreckedship, with broken back, would correctlyrepresent the noble animal itself in all its un-dashed pride of hull and spars. Though ele-phants have stood for their full-lengths, theliving Leviathan has never yet fairly floatedhimself for his portrait. The living whale, in hisfull majesty and significance, is only to be seenat sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat thevast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launchedline-of-battle ship; and out of that element it isa thing eternally impossible for mortal man tohoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserveall his mighty swells and undulations. And, notto speak of the highly presumable difference ofcontour between a young sucking whale and afull-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in thecase of one of those young sucking whales

hoisted to a ship's deck, such is then the out-landish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape ofhim, that his precise expression the devil him-self could not catch.

But it may be fancied, that from the naked ske-leton of the stranded whale, accurate hints maybe derived touching his true form. Not at all.For it is one of the more curious things aboutthis Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very littleidea of his general shape. Though Jeremy Ben-tham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra inthe library of one of his executors, correctlyconveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarianold gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leadingpersonal characteristics; yet nothing of thiskind could be inferred from any leviathan'sarticulated bones. In fact, as the great Huntersays, the mere skeleton of the whale bears thesame relation to the fully invested and paddedanimal as the insect does to the chrysalis that soroundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is

strikingly evinced in the head, as in some partof this book will be incidentally shown. It isalso very curiously displayed in the side fin, thebones of which almost exactly answer to thebones of the human hand, minus only thethumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers,the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But allthese are permanently lodged in their fleshycovering, as the human fingers in an artificialcovering. "However recklessly the whale maysometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb oneday, "he can never be truly said to handle uswithout mittens."

For all these reasons, then, any way you maylook at it, you must needs conclude that thegreat Leviathan is that one creature in theworld which must remain unpainted to the last.True, one portrait may hit the mark much near-er than another, but none can hit it with anyvery considerable degree of exactness. So thereis no earthly way of finding out precisely what

the whale really looks like. And the only modein which you can derive even a tolerable idea ofhis living contour, is by going a whaling your-self; but by so doing, you run no small risk ofbeing eternally stove and sunk by him. Where-fore, it seems to me you had best not be toofastidious in your curiosity touching this Levia-than.

CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pic-tures of Whales, and the True

Pictures of Whaling Scenes.

In connexion with the monstrous pictures ofwhales, I am strongly tempted here to enterupon those still more monstrous stories of themwhich are to be found in certain books, both

ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Pur-chas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I passthat matter by.

I know of only four published outlines of thegreat Sperm Whale; Colnett's, Huggins's, Fre-derick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previouschapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referredto. Huggins's is far better than theirs; but, bygreat odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's draw-ings of this whale are good, excepting the mid-dle figure in the picture of three whales in vari-ous attitudes, capping his second chapter. Hisfrontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales,though no doubt calculated to excite the civilscepticism of some parlor men, is admirablycorrect and life-like in its general effect. Someof the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browneare pretty correct in contour; but they are wret-chedly engraved. That is not his fault though.

Of the Right Whale, the best outline picturesare in Scoresby; but they are drawn on too

small a scale to convey a desirable impression.He has but one picture of whaling scenes, andthis is a sad deficiency, because it is by suchpictures only, when at all well done, that youcan derive anything like a truthful idea of theliving whale as seen by his living hunters.

But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, thoughin some details not the most correct, presenta-tions of whales and whaling scenes to be any-where found, are two large French engravings,well executed, and taken from paintings by oneGarnery. Respectively, they represent attackson the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first en-graving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in fullmajesty of might, just risen beneath the boatfrom the profundities of the ocean, and bearinghigh in the air upon his back the terrific wreckof the stoven planks. The prow of the boat ispartially unbroken, and is drawn just balancingupon the monster's spine; and standing in thatprow, for that one single incomputable flash of

time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded bythe incensed boiling spout of the whale, and inthe act of leaping, as if from a precipice. Theaction of the whole thing is wonderfully goodand true. The half-emptied line-tub floats onthe whitened sea; the wooden poles of thespilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the headsof the swimming crew are scattered about thewhale in contrasting expressions of affright;while in the black stormy distance the ship isbearing down upon the scene. Serious faultmight be found with the anatomical details ofthis whale, but let that pass; since, for the life ofme, I could not draw so good a one.

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act ofdrawing alongside the barnacled flank of alarge running Right Whale, that rolls his blackweedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets areerect, full, and black like soot; so that from soabounding a smoke in the chimney, you would

think there must be a brave supper cooking inthe great bowels below. Sea fowls are peckingat the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea can-dies and maccaroni, which the Right Whalesometimes carries on his pestilent back. And allthe while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushingthrough the deep, leaving tons of tumultuouswhite curds in his wake, and causing the slightboat to rock in the swells like a skiff caughtnigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer.Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion;but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is theglassy level of a sea becalmed, the droopingunstarched sails of the powerless ship, and theinert mass of a dead whale, a conquered for-tress, with the flag of capture lazily hangingfrom the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not.But my life for it he was either practically con-versant with his subject, or else marvellously

tutored by some experienced whaleman. TheFrench are the lads for painting action. Go andgaze upon all the paintings of Europe, andwhere will you find such a gallery of living andbreathing commotion on canvas, as in that tri-umphal hall at Versailles; where the beholderfights his way, pell-mell, through the consecu-tive great battles of France; where every swordseems a flash of the Northern Lights, and thesuccessive armed kings and Emperors dash by,like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not whollyunworthy of a place in that gallery, are thesesea battle-pieces of Garnery.

The natural aptitude of the French for seizingthe picturesqueness of things seems to be pecu-liarly evinced in what paintings and engravingsthey have of their whaling scenes. With not onetenth of England's experience in the fishery,and not the thousandth part of that of theAmericans, they have nevertheless furnishedboth nations with the only finished sketches at

all capable of conveying the real spirit of thewhale hunt. For the most part, the English andAmerican whale draughtsmen seem entirelycontent with presenting the mechanical outlineof things, such as the vacant profile of thewhale; which, so far as picturesqueness of effectis concerned, is about tantamount to sketchingthe profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, thejustly renowned Right whaleman, after givingus a stiff full length of the Greenland whale,and three or four delicate miniatures of narw-hales and porpoises, treats us to a series of clas-sical engravings of boat hooks, choppingknives, and grapnels; and with the microscopicdiligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the in-spection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. Imean no disparagement to the excellent voya-ger (I honour him for a veteran), but in so im-portant a matter it was certainly an oversightnot to have procured for every crystal a sworn

affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of thePeace.

In addition to those fine engravings from Gar-nery, there are two other French engravingsworthy of note, by some one who subscribeshimself "H. Durand." One of them, though notprecisely adapted to our present purpose, nev-ertheless deserves mention on other accounts. Itis a quiet noon-scene among the isles of thePacific; a French whaler anchored, inshore, in acalm, and lazily taking water on board; the loo-sened sails of the ship, and the long leaves ofthe palms in the background, both droopingtogether in the breezeless air. The effect is veryfine, when considered with reference to its pre-senting the hardy fishermen under one of theirfew aspects of oriental repose. The other en-graving is quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the very heart ofthe Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale along-side; the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove

over to the monster as if to a quay; and a boat,hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activi-ty, is about giving chase to whales in the dis-tance. The harpoons and lances lie levelled foruse; three oarsmen are just setting the mast inits hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, thelittle craft stands half-erect out of the water, likea rearing horse. From the ship, the smoke of thetorments of the boiling whale is going up likethe smoke over a village of smithies; and towindward, a black cloud, rising up with earn-est of squalls and rains, seems to quicken theactivity of the excited seamen.

CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; inTeeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in

Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.

On Tower-hill, as you go down to the Londondocks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (orKEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a paintedboard before him, representing the tragic scenein which he lost his leg. There are three whalesand three boats; and one of the boats (pre-sumed to contain the missing leg in all its orig-inal integrity) is being crunched by the jaws ofthe foremost whale. Any time these ten years,they tell me, has that man held up that picture,and exhibited that stump to an incredulousworld. But the time of his justification has nowcome. His three whales are as good whales aswere ever published in Wapping, at any rate;and his stump as unquestionable a stump asany you will find in the western clearings. But,though for ever mounted on that stump, nevera stump-speech does the poor whaleman make;but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully con-templating his own amputation.

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket,and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you willcome across lively sketches of whales andwhaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen them-selves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' buskswrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and oth-er like skrimshander articles, as the whalemencall the numerous little ingenious contrivancesthey elaborately carve out of the rough materi-al, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of themhave little boxes of dentistical-looking imple-ments, specially intended for the skrimshander-ing business. But, in general, they toil with theirjack-knives alone; and, with that almost omni-potent tool of the sailor, they will turn you outanything you please, in the way of a mariner'sfancy.

Long exile from Christendom and civilizationinevitably restores a man to that condition inwhich God placed him, i.e. what is called sava-gery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a sa-

vage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, own-ing no allegiance but to the King of the Cannib-als; and ready at any moment to rebel againsthim.

Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of thesavage in his domestic hours, is his wonderfulpatience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity andelaboration of carving, is as great a trophy ofhuman perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For,with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark'stooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has cost steadyyears of steady application.

As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the whitesailor-savage. With the same marvellous pa-tience, and with the same single shark's tooth,of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you abit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike,but as close packed in its maziness of design, asthe Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of

barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the printsof that fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.

Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out ofthe small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastlesof American whalers. Some of them are donewith much accuracy.

At some old gable-roofed country houses youwill see brass whales hung by the tail forknockers to the road-side door. When the por-ter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would bebest. But these knocking whales are seldomremarkable as faithful essays. On the spires ofsome old-fashioned churches you will seesheet-iron whales placed there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides thatare to all intents and purposes so labelled with"HANDS OFF!" you cannot examine themclosely enough to decide upon their merit.

In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at thebase of high broken cliffs masses of rock liestrewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain,you will often discover images as of the petri-fied forms of the Leviathan partly merged ingrass, which of a windy day breaks againstthem in a surf of green surges.

Then, again, in mountainous countries wherethe traveller is continually girdled by amphi-theatrical heights; here and there from somelucky point of view you will catch passingglimpses of the profiles of whales defined alongthe undulating ridges. But you must be a tho-rough whaleman, to see these sights; and notonly that, but if you wish to return to such asight again, you must be sure and take the ex-act intersecting latitude and longitude of yourfirst stand-point, else so chance-like are suchobservations of the hills, that your precise, pre-vious stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the Soloma Islands, which still

remain incognita, though once high-ruffedMendanna trod them and old Figuera chro-nicled them.

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject,can you fail to trace out great whales in thestarry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; aswhen long filled with thoughts of war the East-ern nations saw armies locked in battle amongthe clouds. Thus at the North have I chasedLeviathan round and round the Pole with therevolutions of the bright points that first de-fined him to me. And beneath the effulgentAntarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis,and joined the chase against the starry Cetus farbeyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and theFlying Fish.

With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts andfasces of harpoons for spurs, would I couldmount that whale and leap the topmost skies,to see whether the fabled heavens with all their

countless tents really lie encamped beyond mymortal sight!

CHAPTER 58. Brit.

Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, wefell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute,yellow substance, upon which the Right Whalelargely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undu-lated round us, so that we seemed to be sailingthrough boundless fields of ripe and goldenwheat.

On the second day, numbers of Right Whaleswere seen, who, secure from the attack of aSperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jawssluggishly swam through the brit, which, ad-hering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous

Venetian blind in their mouths, was in thatmanner separated from the water that escapedat the lip.

As morning mowers, who side by side slowlyand seethingly advance their scythes throughthe long wet grass of marshy meads; even sothese monsters swam, making a strange, gras-sy, cutting sound; and leaving behind themendless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*

*That part of the sea known among whalemenas the "Brazil Banks" does not bear that name asthe Banks of Newfoundland do, because ofthere being shallows and soundings there, butbecause of this remarkable meadow-like ap-pearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit con-tinually floating in those latitudes, where theRight Whale is often chased.

But it was only the sound they made as theyparted the brit which at all reminded one ofmowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially

when they paused and were stationary for awhile, their vast black forms looked more likelifeless masses of rock than anything else. Andas in the great hunting countries of India, thestranger at a distance will sometimes pass onthe plains recumbent elephants without know-ing them to be such, taking them for bare,blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often,with him, who for the first time beholds thisspecies of the leviathans of the sea. And evenwhen recognised at last, their immense magni-tude renders it very hard really to believe thatsuch bulky masses of overgrowth can possiblybe instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of lifethat lives in a dog or a horse.

Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly re-gard any creatures of the deep with the samefeelings that you do those of the shore. Forthough some old naturalists have maintainedthat all creatures of the land are of their kind inthe sea; and though taking a broad general

view of the thing, this may very well be; yetcoming to specialties, where, for example, doesthe ocean furnish any fish that in dispositionanswers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?The accursed shark alone can in any genericrespect be said to bear comparative analogy tohim.

But though, to landsmen in general, the nativeinhabitants of the seas have ever been regardedwith emotions unspeakably unsocial and repel-ling; though we know the sea to be an everlast-ing terra incognita, so that Columbus sailedover numberless unknown worlds to discoverhis one superficial western one; though, by vastodds, the most terrific of all mortal disastershave immemorially and indiscriminately be-fallen tens and hundreds of thousands of thosewho have gone upon the waters; though but amoment's consideration will teach, that howev-er baby man may brag of his science and skill,and however much, in a flattering future, that

science and skill may augment; yet for ever andfor ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will in-sult and murder him, and pulverize the state-liest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless,by the continual repetition of these very im-pressions, man has lost that sense of the fullawfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongsto it.

The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean,that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmeda whole world without leaving so much as awidow. That same ocean rolls now; that sameocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year.Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yetsubsided; two thirds of the fair world it yetcovers.

Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a mi-racle upon one is not a miracle upon the other?Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews,when under the feet of Korah and his companythe live ground opened and swallowed them

up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, butin precisely the same manner the live sea swal-lows up ships and crews.

But not only is the sea such a foe to man who isan alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who mur-dered his own guests; sparing not the creatureswhich itself hath spawned. Like a savage ti-gress that tossing in the jungle overlays herown cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiestwhales against the rocks, and leaves them thereside by side with the split wrecks of ships. Nomercy, no power but its own controls it. Pant-ing and snorting like a mad battle steed thathas lost its rider, the masterless ocean overrunsthe globe.

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its mostdreaded creatures glide under water, unappa-rent for the most part, and treacherously hid-den beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Con-sider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of

many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dain-ty embellished shape of many species of sharks.Consider, once more, the universal cannibalismof the sea; all whose creatures prey upon eachother, carrying on eternal war since the worldbegan.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green,gentle, and most docile earth; consider themboth, the sea and the land; and do you not finda strange analogy to something in yourself? Foras this appalling ocean surrounds the verdantland, so in the soul of man there lies one insularTahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassedby all the horrors of the half known life. Godkeep thee! Push not off from that isle, thoucanst never return!

CHAPTER 59. Squid.

Slowly wading through the meadows of brit,the Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentleair impelling her keel, so that in the surround-ing serenity her three tall tapering masts mildlywaved to that languid breeze, as three mildpalms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals inthe silvery night, the lonely, alluring jet wouldbe seen.

But one transparent blue morning, when astillness almost preternatural spread over thesea, however unattended with any stagnantcalm; when the long burnished sun-glade onthe waters seemed a golden finger laid acrossthem, enjoining some secrecy; when the slip-pered waves whispered together as they softlyran on; in this profound hush of the visible

sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoofrom the main-mast-head.

In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose,and rising higher and higher, and disentan-gling itself from the azure, at last gleamed be-fore our prow like a snow-slide, new slid fromthe hills. Thus glistening for a moment, asslowly it subsided, and sank. Then once morearose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not awhale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thoughtDaggoo. Again the phantom went down, buton re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-likecry that startled every man from his nod, thenegro yelled out—"There! there again! there shebreaches! right ahead! The White Whale, theWhite Whale!"

Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms,as in swarming-time the bees rush to theboughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahabstood on the bowsprit, and with one handpushed far behind in readiness to wave his or-

ders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance inthe direction indicated aloft by the outstretchedmotionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one stilland solitary jet had gradually worked uponAhab, so that he was now prepared to connectthe ideas of mildness and repose with the firstsight of the particular whale he pursued; how-ever this was, or whether his eagerness be-trayed him; whichever way it might have been,no sooner did he distinctly perceive the whitemass, than with a quick intensity he instantlygave orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab'sin advance, and all swiftly pulling towardstheir prey. Soon it went down, and while, withoars suspended, we were awaiting its reap-pearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank,once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting forthe moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we nowgazed at the most wondrous phenomenon

which the secret seas have hitherto revealed tomankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in lengthand breadth, of a glancing cream-colour, layfloating on the water, innumerable long armsradiating from its centre, and curling and twist-ing like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly toclutch at any hapless object within reach. Noperceptible face or front did it have; no con-ceivable token of either sensation or instinct;but undulated there on the billows, an un-earthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disap-peared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agi-tated waters where it had sunk, with a wildvoice exclaimed—"Almost rather had I seenMoby Dick and fought him, than to have seenthee, thou white ghost!"

"What was it, Sir?" said Flask.

"The great live squid, which, they say, fewwhale-ships ever beheld, and returned to theirports to tell of it."

But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, hesailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently fol-lowing.

Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen ingeneral have connected with the sight of thisobject, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being sovery unusual, that circumstance has gone far toinvest it with portentousness. So rarely is itbeheld, that though one and all of them declareit to be the largest animated thing in the ocean,yet very few of them have any but the mostvague ideas concerning its true nature andform; notwithstanding, they believe it to fur-nish to the sperm whale his only food. Forthough other species of whales find their foodabove water, and may be seen by man in the actof feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains hiswhole food in unknown zones below the sur-

face; and only by inference is it that any one cantell of what, precisely, that food consists. Attimes, when closely pursued, he will disgorgewhat are supposed to be the detached arms ofthe squid; some of them thus exhibited exceed-ing twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancythat the monster to which these arms belongedordinarily clings by them to the bed of theocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike otherspecies, is supplied with teeth in order to attackand tear it.

There seems some ground to imagine that thegreat Kraken of Bishop Pontoppodan may ul-timately resolve itself into Squid. The mannerin which the Bishop describes it, as alternatelyrising and sinking, with some other particularshe narrates, in all this the two correspond. Butmuch abatement is necessary with respect tothe incredible bulk he assigns it.

By some naturalists who have vaguely heardrumors of the mysterious creature, here spoken

of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish,to which, indeed, in certain external respects itwould seem to belong, but only as the Anak ofthe tribe.

CHAPTER 60. The Line.

With reference to the whaling scene shortly tobe described, as well as for the better under-standing of all similar scenes elsewhere pre-sented, I have here to speak of the magical,sometimes horrible whale-line.

The line originally used in the fishery was ofthe best hemp, slightly vapoured with tar, notimpregnated with it, as in the case of ordinaryropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makesthe hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and

also renders the rope itself more convenient tothe sailor for common ship use; yet, not onlywould the ordinary quantity too much stiffenthe whale-line for the close coiling to which itmust be subjected; but as most seamen are be-ginning to learn, tar in general by no meansadds to the rope's durability or strength, how-ever much it may give it compactness andgloss.

Of late years the Manilla rope has in the Ameri-can fishery almost entirely superseded hemp asa material for whale-lines; for, though not sodurable as hemp, it is stronger, and far moresoft and elastic; and I will add (since there is anaesthetics in all things), is much more hand-some and becoming to the boat, than hemp.Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian;but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian tobehold.

The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch inthickness. At first sight, you would not think it

so strong as it really is. By experiment its oneand fifty yarns will each suspend a weight ofone hundred and twenty pounds; so that thewhole rope will bear a strain nearly equal tothree tons. In length, the common spermwhale-line measures something over two hun-dred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat itis spirally coiled away in the tub, not like theworm-pipe of a still though, but so as to formone round, cheese-shaped mass of denselybedded "sheaves," or layers of concentric spira-lizations, without any hollow but the "heart," orminute vertical tube formed at the axis of thecheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coilingwould, in running out, infallibly take some-body's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmostprecaution is used in stowing the line in its tub.Some harpooneers will consume almost an en-tire morning in this business, carrying the linehigh aloft and then reeving it downwardsthrough a block towards the tub, so as in the act

of coiling to free it from all possible wrinklesand twists.

In the English boats two tubs are used insteadof one; the same line being continuously coiledin both tubs. There is some advantage in this;because these twin-tubs being so small they fitmore readily into the boat, and do not strain itso much; whereas, the American tub, nearlythree feet in diameter and of proportionatedepth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craftwhose planks are but one half-inch in thick-ness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is likecritical ice, which will bear up a considerabledistributed weight, but not very much of a con-centrated one. When the painted canvas coveris clapped on the American line-tub, the boatlooks as if it were pulling off with a prodigiousgreat wedding-cake to present to the whales.

Both ends of the line are exposed; the lowerend terminating in an eye-splice or loop com-ing up from the bottom against the side of the

tub, and hanging over its edge completely dis-engaged from everything. This arrangement ofthe lower end is necessary on two accounts.First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it ofan additional line from a neighboring boat, incase the stricken whale should sound so deepas to threaten to carry off the entire line origi-nally attached to the harpoon. In these in-stances, the whale of course is shifted like amug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to theother; though the first boat always hovers athand to assist its consort. Second: This ar-rangement is indispensable for common safe-ty's sake; for were the lower end of the line inany way attached to the boat, and were thewhale then to run the line out to the end almostin a single, smoking minute as he sometimesdoes, he would not stop there, for the doomedboat would infallibly be dragged down afterhim into the profundity of the sea; and in thatcase no town-crier would ever find her again.

Before lowering the boat for the chase, the up-per end of the line is taken aft from the tub, andpassing round the loggerhead there, is againcarried forward the entire length of the boat,resting crosswise upon the loom or handle ofevery man's oar, so that it jogs against his wristin rowing; and also passing between the men,as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales,to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extremepointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pinor skewer the size of a common quill, preventsit from slipping out. From the chocks it hangsin a slight festoon over the bows, and is thenpassed inside the boat again; and some ten ortwenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiledupon the box in the bows, it continues its wayto the gunwale still a little further aft, and isthen attached to the short-warp—the ropewhich is immediately connected with the har-poon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications tootedious to detail.

Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in itscomplicated coils, twisting and writhingaround it in almost every direction. All theoarsmen are involved in its perilous contor-tions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman,they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliestsnakes sportively festooning their limbs. Norcan any son of mortal woman, for the first time,seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, andwhile straining his utmost at the oar, bethinkhim that at any unknown instant the harpoonmay be darted, and all these horrible contor-tions be put in play like ringed lightnings; hecannot be thus circumstanced without a shud-der that makes the very marrow in his bones toquiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes,and brighter repartees, you never heard overyour mahogany, than you will hear over thehalf-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, whenthus hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the

six burghers of Calais before King Edward, thesix men composing the crew pull into the jawsof death, with a halter around every neck, asyou may say.

Perhaps a very little thought will now enableyou to account for those repeated whaling dis-asters—some few of which are casually chro-nicled—of this man or that man being taken outof the boat by the line, and lost. For, when theline is darting out, to be seated then in the boat,is like being seated in the midst of the manifoldwhizzings of a steam-engine in full play, whenevery flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, isgrazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit mo-tionless in the heart of these perils, because theboat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitch-ed one way and the other, without the slightestwarning; and only by a certain self-adjustingbuoyancy and simultaneousness of volition andaction, can you escape being made a Mazeppa

of, and run away with where the all-seeing sunhimself could never pierce you out.

Again: as the profound calm which only appar-ently precedes and prophesies of the storm, isperhaps more awful than the storm itself; for,indeed, the calm is but the wrapper andenvelope of the storm; and contains it in itself,as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatalpowder, and the ball, and the explosion; so thegraceful repose of the line, as it silently serpen-tines about the oarsmen before being broughtinto actual play—this is a thing which carriesmore of true terror than any other aspect of thisdangerous affair. But why say more? All menlive enveloped in whale-lines. All are born withhalters round their necks; but it is only whencaught in the swift, sudden turn of death, thatmortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-presentperils of life. And if you be a philosopher,though seated in the whale-boat, you wouldnot at heart feel one whit more of terror, than

though seated before your evening fire with apoker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.

If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was athing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite adifferent object.

"When you see him 'quid," said the savage,honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoistedboat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale."

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry,and with nothing special to engage them, thePequod's crew could hardly resist the spell ofsleep induced by such a vacant sea. For thispart of the Indian Ocean through which we

then were voyaging is not what whalemen calla lively ground; that is, it affords fewerglimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish,and other vivacious denizens of more stirringwaters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or thein-shore ground off Peru.

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head;and with my shoulders leaning against theslackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idlyswayed in what seemed an enchanted air. Noresolution could withstand it; in that dreamymood losing all consciousness, at last my soulwent out of my body; though my body stillcontinued to sway as a pendulum will, longafter the power which first moved it is with-drawn.

Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, Ihad noticed that the seamen at the main andmizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. Sothat at last all three of us lifelessly swung fromthe spars, and for every swing that we made

there was a nod from below from the slumbe-ring helmsman. The waves, too, nodded theirindolent crests; and across the wide trance ofthe sea, east nodded to west, and the sun overall.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath myclosed eyes; like vices my hands grasped theshrouds; some invisible, gracious agency pre-served me; with a shock I came back to life.And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathomsoff, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in thewater like the capsized hull of a frigate, hisbroad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, gliste-ning in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazilyundulating in the trough of the sea, and everand anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury jet,the whale looked like a portly burgher smokinghis pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe,poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by someenchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and everysleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness;

and more than a score of voices from all partsof the vessel, simultaneously with the threenotes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomedcry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spou-ted the sparkling brine into the air.

"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. Andobeying his own order, he dashed the helmdown before the helmsman could handle thespokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew musthave alarmed the whale; and ere the boats weredown, majestically turning, he swam away tothe leeward, but with such a steady tranquilli-ty, and making so few ripples as he swam, thatthinking after all he might not as yet be alar-med, Ahab gave orders that not an oar shouldbe used, and no man must speak but in whis-pers. So seated like Ontario Indians on thegunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silentlypaddled along; the calm not admitting of thenoiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus

glided in chase, the monster perpendicularlyflitted his tail forty feet into the air, and thensank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.

"There go flukes!" was the cry, an announce-ment immediately followed by Stubb's produ-cing his match and igniting his pipe, for now arespite was granted. After the full interval ofhis sounding had elapsed, the whale rose again,and being now in advance of the smoker's boat,and much nearer to it than to any of the others,Stubb counted upon the honour of the capture.It was obvious, now, that the whale had atlength become aware of his pursuers. All silen-ce of cautiousness was therefore no longer ofuse. Paddles were dropped, and oars cameloudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe,Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish.All alive to his jeopardy, he was going "headout"; that part obliquely projecting from themad yeast which he brewed.*

*It will be seen in some other place of what avery light substance the entire interior of thesperm whale's enormous head consists. Thoughapparently the most massive, it is by far themost buoyant part about him. So that with easehe elevates it in the air, and invariably does sowhen going at his utmost speed. Besides, suchis the breadth of the upper part of the front ofhis head, and such the tapering cut-water for-mation of the lower part, that by obliquely ele-vating his head, he thereby may be said totransform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggishgalliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat.

"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry your-selves; take plenty of time—but start her; starther like thunder-claps, that's all," cried Stubb,spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. "Starther, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke,Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy—start her,all; but keep cool, keep cool—cucumbers is the

word—easy, easy—only start her like grim de-ath and grinning devils, and raise the burieddead perpendicular out of their graves, boys—that's all. Start her!"

"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Headerin reply, raising some old war-whoop to theskies; as every oarsman in the strained boatinvoluntarily bounced forward with the onetremendous leading stroke which the eagerIndian gave.

But his wild screams were answered by othersquite as wild. "Kee-hee! Kee-hee!" yelled Dag-goo, straining forwards and backwards on hisseat, like a pacing tiger in his cage.

"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smac-king his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier'ssteak. And thus with oars and yells the keelscut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining hisplace in the van, still encouraged his men to theonset, all the while puffing the smoke from his

mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and theystrained, till the welcome cry was heard—"Stand up, Tashtego!—give it to him!" The har-poon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen bac-ked water; the same moment something wenthot and hissing along every one of their wrists.It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubbhad swiftly caught two additional turns with itround the loggerhead, whence, by reason of itsincreased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smokenow jetted up and mingled with the steadyfumes from his pipe. As the line passed roundand round the loggerhead; so also, just beforereaching that point, it blisteringly passedthrough and through both of Stubb's hands,from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quil-ted canvas sometimes worn at these times, hadaccidentally dropped. It was like holding anenemy's sharp two-edged sword by the blade,and that enemy all the time striving to wrest itout of your clutch.

"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to thetub oarsman (him seated by the tub) who, snat-ching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* Mo-re turns were taken, so that the line began hol-ding its place. The boat now flew through theboiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb andTashtego here changed places—stem forstern—a staggering business truly in that roc-king commotion.

*Partly to show the indispensableness of thisact, it may here be stated, that, in the old Dutchfishery, a mop was used to dash the runningline with water; in many other ships, a woodenpiggin, or bailer, is set apart for that purpose.Your hat, however, is the most convenient.

From the vibrating line extending the entirelength of the upper part of the boat, and fromits now being more tight than a harpstring, youwould have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the other the air—as theboat churned on through both opposing ele-

ments at once. A continual cascade played atthe bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wa-ke; and, at the slightest motion from within,even but of a little finger, the vibrating, crac-king craft canted over her spasmodic gunwaleinto the sea. Thus they rushed; each man withmight and main clinging to his seat, to preventbeing tossed to the foam; and the tall form ofTashtego at the steering oar crouching almostdouble, in order to bring down his centre ofgravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemedpassed as they shot on their way, till at lengththe whale somewhat slackened his flight.

"Haul in—haul in!" cried Stubb to the bows-man! and, facing round towards the whale, allhands began pulling the boat up to him, whileyet the boat was being towed on. Soon rangingup by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his kneein the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart intothe flying fish; at the word of command, theboat alternately sterning out of the way of the

whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging upfor another fling.

The red tide now poured from all sides of themonster like brooks down a hill. His tormentedbody rolled not in brine but in blood, whichbubbled and seethed for furlongs behind intheir wake. The slanting sun playing upon thiscrimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflectioninto every face, so that they all glowed to eachother like red men. And all the while, jet afterjet of white smoke was agonizingly shot fromthe spiracle of the whale, and vehement puffafter puff from the mouth of the excitedheadsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon hiscrooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubbstraightened it again and again, by a few rapidblows against the gunwale, then again andagain sent it into the whale.

"Pull up—pull up!" he now cried to the bows-man, as the waning whale relaxed in his wrath."Pull up!—close to!" and the boat ranged along

the fish's flank. When reaching far over thebow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lan-ce into the fish, and kept it there, carefullychurning and churning, as if cautiously seekingto feel after some gold watch that the whalemight have swallowed, and which he was fear-ful of breaking ere he could hook it out. Butthat gold watch he sought was the innermostlife of the fish. And now it is struck; for, star-ting from his trance into that unspeakable thingcalled his "flurry," the monster horribly wallo-wed in his blood, overwrapped himself in im-penetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the im-perilled craft, instantly dropping astern, hadmuch ado blindly to struggle out from thatphrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale oncemore rolled out into view; surging from side toside; spasmodically dilating and contracting hisspout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized res-pirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red

gore, as if it had been the purple lees of redwine, shot into the frighted air; and falling backagain, ran dripping down his motionless flanksinto the sea. His heart had burst!

"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.

"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdra-wing his own from his mouth, Stubb scatteredthe dead ashes over the water; and, for a mo-ment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpsehe had made.

CHAPTER 62. The Dart.

A word concerning an incident in the last chap-ter.

According to the invariable usage of the fis-hery, the whale-boat pushes off from the ship,with the headsman or whale-killer as tempora-ry steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost oar, the oneknown as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs astrong, nervous arm to strike the first iron intothe fish; for often, in what is called a long dart,the heavy implement has to be flung to the dis-tance of twenty or thirty feet. But however pro-longed and exhausting the chase, the harpoo-neer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile tothe uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set anexample of superhuman activity to the rest, notonly by incredible rowing, but by repeatedloud and intrepid exclamations; and what it isto keep shouting at the top of one's compass,while all the other muscles are strained andhalf started—what that is none know but thosewho have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl veryheartily and work very recklessly at one andthe same time. In this straining, bawling state,

then, with his back to the fish, all at once theexhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry—"Stand up, and give it to him!" He now has todrop and secure his oar, turn round on his cen-tre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch,and with what little strength may remain, heessays to pitch it somehow into the whale. Nowonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen ina body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart,not five are successful; no wonder that so manyhapless harpooneers are madly cursed and dis-rated; no wonder that some of them actuallyburst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonderthat some sperm whalemen are absent fouryears with four barrels; no wonder that to ma-ny ship owners, whaling is but a losing con-cern; for it is the harpooneer that makes thevoyage, and if you take the breath out of hisbody how can you expect to find it there whenmost wanted!

Again, if the dart be successful, then at the se-cond critical instant, that is, when the whalestarts to run, the boatheader and harpooneerlikewise start to running fore and aft, to theimminent jeopardy of themselves and everyone else. It is then they change places; and theheadsman, the chief officer of the little craft,takes his proper station in the bows of the boat.

Now, I care not who maintains the contrary,but all this is both foolish and unnecessary. Theheadsman should stay in the bows from first tolast; he should both dart the harpoon and thelance, and no rowing whatever should be ex-pected of him, except under circumstances ob-vious to any fisherman. I know that this wouldsometimes involve a slight loss of speed in thechase; but long experience in various whale-men of more than one nation has convinced methat in the vast majority of failures in the fis-hery, it has not by any means been so much thespeed of the whale as the before described ex-

haustion of the harpooneer that has causedthem.

To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, theharpooneers of this world must start to theirfeet from out of idleness, and not from out oftoil.

CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out ofthem, the twigs. So, in productive subjects,grow the chapters.

The crotch alluded to on a previous page de-serves independent mention. It is a notchedstick of a peculiar form, some two feet inlength, which is perpendicularly inserted into

the starboard gunwale near the bow, for thepurpose of furnishing a rest for the woodenextremity of the harpoon, whose other naked,barbed end slopingly projects from the prow.Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to itshurler, who snatches it up as readily from itsrest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle fromthe wall. It is customary to have two harpoonsreposing in the crotch, respectively called thefirst and second irons.

But these two harpoons, each by its own cord,are both connected with the line; the objectbeing this: to dart them both, if possible, oneinstantly after the other into the same whale; sothat if, in the coming drag, one should drawout, the other may still retain a hold. It is adoubling of the chances. But it very often hap-pens that owing to the instantaneous, violent,convulsive running of the whale upon recei-ving the first iron, it becomes impossible for theharpooneer, however lightning-like in his mo-

vements, to pitch the second iron into him. Ne-vertheless, as the second iron is already connec-ted with the line, and the line is running, hencethat weapon must, at all events, be anticipatin-gly tossed out of the boat, somehow and so-mewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy wouldinvolve all hands. Tumbled into the water, itaccordingly is in such cases; the spare coils ofbox line (mentioned in a preceding chapter)making this feat, in most instances, prudentlypracticable. But this critical act is not alwaysunattended with the saddest and most fatalcasualties.

Furthermore: you must know that when thesecond iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforthbecomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skit-tishly curvetting about both boat and whale,entangling the lines, or cutting them, and ma-king a prodigious sensation in all directions.Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it againuntil the whale is fairly captured and a corpse.

Consider, now, how it must be in the case offour boats all engaging one unusually strong,active, and knowing whale; when owing tothese qualities in him, as well as to the thou-sand concurring accidents of such an audaciousenterprise, eight or ten loose second irons maybe simultaneously dangling about him. For, ofcourse, each boat is supplied with several har-poons to bend on to the line should the first onebe ineffectually darted without recovery. Allthese particulars are faithfully narrated here, asthey will not fail to elucidate several most im-portant, however intricate passages, in sceneshereafter to be painted.

CHAPTER 64. Stubb's Supper.

Stubb's whale had been killed some distancefrom the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tan-dem of three boats, we commenced the slowbusiness of towing the trophy to the Pequod.And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbsand fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour uponthat inert, sluggish corpse in the sea; and itseemed hardly to budge at all, except at longintervals; good evidence was hereby furnishedof the enormousness of the mass we moved.For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or wha-tever they call it, in China, four or five laborerson the foot-path will draw a bulky freightedjunk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grandargosy we towed heavily forged along, as ifladen with pig-lead in bulk.

Darkness came on; but three lights up anddown in the Pequod's main-rigging dimly gui-ded our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahabdropping one of several more lanterns over thebulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whalefor a moment, he issued the usual orders forsecuring it for the night, and then handing hislantern to a seaman, went his way into the ca-bin, and did not come forward again untilmorning.

Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this wha-le, Captain Ahab had evinced his customaryactivity, to call it so; yet now that the creaturewas dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impa-tience, or despair, seemed working in him; as ifthe sight of that dead body reminded him thatMoby Dick was yet to be slain; and though athousand other whales were brought to hisship, all that would not one jot advance hisgrand, monomaniac object. Very soon youwould have thought from the sound on the

Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparingto cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains arebeing dragged along the deck, and thrust rat-tling out of the port-holes. But by those clan-king links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, isto be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, andby the tail to the bows, the whale now lies withits black hull close to the vessel's and seenthrough the darkness of the night, which obs-cured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—shipand whale, seemed yoked together like colossalbullocks, whereof one reclines while the otherremains standing.*

*A little item may as well be related here. Thestrongest and most reliable hold which the shiphas upon the whale when moored alongside, isby the flukes or tail; and as from its greaterdensity that part is relatively heavier than anyother (excepting the side-fins), its flexibilityeven in death, causes it to sink low beneath thesurface; so that with the hand you cannot get at

it from the boat, in order to put the chain roundit. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: asmall, strong line is prepared with a woodenfloat at its outer end, and a weight in its midd-le, while the other end is secured to the ship. Byadroit management the wooden float is madeto rise on the other side of the mass, so thatnow having girdled the whale, the chain is rea-dily made to follow suit; and being slippedalong the body, is at last locked fast round thesmallest part of the tail, at the point of junctionwith its broad flukes or lobes.

If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at leastso far as could be known on deck, Stubb, hissecond mate, flushed with conquest, betrayedan unusual but still good-natured excitement.Such an unwonted bustle was he in that thestaid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly re-signed to him for the time the sole managementof affairs. One small, helping cause of all thisliveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely

manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was so-mewhat intemperately fond of the whale as aflavorish thing to his palate.

"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo!overboard you go, and cut me one from hissmall!"

Here be it known, that though these wild fis-hermen do not, as a general thing, and accor-ding to the great military maxim, make theenemy defray the current expenses of the war(at least before realizing the proceeds of thevoyage), yet now and then you find some ofthese Nantucketers who have a genuine relishfor that particular part of the Sperm Whale de-signated by Stubb; comprising the taperingextremity of the body.

About midnight that steak was cut and cooked;and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubbstoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at thecapstan-head, as if that capstan were a sidebo-

ard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on wha-le's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblingswith his own mastications, thousands on thou-sands of sharks, swarming round the dead le-viathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. Thefew sleepers below in their bunks were oftenstartled by the sharp slapping of their tailsagainst the hull, within a few inches of thesleepers' hearts. Peering over the side youcould just see them (as before you heard them)wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and tur-ning over on their backs as they scooped outhuge globular pieces of the whale of the big-ness of a human head. This particular feat ofthe shark seems all but miraculous. How atsuch an apparently unassailable surface, theycontrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouth-fuls, remains a part of the universal problem ofall things. The mark they thus leave on thewhale, may best be likened to the hollow madeby a carpenter in countersinking for a screw.

Though amid all the smoking horror and dia-bolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen lon-gingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hun-gry dogs round a table where red meat is beingcarved, ready to bolt down every killed manthat is tossed to them; and though, while thevaliant butchers over the deck-table are thuscannibally carving each other's live meat withcarving-knives all gilded and tasselled, thesharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, arequarrelsomely carving away under the table atthe dead meat; and though, were you to turnthe whole affair upside down, it would still bepretty much the same thing, that is to say, ashocking sharkish business enough for all par-ties; and though sharks also are the invariableoutriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlan-tic, systematically trotting alongside, to be han-dy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, ora dead slave to be decently buried; and thoughone or two other like instances might be setdown, touching the set terms, places, and occa-

sions, when sharks do most socially congregate,and most hilariously feast; yet is there no con-ceivable time or occasion when you will findthem in such countless numbers, and in gayeror more jovial spirits, than around a deadsperm whale, moored by night to a whaleshipat sea. If you have never seen that sight, thensuspend your decision about the propriety ofdevil-worship, and the expediency of concilia-ting the devil.

But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings ofthe banquet that was going on so nigh him, nomore than the sharks heeded the smacking ofhis own epicurean lips.

"Cook, cook!—where's that old Fleece?" hecried at length, widening his legs still further,as if to form a more secure base for his supper;and, at the same time darting his fork into thedish, as if stabbing with his lance; "cook, youcook!—sail this way, cook!"

The old black, not in any very high glee athaving been previously roused from his warmhammock at a most unseasonable hour, cameshambling along from his galley, for, like manyold blacks, there was something the matterwith his knee-pans, which he did not keep wellscoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, asthey called him, came shuffling and limpingalong, assisting his step with his tongs, which,after a clumsy fashion, were made of straighte-ned iron hoops; this old Ebony flounderedalong, and in obedience to the word of com-mand, came to a dead stop on the opposite sideof Stubb's sideboard; when, with both handsfolded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back stillfurther over, at the same time sideways incli-ning his head, so as to bring his best ear intoplay.

"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather red-dish morsel to his mouth, "don't you think this

steak is rather overdone? You've been beatingthis steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don'tI always say that to be good, a whale-steakmust be tough? There are those sharks nowover the side, don't you see they prefer it toughand rare? What a shindy they are kicking up!Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are wel-come to help themselves civilly, and in modera-tion, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I canhear my own voice. Away, cook, and delivermy message. Here, take this lantern," snatchingone from his sideboard; "now then, go and pre-ach to 'em!"

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleecelimped across the deck to the bulwarks; andthen, with one hand dropping his light lowover the sea, so as to get a good view of hiscongregation, with the other hand he solemnlyflourished his tongs, and leaning far over theside in a mumbling voice began addressing the

sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind,overheard all that was said.

"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat youmust stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stopdat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa Stubb saydat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hat-chings, but by Gor! you must stop dat dam rac-ket!"

"Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanyingthe word with a sudden slap on the shoulder,—"Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swe-ar that way when you're preaching. That's noway to convert sinners, cook!"

"Who dat? Den preach to him yourself," sullen-ly turning to go.

"No, cook; go on, go on."

"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"—

"Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax'em to it; try that," and Fleece continued.

"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery wora-cious, yet I zay to you, fellow-critters, dat datworaciousness—'top dat dam slappin' ob detail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep upsuch a dam slappin' and bitin' dare?"

"Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won'thave that swearing. Talk to 'em gentlemanly."

Once more the sermon proceeded.

"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don'tblame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can't behelped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat isde pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobernde shark in you, why den you be angel; for allangel is not'ing more dan de shark well gober-ned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst tobe cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale.Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neigh-

bour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood rightas toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none onyou has de right to dat whale; dat whale belongto some one else. I know some o' you has berrybrig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brigmouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat debrigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but tobit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, datcan't get into de scrouge to help demselves."

"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that'sChristianity; go on."

"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep ascougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb;dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching tosuch dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare be-llies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; andwhen dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear youden; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleepon de coral, and can't hear noting at all, no mo-re, for eber and eber."

"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion;so give the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away tomy supper."

Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over thefishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried—

"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndestrow as ever you can; fill your dam bellies 'tilldey bust—and den die."

"Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supperat the capstan; "stand just where you stood be-fore, there, over against me, and pay particularattention."

"All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping overupon his tongs in the desired position.

"Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely me-anwhile; "I shall now go back to the subject ofthis steak. In the first place, how old are you,cook?"

"What dat do wid de 'teak," said the old black,testily.

"Silence! How old are you, cook?"

"'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered.

"And you have lived in this world hard uponone hundred years, cook, and don't know yethow to cook a whale-steak?" rapidly boltinganother mouthful at the last word, so that mor-sel seemed a continuation of the question."Where were you born, cook?"

"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober deRoanoke."

"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But Iwant to know what country you were born in,cook!"

"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he criedsharply.

"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'mcoming to, cook. You must go home and beborn over again; you don't know how to cook awhale-steak yet."

"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he grow-led, angrily, turning round to depart.

"Come back here, cook;—here, hand me thosetongs;—now take that bit of steak there, and tellme if you think that steak cooked as it shouldbe? Take it, I say"—holding the tongs towardshim—"take it, and taste it."

Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for amoment, the old negro muttered, "Best cooked'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy."

"Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once mo-re; "do you belong to the church?"

"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the oldman sullenly.

"And you have once in your life passed a holychurch in Cape-Town, where you doubtlessoverheard a holy parson addressing his hearersas his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook!And yet you come here, and tell me such a dre-adful lie as you did just now, eh?" said Stubb."Where do you expect to go to, cook?"

"Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.

"Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook.It's an awful question. Now what's your ans-wer?"

"When dis old brack man dies," said the negroslowly, changing his whole air and demeanor,"he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressedangel will come and fetch him."

"Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as theyfetched Elijah? And fetch him where?"

"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongsstraight over his head, and keeping it there ve-ry solemnly.

"So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? Butdon't you know the higher you climb, the col-der it gets? Main-top, eh?"

"Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in thesulks.

"You said up there, didn't you? and now lookyourself, and see where your tongs are poin-ting. But, perhaps you expect to get into heavenby crawling through the lubber's hole, cook;but, no, no, cook, you don't get there, exceptyou go the regular way, round by the rigging.It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or elseit's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet.Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Doye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clapt'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my

orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that's your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that's it—nowyou have it. Hold it there now, and pay atten-tion."

"All 'dention," said the old black, with bothhands placed as desired, vainly wriggling hisgrizzled head, as if to get both ears in front atone and the same time.

"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak ofyours was so very bad, that I have put it out ofsight as soon as possible; you see that, don'tyou? Well, for the future, when you cook anot-her whale-steak for my private table here, thecapstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not tospoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in onehand, and show a live coal to it with the other;that done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish,be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins;have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the

flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now yemay go."

But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, whenhe was recalled.

"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrownight in the mid-watch. D'ye hear? away yousail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow beforeyou go.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls forbreakfast—don't forget."

"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eatwhale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark danMassa Shark hisself," muttered the old man,limping away; with which sage ejaculation hewent to his hammock.

CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.

That mortal man should feed upon the creaturethat feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him byhis own light, as you may say; this seems sooutlandish a thing that one must needs go alittle into the history and philosophy of it.

It is upon record, that three centuries ago thetongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a gre-at delicacy in France, and commanded largeprices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, acertain cook of the court obtained a handsomereward for inventing an admirable sauce to beeaten with barbacued porpoises, which, youremember, are a species of whale. Porpoises,indeed, are to this day considered fine eating.The meat is made into balls about the size ofbilliard balls, and being well seasoned and spi-ced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond

of them. They had a great porpoise grant fromthe crown.

The fact is, that among his hunters at least, thewhale would by all hands be considered a no-ble dish, were there not so much of him; butwhen you come to sit down before a meat-pienearly one hundred feet long, it takes awayyour appetite. Only the most unprejudiced ofmen like Stubb, nowadays partake of cookedwhales; but the Esquimaux are not so fasti-dious. We all know how they live upon whales,and have rare old vintages of prime old trainoil. Zogranda, one of their most famous doc-tors, recommends strips of blubber for infants,as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. Andthis reminds me that certain Englishmen, wholong ago were accidentally left in Greenland bya whaling vessel—that these men actually livedfor several months on the mouldy scraps ofwhales which had been left ashore after tryingout the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen

these scraps are called "fritters"; which, indeed,they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp,and smelling something like old Amsterdamhousewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, whenfresh. They have such an eatable look that themost self-denying stranger can hardly keep hishands off.

But what further depreciates the whale as acivilized dish, is his exceeding richness. He isthe great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delica-tely good. Look at his hump, which would beas fine eating as the buffalo's (which is estee-med a rare dish), were it not such a solid pyra-mid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how blandand creamy that is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the thirdmonth of its growth, yet far too rich to supply asubstitute for butter. Nevertheless, many wha-lemen have a method of absorbing it into someother substance, and then partaking of it. In thelong try watches of the night it is a common

thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuitinto the huge oil-pots and let them fry thereawhile. Many a good supper have I thus made.

In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brainsare accounted a fine dish. The casket of theskull is broken into with an axe, and the twoplump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (preci-sely resembling two large puddings), they arethen mixed with flour, and cooked into a mostdelectable mess, in flavor somewhat resemblingcalves' head, which is quite a dish among someepicures; and every one knows that someyoung bucks among the epicures, by continua-lly dining upon calves' brains, by and by get tohave a little brains of their own, so as to be ableto tell a calf's head from their own heads;which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimina-tion. And that is the reason why a young buckwith an intelligent looking calf's head beforehim, is somehow one of the saddest sights you

can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfullyat him, with an "Et tu Brute!" expression.

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale isso excessively unctuous that landsmen seem toregard the eating of him with abhorrence; thatappears to result, in some way, from the consi-deration before mentioned: i.e. that a manshould eat a newly murdered thing of the sea,and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt thefirst man that ever murdered an ox was regar-ded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and ifhe had been put on his trial by oxen, he certain-ly would have been; and he certainly deservedit if any murderer does. Go to the meat-marketof a Saturday night and see the crowds of livebipeds staring up at the long rows of deadquadrupeds. Does not that sight take a toothout of the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is nota cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerablefor the Fejee that salted down a lean missionaryin his cellar against a coming famine; it will be

more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, inthe day of judgment, than for thee, civilizedand enlightened gourmand, who nailest geeseto the ground and feastest on their bloated li-vers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light,does he? and that is adding insult to injury, isit? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civili-zed and enlightened gourmand dining off thatroast beef, what is that handle made of?—whatbut the bones of the brother of the very ox youare eating? And what do you pick your teethwith, after devouring that fat goose? With afeather of the same fowl. And with what quilldid the Secretary of the Society for the Suppres-sion of Cruelty to Ganders formally indite hiscirculars? It is only within the last month ortwo that that society passed a resolution to pa-tronise nothing but steel pens.

CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.

When in the Southern Fishery, a capturedSperm Whale, after long and weary toil, isbrought alongside late at night, it is not, as ageneral thing at least, customary to proceed atonce to the business of cutting him in. For thatbusiness is an exceedingly laborious one; is notvery soon completed; and requires all hands toset about it. Therefore, the common usage is totake in all sail; lash the helm a'lee; and thensend every one below to his hammock till day-light, with the reservation that, until that time,anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two andtwo for an hour, each couple, the crew in rota-tion shall mount the deck to see that all goeswell.

But sometimes, especially upon the Line in thePacific, this plan will not answer at all; becausesuch incalculable hosts of sharks gather roundthe moored carcase, that were he left so for sixhours, say, on a stretch, little more than theskeleton would be visible by morning. In mostother parts of the ocean, however, where thesefish do not so largely abound, their wondrousvoracity can be at times considerably diminis-hed, by vigorously stirring them up with sharpwhaling-spades, a procedure notwithstanding,which, in some instances, only seems to ticklethem into still greater activity. But it was notthus in the present case with the Pequod'ssharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccus-tomed to such sights, to have looked over herside that night, would have almost thought thewhole round sea was one huge cheese, andthose sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was concluded; and

when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastleseaman came on deck, no small excitement wascreated among the sharks; for immediatelysuspending the cutting stages over the side,and lowering three lanterns, so that they castlong gleams of light over the turbid sea, thesetwo mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an incessant murdering of thesharks,* by striking the keen steel deep intotheir skulls, seemingly their only vital part. Butin the foamy confusion of their mixed andstruggling hosts, the marksmen could not al-ways hit their mark; and this brought aboutnew revelations of the incredible ferocity of thefoe. They viciously snapped, not only at eachother's disembowelments, but like flexiblebows, bent round, and bit their own; till thoseentrails seemed swallowed over and over againby the same mouth, to be oppositely voided bythe gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was un-safe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts ofthese creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic

vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints andbones, after what might be called the individuallife had departed. Killed and hoisted on deckfor the sake of his skin, one of these sharks al-most took poor Queequeg's hand off, when hetried to shut down the dead lid of his murde-rous jaw.

*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is madeof the very best steel; is about the bigness of aman's spread hand; and in general shape, co-rresponds to the garden implement after whichit is named; only its sides are perfectly flat, andits upper end considerably narrower than thelower. This weapon is always kept as sharp aspossible; and when being used is occasionallyhoned, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff po-le, from twenty to thirty feet long, is insertedfor a handle.

"Queequeg no care what god made him shark,"said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand upand down; "wedder Fejee god or Nantucket

god; but de god wat made shark must be onedam Ingin."

CHAPTER 67. Cutting In.

It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath asfollowed! Ex officio professors of Sabbath brea-king are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod wasturned into what seemed a shamble; every sai-lor a butcher. You would have thought we we-re offering up ten thousand red oxen to the seagods.

In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles,among other ponderous things comprising acluster of blocks generally painted green, andwhich no single man can possibly lift—this vastbunch of grapes was swayed up to the main-

top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head,the strongest point anywhere above a ship'sdeck. The end of the hawser-like rope windingthrough these intricacies, was then conductedto the windlass, and the huge lower block ofthe tackles was swung over the whale; to thisblock the great blubber hook, weighing someone hundred pounds, was attached. And nowsuspended in stages over the side, Starbuck andStubb, the mates, armed with their long spades,began cutting a hole in the body for the inser-tion of the hook just above the nearest of thetwo side-fins. This done, a broad, semicircularline is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted,and the main body of the crew striking up awild chorus, now commence heaving in onedense crowd at the windlass. When instantly,the entire ship careens over on her side; everybolt in her starts like the nail-heads of an oldhouse in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers,and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky.More and more she leans over to the whale,

while every gasping heave of the windlass isanswered by a helping heave from the billows;till at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with agreat swash the ship rolls upwards and back-wards from the whale, and the triumphant tac-kle rises into sight dragging after it the disen-gaged semicircular end of the first strip ofblubber. Now as the blubber envelopes thewhale precisely as the rind does an orange, sois it stripped off from the body precisely as anorange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it.For the strain constantly kept up by the wind-lass continually keeps the whale rolling overand over in the water, and as the blubber in onestrip uniformly peels off along the line calledthe "scarf," simultaneously cut by the spades ofStarbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fastas it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that veryact itself, it is all the time being hoisted higherand higher aloft till its upper end grazes themain-top; the men at the windlass then ceaseheaving, and for a moment or two the prodi-

gious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro asif let down from the sky, and every one presentmust take good heed to dodge it when itswings, else it may box his ears and pitch himheadlong overboard.

One of the attending harpooneers now advan-ces with a long, keen weapon called a boar-ding-sword, and watching his chance he dexte-rously slices out a considerable hole in the lo-wer part of the swaying mass. Into this hole,the end of the second alternating great tackle isthen hooked so as to retain a hold upon theblubber, in order to prepare for what follows.Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman,warning all hands to stand off, once more ma-kes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a fewsidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs itcompletely in twain; so that while the shortlower part is still fast, the long upper strip, ca-lled a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is allready for lowering. The heavers forward now

resume their song, and while the one tackle ispeeling and hoisting a second strip from thewhale, the other is slowly slackened away, anddown goes the first strip through the mainhatchway right beneath, into an unfurnishedparlor called the blubber-room. Into this twi-light apartment sundry nimble hands keep coi-ling away the long blanket-piece as if it were agreat live mass of plaited serpents. And thusthe work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting andlowering simultaneously; both whale andwindlass heaving, the heavers singing, theblubber-room gentlemen coiling, the matesscarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swea-ring occasionally, by way of assuaging the ge-neral friction.

CHAPTER 68. The Blanket.

I have given no small attention to that not un-vexed subject, the skin of the whale. I have hadcontroversies about it with experienced wha-lemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore.My original opinion remains unchanged; but itis only an opinion.

The question is, what and where is the skin ofthe whale? Already you know what his blubberis. That blubber is something of the consistenceof firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, moreelastic and compact, and ranges from eight orten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.

Now, however preposterous it may at first se-em to talk of any creature's skin as being of thatsort of consistence and thickness, yet in point offact these are no arguments against such a pre-sumption; because you cannot raise any otherdense enveloping layer from the whale's body

but that same blubber; and the outermost enve-loping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense,what can that be but the skin? True, from theunmarred dead body of the whale, you mayscrape off with your hand an infinitely thin,transparent substance, somewhat resemblingthe thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almostas flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous tobeing dried, when it not only contracts andthickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. Ihave several such dried bits, which I use formarks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as Isaid before; and being laid upon the printedpage, I have sometimes pleased myself withfancying it exerted a magnifying influence. Atany rate, it is pleasant to read about whalesthrough their own spectacles, as you may say.But what I am driving at here is this. That sameinfinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, Iadmit, invests the entire body of the whale, isnot so much to be regarded as the skin of thecreature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for

it were simply ridiculous to say, that the properskin of the tremendous whale is thinner andmore tender than the skin of a new-born child.But no more of this.

Assuming the blubber to be the skin of thewhale; then, when this skin, as in the case of avery large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk ofone hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is con-sidered that, in quantity, or rather weight, thatoil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths,and not the entire substance of the coat; someidea may hence be had of the enormousness ofthat animated mass, a mere part of whose mereintegument yields such a lake of liquid as that.Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have tentons for the net weight of only three quarters ofthe stuff of the whale's skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale isnot the least among the many marvels he pre-sents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquelycrossed and re-crossed with numberless

straight marks in thick array, something likethose in the finest Italian line engravings. Butthese marks do not seem to be impressed uponthe isinglass substance above mentioned, butseem to be seen through it, as if they were en-graved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. Insome instances, to the quick, observant eye,those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving,but afford the ground for far other delineations.These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call tho-se mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramidshieroglyphics, then that is the proper word touse in the present connexion. By my retentivememory of the hieroglyphics upon one SpermWhale in particular, I was much struck with aplate representing the old Indian characterschiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisadeson the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Likethose mystic rocks, too, the mystic-markedwhale remains undecipherable. This allusion tothe Indian rocks reminds me of another thing.Besides all the other phenomena which the ex-

terior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not sel-dom displays the back, and more especially hisflanks, effaced in great part of the regular linearappearance, by reason of numerous rude scrat-ches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect.I should say that those New England rocks onthe sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bearthe marks of violent scraping contact with vastfloating icebergs—I should say, that those rocksmust not a little resemble the Sperm Whale inthis particular. It also seems to me that suchscratches in the whale are probably made byhostile contact with other whales; for I havemost remarked them in the large, full-grownbulls of the species.

A word or two more concerning this matter ofthe skin or blubber of the whale. It has alreadybeen said, that it is stript from him in long pie-ces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms,this one is very happy and significant. For thewhale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a

real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, anIndian poncho slipt over his head, and skirtinghis extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blan-keting of his body, that the whale is enabled tokeep himself comfortable in all weathers, in allseas, times, and tides. What would become of aGreenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icyseas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosysurtout? True, other fish are found exceedinglybrisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these,be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lunglessfish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; crea-tures, that warm themselves under the lee of aniceberg, as a traveller in winter would baskbefore an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whalehas lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood,and he dies. How wonderful is it then—exceptafter explanation—that this great monster, towhom corporeal warmth is as indispensable asit is to man; how wonderful that he should befound at home, immersed to his lips for life inthose Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall

overboard, they are sometimes found, monthsafterwards, perpendicularly frozen into thehearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued inamber. But more surprising is it to know, as hasbeen proved by experiment, that the blood of aPolar whale is warmer than that of a Borneonegro in summer.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rarevirtue of a strong individual vitality, and therare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue ofinterior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire andmodel thyself after the whale! Do thou, too,remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live inthis world without being of it. Be cool at theequator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Likethe great dome of St. Peter's, and like the greatwhale, retain, O man! in all seasons a tempera-ture of thine own.

But how easy and how hopeless to teach thesefine things! Of erections, how few are domed

like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as thewhale!

CHAPTER 69. The Funeral.

Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!

The vast tackles have now done their duty. Thepeeled white body of the beheaded whale flas-hes like a marble sepulchre; though changed inhue, it has not perceptibly lost anything inbulk. It is still colossal. Slowly it floats moreand more away, the water round it torn andsplashed by the insatiate sharks, and the airabove vexed with rapacious flights of screa-ming fowls, whose beaks are like so many in-sulting poniards in the whale. The vast whiteheadless phantom floats further and further

from the ship, and every rod that it so floats,what seem square roods of sharks and cubicroods of fowls, augment the murderous din.For hours and hours from the almost stationaryship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the un-clouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair faceof the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous bree-zes, that great mass of death floats on and on,till lost in infinite perspectives.

There's a most doleful and most mocking fune-ral! The sea-vultures all in pious mourning, theair-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled.In life but few of them would have helped thewhale, I ween, if peradventure he had neededit; but upon the banquet of his funeral theymost piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultu-reism of earth! from which not the mightiestwhale is free.

Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, avengeful ghost survives and hovers over it toscare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or

blundering discovery-vessel from afar, whenthe distance obscuring the swarming fowls,nevertheless still shows the white mass floatingin the sun, and the white spray heaving highagainst it; straightway the whale's unharmingcorpse, with trembling fingers is set down inthe log—SHOALS, ROCKS, AND BREAKERSHEREABOUTS: BEWARE! And for years af-terwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; lea-ping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum,because their leader originally leaped therewhen a stick was held. There's your law of pre-cedents; there's your utility of traditions; there'sthe story of your obstinate survival of old be-liefs never bottomed on the earth, and now noteven hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!

Thus, while in life the great whale's body mayhave been a real terror to his foes, in his deathhis ghost becomes a powerless panic to aworld.

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? Thereare other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, andfar deeper men than Doctor Johnson who be-lieve in them.

CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.

It should not have been omitted that previousto completely stripping the body of the leviat-han, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading ofthe Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat,upon which experienced whale surgeons verymuch pride themselves: and not without rea-son.

Consider that the whale has nothing that canproperly be called a neck; on the contrary, whe-re his head and body seem to join, there, in that

very place, is the thickest part of him. Remem-ber, also, that the surgeon must operate fromabove, some eight or ten feet intervening bet-ween him and his subject, and that subject al-most hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and of-tentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear inmind, too, that under these untoward circums-tances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh;and in that subterraneous manner, without somuch as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfullysteer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, andexactly divide the spine at a critical point hardby its insertion into the skull. Do you not mar-vel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demandedbut ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?

When first severed, the head is dropped asternand held there by a cable till the body is strip-ped. That done, if it belong to a small whale itis hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposedof. But, with a full grown leviathan this is im-

possible; for the sperm whale's head embracesnearly one third of his entire bulk, and comple-tely to suspend such a burden as that, even bythe immense tackles of a whaler, this were asvain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutchbarn in jewellers' scales.

The Pequod's whale being decapitated and thebody stripped, the head was hoisted against theship's side—about half way out of the sea, sothat it might yet in great part be buoyed up byits native element. And there with the strainedcraft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of theenormous downward drag from the lowermast-head, and every yard-arm on that sideprojecting like a crane over the waves; there,that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod'swaist like the giant Holofernes's from the girdleof Judith.

When this last task was accomplished it wasnoon, and the seamen went below to their din-ner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous

but now deserted deck. An intense coppercalm, like a universal yellow lotus, was moreand more unfolding its noiseless measurelessleaves upon the sea.

A short space elapsed, and up into this noise-lessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Ta-king a few turns on the quarter-deck, he pau-sed to gaze over the side, then slowly gettinginto the main-chains he took Stubb's long spa-de—still remaining there after the whale's De-capitation—and striking it into the lower partof the half-suspended mass, placed its otherend crutch-wise under one arm, and so stoodleaning over with eyes attentively fixed on thishead.

It was a black and hooded head; and hangingthere in the midst of so intense a calm, it see-med the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thouvast and venerable head," muttered Ahab,"which, though ungarnished with a beard, yethere and there lookest hoary with mosses; spe-

ak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thingthat is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived thedeepest. That head upon which the upper sunnow gleams, has moved amid this world'sfoundations. Where unrecorded names andnavies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot;where in her murderous hold this frigate earthis ballasted with bones of millions of the drow-ned; there, in that awful water-land, there wasthy most familiar home. Thou hast been wherebell or diver never went; hast slept by many asailor's side, where sleepless mothers wouldgive their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'stthe locked lovers when leaping from their fla-ming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath theexulting wave; true to each other, when heavenseemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murde-red mate when tossed by pirates from the mid-night deck; for hours he fell into the deepermidnight of the insatiate maw; and his murde-rers still sailed on unharmed—while swiftlightnings shivered the neighboring ship that

would have borne a righteous husband to outs-tretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seenenough to split the planets and make an infidelof Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!"

"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from themain-mast-head.

"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab,suddenly erecting himself, while whole thun-der-clouds swept aside from his brow. "Thatlively cry upon this deadly calm might almostconvert a better man.—Where away?"

"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, andbringing down her breeze to us!

"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paulwould come along that way, and to my breeze-lessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soulof man! how far beyond all utterance are yourlinked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or

lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate inmind."

CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam's Story.

Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but thebreeze came faster than the ship, and soon thePequod began to rock.

By and by, through the glass the stranger's bo-ats and manned mast-heads proved her a wha-le-ship. But as she was so far to windward, andshooting by, apparently making a passage tosome other ground, the Pequod could not hopeto reach her. So the signal was set to see whatresponse would be made.

Here be it said, that like the vessels of militarymarines, the ships of the American Whale Fleethave each a private signal; all which signalsbeing collected in a book with the names of therespective vessels attached, every captain isprovided with it. Thereby, the whale comman-ders are enabled to recognise each other uponthe ocean, even at considerable distances andwith no small facility.

The Pequod's signal was at last responded toby the stranger's setting her own; which provedthe ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squa-ring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeamunder the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; itsoon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder wasbeing rigged by Starbuck's order to accommo-date the visiting captain, the stranger in ques-tion waved his hand from his boat's stern intoken of that proceeding being entirely unne-cessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had amalignant epidemic on board, and that Mayh-

ew, her captain, was fearful of infecting thePequod's company. For, though himself andboat's crew remained untainted, and though hisship was half a rifle-shot off, and an incorrupti-ble sea and air rolling and flowing between; yetconscientiously adhering to the timid quaranti-ne of the land, he peremptorily refused to comeinto direct contact with the Pequod.

But this did by no means prevent all communi-cations. Preserving an interval of some fewyards between itself and the ship, the Jerobo-am's boat by the occasional use of its oars con-trived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as sheheavily forged through the sea (for by this timeit blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback;though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset ofa large rolling wave, the boat would be pushedsome way ahead; but would be soon skilfullybrought to her proper bearings again. Subject tothis, and other the like interruptions now andthen, a conversation was sustained between the

two parties; but at intervals not without stillanother interruption of a very different sort.

Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was aman of a singular appearance, even in that wildwhaling life where individual notabilities makeup all totalities. He was a small, short, youn-gish man, sprinkled all over his face with frec-kles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. Along-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a fadedwalnut tinge enveloped him; the overlappingsleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. Adeep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.

So soon as this figure had been first descried,Stubb had exclaimed—"That's he! that's he!—the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho'scompany told us of!" Stubb here alluded to astrange story told of the Jeroboam, and a cer-tain man among her crew, some time previouswhen the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. Accor-ding to this account and what was subsequen-tly learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in

question had gained a wonderful ascendencyover almost everybody in the Jeroboam. Hisstory was this:

He had been originally nurtured among thecrazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where hehad been a great prophet; in their cracked, se-cret meetings having several times descendedfrom heaven by the way of a trap-door, an-nouncing the speedy opening of the seventhvial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but,which, instead of containing gunpowder, wassupposed to be charged with laudanum. Astrange, apostolic whim having seized him, hehad left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, withthat cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumeda steady, common-sense exterior, and offeredhimself as a green-hand candidate for the Jero-boam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; butstraightway upon the ship's getting out of sightof land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. Heannounced himself as the archangel Gabriel,

and commanded the captain to jump overbo-ard. He published his manifesto, whereby heset himself forth as the deliverer of the isles ofthe sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica. Theunflinching earnestness with which he declaredthese things;—the dark, daring play of his slee-pless, excited imagination, and all the preterna-tural terrors of real delirium, united to investthis Gabriel in the minds of the majority of theignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacred-ness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. Assuch a man, however, was not of much practi-cal use in the ship, especially as he refused towork except when he pleased, the incredulouscaptain would fain have been rid of him; butapprised that that individual's intention was toland him in the first convenient port, the ar-changel forthwith opened all his seals andvials—devoting the ship and all hands to un-conditional perdition, in case this intention wascarried out. So strongly did he work upon hisdisciples among the crew, that at last in a body

they went to the captain and told him if Gabrielwas sent from the ship, not a man of themwould remain. He was therefore forced to re-linquish his plan. Nor would they permit Ga-briel to be any way maltreated, say or do whathe would; so that it came to pass that Gabrielhad the complete freedom of the ship. The con-sequence of all this was, that the archangel ca-red little or nothing for the captain and mates;and since the epidemic had broken out, he ca-rried a higher hand than ever; declaring thatthe plague, as he called it, was at his sole com-mand; nor should it be stayed but according tohis good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor de-vils, cringed, and some of them fawned beforehim; in obedience to his instructions, someti-mes rendering him personal homage, as to agod. Such things may seem incredible; but,however wondrous, they are true. Nor is thehistory of fanatics half so striking in respect tothe measureless self-deception of the fanatichimself, as his measureless power of deceiving

and bedevilling so many others. But it is time toreturn to the Pequod.

"I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab fromthe bulwarks, to Captain Mayhew, who stoodin the boat's stern; "come on board."

But now Gabriel started to his feet.

"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious!Beware of the horrible plague!"

"Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew;"thou must either—" But that instant a head-long wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seet-hings drowned all speech.

"Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demandedAhab, when the boat drifted back.

"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven andsunk! Beware of the horrible tail!"

"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that—" But again theboat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Not-hing was said for some moments, while a suc-cession of riotous waves rolled by, which byone of those occasional caprices of the seas we-re tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hois-ted sperm whale's head jogged about very vio-lently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rat-her more apprehensiveness than his archangelnature seemed to warrant.

When this interlude was over, Captain Mayh-ew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick;not, however, without frequent interruptionsfrom Gabriel, whenever his name was mentio-ned, and the crazy sea that seemed leaguedwith him.

It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long lefthome, when upon speaking a whale-ship, herpeople were reliably apprised of the existenceof Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel

solemnly warned the captain against attackingthe White Whale, in case the monster should beseen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing theWhite Whale to be no less a being than the Sha-ker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving theBible. But when, some year or two afterwards,Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ar-dour to encounter him; and the captain himselfbeing not unwilling to let him have the oppor-tunity, despite all the archangel's denunciationsand forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persua-ding five men to man his boat. With them hepushed off; and, after much weary pulling, andmany perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at lastsucceeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime,Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures,and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doomto the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity.Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing upin his boat's bow, and with all the reckless

energy of his tribe was venting his wild excla-mations upon the whale, and essaying to get afair chance for his poised lance, lo! a broad whi-te shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fan-ning motion, temporarily taking the breath outof the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, theluckless mate, so full of furious life, was smit-ten bodily into the air, and making a long arc inhis descent, fell into the sea at the distance ofabout fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat washarmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head; butthe mate for ever sank.

It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatalaccidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kindis perhaps almost as frequent as any. Someti-mes, nothing is injured but the man who is thusannihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knockedoff, or the thigh-board, in which the headsmanstands, is torn from its place and accompaniesthe body. But strangest of all is the circumstan-ce, that in more instances than one, when the

body has been recovered, not a single mark ofviolence is discernible; the man being stark de-ad.

The whole calamity, with the falling form ofMacey, was plainly descried from the ship. Rai-sing a piercing shriek—"The vial! the vial!" Ga-briel called off the terror-stricken crew from thefurther hunting of the whale. This terrible eventclothed the archangel with added influence;because his credulous disciples believed that hehad specifically fore-announced it, instead ofonly making a general prophecy, which anyone might have done, and so have chanced tohit one of many marks in the wide marginallowed. He became a nameless terror to theship.

Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahabput such questions to him, that the strangercaptain could not forbear inquiring whether heintended to hunt the White Whale, if opportu-nity should offer. To which Ahab answered—

"Aye." Straightway, then, Gabriel once morestarted to his feet, glaring upon the old man,and vehemently exclaimed, with downwardpointed finger—"Think, think of the blasp-hemer—dead, and down there!—beware of theblasphemer's end!"

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayh-ew, "Captain, I have just bethought me of myletter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy offi-cers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over thebag."

Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number ofletters for various ships, whose delivery to thepersons to whom they may be addressed, de-pends upon the mere chance of encounteringthem in the four oceans. Thus, most letters ne-ver reach their mark; and many are only recei-ved after attaining an age of two or three yearsor more.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in hishand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and cove-red with a dull, spotted, green mould, in con-sequence of being kept in a dark locker of thecabin. Of such a letter, Death himself mightwell have been the post-boy.

"Can'st not read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me,man. Aye, aye, it's but a dim scrawl;—what'sthis?" As he was studying it out, Starbuck tooka long cutting-spade pole, and with his knifeslightly split the end, to insert the letter there,and in that way, hand it to the boat, without itscoming any closer to the ship.

Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered,"Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a woman's pinnyhand,—the man's wife, I'll wager)—Aye—Mr.Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;—why it's Macey,and he's dead!"

"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,"sighed Mayhew; "but let me have it."

"Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab;"thou art soon going that way."

"Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "CaptainMayhew, stand by now to receive it"; and ta-king the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, hecaught it in the slit of the pole, and reached itover towards the boat. But as he did so, theoarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; theboat drifted a little towards the ship's stern; sothat, as if by magic, the letter suddenly rangedalong with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched itin an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impa-ling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back intothe ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then Gabrielshrieked out to his comrades to give way withtheir oars, and in that manner the mutinousboat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumedtheir work upon the jacket of the whale, manystrange things were hinted in reference to thiswild affair.

CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in andattending to a whale, there is much runningbackwards and forwards among the crew. Nowhands are wanted here, and then again handsare wanted there. There is no staying in anyone place; for at one and the same time everyt-hing has to be done everywhere. It is much thesame with him who endeavors the descriptionof the scene. We must now retrace our way alittle. It was mentioned that upon first breakingground in the whale's back, the blubber-hookwas inserted into the original hole there cut bythe spades of the mates. But how did so clumsyand weighty a mass as that same hook get fixedin that hole? It was inserted there by my parti-

cular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, asharpooneer, to descend upon the monster'sback for the special purpose referred to. But invery many cases, circumstances require that theharpooneer shall remain on the whale till thewhole tensing or stripping operation is conclu-ded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost enti-rely submerged, excepting the immediate partsoperated upon. So down there, some ten feetbelow the level of the deck, the poor harpoone-er flounders about, half on the whale and halfin the water, as the vast mass revolves like atread-mill beneath him. On the occasion inquestion, Queequeg figured in the Highlandcostume—a shirt and socks—in which to myeyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon ad-vantage; and no one had a better chance to ob-serve him, as will presently be seen.

Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the personwho pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the secondone from forward), it was my cheerful duty to

attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back.You have seen Italian organ-boys holding adancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from theship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg downthere in the sea, by what is technically called inthe fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strongstrip of canvas belted round his waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for bothof us. For, before we proceed further, it must besaid that the monkey-rope was fast at bothends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, andfast to my narrow leather one. So that for betteror for worse, we two, for the time, were wed-ded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise nomore, then both usage and honour demanded,that instead of cutting the cord, it should dragme down in his wake. So, then, an elongatedSiamese ligature united us. Queequeg was myown inseparable twin brother; nor could I any

way get rid of the dangerous liabilities whichthe hempen bond entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceiveof my situation then, that while earnestly wat-ching his motions, I seemed distinctly to per-ceive that my own individuality was now mer-ged in a joint stock company of two; that myfree will had received a mortal wound; and thatanother's mistake or misfortune might plungeinnocent me into unmerited disaster and death.Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of inte-rregnum in Providence; for its even-handedequity never could have so gross an injustice.And yet still further pondering—while I jerkedhim now and then from between the whale andship, which would threaten to jam him—stillfurther pondering, I say, I saw that this situa-tion of mine was the precise situation of everymortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he,one way or other, has this Siamese connexionwith a plurality of other mortals. If your banker

breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mista-ke sends you poison in your pills, you die.True, you may say that, by exceeding caution,you may possibly escape these and the multi-tudinous other evil chances of life. But handleQueequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would,sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very nearsliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forgetthat, do what I would, I only had the manage-ment of one end of it.*

*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; butit was only in the Pequod that the monkey andhis holder were ever tied together. This impro-vement upon the original usage was introdu-ced by no less a man than Stubb, in order toafford the imperilled harpooneer the strongestpossible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigi-lance of his monkey-rope holder.

I have hinted that I would often jerk poorQueequeg from between the whale and theship—where he would occasionally fall, from

the incessant rolling and swaying of both. Butthis was not the only jamming jeopardy he wasexposed to. Unappalled by the massacre madeupon them during the night, the sharks nowfreshly and more keenly allured by the beforepent blood which began to flow from the car-cass—the rabid creatures swarmed round it likebees in a beehive.

And right in among those sharks was Quee-queg; who often pushed them aside with hisfloundering feet. A thing altogether incrediblewere it not that attracted by such prey as a de-ad whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carni-vorous shark will seldom touch a man.

Nevertheless, it may well be believed that sincethey have such a ravenous finger in the pie, it isdeemed but wise to look sharp to them. Accor-dingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which Inow and then jerked the poor fellow from tooclose a vicinity to the maw of what seemed apeculiarly ferocious shark—he was provided

with still another protection. Suspended overthe side in one of the stages, Tashtego andDaggoo continually flourished over his head acouple of keen whale-spades, wherewith theyslaughtered as many sharks as they could re-ach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, wasvery disinterested and benevolent of them.They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I ad-mit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, andfrom the circumstance that both he and thesharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water, those indiscreet spades oftheirs would come nearer amputating a legthan a tall. But poor Queequeg, I suppose,straining and gasping there with that great ironhook—poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayedto his Yojo, and gave up his life into the handsof his gods.

Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother,thought I, as I drew in and then slacked off therope to every swell of the sea—what matters it,

after all? Are you not the precious image ofeach and all of us men in this whaling world?That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; tho-se sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends;and what between sharks and spades you arein a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.

But courage! there is good cheer in store foryou, Queequeg. For now, as with blue lips andblood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at lastclimbs up the chains and stands all drippingand involuntarily trembling over the side; thesteward advances, and with a benevolent, con-solatory glance hands him—what? Some hotCognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands him acup of tepid ginger and water!

"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously askedStubb, coming near. "Yes, this must be ginger,"peering into the as yet untasted cup. Thenstanding as if incredulous for a while, he calm-ly walked towards the astonished stewardslowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and will you

have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy,where lies the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is gin-ger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, tokindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Gin-ger!—what the devil is ginger? Sea-coal? fire-wood?—lucifer matches?—tinder?—gunpowder?—what the devil is ginger, I say,that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeghere."

"There is some sneaking Temperance Societymovement about this business," he suddenlyadded, now approaching Starbuck, who hadjust come from forward. "Will you look at thatkannakin, sir; smell of it, if you please." Thenwatching the mate's countenance, he added,"The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face tooffer that calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there,this instant off the whale. Is the steward anapothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this isthe sort of bitters by which he blows back thelife into a half-drowned man?"

"I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuffenough."

"Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teachyou to drug it harpooneer; none of your apot-hecary's medicine here; you want to poison us,do ye? You have got out insurances on our livesand want to murder us all, and pocket the pro-ceeds, do ye?"

"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was AuntCharity that brought the ginger on board; andbade me never give the harpooneers any spi-rits, but only this ginger-jub—so she called it."

"Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! andrun along with ye to the lockers, and get so-mething better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Star-buck. It is the captain's orders—grog for theharpooneer on a whale."

"Enough," replied Starbuck, "only don't hit himagain, but—"

"Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit awhale or something of that sort; and this fe-llow's a weazel. What were you about saying,sir?"

"Only this: go down with him, and get whatthou wantest thyself."

When Stubb reappeared, he came with a darkflask in one hand, and a sort of tea-caddy in theother. The first contained strong spirits, andwas handed to Queequeg; the second was AuntCharity's gift, and that was freely given to thewaves.

CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a RightWhale; and Then Have a Talk

Over Him.

It must be borne in mind that all this time wehave a Sperm Whale's prodigious head hangingto the Pequod's side. But we must let it conti-nue hanging there a while till we can get achance to attend to it. For the present othermatters press, and the best we can do now forthe head, is to pray heaven the tackles mayhold.

Now, during the past night and forenoon, thePequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which,by its occasional patches of yellow brit, gaveunusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales,a species of the Leviathan that but few suppo-sed to be at this particular time lurking anyw-here near. And though all hands commonlydisdained the capture of those inferior creatu-

res; and though the Pequod was not commis-sioned to cruise for them at all, and though shehad passed numbers of them near the Crozettswithout lowering a boat; yet now that a SpermWhale had been brought alongside and behea-ded, to the surprise of all, the announcementwas made that a Right Whale should be captu-red that day, if opportunity offered.

Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts wereseen to leeward; and two boats, Stubb's andFlask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling furt-her and further away, they at last became al-most invisible to the men at the mast-head. Butsuddenly in the distance, they saw a great heapof tumultuous white water, and soon afternews came from aloft that one or both the boatsmust be fast. An interval passed and the boatswere in plain sight, in the act of being draggedright towards the ship by the towing whale. Soclose did the monster come to the hull, that atfirst it seemed as if he meant it malice; but sud-

denly going down in a maelstrom, within threerods of the planks, he wholly disappeared fromview, as if diving under the keel. "Cut, cut!"was the cry from the ship to the boats, which,for one instant, seemed on the point of beingbrought with a deadly dash against the vessel'sside. But having plenty of line yet in the tubs,and the whale not sounding very rapidly, theypaid out abundance of rope, and at the sametime pulled with all their might so as to getahead of the ship. For a few minutes the strug-gle was intensely critical; for while they stillslacked out the tightened line in one direction,and still plied their oars in another, the conten-ding strain threatened to take them under. Butit was only a few feet advance they sought togain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it;when instantly, a swift tremor was felt runninglike lightning along the keel, as the strainedline, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly roseto view under her bows, snapping and quive-ring; and so flinging off its drippings, that the

drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water,while the whale beyond also rose to sight, andonce more the boats were free to fly. But thefagged whale abated his speed, and blindlyaltering his course, went round the stern of theship towing the two boats after him, so thatthey performed a complete circuit.

Meantime, they hauled more and more upontheir lines, till close flanking him on both sides,Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance; andthus round and round the Pequod the battlewent, while the multitudes of sharks that hadbefore swum round the Sperm Whale's body,rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled,thirstily drinking at every new gash, as the ea-ger Israelites did at the new bursting fountainsthat poured from the smitten rock.

At last his spout grew thick, and with a fright-ful roll and vomit, he turned upon his back acorpse.

While the two headsmen were engaged in ma-king fast cords to his flukes, and in other waysgetting the mass in readiness for towing, someconversation ensued between them.

"I wonder what the old man wants with thislump of foul lard," said Stubb, not without so-me disgust at the thought of having to do withso ignoble a leviathan.

"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spareline in the boat's bow, "did you never hear thatthe ship which but once has a Sperm Whale'shead hoisted on her starboard side, and at thesame time a Right Whale's on the larboard; didyou never hear, Stubb, that that ship can neverafterwards capsize?"

"Why not?

"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghostof a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to knowall about ships' charms. But I sometimes think

he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don'thalf like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever noticehow that tusk of his is a sort of carved into asnake's head, Stubb?"

"Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if everI get a chance of a dark night, and he standinghard by the bulwarks, and no one by; lookdown there, Flask"—pointing into the sea witha peculiar motion of both hands—"Aye, will I!Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in dis-guise. Do you believe that cock and bull storyabout his having been stowed away on boardship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why youdon't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out ofsight; he carries it coiled away in his pocket, Iguess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's al-ways wanting oakum to stuff into the toes ofhis boots."

"He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't gotany hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights ina coil of rigging."

"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; hecoils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rig-ging."

"What's the old man have so much to do withhim for?"

"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose."

"Bargain?—about what?"

"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent afterthat White Whale, and the devil there is tryingto come round him, and get him to swap awayhis silver watch, or his soul, or something ofthat sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick."

"Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fe-dallah do that?"

"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curiouschap, and a wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they sayas how he went a sauntering into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy

and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the oldgovernor was at home. Well, he was at home,and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil,switching his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.''What for?' says the old governor. 'What busi-ness is that of yours,' says the devil, gettingmad,—'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says thegovernor—and by the Lord, Flask, if the devildidn't give John the Asiatic cholera before hegot through with him, I'll eat this whale in onemouthful. But look sharp—ain't you all readythere? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get thewhale alongside."

"I think I remember some such story as youwere telling," said Flask, when at last the twoboats were slowly advancing with their burdentowards the ship, "but I can't remember where."

"Three Spaniards? Adventures of those threebloody-minded soladoes? Did ye read it there,Flask? I guess ye did?"

"No: never saw such a book; heard of it,though. But now, tell me, Stubb, do you suppo-se that that devil you was speaking of just now,was the same you say is now on board the Pe-quod?"

"Am I the same man that helped kill this wha-le? Doesn't the devil live for ever; who everheard that the devil was dead? Did you eversee any parson a wearing mourning for thedevil? And if the devil has a latch-key to getinto the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose hecan crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr.Flask?"

"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?"

"Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing tothe ship; "well, that's the figure one; now takeall the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and stringalong in a row with that mast, for oughts, doyou see; well, that wouldn't begin to be Feda-llah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation

couldn't show hoops enough to make oughtsenough."

"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boas-ted just now, that you meant to give Fedallah asea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if he'sso old as all those hoops of yours come to, andif he is going to live for ever, what good will itdo to pitch him overboard—tell me that?

"Give him a good ducking, anyhow."

"But he'd crawl back."

"Duck him again; and keep ducking him."

"Suppose he should take it into his head toduck you, though—yes, and drown you—whatthen?"

"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him sucha pair of black eyes that he wouldn't dare toshow his face in the admiral's cabin again for along while, let alone down in the orlop there,

where he lives, and hereabouts on the upperdecks where he sneaks so much. Damn the de-vil, Flask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the de-vil? Who's afraid of him, except the old gover-nor who daresn't catch him and put him indouble-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him goabout kidnapping people; aye, and signed abond with him, that all the people the devilkidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a gover-nor!"

"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnapCaptain Ahab?"

"Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long,Flask. But I am going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspi-cious going on, I'll just take him by the nape ofhis neck, and say—Look here, Beelzebub, youdon't do it; and if he makes any fuss, by theLord I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail,take it to the capstan, and give him such awrenching and heaving, that his tail will come

short off at the stump—do you see; and then, Irather guess when he finds himself docked inthat queer fashion, he'll sneak off without thepoor satisfaction of feeling his tail between hislegs."

"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?"

"Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we gethome;—what else?"

"Now, do you mean what you say, and havebeen saying all along, Stubb?"

"Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship."

The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale onthe larboard side, where fluke chains and othernecessaries were already prepared for securinghim.

"Didn't I tell you so?" said Flask; "yes, you'llsoon see this right whale's head hoisted up op-posite that parmacetti's."

In good time, Flask's saying proved true. Asbefore, the Pequod steeply leaned over towardsthe sperm whale's head, now, by the counter-poise of both heads, she regained her even keel;though sorely strained, you may well believe.So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head,you go over that way; but now, on the otherside, hoist in Kant's and you come back again;but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds forever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throwall these thunder-heads overboard, and thenyou will float light and right.

In disposing of the body of a right whale, whenbrought alongside the ship, the same prelimi-nary proceedings commonly take place as inthe case of a sperm whale; only, in the latterinstance, the head is cut off whole, but in theformer the lips and tongue are separately re-moved and hoisted on deck, with all the wellknown black bone attached to what is calledthe crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the

present case, had been done. The carcases ofboth whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carr-ying a pair of overburdening panniers.

Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing theright whale's head, and ever and anon glancingfrom the deep wrinkles there to the lines in hisown hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, thatthe Parsee occupied his shadow; while, if theParsee's shadow was there at all it seemed onlyto blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As thecrew toiled on, Laplandish speculations werebandied among them, concerning all these pas-sing things.

CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View.

Here, now, are two great whales, laying theirheads together; let us join them, and lay toget-her our own.

Of the grand order of folio leviathans, theSperm Whale and the Right Whale are by farthe most noteworthy. They are the only whalesregularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer,they present the two extremes of all the knownvarieties of the whale. As the external differen-ce between them is mainly observable in theirheads; and as a head of each is this momenthanging from the Pequod's side; and as we mayfreely go from one to the other, by merely step-ping across the deck:—where, I should like toknow, will you obtain a better chance to studypractical cetology than here?

In the first place, you are struck by the generalcontrast between these heads. Both are massiveenough in all conscience; but there is a certainmathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale'swhich the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There ismore character in the Sperm Whale's head. Asyou behold it, you involuntarily yield the im-mense superiority to him, in point of pervadingdignity. In the present instance, too, this digni-ty is heightened by the pepper and salt colourof his head at the summit, giving token of ad-vanced age and large experience. In short, he iswhat the fishermen technically call a "grey-headed whale."

Let us now note what is least dissimilar in theseheads—namely, the two most important or-gans, the eye and the ear. Far back on the sideof the head, and low down, near the angle ofeither whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, youwill at last see a lashless eye, which you would

fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all pro-portion is it to the magnitude of the head.

Now, from this peculiar sideway position of thewhale's eyes, it is plain that he can never see anobject which is exactly ahead, no more than hecan one exactly astern. In a word, the positionof the whale's eyes corresponds to that of aman's ears; and you may fancy, for yourself,how it would fare with you, did you sidewayssurvey objects through your ears. You wouldfind that you could only command some thirtydegrees of vision in advance of the straight si-de-line of sight; and about thirty more behindit. If your bitterest foe were walking straighttowards you, with dagger uplifted in broadday, you would not be able to see him, any mo-re than if he were stealing upon you frombehind. In a word, you would have two backs,so to speak; but, at the same time, also, twofronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes thefront of a man—what, indeed, but his eyes?

Moreover, while in most other animals that Ican now think of, the eyes are so planted asimperceptibly to blend their visual power, so asto produce one picture and not two to thebrain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes,effectually divided as they are by many cubicfeet of solid head, which towers between themlike a great mountain separating two lakes invalleys; this, of course, must wholly separatethe impressions which each independent organimparts. The whale, therefore, must see onedistinct picture on this side, and another dis-tinct picture on that side; while all betweenmust be profound darkness and nothingness tohim. Man may, in effect, be said to look out onthe world from a sentry-box with two joinedsashes for his window. But with the whale, the-se two sashes are separately inserted, makingtwo distinct windows, but sadly impairing theview. This peculiarity of the whale's eyes is athing always to be borne in mind in the fishery;

and to be remembered by the reader in somesubsequent scenes.

A curious and most puzzling question might bestarted concerning this visual matter as tou-ching the Leviathan. But I must be content witha hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in thelight, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, hecannot then help mechanically seeing whateverobjects are before him. Nevertheless, any one'sexperience will teach him, that though he cantake in an undiscriminating sweep of things atone glance, it is quite impossible for him, atten-tively, and completely, to examine any twothings—however large or however small—atone and the same instant of time; never mind ifthey lie side by side and touch each other. But ifyou now come to separate these two objects,and surround each by a circle of profounddarkness; then, in order to see one of them, insuch a manner as to bring your mind to bear onit, the other will be utterly excluded from your

contemporary consciousness. How is it, then,with the whale? True, both his eyes, in them-selves, must simultaneously act; but is his brainso much more comprehensive, combining, andsubtle than man's, that he can at the same mo-ment of time attentively examine two distinctprospects, one on one side of him, and the otherin an exactly opposite direction? If he can, thenis it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a manwere able simultaneously to go through thedemonstrations of two distinct problems inEuclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there anyincongruity in this comparison.

It may be but an idle whim, but it has alwaysseemed to me, that the extraordinary vacilla-tions of movement displayed by some whaleswhen beset by three or four boats; the timidityand liability to queer frights, so common tosuch whales; I think that all this indirectly pro-ceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition,

in which their divided and diametrically oppo-site powers of vision must involve them.

But the ear of the whale is full as curious as theeye. If you are an entire stranger to their race,you might hunt over these two heads for hours,and never discover that organ. The ear has noexternal leaf whatever; and into the hole itselfyou can hardly insert a quill, so wondrouslyminute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye.With respect to their ears, this important diffe-rence is to be observed between the spermwhale and the right. While the ear of the formerhas an external opening, that of the latter isentirely and evenly covered over with a mem-brane, so as to be quite imperceptible from wit-hout.

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the wha-le should see the world through so small aneye, and hear the thunder through an ear whichis smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes werebroad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope;

and his ears capacious as the porches of cat-hedrals; would that make him any longer ofsight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.—Whythen do you try to "enlarge" your mind? Subti-lize it.

Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant over the spermwhale's head, that it may lie bottom up; then,ascending by a ladder to the summit, have apeep down the mouth; and were it not that thebody is now completely separated from it, witha lantern we might descend into the great Ken-tucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But letus hold on here by this tooth, and look about uswhere we are. What a really beautiful and chas-te-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined,or rather papered with a glistening whitemembrane, glossy as bridal satins.

But come out now, and look at this portentouslower jaw, which seems like the long narrowlid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at

one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, soas to get it overhead, and expose its rows ofteeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such,alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fis-hery, upon whom these spikes fall with impa-ling force. But far more terrible is it to behold,when fathoms down in the sea, you see somesulky whale, floating there suspended, with hisprodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hangingstraight down at right-angles with his body, forall the world like a ship's jib-boom. This whaleis not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts,perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, thatthe hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving himthere in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproachto all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecatelock-jaws upon him.

In most cases this lower jaw—being easily un-hinged by a practised artist—is disengaged andhoisted on deck for the purpose of extractingthe ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that

hard white whalebone with which the fisher-men fashion all sorts of curious articles, inclu-ding canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles toriding-whips.

With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged onboard, as if it were an anchor; and when theproper time comes—some few days after theother work—Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego,being all accomplished dentists, are set to dra-wing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Quee-queg lances the gums; then the jaw is lasheddown to ringbolts, and a tackle being riggedfrom aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michi-gan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of wildwood lands. There are generally forty-two teethin all; in old whales, much worn down, butundecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion.The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and pi-led away like joists for building houses.

CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale's Head—Contrasted View.

Crossing the deck, let us now have a good longlook at the Right Whale's head.

As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale'shead may be compared to a Roman war-chariot(especially in front, where it is so broadlyrounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Wha-le's head bears a rather inelegant resemblanceto a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundredyears ago an old Dutch voyager likened itsshape to that of a shoemaker's last. And in thissame last or shoe, that old woman of the nurse-ry tale, with the swarming brood, might verycomfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.

But as you come nearer to this great head itbegins to assume different aspects, according toyour point of view. If you stand on its summitand look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, youwould take the whole head for an enormousbass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures inits sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix youreye upon this strange, crested, comb-like in-crustation on the top of the mass—this green,barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders callthe "crown," and the Southern fishers the "bon-net" of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes solelyon this, you would take the head for the trunkof some huge oak, with a bird's nest in itscrotch. At any rate, when you watch those livecrabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such anidea will be almost sure to occur to you; unless,indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the tech-nical term "crown" also bestowed upon it; inwhich case you will take great interest in thin-king how this mighty monster is actually a dia-demed king of the sea, whose green crown has

been put together for him in this marvellousmanner. But if this whale be a king, he is a verysulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look atthat hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk andpout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter'smeasurement, about twenty feet long and fivefeet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield yousome 500 gallons of oil and more.

A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whaleshould be hare-lipped. The fissure is about afoot across. Probably the mother during an im-portant interval was sailing down the Peruviancoast, when earthquakes caused the beach togape. Over this lip, as over a slippery thres-hold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon myword were I at Mackinaw, I should take this tobe the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord!is this the road that Jonah went? The roof isabout twelve feet high, and runs to a prettysharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy

sides, present us with those wondrous, halfvertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone,say three hundred on a side, which dependingfrom the upper part of the head or crown bone,form those Venetian blinds which have elsew-here been cursorily mentioned. The edges ofthese bones are fringed with hairy fibres,through which the Right Whale strains the wa-ter, and in whose intricacies he retains the smallfish, when openmouthed he goes through theseas of brit in feeding time. In the central blindsof bone, as they stand in their natural order,there are certain curious marks, curves,hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemencalculate the creature's age, as the age of an oakby its circular rings. Though the certainty ofthis criterion is far from demonstrable, yet ithas the savor of analogical probability. At anyrate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far grea-ter age to the Right Whale than at first glancewill seem reasonable.

In old times, there seem to have prevailed themost curious fancies concerning these blinds.One voyager in Purchas calls them the won-drous "whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;*another, "hogs' bristles"; a third old gentlemanin Hackluyt uses the following elegant langua-ge: "There are about two hundred and fifty finsgrowing on each side of his upper CHOP,which arch over his tongue on each side of hismouth."

*This reminds us that the Right Whale reallyhas a sort of whisker, or rather a moustache,consisting of a few scattered white hairs on theupper part of the outer end of the lower jaw.Sometimes these tufts impart a rather brigan-dish expression to his otherwise solemn coun-tenance.

As every one knows, these same "hogs' bris-tles," "fins," "whiskers," "blinds," or whateveryou please, furnish to the ladies their busks andother stiffening contrivances. But in this parti-

cular, the demand has long been on the decline.It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone wasin its glory, the farthingale being then all thefashion. And as those ancient dames movedabout gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, asyou may say; even so, in a shower, with the likethoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under thesame jaws for protection; the umbrella being atent spread over the same bone.

But now forget all about blinds and whiskersfor a moment, and, standing in the Right Wha-le's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing allthese colonnades of bone so methodically ran-ged about, would you not think you were insi-de of the great Haarlem organ, and gazingupon its thousand pipes? For a carpet to theorgan we have a rug of the softest Turkey—thetongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floorof the mouth. It is very fat and tender, and aptto tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck. This par-ticular tongue now before us; at a passing glan-

ce I should say it was a six-barreler; that is, itwill yield you about that amount of oil.

Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truthof what I started with—that the Sperm Whaleand the Right Whale have almost entirely diffe-rent heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Wha-le's there is no great well of sperm; no ivoryteeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a lo-wer jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in theSperm Whale are there any of those blinds ofbone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anythingof a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has twoexternal spout-holes, the Sperm Whale onlyone.

Look your last, now, on these venerable hoo-ded heads, while they yet lie together; for onewill soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the otherwill not be very long in following.

Can you catch the expression of the SpermWhale's there? It is the same he died with, only

some of the longer wrinkles in the foreheadseem now faded away. I think his broad browto be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of aspeculative indifference as to death. But markthe other head's expression. See that amazinglower lip, pressed by accident against the ves-sel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Doesnot this whole head seem to speak of an enor-mous practical resolution in facing death? ThisRight Whale I take to have been a Stoic; theSperm Whale, a Platonian, who might havetaken up Spinoza in his latter years.

CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.

Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale'shead, I would have you, as a sensible physiolo-gist, simply—particularly remark its front as-

pect, in all its compacted collectedness. I wouldhave you investigate it now with the sole viewof forming to yourself some unexaggerated,intelligent estimate of whatever battering-rampower may be lodged there. Here is a vitalpoint; for you must either satisfactorily settlethis matter with yourself, or for ever remain aninfidel as to one of the most appalling, but notthe less true events, perhaps anywhere to befound in all recorded history.

You observe that in the ordinary swimmingposition of the Sperm Whale, the front of hishead presents an almost wholly vertical planeto the water; you observe that the lower part ofthat front slopes considerably backwards, so asto furnish more of a retreat for the long socketwhich receives the boom-like lower jaw; youobserve that the mouth is entirely under thehead, much in the same way, indeed, as thoughyour own mouth were entirely under yourchin. Moreover you observe that the whale has

no external nose; and that what nose he has—his spout hole—is on the top of his head; youobserve that his eyes and ears are at the sides ofhis head, nearly one third of his entire lengthfrom the front. Wherefore, you must now haveperceived that the front of the Sperm Whale'shead is a dead, blind wall, without a single or-gan or tender prominence of any sort whatsoe-ver. Furthermore, you are now to consider thatonly in the extreme, lower, backward slopingpart of the front of the head, is there the sligh-test vestige of bone; and not till you get neartwenty feet from the forehead do you come tothe full cranial development. So that this wholeenormous boneless mass is as one wad. Finally,though, as will soon be revealed, its contentspartly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, youare now to be apprised of the nature of thesubstance which so impregnably invests all thatapparent effeminacy. In some previous place Ihave described to you how the blubber wrapsthe body of the whale, as the rind wraps an

orange. Just so with the head; but with this dif-ference: about the head this envelope, thoughnot so thick, is of a boneless toughness, inesti-mable by any man who has not handled it. Theseverest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lancedarted by the strongest human arm, impotentlyrebounds from it. It is as though the forehead ofthe Sperm Whale were paved with horses'hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks init.

Bethink yourself also of another thing. Whentwo large, loaded Indiamen chance to crowdand crush towards each other in the docks,what do the sailors do? They do not suspendbetween them, at the point of coming contact,any merely hard substance, like iron or wood.No, they hold there a large, round wad of towand cork, enveloped in the thickest and toug-hest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjuredtakes the jam which would have snapped alltheir oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By

itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious factI drive at. But supplementary to this, it has hy-pothetically occurred to me, that as ordinaryfish possess what is called a swimming bladderin them, capable, at will, of distension or con-traction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as Iknow, has no such provision in him; conside-ring, too, the otherwise inexplicable manner inwhich he now depresses his head altogetherbeneath the surface, and anon swims with ithigh elevated out of the water; considering theunobstructed elasticity of its envelope; conside-ring the unique interior of his head; it has hy-pothetically occurred to me, I say, that thosemystical lung-celled honeycombs there maypossibly have some hitherto unknown and un-suspected connexion with the outer air, so as tobe susceptible to atmospheric distension andcontraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistible-ness of that might, to which the most impalpa-ble and destructive of all elements contributes.

Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead,impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this mostbuoyant thing within; there swims behind it alla mass of tremendous life, only to be adequate-ly estimated as piled wood is—by the cord; andall obedient to one volition, as the smallest in-sect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to youall the specialities and concentrations of poten-cy everywhere lurking in this expansive mons-ter; when I shall show you some of his moreinconsiderable braining feats; I trust you willhave renounced all ignorant incredulity, and beready to abide by this; that though the SpermWhale stove a passage through the Isthmus ofDarien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific,you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you arebut a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth.But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giantsonly to encounter; how small the chances forthe provincials then? What befell the weaklingyouth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais?

CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.

Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to com-prehend it aright, you must know something ofthe curious internal structure of the thing ope-rated upon.

Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solidoblong, you may, on an inclined plane, side-ways divide it into two quoins,* whereof thelower is the bony structure, forming the cra-nium and jaws, and the upper an unctuousmass wholly free from bones; its broad forwardend forming the expanded vertical apparentforehead of the whale. At the middle of theforehead horizontally subdivide this upperquoin, and then you have two almost equal

parts, which before were naturally divided byan internal wall of a thick tendinous substance.

*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs tothe pure nautical mathematics. I know not thatit has been defined before. A quoin is a solidwhich differs from a wedge in having its sharpend formed by the steep inclination of one side,instead of the mutual tapering of both sides.

The lower subdivided part, called the junk, isone immense honeycomb of oil, formed by thecrossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infil-trated cells, of tough elastic white fibresthroughout its whole extent. The upper part,known as the Case, may be regarded as thegreat Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale.And as that famous great tierce is mysticallycarved in front, so the whale's vast plaited fo-rehead forms innumerable strange devices forthe emblematical adornment of his wondroustun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was al-ways replenished with the most excellent of the

wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of thewhale contains by far the most precious of allhis oily vintages; namely, the highly-prizedspermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, andodoriferous state. Nor is this precious substan-ce found unalloyed in any other part of thecreature. Though in life it remains perfectlyfluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death,it soon begins to concrete; sending forth beauti-ful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin de-licate ice is just forming in water. A large wha-le's case generally yields about five hundredgallons of sperm, though from unavoidablecircumstances, considerable of it is spilled, le-aks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevo-cably lost in the ticklish business of securingwhat you can.

I know not with what fine and costly materialthe Heidelburgh Tun was coated within, but insuperlative richness that coating could not pos-sibly have compared with the silken pearl-

coloured membrane, like the lining of a finepelisse, forming the inner surface of the SpermWhale's case.

It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tunof the Sperm Whale embraces the entire lengthof the entire top of the head; and since—as hasbeen elsewhere set forth—the head embracesone third of the whole length of the creature,then setting that length down at eighty feet fora good sized whale, you have more than twen-ty-six feet for the depth of the tun, when it islengthwise hoisted up and down against aship's side.

As in decapitating the whale, the operator'sinstrument is brought close to the spot wherean entrance is subsequently forced into thespermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to beuncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimelystroke should invade the sanctuary and was-tingly let out its invaluable contents. It is thisdecapitated end of the head, also, which is at

last elevated out of the water, and retained inthat position by the enormous cutting tackles,whose hempen combinations, on one side, ma-ke quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.

Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you,to that marvellous and—in this particular ins-tance—almost fatal operation whereby theSperm Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tap-ped.

CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.

Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; andwithout altering his erect posture, runs straightout upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, tothe part where it exactly projects over the hois-ted Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle

called a whip, consisting of only two parts, tra-velling through a single-sheaved block. Secu-ring this block, so that it hangs down from theyard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till itis caught and firmly held by a hand on deck.Then, hand-over-hand, down the other part,the Indian drops through the air, till dexterous-ly he lands on the summit of the head. There—still high elevated above the rest of the compa-ny, to whom he vivaciously cries—he seemssome Turkish Muezzin calling the good peopleto prayers from the top of a tower. A short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, hediligently searches for the proper place to beginbreaking into the Tun. In this business he pro-ceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter insome old house, sounding the walls to findwhere the gold is masoned in. By the time thiscautious search is over, a stout iron-bound buc-ket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been atta-ched to one end of the whip; while the otherend, being stretched across the deck, is there

held by two or three alert hands. These lastnow hoist the bucket within grasp of the India-n, to whom another person has reached up avery long pole. Inserting this pole into the buc-ket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket intothe Tun, till it entirely disappears; then givingthe word to the seamen at the whip, up comesthe bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk. Carefully loweredfrom its height, the full-freighted vessel iscaught by an appointed hand, and quicklyemptied into a large tub. Then remountingaloft, it again goes through the same rounduntil the deep cistern will yield no more. To-wards the end, Tashtego has to ram his longpole harder and harder, and deeper and deeperinto the Tun, until some twenty feet of the polehave gone down.

Now, the people of the Pequod had been balingsome time in this way; several tubs had beenfilled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once

a queer accident happened. Whether it was thatTashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless andreckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles sus-pending the head; or whether the place wherehe stood was so treacherous and oozy; orwhether the Evil One himself would have it tofall out so, without stating his particular rea-sons; how it was exactly, there is no tellingnow; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or nine-tieth bucket came suckingly up—my God! poorTashtego—like the twin reciprocating bucket ina veritable well, dropped head-foremost downinto this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with ahorrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight!

"Man overboard!" cried Daggoo, who amid thegeneral consternation first came to his senses."Swing the bucket this way!" and putting onefoot into it, so as the better to secure his slippe-ry hand-hold on the whip itself, the hoisters ranhim high up to the top of the head, almost befo-

re Tashtego could have reached its interior bot-tom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult.Looking over the side, they saw the before life-less head throbbing and heaving just below thesurface of the sea, as if that moment seized withsome momentous idea; whereas it was only thepoor Indian unconsciously revealing by thosestruggles the perilous depth to which he hadsunk.

At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit ofthe head, was clearing the whip—which hadsomehow got foul of the great cutting tackles—a sharp cracking noise was heard; and to theunspeakable horror of all, one of the two enor-mous hooks suspending the head tore out, andwith a vast vibration the enormous mass side-ways swung, till the drunk ship reeled andshook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one re-maining hook, upon which the entire strainnow depended, seemed every instant to be on

the point of giving way; an event still morelikely from the violent motions of the head.

"Come down, come down!" yelled the seamento Daggoo, but with one hand holding on to theheavy tackles, so that if the head should drop,he would still remain suspended; the negrohaving cleared the foul line, rammed down thebucket into the now collapsed well, meaningthat the buried harpooneer should grasp it, andso be hoisted out.

"In heaven's name, man," cried Stubb, "are youramming home a cartridge there?—Avast! Howwill that help him; jamming that iron-boundbucket on top of his head? Avast, will ye!"

"Stand clear of the tackle!" cried a voice like thebursting of a rocket.

Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass dropped into thesea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpo-

ol; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away fromit, to far down her glittering copper; and allcaught their breath, as half swinging—nowover the sailors' heads, and now over the wa-ter—Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray,was dimly beheld clinging to the penduloustackles, while poor, buried-alive Tashtego wassinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea!But hardly had the blinding vapour clearedaway, when a naked figure with a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift momentseen hovering over the bulwarks. The next, aloud splash announced that my brave Quee-queg had dived to the rescue. One packed rushwas made to the side, and every eye countedevery ripple, as moment followed moment, andno sign of either the sinker or the diver couldbe seen. Some hands now jumped into a boatalongside, and pushed a little off from the ship.

"Ha! ha!" cried Daggoo, all at once, from hisnow quiet, swinging perch overhead; and loo-

king further off from the side, we saw an armthrust upright from the blue waves; a sightstrange to see, as an arm thrust forth from thegrass over a grave.

"Both! both!—it is both!"—cried Daggoo againwith a joyful shout; and soon after, Queequegwas seen boldly striking out with one hand,and with the other clutching the long hair ofthe Indian. Drawn into the waiting boat, theywere quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtegowas long in coming to, and Queequeg did notlook very brisk.

Now, how had this noble rescue been accom-plished? Why, diving after the slowly descen-ding head, Queequeg with his keen sword hadmade side lunges near its bottom, so as to scut-tle a large hole there; then dropping his sword,had thrust his long arm far inwards and up-wards, and so hauled out poor Tash by thehead. He averred, that upon first thrusting infor him, a leg was presented; but well knowing

that that was not as it ought to be, and mightoccasion great trouble;—he had thrust back theleg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, hadwrought a somerset upon the Indian; so thatwith the next trial, he came forth in the goodold way—head foremost. As for the great headitself, that was doing as well as could be expec-ted.

And thus, through the courage and great skillin obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, orrather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfullyaccomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most un-toward and apparently hopeless impediments;which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten.Midwifery should be taught in the same coursewith fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.

I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to seem incredible to so-me landsmen, though they themselves mayhave either seen or heard of some one's fallinginto a cistern ashore; an accident which not

seldom happens, and with much less reasontoo than the Indian's, considering the exceedingslipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale'swell.

But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged,how is this? We thought the tissued, infiltratedhead of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest andmost corky part about him; and yet thou ma-kest it sink in an element of a far greater speci-fic gravity than itself. We have thee there. Notat all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tashfell in, the case had been nearly emptied of itslighter contents, leaving little but the densetendinous wall of the well—a double welded,hammered substance, as I have before said,much heavier than the sea water, and a lump ofwhich sinks in it like lead almost. But the ten-dency to rapid sinking in this substance was inthe present instance materially counteracted bythe other parts of the head remaining undeta-ched from it, so that it sank very slowly and

deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fairchance for performing his agile obstetrics onthe run, as you may say. Yes, it was a runningdelivery, so it was.

Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, ithad been a very precious perishing; smotheredin the very whitest and daintiest of fragrantspermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed inthe secret inner chamber and sanctum sancto-rum of the whale. Only one sweeter end canreadily be recalled—the delicious death of anOhio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in thecrotch of a hollow tree, found such exceedingstore of it, that leaning too far over, it suckedhim in, so that he died embalmed. How many,think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honeyhead, and sweetly perished there?

CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.

To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumpson the head of this Leviathan; this is a thingwhich no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has asyet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seemalmost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scruti-nized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, orfor Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipu-lated the Dome of the Pantheon. Still, in thatfamous work of his, Lavater not only treats ofthe various faces of men, but also attentivelystudies the faces of horses, birds, serpents, andfish; and dwells in detail upon the modifica-tions of expression discernible therein. Norhave Gall and his disciple Spurzheim failed tothrow out some hints touching the phrenologi-cal characteristics of other beings than man.Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for apioneer, in the application of these two semi-

sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. Itry all things; I achieve what I can.

Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whaleis an anomalous creature. He has no propernose. And since the nose is the central and mostconspicuous of the features; and since it per-haps most modifies and finally controls theircombined expression; hence it would seem thatits entire absence, as an external appendage,must very largely affect the countenance of thewhale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire,cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, isdeemed almost indispensable to the completionof the scene; so no face can be physiognomica-lly in keeping without the elevated open-workbelfry of the nose. Dash the nose from Phidias'smarble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Ne-vertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magni-tude, all his proportions are so stately, that thesame deficiency which in the sculptured Jovewere hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay,

it is an added grandeur. A nose to the whalewould have been impertinent. As on your phy-siognomical voyage you sail round his vasthead in your jolly-boat, your noble conceptionsof him are never insulted by the reflection thathe has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit,which so often will insist upon obtruding evenwhen beholding the mightiest royal beadle onhis throne.

In some particulars, perhaps the most imposingphysiognomical view to be had of the SpermWhale, is that of the full front of his head. Thisaspect is sublime.

In thought, a fine human brow is like the Eastwhen troubled with the morning. In the reposeof the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has atouch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannonup mountain defiles, the elephant's brow ismajestic. Human or animal, the mystical browis as that great golden seal affixed by the Ger-man Emperors to their decrees. It signifies—

"God: done this day by my hand." But in mostcreatures, nay in man himself, very often thebrow is but a mere strip of alpine land lyingalong the snow line. Few are the foreheadswhich like Shakespeare's or Melancthon's riseso high, and descend so low, that the eyesthemselves seem clear, eternal, tideless moun-tain lakes; and all above them in the forehead'swrinkles, you seem to track the antleredthoughts descending there to drink, as theHighland hunters track the snow prints of thedeer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this highand mighty god-like dignity inherent in thebrow is so immensely amplified, that gazing onit, in that full front view, you feel the Deity andthe dread powers more forcibly than in behol-ding any other object in living nature. For yousee no one point precisely; not one distinct fea-ture is revealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth;no face; he has none, proper; nothing but thatone broad firmament of a forehead, pleatedwith riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom

of boats, and ships, and men. Nor, in profile,does this wondrous brow diminish; though thatway viewed its grandeur does not domineerupon you so. In profile, you plainly perceivethat horizontal, semi-crescentic depression inthe forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lava-ter's mark of genius.

But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has theSperm Whale ever written a book, spoken aspeech? No, his great genius is declared in hisdoing nothing particular to prove it. It is mo-reover declared in his pyramidical silence. Andthis reminds me that had the great Sperm Wha-le been known to the young Orient World, hewould have been deified by their child-magianthoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile,because the crocodile is tongueless; and theSperm Whale has no tongue, or at least it is soexceedingly small, as to be incapable of protru-sion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poeticalnation shall lure back to their birth-right, the

merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enth-rone them again in the now egotistical sky; inthe now unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted toJove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale shalllord it.

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granitehieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion todecipher the Egypt of every man's and everybeing's face. Physiognomy, like every otherhuman science, is but a passing fable. If then,Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages,could not read the simplest peasant's face in itsprofounder and more subtle meanings, howmay unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awfulChaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but putthat brow before you. Read it if you can.

CHAPTER 80. The Nut.

If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically aSphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems thatgeometrical circle which it is impossible tosquare.

In the full-grown creature the skull will measu-re at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge thelower jaw, and the side view of this skull is asthe side of a moderately inclined plane restingthroughout on a level base. But in life—as wehave elsewhere seen—this inclined plane isangularly filled up, and almost squared by theenormous superincumbent mass of the junkand sperm. At the high end the skull forms acrater to bed that part of the mass; while underthe long floor of this crater—in another cavityseldom exceeding ten inches in length and asmany in depth—reposes the mere handful ofthis monster's brain. The brain is at least twenty

feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hid-den away behind its vast outworks, like theinnermost citadel within the amplified fortifica-tions of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it se-creted in him, that I have known some whale-men who peremptorily deny that the SpermWhale has any other brain than that palpablesemblance of one formed by the cubic-yards ofhis sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds,courses, and convolutions, to their apprehen-sions, it seems more in keeping with the idea ofhis general might to regard that mystic part ofhim as the seat of his intelligence.

It is plain, then, that phrenologically the headof this Leviathan, in the creature's living intactstate, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain,you can then see no indications of it, nor feelany. The whale, like all things that are mighty,wears a false brow to the common world.

If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps andthen take a rear view of its rear end, which is

the high end, you will be struck by its resem-blance to the human skull, beheld in the samesituation, and from the same point of view.Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled downto the human magnitude) among a plate ofmen's skulls, and you would involuntarily con-found it with them; and remarking the depres-sions on one part of its summit, in phrenologi-cal phrase you would say—This man had noself-esteem, and no veneration. And by thosenegations, considered along with the affirmati-ve fact of his prodigious bulk and power, youcan best form to yourself the truest, though notthe most exhilarating conception of what themost exalted potency is.

But if from the comparative dimensions of thewhale's proper brain, you deem it incapable ofbeing adequately charted, then I have anotheridea for you. If you attentively regard almostany quadruped's spine, you will be struck withthe resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung

necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudi-mental resemblance to the skull proper. It is aGerman conceit, that the vertebrae are absolute-ly undeveloped skulls. But the curious externalresemblance, I take it the Germans were not thefirst men to perceive. A foreign friend oncepointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe hehad slain, and with the vertebrae of which hewas inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the bea-ked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that thephrenologists have omitted an important thingin not pushing their investigations from thecerebellum through the spinal canal. For I be-lieve that much of a man's character will befound betokened in his backbone. I would rat-her feel your spine than your skull, whoeveryou are. A thin joist of a spine never yet uphelda full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as inthe firm audacious staff of that flag which Ifling half out to the world.

Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to theSperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuouswith the first neck-vertebra; and in that verte-bra the bottom of the spinal canal will measureten inches across, being eight in height, and of atriangular figure with the base downwards. Asit passes through the remaining vertebrae thecanal tapers in size, but for a considerable dis-tance remains of large capacity. Now, of course,this canal is filled with much the same strange-ly fibrous substance—the spinal cord—as thebrain; and directly communicates with thebrain. And what is still more, for many feetafter emerging from the brain's cavity, the spi-nal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, al-most equal to that of the brain. Under all thesecircumstances, would it be unreasonable tosurvey and map out the whale's spine phreno-logically? For, viewed in this light, the wonder-ful comparative smallness of his brain proper ismore than compensated by the wonderfulcomparative magnitude of his spinal cord.

But leaving this hint to operate as it may withthe phrenologists, I would merely assume thespinal theory for a moment, in reference to theSperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if Imistake not, rises over one of the larger verte-brae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outerconvex mould of it. From its relative situationthen, I should call this high hump the organ offirmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Wha-le. And that the great monster is indomitable,you will yet have reason to know.

CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Vir-gin.

The predestinated day arrived, and we dulymet the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master,of Bremen.

At one time the greatest whaling people in theworld, the Dutch and Germans are now amongthe least; but here and there at very wide inter-vals of latitude and longitude, you still occasio-nally meet with their flag in the Pacific.

For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quiteeager to pay her respects. While yet some dis-tance from the Pequod, she rounded to, anddropping a boat, her captain was impelled to-wards us, impatiently standing in the bowsinstead of the stern.

"What has he in his hand there?" cried Star-buck, pointing to something wavingly held bythe German. "Impossible!—a lamp-feeder!"

"Not that," said Stubb, "no, no, it's a coffee-pot,Mr. Starbuck; he's coming off to make us ourcoffee, is the Yarman; don't you see that big tincan there alongside of him?—that's his boilingwater. Oh! he's all right, is the Yarman."

"Go along with you," cried Flask, "it's a lamp-feeder and an oil-can. He's out of oil, and hascome a-begging."

However curious it may seem for an oil-ship tobe borrowing oil on the whale-ground, andhowever much it may invertedly contradict theold proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle,yet sometimes such a thing really happens; andin the present case Captain Derick De Deer didindubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask diddeclare.

As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accos-ted him, without at all heeding what he had inhis hand; but in his broken lingo, the Germansoon evinced his complete ignorance of theWhite Whale; immediately turning the conver-sation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with someremarks touching his having to turn into hishammock at night in profound darkness—hislast drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not asingle flying-fish yet captured to supply the

deficiency; concluding by hinting that his shipwas indeed what in the Fishery is technicallycalled a CLEAN one (that is, an empty one),well deserving the name of Jungfrau or the Vir-gin.

His necessities supplied, Derick departed; buthe had not gained his ship's side, when whaleswere almost simultaneously raised from themast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for thechase was Derick, that without pausing to puthis oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewedround his boat and made after the leviathanlamp-feeders.

Now, the game having risen to leeward, he andthe other three German boats that soon follo-wed him, had considerably the start of the Pe-quod's keels. There were eight whales, an ave-rage pod. Aware of their danger, they weregoing all abreast with great speed straight befo-re the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely asso many spans of horses in harness. They left a

great, wide wake, as though continually unro-lling a great wide parchment upon the sea.

Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms inthe rear, swam a huge, humped old bull, whichby his comparatively slow progress, as well asby the unusual yellowish incrustations over-growing him, seemed afflicted with the jaundi-ce, or some other infirmity. Whether this whalebelonged to the pod in advance, seemed ques-tionable; for it is not customary for such vene-rable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless,he stuck to their wake, though indeed theirback water must have retarded him, becausethe white-bone or swell at his broad muzzlewas a dashed one, like the swell formed whentwo hostile currents meet. His spout was short,slow, and laborious; coming forth with a cho-king sort of gush, and spending itself in tornshreds, followed by strange subterraneancommotions in him, which seemed to have

egress at his other buried extremity, causing thewaters behind him to upbubble.

"Who's got some paregoric?" said Stubb, "hehas the stomach-ache, I'm afraid. Lord, think ofhaving half an acre of stomach-ache! Adversewinds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys.It's the first foul wind I ever knew to blow fromastern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before?it must be, he's lost his tiller."

As an overladen Indiaman bearing down theHindostan coast with a deck load of frightenedhorses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows onher way; so did this old whale heave his agedbulk, and now and then partly turning over onhis cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of hisdevious wake in the unnatural stump of hisstarboard fin. Whether he had lost that fin inbattle, or had been born without it, it were hardto say.

"Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye asling for that wounded arm," cried cruel Flask,pointing to the whale-line near him.

"Mind he don't sling thee with it," cried Star-buck. "Give way, or the German will have him."

With one intent all the combined rival boatswere pointed for this one fish, because not onlywas he the largest, and therefore the most va-luable whale, but he was nearest to them, andthe other whales were going with such greatvelocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuitfor the time. At this juncture the Pequod's keelshad shot by the three German boats last lowe-red; but from the great start he had had, De-rick's boat still led the chase, though everymoment neared by his foreign rivals. The onlything they feared, was, that from being alreadyso nigh to his mark, he would be enabled todart his iron before they could completely over-take and pass him. As for Derick, he seemedquite confident that this would be the case, and

occasionally with a deriding gesture shook hislamp-feeder at the other boats.

"The ungracious and ungrateful dog!" criedStarbuck; "he mocks and dares me with thevery poor-box I filled for him not five minutesago!"—then in his old intense whisper—"Giveway, greyhounds! Dog to it!"

"I tell ye what it is, men"—cried Stubb to hiscrew—"it's against my religion to get mad; butI'd like to eat that villainous Yarman—Pull—won't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beatye? Do ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy,then, to the best man. Come, why don't some ofye burst a blood-vessel? Who's that been drop-ping an anchor overboard—we don't budge aninch—we're becalmed. Halloo, here's grassgrowing in the boat's bottom—and by the Lord,the mast there's budding. This won't do, boys.Look at that Yarman! The short and long of itis, men, will ye spit fire or not?"

"Oh! see the suds he makes!" cried Flask, dan-cing up and down—"What a hump—Oh, DOpile on the beef—lays like a log! Oh! my lads,DO spring—slap-jacks and quahogs for supper,you know, my lads—baked clams and muf-fins—oh, DO, DO, spring,—he's a hundredbarreller—don't lose him now—don't oh,DON'T!—see that Yarman—Oh, won't ye pullfor your duff, my lads—such a sog! such a sog-ger! Don't ye love sperm? There goes threethousand dollars, men!—a bank!—a wholebank! The bank of England!—Oh, DO, DO,DO!—What's that Yarman about now?"

At this moment Derick was in the act of pit-ching his lamp-feeder at the advancing boats,and also his oil-can; perhaps with the doubleview of retarding his rivals' way, and at thesame time economically accelerating his ownby the momentary impetus of the backwardtoss.

"The unmannerly Dutch dogger!" cried Stubb."Pull now, men, like fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. Whatd'ye say, Tashtego; are you the man to snapyour spine in two-and-twenty pieces for thehonour of old Gayhead? What d'ye say?"

"I say, pull like god-dam,"—cried the Indian.

Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of theGerman, the Pequod's three boats now beganranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, mo-mentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chi-valrous attitude of the headsman when dra-wing near to his prey, the three mates stood upproudly, occasionally backing the after oars-man with an exhilarating cry of, "There sheslides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze!Down with the Yarman! Sail over him!"

But so decided an original start had Derick had,that spite of all their gallantry, he would haveproved the victor in this race, had not a righte-

ous judgment descended upon him in a crabwhich caught the blade of his midship oars-man. While this clumsy lubber was striving tofree his white-ash, and while, in consequence,Derick's boat was nigh to capsizing, and hethundering away at his men in a mighty ra-ge;—that was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb,and Flask. With a shout, they took a mortalstart forwards, and slantingly ranged up on theGerman's quarter. An instant more, and all fourboats were diagonically in the whale's imme-diate wake, while stretching from them, onboth sides, was the foaming swell that he made.

It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddeningsight. The whale was now going head out, andsending his spout before him in a continualtormented jet; while his one poor fin beat hisside in an agony of fright. Now to this hand,now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight,and still at every billow that he broke, he spas-modically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled

towards the sky his one beating fin. So have Iseen a bird with clipped wing making affrigh-ted broken circles in the air, vainly striving toescape the piratical hawks. But the bird has avoice, and with plaintive cries will makeknown her fear; but the fear of this vast dumbbrute of the sea, was chained up and enchantedin him; he had no voice, save that choking res-piration through his spiracle, and this made thesight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, inhis amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipo-tent tail, there was enough to appal the stoutestman who so pitied.

Seeing now that but a very few moments morewould give the Pequod's boats the advantage,and rather than be thus foiled of his game, De-rick chose to hazard what to him must haveseemed a most unusually long dart, ere the lastchance would for ever escape.

But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up forthe stroke, than all three tigers—Queequeg,

Tashtego, Daggoo—instinctively sprang totheir feet, and standing in a diagonal row, si-multaneously pointed their barbs; and dartedover the head of the German harpooneer, theirthree Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blin-ding vapours of foam and white-fire! The threeboats, in the first fury of the whale's headlongrush, bumped the German's aside with suchforce, that both Derick and his baffled harpoo-neer were spilled out, and sailed over by thethree flying keels.

"Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes," cried Stubb,casting a passing glance upon them as he shotby; "ye'll be picked up presently—all right—Isaw some sharks astern—St. Bernard's dogs,you know—relieve distressed travellers.Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keela sunbeam! Hurrah!—Here we go like three tinkettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts mein mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilburyon a plain—makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys,

when you fasten to him that way; and there'sdanger of being pitched out too, when you stri-ke a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feelswhen he's going to Davy Jones—all a rushdown an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! thiswhale carries the everlasting mail!"

But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving asudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With agrating rush, the three lines flew round the log-gerheads with such a force as to gouge deepgrooves in them; while so fearful were the har-pooneers that this rapid sounding would soonexhaust the lines, that using all their dexterousmight, they caught repeated smoking turnswith the rope to hold on; till at last—owing tothe perpendicular strain from the lead-linedchocks of the boats, whence the three ropeswent straight down into the blue—the gunwa-les of the bows were almost even with the wa-ter, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for some

time they remained in that attitude, fearful ofexpending more line, though the position was alittle ticklish. But though boats have been takendown and lost in this way, yet it is this "holdingon," as it is called; this hooking up by the sharpbarbs of his live flesh from the back; this it isthat often torments the Leviathan into soonrising again to meet the sharp lance of his foes.Yet not to speak of the peril of the thing, it is tobe doubted whether this course is always thebest; for it is but reasonable to presume, thatthe longer the stricken whale stays under wa-ter, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing tothe enormous surface of him—in a full grownsperm whale something less than 2000 squarefeet—the pressure of the water is immense. Weall know what an astonishing atmosphericweight we ourselves stand up under; evenhere, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then,the burden of a whale, bearing on his back acolumn of two hundred fathoms of ocean! Itmust at least equal the weight of fifty atmosp-

heres. One whaleman has estimated it at theweight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with alltheir guns, and stores, and men on board.

As the three boats lay there on that gently ro-lling sea, gazing down into its eternal blue no-on; and as not a single groan or cry of any sort,nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble cameup from its depths; what landsman would havethought, that beneath all that silence and placi-dity, the utmost monster of the seas was writ-hing and wrenching in agony! Not eight inchesof perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.Seems it credible that by three such thin thre-ads the great Leviathan was suspended like thebig weight to an eight day clock. Suspended?and to what? To three bits of board. Is this thecreature of whom it was once so triumphantlysaid—"Canst thou fill his skin with barbedirons? or his head with fish-spears? The swordof him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spe-ar, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth

iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee;darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at theshaking of a spear!" This the creature? this he?Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prop-hets. For with the strength of a thousand thighsin his tail, Leviathan had run his head underthe mountains of the sea, to hide him from thePequod's fish-spears!

In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadowsthat the three boats sent down beneath the sur-face, must have been long enough and broadenough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who cantell how appalling to the wounded whale musthave been such huge phantoms flitting over hishead!

"Stand by, men; he stirs," cried Starbuck, as thethree lines suddenly vibrated in the water, dis-tinctly conducting upwards to them, as bymagnetic wires, the life and death throbs of thewhale, so that every oarsman felt them in hisseat. The next moment, relieved in great part

from the downward strain at the bows, the bo-ats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a smallicefield will, when a dense herd of white bearsare scared from it into the sea.

"Haul in! Haul in!" cried Starbuck again; "he'srising."

The lines, of which, hardly an instant before,not one hand's breadth could have been gained,were now in long quick coils flung back alldripping into the boats, and soon the whalebroke water within two ship's lengths of thehunters.

His motions plainly denoted his extreme ex-haustion. In most land animals there are certainvalves or flood-gates in many of their veins,whereby when wounded, the blood is in somedegree at least instantly shut off in certain di-rections. Not so with the whale; one of whosepeculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvularstructure of the blood-vessels, so that when

pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, adeadly drain is at once begun upon his wholearterial system; and when this is heightened bythe extraordinary pressure of water at a greatdistance below the surface, his life may be saidto pour from him in incessant streams. Yet sovast is the quantity of blood in him, and so dis-tant and numerous its interior fountains, thathe will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for aconsiderable period; even as in a drought ariver will flow, whose source is in the well-springs of far-off and undiscernible hills. Evennow, when the boats pulled upon this whale,and perilously drew over his swaying flukes,and the lances were darted into him, they werefollowed by steady jets from the new madewound, which kept continually playing, whilethe natural spout-hole in his head was only atintervals, however rapid, sending its affrightedmoisture into the air. From this last vent noblood yet came, because no vital part of him

had thus far been struck. His life, as they signi-ficantly call it, was untouched.

As the boats now more closely surroundedhim, the whole upper part of his form, withmuch of it that is ordinarily submerged, wasplainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the placeswhere his eyes had been, were beheld. Asstrange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, sofrom the points which the whale's eyes hadonce occupied, now protruded blind bulbs,horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was no-ne. For all his old age, and his one arm, and hisblind eyes, he must die the death and be mur-dered, in order to light the gay bridals and ot-her merry-makings of men, and also to illumi-nate the solemn churches that preach uncondi-tional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rollingin his blood, at last he partially disclosed astrangely discoloured bunch or protuberance,the size of a bushel, low down on the flank.

"A nice spot," cried Flask; "just let me prick himthere once."

"Avast!" cried Starbuck, "there's no need ofthat!"

But humane Starbuck was too late. At the ins-tant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from thiscruel wound, and goaded by it into more thansufferable anguish, the whale now spoutingthick blood, with swift fury blindly darted atthe craft, bespattering them and their gloryingcrews all over with showers of gore, capsizingFlask's boat and marring the bows. It was hisdeath stroke. For, by this time, so spent was heby loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled awayfrom the wreck he had made; lay panting onhis side, impotently flapped with his stumpedfin, then over and over slowly revolved like awaning world; turned up the white secrets ofhis belly; lay like a log, and died. It was mostpiteous, that last expiring spout. As when byunseen hands the water is gradually drawn off

from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurglings the spray-columnlowers and lowers to the ground—so the lastlong dying spout of the whale.

Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrivalof the ship, the body showed symptoms of sin-king with all its treasures unrifled. Immediate-ly, by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to itat different points, so that ere long every boatwas a buoy; the sunken whale being suspendeda few inches beneath them by the cords. Byvery heedful management, when the ship drewnigh, the whale was transferred to her side, andwas strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificiallyupheld, the body would at once sink to the bot-tom.

It so chanced that almost upon first cutting intohim with the spade, the entire length of a co-rroded harpoon was found imbedded in hisflesh, on the lower part of the bunch before

described. But as the stumps of harpoons arefrequently found in the dead bodies of captu-red whales, with the flesh perfectly healedaround them, and no prominence of any kindto denote their place; therefore, there must ne-eds have been some other unknown reason inthe present case fully to account for the ulcera-tion alluded to. But still more curious was thefact of a lance-head of stone being found inhim, not far from the buried iron, the flesh per-fectly firm about it. Who had darted that stonelance? And when? It might have been darted bysome Nor' West Indian long before Americawas discovered.

What other marvels might have been rumma-ged out of this monstrous cabinet there is notelling. But a sudden stop was put to furtherdiscoveries, by the ship's being unprecedented-ly dragged over sideways to the sea, owing tothe body's immensely increasing tendency tosink. However, Starbuck, who had the ordering

of affairs, hung on to it to the last; hung on to itso resolutely, indeed, that when at length theship would have been capsized, if still persis-ting in locking arms with the body; then, whenthe command was given to break clear from it,such was the immovable strain upon the tim-ber-heads to which the fluke-chains and cableswere fastened, that it was impossible to castthem off. Meantime everything in the Pequodwas aslant. To cross to the other side of thedeck was like walking up the steep gabled roofof a house. The ship groaned and gasped. Ma-ny of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks andcabins were started from their places, by theunnatural dislocation. In vain handspikes andcrows were brought to bear upon the immova-ble fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from thetimberheads; and so low had the whale nowsettled that the submerged ends could not be atall approached, while every moment wholetons of ponderosity seemed added to the sin-

king bulk, and the ship seemed on the point ofgoing over.

"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to thebody, "don't be in such a devil of a hurry tosink! By thunder, men, we must do somethingor go for it. No use prying there; avast, I saywith your handspikes, and run one of ye for aprayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the bigchains."

"Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizingthe carpenter's heavy hatchet, he leaned out ofa porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing atthe largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, fullof sparks, were given, when the exceedingstrain effected the rest. With a terrific snap,every fastening went adrift; the ship righted,the carcase sank.

Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of therecently killed Sperm Whale is a very curiousthing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately

accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Wha-le floats with great buoyancy, with its side orbelly considerably elevated above the surface.If the only whales that thus sank were old,meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, theirpads of lard diminished and all their bonesheavy and rheumatic; then you might with so-me reason assert that this sinking is caused byan uncommon specific gravity in the fish sosinking, consequent upon this absence of buo-yant matter in him. But it is not so. For youngwhales, in the highest health, and swelling withnoble aspirations, prematurely cut off in thewarm flush and May of life, with all their pan-ting lard about them; even these brawny, buo-yant heroes do sometimes sink.

Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is farless liable to this accident than any other spe-cies. Where one of that sort go down, twentyRight Whales do. This difference in the speciesis no doubt imputable in no small degree to the

greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; hisVenetian blinds alone sometimes weighingmore than a ton; from this incumbrance theSperm Whale is wholly free. But there are ins-tances where, after the lapse of many hours orseveral days, the sunken whale again rises, mo-re buoyant than in life. But the reason of this isobvious. Gases are generated in him; he swellsto a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort ofanimal balloon. A line-of-battle ship couldhardly keep him under then. In the Shore Wha-ling, on soundings, among the Bays of NewZealand, when a Right Whale gives token ofsinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plentyof rope; so that when the body has gone down,they know where to look for it when it shallhave ascended again.

It was not long after the sinking of the bodythat a cry was heard from the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was againlowering her boats; though the only spout in

sight was that of a Fin-Back, belonging to thespecies of uncapturable whales, because of itsincredible power of swimming. Nevertheless,the Fin-Back's spout is so similar to the SpermWhale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is oftenmistaken for it. And consequently Derick andall his host were now in valiant chase of thisunnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail,made after her four young keels, and thus theyall disappeared far to leeward, still in bold,hopeful chase.

Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are theDericks, my friend.

CHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory ofWhaling.

There are some enterprises in which a carefuldisorderliness is the true method.

The more I dive into this matter of whaling,and push my researches up to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressedwith its great honourableness and antiquity;and especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who oneway or other have shed distinction upon it, Iam transported with the reflection that I myselfbelong, though but subordinately, to so embla-zoned a fraternity.

The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was thefirst whaleman; and to the eternal honour ofour calling be it said, that the first whale attac-ked by our brotherhood was not killed withany sordid intent. Those were the knightly days

of our profession, when we only bore arms tosuccor the distressed, and not to fill men'slamp-feeders. Every one knows the fine story ofPerseus and Andromeda; how the lovely An-dromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to arock on the sea-coast, and as Leviathan was inthe very act of carrying her off, Perseus, theprince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, har-pooned the monster, and delivered and ma-rried the maid. It was an admirable artistic ex-ploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneersof the present day; inasmuch as this Leviathanwas slain at the very first dart. And let no mandoubt this Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa,now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of thePagan temples, there stood for many ages thevast skeleton of a whale, which the city's le-gends and all the inhabitants asserted to be theidentical bones of the monster that Perseusslew. When the Romans took Joppa, the sameskeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. Whatseems most singular and suggestively impor-

tant in this story, is this: it was from Joppa thatJonah set sail.

Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andro-meda—indeed, by some supposed to be indi-rectly derived from it—is that famous story ofSt. George and the Dragon; which dragon Imaintain to have been a whale; for in many oldchronicles whales and dragons are strangelyjumbled together, and often stand for each ot-her. "Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as adragon of the sea," saith Ezekiel; hereby, plain-ly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions ofthe Bible use that word itself. Besides, it wouldmuch subtract from the glory of the exploit hadSt. George but encountered a crawling reptileof the land, instead of doing battle with thegreat monster of the deep. Any man may kill asnake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Cof-fin, have the heart in them to march boldly upto a whale.

Let not the modern paintings of this scene mis-lead us; for though the creature encountered bythat valiant whaleman of old is vaguely repre-sented of a griffin-like shape, and though thebattle is depicted on land and the saint on hor-seback, yet considering the great ignorance ofthose times, when the true form of the whalewas unknown to artists; and considering that asin Perseus' case, St. George's whale might havecrawled up out of the sea on the beach; andconsidering that the animal ridden by St. Geor-ge might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appe-ar altogether incompatible with the sacred le-gend and the ancientest draughts of the scene,to hold this so-called dragon no other than thegreat Leviathan himself. In fact, placed beforethe strict and piercing truth, this whole storywill fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol ofthe Philistines, Dagon by name; who beingplanted before the ark of Israel, his horse's headand both the palms of his hands fell off from

him, and only the stump or fishy part of himremained. Thus, then, one of our own noblestamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guar-dian of England; and by good rights, we har-pooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled inthe most noble order of St. George. And there-fore, let not the knights of that honourablecompany (none of whom, I venture to say, haveever had to do with a whale like their greatpatron), let them never eye a Nantucketer withdisdain, since even in our woollen frocks andtarred trowsers we are much better entitled toSt. George's decoration than they.

Whether to admit Hercules among us or not,concerning this I long remained dubious: forthough according to the Greek mythologies,that antique Crockett and Kit Carson—thatbrawny doer of rejoicing good deeds, was swa-llowed down and thrown up by a whale; still,whether that strictly makes a whaleman of him,that might be mooted. It nowhere appears that

he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless,indeed, from the inside. Nevertheless, he maybe deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman; atany rate the whale caught him, if he did not thewhale. I claim him for one of our clan.

But, by the best contradictory authorities, thisGrecian story of Hercules and the whale is con-sidered to be derived from the still more an-cient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; andvice versa; certainly they are very similar. If Iclaim the demigod then, why not the prophet?

Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophetsalone comprise the whole roll of our order. Ourgrand master is still to be named; for like royalkings of old times, we find the head waters ofour fraternity in nothing short of the great godsthemselves. That wondrous oriental story isnow to be rehearsed from the Shaster, whichgives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the threepersons in the godhead of the Hindoos; givesus this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord;—

Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthlyincarnations, has for ever set apart and sancti-fied the whale. When Brahma, or the God ofGods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate theworld after one of its periodical dissolutions, hegave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work;but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose peru-sal would seem to have been indispensable toVishnoo before beginning the creation, andwhich therefore must have contained somet-hing in the shape of practical hints to youngarchitects, these Vedas were lying at the bottomof the waters; so Vishnoo became incarnate in awhale, and sounding down in him to the ut-termost depths, rescued the sacred volumes.Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? evenas a man who rides a horse is called a horse-man?

Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vish-noo! there's a member-roll for you! What clubbut the whaleman's can head off like that?

CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.

Reference was made to the historical story ofJonah and the whale in the preceding chapter.Now some Nantucketers rather distrust thishistorical story of Jonah and the whale. Butthen there were some sceptical Greeks and Ro-mans, who, standing out from the orthodoxpagans of their times, equally doubted the storyof Hercules and the whale, and Arion and thedolphin; and yet their doubting those traditionsdid not make those traditions one whit the lessfacts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reasonfor questioning the Hebrew story was this:—Hehad one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,

embellished with curious, unscientific plates;one of which represented Jonah's whale withtwo spouts in his head—a peculiarity only truewith respect to a species of the Leviathan (theRight Whale, and the varieties of that order),concerning which the fishermen have this sa-ying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swa-llow is so very small. But, to this, Bishop Jebb'santicipative answer is ready. It is not necessary,hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah astombed in the whale's belly, but as temporarilylodged in some part of his mouth. And thisseems reasonable enough in the good Bishop.For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would ac-commodate a couple of whist-tables, and com-fortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonahmight have ensconced himself in a hollow to-oth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whaleis toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went bythat name) urged for his want of faith in this

matter of the prophet, was something obscurelyin reference to his incarcerated body and thewhale's gastric juices. But this objection likewi-se falls to the ground, because a German exege-tist supposes that Jonah must have taken refugein the floating body of a DEAD whale—even asthe French soldiers in the Russian campaignturned their dead horses into tents, and craw-led into them. Besides, it has been divined byother continental commentators, that whenJonah was thrown overboard from the Joppaship, he straightway effected his escape toanother vessel near by, some vessel with a wha-le for a figure-head; and, I would add, possiblycalled "The Whale," as some craft are nowadayschristened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle."Nor have there been wanting learned exegetistswho have opined that the whale mentioned inthe book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver—an inflated bag of wind—which theendangered prophet swam to, and so was sa-ved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor,

therefore, seems worsted all round. But he hadstill another reason for his want of faith. It wasthis, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowedby the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, andafter three days he was vomited up somewherewithin three days' journey of Nineveh, a city onthe Tigris, very much more than three days'journey across from the nearest point of theMediterranean coast. How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale toland the prophet within that short distance ofNineveh? Yes. He might have carried himround by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.But not to speak of the passage through thewhole length of the Mediterranean, and anot-her passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea,such a supposition would involve the completecircumnavigation of all Africa in three days, notto speak of the Tigris waters, near the site ofNineveh, being too shallow for any whale toswim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weat-

hering the Cape of Good Hope at so early a daywould wrest the honour of the discovery of thatgreat headland from Bartholomew Diaz, itsreputed discoverer, and so make modern histo-ry a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his foolish pride of rea-son—a thing still more reprehensible in him,seeing that he had but little learning exceptwhat he had picked up from the sun and thesea. I say it only shows his foolish, impiouspride, and abominable, devilish rebellionagainst the reverend clergy. For by a Portugue-se Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah'sgoing to Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hopewas advanced as a signal magnification of thegeneral miracle. And so it was. Besides, to thisday, the highly enlightened Turks devoutlybelieve in the historical story of Jonah. Andsome three centuries ago, an English travellerin old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish

Mosque built in honour of Jonah, in whichMosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt wit-hout any oil.

CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.

To make them run easily and swiftly, the axlesof carriages are anointed; and for much thesame purpose, some whalers perform an ana-logous operation upon their boat; they greasethe bottom. Nor is it to be doubted that as sucha procedure can do no harm, it may possibly beof no contemptible advantage; considering thatoil and water are hostile; that oil is a slidingthing, and that the object in view is to make theboat slide bravely. Queequeg believed stronglyin anointing his boat, and one morning not longafter the German ship Jungfrau disappeared,

took more than customary pains in that occupa-tion; crawling under its bottom, where it hungover the side, and rubbing in the unctuousnessas though diligently seeking to insure a crop ofhair from the craft's bald keel. He seemed to beworking in obedience to some particular pre-sentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted bythe event.

Towards noon whales were raised; but so soonas the ship sailed down to them, they turnedand fled with swift precipitancy; a disorderedflight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.

Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb'swas foremost. By great exertion, Tashtego atlast succeeded in planting one iron; but thestricken whale, without at all sounding, stillcontinued his horizontal flight, with addedfleetness. Such unintermitted strainings uponthe planted iron must sooner or later inevitablyextract it. It became imperative to lance theflying whale, or be content to lose him. But to

haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, heswam so fast and furious. What then remained?

Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, thesleights of hand and countless subtleties, towhich the veteran whaleman is so often forced,none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lancecalled pitchpoling. Small sword, or broadsword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it.It is only indispensable with an inveterate run-ning whale; its grand fact and feature is thewonderful distance to which the long lance isaccurately darted from a violently rocking, jer-king boat, under extreme headway. Steel andwood included, the entire spear is some ten ortwelve feet in length; the staff is much slighterthan that of the harpoon, and also of a lightermaterial—pine. It is furnished with a small ro-pe called a warp, of considerable length, bywhich it can be hauled back to the hand afterdarting.

But before going further, it is important to men-tion here, that though the harpoon may bepitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yetit is seldom done; and when done, is still lessfrequently successful, on account of the greaterweight and inferior length of the harpoon ascompared with the lance, which in effect beco-me serious drawbacks. As a general thing, the-refore, you must first get fast to a whale, beforeany pitchpoling comes into play.

Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humo-rous, deliberate coolness and equanimity in thedirest emergencies, was specially qualified toexcel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he standsupright in the tossed bow of the flying boat;wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is fortyfeet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly,glancing twice or thrice along its length to see ifit be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathersup the coil of the warp in one hand, so as tosecure its free end in his grasp, leaving the rest

unobstructed. Then holding the lance full befo-re his waistband's middle, he levels it at thewhale; when, covering him with it, he steadilydepresses the butt-end in his hand, therebyelevating the point till the weapon stands fairlybalanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air.He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancinga long staff on his chin. Next moment with arapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty archthe bright steel spans the foaming distance, andquivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead ofsparkling water, he now spouts red blood.

"That drove the spigot out of him!" cried Stubb."'Tis July's immortal Fourth; all fountains mustrun wine today! Would now, it were old Orle-ans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable oldMonongahela! Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have yehold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink roundit! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choicepunch in the spread of his spout-hole there,

and from that live punch-bowl quaff the livingstuff."

Again and again to such gamesome talk, thedexterous dart is repeated, the spear returningto its master like a greyhound held in skilfulleash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry;the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpolerdropping astern, folds his hands, and mutelywatches the monster die.

CHAPTER 85. The Fountain.

That for six thousand years—and no one knowshow many millions of ages before—the greatwhales should have been spouting all over thesea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardensof the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mis-

tifying pots; and that for some centuries back,thousands of hunters should have been closeby the fountain of the whale, watching thesesprinklings and spoutings—that all this shouldbe, and yet, that down to this blessed minute(fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o'clockP.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D.1851), it should still remain a problem, whetherthese spoutings are, after all, really water, ornothing but vapour—this is surely a notewort-hy thing.

Let us, then, look at this matter, along with so-me interesting items contingent. Every oneknows that by the peculiar cunning of theirgills, the finny tribes in general breathe the airwhich at all times is combined with the elementin which they swim; hence, a herring or a codmight live a century, and never once raise itshead above the surface. But owing to his mar-ked internal structure which gives him regularlungs, like a human being's, the whale can only

live by inhaling the disengaged air in the openatmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for hisperiodical visits to the upper world. But hecannot in any degree breathe through hismouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the SpermWhale's mouth is buried at least eight feet be-neath the surface; and what is still more, hiswindpipe has no connexion with his mouth.No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; andthis is on the top of his head.

If I say, that in any creature breathing is only afunction indispensable to vitality, inasmuch asit withdraws from the air a certain element,which being subsequently brought into contactwith the blood imparts to the blood its vivif-ying principle, I do not think I shall err; thoughI may possibly use some superfluous scientificwords. Assume it, and it follows that if all theblood in a man could be aerated with one bre-ath, he might then seal up his nostrils and notfetch another for a considerable time. That is to

say, he would then live without breathing.Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely thecase with the whale, who systematically lives,by intervals, his full hour and more (when atthe bottom) without drawing a single breath, orso much as in any way inhaling a particle of air;for, remember, he has no gills. How is this?Between his ribs and on each side of his spinehe is supplied with a remarkable involved Cre-tan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, whichvessels, when he quits the surface, are comple-tely distended with oxygenated blood. So thatfor an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in thesea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him,just as the camel crossing the waterless desertcarries a surplus supply of drink for future usein its four supplementary stomachs. The ana-tomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable;and that the supposition founded upon it isreasonable and true, seems the more cogent tome, when I consider the otherwise inexplicableobstinacy of that leviathan in HAVING HIS

SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase it.This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon risingto the surface, the Sperm Whale will continuethere for a period of time exactly uniform withall his other unmolested risings. Say he stayseleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is,respires seventy breaths; then whenever herises again, he will be sure to have his seventybreaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after hefetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that hesounds, he will be always dodging up again tomake good his regular allowance of air. Andnot till those seventy breaths are told, will hefinally go down to stay out his full term below.Remark, however, that in different individualsthese rates are different; but in any one they arealike. Now, why should the whale thus insistupon having his spoutings out, unless it be toreplenish his reservoir of air, ere descending forgood? How obvious is it, too, that this necessityfor the whale's rising exposes him to all thefatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or

by net could this vast leviathan be caught,when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath thesunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter,as the great necessities that strike the victory tothee!

In man, breathing is incessantly going on—onebreath only serving for two or three pulsations;so that whatever other business he has to at-tend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, ordie he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathesabout one seventh or Sunday of his time.

It has been said that the whale only breathesthrough his spout-hole; if it could truthfully beadded that his spouts are mixed with water,then I opine we should be furnished with thereason why his sense of smell seems obliteratedin him; for the only thing about him that at allanswers to his nose is that identical spout-hole;and being so clogged with two elements, itcould not be expected to have the power ofsmelling. But owing to the mystery of the

spout—whether it be water or whether it bevapour—no absolute certainty can as yet bearrived at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless,that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories.But what does he want of them? No roses, noviolets, no Cologne-water in the sea.

Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens intothe tube of his spouting canal, and as that longcanal—like the grand Erie Canal—is furnishedwith a sort of locks (that open and shut) for thedownward retention of air or the upward ex-clusion of water, therefore the whale has novoice; unless you insult him by saying, thatwhen he so strangely rumbles, he talks throughhis nose. But then again, what has the whale tosay? Seldom have I known any profound beingthat had anything to say to this world, unlessforced to stammer out something by way ofgetting a living. Oh! happy that the world issuch an excellent listener!

Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale,chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance ofair, and for several feet laid along, horizontally,just beneath the upper surface of his head, anda little to one side; this curious canal is verymuch like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on oneside of a street. But the question returns whet-her this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in otherwords, whether the spout of the Sperm Whaleis the mere vapour of the exhaled breath, orwhether that exhaled breath is mixed with wa-ter taken in at the mouth, and dischargedthrough the spiracle. It is certain that the mouthindirectly communicates with the spoutingcanal; but it cannot be proved that this is for thepurpose of discharging water through the spi-racle. Because the greatest necessity for sodoing would seem to be, when in feeding heaccidentally takes in water. But the SpermWhale's food is far beneath the surface, andthere he cannot spout even if he would. Besi-des, if you regard him very closely, and time

him with your watch, you will find that whenunmolested, there is an undeviating rhymebetween the periods of his jets and the ordinaryperiods of respiration.

But why pester one with all this reasoning onthe subject? Speak out! You have seen himspout; then declare what the spout is; can younot tell water from air? My dear sir, in thisworld it is not so easy to settle these plainthings. I have ever found your plain things theknottiest of all. And as for this whale spout,you might almost stand in it, and yet be unde-cided as to what it is precisely.

The central body of it is hidden in the snowysparkling mist enveloping it; and how can youcertainly tell whether any water falls from it,when, always, when you are close enough to awhale to get a close view of his spout, he is in aprodigious commotion, the water cascading allaround him. And if at such times you shouldthink that you really perceived drops of mois-

ture in the spout, how do you know that theyare not merely condensed from its vapour; orhow do you know that they are not those iden-tical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole fissure, which is countersunk into thesummit of the whale's head? For even whentranquilly swimming through the mid-day seain a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried asa dromedary's in the desert; even then, thewhale always carries a small basin of water onhis head, as under a blazing sun you will some-times see a cavity in a rock filled up with rain.

Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be overcurious touching the precise nature of the wha-le spout. It will not do for him to be peeringinto it, and putting his face in it. You cannot gowith your pitcher to this fountain and fill it,and bring it away. For even when coming intoslight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds ofthe jet, which will often happen, your skin willfeverishly smart, from the acridness of the

thing so touching it. And I know one, who co-ming into still closer contact with the spout,whether with some scientific object in view, orotherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled offfrom his cheek and arm. Wherefore, amongwhalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous;they try to evade it. Another thing; I have heardit said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jetis fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blindyou. The wisest thing the investigator can dothen, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spoutalone.

Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannotprove and establish. My hypothesis is this: thatthe spout is nothing but mist. And besides ot-her reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled,by considerations touching the great inherentdignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; Iaccount him no common, shallow being, inas-much as it is an undisputed fact that he is neverfound on soundings, or near shores; all other

whales sometimes are. He is both ponderousand profound. And I am convinced that fromthe heads of all ponderous profound beings,such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante,and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deepthoughts. While composing a little treatise onEternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirrorbefore me; and ere long saw reflected there, acurious involved worming and undulation inthe atmosphere over my head. The invariablemoisture of my hair, while plunged in deepthought, after six cups of hot tea in my thinshingled attic, of an August noon; this seems anadditional argument for the above supposition.

And how nobly it raises our conceit of themighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnlysailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast,mild head overhung by a canopy of vapour,engendered by his incommunicable contempla-tions, and that vapour—as you will sometimes

see it—glorified by a rainbow, as if Heavenitself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For,d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air;they only irradiate vapour. And so, through allthe thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind,divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkind-ling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this Ithank God; for all have doubts; many deny; butdoubts or denials, few along with them, haveintuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, andintuitions of some things heavenly; this combi-nation makes neither believer nor infidel, butmakes a man who regards them both withequal eye.

CHAPTER 86. The Tail.

Other poets have warbled the praises of the softeye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage ofthe bird that never alights; less celestial, I cele-brate a tail.

Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tailto begin at that point of the trunk where it ta-pers to about the girth of a man, it comprisesupon its upper surface alone, an area of at leastfifty square feet. The compact round body of itsroot expands into two broad, firm, flat palms orflukes, gradually shoaling away to less than aninch in thickness. At the crotch or junction, the-se flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recedefrom each other like wings, leaving a wide va-cancy between. In no living thing are the linesof beauty more exquisitely defined than in thecrescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost

expansion in the full grown whale, the tail willconsiderably exceed twenty feet across.

The entire member seems a dense webbed bedof welded sinews; but cut into it, and you findthat three distinct strata compose it:—upper,middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper andlower layers, are long and horizontal; those ofthe middle one, very short, and running cross-wise between the outside layers. This triunestructure, as much as anything else, impartspower to the tail. To the student of old Romanwalls, the middle layer will furnish a curiousparallel to the thin course of tiles always alter-nating with the stone in those wonderful relicsof the antique, and which undoubtedly contri-bute so much to the great strength of the ma-sonry.

But as if this vast local power in the tendinoustail were not enough, the whole bulk of theleviathan is knit over with a warp and woof ofmuscular fibres and filaments, which passing

on either side the loins and running down intothe flukes, insensibly blend with them, andlargely contribute to their might; so that in thetail the confluent measureless force of the who-le whale seems concentrated to a point. Couldannihilation occur to matter, this were the thingto do it.

Nor does this—its amazing strength, at all tendto cripple the graceful flexion of its motions;where infantileness of ease undulates through aTitanism of power. On the contrary, those mo-tions derive their most appalling beauty fromit. Real strength never impairs beauty or har-mony, but it often bestows it; and in everythingimposingly beautiful, strength has much to dowith the magic. Take away the tied tendonsthat all over seem bursting from the marble inthe carved Hercules, and its charm would begone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheetfrom the naked corpse of Goethe, he wasoverwhelmed with the massive chest of the

man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch.When Angelo paints even God the Father inhuman form, mark what robustness is there.And whatever they may reveal of the divinelove in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditi-cal Italian pictures, in which his idea has beenmost successfully embodied; these pictures, sodestitute as they are of all brawniness, hintnothing of any power, but the mere negative,feminine one of submission and endurance,which on all hands it is conceded, form the pe-culiar practical virtues of his teachings.

Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treatof, that whether wielded in sport, or in earnest,or in anger, whatever be the mood it be in, itsflexions are invariably marked by exceedinggrace. Therein no fairy's arm can transcend it.

Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, whenused as a fin for progression; Second, whenused as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping;Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.

First: Being horizontal in its position, the Le-viathan's tail acts in a different manner fromthe tails of all other sea creatures. It neverwriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign ofinferiority. To the whale, his tail is the sole me-ans of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled forwardsbeneath the body, and then rapidly sprungbackwards, it is this which gives that singulardarting, leaping motion to the monster whenfuriously swimming. His side-fins only serve tosteer by.

Second: It is a little significant, that while onesperm whale only fights another sperm whalewith his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his con-flicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuouslyuses his tail. In striking at a boat, he swiftlycurves away his flukes from it, and the blow isonly inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in theunobstructed air, especially if it descend to itsmark, the stroke is then simply irresistible. Noribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only

salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes side-ways through the opposing water, then partlyowing to the light buoyancy of the whale boat,and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked ribor a dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in theside, is generally the most serious result. Thesesubmerged side blows are so often received inthe fishery, that they are accounted mere child'splay. Some one strips off a frock, and the hole isstopped.

Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems tome, that in the whale the sense of touch is con-centrated in the tail; for in this respect there is adelicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness ofthe elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chieflyevinced in the action of sweeping, when inmaidenly gentleness the whale with a certainsoft slowness moves his immense flukes fromside to side upon the surface of the sea; and ifhe feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor,whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in

that preliminary touch! Had this tail any pre-hensile power, I should straightway bethink meof Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented theflower-market, and with low salutations pre-sented nosegays to damsels, and then caressedtheir zones. On more accounts than one, a pityit is that the whale does not possess this pre-hensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yetanother elephant, that when wounded in thefight, curved round his trunk and extracted thedart.

Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale inthe fancied security of the middle of solitaryseas, you find him unbent from the vast corpu-lence of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays onthe ocean as if it were a hearth. But still you seehis power in his play. The broad palms of histail are flirted high into the air; then smiting thesurface, the thunderous concussion resoundsfor miles. You would almost think a great gunhad been discharged; and if you noticed the

light wreath of vapour from the spiracle at hisother extremity, you would think that that wasthe smoke from the touch-hole.

Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of theleviathan the flukes lie considerably below thelevel of his back, they are then completely outof sight beneath the surface; but when he isabout to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukeswith at least thirty feet of his body are tossederect in the air, and so remain vibrating a mo-ment, till they downwards shoot out of view.Excepting the sublime BREACH—somewhereelse to be described—this peaking of the wha-le's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to beseen in all animated nature. Out of the bottom-less profundities the gigantic tail seems spas-modically snatching at the highest heaven. Soin dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrustingforth his tormented colossal claw from the fla-me Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes,it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the

Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in thatof Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimso-ned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd ofwhales in the east, all heading towards the sun,and for a moment vibrating in concert withpeaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time,such a grand embodiment of adoration of thegods was never beheld, even in Persia, thehome of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Phi-lopater testified of the African elephant, I thentestified of the whale, pronouncing him themost devout of all beings. For according toKing Juba, the military elephants of antiquityoften hailed the morning with their trunksuplifted in the profoundest silence.

The chance comparison in this chapter, betwe-en the whale and the elephant, so far as someaspects of the tail of the one and the trunk ofthe other are concerned, should not tend toplace those two opposite organs on an equality,

much less the creatures to which they respecti-vely belong. For as the mightiest elephant is buta terrier to Leviathan, so, compared with Le-viathan's tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily.The most direful blow from the elephant'strunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compa-red with the measureless crush and crash of thesperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in re-peated instances have one after the other hur-led entire boats with all their oars and crewsinto the air, very much as an Indian jugglertosses his balls.*

*Though all comparison in the way of generalbulk between the whale and the elephant ispreposterous, inasmuch as in that particular theelephant stands in much the same respect to thewhale that a dog does to the elephant; nevert-heless, there are not wanting some points ofcurious similitude; among these is the spout. Itis well known that the elephant will often draw

up water or dust in his trunk, and then eleva-ting it, jet it forth in a stream.

The more I consider this mighty tail, the moredo I deplore my inability to express it. At timesthere are gestures in it, which, though theywould well grace the hand of man, remainwholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, soremarkable, occasionally, are these mystic ges-tures, that I have heard hunters who have de-clared them akin to Free-Mason signs and sym-bols; that the whale, indeed, by these methodsintelligently conversed with the world. Nor arethere wanting other motions of the whale in hisgeneral body, full of strangeness, and unac-countable to his most experienced assailant.Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin de-ep; I know him not, and never will. But if Iknow not even the tail of this whale, how un-derstand his head? much more, how compre-hend his face, when face he has none? Thoushalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to

say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannotcompletely make out his back parts; and hintwhat he will about his face, I say again he hasno face.

CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.

The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca,extending south-eastward from the territoriesof Birmah, forms the most southerly point of allAsia. In a continuous line from that peninsulastretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally,and Timor; which, with many others, form avast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connectingAsia with Australia, and dividing the long un-broken Indian ocean from the thickly studdedoriental archipelagoes. This rampart is piercedby several sally-ports for the convenience of

ships and whales; conspicuous among whichare the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By thestraits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels bound to Chinafrom the west, emerge into the China seas.

Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatrafrom Java; and standing midway in that vastrampart of islands, buttressed by that bold gre-en promontory, known to seamen as JavaHead; they not a little correspond to the centralgateway opening into some vast walled empire:and considering the inexhaustible wealth ofspices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivo-ry, with which the thousand islands of thatoriental sea are enriched, it seems a significantprovision of nature, that such treasures, by thevery formation of the land, should at least bearthe appearance, however ineffectual, of beingguarded from the all-grasping western world.The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsup-plied with those domineering fortresses whichguard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the

Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes,these Orientals do not demand the obsequioushomage of lowered top-sails from the endlessprocession of ships before the wind, which forcenturies past, by night and by day, have pas-sed between the islands of Sumatra and Java,freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east.But while they freely waive a ceremonial likethis, they do by no means renounce their claimto more solid tribute.

Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Ma-lays, lurking among the low shaded coves andislets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon thevessels sailing through the straits, fiercely de-manding tribute at the point of their spears.Though by the repeated bloody chastisementsthey have received at the hands of Europeancruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has oflate been somewhat repressed; yet, even at thepresent day, we occasionally hear of English

and American vessels, which, in those waters,have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.

With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was nowdrawing nigh to these straits; Ahab purposingto pass through them into the Javan sea, andthence, cruising northwards, over watersknown to be frequented here and there by theSperm Whale, sweep inshore by the PhilippineIslands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in timefor the great whaling season there. By thesemeans, the circumnavigating Pequod wouldsweep almost all the known Sperm Whale crui-sing grounds of the world, previous to descen-ding upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab,though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit,firmly counted upon giving battle to MobyDick, in the sea he was most known to fre-quent; and at a season when he might mostreasonably be presumed to be haunting it.

But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahabtouch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely,

he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time,now, the circus-running sun has raced withinhis fiery ring, and needs no sustenance butwhat's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, inthe whaler. While other hulls are loaded downwith alien stuff, to be transferred to foreignwharves; the world-wandering whale-ship ca-rries no cargo but herself and crew, their wea-pons and their wants. She has a whole lake'scontents bottled in her ample hold. She is ba-llasted with utilities; not altogether with unu-sable pig-lead and kentledge. She carries years'water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water;which, when three years afloat, the Nantucke-ter, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before thebrackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks,from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence itis, that, while other ships may have gone toChina from New York, and back again, tou-ching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in allthat interval, may not have sighted one grain ofsoil; her crew having seen no man but floating

seamen like themselves. So that did you carrythem the news that another flood had come;they would only answer—"Well, boys, here'sthe ark!"

Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captu-red off the western coast of Java, in the nearvicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as mostof the ground, roundabout, was generally re-cognised by the fishermen as an excellent spotfor cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gainedmore and more upon Java Head, the look-outswere repeatedly hailed, and admonished tokeep wide awake. But though the green palmycliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboardbow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cin-namon was snuffed in the air, yet not a singlejet was descried. Almost renouncing allthought of falling in with any game hereabouts,the ship had well nigh entered the straits, whenthe customary cheering cry was heard from

aloft, and ere long a spectacle of singular mag-nificence saluted us.

But here be it premised, that owing to the un-wearied activity with which of late they havebeen hunted over all four oceans, the SpermWhales, instead of almost invariably sailing insmall detached companies, as in former times,are now frequently met with in extensive herds,sometimes embracing so great a multitude, thatit would almost seem as if numerous nations ofthem had sworn solemn league and covenantfor mutual assistance and protection. To thisaggregation of the Sperm Whale into such im-mense caravans, may be imputed the circums-tance that even in the best cruising grounds,you may now sometimes sail for weeks andmonths together, without being greeted by asingle spout; and then be suddenly saluted bywhat sometimes seems thousands on thou-sands.

Broad on both bows, at the distance of sometwo or three miles, and forming a great semi-circle, embracing one half of the level horizon, acontinuous chain of whale-jets were up-playingand sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike thestraight perpendicular twin-jets of the RightWhale, which, dividing at top, fall over in twobranches, like the cleft drooping boughs of awillow, the single forward-slanting spout of theSperm Whale presents a thick curled bush ofwhite mist, continually rising and falling awayto leeward.

Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as shewould rise on a high hill of the sea, this host ofvapoury spouts, individually curling up intothe air, and beheld through a blending atmosp-here of bluish haze, showed like the thousandcheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis,descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by so-me horseman on a height.

As marching armies approaching an unfriendlydefile in the mountains, accelerate their march,all eagerness to place that perilous passage intheir rear, and once more expand in comparati-ve security upon the plain; even so did this vastfleet of whales now seem hurrying forwardthrough the straits; gradually contracting thewings of their semicircle, and swimming on, inone solid, but still crescentic centre.

Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed afterthem; the harpooneers handling their weapons,and loudly cheering from the heads of their yetsuspended boats. If the wind only held, littledoubt had they, that chased through theseStraits of Sunda, the vast host would only de-ploy into the Oriental seas to witness the captu-re of not a few of their number. And who couldtell whether, in that congregated caravan, Mo-by Dick himself might not temporarily beswimming, like the worshipped white-elephantin the coronation procession of the Siamese! So

with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailedalong, driving these leviathans before us; when,of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard,loudly directing attention to something in ourwake.

Corresponding to the crescent in our van, webeheld another in our rear. It seemed formed ofdetached white vapours, rising and falling so-mething like the spouts of the whales; only theydid not so completely come and go; for theyconstantly hovered, without finally disappea-ring. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahabquickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying,"Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wetthe sails;—Malays, sir, and after us!"

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, tillthe Pequod should fairly have entered thestraits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hotpursuit, to make up for their over-cautious de-lay. But when the swift Pequod, with a freshleading wind, was herself in hot chase; how

very kind of these tawny philanthropists toassist in speeding her on to her own chosenpursuit,—mere riding-whips and rowels to her,that they were. As with glass under arm, Ahabto-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turnbeholding the monsters he chased, and in theafter one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him;some such fancy as the above seemed his. Andwhen he glanced upon the green walls of thewatery defile in which the ship was then sai-ling, and bethought him that through that gatelay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, howthat through that same gate he was now bothchasing and being chased to his deadly end;and not only that, but a herd of remorselesswild pirates and inhuman atheistical devilswere infernally cheering him on with their cur-ses;—when all these conceits had passedthrough his brain, Ahab's brow was left gauntand ribbed, like the black sand beach after so-me stormy tide has been gnawing it, withoutbeing able to drag the firm thing from its place.

But thoughts like these troubled very few of thereckless crew; and when, after steadily drop-ping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pe-quod at last shot by the vivid green CockatooPoint on the Sumatra side, emerging at lastupon the broad waters beyond; then, the har-pooneers seemed more to grieve that the swiftwhales had been gaining upon the ship, than torejoice that the ship had so victoriously gainedupon the Malays. But still driving on in thewake of the whales, at length they seemed aba-ting their speed; gradually the ship nearedthem; and the wind now dying away, wordwas passed to spring to the boats. But no soo-ner did the herd, by some presumed wonderfulinstinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified ofthe three keels that were after them,—thoughas yet a mile in their rear,—than they ralliedagain, and forming in close ranks and batta-lions, so that their spouts all looked like flas-hing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on withredoubled velocity.

Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprangto the white-ash, and after several hours' pu-lling were almost disposed to renounce thechase, when a general pausing commotionamong the whales gave animating token thatthey were now at last under the influence ofthat strange perplexity of inert irresolution,which, when the fishermen perceive it in thewhale, they say he is gallied. The compact mar-tial columns in which they had been hithertorapidly and steadily swimming, were now bro-ken up in one measureless rout; and like KingPorus' elephants in the Indian battle withAlexander, they seemed going mad with cons-ternation. In all directions expanding in vastirregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hit-her and thither, by their short thick spoutings,they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic.This was still more strangely evinced by thoseof their number, who, completely paralysed asit were, helplessly floated like water-loggeddismantled ships on the sea. Had these Leviat-

hans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursuedover the pasture by three fierce wolves, theycould not possibly have evinced such excessivedismay. But this occasional timidity is characte-ristic of almost all herding creatures. Thoughbanding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before asolitary horseman. Witness, too, all humanbeings, how when herded together in the she-epfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the sligh-test alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the ou-tlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and re-morselessly dashing each other to death. Best,therefore, withhold any amazement at thestrangely gallied whales before us, for there isno folly of the beasts of the earth which is notinfinitely outdone by the madness of men.

Though many of the whales, as has been said,were in violent motion, yet it is to be observedthat as a whole the herd neither advanced norretreated, but collectively remained in one pla-

ce. As is customary in those cases, the boats atonce separated, each making for some one lonewhale on the outskirts of the shoal. In aboutthree minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon wasflung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray inour faces, and then running away with us likelight, steered straight for the heart of the herd.Though such a movement on the part of thewhale struck under such circumstances, is in nowise unprecedented; and indeed is almost al-ways more or less anticipated; yet does it pre-sent one of the more perilous vicissitudes of thefishery. For as the swift monster drags youdeeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, youbid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in adelirious throb.

As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward,as if by sheer power of speed to rid himself ofthe iron leech that had fastened to him; as wethus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sidesmenaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to

and fro rushing about us; our beset boat waslike a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest,and striving to steer through their complicatedchannels and straits, knowing not at what mo-ment it may be locked in and crushed.

But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered usmanfully; now sheering off from this monsterdirectly across our route in advance; now ed-ging away from that, whose colossal flukeswere suspended overhead, while all the time,Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand,pricking out of our way whatever whales hecould reach by short darts, for there was notime to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmenquite idle, though their wonted duty was nowaltogether dispensed with. They chiefly atten-ded to the shouting part of the business. "Outof the way, Commodore!" cried one, to a greatdromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to thesurface, and for an instant threatened to swampus. "Hard down with your tail, there!" cried a

second to another, which, close to our gunwale,seemed calmly cooling himself with his ownfan-like extremity.

All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivan-ces, originally invented by the Nantucket Indi-ans, called druggs. Two thick squares of woodof equal size are stoutly clenched together, sothat they cross each other's grain at right an-gles; a line of considerable length is then atta-ched to the middle of this block, and the otherend of the line being looped, it can in a momentbe fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly amonggallied whales that this drugg is used. For then,more whales are close round you than you canpossibly chase at one time. But sperm whalesare not every day encountered; while you may,then, you must kill all you can. And if you can-not kill them all at once, you must wing them,so that they can be afterwards killed at yourleisure. Hence it is, that at times like these thedrugg, comes into requisition. Our boat was

furnished with three of them. The first and se-cond were successfully darted, and we saw thewhales staggeringly running off, fettered by theenormous sidelong resistance of the towingdrugg. They were cramped like malefactorswith the chain and ball. But upon flinging thethird, in the act of tossing overboard the clum-sy wooden block, it caught under one of theseats of the boat, and in an instant tore it outand carried it away, dropping the oarsman inthe boat's bottom as the seat slid from underhim. On both sides the sea came in at thewounded planks, but we stuffed two or threedrawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaksfor the time.

It had been next to impossible to dart thesedrugged-harpoons, were it not that as we ad-vanced into the herd, our whale's way greatlydiminished; moreover, that as we went stillfurther and further from the circumference ofcommotion, the direful disorders seemed wa-

ning. So that when at last the jerking harpoondrew out, and the towing whale sideways va-nished; then, with the tapering force of his par-ting momentum, we glided between two wha-les into the innermost heart of the shoal, as iffrom some mountain torrent we had slid into aserene valley lake. Here the storms in the roa-ring glens between the outermost whales, wereheard but not felt. In this central expanse thesea presented that smooth satin-like surface,called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisturethrown off by the whale in his more quiet mo-ods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calmwhich they say lurks at the heart of everycommotion. And still in the distracted distancewe beheld the tumults of the outer concentriccircles, and saw successive pods of whales,eight or ten in each, swiftly going round andround, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring;and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Ti-tanic circus-rider might easily have over-archedthe middle ones, and so have gone round on

their backs. Owing to the density of the crowdof reposing whales, more immediately su-rrounding the embayed axis of the herd, nopossible chance of escape was at present affor-ded us. We must watch for a breach in the li-ving wall that hemmed us in; the wall that hadonly admitted us in order to shut us up. Kee-ping at the centre of the lake, we were occasio-nally visited by small tame cows and calves; thewomen and children of this routed host.

Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervalsbetween the revolving outer circles, and inclu-sive of the spaces between the various pods inany one of those circles, the entire area at thisjuncture, embraced by the whole multitude,must have contained at least two or three squa-re miles. At any rate—though indeed such atest at such a time might be deceptive—spoutings might be discovered from our lowboat that seemed playing up almost from therim of the horizon. I mention this circumstance,

because, as if the cows and calves had beenpurposely locked up in this innermost fold; andas if the wide extent of the herd had hithertoprevented them from learning the precise causeof its stopping; or, possibly, being so young,unsophisticated, and every way innocent andinexperienced; however it may have been, thesesmaller whales—now and then visiting ourbecalmed boat from the margin of the lake—evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confiden-ce, or else a still becharmed panic which it wasimpossible not to marvel at. Like householddogs they came snuffling round us, right up toour gunwales, and touching them; till it almostseemed that some spell had suddenly domesti-cated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads;Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance;but fearful of the consequences, for the timerefrained from darting it.

But far beneath this wondrous world upon thesurface, another and still stranger world met

our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, sus-pended in those watery vaults, floated theforms of the nursing mothers of the whales,and those that by their enormous girth seemedshortly to become mothers. The lake, as I havehinted, was to a considerable depth exceedin-gly transparent; and as human infants whilesuckling will calmly and fixedly gaze awayfrom the breast, as if leading two different livesat the time; and while yet drawing mortal nou-rishment, be still spiritually feasting upon someunearthly reminiscence;—even so did theyoung of these whales seem looking up to-wards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bitof Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floatingon their sides, the mothers also seemed quietlyeyeing us. One of these little infants, that fromcertain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old,might have measured some fourteen feet inlength, and some six feet in girth. He was alittle frisky; though as yet his body seemedscarce yet recovered from that irksome position

it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticu-le; where, tail to head, and all ready for the fi-nal spring, the unborn whale lies bent like aTartar's bow. The delicate side-fins, and thepalms of his flukes, still freshly retained theplaited crumpled appearance of a baby's earsnewly arrived from foreign parts.

"Line! line!" cried Queequeg, looking over thegunwale; "him fast! him fast!—Who line him!Who struck?—Two whale; one big, one little!"

"What ails ye, man?" cried Starbuck.

"Look-e here," said Queequeg, pointing down.

As when the stricken whale, that from the tubhas reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope; as,after deep sounding, he floats up again, andshows the slackened curling line buoyantlyrising and spiralling towards the air; so now,Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord ofMadame Leviathan, by which the young cub

seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom inthe rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this naturalline, with the maternal end loose, becomes en-tangled with the hempen one, so that the cub isthereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets ofthe seas seemed divulged to us in this enchan-ted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours inthe deep.*

*The sperm whale, as with all other species ofthe Leviathan, but unlike most other fish, bre-eds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestationwhich may probably be set down at ninemonths, producing but one at a time; though insome few known instances giving birth to anEsau and Jacob:—a contingency provided for insuckling by two teats, curiously situated, oneon each side of the anus; but the breasts them-selves extend upwards from that. When bychance these precious parts in a nursing whaleare cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pou-ring milk and blood rivallingly discolour the

sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich; ithas been tasted by man; it might do well withstrawberries. When overflowing with mutualesteem, the whales salute MORE HOMINUM.

And thus, though surrounded by circle uponcircle of consternations and affrights, did theseinscrutable creatures at the centre freely andfearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments;yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight.But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of mybeing, do I myself still for ever centrally disportin mute calm; and while ponderous planets ofunwaning woe revolve round me, deep downand deep inland there I still bathe me in eternalmildness of joy.

Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occa-sional sudden frantic spectacles in the distanceevinced the activity of the other boats, still en-gaged in drugging the whales on the frontier ofthe host; or possibly carrying on the war withinthe first circle, where abundance of room and

some convenient retreats were afforded them.But the sight of the enraged drugged whalesnow and then blindly darting to and fro acrossthe circles, was nothing to what at last met oureyes. It is sometimes the custom when fast to awhale more than commonly powerful andalert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, bysundering or maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.It is done by darting a short-handled cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling itback again. A whale wounded (as we after-wards learned) in this part, but not effectually,as it seemed, had broken away from the boat,carrying along with him half of the harpoonline; and in the extraordinary agony of thewound, he was now dashing among the revol-ving circles like the lone mounted desperadoArnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dis-may wherever he went.

But agonizing as was the wound of this whale,and an appalling spectacle enough, any way;

yet the peculiar horror with which he seemedto inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to acause which at first the intervening distanceobscured from us. But at length we perceivedthat by one of the unimaginable accidents ofthe fishery, this whale had become entangled inthe harpoon-line that he towed; he had also runaway with the cutting-spade in him; and whilethe free end of the rope attached to that wea-pon, had permanently caught in the coils of theharpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spadeitself had worked loose from his flesh. So thattormented to madness, he was now churningthrough the water, violently flailing with hisflexible tail, and tossing the keen spade abouthim, wounding and murdering his own com-rades.

This terrific object seemed to recall the wholeherd from their stationary fright. First, the wha-les forming the margin of our lake began tocrowd a little, and tumble against each other, as

if lifted by half spent billows from afar; then thelake itself began faintly to heave and swell; thesubmarine bridal-chambers and nurseries va-nished; in more and more contracting orbits thewhales in the more central circles began toswim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calmwas departing. A low advancing hum was soonheard; and then like to the tumultuous massesof block-ice when the great river Hudson bre-aks up in Spring, the entire host of whales cametumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pilethemselves up in one common mountain. Ins-tantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places;Starbuck taking the stern.

"Oars! Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizingthe helm—"gripe your oars, and clutch yoursouls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove himoff, you Queequeg—the whale there!—prickhim!—hit him! Stand up—stand up, and stayso! Spring, men—pull, men; never mind theirbacks—scrape them!—scrape away!"

The boat was now all but jammed between twovast black bulks, leaving a narrow Dardanellesbetween their long lengths. But by desperateendeavor we at last shot into a temporary ope-ning; then giving way rapidly, and at the sametime earnestly watching for another outlet. Af-ter many similar hair-breadth escapes, we atlast swiftly glided into what had just been oneof the outer circles, but now crossed by randomwhales, all violently making for one centre.This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased bythe loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standingin the bows to prick the fugitive whales, hadhis hat taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair ofbroad flukes close by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal com-motion now was, it soon resolved itself intowhat seemed a systematic movement; forhaving clumped together at last in one densebody, they then renewed their onward flight

with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit wasuseless; but the boats still lingered in their wa-ke to pick up what drugged whales might bedropped astern, and likewise to secure onewhich Flask had killed and waifed. The waif isa pennoned pole, two or three of which arecarried by every boat; and which, when addi-tional game is at hand, are inserted upright intothe floating body of a dead whale, both to markits place on the sea, and also as token of priorpossession, should the boats of any other shipdraw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illus-trative of that sagacious saying in the Fis-hery,—the more whales the less fish. Of all thedrugged whales only one was captured. Therest contrived to escape for the time, but only tobe taken, as will hereafter be seen, by someother craft than the Pequod.

CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters.

The previous chapter gave account of an im-mense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and the-re was also then given the probable cause indu-cing those vast aggregations.

Now, though such great bodies are at timesencountered, yet, as must have been seen, evenat the present day, small detached bands areoccasionally observed, embracing from twentyto fifty individuals each. Such bands are knownas schools. They generally are of two sorts; tho-se composed almost entirely of females, andthose mustering none but young vigorous ma-les, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated.

In cavalier attendance upon the school of fema-les, you invariably see a male of full grownmagnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm,evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear andcovering the flight of his ladies. In truth, thisgentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimmingabout over the watery world, surroundinglyaccompanied by all the solaces and endear-ments of the harem. The contrast between thisOttoman and his concubines is striking; becau-se, while he is always of the largest leviathanicproportions, the ladies, even at full growth, arenot more than one-third of the bulk of an ave-rage-sized male. They are comparatively delica-te, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozenyards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannotbe denied, that upon the whole they are heredi-tarily entitled to EMBONPOINT.

It is very curious to watch this harem and itslord in their indolent ramblings. Like fashiona-bles, they are for ever on the move in leisurely

search of variety. You meet them on the Line intime for the full flower of the Equatorial fee-ding season, having just returned, perhaps,from spending the summer in the Northernseas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasantweariness and warmth. By the time they havelounged up and down the promenade of theEquator awhile, they start for the Oriental wa-ters in anticipation of the cool season there, andso evade the other excessive temperature of theyear.

When serenely advancing on one of these jour-neys, if any strange suspicious sights are seen,my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interes-ting family. Should any unwarrantably pertyoung Leviathan coming that way, presume todraw confidentially close to one of the ladies,with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assailshim, and chases him away! High times, indeed,if unprincipled young rakes like him are to bepermitted to invade the sanctity of domestic

bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he can-not keep the most notorious Lothario out of hisbed; for, alas! all fish bed in common. As as-hore, the ladies often cause the most terribleduels among their rival admirers; just so withthe whales, who sometimes come to deadlybattle, and all for love. They fence with theirlong lower jaws, sometimes locking them to-gether, and so striving for the supremacy likeelks that warringly interweave their antlers.Not a few are captured having the deep scars ofthese encounters,—furrowed heads, brokenteeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances,wrenched and dislocated mouths.

But supposing the invader of domestic bliss tobetake himself away at the first rush of theharem's lord, then is it very diverting to watchthat lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulkamong them again and revels there awhile, stillin tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, likepious Solomon devoutly worshipping among

his thousand concubines. Granting other wha-les to be in sight, the fishermen will seldomgive chase to one of these Grand Turks; for the-se Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength,and hence their unctuousness is small. As forthe sons and the daughters they beget, why,those sons and daughters must take care ofthemselves; at least, with only the maternalhelp. For like certain other omnivorous rovinglovers that might be named, my Lord Whalehas no taste for the nursery, however much forthe bower; and so, being a great traveller, heleaves his anonymous babies all over theworld; every baby an exotic. In good time, ne-vertheless, as the ardour of youth declines; asyears and dumps increase; as reflection lendsher solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassi-tude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love ofease and virtue supplants the love for maidens;our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repen-tant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, dis-bands the harem, and grown to an exemplary,

sulky old soul, goes about all alone among themeridians and parallels saying his prayers, andwarning each young Leviathan from his amo-rous errors.

Now, as the harem of whales is called by thefishermen a school, so is the lord and master ofthat school technically known as the school-master. It is therefore not in strict character,however admirably satirical, that after going toschool himself, he should then go abroad incul-cating not what he learned there, but the follyof it. His title, schoolmaster, would very natu-rally seem derived from the name bestowedupon the harem itself, but some have surmisedthat the man who first thus entitled this sort ofOttoman whale, must have read the memoirs ofVidocq, and informed himself what sort of acountry-schoolmaster that famous Frenchmanwas in his younger days, and what was thenature of those occult lessons he inculcated intosome of his pupils.

The same secludedness and isolation to whichthe schoolmaster whale betakes himself in hisadvancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Wha-les. Almost universally, a lone whale—as a soli-tary Leviathan is called—proves an ancientone. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boo-ne, he will have no one near him but Natureherself; and her he takes to wife in the wilder-ness of waters, and the best of wives she is,though she keeps so many moody secrets.

The schools composing none but young andvigorous males, previously mentioned, offer astrong contrast to the harem schools. For whilethose female whales are characteristically ti-mid, the young males, or forty-barrel-bulls, asthey call them, are by far the most pugnaciousof all Leviathans, and proverbially the mostdangerous to encounter; excepting those won-drous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimesmet, and these will fight you like grim fiendsexasperated by a penal gout.

The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger thanthe harem schools. Like a mob of young colle-gians, they are full of fight, fun, and wicked-ness, tumbling round the world at such a rec-kless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwri-ter would insure them any more than he woulda riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soonrelinquish this turbulence though, and whenabout three-fourths grown, break up, and sepa-rately go about in quest of settlements, that is,harems.

Another point of difference between the maleand female schools is still more characteristic ofthe sexes. Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strikea member of the harem school, and her compa-nions swim around her with every token ofconcern, sometimes lingering so near her andso long, as themselves to fall a prey.

CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.

The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in thelast chapter but one, necessitates some accountof the laws and regulations of the whale fis-hery, of which the waif may be deemed thegrand symbol and badge.

It frequently happens that when several shipsare cruising in company, a whale may be struckby one vessel, then escape, and be finally killedand captured by another vessel; and herein areindirectly comprised many minor contingen-cies, all partaking of this one grand feature. Forexample,—after a weary and perilous chaseand capture of a whale, the body may get loosefrom the ship by reason of a violent storm; and

drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by asecond whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows italongside, without risk of life or line. Thus themost vexatious and violent disputes wouldoften arise between the fishermen, were therenot some written or unwritten, universal, un-disputed law applicable to all cases.

Perhaps the only formal whaling code authori-zed by legislative enactment, was that ofHolland. It was decreed by the States-Generalin A.D. 1695. But though no other nation hasever had any written whaling law, yet theAmerican fishermen have been their own legis-lators and lawyers in this matter. They haveprovided a system which for terse comprehen-siveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and theBy-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppres-sion of Meddling with other People's Business.Yes; these laws might be engraven on a QueenAnne's forthing, or the barb of a harpoon, andworn round the neck, so small are they.

I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.

II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody whocan soonest catch it.

But what plays the mischief with this masterlycode is the admirable brevity of it, which neces-sitates a vast volume of commentaries to ex-pound it.

First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fishis technically fast, when it is connected with anoccupied ship or boat, by any medium at allcontrollable by the occupant or occupants,—amast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wi-re, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Li-kewise a fish is technically fast when it bears awaif, or any other recognised symbol of posses-sion; so long as the party waifing it plainlyevince their ability at any time to take it along-side, as well as their intention so to do.

These are scientific commentaries; but thecommentaries of the whalemen themselvessometimes consist in hard words and harderknocks—the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist.True, among the more upright and honourablewhalemen allowances are always made for pe-culiar cases, where it would be an outrageousmoral injustice for one party to claim posses-sion of a whale previously chased or killed byanother party. But others are by no means soscrupulous.

Some fifty years ago there was a curious case ofwhale-trover litigated in England, wherein theplaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of awhale in the Northern seas; and when indeedthey (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpoo-ning the fish; they were at last, through peril oftheir lives, obliged to forsake not only theirlines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defen-dants (the crew of another ship) came up withthe whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally

appropriated it before the very eyes of theplaintiffs. And when those defendants wereremonstrated with, their captain snapped hisfingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured themthat by way of doxology to the deed he haddone, he would now retain their line, harpoons,and boat, which had remained attached to thewhale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore theplaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the va-lue of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.

Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants;Lord Ellenborough was the judge. In the courseof the defence, the witty Erskine went on toillustrate his position, by alluding to a recentcrim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after invain trying to bridle his wife's viciousness, hadat last abandoned her upon the seas of life; butin the course of years, repenting of that step, heinstituted an action to recover possession ofher. Erskine was on the other side; and he thensupported it by saying, that though the gentle-

man had originally harpooned the lady, andhad once had her fast, and only by reason ofthe great stress of her plunging viciousness,had at last abandoned her; yet abandon her hedid, so that she became a loose-fish; and there-fore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that sub-sequent gentleman's property, along with wha-tever harpoon might have been found stickingin her.

Now in the present case Erskine contended thatthe examples of the whale and the lady werereciprocally illustrative of each other.

These pleadings, and the counter pleadings,being duly heard, the very learned Judge in setterms decided, to wit,—That as for the boat, heawarded it to the plaintiffs, because they hadmerely abandoned it to save their lives; but thatwith regard to the controverted whale, harpo-ons, and line, they belonged to the defendants;the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the

time of the final capture; and the harpoons andline because when the fish made off with them,it (the fish) acquired a property in those arti-cles; and hence anybody who afterwards tookthe fish had a right to them. Now the defen-dants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the afore-said articles were theirs.

A common man looking at this decision of thevery learned Judge, might possibly object to it.But ploughed up to the primary rock of thematter, the two great principles laid down inthe twin whaling laws previously quoted, andapplied and elucidated by Lord Ellenboroughin the above cited case; these two laws touchingFast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflec-tion, be found the fundamentals of all humanjurisprudence; for notwithstanding its compli-cated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of theLaw, like the Temple of the Philistines, has buttwo props to stand on.

Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Posses-sion is half of the law: that is, regardless of howthe thing came into possession? But often pos-session is the whole of the law. What are thesinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republi-can slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession isthe whole of the law? What to the rapaciouslandlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's mar-ble mansion with a door-plate for a waif; whatis that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous dis-count which Mordecai, the broker, gets frompoor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan tokeep Woebegone's family from starvation; whatis that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? Whatis the Archbishop of Savesoul's income ofL100,000 seized from the scant bread and chee-se of hundreds of thousands of broken-backedlaborers (all sure of heaven without any of Sa-vesoul's help) what is that globular L100,000but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder'shereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish?

What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull,is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to thatapostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas buta Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is notPossession the whole of the law?

But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty genera-lly applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internatio-nally and universally applicable.

What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, inwhich Columbus struck the Spanish standardby way of waifing it for his royal master andmistress? What was Poland to the Czar? WhatGreece to the Turk? What India to England?What at last will Mexico be to the United Sta-tes? All Loose-Fish.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties ofthe World but Loose-Fish? What all men'sminds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What isthe principle of religious belief in them but a

Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smug-gling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers butLoose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but aLoose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but aLoose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?

CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.

"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, etregina caudam." BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.

Latin from the books of the Laws of England,which taken along with the context, means, thatof all whales captured by anybody on the coastof that land, the King, as Honourary GrandHarpooneer, must have the head, and the Que-en be respectfully presented with the tail. Adivision which, in the whale, is much like hal-

ving an apple; there is no intermediate remain-der. Now as this law, under a modified form, isto this day in force in England; and as it offersin various respects a strange anomaly touchingthe general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it ishere treated of in a separate chapter, on thesame courteous principle that prompts the En-glish railways to be at the expense of a separatecar, specially reserved for the accommodationof royalty. In the first place, in curious proof ofthe fact that the above-mentioned law is still inforce, I proceed to lay before you a circumstan-ce that happened within the last two years.

It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, orSandwich, or some one of the Cinque Ports,had after a hard chase succeeded in killing andbeaching a fine whale which they had origina-lly descried afar off from the shore. Now theCinque Ports are partially or somehow underthe jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle,called a Lord Warden. Holding the office direc-

tly from the crown, I believe, all the royal emo-luments incident to the Cinque Port territoriesbecome by assignment his. By some writers thisoffice is called a sinecure. But not so. Becausethe Lord Warden is busily employed at times infobbing his perquisites; which are his chiefly byvirtue of that same fobbing of them.

Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, ba-re-footed, and with their trowsers rolled highup on their eely legs, had wearily hauled theirfat fish high and dry, promising themselves agood L150 from the precious oil and bone; andin fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, andgood ale with their cronies, upon the strengthof their respective shares; up steps a very lear-ned and most Christian and charitable gentle-man, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm;and laying it upon the whale's head, he says—"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish.I seize it as the Lord Warden's." Upon this thepoor mariners in their respectful consterna-

tion—so truly English—knowing not what tosay, fall to vigorously scratching their heads allround; meanwhile ruefully glancing from thewhale to the stranger. But that did in nowisemend the matter, or at all soften the hard heartof the learned gentleman with the copy ofBlackstone. At length one of them, after longscratching about for his ideas, made bold tospeak,

"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?"

"The Duke."

"But the duke had nothing to do with takingthis fish?"

"It is his."

"We have been at great trouble, and peril, andsome expense, and is all that to go to the Duke'sbenefit; we getting nothing at all for our painsbut our blisters?"

"It is his."

"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to thisdesperate mode of getting a livelihood?"

"It is his."

"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden motherby part of my share of this whale."

"It is his."

"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or ahalf?"

"It is his."

In a word, the whale was seized and sold, andhis Grace the Duke of Wellington received themoney. Thinking that viewed in some particu-lar lights, the case might by a bare possibility insome small degree be deemed, under the cir-cumstances, a rather hard one, an honest cler-gyman of the town respectfully addressed a

note to his Grace, begging him to take the caseof those unfortunate mariners into full conside-ration. To which my Lord Duke in substancereplied (both letters were published) that hehad already done so, and received the money,and would be obliged to the reverend gentle-man if for the future he (the reverend gentle-man) would decline meddling with other peo-ple's business. Is this the still militant old man,standing at the corners of the three kingdoms,on all hands coercing alms of beggars?

It will readily be seen that in this case the alle-ged right of the Duke to the whale was a dele-gated one from the Sovereign. We must needsinquire then on what principle the Sovereign isoriginally invested with that right. The lawitself has already been set forth. But Plowdongives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, thewhale so caught belongs to the King and Que-en, "because of its superior excellence." And by

the soundest commentators this has ever beenheld a cogent argument in such matters.

But why should the King have the head, andthe Queen the tail? A reason for that, ye law-yers!

In his treatise on "Queen-Gold," or Queen-pinmoney, an old King's Bench author, oneWilliam Prynne, thus discourseth: "Ye tail is yeQueen's, that ye Queen's wardrobe may besupplied with ye whalebone." Now this waswritten at a time when the black limber bone ofthe Greenland or Right whale was largely usedin ladies' bodices. But this same bone is not inthe tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistakefor a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is theQueen a mermaid, to be presented with a tail?An allegorical meaning may lurk here.

There are two royal fish so styled by the En-glish law writers—the whale and the sturgeon;both royal property under certain limitations,

and nominally supplying the tenth branch ofthe crown's ordinary revenue. I know not thatany other author has hinted of the matter; butby inference it seems to me that the sturgeonmust be divided in the same way as the whale,the King receiving the highly dense and elastichead peculiar to that fish, which, symbolicallyregarded, may possibly be humorously groun-ded upon some presumed congeniality. Andthus there seems a reason in all things, even inlaw.

CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Ro-se-Bud.

"In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in thepaunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetordenying not inquiry." SIR T. BROWNE, V.E.

It was a week or two after the last whaling sce-ne recounted, and when we were slowly sailingover a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, that themany noses on the Pequod's deck proved morevigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyesaloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smellwas smelt in the sea.

"I will bet something now," said Stubb, "thatsomewhere hereabouts are some of those drug-ged whales we tickled the other day. I thoughtthey would keel up before long."

Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside;and there in the distance lay a ship, whose fur-led sails betokened that some sort of whalemust be alongside. As we glided nearer, thestranger showed French colours from his peak;and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowlthat circled, and hovered, and swooped aroundhim, it was plain that the whale alongside mustbe what the fishermen call a blasted whale, thatis, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea,

and so floated an unappropriated corpse. Itmay well be conceived, what an unsavory odorsuch a mass must exhale; worse than an Assy-rian city in the plague, when the living are in-competent to bury the departed. So intolerableindeed is it regarded by some, that no cupiditycould persuade them to moor alongside of it.Yet are there those who will still do it; not-withstanding the fact that the oil obtained fromsuch subjects is of a very inferior quality, andby no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.

Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze,we saw that the Frenchman had a second whalealongside; and this second whale seemed evenmore of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it tur-ned out to be one of those problematical whalesthat seem to dry up and die with a sort of pro-digious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving theirdefunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt ofanything like oil. Nevertheless, in the properplace we shall see that no knowing fisherman

will ever turn up his nose at such a whale asthis, however much he may shun blasted wha-les in general.

The Pequod had now swept so nigh to thestranger, that Stubb vowed he recognised hiscutting spade-pole entangled in the lines thatwere knotted round the tail of one of thesewhales.

"There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringlylaughed, standing in the ship's bows, "there's ajackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoesof Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery;sometimes lowering their boats for breakers,mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,and sometimes sailing from their port withtheir hold full of boxes of tallow candles, andcases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil theywill get won't be enough to dip the Captain'swick into; aye, we all know these things; butlook ye, here's a Crappo that is content withour leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean;

aye, and is content too with scraping the drybones of that other precious fish he has there.Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one,and let's make him a present of a little oil fordear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get fromthat drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit toburn in a jail; no, not in a condemned cell. Andas for the other whale, why, I'll agree to getmore oil by chopping up and trying out thesethree masts of ours, than he'll get from thatbundle of bones; though, now that I think of it,it may contain something worth a good dealmore than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now ifour old man has thought of that. It's worthtrying. Yes, I'm for it;" and so saying he startedfor the quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a comple-te calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod wasnow fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hopeof escaping except by its breezing up again.Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his

boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger.Drawing across her bow, he perceived that inaccordance with the fanciful French taste, theupper part of her stem-piece was carved in thelikeness of a huge drooping stalk, was paintedgreen, and for thorns had copper spikes projec-ting from it here and there; the whole termina-ting in a symmetrical folded bulb of a brightred colour. Upon her head boards, in large giltletters, he read "Bouton de Rose,"—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romanticname of this aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the BOU-TON part of the inscription, yet the word RO-SE, and the bulbous figure-head put together,sufficiently explained the whole to him.

"A wooden rose-bud, eh?" he cried with hishand to his nose, "that will do very well; buthow like all creation it smells!"

Now in order to hold direct communicationwith the people on deck, he had to pull roundthe bows to the starboard side, and thus comeclose to the blasted whale; and so talk over it.

Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still tohis nose, he bawled—"Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy!are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that spe-ak English?"

"Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bul-warks, who turned out to be the chief-mate.

"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have youseen the White Whale?"

"WHAT whale?"

"The WHITE Whale—a Sperm Whale—MobyDick, have ye seen him?

"Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blan-che! White Whale—no."

"Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll callagain in a minute."

Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod,and seeing Ahab leaning over the quarter-deckrail awaiting his report, he moulded his twohands into a trumpet and shouted—"No, Sir!No!" Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb re-turned to the Frenchman.

He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, whohad just got into the chains, and was using acutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort ofbag.

"What's the matter with your nose, there?" saidStubb. "Broke it?"

"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have anynose at all!" answered the Guernsey-man, whodid not seem to relish the job he was at verymuch. "But what are you holding YOURS for?"

"Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold iton. Fine day, ain't it? Air rather gardenny, Ishould say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye,Bouton-de-Rose?"

"What in the devil's name do you want here?"roared the Guernseyman, flying into a suddenpassion.

"Oh! keep cool—cool? yes, that's the word! whydon't you pack those whales in ice while you'reworking at 'em? But joking aside, though; doyou know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsensetrying to get any oil out of such whales? As forthat dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in hiswhole carcase."

"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, theCaptain here won't believe it; this is his firstvoyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before.But come aboard, and mayhap he'll believeyou, if he won't me; and so I'll get out of thisdirty scrape."

"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasantfellow," rejoined Stubb, and with that he soonmounted to the deck. There a queer scene pre-sented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of redworsted, were getting the heavy tackles in rea-diness for the whales. But they worked ratherslow and talked very fast, and seemed in anyt-hing but a good humor. All their noses up-wardly projected from their faces like so manyjib-booms. Now and then pairs of them woulddrop their work, and run up to the mast-headto get some fresh air. Some thinking theywould catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Ot-hers having broken the stems of their pipesalmost short off at the bowl, were vigorouslypuffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantlyfilled their olfactories.

Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries andanathemas proceeding from the Captain'sround-house abaft; and looking in that direc-

tion saw a fiery face thrust from behind thedoor, which was held ajar from within. Thiswas the tormented surgeon, who, after in vainremonstrating against the proceedings of theday, had betaken himself to the Captain'sround-house (CABINET he called it) to avoidthe pest; but still, could not help yelling out hisentreaties and indignations at times.

Marking all this, Stubb argued well for hisscheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man hada little chat with him, during which the stran-ger mate expressed his detestation of his Cap-tain as a conceited ignoramus, who hadbrought them all into so unsavory and unprofi-table a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubbfurther perceived that the Guernsey-man hadnot the slightest suspicion concerning the am-bergris. He therefore held his peace on thathead, but otherwise was quite frank and confi-dential with him, so that the two quickly con-cocted a little plan for both circumventing and

satirizing the Captain, without his at all drea-ming of distrusting their sincerity. According tothis little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, un-der cover of an interpreter's office, was to tellthe Captain what he pleased, but as comingfrom Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utterany nonsense that should come uppermost inhim during the interview.

By this time their destined victim appearedfrom his cabin. He was a small and dark, butrather delicate looking man for a sea-captain,with large whiskers and moustache, however;and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb wasnow politely introduced by the Guernsey-man,who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect ofinterpreting between them.

"What shall I say to him first?" said he.

"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest andthe watch and seals, "you may as well begin by

telling him that he looks a sort of babyish tome, though I don't pretend to be a judge."

"He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, inFrench, turning to his captain, "that only yes-terday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captainand chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died ofa fever caught from a blasted whale they hadbrought alongside."

Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desi-red to know more.

"What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him thatnow I have eyed him carefully, I'm quite certainthat he's no more fit to command a whale-shipthan a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him fromme he's a baboon."

"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the ot-her whale, the dried one, is far more deadly

than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he con-jures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose fromthese fish."

Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loudvoice commanded his crew to desist from hois-ting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loosethe cables and chains confining the whales tothe ship.

"What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when theCaptain had returned to them.

"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell himnow that—that—in fact, tell him I've diddledhim, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebodyelse."

"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy tohave been of any service to us."

Hearing this, the captain vowed that they werethe grateful parties (meaning himself and mate)

and concluded by inviting Stubb down into hiscabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

"He wants you to take a glass of wine withhim," said the interpreter.

"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against myprinciples to drink with the man I've diddled.In fact, tell him I must go."

"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won'tadmit of his drinking; but that if Monsieurwants to live another day to drink, then Mon-sieur had best drop all four boats, and pull theship away from these whales, for it's so calmthey won't drift."

By this time Stubb was over the side, and get-ting into his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man tothis effect,—that having a long tow-line in hisboat, he would do what he could to help them,by pulling out the lighter whale of the two fromthe ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats,

then, were engaged in towing the ship oneway, Stubb benevolently towed away at hiswhale the other way, ostentatiously slackingout a most unusually long tow-line.

Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned tocast off from the whale; hoisting his boats, theFrenchman soon increased his distance, whilethe Pequod slid in between him and Stubb'swhale. Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to thefloating body, and hailing the Pequod to givenotice of his intentions, at once proceeded toreap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Sei-zing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced anexcavation in the body, a little behind the sidefin. You would almost have thought he wasdigging a cellar there in the sea; and when atlength his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, itwas like turning up old Roman tiles and potte-ry buried in fat English loam. His boat's crewwere all in high excitement, eagerly helping

their chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters.

And all the time numberless fowls were diving,and ducking, and screaming, and yelling, andfighting around them. Stubb was beginning tolook disappointed, especially as the horriblenosegay increased, when suddenly from outthe very heart of this plague, there stole a faintstream of perfume, which flowed through thetide of bad smells without being absorbed by it,as one river will flow into and then along withanother, without at all blending with it for atime.

"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight,striking something in the subterranean regions,"a purse! a purse!"

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in,and drew out handfuls of something that loo-ked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled oldcheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You

might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of ahue between yellow and ash colour. And this,good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guineaan ounce to any druggist. Some six handfulswere obtained; but more was unavoidably lostin the sea, and still more, perhaps, might havebeen secured were it not for impatient Ahab'sloud command to Stubb to desist, and come onboard, else the ship would bid them good bye.

CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance,and so important as an article of commerce,that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born CaptainCoffin was examined at the bar of the EnglishHouse of Commons on that subject. For at thattime, and indeed until a comparatively late

day, the precise origin of ambergris remained,like amber itself, a problem to the learned.Though the word ambergris is but the Frenchcompound for grey amber, yet the two subs-tances are quite distinct. For amber, though attimes found on the sea-coast, is also dug up insome far inland soils, whereas ambergris isnever found except upon the sea. Besides, am-ber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless subs-tance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beadsand ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy,and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is lar-gely used in perfumery, in pastiles, preciouscandles, hair-powders, and pomatum. TheTurks use it in cooking, and also carry it toMecca, for the same purpose that frankincenseis carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some winemerchants drop a few grains into claret, to fla-vor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladiesand gentlemen should regale themselves with

an essence found in the inglorious bowels of asick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris issupposed to be the cause, and by others theeffect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How tocure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, un-less by administering three or four boat loadsof Brandreth's pills, and then running out ofharm's way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found inthis ambergris, certain hard, round, bony pla-tes, which at first Stubb thought might be sai-lors' trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turnedout that they were nothing more than pieces ofsmall squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrantambergris should be found in the heart of suchdecay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that sa-ying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corrup-tion and incorruption; how that we are sown indishonour, but raised in glory. And likewisecall to mind that saying of Paracelsus about

what it is that maketh the best musk. Also for-get not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manu-facturing stages, is the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with theabove appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxietyto repel a charge often made against whalemen,and which, in the estimation of some alreadybiased minds, might be considered as indirectlysubstantiated by what has been said of theFrenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in thisvolume the slanderous aspersion has been dis-proved, that the vocation of whaling is throug-hout a slatternly, untidy business. But there isanother thing to rebut. They hint that all whalesalways smell bad. Now how did this odiousstigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the firstarrival of the Greenland whaling ships in Lon-don, more than two centuries ago. Because tho-se whalemen did not then, and do not now, try

out their oil at sea as the Southern ships havealways done; but cutting up the fresh blubberin small bits, thrust it through the bung holes oflarge casks, and carry it home in that manner;the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas,and the sudden and violent storms to whichthey are exposed, forbidding any other course.The consequence is, that upon breaking into thehold, and unloading one of these whale ceme-teries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is givenforth somewhat similar to that arising fromexcavating an old city grave-yard, for the foun-dations of a Lying-in-Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked chargeagainst whalers may be likewise imputed to theexistence on the coast of Greenland, in formertimes, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburghor Smeerenberg, which latter name is the oneused by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his gre-at work on Smells, a text-book on that subject.As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put

up), this village was founded in order to afforda place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleetto be tried out, without being taken home toHolland for that purpose. It was a collection offurnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and whenthe works were in full operation certainly gaveforth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quitedifferent with a South Sea Sperm Whaler;which in a voyage of four years perhaps, aftercompletely filling her hold with oil, does not,perhaps, consume fifty days in the business ofboiling out; and in the state that it is casked, theoil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living ordead, if but decently treated, whales as a spe-cies are by no means creatures of ill odor; norcan whalemen be recognised, as the people ofthe middle ages affected to detect a Jew in thecompany, by the nose. Nor indeed can the wha-le possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, asa general thing, he enjoys such high health;taking abundance of exercise; always out ofdoors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air.

I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukesabove water dispenses a perfume, as when amusk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warmparlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whaleto for fragrance, considering his magnitude?Must it not be to that famous elephant, withjewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, whichwas led out of an Indian town to do honour toAlexander the Great?

CHAPTER 93. The Castaway.

It was but some few days after encounteringthe Frenchman, that a most significant eventbefell the most insignificant of the Pequod'screw; an event most lamentable; and whichended in providing the sometimes madly me-rry and predestinated craft with a living and

ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shat-tered sequel might prove her own.

Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one thatgoes in the boats. Some few hands are reservedcalled ship-keepers, whose province it is towork the vessel while the boats are pursuingthe whale. As a general thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men com-prising the boats' crews. But if there happen tobe an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorouswight in the ship, that wight is certain to bemade a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequodwith the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pipby abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of himbefore; ye must remember his tambourine onthat dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.

In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made amatch, like a black pony and a white one, ofequal developments, though of dissimilar co-lour, driven in one eccentric span. But whilehapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and

torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with thatpleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to histribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays andfestivities with finer, freer relish than any otherrace. For blacks, the year's calendar shouldshow naught but three hundred and sixty-fiveFourth of Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smi-le so, while I write that this little black was bri-lliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; be-hold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king'scabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's pea-ceable securities; so that the panic-striking bu-siness in which he had somehow unaccounta-bly become entrapped, had most sadly blurredhis brightness; though, as ere long will be seen,what was thus temporarily subdued in him, inthe end was destined to be luridly illumined bystrange wild fires, that fictitiously showed himoff to ten times the natural lustre with which inhis native Tolland County in Connecticut, hehad once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on

the green; and at melodious even-tide, with hisgay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon intoone star-belled tambourine. So, though in theclear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond dropwill healthful glow; yet, when the cunning je-weller would show you the diamond in itsmost impressive lustre, he lays it against agloomy ground, and then lights it up, not bythe sun, but by some unnatural gases. Thencome out those fiery effulgences, infernallysuperb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once thedivinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks likesome crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell.But let us to the story.

It came to pass, that in the ambergris affairStubb's after-oarsman chanced so to sprain hishand, as for a time to become quite maimed;and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.

The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pipevinced much nervousness; but happily, for

that time, escaped close contact with the whale;and therefore came off not altogether discredi-tably; though Stubb observing him, took care,afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his coura-geousness to the utmost, for he might oftenfind it needful.

Now upon the second lowering, the boat padd-led upon the whale; and as the fish received thedarted iron, it gave its customary rap, whichhappened, in this instance, to be right underpoor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternationof the moment caused him to leap, paddle inhand, out of the boat; and in such a way, thatpart of the slack whale line coming against hischest, he breasted it overboard with him, so asto become entangled in it, when at last plum-ping into the water. That instant the strickenwhale started on a fierce run, the line swiftlystraightened; and presto! poor Pip came allfoaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorse-

lessly dragged there by the line, which had ta-ken several turns around his chest and neck.

Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of thefire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon.Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, hesuspended its sharp edge over the line, andturning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogati-vely, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked faceplainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passedin a flash. In less than half a minute, this entirething happened.

"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the wha-le was lost and Pip was saved.

So soon as he recovered himself, the poor littlenegro was assailed by yells and execrationsfrom the crew. Tranquilly permitting theseirregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in aplain, business-like, but still half humorousmanner, cursed Pip officially; and that done,unofficially gave him much wholesome advice.

The substance was, Never jump from a boat,Pip, except—but all the rest was indefinite, asthe soundest advice ever is. Now, in general,STICK TO THE BOAT, is your true motto inwhaling; but cases will sometimes happenwhen LEAP FROM THE BOAT, is still better.Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if heshould give undiluted conscientious advice toPip, he would be leaving him too wide a mar-gin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenlydropped all advice, and concluded with a pe-remptory command, "Stick to the boat, Pip, orby the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump;mind that. We can't afford to lose whales by thelikes of you; a whale would sell for thirty timeswhat you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that inmind, and don't jump any more." Hereby per-haps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though manloved his fellow, yet man is a money-makinganimal, which propensity too often interfereswith his benevolence.

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pipjumped again. It was under very similar cir-cumstances to the first performance; but thistime he did not breast out the line; and hence,when the whale started to run, Pip was leftbehind on the sea, like a hurried traveller'strunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word.It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day; thespangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stret-ching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest.Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebonhead showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern.Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him;and the whale was winged. In three minutes, awhole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pipand Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poorPip turned his crisp, curling, black head to thesun, another lonely castaway, though the lof-tiest and the brightest.

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the openocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as toride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awfullonesomeness is intolerable. The intense con-centration of self in the middle of such a hear-tless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark,how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in theopen sea—mark how closely they hug theirship and only coast along her sides.

But had Stubb really abandoned the poor littlenegro to his fate? No; he did not mean to, atleast. Because there were two boats in his wake,and he supposed, no doubt, that they would ofcourse come up to Pip very quickly, and pickhim up; though, indeed, such considerationstowards oarsmen jeopardized through theirown timidity, is not always manifested by thehunters in all similar instances; and such ins-tances not unfrequently occur; almost invaria-bly in the fishery, a coward, so called, is mar-

ked with the same ruthless detestation peculiarto military navies and armies.

But it so happened, that those boats, withoutseeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close tothem on one side, turned, and gave chase; andStubb's boat was now so far away, and he andall his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip'sringed horizon began to expand around himmiserably. By the merest chance the ship itselfat last rescued him; but from that hour the littlenegro went about the deck an idiot; such, atleast, they said he was. The sea had jeeringlykept his finite body up, but drowned the infini-te of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though.Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths,where strange shapes of the unwarped primalworld glided to and fro before his passive eyes;and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed hishoarded heaps; and among the joyous, hear-tless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multi-tudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that

out of the firmament of waters heaved the co-lossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadleof the loom, and spoke it; and therefore hisshipmates called him mad. So man's insanity isheaven's sense; and wandering from all mortalreason, man comes at last to that celestialthought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic;and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised,indifferent as his God.

For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. Thething is common in that fishery; and in the se-quel of the narrative, it will then be seen whatlike abandonment befell myself.

CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.

That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased,was duly brought to the Pequod's side, whereall those cutting and hoisting operations pre-viously detailed, were regularly gone through,even to the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, orCase.

While some were occupied with this latter du-ty, others were employed in dragging away thelarger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm;and when the proper time arrived, this samesperm was carefully manipulated ere going tothe try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree,that when, with several others, I sat down befo-re a large Constantine's bath of it, I found itstrangely concreted into lumps, here and thererolling about in the liquid part. It was our busi-ness to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A

sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that inold times this sperm was such a favourite cos-metic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such asoftener! such a delicious molifier! After havingmy hands in it for only a few minutes, my fin-gers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to ser-pentine and spiralise.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on thedeck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass;under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indo-lent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bat-hed my hands among those soft, gentle globu-les of infiltrated tissues, woven almost withinthe hour; as they richly broke to my fingers,and discharged all their opulence, like fullyripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that un-contaminated aroma,—literally and truly, likethe smell of spring violets; I declare to you, thatfor the time I lived as in a musky meadow; Iforgot all about our horrible oath; in that inex-pressible sperm, I washed my hands and my

heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Pa-racelsan superstition that sperm is of rare vir-tue in allaying the heat of anger; while bathingin that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will,or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morninglong; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almostmelted into it; I squeezed that sperm till astrange sort of insanity came over me; and Ifound myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands forthe gentle globules. Such an abounding, affec-tionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avoca-tion beget; that at last I was continually squee-zing their hands, and looking up into their eyessentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dearfellow beings, why should we longer cherishany social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands allround; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into

each other; let us squeeze ourselves universallyinto the very milk and sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that spermfor ever! For now, since by many prolonged,repeated experiences, I have perceived that inall cases man must eventually lower, or at leastshift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not pla-cing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy;but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, thesaddle, the fireside, the country; now that Ihave perceived all this, I am ready to squeezecase eternally. In thoughts of the visions of thenight, I saw long rows of angels in paradise,each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behoovesto speak of other things akin to it, in the busi-ness of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works.

First comes white-horse, so called, which isobtained from the tapering part of the fish, and

also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It istough with congealed tendons—a wad of mus-cle—but still contains some oil. After being se-vered from the whale, the white-horse is firstcut into portable oblongs ere going to the min-cer. They look much like blocks of Berkshiremarble.

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon cer-tain fragmentary parts of the whale's flesh, hereand there adhering to the blanket of blubber,and often participating to a considerable degreein its unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, con-vivial, beautiful object to behold. As its nameimports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottledtint, with a bestreaked snowy and goldenground, dotted with spots of the deepest crim-son and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictu-res of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keepyourself from eating it. I confess, that once Istole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted so-mething as I should conceive a royal cutlet

from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tas-ted, supposing him to have been killed the firstday after the venison season, and that particu-lar venison season contemporary with an unu-sually fine vintage of the vineyards of Cham-pagne.

There is another substance, and a very singularone, which turns up in the course of this busi-ness, but which I feel it to be very puzzlingadequately to describe. It is called slobgollion;an appellation original with the whalemen, andeven so is the nature of the substance. It is anineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequentlyfound in the tubs of sperm, after a prolongedsqueezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold itto be the wondrously thin, ruptured membra-nes of the case, coalescing.

Gurry, so called, is a term properly belongingto right whalemen, but sometimes incidentallyused by the sperm fishermen. It designates thedark, glutinous substance which is scraped off

the back of the Greenland or right whale, andmuch of which covers the decks of those infe-rior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous tothe whale's vocabulary. But as applied by wha-lemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipper is ashort firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from thetapering part of Leviathan's tail: it averages aninch in thickness, and for the rest, is about thesize of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise movedalong the oily deck, it operates like a leathernsquilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as ofmagic, allures along with it all impurities.

But to learn all about these recondite matters,your best way is at once to descend into theblubber-room, and have a long talk with itsinmates. This place has previously been men-tioned as the receptacle for the blanket-pieces,when stript and hoisted from the whale. Whenthe proper time arrives for cutting up its con-tents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all

tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by adull lantern, a space has been left clear for theworkmen. They generally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon ofthe same name. The gaff is something like aboat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks onto a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it fromslipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about.Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheetitself, perpendicularly chopping it into the por-table horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as honecan make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless;the thing he stands on will sometimes irresisti-bly slide away from him, like a sledge. If hecuts off one of his own toes, or one of his assis-tants', would you be very much astonished?Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-roommen.

CHAPTER 95. The Cassock.

Had you stepped on board the Pequod at acertain juncture of this post-mortemizing of thewhale; and had you strolled forward nigh thewindlass, pretty sure am I that you would havescanned with no small curiosity a very strange,enigmatical object, which you would have seenthere, lying along lengthwise in the lee scup-pers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale'shuge head; not the prodigy of his unhingedlower jaw; not the miracle of his symmetricaltail; none of these would so surprise you, ashalf a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,—longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot indiameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, theebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, itis; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Suchan idol as that found in the secret groves ofQueen Maachah in Judea; and for worshippingwhich, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and

destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomina-tion at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth inthe 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.

Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who nowcomes along, and assisted by two allies, heavilybacks the grandissimus, as the mariners call it,and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with itas if he were a grenadier carrying a dead com-rade from the field. Extending it upon the fore-castle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically toremove its dark pelt, as an African hunter thepelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt insideout, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stret-ching, so as almost to double its diameter; andat last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, todry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removingsome three feet of it, towards the pointed ex-tremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips him-self bodily into it. The mincer now stands befo-re you invested in the full canonicals of his ca-

lling. Immemorial to all his order, this investi-ture alone will adequately protect him, whileemployed in the peculiar functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-piecesof blubber for the pots; an operation which isconducted at a curious wooden horse, plantedendwise against the bulwarks, and with a capa-cious tub beneath it, into which the mincedpieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt ora-tor's desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupyinga conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves;what a candidate for an archbishopric, what alad for a Pope were this mincer!*

*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariablecry from the mates to the mincer. It enjoins himto be careful, and cut his work into as thin sli-ces as possible, inasmuch as by so doing thebusiness of boiling out the oil is much accelera-ted, and its quantity considerably increased,besides perhaps improving it in quality.

CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaleris outwardly distinguished by her try-works.She presents the curious anomaly of the mostsolid masonry joining with oak and hemp inconstituting the completed ship. It is as if fromthe open field a brick-kiln were transported toher planks.

The try-works are planted between the fore-mast and mainmast, the most roomy part of thedeck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiarstrength, fitted to sustain the weight of an al-most solid mass of brick and mortar, some tenfeet by eight square, and five in height. Thefoundation does not penetrate the deck, but the

masonry is firmly secured to the surface byponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides,and screwing it down to the timbers. On theflanks it is cased with wood, and at top comple-tely covered by a large, sloping, battenedhatchway. Removing this hatch we expose thegreat try-pots, two in number, and each of se-veral barrels' capacity. When not in use, theyare kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they arepolished with soapstone and sand, till they shi-ne within like silver punch-bowls. During thenight-watches some cynical old sailors willcrawl into them and coil themselves away therefor a nap. While employed in polishing them—one man in each pot, side by side—many con-fidential communications are carried on, overthe iron lips. It is a place also for profoundmathematical meditation. It was in the lefthand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstonediligently circling round me, that I was firstindirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that ingeometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid,

my soapstone for example, will descend fromany point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of thetry-works, the bare masonry of that side is ex-posed, penetrated by the two iron mouths ofthe furnaces, directly underneath the pots. The-se mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron.The intense heat of the fire is prevented fromcommunicating itself to the deck, by means of ashallow reservoir extending under the entireinclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inser-ted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenishedwith water as fast as it evaporates. There are noexternal chimneys; they open direct from therear wall. And here let us go back for a mo-ment.

It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pe-quod's try-works were first started on this pre-sent voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee thebusiness.

"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her.You cook, fire the works." This was an easything, for the carpenter had been thrusting hisshavings into the furnace throughout the pas-sage. Here be it said that in a whaling voyagethe first fire in the try-works has to be fed for atime with wood. After that no wood is used,except as a means of quick ignition to the staplefuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp,shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters,still contains considerable of its unctuous pro-perties. These fritters feed the flames. Like aplethoric burning martyr, or a self-consumingmisanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplieshis own fuel and burns by his own body.Would that he consumed his own smoke! forhis smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale ityou must, and not only that, but you must livein it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild,Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in thevicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left

wing of the day of judgment; it is an argumentfor the pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation.We were clear from the carcase; sail had beenmade; the wind was freshening; the wild oceandarkness was intense. But that darkness waslicked up by the fierce flames, which at inter-vals forked forth from the sooty flues, andilluminated every lofty rope in the rigging, aswith the famed Greek fire. The burning shipdrove on, as if remorselessly commissioned tosome vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris,issuing from their midnight harbors, with bro-ad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon theTurkish frigates, and folded them in conflagra-tions.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works,now afforded a wide hearth in front of them.Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes ofthe pagan harpooneers, always the whale-

ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles theypitched hissing masses of blubber into the scal-ding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till thesnaky flames darted, curling, out of the doorsto catch them by the feet. The smoke rolledaway in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the shipthere was a pitch of the boiling oil, which see-med all eagerness to leap into their faces. Op-posite the mouth of the works, on the furtherside of the wide wooden hearth, was the wind-lass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here loungedthe watch, when not otherwise employed, loo-king into the red heat of the fire, till their eyesfelt scorched in their heads. Their tawny featu-res, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat,their matted beards, and the contrasting barba-ric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were stran-gely revealed in the capricious emblazonings ofthe works. As they narrated to each other theirunholy adventures, their tales of terror told inwords of mirth; as their uncivilized laughterforked upwards out of them, like the flames

from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front,the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with theirhuge pronged forks and dippers; as the windhowled on, and the sea leaped, and the shipgroaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot herred hell further and further into the blacknessof the sea and the night, and scornfully cham-ped the white bone in her mouth, and viciouslyspat round her on all sides; then the rushingPequod, freighted with savages, and laden withfire, and burning a corpse, and plunging intothat blackness of darkness, seemed the materialcounterpart of her monomaniac commander'ssoul.

So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, andfor long hours silently guided the way of thisfire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval,in darkness myself, I but the better saw theredness, the madness, the ghastliness of others.The continual sight of the fiend shapes beforeme, capering half in smoke and half in fire, the-

se at last begat kindred visions in my soul, sosoon as I began to yield to that unaccountabledrowsiness which ever would come over me ata midnight helm.

But that night, in particular, a strange (and eversince inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Star-ting from a brief standing sleep, I was horriblyconscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned againstit; in my ears was the low hum of sails, justbeginning to shake in the wind; I thought myeyes were open; I was half conscious of puttingmy fingers to the lids and mechanically stret-ching them still further apart. But, spite of allthis, I could see no compass before me to steerby; though it seemed but a minute since I hadbeen watching the card, by the steady binnaclelamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed beforeme but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastlyby flashes of redness. Uppermost was the im-pression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I

stood on was not so much bound to any havenahead as rushing from all havens astern. Astark, bewildered feeling, as of death, cameover me. Convulsively my hands grasped thetiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tillerwas, somehow, in some enchanted way, inver-ted. My God! what is the matter with me?thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turnedmyself about, and was fronting the ship's stern,with my back to her prow and the compass. Inan instant I faced back, just in time to preventthe vessel from flying up into the wind, andvery probably capsizing her. How glad andhow grateful the relief from this unnaturalhallucination of the night, and the fatal contin-gency of being brought by the lee!

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man!Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turnnot thy back to the compass; accept the firsthint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artifi-cial fire, when its redness makes all things look

ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, theskies will be bright; those who glared like de-vils in the forking flames, the morn will showin far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious,golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all othersbut liars!

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dis-mal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna,nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles ofdeserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sunhides not the ocean, which is the dark side ofthis earth, and which is two thirds of this earth.So, therefore, that mortal man who hath moreof joy than sorrow in him, that mortal mancannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. Withbooks the same. The truest of all men was theMan of Sorrows, and the truest of all books isSolomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hamme-red steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wil-ful world hath not got hold of unchristian So-lomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospi-

tals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas thanhell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau,poor devils all of sick men; and throughout acare-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passingwise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fittedto sit down on tomb-stones, and break the gre-en damp mould with unfathomably wondrousSolomon.

But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wan-dereth out of the way of understanding shallremain" (I.E., even while living) "in the congre-gation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then,to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for thetime it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe;but there is a woe that is madness. And there isa Catskill eagle in some souls that can alikedive down into the blackest gorges, and soarout of them again and become invisible in thesunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies wit-hin the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so

that even in his lowest swoop the mountaineagle is still higher than other birds upon theplain, even though they soar.

CHAPTER 97. The Lamp.

Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the offduty watch were sleeping, for one single mo-ment you would have almost thought you werestanding in some illuminated shrine of canoni-zed kings and counsellors. There they lay intheir triangular oaken vaults, each mariner achiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashingupon his hooded eyes.

In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scar-ce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark,

and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness tohis pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whale-man, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives inlight. He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp,and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiestnight the ship's black hull still houses an illu-mination.

See with what entire freedom the whalemantakes his handful of lamps—often but old bot-tles and vials, though—to the copper cooler atthe try-works, and replenishes them there, asmugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purestof oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore,unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lu-nar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet asearly grass butter in April. He goes and huntsfor his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness andgenuineness, even as the traveller on the prairiehunts up his own supper of game.

CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and ClearingUp.

Already has it been related how the great le-viathan is afar off descried from the mast-head;how he is chased over the watery moors, andslaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how heis then towed alongside and beheaded; andhow (on the principle which entitled theheadsman of old to the garments in which thebeheaded was killed) his great padded surtoutbecomes the property of his executioner; how,in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and,like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, hisspermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathedthrough the fire;—but now it remains to con-clude the last chapter of this part of the descrip-

tion by rehearsing—singing, if I may—the ro-mantic proceeding of decanting off his oil intothe casks and striking them down into the hold,where once again leviathan returns to his nati-ve profundities, sliding along beneath the sur-face as before; but, alas! never more to rise andblow.

While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is re-ceived into the six-barrel casks; and while, per-haps, the ship is pitching and rolling this wayand that in the midnight sea, the enormouscasks are slewed round and headed over, endfor end, and sometimes perilously scoot acrossthe slippery deck, like so many land slides, tillat last man-handled and stayed in their course;and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as manyhammers as can play upon them, for now, EXOFFICIO, every sailor is a cooper.

At length, when the last pint is casked, and allis cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed,the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and

down go the casks to their final rest in the sea.This done, the hatches are replaced, and herme-tically closed, like a closet walled up.

In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of themost remarkable incidents in all the business ofwhaling. One day the planks stream with fres-hets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head areprofanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, asin a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mari-ners go about suffused with unctuousness; theentire ship seems great leviathan himself; whileon all hands the din is deafening.

But a day or two after, you look about you, andprick your ears in this self-same ship; and wereit not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, youwould all but swear you trod some silent mer-chant vessel, with a most scrupulously neatcommander. The unmanufactured sperm oilpossesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is

the reason why the decks never look so whiteas just after what they call an affair of oil. Besi-des, from the ashes of the burned scraps of thewhale, a potent lye is readily made; and whe-never any adhesiveness from the back of thewhale remains clinging to the side, that lyequickly exterminates it. Hands go diligentlyalong the bulwarks, and with buckets of waterand rags restore them to their full tidiness. Thesoot is brushed from the lower rigging. All thenumerous implements which have been in useare likewise faithfully cleansed and put away.The great hatch is scrubbed and placed uponthe try-works, completely hiding the pots; eve-ry cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled inunseen nooks; and when by the combined andsimultaneous industry of almost the entireship's company, the whole of this conscientiousduty is at last concluded, then the crew them-selves proceed to their own ablutions; shiftthemselves from top to toe; and finally issue tothe immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as

bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiestHolland.

Now, with elated step, they pace the planks intwos and threes, and humorously discourse ofparlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; pro-pose to mat the deck; think of having hangingto the top; object not to taking tea by moonlighton the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to suchmusked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber,were little short of audacity. They know not thething you distantly allude to. Away, and bringus napkins!

But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads,stand three men intent on spying out morewhales, which, if caught, infallibly will againsoil the old oaken furniture, and drop at leastone small grease-spot somewhere. Yes; andmany is the time, when, after the severest unin-terrupted labors, which know no night; conti-nuing straight through for ninety-six hours;when from the boat, where they have swelled

their wrists with all day rowing on the Line,—they only step to the deck to carry vast chains,and heave the heavy windlass, and cut andslash, yea, and in their very sweatings to besmoked and burned anew by the combinedfires of the equatorial sun and the equatorialtry-works; when, on the heel of all this, theyhave finally bestirred themselves to cleanse theship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; ma-ny is the time the poor fellows, just buttoningthe necks of their clean frocks, are startled bythe cry of "There she blows!" and away they flyto fight another whale, and go through thewhole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, butthis is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardlyhave we mortals by long toilings extracted fromthis world's vast bulk its small but valuablesperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansedourselves from its defilements, and learned tolive here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardlyis this done, when—THERE SHE BLOWS!—theghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight

some other world, and go through young life'sold routine again.

Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, thatin bright Greece, two thousand years ago, diddie, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with theealong the Peruvian coast last voyage—and,foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy,how to splice a rope!

CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon.

Ere now it has been related how Ahab waswont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regularturns at either limit, the binnacle and main-mast; but in the multiplicity of other thingsrequiring narration it has not been added howthat sometimes in these walks, when most

plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause inturn at each spot, and stand there strangelyeyeing the particular object before him. Whenhe halted before the binnacle, with his glancefastened on the pointed needle in the compass,that glance shot like a javelin with the pointedintensity of his purpose; and when resuminghis walk he again paused before the mainmast,then, as the same riveted glance fastened uponthe riveted gold coin there, he still wore thesame aspect of nailed firmness, only dashedwith a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.

But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon,he seemed to be newly attracted by the strangefigures and inscriptions stamped on it, asthough now for the first time beginning to in-terpret for himself in some monomaniac waywhatever significance might lurk in them. Andsome certain significance lurks in all things,else all things are little worth, and the roundworld itself but an empty cipher, except to sell

by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston,to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.

Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold,raked somewhere out of the heart of gorgeoushills, whence, east and west, over golden sands,the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. Andthough now nailed amidst all the rustiness ofiron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes,yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foul-ness, it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor,though placed amongst a ruthless crew andevery hour passed by ruthless hands, andthrough the livelong nights shrouded withthick darkness which might cover any pilferingapproach, nevertheless every sunrise found thedoubloon where the sunset left it last. For itwas set apart and sanctified to one awe-strikingend; and however wanton in their sailor ways,one and all, the mariners revered it as the whitewhale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it overin the weary watch by night, wondering whose

it was to be at last, and whether he would everlive to spend it.

Now those noble golden coins of South Ameri-ca are as medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes;sun's disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty,and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant pro-fusion stamped; so that the precious gold seemsalmost to derive an added preciousness andenhancing glories, by passing through thosefancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.

It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequodwas a most wealthy example of these things.On its round border it bore the letters, REPU-BLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this brightcoin came from a country planted in the middleof the world, and beneath the great equator,and named after it; and it had been cast mid-way up the Andes, in the unwaning clime thatknows no autumn. Zoned by those letters yousaw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from

one a flame; a tower on another; on the third acrowing cock; while arching over all was asegment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs allmarked with their usual cabalistics, and thekeystone sun entering the equinoctial point atLibra.

Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobser-ved by others, was now pausing.

"There's something ever egotistical in moun-tain-tops and towers, and all other grand andlofty things; look here,—three peaks as proudas Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; thevolcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the un-daunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab;all are Ahab; and this round gold is but theimage of the rounder globe, which, like a magi-cian's glass, to each and every man in turn butmirrors back his own mysterious self. Greatpains, small gains for those who ask the worldto solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinksnow this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but

see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equi-nox! and but six months before he wheeled outof a former equinox at Aries! From storm tostorm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit thatman should live in pains and die in pangs! Sobe it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to workon. So be it, then."

"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, butdevil's claws must have left their mouldingsthere since yesterday," murmured Starbuck tohimself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The oldman seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. Ihave never marked the coin inspectingly. Hegoes below; let me read. A dark valley betweenthree mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that al-most seem the Trinity, in some faint earthlysymbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds usround; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righ-teousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If webend down our eyes, the dark vale shows hermouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun

meets our glance half way, to cheer. Yet, oh, thegreat sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, wewould fain snatch some sweet solace from him,we gaze for him in vain! This coin speaks wise-ly, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quitit, lest Truth shake me falsely."

"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquizedStubb by the try-works, "he's been twigging it;and there goes Starbuck from the same, andboth with faces which I should say might besomewhere within nine fathoms long. And allfrom looking at a piece of gold, which did Ihave it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook,I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, Iregard this as queer. I have seen doubloonsbefore now in my voyagings; your doubloonsof old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, yourdoubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia,your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty ofgold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half

joes, and quarter joes. What then should therebe in this doubloon of the Equator that is sokilling wonderful? By Golconda! let me read itonce. Halloa! here's signs and wonders truly!That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitomecalls the zodiac, and what my almanac belowcalls ditto. I'll get the almanac and as I haveheard devils can be raised with Daboll's arith-metic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning outof these queer curvicues here with the Massa-chusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's seenow. Signs and wonders; and the sun, he's al-ways among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here theyare—here they go—all alive:—Aries, or theRam; Taurus, or the Bull and Jimimi! here'sGemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun hewheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he'sjust crossing the threshold between two oftwelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you liethere; the fact is, you books must know yourplaces. You'll do to give us the bare words andfacts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.

That's my small experience, so far as the Mas-sachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's navigator,and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders,eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs,and significant in wonders! There's a clue so-mewhere; wait a bit; hist—hark! By Jove, I haveit! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is thelife of man in one round chapter; and now I'llread it off, straight out of the book. Come, Al-manack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram—lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, orthe Bull—he bumps us the first thing; then Ge-mini, or the Twins—that is, Virtue and Vice; wetry to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer theCrab, and drags us back; and here, going fromVirtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path—hegives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with hispaw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin!that's our first love; we marry and think to behappy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or theScales—happiness weighed and found wan-ting; and while we are very sad about that,

Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, orthe Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are cu-ring the wound, when whang come the arrowsall round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusinghimself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand asi-de! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, orthe Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and head-long we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Wa-ter-bearer, pours out his whole deluge anddrowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or theFishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ inhigh heaven, and the sun goes through it everyyear, and yet comes out of it all alive and hear-ty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toiland trouble; and so, alow here, does jollyStubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu,Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let'shear what he'll have to say. There; he's before it;he'll out with something presently. So, so; he'sbeginning."

"I see nothing here, but a round thing made ofgold, and whoever raises a certain whale, thisround thing belongs to him. So, what's all thisstaring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars,that's true; and at two cents the cigar, that'snine hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smokedirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, andhere's nine hundred and sixty of them; so heregoes Flask aloft to spy 'em out."

"Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it bereally wise it has a foolish look to it; yet, if it bereally foolish, then has it a sort of wiseish lookto it. But, avast; here comes our old Manx-man—the old hearse-driver, he must have be-en, that is, before he took to the sea. He luffs upbefore the doubloon; halloa, and goes round onthe other side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's backagain; what does that mean? Hark! he's mutte-ring—voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill.Prick ears, and listen!"

"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in amonth and a day, when the sun stands in someone of these signs. I've studied signs, and knowtheir marks; they were taught me two scoreyears ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen.Now, in what sign will the sun then be? Thehorse-shoe sign; for there it is, right oppositethe gold. And what's the horse-shoe sign? Thelion is the horse-shoe sign—the roaring anddevouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old headshakes to think of thee."

"There's another rendering now; but still onetext. All sorts of men in one kind of world, yousee. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—alltattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiachimself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he'scomparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or inthe bowels, I suppose, as the old women talkSurgeon's Astronomy in the back country. Andby Jove, he's found something there in the vici-

nity of his thigh—I guess it's Sagittarius, or theArcher. No: he don't know what to make of thedoubloon; he takes it for an old button off someking's trowsers. But, aside again! here comesthat ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out ofsight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumpsas usual. What does he say, with that look ofhis? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bowshimself; there is a sun on the coin—fire wors-hipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more.This way comes Pip—poor boy! would he haddied, or I; he's half horrible to me. He too hasbeen watching all of these interpreters—myselfincluded—and look now, he comes to read,with that unearthly idiot face. Stand awayagain and hear him. Hark!"

"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look,they look."

"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray'sGrammar! Improving his mind, poor fellow!But what's that he says now—hist!"

"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look,they look."

"Why, he's getting it by heart—hist! again."

"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look,they look."

"Well, that's funny."

"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, areall bats; and I'm a crow, especially when I standa'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw!caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's thescare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuckinto a pair of old trowsers, and two more pokedinto the sleeves of an old jacket."

"Wonder if he means me?—complimentary!—poor lad!—I could go hang myself. Any way,for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I canstand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's

too crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I leavehim muttering."

"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here,and they are all on fire to unscrew it. But, uns-crew your navel, and what's the consequence?Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, forwhen aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign thatthings grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! theWhite Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree.My father, in old Tolland county, cut down apine tree once, and found a silver ring grownover in it; some old darkey's wedding ring.How did it get there? And so they'll say in theresurrection, when they come to fish up this oldmast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, withbedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, thegold! the precious, precious, gold! the greenmiser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, co-ok! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!"

CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.

The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Sa-muel Enderby, of London.

"Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?"

So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship sho-wing English colours, bearing down under thestern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man wasstanding in his hoisted quarter-boat, his ivoryleg plainly revealed to the stranger captain,who was carelessly reclining in his own boat'sbow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or therea-bouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, thathung round him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth;and one empty arm of this jacket streamed

behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar'ssurcoat.

"Hast seen the White Whale!"

"See you this?" and withdrawing it from thefolds that had hidden it, he held up a white armof sperm whale bone, terminating in a woodenhead like a mallet.

"Man my boat!" cried Ahab, impetuously, andtossing about the oars near him—"Stand by tolower!"

In less than a minute, without quitting his littlecraft, he and his crew were dropped to the wa-ter, and were soon alongside of the stranger.But here a curious difficulty presented itself. Inthe excitement of the moment, Ahab had for-gotten that since the loss of his leg he had neveronce stepped on board of any vessel at sea buthis own, and then it was always by an inge-nious and very handy mechanical contrivance

peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to berigged and shipped in any other vessel at amoment's warning. Now, it is no very easymatter for anybody—except those who are al-most hourly used to it, like whalemen—toclamber up a ship's side from a boat on theopen sea; for the great swells now lift the boathigh up towards the bulwarks, and then instan-taneously drop it half way down to the kelson.So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship ofcourse being altogether unsupplied with thekindly invention, Ahab now found himself ab-jectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again;hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changefulheight he could hardly hope to attain.

It has before been hinted, perhaps, that everylittle untoward circumstance that befell him,and which indirectly sprang from his lucklessmishap, almost invariably irritated or exaspera-ted Ahab. And in the present instance, all thiswas heightened by the sight of the two officers

of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by theperpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, andswinging towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did notseem to bethink them that a one-legged manmust be too much of a cripple to use their seabannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted aminute, because the strange captain, observingat a glance how affairs stood, cried out, "I see, Isee!—avast heaving there! Jump, boys, andswing over the cutting-tackle."

As good luck would have it, they had had awhale alongside a day or two previous, and thegreat tackles were still aloft, and the massivecurved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, wasstill attached to the end. This was quickly lowe-red to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all,slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook(it was like sitting in the fluke of an anchor, orthe crotch of an apple tree), and then giving theword, held himself fast, and at the same time

also helped to hoist his own weight, by pullinghand-over-hand upon one of the running partsof the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung in-side the high bulwarks, and gently landedupon the capstan head. With his ivory armfrankly thrust forth in welcome, the other cap-tain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivoryleg, and crossing the ivory arm (like twosword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way,"Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones toget-her!—an arm and a leg!—an arm that never canshrink, d'ye see; and a leg that never can run.Where did'st thou see the White Whale?—howlong ago?"

"The White Whale," said the Englishman, poin-ting his ivory arm towards the East, and takinga rueful sight along it, as if it had been a teles-cope; "there I saw him, on the Line, last season."

"And he took that arm off, did he?" askedAhab, now sliding down from the capstan, and

resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he didso.

"Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and thatleg, too?"

"Spin me the yarn," said Ahab; "how was it?"

"It was the first time in my life that I ever crui-sed on the Line," began the Englishman. "I wasignorant of the White Whale at that time. Well,one day we lowered for a pod of four or fivewhales, and my boat fastened to one of them; aregular circus horse he was, too, that went mi-lling and milling round so, that my boat's crewcould only trim dish, by sitting all their sternson the outer gunwale. Presently up breachesfrom the bottom of the sea a bouncing greatwhale, with a milky-white head and hump, allcrows' feet and wrinkles."

"It was he, it was he!" cried Ahab, suddenlyletting out his suspended breath.

"And harpoons sticking in near his starboardfin."

"Aye, aye—they were mine—MY irons," criedAhab, exultingly—"but on!"

"Give me a chance, then," said the Englishman,good-humoredly. "Well, this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump,runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to snap-ping furiously at my fast-line!

"Aye, I see!—wanted to part it; free the fast-fish—an old trick—I know him."

"How it was exactly," continued the one-armedcommander, "I do not know; but in biting theline, it got foul of his teeth, caught there some-how; but we didn't know it then; so that whenwe afterwards pulled on the line, bounce wecame plump on to his hump! instead of theother whale's; that went off to windward, allfluking. Seeing how matters stood, and what a

noble great whale it was—the noblest and big-gest I ever saw, sir, in my life—I resolved tocapture him, spite of the boiling rage he see-med to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard linewould get loose, or the tooth it was tangled tomight draw (for I have a devil of a boat's crewfor a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say,I jumped into my first mate's boat—Mr. Mount-top's here (by the way, Captain—Mounttop;Mounttop—the captain);—as I was saying, Ijumped into Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see,was gunwale and gunwale with mine, then;and snatching the first harpoon, let this oldgreat-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you,sir—hearts and souls alive, man—the next ins-tant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat—both eyesout—all befogged and bedeadened with blackfoam—the whale's tail looming straight up outof it, perpendicular in the air, like a marblesteeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I wasgroping at midday, with a blinding sun, allcrown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after the

second iron, to toss it overboard—down comesthe tail like a Lima tower, cutting my boat intwo, leaving each half in splinters; and, flukesfirst, the white hump backed through thewreck, as though it was all chips. We all struckout. To escape his terrible flailings, I seizedhold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, andfor a moment clung to that like a sucking fish.But a combing sea dashed me off, and at thesame instant, the fish, taking one good dartforwards, went down like a flash; and the barbof that cursed second iron towing along nearme caught me here" (clapping his hand justbelow his shoulder); "yes, caught me just here, Isay, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I wasthinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thankthe good God, the barb ript its way along theflesh—clear along the whole length of myarm—came out nigh my wrist, and up I floa-ted;—and that gentleman there will tell you therest (by the way, captain—Dr. Bunger, ship's

surgeon: Bunger, my lad,—the captain). Now,Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn."

The professional gentleman thus familiarlypointed out, had been all the time standingnear them, with nothing specific visible, to de-note his gentlemanly rank on board. His facewas an exceedingly round but sober one; hewas dressed in a faded blue woollen frock orshirt, and patched trowsers; and had thus farbeen dividing his attention between a mar-lingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-boxheld in the other, occasionally casting a criticalglance at the ivory limbs of the two crippledcaptains. But, at his superior's introduction ofhim to Ahab, he politely bowed, and straight-way went on to do his captain's bidding.

"It was a shocking bad wound," began the wha-le-surgeon; "and, taking my advice, CaptainBoomer here, stood our old Sammy—"

"Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship," inte-rrupted the one-armed captain, addressingAhab; "go on, boy."

"Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, toget out of the blazing hot weather there on theLine. But it was no use—I did all I could; sat upwith him nights; was very severe with him inthe matter of diet—"

"Oh, very severe!" chimed in the patient him-self; then suddenly altering his voice, "Drinkinghot rum toddies with me every night, till hecouldn't see to put on the bandages; and sen-ding me to bed, half seas over, about three o'-clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat upwith me indeed, and was very severe in mydiet. Oh! a great watcher, and very dieteticallysevere, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laughout! why don't ye? You know you're a preciousjolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, boy, I'd rather bekilled by you than kept alive by any otherman."

"My captain, you must have ere this perceived,respected sir"—said the imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab—"isapt to be facetious at times; he spins us manyclever things of that sort. But I may as wellsay—en passant, as the French remark—that Imyself—that is to say, Jack Bunger, late of thereverend clergy—am a strict total abstinenceman; I never drink—"

"Water!" cried the captain; "he never drinks it;it's a sort of fits to him; fresh water throws himinto the hydrophobia; but go on—go on withthe arm story."

"Yes, I may as well," said the surgeon, coolly. "Iwas about observing, sir, before Captain Boo-mer's facetious interruption, that spite of mybest and severest endeavors, the wound keptgetting worse and worse; the truth was, sir, itwas as ugly gaping wound as surgeon eversaw; more than two feet and several incheslong. I measured it with the lead line. In short,

it grew black; I knew what was threatened, andoff it came. But I had no hand in shipping thativory arm there; that thing is against all rule"—pointing at it with the marlingspike—"that isthe captain's work, not mine; he ordered thecarpenter to make it; he had that club-hammerthere put to the end, to knock some one's brainsout with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. Heflies into diabolical passions sometimes. Do yesee this dent, sir"—removing his hat, and brus-hing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-likecavity in his skull, but which bore not the sligh-test scarry trace, or any token of ever havingbeen a wound—"Well, the captain there willtell you how that came here; he knows."

"No, I don't," said the captain, "but his motherdid; he was born with it. Oh, you solemn rogue,you—you Bunger! was there ever such anotherBunger in the watery world? Bunger, when youdie, you ought to die in pickle, you dog; youshould be preserved to future ages, you rascal."

"What became of the White Whale?" now criedAhab, who thus far had been impatiently liste-ning to this by-play between the two English-men.

"Oh!" cried the one-armed captain, "oh, yes!Well; after he sounded, we didn't see him againfor some time; in fact, as I before hinted, Ididn't then know what whale it was that hadserved me such a trick, till some time after-wards, when coming back to the Line, weheard about Moby Dick—as some call him—and then I knew it was he."

"Did'st thou cross his wake again?"

"Twice."

"But could not fasten?"

"Didn't want to try to: ain't one limb enough?What should I do without this other arm? And

I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much ashe swallows."

"Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give himyour left arm for bait to get the right. Do youknow, gentlemen"—very gravely and mat-hematically bowing to each Captain in succes-sion—"Do you know, gentlemen, that the di-gestive organs of the whale are so inscrutablyconstructed by Divine Providence, that it isquite impossible for him to completely digesteven a man's arm? And he knows it too. So thatwhat you take for the White Whale's malice isonly his awkwardness. For he never means toswallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrifyby feints. But sometimes he is like the old jug-gling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Cey-lon, that making believe swallow jack-knives,once upon a time let one drop into him in goodearnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonthor more; when I gave him an emetic, and heheaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possi-

ble way for him to digest that jack-knife, andfully incorporate it into his general bodily sys-tem. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quickenough about it, and have a mind to pawn onearm for the sake of the privilege of giving de-cent burial to the other, why in that case thearm is yours; only let the whale have anotherchance at you shortly, that's all."

"No, thank ye, Bunger," said the English Cap-tain, "he's welcome to the arm he has, since Ican't help it, and didn't know him then; but notto another one. No more White Whales for me;I've lowered for him once, and that has satisfiedme. There would be great glory in killing him, Iknow that; and there is a ship-load of precioussperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone;don't you think so, Captain?"—glancing at theivory leg.

"He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that.What is best let alone, that accursed thing is notalways what least allures. He's all a magnet!

How long since thou saw'st him last? Whichway heading?"

"Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's," criedBunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, andlike a dog, strangely snuffing; "this man's blo-od—bring the thermometer!—it's at the boilingpoint!—his pulse makes these planks beat!—sir!"—taking a lancet from his pocket, and dra-wing near to Ahab's arm.

"Avast!" roared Ahab, dashing him against thebulwarks—"Man the boat! Which way hea-ding?"

"Good God!" cried the English Captain, towhom the question was put. "What's the mat-ter? He was heading east, I think.—Is yourCaptain crazy?" whispering Fedallah.

But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slidover the bulwarks to take the boat's steeringoar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle to-

wards him, commanded the ship's sailors tostand by to lower.

In a moment he was standing in the boat'sstern, and the Manilla men were springing totheir oars. In vain the English Captain hailedhim. With back to the stranger ship, and faceset like a flint to his own, Ahab stood uprighttill alongside of the Pequod.

CHAPTER 101. The Decanter.

Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it setdown here, that she hailed from London, andwas named after the late Samuel Enderby, mer-chant of that city, the original of the famouswhaling house of Enderby & Sons; a housewhich in my poor whaleman's opinion, comes

not far behind the united royal houses of theTudors and Bourbons, in point of real historicalinterest. How long, prior to the year of ourLord 1775, this great whaling house was inexistence, my numerous fish-documents do notmake plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted outthe first English ships that ever regularly hun-ted the Sperm Whale; though for some score ofyears previous (ever since 1726) our valiantCoffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vi-neyard had in large fleets pursued that Leviat-han, but only in the North and South Atlantic:not elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here,that the Nantucketers were the first amongmankind to harpoon with civilized steel thegreat Sperm Whale; and that for half a centurythey were the only people of the whole globewho so harpooned him.

In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out forthe express purpose, and at the sole charge ofthe vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape

Horn, and was the first among the nations tolower a whale-boat of any sort in the greatSouth Sea. The voyage was a skilful and luckyone; and returning to her berth with her holdfull of the precious sperm, the Amelia's exam-ple was soon followed by other ships, Englishand American, and thus the vast Sperm Whalegrounds of the Pacific were thrown open. Butnot content with this good deed, the indefati-gable house again bestirred itself: Samuel andall his Sons—how many, their mother onlyknows—and under their immediate auspices,and partly, I think, at their expense, the Britishgovernment was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discoveryinto the South Sea. Commanded by a navalPost-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voya-ge of it, and did some service; how much doesnot appear. But this is not all. In 1819, the samehouse fitted out a discovery whale ship of theirown, to go on a tasting cruise to the remotewaters of Japan. That ship—well called the "Sy-

ren"—made a noble experimental cruise; and itwas thus that the great Japanese WhalingGround first became generally known. TheSyren in this famous voyage was commandedby a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.

All honour to the Enderbies, therefore, whosehouse, I think, exists to the present day; thoughdoubtless the original Samuel must long agohave slipped his cable for the great South Sea ofthe other world.

The ship named after him was worthy of thehonour, being a very fast sailer and a noblecraft every way. I boarded her once at midnightsomewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drankgood flip down in the forecastle. It was a finegam we had, and they were all trumps—everysoul on board. A short life to them, and a jollydeath. And that fine gam I had—long, verylong after old Ahab touched her planks withhis ivory heel—it minds me of the noble, solid,Saxon hospitality of that ship; and may my par-

son forget me, and the devil remember me, if Iever lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip?Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallonsthe hour; and when the squall came (for it'ssqually off there by Patagonia), and all hands—visitors and all—were called to reef topsails, wewere so top-heavy that we had to swing eachother aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly fur-led the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so thatwe hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale,a warning example to all drunken tars. Howe-ver, the masts did not go overboard; and byand by we scrambled down, so sober, that wehad to pass the flip again, though the savagesalt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle,rather too much diluted and pickled it to mytaste.

The beef was fine—tough, but with body in it.They said it was bull-beef; others, that it wasdromedary beef; but I do not know, for certain,how that was. They had dumplings too; small,

but substantial, symmetrically globular, andindestructible dumplings. I fancied that youcould feel them, and roll them about in youafter they were swallowed. If you stooped overtoo far forward, you risked their pitching out ofyou like billiard-balls. The bread—but thatcouldn't be helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the onlyfresh fare they had. But the forecastle was notvery light, and it was very easy to step overinto a dark corner when you ate it. But all in all,taking her from truck to helm, considering thedimensions of the cook's boilers, including hisown live parchment boilers; fore and aft, I say,the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of goodfare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fe-llows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band.

But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel En-derby, and some other English whalers I knowof—not all though—were such famous, hospi-

table ships; that passed round the beef, and thebread, and the can, and the joke; and were notsoon weary of eating, and drinking, and laug-hing? I will tell you. The abounding good cheerof these English whalers is matter for historicalresearch. Nor have I been at all sparing of his-torical whale research, when it has seemedneeded.

The English were preceded in the whale fisheryby the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes;from whom they derived many terms still ex-tant in the fishery; and what is yet more, theirfat old fashions, touching plenty to eat anddrink. For, as a general thing, the English mer-chant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so theEnglish whaler. Hence, in the English, thisthing of whaling good cheer is not normal andnatural, but incidental and particular; and, the-refore, must have some special origin, which ishere pointed out, and will be still further eluci-dated.

During my researches in the Leviathanic histo-ries, I stumbled upon an ancient Dutch volume,which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knewmust be about whalers. The title was, "Dan Co-opman," wherefore I concluded that this mustbe the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdamcooper in the fishery, as every whale ship mustcarry its cooper. I was reinforced in this opinionby seeing that it was the production of one "FitzSwackhammer." But my friend Dr. Snodhead, avery learned man, professor of Low Dutch andHigh German in the college of Santa Claus andSt. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for trans-lation, giving him a box of sperm candles forhis trouble—this same Dr. Snodhead, so soonas he spied the book, assured me that "Dan Co-opman" did not mean "The Cooper," but "TheMerchant." In short, this ancient and learnedLow Dutch book treated of the commerce ofHolland; and, among other subjects, containeda very interesting account of its whale fishery.And in this chapter it was, headed, "Smeer," or

"Fat," that I found a long detailed list of theoutfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail ofDutch whalemen; from which list, as translatedby Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following:

400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork.150,000 lbs. of stock fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit.72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins of butter.20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs.cheese (probably an inferior article). 550 ankersof Geneva. 10,800 barrels of beer.

Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in thereading; not so in the present case, however,where the reader is flooded with whole pipes,barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and goodcheer.

At the time, I devoted three days to the stu-dious digesting of all this beer, beef, and bread,during which many profound thoughts wereincidentally suggested to me, capable of atranscendental and Platonic application; and,

furthermore, I compiled supplementary tablesof my own, touching the probable quantity ofstock-fish, etc., consumed by every Low Dutchharpooneer in that ancient Greenland andSpitzbergen whale fishery. In the first place, theamount of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheeseconsumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though,to their naturally unctuous natures, being ren-dered still more unctuous by the nature of theirvocation, and especially by their pursuing theirgame in those frigid Polar Seas, on the verycoasts of that Esquimaux country where theconvivial natives pledge each other in bumpersof train oil.

The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries couldonly be prosecuted in the short summer of thatclimate, so that the whole cruise of one of theseDutch whalemen, including the short voyage toand from the Spitzbergen sea, did not muchexceed three months, say, and reckoning 30

men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say,we have precisely two barrels of beer per man,for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of hisfair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. Now,whether these gin and beer harpooneers, sofuddled as one might fancy them to have been,were the right sort of men to stand up in a bo-at's head, and take good aim at flying whales;this would seem somewhat improbable. Yetthey did aim at them, and hit them too. But thiswas very far North, be it remembered, wherebeer agrees well with the constitution; upon theEquator, in our southern fishery, beer would beapt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous lossmight ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.

But no more; enough has been said to showthat the old Dutch whalers of two or three cen-turies ago were high livers; and that the Englishwhalers have not neglected so excellent an

example. For, say they, when cruising in anempty ship, if you can get nothing better out ofthe world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.And this empties the decanter.

CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.

Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the SpermWhale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvelsof his outer aspect; or separately and in detailupon some few interior structural features. Butto a large and thorough sweeping comprehen-sion of him, it behooves me now to unbuttonhim still further, and untagging the points ofhis hose, unbuckling his garters, and castingloose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of hisinnermost bones, set him before you in his ul-

timatum; that is to say, in his unconditionalskeleton.

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, amere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to knowaught about the subterranean parts of the wha-le? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon yourcapstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of theCetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up aspecimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself,Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale onyour deck for examination, as a cook dishes aroast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness haveyou hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a carehow you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; theprivilege of discoursing upon the joists andbeams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, andunder-pinnings, making up the frame-work ofleviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels.

I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen havepenetrated very far beneath the skin of the

adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessedwith an opportunity to dissect him in miniatu-re. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub SpermWhale was once bodily hoisted to the deck forhis poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbsof the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances.Think you I let that chance go, without usingmy boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breakingthe seal and reading all the contents of thatyoung cub?

And as for my exact knowledge of the bones ofthe leviathan in their gigantic, full grown deve-lopment, for that rare knowledge I am indebtedto my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tran-que, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque,years ago, when attached to the trading-shipDey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part ofthe Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tran-que, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what oursailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.

Among many other fine qualities, my royalfriend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout lovefor all matters of barbaric vertu, had broughttogether in Pupella whatever rare things themore ingenious of his people could invent;chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices,chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles,aromatic canoes; and all these distributedamong whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had castupon his shores.

Chief among these latter was a great SpermWhale, which, after an unusually long raginggale, had been found dead and stranded, withhis head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plu-mage-like, tufted droopings seemed his ver-dant jet. When the vast body had at last beenstripped of its fathom-deep enfoldings, and thebones become dust dry in the sun, then the ske-leton was carefully transported up the Pupella

glen, where a grand temple of lordly palmsnow sheltered it.

The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebraewere carved with Arsacidean annals, in strangehieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept upan unextinguished aromatic flame, so that themystic head again sent forth its vapoury spout;while, suspended from a bough, the terrificlower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, likethe hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damo-cles.

It was a wondrous sight. The wood was greenas mosses of the Icy Glen; the trees stood highand haughty, feeling their living sap; the indus-trious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom,with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof theground-vine tendrils formed the warp and wo-of, and the living flowers the figures. All thetrees, with all their laden branches; all theshrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active.

Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sunseemed a flying shuttle weaving the unweariedverdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!—pause!—one word!—whither flows the fabric?what palace may it deck? wherefore all theseceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!—stay thyhand!—but one single word with thee! Nay—the shuttle flies—the figures float from forth theloom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slidesaway. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by thatweaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortalvoice; and by that humming, we, too, who lookon the loom are deafened; and only when weescape it shall we hear the thousand voices thatspeak through it. For even so it is in all materialfactories. The spoken words that are inaudibleamong the flying spindles; those same wordsare plainly heard without the walls, burstingfrom the opened casements. Thereby have vi-llainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, beheedful; for so, in all this din of the great

world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may beoverheard afar.

Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of thatArsacidean wood, the great, white, worshippedskeleton lay lounging—a gigantic idler! Yet, asthe ever-woven verdant warp and woof inter-mixed and hummed around him, the mightyidler seemed the cunning weaver; himself allwoven over with the vines; every month assu-ming greener, fresher verdure; but himself askeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life;the grim god wived with youthful Life, andbegat him curly-headed glories.

Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited thiswondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar,and the artificial smoke ascending from wherethe real jet had issued, I marvelled that the kingshould regard a chapel as an object of vertu. Helaughed. But more I marvelled that the priestsshould swear that smoky jet of his was genuine.To and fro I paced before this skeleton—

brushed the vines aside—broke through theribs—and with a ball of Arsacidean twine,wandered, eddied long amid its many winding,shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon myline was out; and following it back, I emergedfrom the opening where I entered. I saw noliving thing within; naught was there but bo-nes.

Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once moredived within the skeleton. From their arrow-slitin the skull, the priests perceived me taking thealtitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shou-ted; "Dar'st thou measure this our god! That'sfor us." "Aye, priests—well, how long do yemake him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contestrose among them, concerning feet and inches;they cracked each other's sconces with theiryard-sticks—the great skull echoed—and sei-zing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded myown admeasurements.

These admeasurements I now propose to setbefore you. But first, be it recorded, that, in thismatter, I am not free to utter any fancied mea-surement I please. Because there are skeletonauthorities you can refer to, to test my accura-cy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tellme, in Hull, England, one of the whaling portsof that country, where they have some fine spe-cimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise,I have heard that in the museum of Manchester,in New Hampshire, they have what the pro-prietors call "the only perfect specimen of aGreenland or River Whale in the United States."Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England,Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clif-ford Constable has in his possession the skele-ton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, byno means of the full-grown magnitude of myfriend King Tranquo's.

In both cases, the stranded whales to whichthese two skeletons belonged, were originally

claimed by their proprietors upon similargrounds. King Tranquo seizing his because hewanted it; and Sir Clifford, because he was lordof the seignories of those parts. Sir Clifford'swhale has been articulated throughout; so that,like a great chest of drawers, you can open andshut him, in all his bony cavities—spread outhis ribs like a gigantic fan—and swing all dayupon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put uponsome of his trap-doors and shutters; and a fo-otman will show round future visitors with abunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks ofcharging twopence for a peep at the whisperinggallery in the spinal column; threepence to hearthe echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; andsixpence for the unrivalled view from his fore-head.

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed toset down are copied verbatim from my rightarm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wildwanderings at that period, there was no other

secure way of preserving such valuable statis-tics. But as I was crowded for space, and wis-hed the other parts of my body to remain ablank page for a poem I was then composing—at least, what untattooed parts might remain—Idid not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor,indeed, should inches at all enter into a conge-nial admeasurement of the whale.

CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Wha-le's Skeleton.

In the first place, I wish to lay before you a par-ticular, plain statement, touching the livingbulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we arebriefly to exhibit. Such a statement may proveuseful here.

According to a careful calculation I have made,and which I partly base upon Captain Scores-by's estimate, of seventy tons for the largestsized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length;according to my careful calculation, I say, aSperm Whale of the largest magnitude, betwe-en eighty-five and ninety feet in length, andsomething less than forty feet in its fullest cir-cumference, such a whale will weigh at leastninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to aton, he would considerably outweigh the com-bined population of a whole village of onethousand one hundred inhabitants.

Think you not then that brains, like yoked cat-tle, should be put to this leviathan, to make himat all budge to any landsman's imagination?

Having already in various ways put before youhis skull, spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead,fins, and divers other parts, I shall now simplypoint out what is most interesting in the gene-ral bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the

colossal skull embraces so very large a propor-tion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it isby far the most complicated part; and as not-hing is to be repeated concerning it in thischapter, you must not fail to carry it in yourmind, or under your arm, as we proceed, ot-herwise you will not gain a complete notion ofthe general structure we are about to view.

In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tran-que measured seventy-two Feet; so that whenfully invested and extended in life, he musthave been ninety feet long; for in the whale, theskeleton loses about one fifth in length compa-red with the living body. Of this seventy-twofeet, his skull and jaw comprised some twentyfeet, leaving some fifty feet of plain back-bone.Attached to this back-bone, for something lessthan a third of its length, was the mighty circu-lar basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals.

To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with thelong, unrelieved spine, extending far away

from it in a straight line, not a little resembledthe hull of a great ship new-laid upon thestocks, when only some twenty of her nakedbow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise,for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.

The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to beginfrom the neck, was nearly six feet long; the se-cond, third, and fourth were each successivelylonger, till you came to the climax of the fifth,or one of the middle ribs, which measuredeight feet and some inches. From that part, theremaining ribs diminished, till the tenth andlast only spanned five feet and some inches. Ingeneral thickness, they all bore a seemly co-rrespondence to their length. The middle ribswere the most arched. In some of the Arsacidesthey are used for beams whereon to lay foot-path bridges over small streams.

In considering these ribs, I could not but bestruck anew with the circumstance, so various-ly repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the

whale is by no means the mould of his investedform. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of themiddle ones, occupied that part of the fishwhich, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, thegreatest depth of the invested body of this par-ticular whale must have been at least sixteenfeet; whereas, the corresponding rib measuredbut little more than eight feet. So that this ribonly conveyed half of the true notion of theliving magnitude of that part. Besides, for someway, where I now saw but a naked spine, allthat had been once wrapped round with tons ofadded bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels.Still more, for the ample fins, I here saw but afew disordered joints; and in place of theweighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, anutter blank!

How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timiduntravelled man to try to comprehend arightthis wondrous whale, by merely poring overhis dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this

peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quic-kest perils; only when within the eddyings ofhis angry flukes; only on the profound un-bounded sea, can the fully invested whale betruly and livingly found out.

But the spine. For that, the best way we canconsider it is, with a crane, to pile its boneshigh up on end. No speedy enterprise. But nowit's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar.

There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, whichin the skeleton are not locked together. Theymostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on aGothic spire, forming solid courses of heavymasonry. The largest, a middle one, is in widthsomething less than three feet, and in depthmore than four. The smallest, where the spinetapers away into the tail, is only two inches inwidth, and looks something like a white bi-lliard-ball. I was told that there were still sma-ller ones, but they had been lost by some littlecannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had

stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we seehow that the spine of even the hugest of livingthings tapers off at last into simple child's play.

CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.

From his mighty bulk the whale affords a mostcongenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify,and generally expatiate. Would you, you couldnot compress him. By good rights he shouldonly be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tellover again his furlongs from spiracle to tail,and the yards he measures about the waist;only think of the gigantic involutions of hisintestines, where they lie in him like great ca-bles and hawsers coiled away in the subterra-nean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.

Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Le-viathan, it behooves me to approve myself om-nisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; notoverlooking the minutest seminal germs of hisblood, and spinning him out to the uttermostcoil of his bowels. Having already describedhim in most of his present habitatory and ana-tomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnifyhim in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and an-tediluvian point of view. Applied to any othercreature than the Leviathan—to an ant or aflea—such portly terms might justly be deemedunwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Le-viathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am Ito stagger to this emprise under the weightiestwords of the dictionary. And here be it said,that whenever it has been convenient to consultone in the course of these dissertations, I haveinvariably used a huge quarto edition of John-son, expressly purchased for that purpose; be-cause that famous lexicographer's uncommon

personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexi-con to be used by a whale author like me.

One often hears of writers that rise and swellwith their subject, though it may seem but anordinary one. How, then, with me, writing ofthis Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirographyexpands into placard capitals. Give me a con-dor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for aninkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in themere act of penning my thoughts of this Le-viathan, they weary me, and make me faintwith their outreaching comprehensiveness ofsweep, as if to include the whole circle of thesciences, and all the generations of whales, andmen, and mastodons, past, present, and to co-me, with all the revolving panoramas of empireon earth, and throughout the whole universe,not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so mag-nifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal the-me! We expand to its bulk. To produce a migh-ty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No

great and enduring volume can ever be writtenon the flea, though many there be who havetried it.

Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales,I present my credentials as a geologist, by sta-ting that in my miscellaneous time I have beena stone-mason, and also a great digger of dit-ches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, andcisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of preli-minary, I desire to remind the reader, that whi-le in the earlier geological strata there are foundthe fossils of monsters now almost completelyextinct; the subsequent relics discovered inwhat are called the Tertiary formations seemthe connecting, or at any rate intercepted links,between the antichronical creatures, and thosewhose remote posterity are said to have ente-red the Ark; all the Fossil Whales hitherto dis-covered belong to the Tertiary period, which isthe last preceding the superficial formations.And though none of them precisely answer to

any known species of the present time, they areyet sufficiently akin to them in general respects,to justify their taking rank as Cetacean fossils.

Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales,fragments of their bones and skeletons, havewithin thirty years past, at various intervals,been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombar-dy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and inthe States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ala-bama. Among the more curious of such re-mains is part of a skull, which in the year 1779was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, ashort street opening almost directly upon thepalace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred inexcavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Na-poleon's time. Cuvier pronounced these frag-ments to have belonged to some utterly unk-nown Leviathanic species.

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetaceanrelics was the almost complete vast skeleton ofan extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on

the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama.The awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicini-ty took it for the bones of one of the fallen an-gels. The Alabama doctors declared it a hugereptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basi-losaurus. But some specimen bones of it beingtaken across the sea to Owen, the English Ana-tomist, it turned out that this alleged reptilewas a whale, though of a departed species. Asignificant illustration of the fact, again andagain repeated in this book, that the skeleton ofthe whale furnishes but little clue to the shapeof his fully invested body. So Owen rechriste-ned the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paperread before the London Geological Society,pronounced it, in substance, one of the mostextraordinary creatures which the mutations ofthe globe have blotted out of existence.

When I stand among these mighty Leviathanskeletons, skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and verte-brae, all characterized by partial resemblances

to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but atthe same time bearing on the other hand simi-lar affinities to the annihilated antichronicalLeviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by aflood, borne back to that wondrous period, eretime itself can be said to have begun; for timebegan with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos rollsover me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimp-ses into those Polar eternities; when wedgedbastions of ice pressed hard upon what are nowthe Tropics; and in all the 25,000 miles of thisworld's circumference, not an inhabitablehand's breadth of land was visible. Then thewhole world was the whale's; and, king of crea-tion, he left his wake along the present lines ofthe Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can showa pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab's harpoon hadshed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuse-lah seems a school-boy. I look round to shakehands with Shem. I am horror-struck at thisantemosaic, unsourced existence of the uns-peakable terrors of the whale, which, having

been before all time, must needs exist after allhumane ages are over.

But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the stereotype plates of natu-re, and in limestone and marl bequeathed hisancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whoseantiquity seems to claim for them an almostfossiliferous character, we find the unmistaka-ble print of his fin. In an apartment of the greattemple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, therewas discovered upon the granite ceiling asculptured and painted planisphere, aboundingin centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar tothe grotesque figures on the celestial globe ofthe moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviat-han swam as of yore; was there swimming inthat planisphere, centuries before Solomon wascradled.

Nor must there be omitted another strange at-testation of the antiquity of the whale, in hisown osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down

by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary tra-veller.

"Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple,the Rafters and Beams of which are made ofWhale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous sizeare oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore.The Common People imagine, that by a secretPower bestowed by God upon the temple, noWhale can pass it without immediate death.But the truth of the Matter is, that on either sideof the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot twoMiles into the Sea, and wound the Whaleswhen they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale'sRib of an incredible length for a Miracle, whichlying upon the Ground with its convex partuppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of whichcannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel'sBack. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to havelayn there a hundred Years before I saw it.Their Historians affirm, that a Prophet whoprophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Tem-

ple, and some do not stand to assert, that theProphet Jonas was cast forth by the Whale atthe Base of the Temple."

In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you,reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a wha-leman, you will silently worship there.

CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale's Magnitu-de Diminish?—Will He Perish?

Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floun-dering down upon us from the head-waters ofthe Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,in the long course of his generations, he has notdegenerated from the original bulk of his sires.

But upon investigation we find, that not onlyare the whales of the present day superior inmagnitude to those whose fossil remains arefound in the Tertiary system (embracing a dis-tinct geological period prior to man), but of thewhales found in that Tertiary system, thosebelonging to its latter formations exceed in sizethose of its earlier ones.

Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, byfar the largest is the Alabama one mentioned inthe last chapter, and that was less than seventyfeet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we havealready seen, that the tape-measure gives se-venty-two feet for the skeleton of a large sizedmodern whale. And I have heard, on whale-men's authority, that Sperm Whales have beencaptured near a hundred feet long at the timeof capture.

But may it not be, that while the whales of thepresent hour are an advance in magnitudeupon those of all previous geological periods;

may it not be, that since Adam's time they havedegenerated?

Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are tocredit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny,and the ancient naturalists generally. For Plinytells us of Whales that embraced acres of livingbulk, and Aldrovandus of others which measu-red eight hundred feet in length—Rope Walksand Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even inthe days of Banks and Solander, Cooke's natu-ralists, we find a Danish member of the Aca-demy of Sciences setting down certain IcelandWhales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) atone hundred and twenty yards; that is, threehundred and sixty feet. And Lacepede, theFrench naturalist, in his elaborate history ofwhales, in the very beginning of his work (page3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundredmetres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet.And this work was published so late as A.D.1825.

But will any whaleman believe these stories?No. The whale of to-day is as big as his ances-tors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pli-ny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), willmake bold to tell him so. Because I cannot un-derstand how it is, that while the Egyptianmummies that were buried thousands of yearsbefore even Pliny was born, do not measure somuch in their coffins as a modern Kentuckianin his socks; and while the cattle and otheranimals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian andNineveh tablets, by the relative proportions inwhich they are drawn, just as plainly prove thatthe high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smith-field, not only equal, but far exceed in magni-tude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the faceof all this, I will not admit that of all animalsthe whale alone should have degenerated.

But still another inquiry remains; one oftenagitated by the more recondite Nantucketers.Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-

outs at the mast-heads of the whaleships, nowpenetrating even through Behring's straits, andinto the remotest secret drawers and lockers ofthe world; and the thousand harpoons and lan-ces darted along all continental coasts; the mootpoint is, whether Leviathan can long endure sowide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc;whether he must not at last be exterminatedfrom the waters, and the last whale, like the lastman, smoke his last pipe, and then himselfevaporate in the final puff.

Comparing the humped herds of whales withthe humped herds of buffalo, which, not fortyyears ago, overspread by tens of thousands theprairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shooktheir iron manes and scowled with their thun-der-clotted brows upon the sites of populousriver-capitals, where now the polite broker sellsyou land at a dollar an inch; in such a compari-son an irresistible argument would seem fur-

nished, to show that the hunted whale cannotnow escape speedy extinction.

But you must look at this matter in every light.Though so short a period ago—not a good life-time—the census of the buffalo in Illinois ex-ceeded the census of men now in London, andthough at the present day not one horn or hoofof them remains in all that region; and thoughthe cause of this wondrous extermination wasthe spear of man; yet the far different nature ofthe whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglo-rious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in oneship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eightmonths think they have done extremely well,and thank God, if at last they carry home the oilof forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the oldCanadian and Indian hunters and trappers ofthe West, when the far west (in whose sunsetsuns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin,the same number of moccasined men, for thesame number of months, mounted on horse

instead of sailing in ships, would have slain notforty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; afact that, if need were, could be statisticallystated.

Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argu-ment in favour of the gradual extinction of theSperm Whale, for example, that in former years(the latter part of the last century, say) theseLeviathans, in small pods, were encounteredmuch oftener than at present, and, in conse-quence, the voyages were not so prolonged,and were also much more remunerative. Be-cause, as has been elsewhere noticed, thosewhales, influenced by some views to safety,now swim the seas in immense caravans, sothat to a large degree the scattered solitaries,yokes, and pods, and schools of other days arenow aggregated into vast but widely separated,unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fa-llacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer haunt ma-

ny grounds in former years abounding withthem, hence that species also is declining. Forthey are only being driven from promontory tocape; and if one coast is no longer enlivenedwith their jets, then, be sure, some other andremoter strand has been very recently startledby the unfamiliar spectacle.

Furthermore: concerning these last mentionedLeviathans, they have two firm fortresses,which, in all human probability, will for everremain impregnable. And as upon the invasionof their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreatedto their mountains; so, hunted from the savan-nas and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polarcitadels, and diving under the ultimate glassybarriers and walls there, come up among icyfields and floes; and in a charmed circle of ever-lasting December, bid defiance to all pursuitfrom man.

But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whalesare harpooned for one cachalot, some philo-sophers of the forecastle have concluded thatthis positive havoc has already very seriouslydiminished their battalions. But though for so-me time past a number of these whales, not lessthan 13,000, have been annually slain on thenor'-west coast by the Americans alone; yetthere are considerations which render even thiscircumstance of little or no account as an oppo-sing argument in this matter.

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulousconcerning the populousness of the moreenormous creatures of the globe, yet what shallwe say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when hetells us that at one hunting the King of Siamtook 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elep-hants are numerous as droves of cattle in thetemperate climes. And there seems no reason todoubt that if these elephants, which have nowbeen hunted for thousands of years, by Semi-

ramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all thesuccessive monarchs of the East—if they stillsurvive there in great numbers, much moremay the great whale outlast all hunting, sincehe has a pasture to expatiate in, which is preci-sely twice as large as all Asia, both Americas,Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all theIsles of the sea combined.

Moreover: we are to consider, that from thepresumed great longevity of whales, their pro-bably attaining the age of a century and more,therefore at any one period of time, several dis-tinct adult generations must be contemporary.And what that is, we may soon gain some ideaof, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemete-ries, and family vaults of creation yielding upthe live bodies of all the men, women, andchildren who were alive seventy-five years ago;and adding this countless host to the presenthuman population of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account thewhale immortal in his species, however peris-hable in his individuality. He swam the seasbefore the continents broke water; he onceswam over the site of the Tuileries, and Wind-sor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood hedespised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is tobe again flooded, like the Netherlands, to killoff its rats, then the eternal whale will still sur-vive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of theequatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance tothe skies.

CHAPTER 106. Ahab's Leg.

The precipitating manner in which CaptainAhab had quitted the Samuel Enderby of Lon-don, had not been unattended with some small

violence to his own person. He had lightedwith such energy upon a thwart of his boat thathis ivory leg had received a half-splinteringshock. And when after gaining his own deck,and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehementlywheeled round with an urgent command to thesteersman (it was, as ever, something about hisnot steering inflexibly enough); then, the alrea-dy shaken ivory received such an additionaltwist and wrench, that though it still remainedentire, and to all appearances lusty, yet Ahabdid not deem it entirely trustworthy.

And, indeed, it seemed small matter for won-der, that for all his pervading, mad reckless-ness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to thecondition of that dead bone upon which hepartly stood. For it had not been very long priorto the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that hehad been found one night lying prone upon theground, and insensible; by some unknown, andseemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty,

his ivory limb having been so violently displa-ced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all butpierced his groin; nor was it without extremedifficulty that the agonizing wound was entire-ly cured.

Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his mo-nomaniac mind, that all the anguish of thatthen present suffering was but the direct issueof a former woe; and he too plainly seemed tosee, that as the most poisonous reptile of themarsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as thesweetest songster of the grove; so, equally withevery felicity, all miserable events do naturallybeget their like. Yea, more than equally,thought Ahab; since both the ancestry and pos-terity of Grief go further than the ancestry andposterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it isan inference from certain canonic teachings,that while some natural enjoyments here shallhave no children born to them for the otherworld, but, on the contrary, shall be followed

by the joy-childlessness of all hell's despair;whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall stillfertilely beget to themselves an eternally pro-gressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave;not at all to hint of this, there still seems an ine-quality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For,thought Ahab, while even the highest earthlyfelicities ever have a certain unsignifying petti-ness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heart-woes, a mystic significance, and, in some men,an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligenttracings-out not belie the obvious deduction.To trail the genealogies of these high mortalmiseries, carries us at last among the sourcelessprimogenitures of the gods; so that, in the faceof all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft cym-balling, round harvest-moons, we must needsgive in to this: that the gods themselves are notfor ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-markin the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrowin the signers.

Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged,which perhaps might more properly, in setway, have been disclosed before. With manyother particulars concerning Ahab, always hadit remained a mystery to some, why it was, thatfor a certain period, both before and after thesailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himselfaway with such Grand-Lama-like exclusive-ness; and, for that one interval, sought speech-less refuge, as it were, among the marble senateof the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited reason forthis thing appeared by no means adequate;though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeperpart, every revelation partook more of signifi-cant darkness than of explanatory light. But, inthe end, it all came out; this one matter did, atleast. That direful mishap was at the bottom ofhis temporary recluseness. And not only this,but to that ever-contracting, dropping circleashore, who, for any reason, possessed the pri-vilege of a less banned approach to him; to thattimid circle the above hinted casualty—

remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted forby Ahab—invested itself with terrors, not enti-rely underived from the land of spirits and ofwails. So that, through their zeal for him, theyhad all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muf-fle up the knowledge of this thing from others;and hence it was, that not till a considerableinterval had elapsed, did it transpire upon thePequod's decks.

But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambi-guous synod in the air, or the vindictive princesand potentates of fire, have to do or not withearthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of hisleg, he took plain practical procedures;—hecalled the carpenter.

And when that functionary appeared beforehim, he bade him without delay set about ma-king a new leg, and directed the mates to seehim supplied with all the studs and joists ofjaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus farbeen accumulated on the voyage, in order that

a careful selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, thecarpenter received orders to have the leg com-pleted that night; and to provide all the fittingsfor it, independent of those pertaining to thedistrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's for-ge was ordered to be hoisted out of its tempo-rary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate theaffair, the blacksmith was commanded to pro-ceed at once to the forging of whatever ironcontrivances might be needed.

CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.

Seat thyself sultanically among the moons ofSaturn, and take high abstracted man alone;and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe.But from the same point, take mankind in mass,

and for the most part, they seem a mob of un-necessary duplicates, both contemporary andhereditary. But most humble though he was,and far from furnishing an example of the high,humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenterwas no duplicate; hence, he now comes in per-son on this stage.

Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and moreespecially those belonging to whaling vessels,he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent,alike experienced in numerous trades and ca-llings collateral to his own; the carpenter's pur-suit being the ancient and outbranching trunkof all those numerous handicrafts which moreor less have to do with wood as an auxiliarymaterial. But, besides the application to him ofthe generic remark above, this carpenter of thePequod was singularly efficient in those thou-sand nameless mechanical emergencies conti-nually recurring in a large ship, upon a three orfour years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-

distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness inordinary duties:—repairing stove boats, sprungspars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladedoars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or newtree-nails in the side planks, and other misce-llaneous matters more directly pertaining to hisspecial business; he was moreover unhesitatin-gly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitu-des, both useful and capricious.

The one grand stage where he enacted all hisvarious parts so manifold, was his vice-bench; along rude ponderous table furnished with seve-ral vices, of different sizes, and both of iron andof wood. At all times except when whales werealongside, this bench was securely lashed ath-wartships against the rear of the Try-works.

A belaying pin is found too large to be easilyinserted into its hole: the carpenter claps it intoone of his ever-ready vices, and straightwayfiles it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plu-mage strays on board, and is made a captive:

out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone,and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the car-penter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. Anoarsman sprains his wrist: the carpenter con-cocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermi-llion stars to be painted upon the blade of hisevery oar; screwing each oar in his big vice ofwood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies theconstellation. A sailor takes a fancy to wearshark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills hisears. Another has the toothache: the carpenterout pincers, and clapping one hand upon hisbench bids him be seated there; but the poorfellow unmanageably winces under the uncon-cluded operation; whirling round the handle ofhis wooden vice, the carpenter signs him toclap his jaw in that, if he would have him drawthe tooth.

Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points,and alike indifferent and without respect in all.Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he

deemed but top-blocks; men themselves helightly held for capstans. But while now uponso wide a field thus variously accomplishedand with such liveliness of expertness in him,too; all this would seem to argue some un-common vivacity of intelligence. But not preci-sely so. For nothing was this man more remar-kable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity asit were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded offinto the surrounding infinite of things, that itseemed one with the general stolidity discerni-ble in the whole visible world; which whilepauselessly active in uncounted modes, stilleternally holds its peace, and ignores you,though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yetwas this half-horrible stolidity in him, invol-ving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying hear-tlessness;—yet was it oddly dashed at times,with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, whee-zing humorousness, not unstreaked now andthen with a certain grizzled wittiness; such asmight have served to pass the time during the

midnight watch on the bearded forecastle ofNoah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter hadbeen a life-long wanderer, whose much rolling,to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; butwhat is more, had rubbed off whatever smalloutward clingings might have originally per-tained to him? He was a stript abstract; an un-fractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without premeditated refe-rence to this world or the next. You might al-most say, that this strange uncompromisednessin him involved a sort of unintelligence; for inhis numerous trades, he did not seem to workso much by reason or by instinct, or simplybecause he had been tutored to it, or by anyintermixture of all these, even or uneven; butmerely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontane-ous literal process. He was a pure manipulator;his brain, if he had ever had one, must haveearly oozed along into the muscles of his fin-gers. He was like one of those unreasoning butstill highly useful, MULTUM IN PARVO, Shef-

field contrivances, assuming the exterior—though a little swelled—of a common pocketknife; but containing, not only blades of varioussizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws,tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, counter-sinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use thecarpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to dowas to open that part of him, and the screwwas fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by thelegs, and there they were.

Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled,open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no me-re machine of an automaton. If he did not havea common soul in him, he had a subtle somet-hing that somehow anomalously did its duty.What that was, whether essence of quicksilver,or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling.But there it was; and there it had abided fornow some sixty years or more. And this it was,this same unaccountable, cunning life-principlein him; this it was, that kept him a great part of

the time soliloquizing; but only like an unrea-soning wheel, which also hummingly solilo-quizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-boxand this soliloquizer on guard there, and tal-king all the time to keep himself awake.

CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.

The Deck—First Night Watch.

(CARPENTER STANDING BEFORE HIS VICE-BENCH, AND BY THE LIGHT OF TWO LAN-TERNS BUSILY FILING THE IVORY JOISTFOR THE LEG, WHICH JOIST IS FIRMLYFIXED IN THE VICE. SLABS OF IVORY, LE-ATHER STRAPS, PADS, SCREWS, AND VA-RIOUS TOOLS OF ALL SORTS LYING ABOUTTHE BENCH. FORWARD, THE RED FLAME

OF THE FORGE IS SEEN, WHERE THEBLACKSMITH IS AT WORK.)

Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hardwhich should be soft, and that is soft whichshould be hard. So we go, who file old jaws andshinbones. Let's try another. Aye, now, thisworks better (SNEEZES). Halloa, this bone dustis (SNEEZES)—why it's (SNEEZES)—yes it's(SNEEZES)—bless my soul, it won't let me spe-ak! This is what an old fellow gets now forworking in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, andyou don't get this dust; amputate a live bone,and you don't get it (SNEEZES). Come, come,you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's havethat ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready forthem presently. Lucky now (SNEEZES) there'sno knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little;but a mere shinbone—why it's easy as makinghop-poles; only I should like to put a good fi-nish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, Icould turn him out as neat a leg now as ever

(SNEEZES) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Thosebuckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen inshop windows wouldn't compare at all. Theysoak water, they do; and of course get rheuma-tic, and have to be doctored (SNEEZES) withwashes and lotions, just like live legs. There;before I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mo-gulship, and see whether the length will be allright; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that'sthe heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it'ssomebody else, that's certain.

AHAB (ADVANCING)(DURING THE ENSUING SCENE, THE

CARPENTER CONTINUES SNEEZING ATTIMES)Well, manmaker!

Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I willnow mark the length. Let me measure, sir.

Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the firsttime. About it! There; keep thy finger on it. This

is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter; let mefeel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.

Oh, sir, it will break bones—beware, beware!

No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel somet-hing in this slippery world that can hold, man.What's Prometheus about there?—the blacks-mith, I mean—what's he about?

He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.

Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the musclepart. He makes a fierce red flame there!

Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for thiskind of fine work.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a mostmeaning thing, that that old Greek, Promet-heus, who made men, they say, should havebeen a blacksmith, and animated them withfire; for what's made in fire must properly be-long to fire; and so hell's probable. How the

soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greekmade the Africans of. Carpenter, when he'sthrough with that buckle, tell him to forge apair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlaraboard with a crushing pack.

Sir?

Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order acomplete man after a desirable pattern. Impri-mis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest mo-delled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs withroots to 'em, to stay in one place; then, armsthree feet through the wrist; no heart at all,brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acreof fine brains; and let me see—shall I order eyesto see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on topof his head to illuminate inwards. There, takethe order, and away.

Now, what's he speaking about, and who's hespeaking to, I should like to know? Shall I keepstanding here? (ASIDE).

'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blinddome; here's one. No, no, no; I must have alantern.

Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; onewill serve my turn.

What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher intomy face for, man? Thrusted light is worse thanpresented pistols.

I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.

Carpenter? why that's—but no;—a very tidy,and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sortof business thou art in here, carpenter;—orwould'st thou rather work in clay?

Sir?—Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clayto ditchers, sir.

The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezingabout?

Bone is rather dusty, sir.

Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead,never bury thyself under living people's noses.

Sir?—oh! ah!—I guess so;—yes—dear!

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thy-self a right good workmanlike workman, eh?Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thywork, if, when I come to mount this leg thoumakest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg inthe same identical place with it; that is, carpen-ter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, Imean. Canst thou not drive that old Adamaway?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhatnow. Yes, I have heard something curious onthat score, sir; how that a dismasted man neverentirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but itwill be still pricking him at times. May I hum-bly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the pla-ce where mine once was; so, now, here is onlyone distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul.Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactlythere, there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some enti-re, living, thinking thing may not be invisiblyand uninterpenetratingly standing preciselywhere thou now standest; aye, and standingthere in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours,then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold,don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of mycrushed leg, though it be now so long dissol-ved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feelthe fiery pains of hell for ever, and without abody? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I mustcalculate over again; I think I didn't carry asmall figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grantpremises.—How long before the leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me(TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud asGreek god, and yet standing debtor to thisblockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed bethat mortal inter-indebtedness which will notdo away with ledgers. I would be free as air;and I'm down in the whole world's books. I amso rich, I could have given bid for bid with thewealthiest Praetorians at the auction of theRoman empire (which was the world's); andyet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with.By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, anddissolve myself down to one small, compen-dious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (RESUMING HIS WORK).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all,and Stubb always says he's queer; says nothing

but that one sufficient little word queer; he'squeer, says Stubb; he's queer—queer, queer;and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all thetime—queer—sir—queer, queer, very queer.And here's his leg! Yes, now that I think of it,here's his bedfellow! has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll standon this. What was that now about one leg stan-ding in three places, and all three places stan-ding in one hell—how was that? Oh! I don'twonder he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sortof strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; butthat's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, littleold body like me, should never undertake towade out into deep waters with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under thechin pretty quick, and there's a great cry forlife-boats. And here's the heron's leg! long andslim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pairof legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be becausethey use them mercifully, as a tender-heartedold lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses.

But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver. Look, drivenone leg to death, and spavined the other for life,and now wears out bone legs by the cord.Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there withthose screws, and let's finish it before the resu-rrection fellow comes a-calling with his hornfor all legs, true or false, as brewery-men goround collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em upagain. What a leg this is! It looks like a real liveleg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll bestanding on this to-morrow; he'll be taking alti-tudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the littleoval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures upthe latitude. So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper,now!

CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in theCabin.

According to usage they were pumping theship next morning; and lo! no inconsiderable oilcame up with the water; the casks below musthave sprung a bad leak. Much concern wasshown; and Starbuck went down into the cabinto report this unfavourable affair.*

*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerablequantity of oil on board, it is a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold,and drench the casks with sea-water; whichafterwards, at varying intervals, is removed bythe ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are soughtto be kept damply tight; while by the changedcharacter of the withdrawn water, the marinersreadily detect any serious leakage in the pre-cious cargo.

Now, from the South and West the Pequod wasdrawing nigh to Formosa and the Bashee Isles,between which lies one of the tropical outletsfrom the China waters into the Pacific. And soStarbuck found Ahab with a general chart ofthe oriental archipelagoes spread before him;and another separate one representing the longeastern coasts of the Japanese islands—Niphon,Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white newivory leg braced against the screwed leg of histable, and with a long pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, withhis back to the gangway door, was wrinklinghis brow, and tracing his old courses again.

"Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door,but not turning round to it. "On deck! Begone!"

"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in thehold is leaking, sir. We must up Burtons andbreak out."

"Up Burtons and break out? Now that we arenearing Japan; heave-to here for a week to tin-ker a parcel of old hoops?"

"Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oilthan we may make good in a year. What wecome twenty thousand miles to get is worthsaving, sir."

"So it is, so it is; if we get it."

"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir."

"And I was not speaking or thinking of that atall. Begone! Let it leak! I'm all aleak myself.Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks,but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; andthat's a far worse plight than the Pequod's,man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for whocan find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hopeto plug it, even if found, in this life's howlinggale? Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons hois-ted."

"What will the owners say, sir?"

"Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach andoutyell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Ow-ners, owners? Thou art always prating to me,Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if theowners were my conscience. But look ye, theonly real owner of anything is its commander;and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's ke-el.—On deck!"

"Captain Ahab," said the reddening mate, mo-ving further into the cabin, with a daring sostrangely respectful and cautious that it almostseemed not only every way seeking to avoidthe slightest outward manifestation of itself,but within also seemed more than half distrust-ful of itself; "A better man than I might wellpass over in thee what he would quicklyenough resent in a younger man; aye, and in ahappier, Captain Ahab."

"Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to cri-tically think of me?—On deck!"

"Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare,sir—to be forbearing! Shall we not understandeach other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?"

Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack(forming part of most South-Sea-men's cabinfurniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord overthe earth, and one Captain that is lord over thePequod.—On deck!"

For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate,and his fiery cheeks, you would have almostthought that he had really received the blaze ofthe levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion,he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin,paused for an instant and said: "Thou hast ou-traged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I askthee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst

but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; bewa-re of thyself, old man."

"He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; mostcareful bravery that!" murmured Ahab, as Star-buck disappeared. "What's that he said—Ahabbeware of Ahab—there's something there!"Then unconsciously using the musket for astaff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro inthe little cabin; but presently the thick plaits ofhis forehead relaxed, and returning the gun tothe rack, he went to the deck.

"Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," hesaid lowly to the mate; then raising his voice tothe crew: "Furl the t'gallant-sails, and close-reefthe top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard;up Burton, and break out in the main-hold."

It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why itwas, that as respecting Starbuck, Ahab thusacted. It may have been a flash of honesty inhim; or mere prudential policy which, under

the circumstance, imperiously forbade theslightest symptom of open disaffection, howe-ver transient, in the important chief officer ofhis ship. However it was, his orders were exe-cuted; and the Burtons were hoisted.

CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.

Upon searching, it was found that the casks laststruck into the hold were perfectly sound, andthat the leak must be further off. So, it beingcalm weather, they broke out deeper and dee-per, disturbing the slumbers of the hugeground-tier butts; and from that black midnightsending those gigantic moles into the daylightabove. So deep did they go; and so ancient, andcorroded, and weedy the aspect of the lower-most puncheons, that you almost looked next

for some mouldy corner-stone cask containingcoins of Captain Noah, with copies of the post-ed placards, vainly warning the infatuated oldworld from the flood. Tierce after tierce, too, ofwater, and bread, and beef, and shooks of sta-ves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoistedout, till at last the piled decks were hard to getabout; and the hollow hull echoed under foot,as if you were treading over empty catacombs,and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship asa dinnerless student with all Aristotle in hishead. Well was it that the Typhoons did notvisit them then.

Now, at this time it was that my poor pagancompanion, and fast bosom-friend, Queequeg,was seized with a fever, which brought himnigh to his endless end.

Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sine-cures are unknown; dignity and danger gohand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the

higher you rise the harder you toil. So withpoor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer, must notonly face all the rage of the living whale, but—as we have elsewhere seen—mount his deadback in a rolling sea; and finally descend intothe gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating allday in that subterraneous confinement, resolu-tely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see totheir stowage. To be short, among whalemen,the harpooneers are the holders, so called.

Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about halfdisembowelled, you should have stooped overthe hatchway, and peered down upon him the-re; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, thetattooed savage was crawling about amid thatdampness and slime, like a green spotted lizardat the bottom of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan;where, strange to say, for all the heat of hissweatings, he caught a terrible chill which lap-sed into a fever; and at last, after some days'

suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to thevery sill of the door of death. How he wastedand wasted away in those few long-lingeringdays, till there seemed but little left of him buthis frame and tattooing. But as all else in himthinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper, hiseyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller andfuller; they became of a strange softness of lus-tre; and mildly but deeply looked out at youthere from his sickness, a wondrous testimonyto that immortal health in him which could notdie, or be weakened. And like circles on thewater, which, as they grow fainter, expand; sohis eyes seemed rounding and rounding, likethe rings of Eternity. An awe that cannot benamed would steal over you as you sat by theside of this waning savage, and saw as strangethings in his face, as any beheld who were bys-tanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever istruly wondrous and fearful in man, never yetwas put into words or books. And the drawingnear of Death, which alike levels all, alike im-

presses all with a last revelation, which only anauthor from the dead could adequately tell. Sothat—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee orGreek had higher and holier thoughts than tho-se, whose mysterious shades you saw creepingover the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietlylay in his swaying hammock, and the rollingsea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest,and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted himhigher and higher towards his destined heaven.

Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, asfor Queequeg himself, what he thought of hiscase was forcibly shown by a curious favour heasked. He called one to him in the grey mor-ning watch, when the day was just breaking,and taking his hand, said that while in Nantuc-ket he had chanced to see certain little canoes ofdark wood, like the rich war-wood of his nativeisle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that allwhalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid inthose same dark canoes, and that the fancy of

being so laid had much pleased him; for it wasnot unlike the custom of his own race, who,after embalming a dead warrior, stretched himout in his canoe, and so left him to be floatedaway to the starry archipelagoes; for not onlydo they believe that the stars are isles, but thatfar beyond all visible horizons, their own mild,uncontinented seas, interflow with the blueheavens; and so form the white breakers of themilky way. He added, that he shuddered at thethought of being buried in his hammock, ac-cording to the usual sea-custom, tossed likesomething vile to the death-devouring sharks.No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket,all the more congenial to him, being a whale-man, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoeswere without a keel; though that involved butuncertain steering, and much lee-way adownthe dim ages.

Now, when this strange circumstance was ma-de known aft, the carpenter was at once com-

manded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever itmight include. There was some heathenish,coffin-coloured old lumber aboard, which,upon a long previous voyage, had been cutfrom the aboriginal groves of the Lackadayislands, and from these dark planks the coffinwas recommended to be made. No sooner wasthe carpenter apprised of the order, than takinghis rule, he forthwith with all the indifferentpromptitude of his character, proceeded intothe forecastle and took Queequeg's measurewith great accuracy, regularly chalking Quee-queg's person as he shifted the rule.

"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejacu-lated the Long Island sailor.

Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for con-venience sake and general reference, now trans-ferringly measured on it the exact length thecoffin was to be, and then made the transferpermanent by cutting two notches at its extre-

mities. This done, he marshalled the planks andhis tools, and to work.

When the last nail was driven, and the lid dulyplaned and fitted, he lightly shouldered thecoffin and went forward with it, inquiringwhether they were ready for it yet in that direc-tion.

Overhearing the indignant but half-humorouscries with which the people on deck began todrive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one'sconsternation, commanded that the thingshould be instantly brought to him, nor wasthere any denying him; seeing that, of all mor-tals, some dying men are the most tyrannical;and certainly, since they will shortly trouble usso little for evermore, the poor fellows ought tobe indulged.

Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg longregarded the coffin with an attentive eye. Hethen called for his harpoon, had the wooden

stock drawn from it, and then had the iron partplaced in the coffin along with one of the padd-les of his boat. All by his own request, also,biscuits were then ranged round the sides wit-hin: a flask of fresh water was placed at thehead, and a small bag of woody earth scrapedup in the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequegnow entreated to be lifted into his final bed,that he might make trial of its comforts, if any ithad. He lay without moving a few minutes,then told one to go to his bag and bring out hislittle god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on hisbreast with Yojo between, he called for the cof-fin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him.The head part turned over with a leather hinge,and there lay Queequeg in his coffin with littlebut his composed countenance in view. "Rar-mai" (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last,and signed to be replaced in his hammock.

But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slilyhovering near by all this while, drew nigh tohim where he lay, and with soft sobbings, tookhim by the hand; in the other, holding his tam-bourine.

"Poor rover! will ye never have done with allthis weary roving? where go ye now? But if thecurrents carry ye to those sweet Antilles wherethe beaches are only beat with water-lilies, willye do one little errand for me? Seek out onePip, who's now been missing long: I think he'sin those far Antilles. If ye find him, then com-fort him; for he must be very sad; for look! he'sleft his tambourine behind;—I found it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beatye your dying march."

"I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazingdown the scuttle, "that in violent fevers, men,all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues;and that when the mystery is probed, it turnsout always that in their wholly forgotten child-

hood those ancient tongues had been reallyspoken in their hearing by some lofty scholars.So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strangesweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vou-chers of all our heavenly homes. Where learnedhe that, but there?—Hark! he speaks again: butmore wildly now."

"Form two and two! Let's make a General ofhim! Ho, where's his harpoon? Lay it acrosshere.—Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a ga-me cock now to sit upon his head and crow!Queequeg dies game!—mind ye that; Quee-queg dies game!—take ye good heed of that;Queequeg dies game! I say; game, game, game!but base little Pip, he died a coward; died alla'shiver;—out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip,tell all the Antilles he's a runaway; a coward, acoward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from awhale-boat! I'd never beat my tambourine overbase Pip, and hail him General, if he were oncemore dying here. No, no! shame upon all co-

wards—shame upon them! Let 'em go drownlike Pip, that jumped from a whale-boat. Sha-me! shame!"

During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes,as if in a dream. Pip was led away, and the sickman was replaced in his hammock.

But now that he had apparently made everypreparation for death; now that his coffin wasproved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied;soon there seemed no need of the carpenter'sbox: and thereupon, when some expressedtheir delighted surprise, he, in substance, said,that the cause of his sudden convalescence wasthis;—at a critical moment, he had just recalleda little duty ashore, which he was leaving un-done; and therefore had changed his mindabout dying: he could not die yet, he averred.They asked him, then, whether to live or diewas a matter of his own sovereign will andpleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, itwas Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up

his mind to live, mere sickness could not killhim: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or someviolent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyerof that sort.

Now, there is this noteworthy difference bet-ween savage and civilized; that while a sick,civilized man may be six months convalescing,generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. So, in good time my Quee-queg gained strength; and at length after sittingon the windlass for a few indolent days (buteating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenlyleaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs,gave himself a good stretching, yawned a littlebit, and then springing into the head of hishoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronoun-ced himself fit for a fight.

With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffinfor a sea-chest; and emptying into it his canvasbag of clothes, set them in order there. Manyspare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all

manner of grotesque figures and drawings; andit seemed that hereby he was striving, in hisrude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooingon his body. And this tattooing had been thework of a departed prophet and seer of his is-land, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, hadwritten out on his body a complete theory ofthe heavens and the earth, and a mystical trea-tise on the art of attaining truth; so that Quee-queg in his own proper person was a riddle tounfold; a wondrous work in one volume; butwhose mysteries not even himself could read,though his own live heart beat against them;and these mysteries were therefore destined inthe end to moulder away with the livingparchment whereon they were inscribed, andso be unsolved to the last. And this thought itmust have been which suggested to Ahab thatwild exclamation of his, when one morningturning away from surveying poor Quee-queg—"Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!"

CHAPTER 111. The Pacific.

When gliding by the Bashee isles we emergedat last upon the great South Sea; were it not forother things, I could have greeted my dear Pa-cific with uncounted thanks, for now the longsupplication of my youth was answered; thatserene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thou-sand leagues of blue.

There is, one knows not what sweet mysteryabout this sea, whose gently awful stirringsseem to speak of some hidden soul beneath;like those fabled undulations of the Ephesiansod over the buried Evangelist St. John. Andmeet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters' Fields of all

four continents, the waves should rise and fall,and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, mi-llions of mixed shades and shadows, drowneddreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that wecall lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming,still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; theever-rolling waves but made so by their res-tlessness.

To any meditative Magian rover, this serenePacific, once beheld, must ever after be the seaof his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters ofthe world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic beingbut its arms. The same waves wash the molesof the new-built Californian towns, but yester-day planted by the recentest race of men, andlave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asia-tic lands, older than Abraham; while all betwe-en float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, andimpenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious,divine Pacific zones the world's whole bulk

about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems thetide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eter-nal swells, you needs must own the seductivegod, bowing your head to Pan.

But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, asstanding like an iron statue at his accustomedplace beside the mizen rigging, with one nostrilhe unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk fromthe Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mildlovers must be walking), and with the otherconsciously inhaled the salt breath of the newfound sea; that sea in which the hated WhiteWhale must even then be swimming. Launchedat length upon these almost final waters, andgliding towards the Japanese cruising-ground,the old man's purpose intensified itself. Hisfirm lips met like the lips of a vice; the Delta ofhis forehead's veins swelled like overladenbrooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ranthrough the vaulted hull, "Stern all! the WhiteWhale spouts thick blood!"

CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith.

Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool we-ather that now reigned in these latitudes, andin preparation for the peculiarly active pursuitsshortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed,blistered old blacksmith, had not removed hisportable forge to the hold again, after conclu-ding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, butstill retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringboltsby the foremast; being now almost incessantlyinvoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers,and bowsmen to do some little job for them;altering, or repairing, or new shaping their va-rious weapons and boat furniture. Often hewould be surrounded by an eager circle, allwaiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pi-

ke-heads, harpoons, and lances, and jealouslywatching his every sooty movement, as he toi-led. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patienthammer wielded by a patient arm. No mur-mur, no impatience, no petulance did comefrom him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowingover still further his chronically broken back, hetoiled away, as if toil were life itself, and theheavy beating of his hammer the heavy beatingof his heart. And so it was.—Most miserable!

A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slightbut painful appearing yawing in his gait, had atan early period of the voyage excited the curio-sity of the mariners. And to the importunity oftheir persisted questionings he had finally gi-ven in; and so it came to pass that every onenow knew the shameful story of his wretchedfate.

Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter'smidnight, on the road running between twocountry towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt

the deadly numbness stealing over him, andsought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn.The issue was, the loss of the extremities ofboth feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, atlast came out the four acts of the gladness, andthe one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifthact of the grief of his life's drama.

He was an old man, who, at the age of nearlysixty, had postponedly encountered that thingin sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had beenan artisan of famed excellence, and with plentyto do; owned a house and garden; embraced ayouthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and threeblithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to acheerful-looking church, planted in a grove.But one night, under cover of darkness, andfurther concealed in a most cunning disguise-ment, a desperate burglar slid into his happyhome, and robbed them all of everything. Anddarker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself didignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's

heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon theopening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend,and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent,most wise, and economic reasons, the blacks-mith's shop was in the basement of his dwe-lling, but with a separate entrance to it; so thatalways had the young and loving healthy wifelistened with no unhappy nervousness, butwith vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing ofher young-armed old husband's hammer; who-se reverberations, muffled by passing throughthe floors and walls, came up to her, not uns-weetly, in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor'siron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were roc-ked to slumber.

Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thounot sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken thisold blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin cameupon him, then had the young widow had adelicious grief, and her orphans a truly venera-ble, legendary sire to dream of in their after

years; and all of them a care-killing competen-cy. But Death plucked down some virtuouselder brother, on whose whistling daily toilsolely hung the responsibilities of some otherfamily, and left the worse than useless old manstanding, till the hideous rot of life should ma-ke him easier to harvest.

Why tell the whole? The blows of the basementhammer every day grew more and more bet-ween; and each blow every day grew fainterthan the last; the wife sat frozen at the window,with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into theweeping faces of her children; the bellows fell;the forge choked up with cinders; the housewas sold; the mother dived down into the longchurch-yard grass; her children twice followedher thither; and the houseless, familyless oldman staggered off a vagabond in crape; hisevery woe unreverenced; his grey head a scornto flaxen curls!

Death seems the only desirable sequel for acareer like this; but Death is only a launchinginto the region of the strange Untried; it is butthe first salutation to the possibilities of theimmense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, theUnshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyesof such men, who still have left in them someinterior compunctions against suicide, does theall-contributed and all-receptive ocean allurin-gly spread forth his whole plain of unimagina-ble, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-lifeadventures; and from the hearts of infinite Paci-fics, the thousand mermaids sing to them—"Come hither, broken-hearted; here is anotherlife without the guilt of intermediate death;here are wonders supernatural, without dyingfor them. Come hither! bury thyself in a lifewhich, to your now equally abhorred andabhorring, landed world, is more obliviousthan death. Come hither! put up THY graves-tone, too, within the churchyard, and comehither, till we marry thee!"

Hearkening to these voices, East and West, byearly sunrise, and by fall of eve, the blacks-mith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And soPerth went a-whaling.

CHAPTER 113. The Forge.

With matted beard, and swathed in a bristlingshark-skin apron, about mid-day, Perth wasstanding between his forge and anvil, the latterplaced upon an iron-wood log, with one handholding a pike-head in the coals, and with theother at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahabcame along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While yet a little distancefrom the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last,Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, be-gan hammering it upon the anvil—the red

mass sending off the sparks in thick hoveringflights, some of which flew close to Ahab.

"Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth?they are always flying in thy wake; birds ofgood omen, too, but not to all;—look here, theyburn; but thou—thou liv'st among them wit-hout a scorch."

"Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab,"answered Perth, resting for a moment on hishammer; "I am past scorching; not easily can'stthou scorch a scar."

"Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice soundstoo calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradisemyself, I am impatient of all misery in othersthat is not mad. Thou should'st go mad,blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad?How can'st thou endure without being mad?Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'stnot go mad?—What wert thou making there?"

"Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were se-ams and dents in it."

"And can'st thou make it all smooth again,blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had?"

"I think so, sir."

"And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost anyseams and dents; never mind how hard themetal, blacksmith?"

"Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents butone."

"Look ye here, then," cried Ahab, passionatelyadvancing, and leaning with both hands onPerth's shoulders; "look ye here—HERE—canye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,"sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow; "ifthou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would Ilay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy hea-

viest hammer between my eyes. Answer! Can'stthou smoothe this seam?"

"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams anddents but one?"

"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it isunsmoothable; for though thou only see'st ithere in my flesh, it has worked down into thebone of my skull—THAT is all wrinkles! But,away with child's play; no more gaffs and pikesto-day. Look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag,as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want aharpoon made; one that a thousand yoke offiends could not part, Perth; something thatwill stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. The-re's the stuff," flinging the pouch upon the an-vil. "Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gatherednail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses."

"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab,thou hast here, then, the best and stubborneststuff we blacksmiths ever work."

"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld to-gether like glue from the melted bones of mur-derers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forgeme first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind,and twist, and hammer these twelve togetherlike the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick!I'll blow the fire."

When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahabtried them, one by one, by spiralling them, withhis own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. "Aflaw!" rejecting the last one. "Work that overagain, Perth."

This done, Perth was about to begin weldingthe twelve into one, when Ahab stayed hishand, and said he would weld his own iron.As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he ham-mered on the anvil, Perth passing to him theglowing rods, one after the other, and the hardpressed forge shooting up its intense straightflame, the Parsee passed silently, and bowingover his head towards the fire, seemed invo-

king some curse or some blessing on the toil.But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.

"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging aboutthere for?" muttered Stubb, looking on from theforecastle. "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee;and smells of it himself, like a hot musket'spowder-pan."

At last the shank, in one complete rod, receivedits final heat; and as Perth, to temper it, plun-ged it all hissing into the cask of water near by,the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bentface.

"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for amoment with the pain; "have I been but forgingmy own branding-iron, then?"

"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Cap-tain Ahab. Is not this harpoon for the WhiteWhale?"

"For the white fiend! But now for the barbs;thou must make them thyself, man. Here aremy razors—the best of steel; here, and make thebarbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea."

For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the ra-zors as though he would fain not use them.

"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for Inow neither shave, sup, nor pray till—buthere—to work!"

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, andwelded by Perth to the shank, the steel soonpointed the end of the iron; and as the blacks-mith was about giving the barbs their finalheat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahabto place the water-cask near.

"No, no—no water for that; I want it of the truedeath-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Quee-queg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will yegive me as much blood as will cover this barb?"

holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods re-plied, Yes. Three punctures were made in theheathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbswere then tempered.

"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed innomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, asthe malignant iron scorchingly devoured thebaptismal blood.

Now, mustering the spare poles from below,and selecting one of hickory, with the bark stillinvesting it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket ofthe iron. A coil of new tow-line was then un-wound, and some fathoms of it taken to thewindlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pres-sing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed likea harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, andseeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good!and now for the seizings."

At one extremity the rope was unstranded, andthe separate spread yarns were all braided and

woven round the socket of the harpoon; thepole was then driven hard up into the socket;from the lower end the rope was traced half-way along the pole's length, and firmly securedso, with intertwistings of twine. This done, po-le, iron, and rope—like the Three Fates—remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stal-ked away with the weapon; the sound of hisivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole,both hollowly ringing along every plank. Butere he entered his cabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard.Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but un-resting eye; all thy strange mummeries notunmeaningly blended with the black tragedy ofthe melancholy ship, and mocked it!

CHAPTER 114. The Gilder.

Penetrating further and further into the heart ofthe Japanese cruising ground, the Pequod wassoon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, plea-sant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, andtwenty hours on the stretch, they were engagedin the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, orpaddling after the whales, or for an interlude ofsixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting theiruprising; though with but small success fortheir pains.

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat allday upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seatedin his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so socia-bly mixing with the soft waves themselves, thatlike hearth-stone cats they purr against thegunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietu-de, when beholding the tranquil beauty andbrilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the

tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would notwillingly remember, that this velvet paw butconceals a remorseless fang.

These are the times, when in his whale-boat therover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards itas so much flowery earth; and the distant shiprevealing only the tops of her masts, seemsstruggling forward, not through high rollingwaves, but through the tall grass of a rollingprairie: as when the western emigrants' horsesonly show their erected ears, while their hiddenbodies widely wade through the amazing ver-dure.

The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, thehum; you almost swear that play-wearied chil-dren lie sleeping in these solitudes, in someglad May-time, when the flowers of the woodsare plucked. And all this mixes with your mostmystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way

meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamlesswhole.

Nor did such soothing scenes, however tempo-rary, fail of at least as temporary an effect onAhab. But if these secret golden keys did seemto open in him his own secret golden treasuries,yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnis-hing.

Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endlesslandscapes in the soul; in ye,—though longparched by the dead drought of the earthy li-fe,—in ye, men yet may roll, like young horsesin new morning clover; and for some few flee-ting moments, feel the cool dew of the life im-mortal on them. Would to God these blessedcalms would last. But the mingled, minglingthreads of life are woven by warp and woof:calms crossed by storms, a storm for everycalm. There is no steady unretracing progressin this life; we do not advance through fixedgradations, and at the last one pause:—through

infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's though-tless faith, adolescence' doubt (the commondoom), then scepticism, then disbelief, restingat last in manhood's pondering repose of If. Butonce gone through, we trace the round again;and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eterna-lly. Where lies the final harbor, whence weunmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails theworld, of which the weariest will never weary?Where is the foundling's father hidden? Oursouls are like those orphans whose unweddedmothers die in bearing them: the secret of ourpaternity lies in their grave, and we must thereto learn it.

And that same day, too, gazing far down fromhis boat's side into that same golden sea, Star-buck lowly murmured:—

"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw inhis young bride's eye!—Tell me not of thy te-eth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal

ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory;I look deep down and do believe."

And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, lea-ped up in that same golden light:—

"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but hereStubb takes oaths that he has always been jo-lly!"

CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Ba-chelor.

And jolly enough were the sights and thesounds that came bearing down before thewind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoonhad been welded.

It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, whichhad just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bol-ted down her bursting hatches; and now, inglad holiday apparel, was joyously, thoughsomewhat vain-gloriously, sailing roundamong the widely-separated ships on theground, previous to pointing her prow forhome.

The three men at her mast-head wore longstreamers of narrow red bunting at their hats;from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended,bottom down; and hanging captive from thebowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of thelast whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, andjacks of all colours were flying from her rig-ging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each ofher three basketed tops were two barrels ofsperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the sameprecious fluid; and nailed to her main truckwas a brazen lamp.

As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor hadmet with the most surprising success; all themore wonderful, for that while cruising in thesame seas numerous other vessels had goneentire months without securing a single fish.Not only had barrels of beef and bread beengiven away to make room for the far more va-luable sperm, but additional supplementalcasks had been bartered for, from the ships shehad met; and these were stowed along thedeck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had beenknocked into kindling-wood; and the cabinmess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt,lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. Inthe forecastle, the sailors had actually caulkedand pitched their chests, and filled them; it washumorously added, that the cook had clapped ahead on his largest boiler, and filled it; that thesteward had plugged his spare coffee-pot andfilled it; that the harpooneers had headed thesockets of their irons and filled them; that inde-

ed everything was filled with sperm, except thecaptain's pantaloons pockets, and those he re-served to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.

As this glad ship of good luck bore down uponthe moody Pequod, the barbarian sound ofenormous drums came from her forecastle; anddrawing still nearer, a crowd of her men wereseen standing round her huge try-pots, which,covered with the parchment-like POKE or sto-mach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loudroar to every stroke of the clenched hands ofthe crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates andharpooneers were dancing with the olive-huedgirls who had eloped with them from the Poly-nesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamen-ted boat, firmly secured aloft between the fo-remast and mainmast, three Long Island negro-es, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory,were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanw-hile, others of the ship's company were tumul-

tuously busy at the masonry of the try-works,from which the huge pots had been removed.You would have almost thought they were pu-lling down the cursed Bastille, such wild criesthey raised, as the now useless brick and mor-tar were being hurled into the sea.

Lord and master over all this scene, the captainstood erect on the ship's elevated quarter-deck,so that the whole rejoicing drama was full befo-re him, and seemed merely contrived for hisown individual diversion.

And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom;and as the two ships crossed each other's wa-kes—one all jubilations for things passed, theother all forebodings as to things to come—their two captains in themselves impersonatedthe whole striking contrast of the scene.

"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gayBachelor's commander, lifting a glass and abottle in the air.

"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab inreply.

"No; only heard of him; but don't believe inhim at all," said the other good-humoredly."Come aboard!"

"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lostany men?"

"Not enough to speak of—two islanders, that'sall;—but come aboard, old hearty, come along.I'll soon take that black from your brow. Comealong, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship andhomeward-bound."

"How wondrous familiar is a fool!" mutteredAhab; then aloud, "Thou art a full ship andhomeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call

me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So gothy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Setall sail, and keep her to the wind!"

And thus, while the one ship went cheerilybefore the breeze, the other stubbornly foughtagainst it; and so the two vessels parted; thecrew of the Pequod looking with grave, linge-ring glances towards the receding Bachelor; butthe Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze forthe lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab,leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homeward-bound craft, he took from his pocket a smallvial of sand, and then looking from the ship tothe vial, seemed thereby bringing two remoteassociations together, for that vial was filledwith Nantucket soundings.

CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side,fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, thoughall adroop before, catch somewhat of the rus-hing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sailsfill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For nextday after encountering the gay Bachelor, wha-les were seen and four were slain; and one ofthem by Ahab.

It was far down the afternoon; and when all thespearings of the crimson fight were done: andfloating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sunand whale both stilly died together; then, sucha sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inw-reathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, thatit almost seemed as if far over from the deepgreen convent valleys of the Manilla isles, theSpanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor,

had gone to sea, freighted with these vesperhymns.

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper glo-om, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale,sat intently watching his final wanings from thenow tranquil boat. For that strange spectacleobservable in all sperm whales dying—the tur-ning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placidevening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a won-drousness unknown before.

"He turns and turns him to it,—how slowly, buthow steadfastly, his homage-rendering andinvoking brow, with his last dying motions. Hetoo worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronialvassal of the sun!—Oh that these too-favouringeyes should see these too-favouring sights. Lo-ok! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum ofhuman weal or woe; in these most candid andimpartial seas; where to traditions no rocksfurnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages,

the billows have still rolled on speechless andunspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Ni-ger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sun-wards full of faith; but see! no sooner dead,than death whirls round the corpse, and itheads some other way.

"Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who ofdrowned bones hast builded thy separate thro-ne somewhere in the heart of these unverduredseas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and tootruly speakest to me in the wide-slaughteringTyphoon, and the hushed burial of its aftercalm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turnedhis dying head, and then gone round again,without a lesson to me.

"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power!Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!—that onestrivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, ohwhale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, butgives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half,

rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. Allthy unnamable imminglings float beneath mehere; I am buoyed by breaths of once livingthings, exhaled as air, but water now.

"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternaltossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Bornof earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill andvalley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!"

CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.

The four whales slain that evening had diedwide apart; one, far to windward; one, less dis-tant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. Theselast three were brought alongside ere nightfall;but the windward one could not be reached till

morning; and the boat that had killed it lay byits side all night; and that boat was Ahab's.

The waif-pole was thrust upright into the deadwhale's spout-hole; and the lantern hangingfrom its top, cast a troubled flickering glareupon the black, glossy back, and far out uponthe midnight waves, which gently chafed thewhale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.

Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep butthe Parsee; who crouching in the bow, sat wat-ching the sharks, that spectrally played roundthe whale, and tapped the light cedar plankswith their tails. A sound like the moaning insquadrons over Asphaltites of unforgivenghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering throughthe air.

Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face,saw the Parsee; and hooped round by the glo-om of the night they seemed the last men in a

flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," saidhe.

"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, thatneither hearse nor coffin can be thine?"

"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?"

"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst dieon this voyage, two hearses must verily be seenby thee on the sea; the first not made by mortalhands; and the visible wood of the last onemust be grown in America."

"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:—a hear-se and its plumes floating over the ocean withthe waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a sightwe shall not soon see."

"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it beseen, old man."

"And what was that saying about thyself?"

"Though it come to the last, I shall still go befo-re thee thy pilot."

"And when thou art so gone before—if thatever befall—then ere I can follow, thou muststill appear to me, to pilot me still?—Was it notso? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh mypilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yetslay Moby Dick and survive it."

"Take another pledge, old man," said the Par-see, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in thegloom—"Hemp only can kill thee."

"The gallows, ye mean.—I am immortal then,on land and on sea," cried Ahab, with a laughof derision;—"Immortal on land and on sea!"

Both were silent again, as one man. The greydawn came on, and the slumbering crew arosefrom the boat's bottom, and ere noon the deadwhale was brought to the ship.

CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.

The season for the Line at length drew near;and every day when Ahab, coming from hiscabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsmanwould ostentatiously handle his spokes, andthe eager mariners quickly run to the braces,and would stand there with all their eyes cen-trally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatientfor the order to point the ship's prow for theequator. In good time the order came. It washard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in thebows of his high-hoisted boat, was about takinghis wonted daily observation of the sun to de-termine his latitude.

Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summerare as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkinglyvivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus ofthe glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass.The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none;the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unre-lieved radiance is as the insufferable splendorsof God's throne. Well that Ahab's quadrant wasfurnished with coloured glasses, through whichto take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging hisseated form to the roll of the ship, and with hisastrological-looking instrument placed to hiseye, he remained in that posture for some mo-ments to catch the precise instant when the sunshould gain its precise meridian. Meantimewhile his whole attention was absorbed, theParsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship'sdeck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, waseyeing the same sun with him; only the lids ofhis eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wildface was subdued to an earthly passionlessness.At length the desired observation was taken;

and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahabsoon calculated what his latitude must be atthat precise instant. Then falling into a mo-ment's revery, he again looked up towards thesun and murmured to himself: "Thou sea-mark!thou high and mighty Pilot! thou tellest metruly where I AM—but canst thou cast the leasthint where I SHALL be? Or canst thou tell whe-re some other thing besides me is this momentliving? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thoumust be eyeing him. These eyes of mine lookinto the very eye that is even now beholdinghim; aye, and into the eye that is even nowequally beholding the objects on the unknown,thither side of thee, thou sun!"

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, oneafter the other, its numerous cabalistical contri-vances, he pondered again, and muttered: "Foo-lish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals,and Commodores, and Captains; the worldbrags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but

what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor,pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest tobe on this wide planet, and the hand that holdsthee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tellwhere one drop of water or one grain of sandwill be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy im-potence thou insultest the sun! Science! Cursethee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the thingsthat cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whoselive vividness but scorches him, as these oldeyes are even now scorched with thy light, Osun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon arethe glances of man's eyes; not shot from thecrown of his head, as if God had meant him togaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou qua-drant!" dashing it to the deck, "no longer will Iguide my earthly way by thee; the level ship'scompass, and the level deadreckoning, by logand by line; THESE shall conduct me, andshow me my place on the sea. Aye," lightingfrom the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on

thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest onhigh; thus I split and destroy thee!"

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thustrampled with his live and dead feet, a sneeringtriumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and afatalistic despair that seemed meant for him-self—these passed over the mute, motionlessParsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glidedaway; while, awestruck by the aspect of theircommander, the seamen clustered together onthe forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing thedeck, shouted out—"To the braces! Up helm!—square in!"

In an instant the yards swung round; and as theship half-wheeled upon her heel, her threefirm-seated graceful masts erectly poised uponher long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Hora-tii pirouetting on one sufficient steed.

Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuckwatched the Pequod's tumultuous way, and

Ahab's also, as he went lurching along thedeck.

"I have sat before the dense coal fire and wat-ched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaminglife; and I have seen it wane at last, down,down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! ofall this fiery life of thine, what will at lengthremain but one little heap of ashes!"

"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes—mindye that, Mr. Starbuck—sea-coal, not your com-mon charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab mutter,'Here some one thrusts these cards into theseold hands of mine; swears that I must playthem, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, butthou actest right; live in the game, and die init!"

CHAPTER 119. The Candles.

Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs:the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves ofceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent butbasket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cubaknows tornadoes that never swept tame nort-hern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplen-dent Japanese seas the mariner encounters thedirest of all storms, the Typhoon. It will some-times burst from out that cloudless sky, like anexploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepytown.

Towards evening of that day, the Pequod wastorn of her canvas, and bare-poled was left tofight a Typhoon which had struck her directlyahead. When darkness came on, sky and searoared and split with the thunder, and blazedwith the lightning, that showed the disabledmasts fluttering here and there with the rags

which the first fury of the tempest had left forits after sport.

Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing onthe quarter-deck; at every flash of the lightningglancing aloft, to see what additional disastermight have befallen the intricate hamper there;while Stubb and Flask were directing the menin the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of theboats. But all their pains seemed naught.Though lifted to the very top of the cranes, thewindward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not esca-pe. A great rolling sea, dashing high up againstthe reeling ship's high teetering side, stove inthe boat's bottom at the stern, and left it again,all dripping through like a sieve.

"Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck," saidStubb, regarding the wreck, "but the sea willhave its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight it. Yousee, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great longstart before it leaps, all round the world it runs,and then comes the spring! But as for me, all

the start I have to meet it, is just across the deckhere. But never mind; it's all in fun: so the oldsong says;"—(SINGS.)

Oh! jolly is the gale, And a joker is the whale, A' flourishin' his tail,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!

The scud all a flyin', That's his flip only foamin'; When he stirs in the spicin',— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!

Thunder splits the ships, But he only smacks his lips, A tastin' of this flip,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!

"Avast Stubb," cried Starbuck, "let the Typhoonsing, and strike his harp here in our rigging;but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thypeace."

"But I am not a brave man; never said I was abrave man; I am a coward; and I sing to keepup my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr.Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing inthis world but to cut my throat. And whenthat's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxologyfor a wind-up."

"Madman! look through my eyes if thou hastnone of thine own."

"What! how can you see better of a dark nightthan anybody else, never mind how foolish?"

"Here!" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by theshoulder, and pointing his hand towards theweather bow, "markest thou not that the galecomes from the eastward, the very course Ahab

is to run for Moby Dick? the very course heswung to this day noon? now mark his boatthere; where is that stove? In the stern-sheets,man; where he is wont to stand—his stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, andsing away, if thou must!

"I don't half understand ye: what's in thewind?"

"Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is theshortest way to Nantucket," soliloquized Star-buck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's question."The gale that now hammers at us to stave us,we can turn it into a fair wind that will drive ustowards home. Yonder, to windward, all isblackness of doom; but to leeward, home-ward—I see it lightens up there; but not withthe lightning."

At that moment in one of the intervals of pro-found darkness, following the flashes, a voicewas heard at his side; and almost at the same

instant a volley of thunder peals rolled over-head.

"Who's there?"

"Old Thunder!" said Ahab, groping his wayalong the bulwarks to his pivot-hole; but sud-denly finding his path made plain to him byelbowed lances of fire.

Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore isintended to carry off the perilous fluid into thesoil; so the kindred rod which at sea some shipscarry to each mast, is intended to conduct itinto the water. But as this conductor must des-cend to considerable depth, that its end mayavoid all contact with the hull; and as moreo-ver, if kept constantly towing there, it would beliable to many mishaps, besides interfering nota little with some of the rigging, and more orless impeding the vessel's way in the water;because of all this, the lower parts of a ship'slightning-rods are not always overboard; but

are generally made in long slender links, so asto be the more readily hauled up into thechains outside, or thrown down into the sea, asoccasion may require.

"The rods! the rods!" cried Starbuck to the crew,suddenly admonished to vigilance by the vividlightning that had just been darting flambeaux,to light Ahab to his post. "Are they overboard?drop them over, fore and aft. Quick!"

"Avast!" cried Ahab; "let's have fair play here,though we be the weaker side. Yet I'll contribu-te to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes,that all the world may be secured; but out onprivileges! Let them be, sir."

"Look aloft!" cried Starbuck. "The corpusants!the corpusants!"

All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallidfire; and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each

of the three tall masts was silently burning inthat sulphurous air, like three gigantic waxtapers before an altar.

"Blast the boat! let it go!" cried Stubb at thisinstant, as a swashing sea heaved up under hisown little craft, so that its gunwale violentlyjammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing."Blast it!"—but slipping backward on the deck,his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and imme-diately shifting his tone he cried—"The corpu-sants have mercy on us all!"

To sailors, oaths are household words; they willswear in the trance of the calm, and in the teethof the tempest; they will imprecate curses fromthe topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeterover to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings,seldom have I heard a common oath whenGod's burning finger has been laid on the ship;when His "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin" hasbeen woven into the shrouds and the cordage.

While this pallidness was burning aloft, fewwords were heard from the enchanted crew;who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle,all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphores-cence, like a far away constellation of stars. Re-lieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jetnegro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his realstature, and seemed the black cloud fromwhich the thunder had come. The partedmouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-whiteteeth, which strangely gleamed as if they toohad been tipped by corpusants; while lit up bythe preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooingburned like Satanic blue flames on his body.

The tableau all waned at last with the pallid-ness aloft; and once more the Pequod and everysoul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. Amoment or two passed, when Starbuck, goingforward, pushed against some one. It wasStubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heardthy cry; it was not the same in the song."

"No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants havemercy on us all; and I hope they will, still. Butdo they only have mercy on long faces?—havethey no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr.Starbuck—but it's too dark to look. Hear me,then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for asign of good luck; for those masts are rooted ina hold that is going to be chock a' block withsperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm willwork up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes,our three masts will yet be as three spermaceticandles—that's the good promise we saw."

At that moment Starbuck caught sight ofStubb's face slowly beginning to glimmer intosight. Glancing upwards, he cried: "See! see!"and once more the high tapering flames werebeheld with what seemed redoubled superna-turalness in their pallor.

"The corpusants have mercy on us all," criedStubb, again.

At the base of the mainmast, full beneath thedoubloon and the flame, the Parsee was knee-ling in Ahab's front, but with his head bowedaway from him; while near by, from the archedand overhanging rigging, where they had justbeen engaged securing a spar, a number of theseamen, arrested by the glare, now coheredtogether, and hung pendulous, like a knot ofnumbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig.In various enchanted attitudes, like the stan-ding, or stepping, or running skeletons in Her-culaneum, others remained rooted to the deck;but all their eyes upcast.

"Aye, aye, men!" cried Ahab. "Look up at it;mark it well; the white flame but lights the wayto the White Whale! Hand me those mainmastlinks there; I would fain feel this pulse, and letmine beat against it; blood against fire! So."

Then turning—the last link held fast in his lefthand, he put his foot upon the Parsee; and withfixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, he

stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity offlames.

"Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom onthese seas I as Persian once did worship, till inthe sacramental act so burned by thee, that tothis hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thouclear spirit, and I now know that thy rightworship is defiance. To neither love nor reve-rence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thoucanst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless foolnow fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placelesspower; but to the last gasp of my earthquakelife will dispute its unconditional, unintegralmastery in me. In the midst of the personifiedimpersonal, a personality stands here. Thoughbut a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; whe-resoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queen-ly personality lives in me, and feels her royalrights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Comein thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel andkiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere su-

pernal power; and though thou launchest na-vies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in herethat still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clearspirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like atrue child of fire, I breathe it back to thee."

[SUDDEN, REPEATED FLASHES OF LIGHT-NING; THE NINE FLAMES LEAP LENGTH-WISE TO THRICE THEIR PREVIOUSHEIGHT; AHAB, WITH THE REST, CLOSESHIS EYES, HIS RIGHT HAND PRESSEDHARD UPON THEM.]

"I own thy speechless, placeless power; said Inot so? Nor was it wrung from me; nor do Inow drop these links. Thou canst blind; but Ican then grope. Thou canst consume; but I canthen be ashes. Take the homage of these pooreyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it.The lightning flashes through my skull; mineeye-balls ache and ache; my whole beaten brainseems as beheaded, and rolling on some stun-ning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I

talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou leapestout of darkness; but I am darkness leaping outof light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease;open eyes; see, or not? There burn the flames!Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in mygenealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; mysweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hastthou done with her? There lies my puzzle; butthine is greater. Thou knowest not how cameye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainlyknowest not thy beginning, hence callest thy-self unbegun. I know that of me, which thouknowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent.There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee,thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is buttime, all thy creativeness mechanical. Throughthee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes dodimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou her-mit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommuni-cable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Hereagain with haughty agony, I read my sire. Le-ap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I

burn with thee; would fain be welded withthee; defyingly I worship thee!"

"The boat! the boat!" cried Starbuck, "look at thyboat, old man!"

Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire,remained firmly lashed in its conspicuouscrotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's bow; but the sea that had stove its bot-tom had caused the loose leather sheath to dropoff; and from the keen steel barb there nowcame a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. Asthe silent harpoon burned there like a serpent'stongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm—"God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! 'tisan ill voyage! ill begun, ill continued; let mesquare the yards, while we may, old man, andmake a fair wind of it homewards, to go on abetter voyage than this."

Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crewinstantly ran to the braces—though not a sail

was left aloft. For the moment all the aghastmate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised ahalf mutinous cry. But dashing the rattlinglightning links to the deck, and snatching theburning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torchamong them; swearing to transfix with it thefirst sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. Petri-fied by his aspect, and still more shrinking fromthe fiery dart that he held, the men fell back indismay, and Ahab again spoke:—

"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are asbinding as mine; and heart, soul, and body,lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that yemay know to what tune this heart beats; lookye here; thus I blow out the last fear!" And withone blast of his breath he extinguished the fla-me.

As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, menfly the neighborhood of some lone, giganticelm, whose very height and strength but renderit so much the more unsafe, because so much

the more a mark for thunderbolts; so at thoselast words of Ahab's many of the mariners didrun from him in a terror of dismay.

CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the Endof the First Night Watch.

AHAB STANDING BY THE HELM.STARBUCK APPROACHING HIM.

"We must send down the main-top-sail yard,sir. The band is working loose and the lee lift ishalf-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?"

"Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles,I'd sway them up now."

"Sir!—in God's name!—sir?"

"Well."

"The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get theminboard?"

"Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash eve-rything. The wind rises, but it has not got up tomy table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.—Bymasts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some coasting smack. Senddown my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots!Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds,and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid thecloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none butcowards send down their brain-trucks in tem-pest time. What a hooroosh aloft there! I woulde'en take it for sublime, did I not know that thecolic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, takemedicine!"

CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The ForecastleBulwarks.

STUBB AND FLASK MOUNTED ON THEM,AND PASSING ADDITIONAL LASHINGSOVER THE ANCHORS THERE HANGING.

"No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there asmuch as you please, but you will never poundinto me what you were just now saying. Andhow long ago is it since you said the very con-trary? Didn't you once say that whatever shipAhab sails in, that ship should pay somethingextra on its insurance policy, just as though itwere loaded with powder barrels aft and boxesof lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn't you sayso?"

"Well, suppose I did? What then? I've partchanged my flesh since that time, why not mymind? Besides, supposing we ARE loaded withpowder barrels aft and lucifers forward; how

the devil could the lucifers get afire in thisdrenching spray here? Why, my little man, youhave pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afirenow. Shake yourself; you're Aquarius, or thewater-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at yourcoat collar. Don't you see, then, that for theseextra risks the Marine Insurance companieshave extra guarantees? Here are hydrants,Flask. But hark, again, and I'll answer ye theother thing. First take your leg off from thecrown of the anchor here, though, so I can passthe rope; now listen. What's the mighty diffe-rence between holding a mast's lightning-rod inthe storm, and standing close by a mast thathasn't got any lightning-rod at all in a storm?Don't you see, you timber-head, that no harmcan come to the holder of the rod, unless themast is first struck? What are you talking about,then? Not one ship in a hundred carries rods,and Ahab,—aye, man, and all of us,—were inno more danger then, in my poor opinion, thanall the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing

the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I supposeyou would have every man in the world goabout with a small lightning-rod running upthe corner of his hat, like a militia officer's ske-wered feather, and trailing behind like his sash.Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's easy to besensible; why don't ye, then? any man with halfan eye can be sensible."

"I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes findit rather hard."

"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hardto be sensible, that's a fact. And I am aboutdrenched with this spray. Never mind; catchthe turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we arelashing down these anchors now as if they we-re never going to be used again. Tying thesetwo anchors here, Flask, seems like tying aman's hands behind him. And what big gene-rous hands they are, to be sure. These are youriron fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! Iwonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored

anywhere; if she is, she swings with an un-common long cable, though. There, hammerthat knot down, and we've done. So; next totouching land, lighting on deck is the most sa-tisfactory. I say, just wring out my jacket skirts,will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs so,Flask; but seems to me, a Long tailed coatought always to be worn in all storms afloat.The tails tapering down that way, serve to ca-rry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cockedhats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs,Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulinsfor me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drivedown a beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goesmy tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that thewinds that come from heaven should be sounmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad."

CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunderand Lightning.

THE MAIN-TOP-SAIL YARD.—TASHTEGO PASSING NEW LASHINGSAROUND IT.

"Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty toomuch thunder up here. What's the use of thun-der? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; wewant rum; give us a glass of rum. Um, um,um!"

CHAPTER 123. The Musket.

During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon,the man at the Pequod's jaw-bone tiller hadseveral times been reelingly hurled to the deck

by its spasmodic motions, even though preven-ter tackles had been attached to it—for theywere slack—because some play to the tiller wasindispensable.

In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but atossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no meansuncommon to see the needles in the compasses,at intervals, go round and round. It was thuswith the Pequod's; at almost every shock thehelmsman had not failed to notice the whirlingvelocity with which they revolved upon thecards; it is a sight that hardly anyone can be-hold without some sort of unwonted emotion.

Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon aba-ted so much, that through the strenuous exer-tions of Starbuck and Stubb—one engaged for-ward and the other aft—the shivered remnantsof the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cutadrift from the spars, and went eddying awayto leeward, like the feathers of an albatross,

which sometimes are cast to the winds whenthat storm-tossed bird is on the wing.

The three corresponding new sails were nowbent and reefed, and a storm-trysail was setfurther aft; so that the ship soon went throughthe water with some precision again; and thecourse—for the present, East-south-east—which he was to steer, if practicable, was oncemore given to the helmsman. For during theviolence of the gale, he had only steered accor-ding to its vicissitudes. But as he was nowbringing the ship as near her course as possible,watching the compass meanwhile, lo! a goodsign! the wind seemed coming round astern;aye, the foul breeze became fair!

Instantly the yards were squared, to the livelysong of "HO! THE FAIR WIND! OH-YE-HO,CHEERLY MEN!" the crew singing for joy, thatso promising an event should so soon havefalsified the evil portents preceding it.

In compliance with the standing order of hiscommander—to report immediately, and at anyone of the twenty-four hours, any decidedchange in the affairs of the deck,—Starbuck hadno sooner trimmed the yards to the breeze—however reluctantly and gloomily,—than hemechanically went below to apprise CaptainAhab of the circumstance.

Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarilypaused before it a moment. The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that—wasburning fitfully, and casting fitful shadowsupon the old man's bolted door,—a thin one,with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upperpanels. The isolated subterraneousness of thecabin made a certain humming silence to reignthere, though it was hooped round by all theroar of the elements. The loaded muskets in therack were shiningly revealed, as they stoodupright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuckwas an honest, upright man; but out of Star-

buck's heart, at that instant when he saw themuskets, there strangely evolved an evilthought; but so blent with its neutral or goodaccompaniments that for the instant he hardlyknew it for itself.

"He would have shot me once," he murmured,"yes, there's the very musket that he pointed atme;—that one with the studded stock; let metouch it—lift it. Strange, that I, who have hand-led so many deadly lances, strange, that Ishould shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye,aye; and powder in the pan;—that's not good.Best spill it?—wait. I'll cure myself of this. I'llhold the musket boldly while I think.—I cometo report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fairfor death and doom,—THAT'S fair for MobyDick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for thataccursed fish.—The very tube he pointed atme!—the very one; THIS one—I hold it here; hewould have killed me with the very thing Ihandle now.—Aye and he would fain kill all

his crew. Does he not say he will not strike hisspars to any gale? Has he not dashed his hea-venly quadrant? and in these same perilousseas, gropes he not his way by mere dead rec-koning of the error-abounding log? and in thisvery Typhoon, did he not swear that he wouldhave no lightning-rods? But shall this crazedold man be tamely suffered to drag a wholeship's company down to doom with him?—Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer ofthirty men and more, if this ship come to anydeadly harm; and come to deadly harm, mysoul swears this ship will, if Ahab have hisway. If, then, he were this instant—put aside,that crime would not be his. Ha! is he mutte-ring in his sleep? Yes, just there,—in there, he'ssleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soonawake again. I can't withstand thee, then, oldman. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not en-treaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scor-nest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands,this is all thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the

men have vow'd thy vow; say'st all of us areAhabs. Great God forbid!—But is there no ot-her way? no lawful way?—Make him a priso-ner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest thisold man's living power from his own livinghands? Only a fool would try it. Say he werepinioned even; knotted all over with ropes andhawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on thiscabin floor; he would be more hideous than acaged tiger, then. I could not endure the sight;could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort,sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave meon the long intolerable voyage. What, then,remains? The land is hundreds of leaguesaway, and locked Japan the nearest. I standalone here upon an open sea, with two oceansand a whole continent between me and law.—Aye, aye, 'tis so.—Is heaven a murderer whenits lightning strikes a would-be murderer in hisbed, tindering sheets and skin together?—Andwould I be a murderer, then, if"—and slowly,

stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placedthe loaded musket's end against the door.

"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within;his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck maysurvive to hug his wife and child again.—OhMary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wakethee not to death, old man, who can tell to whatunsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day we-ek may sink, with all the crew! Great God, whe-re art Thou? Shall I? shall I?—The wind hasgone down and shifted, sir; the fore and maintopsails are reefed and set; she heads her cour-se."

"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart atlast!"

Such were the sounds that now came hurtlingfrom out the old man's tormented sleep, as ifStarbuck's voice had caused the long dumbdream to speak.

The yet levelled musket shook like a drun-kard's arm against the panel; Starbuck seemedwrestling with an angel; but turning from thedoor, he placed the death-tube in its rack, andleft the place.

"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thoudown, and wake him, and tell him. I must seeto the deck here. Thou know'st what to say."

CHAPTER 124. The Needle.

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolledin long slow billows of mighty bulk, and stri-ving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed heron like giants' palms outspread. The strong,unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky andair seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole

world boomed before the wind. Muffled in thefull morning light, the invisible sun was onlyknown by the spread intensity of his place;where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks.Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kingsand queens, reigned over everything. The seawas as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblin-gly leaps with light and heat.

Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahabstood apart; and every time the tetering shiploweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he tur-ned to eye the bright sun's rays produced ahe-ad; and when she profoundly settled by thestern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's re-arward place, and how the same yellow rayswere blending with his undeviating wake.

"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be takennow for the sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! allye nations before my prow, I bring the sun toye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tan-dem, I drive the sea!"

But suddenly reined back by some counterthought, he hurried towards the helm, huskilydemanding how the ship was heading.

"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steers-man.

"Thou liest!" smiting him with his clenched fist."Heading East at this hour in the morning, andthe sun astern?"

Upon this every soul was confounded; for thephenomenon just then observed by Ahab hadunaccountably escaped every one else; but itsvery blinding palpableness must have been thecause.

Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle,Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; hisuplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he al-most seemed to stagger. Standing behind himStarbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses

pointed East, and the Pequod was as infalliblygoing West.

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abro-ad among the crew, the old man with a rigidlaugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happenedbefore. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder tur-ned our compasses—that's all. Thou hast beforenow heard of such a thing, I take it."

"Aye; but never before has it happened to me,sir," said the pale mate, gloomily.

Here, it must needs be said, that accidents likethis have in more than one case occurred toships in violent storms. The magnetic energy,as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as allknow, essentially one with the electricity be-held in heaven; hence it is not to be much mar-velled at, that such things should be. Instanceswhere the lightning has actually struck the ves-sel, so as to smite down some of the spars andrigging, the effect upon the needle has at times

been still more fatal; all its loadstone virtuebeing annihilated, so that the before magneticsteel was of no more use than an old wife'sknitting needle. But in either case, the needlenever again, of itself, recovers the original vir-tue thus marred or lost; and if the binnaclecompasses be affected, the same fate reaches allthe others that may be in the ship; even werethe lowermost one inserted into the kelson.

Deliberately standing before the binnacle, andeyeing the transpointed compasses, the oldman, with the sharp of his extended hand, nowtook the precise bearing of the sun, and satis-fied that the needles were exactly inverted,shouted out his orders for the ship's course tobe changed accordingly. The yards were hardup; and once more the Pequod thrust her un-daunted bows into the opposing wind, for thesupposed fair one had only been juggling her.

Meanwhile, whatever were his own secretthoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he

issued all requisite orders; while Stubb andFlask—who in some small degree seemed thento be sharing his feelings—likewise unmurmu-ringly acquiesced. As for the men, though someof them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab wasgreater than their fear of Fate. But as ever befo-re, the pagan harpooneers remained almostwholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it wasonly with a certain magnetism shot into theircongenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.

For a space the old man walked the deck inrolling reveries. But chancing to slip with hisivory heel, he saw the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day beforedashed to the deck.

"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pi-lot! yesterday I wrecked thee, and to-day thecompasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so.But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet.Mr. Starbuck—a lance without a pole; a top-

maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's need-les. Quick!"

Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictatingthe thing he was now about to do, were certainprudential motives, whose object might havebeen to revive the spirits of his crew by a strokeof his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous asthat of the inverted compasses. Besides, the oldman well knew that to steer by transpointedneedles, though clumsily practicable, was not athing to be passed over by superstitious sailors,without some shudderings and evil portents.

"Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew,as the mate handed him the things he had de-manded, "my men, the thunder turned oldAhab's needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahabcan make one of his own, that will point as trueas any."

Abashed glances of servile wonder were ex-changed by the sailors, as this was said; and

with fascinated eyes they awaited whatevermagic might follow. But Starbuck looked away.

With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knockedoff the steel head of the lance, and then han-ding to the mate the long iron rod remaining,bade him hold it upright, without its touchingthe deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedlysmiting the upper end of this iron rod, he pla-ced the blunted needle endwise on the top of it,and less strongly hammered that, several times,the mate still holding the rod as before. Thengoing through some small strange motionswith it—whether indispensable to the magneti-zing of the steel, or merely intended to aug-ment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he ca-lled for linen thread; and moving to the binna-cle, slipped out the two reversed needles there,and horizontally suspended the sail-needle byits middle, over one of the compass-cards. Atfirst, the steel went round and round, quiveringand vibrating at either end; but at last it settled

to its place, when Ahab, who had been intentlywatching for this result, stepped frankly backfrom the binnacle, and pointing his stretchedarm towards it, exclaimed,—"Look ye, foryourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level lo-adstone! The sun is East, and that compassswears it!"

One after another they peered in, for nothingbut their own eyes could persuade such igno-rance as theirs, and one after another theyslunk away.

In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you thensaw Ahab in all his fatal pride.

CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.

While now the fated Pequod had been so longafloat this voyage, the log and line had but veryseldom been in use. Owing to a confident re-liance upon other means of determining thevessel's place, some merchantmen, and manywhalemen, especially when cruising, whollyneglect to heave the log; though at the sametime, and frequently more for form's sake thananything else, regularly putting down upon thecustomary slate the course steered by the ship,as well as the presumed average rate of pro-gression every hour. It had been thus with thePequod. The wooden reel and angular log atta-ched hung, long untouched, just beneath therailing of the after bulwarks. Rains and sprayhad damped it; sun and wind had warped it; allthe elements had combined to rot a thing thathung so idly. But heedless of all this, his moodseized Ahab, as he happened to glance upon

the reel, not many hours after the magnet sce-ne, and he remembered how his quadrant wasno more, and recalled his frantic oath about thelevel log and line. The ship was sailing plun-gingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.

"Forward, there! Heave the log!"

Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitianand the grizzly Manxman. "Take the reel, oneof ye, I'll heave."

They went towards the extreme stern, on theship's lee side, where the deck, with the obliqueenergy of the wind, was now almost dippinginto the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.

The Manxman took the reel, and holding ithigh up, by the projecting handle-ends of thespindle, round which the spool of line revol-ved, so stood with the angular log hangingdownwards, till Ahab advanced to him.

Ahab stood before him, and was lightly un-winding some thirty or forty turns to form apreliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, whenthe old Manxman, who was intently eyeingboth him and the line, made bold to speak.

"Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, longheat and wet have spoiled it."

"'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet,have they spoiled thee? Thou seem'st to hold.Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it."

"I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captainsays. With these grey hairs of mine 'tis notworth while disputing, 'specially with a supe-rior, who'll ne'er confess."

"What's that? There now's a patched professorin Queen Nature's granite-founded College; butmethinks he's too subservient. Where wert thouborn?"

"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir."

"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that."

"I know not, sir, but I was born there."

"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way,it's good. Here's a man from Man; a man bornin once independent Man, and now unmannedof Man; which is sucked in—by what? Up withthe reel! The dead, blind wall butts all inquiringheads at last. Up with it! So."

The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidlystraightened out in a long dragging line astern,and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. Inturn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the ro-lling billows, the towing resistance of the logcaused the old reelman to stagger strangely.

"Hold hard!"

Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in onelong festoon; the tugging log was gone.

"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns theneedles, and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahi-tian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let thecarpenter make another log, and mend thou theline. See to it."

"There he goes now; to him nothing's happe-ned; but to me, the skewer seems loosening outof the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in,Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirlingout: come in broken, and dragging slow. Ha,Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?"

"Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from thewhale-boat. Pip's missing. Let's see now if yehaven't fished him up here, fisherman. It dragshard; I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti!Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here. Ho!there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! ahatchet! cut it off—we haul in no cowards here.Captain Ahab! sir, sir! here's Pip, trying to geton board again."

"Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman,seizing him by the arm. "Away from the quar-ter-deck!"

"The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," mutte-red Ahab, advancing. "Hands off from thatholiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?

"Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!"

"And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflectionin the vacant pupils of thy eyes. Oh God! thatman should be a thing for immortal souls tosieve through! Who art thou, boy?"

"Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip!Pip! Pip! One hundred pounds of clay rewardfor Pip; five feet high—looks cowardly—quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding!Who's seen Pip the coward?"

"There can be no hearts above the snow-line.Oh, ye frozen heavens! look down here. Ye did

beget this luckless child, and have abandonedhim, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab'scabin shall be Pip's home henceforth, whileAhab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre,boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven of myheart-strings. Come, let's down."

"What's this? here's velvet shark-skin," intentlygazing at Ahab's hand, and feeling it. "Ah, now,had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this,perhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems tome, sir, as a man-rope; something that weaksouls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth nowcome and rivet these two hands together; theblack one with the white, for I will not let thisgo."

"Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should there-by drag thee to worse horrors than are here.Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers ingods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! seethe omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man;and man, though idiotic, and knowing not

what he does, yet full of the sweet things oflove and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder lea-ding thee by thy black hand, than though Igrasped an Emperor's!"

"There go two daft ones now," muttered the oldManxman. "One daft with strength, the otherdaft with weakness. But here's the end of therotten line—all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? Ithink we had best have a new line altogether.I'll see Mr. Stubb about it."

CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.

Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's leve-lled steel, and her progress solely determinedby Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod heldon her path towards the Equator. Making so

long a passage through such unfrequented wa-ters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sidewaysimpelled by unvarying trade winds, over wa-ves monotonously mild; all these seemed thestrange calm things preluding some riotousand desperate scene.

At last, when the ship drew near to the outs-kirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goesbefore the dawn, was sailing by a cluster ofrocky islets; the watch—then headed byFlask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wildand unearthly—like half-articulated wailings ofthe ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reve-ries, and for the space of some moments stood,or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, likethe carved Roman slave, while that wild cryremained within hearing. The Christian or civi-lized part of the crew said it was mermaids,and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers

remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman—the oldest mariner of all—declared that thewild thrilling sounds that were heard, were thevoices of newly drowned men in the sea.

Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear ofthis till grey dawn, when he came to the deck; itwas then recounted to him by Flask, not unac-companied with hinted dark meanings. Hehollowly laughed, and thus explained thewonder.

Those rocky islands the ship had passed werethe resort of great numbers of seals, and someyoung seals that had lost their dams, or somedams that had lost their cubs, must have risennigh the ship and kept company with her,crying and sobbing with their human sort ofwail. But this only the more affected some ofthem, because most mariners cherish a verysuperstitious feeling about seals, arising notonly from their peculiar tones when in distress,but also from the human look of their round

heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringlyuprising from the water alongside. In the sea,under certain circumstances, seals have morethan once been mistaken for men.

But the bodings of the crew were destined toreceive a most plausible confirmation in thefate of one of their number that morning. Atsun-rise this man went from his hammock tohis mast-head at the fore; and whether it wasthat he was not yet half waked from his sleep(for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transitionstate), whether it was thus with the man, thereis now no telling; but, be that as it may, he hadnot been long at his perch, when a cry washeard—a cry and a rushing—and looking up,they saw a falling phantom in the air; and loo-king down, a little tossed heap of white bubblesin the blue of the sea.

The life-buoy—a long slender cask—was drop-ped from the stern, where it always hung obe-dient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to

seize it, and the sun having long beat upon thiscask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled,and that parched wood also filled at its everypore; and the studded iron-bound cask follo-wed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield himhis pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.

And thus the first man of the Pequod thatmounted the mast to look out for the WhiteWhale, on the White Whale's own peculiarground; that man was swallowed up in thedeep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at thetime. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grie-ved at this event, at least as a portent; for theyregarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil inthe future, but as the fulfilment of an evil al-ready presaged. They declared that now theyknew the reason of those wild shrieks they hadheard the night before. But again the oldManxman said nay.

The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced;Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no

cask of sufficient lightness could be found, andas in the feverish eagerness of what seemed theapproaching crisis of the voyage, all hands we-re impatient of any toil but what was directlyconnected with its final end, whatever thatmight prove to be; therefore, they were going toleave the ship's stern unprovided with a buoy,when by certain strange signs and inuendoesQueequeg hinted a hint concerning his coffin.

"A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, star-ting.

"Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb.

"It will make a good enough one," said Flask,"the carpenter here can arrange it easily."

"Bring it up; there's nothing else for it," saidStarbuck, after a melancholy pause. "Rig it, car-penter; do not look at me so—the coffin, I me-an. Dost thou hear me? Rig it."

"And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving hishand as with a hammer.

"Aye."

"And shall I caulk the seams, sir?" moving hishand as with a caulking-iron.

"Aye."

"And shall I then pay over the same with pitch,sir?" moving his hand as with a pitch-pot.

"Away! what possesses thee to this? Make alife-buoy of the coffin, and no more.—Mr.Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me."

"He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endu-re; at the parts he baulks. Now I don't like this.I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears itlike a gentleman; but I make a bandbox forQueequeg, and he won't put his head into it.Are all my pains to go for nothing with thatcoffin? And now I'm ordered to make a life-

buoy of it. It's like turning an old coat; going tobring the flesh on the other side now. I don'tlike this cobbling sort of business—I don't likeit at all; it's undignified; it's not my place. Lettinkers' brats do tinkerings; we are their betters.I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin,fair-and-square mathematical jobs, somethingthat regularly begins at the beginning, and is atthe middle when midway, and comes to an endat the conclusion; not a cobbler's job, that's at anend in the middle, and at the beginning at theend. It's the old woman's tricks to be givingcobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all oldwomen have for tinkers. I know an old womanof sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headedyoung tinker once. And that's the reason I ne-ver would work for lonely widow old womenashore, when I kept my job-shop in the Vine-yard; they might have taken it into their lonelyold heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho!there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let mesee. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay

over the same with pitch; batten them downtight, and hang it with the snap-spring over theship's stern. Were ever such things done beforewith a coffin? Some superstitious old carpen-ters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, erethey would do the job. But I'm made of knottyAroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Crupperedwith a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yardtray! But never mind. We workers in woodsmake bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as wellas coffins and hearses. We work by the month,or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to askthe why and wherefore of our work, unless itbe too confounded cobbling, and then we stashit if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly.I'll have me—let's see—how many in the ship'scompany, all told? But I've forgotten. Any way,I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round tothe coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there'll bethirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, asight not seen very often beneath the sun! Co-

me hammer, caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and mar-ling-spike! Let's to it."

CHAPTER 127. The Deck.

THE COFFIN LAID UPON TWO LINE-TUBS,BETWEEN THE VICE-BENCH AND THEOPEN HATCHWAY; THE CARPENTERCAULKING ITS SEAMS; THE STRING OFTWISTED OAKUM SLOWLY UNWINDINGFROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED INTHE BOSOM OF HIS FROCK.—AHAB CO-MES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND HEARS PIP FOLLOWINGHIM.

"Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. Hegoes! Not this hand complies with my humor

more genially than that boy.—Middle aisle of achurch! What's here?"

"Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look,sir! Beware the hatchway!"

"Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to thevault."

"Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so itdoes."

"Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not thisstump come from thy shop?"

"I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?"

"Well enough. But art thou not also the under-taker?"

"Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a cof-fin for Queequeg; but they've set me now toturning it into something else."

"Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, monopolising, heat-henish old scamp, to be one day making legs,and the next day coffins to clap them in, andyet again life-buoys out of those same coffins?Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and asmuch of a jack-of-all-trades."

"But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do."

"The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not eversing working about a coffin? The Titans, theysay, hummed snatches when chipping out thecraters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger inthe play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou ne-ver?"

"Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferentenough, sir, for that; but the reason why thegrave-digger made music must have been be-cause there was none in his spade, sir. But thecaulking mallet is full of it. Hark to it."

"Aye, and that's because the lid there's a soun-ding-board; and what in all things makes thesounding-board is this—there's naught bene-ath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it ringspretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thouever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffinknock against the churchyard gate, going in?

"Faith, sir, I've—"

"Faith? What's that?"

"Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like—that's all, sir."

"Um, um; go on."

"I was about to say, sir, that—"

"Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy ownshroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Des-patch! and get these traps out of sight."

"He goes aft. That was sudden, now; butsqualls come sudden in hot latitudes. I've heardthat the Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipa-gos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle.Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon oldman, too, right in his middle. He's always un-der the Line—fiery hot, I tell ye! He's lookingthis way—come, oakum; quick. Here we goagain. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'mthe professor of musical glasses—tap, tap!"

(AHAB TO HIMSELF.)

"There's a sight! There's a sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping the hollow tree!Blind and dumb might well be envied now.See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full oftow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow.Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how imma-terial are all materials! What things real arethere, but imponderable thoughts? Here now'sthe very dreaded symbol of grim death, by amere hap, made the expressive sign of the help

and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoyof a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that insome spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, butan immortality-preserver! I'll think of that. Butno. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth,that its other side, the theoretic bright one, se-ems but uncertain twilight to me. Will ye neverhave done, Carpenter, with that accursedsound? I go below; let me not see that thinghere when I return again. Now, then, Pip, we'lltalk this over; I do suck most wondrous philo-sophies from thee! Some unknown conduitsfrom the unknown worlds must empty intothee!"

CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Ra-chel.

Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was des-cried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod,all her spars thickly clustering with men. At thetime the Pequod was making good speedthrough the water; but as the broad-wingedwindward stranger shot nigh to her, the boast-ful sails all fell together as blank bladders thatare burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull.

"Bad news; she brings bad news," muttered theold Manxman. But ere her commander, who,with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat;ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice washeard.

"Hast seen the White Whale?"

"Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boatadrift?"

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answeredthis unexpected question; and would then havefain boarded the stranger, when the strangercaptain himself, having stopped his vessel'sway, was seen descending her side. A few keenpulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pe-quod's main-chains, and he sprang to the deck.Immediately he was recognised by Ahab for aNantucketer he knew. But no formal salutationwas exchanged.

"Where was he?—not killed!—not killed!" criedAhab, closely advancing. "How was it?"

It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoonof the day previous, while three of the stran-ger's boats were engaged with a shoal of wha-les, which had led them some four or five milesfrom the ship; and while they were yet in swiftchase to windward, the white hump and headof Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out ofthe water, not very far to leeward; whereupon,the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had

been instantly lowered in chase. After a keensail before the wind, this fourth boat—the swif-test keeled of all—seemed to have succeeded infastening—at least, as well as the man at themast-head could tell anything about it. In thedistance he saw the diminished dotted boat;and then a swift gleam of bubbling white wa-ter; and after that nothing more; whence it wasconcluded that the stricken whale must haveindefinitely run away with his pursuers, asoften happens. There was some apprehension,but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signalswere placed in the rigging; darkness came on;and forced to pick up her three far to wind-ward boats—ere going in quest of the fourthone in the precisely opposite direction—theship had not only been necessitated to leavethat boat to its fate till near midnight, but, forthe time, to increase her distance from it. Butthe rest of her crew being at last safe aboard,she crowded all sail—stunsail on stunsail—after the missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-

pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft onthe look-out. But though when she had thussailed a sufficient distance to gain the presu-med place of the absent ones when last seen;though she then paused to lower her spare bo-ats to pull all around her; and not finding anyt-hing, had again dashed on; again paused, andlowered her boats; and though she had thuscontinued doing till daylight; yet not the leastglimpse of the missing keel had been seen.

The story told, the stranger Captain immediate-ly went on to reveal his object in boarding thePequod. He desired that ship to unite with hisown in the search; by sailing over the sea somefour or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and sosweeping a double horizon, as it were.

"I will wager something now," whisperedStubb to Flask, "that some one in that missingboat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap,his watch—he's so cursed anxious to get itback. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships

cruising after one missing whale-boat in theheight of the whaling season? See, Flask, onlysee how pale he looks—pale in the very buttonsof his eyes—look—it wasn't the coat—it musthave been the—"

"My boy, my own boy is among them. ForGod's sake—I beg, I conjure"—here exclaimedthe stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far hadbut icily received his petition. "For eight-and-forty hours let me charter your ship—I willgladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—ifthere be no other way—for eight-and-fortyhours only—only that—you must, oh, youmust, and you SHALL do this thing."

"His son!" cried Stubb, "oh, it's his son he's lost!I take back the coat and watch—what saysAhab? We must save that boy."

"He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night,"said the old Manx sailor standing behind them;"I heard; all of ye heard their spirits."

Now, as it shortly turned out, what made thisincident of the Rachel's the more melancholy,was the circumstance, that not only was one ofthe Captain's sons among the number of themissing boat's crew; but among the number ofthe other boat's crews, at the same time, but onthe other hand, separated from the ship duringthe dark vicissitudes of the chase, there hadbeen still another son; as that for a time, thewretched father was plunged to the bottom ofthe cruellest perplexity; which was only solvedfor him by his chief mate's instinctively adop-ting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship insuch emergencies, that is, when placed betweenjeopardized but divided boats, always to pickup the majority first. But the captain, for someunknown constitutional reason, had refrainedfrom mentioning all this, and not till forced to itby Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yetmissing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old,whose father with the earnest but unmisgivinghardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love,

had thus early sought to initiate him in the pe-rils and wonders of a vocation almost imme-morially the destiny of all his race. Nor does itunfrequently occur, that Nantucket captainswill send a son of such tender age away fromthem, for a protracted three or four years' vo-yage in some other ship than their own; so thattheir first knowledge of a whaleman's careershall be unenervated by any chance display of afather's natural but untimely partiality, or un-due apprehensiveness and concern.

Meantime, now the stranger was still besee-ching his poor boon of Ahab; and Ahab stillstood like an anvil, receiving every shock, butwithout the least quivering of his own.

"I will not go," said the stranger, "till you sayaye to me. Do to me as you would have me doto you in the like case. For YOU too have a boy,Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nes-tling safely at home now—a child of your old

age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run, run,men, now, and stand by to square in the yards."

"Avast," cried Ahab—"touch not a rope-yarn";then in a voice that prolongingly moulded eve-ry word—"Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye.God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself,but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binna-cle watch, and in three minutes from this pre-sent instant warn off all strangers: then braceforward again, and let the ship sail as before."

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he des-cended into his cabin, leaving the strange cap-tain transfixed at this unconditional and utterrejection of his so earnest suit. But starting fromhis enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried tothe side; more fell than stepped into his boat,and returned to his ship.

Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; andlong as the strange vessel was in view, she was

seen to yaw hither and thither at every darkspot, however small, on the sea. This way andthat her yards were swung round; starboardand larboard, she continued to tack; now shebeat against a head sea; and again it pushed herbefore it; while all the while, her masts andyards were thickly clustered with men, as threetall cherry trees, when the boys are cherryingamong the boughs.

But by her still halting course and winding,woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship thatso wept with spray, still remained withoutcomfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her chil-dren, because they were not.

CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.

(AHAB MOVING TO GO ON DECK; PIPCATCHES HIM BY THE HAND TO FO-LLOW.)

"Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahabnow. The hour is coming when Ahab wouldnot scare thee from him, yet would not havethee by him. There is that in thee, poor lad,which I feel too curing to my malady. Like cu-res like; and for this hunt, my malady becomesmy most desired health. Do thou abide belowhere, where they shall serve thee, as if thouwert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here inmy own screwed chair; another screw to it,thou must be."

"No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; doye but use poor me for your one lost leg; onlytread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain apart of ye."

"Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me abigot in the fadeless fidelity of man!—and ablack! and crazy!—but methinks like-cures-likeapplies to him too; he grows so sane again."

"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desertpoor little Pip, whose drowned bones nowshow white, for all the blackness of his livingskin. But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb didhim. Sir, I must go with ye."

"If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab'spurpose keels up in him. I tell thee no; it cannotbe."

"Oh good master, master, master!

"Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care,for Ahab too is mad. Listen, and thou wilt oftenhear my ivory foot upon the deck, and stillknow that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thyhand!—Met! True art thou, lad, as the circumfe-rence to its centre. So: God for ever bless thee;

and if it come to that,—God for ever save thee,let what will befall."

(AHAB GOES; PIP STEPS ONE STEP FOR-WARD.)

"Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,—but I'm alone. Now were even poor Pip here Icould endure it, but he's missing. Pip! Pip!Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must beup here; let's try the door. What? neither lock,nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there's no opening it.It must be the spell; he told me to stay here:Aye, and told me this screwed chair was mine.Here, then, I'll seat me, against the transom, inthe ship's full middle, all her keel and her threemasts before me. Here, our old sailors say, intheir black seventy-fours great admirals some-times sit at table, and lord it over rows of cap-tains and lieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets!epaulets! the epaulets all come crowding! Passround the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up,monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when a

black boy's host to white men with gold laceupon their coats!—Monsieurs, have ye seen onePip?—a little negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a whale-boat once;—seen him? No! Well then, fill upagain, captains, and let's drink shame upon allcowards! I name no names. Shame upon them!Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon allcowards.—Hist! above there, I hear ivory—Oh,master! master! I am indeed down-heartedwhen you walk over me. But here I'll stay,though this stern strikes rocks; and they bulgethrough; and oysters come to join me."

CHAPTER 130. The Hat.

And now that at the proper time and place,after so long and wide a preliminary cruise,

Ahab,—all other whaling waters swept—seemed to have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely there; now,that he found himself hard by the very latitudeand longitude where his tormenting woundhad been inflicted; now that a vessel had beenspoken which on the very day preceding hadactually encountered Moby Dick;—and nowthat all his successive meetings with variousships contrastingly concurred to show the de-moniac indifference with which the white wha-le tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinnedagainst; now it was that there lurked a somet-hing in the old man's eyes, which it was hardlysufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unset-ting polar star, which through the livelong,arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing,steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose nowfixedly gleamed down upon the constant mid-night of the gloomy crew. It domineered abovethem so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgi-vings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their

souls, and not sprout forth a single spear orleaf.

In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor,forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no morestrove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more stroveto check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope andfear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powde-red, for the time, in the clamped mortar ofAhab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumblymoved about the deck, ever conscious that theold man's despot eye was on them.

But did you deeply scan him in his more secretconfidential hours; when he thought no glancebut one was on him; then you would have seenthat even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's,the inscrutable Parsee's glance awed his; orsomehow, at least, in some wild way, at timesaffected it. Such an added, gliding strangenessbegan to invest the thin Fedallah now; suchceaseless shudderings shook him; that the menlooked dubious at him; half uncertain, as it

seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal subs-tance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon thedeck by some unseen being's body. And thatshadow was always hovering there. For not bynight, even, had Fedallah ever certainly beenknown to slumber, or go below. He wouldstand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; hiswan but wondrous eyes did plainly say—Wetwo watchmen never rest.

Nor, at any time, by night or day could the ma-riners now step upon the deck, unless Ahabwas before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks between twoundeviating limits,—the main-mast and themizen; or else they saw him standing in thecabin-scuttle,—his living foot advanced uponthe deck, as if to step; his hat slouched heavilyover his eyes; so that however motionless hestood, however the days and nights were ad-ded on, that he had not swung in his hammock;yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they

could never tell unerringly whether, for all this,his eyes were really closed at times; or whetherhe was still intently scanning them; no matter,though he stood so in the scuttle for a wholehour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads of dew upon that sto-ne-carved coat and hat. The clothes that thenight had wet, the next day's sunshine driedupon him; and so, day after day, and night afternight; he went no more beneath the planks;whatever he wanted from the cabin that thinghe sent for.

He ate in the same open air; that is, his twoonly meals,—breakfast and dinner: supper henever touched; nor reaped his beard; whichdarkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots oftrees blown over, which still grow idly on atnaked base, though perished in the upper ver-dure. But though his whole life was now beco-me one watch on deck; and though the Parsee'smystic watch was without intermission as his

own; yet these two never seemed to speak—one man to the other—unless at long intervalssome passing unmomentous matter made itnecessary. Though such a potent spell seemedsecretly to join the twain; openly, and to theawe-struck crew, they seemed pole-like asun-der. If by day they chanced to speak one word;by night, dumb men were both, so far as con-cerned the slightest verbal interchange. At ti-mes, for longest hours, without a single hail,they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab inhis scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast; but stillfixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the Par-see Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahabthe Parsee his abandoned substance.

And yet, somehow, did Ahab—in his own pro-per self, as daily, hourly, and every instant,commandingly revealed to his subordinates,—Ahab seemed an independent lord; the Parseebut his slave. Still again both seemed yokedtogether, and an unseen tyrant driving them;

the lean shade siding the solid rib. For be thisParsee what he may, all rib and keel was solidAhab.

At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, hisiron voice was heard from aft,—"Man the mast-heads!"—and all through the day, till after sun-set and after twilight, the same voice everyhour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, washeard—"What d'ye see?—sharp! sharp!"

But when three or four days had slided by, af-ter meeting the children-seeking Rachel; and nospout had yet been seen; the monomaniac oldman seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; atleast, of nearly all except the Pagan harpoone-ers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether Stubband Flask might not willingly overlook thesight he sought. But if these suspicions werereally his, he sagaciously refrained from verba-lly expressing them, however his actions mightseem to hint them.

"I will have the first sight of the whale my-self,"—he said. "Aye! Ahab must have the dou-bloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nestof basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft,with a single sheaved block, to secure to themain-mast head, he received the two ends ofthe downward-reeved rope; and attaching oneto his basket prepared a pin for the other end,in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, withthat end yet in his hand and standing besidethe pin, he looked round upon his crew, swee-ping from one to the other; pausing his glancelong upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; butshunning Fedallah; and then settling his firmrelying eye upon the chief mate, said,—"Takethe rope, sir—I give it into thy hands, Star-buck." Then arranging his person in the basket,he gave the word for them to hoist him to hisperch, Starbuck being the one who secured therope at last; and afterwards stood near it. Andthus, with one hand clinging round the royalmast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for mi-

les and miles,—ahead, astern, this side, andthat,—within the wide expanded circle com-manded at so great a height.

When in working with his hands at some loftyalmost isolated place in the rigging, whichchances to afford no foothold, the sailor at seais hoisted up to that spot, and sustained thereby the rope; under these circumstances, its fas-tened end on deck is always given in strictcharge to some one man who has the specialwatch of it. Because in such a wilderness ofrunning rigging, whose various different rela-tions aloft cannot always be infallibly discernedby what is seen of them at the deck; and whenthe deck-ends of these ropes are being everyfew minutes cast down from the fastenings, itwould be but a natural fatality, if, unprovidedwith a constant watchman, the hoisted sailorshould by some carelessness of the crew be castadrift and fall all swooping to the sea. SoAhab's proceedings in this matter were not

unusual; the only strange thing about themseemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the oneonly man who had ever ventured to opposehim with anything in the slightest degree ap-proaching to decision—one of those too, whosefaithfulness on the look-out he had seemed todoubt somewhat;—it was strange, that this wasthe very man he should select for his watch-man; freely giving his whole life into such anotherwise distrusted person's hands.

Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; erehe had been there ten minutes; one of thosered-billed savage sea-hawks which so often flyincommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these latitudes; one ofthese birds came wheeling and screaminground his head in a maze of untrackably swiftcirclings. Then it darted a thousand feetstraight up into the air; then spiralized down-wards, and went eddying again round hishead.

But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and dis-tant horizon, Ahab seemed not to mark thiswild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else havemarked it much, it being no uncommon cir-cumstance; only now almost the least heedfuleye seemed to see some sort of cunning mea-ning in almost every sight.

"Your hat, your hat, sir!" suddenly cried theSicilian seaman, who being posted at the mi-zen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab,though somewhat lower than his level, andwith a deep gulf of air dividing them.

But already the sable wing was before the oldman's eyes; the long hooked bill at his head:with a scream, the black hawk darted awaywith his prize.

An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, re-moving his cap to replace it, and thereuponTanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin wouldbe king of Rome. But only by the replacing of

the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab'shat was never restored; the wild hawk flew onand on with it; far in advance of the prow: andat last disappeared; while from the point of thatdisappearance, a minute black spot was dimlydiscerned, falling from that vast height into thesea.

CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The De-light.

The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling wavesand days went by; the life-buoy-coffin still ligh-tly swung; and another ship, most miserablymisnamed the Delight, was descried. As shedrew nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broadbeams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of

eight or nine feet; serving to carry the spare,unrigged, or disabled boats.

Upon the stranger's shears were beheld theshattered, white ribs, and some few splinteredplanks, of what had once been a whale-boat;but you now saw through this wreck, as plainlyas you see through the peeled, half-unhinged,and bleaching skeleton of a horse.

"Hast seen the White Whale?"

"Look!" replied the hollow-cheeked captainfrom his taffrail; and with his trumpet he poin-ted to the wreck.

"Hast killed him?"

"The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will dothat," answered the other, sadly glancing upona rounded hammock on the deck, whose gat-hered sides some noiseless sailors were busy insewing together.

"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levellediron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclai-ming—"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in thishand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, andtempered by lightning are these barbs; and Iswear to temper them triply in that hot placebehind the fin, where the White Whale mostfeels his accursed life!"

"Then God keep thee, old man—see'st thouthat"—pointing to the hammock—"I bury butone of five stout men, who were alive only yes-terday; but were dead ere night. Only THATone I bury; the rest were buried before theydied; you sail upon their tomb." Then turningto his crew—"Are ye ready there? place theplank then on the rail, and lift the body; so,then—Oh! God"—advancing towards thehammock with uplifted hands—"may the resu-rrection and the life—"

"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab likelightning to his men.

But the suddenly started Pequod was not quickenough to escape the sound of the splash thatthe corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not soquick, indeed, but that some of the flying bub-bles might have sprinkled her hull with theirghostly baptism.

As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight,the strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod'sstern came into conspicuous relief.

"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a fore-boding voice in her wake. "In vain, oh, yestrangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn usyour taffrail to show us your coffin!"

CHAPTER 132. The Symphony.

It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments ofair and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air wastransparently pure and soft, with a woman'slook, and the robust and man-like sea heavedwith long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson'schest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; thesewere the gentle thoughts of the feminine air;but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bot-tomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong,troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculi-ne sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the con-trast was only in shades and shadows without;

those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as itwere, that distinguished them.

Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun see-med giving this gentle air to this bold and ro-lling sea; even as bride to groom. And at thegirdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremu-lous motion—most seen here at the Equator—denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the lovingalarms, with which the poor bride gave herbosom away.

Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted withwrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; hiseyes glowing like coals, that still glow in theashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth inthe clearness of the morn; lifting his splinteredhelmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead ofheaven.

Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of theazure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic allround us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how

oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiledwoe! But so have I seen little Miriam andMartha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gam-bol around their old sire; sporting with the cir-cle of singed locks which grew on the marge ofthat burnt-out crater of his brain.

Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahableaned over the side and watched how his sha-dow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, themore and the more that he strove to pierce theprofundity. But the lovely aromas in that en-chanted air did at last seem to dispel, for amoment, the cankerous thing in his soul. Thatglad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at laststroke and caress him; the step-mother world,so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affec-tionate arms round his stubborn neck, and didseem to joyously sob over him, as if over one,that however wilful and erring, she could yetfind it in her heart to save and to bless. Frombeneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear

into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain suchwealth as that one wee drop.

Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how heheavily leaned over the side; and he seemed tohear in his own true heart the measureless sob-bing that stole out of the centre of the serenityaround. Careful not to touch him, or be noticedby him, he yet drew near to him, and stoodthere.

Ahab turned.

"Starbuck!"

"Sir."

"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and amild looking sky. On such a day—very muchsuch a sweetness as this—I struck my first wha-le—a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty—forty—forty years ago!—ago! Forty years ofcontinual whaling! forty years of privation, and

peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitilesssea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the pea-ceful land, for forty years to make war on thehorrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, outof those forty years I have not spent three as-hore. When I think of this life I have led; thedesolation of solitude it has been; the masoned,walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness,which admits but small entrance to any sym-pathy from the green country without—oh,weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery ofsolitary command!—when I think of all this;only half-suspected, not so keenly known to mebefore—and how for forty years I have fedupon dry salted fare—fit emblem of the drynourishment of my soil!—when the poorestlandsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand,and broken the world's fresh bread to mymouldy crusts—away, whole oceans away,from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty,and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leavingbut one dent in my marriage pillow—wife?

wife?—rather a widow with her husband alive!Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I marriedher, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the fren-zy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow,with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahabhas furiously, foamingly chased his prey—more a demon than a man!—aye, aye! what aforty years' fool—fool—old fool, has old Ahabbeen! Why this strife of the chase? why weary,and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, andthe lance? how the richer or better is Ahabnow? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, thatwith this weary load I bear, one poor legshould have been snatched from under me?Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me,that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did nevergrow but from out some ashes! But do I lookvery old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel de-adly faint, bowed, and humped, as though Iwere Adam, staggering beneath the piled cen-turies since Paradise. God! God! God!—crackmy heart!—stave my brain!—mockery! mocke-

ry! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have Ilived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feelthus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me,Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it isbetter than to gaze into sea or sky; better thanto gaze upon God. By the green land; by thebright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass,man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye.No, no; stay on board, on board!—lower notwhen I do; when branded Ahab gives chase toMoby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No,no! not with the far away home I see in thateye!"

"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul!grand old heart, after all! why should any onegive chase to that hated fish! Away with me! letus fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wifeand child, too, are Starbuck's—wife and childof his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth;even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thyloving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us

away!—this instant let me alter the course!How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain,would we bowl on our way to see old Nantuc-ket again! I think, sir, they have some such mildblue days, even as this, in Nantucket."

"They have, they have. I have seen them—somesummer days in the morning. About this ti-me—yes, it is his noon nap now—the boy viva-ciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mothertells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I amabroad upon the deep, but will yet come backto dance him again."

"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promisedthat my boy, every morning, should be carriedto the hill to catch the first glimpse of his fat-her's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we headfor Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study outthe course, and let us away! See, see! the boy'sface from the window! the boy's hand on thehill!"

But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blightedfruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cinderedapple to the soil.

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, une-arthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lordand master, and cruel, remorseless emperorcommands me; that against all natural lovingsand longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding,and jamming myself on all the time; recklesslymaking me ready to do what in my own pro-per, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare?Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that liftsthis arm? But if the great sun move not of him-self; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor onesingle star can revolve, but by some invisiblepower; how then can this one small heart beat;this one small brain think thoughts; unless Goddoes that beating, does that thinking, does thatliving, and not I. By heaven, man, we are tur-ned round and round in this world, like yonderwindlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the

time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsoundedsea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it intohim to chase and fang that flying-fish? Wheredo murderers go, man! Who's to doom, whenthe judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it isa mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; andthe air smells now, as if it blew from a far-awaymeadow; they have been making hay somew-here under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck,and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how wemay, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep?Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year'sscythes flung down, and left in the half-cutswaths—Starbuck!"

But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, theMate had stolen away.

Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the ot-her side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyesin the water there. Fedallah was motionlesslyleaning over the same rail.

CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day.

That night, in the mid-watch, when the oldman—as his wont at intervals—stepped forthfrom the scuttle in which he leaned, and wentto his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out hisface fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a saga-cious ship's dog will, in drawing nigh to somebarbarous isle. He declared that a whale mustbe near. Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes toa great distance given forth by the living spermwhale, was palpable to all the watch; nor wasany mariner surprised when, after inspectingthe compass, and then the dog-vane, and thenascertaining the precise bearing of the odor asnearly as possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the

ship's course to be slightly altered, and the sailto be shortened.

The acute policy dictating these movementswas sufficiently vindicated at daybreak, by thesight of a long sleek on the sea directly andlengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resem-bling in the pleated watery wrinkles borderingit, the polished metallic-like marks of someswift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapidstream.

"Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!"

Thundering with the butts of three clubbedhandspikes on the forecastle deck, Daggoo rou-sed the sleepers with such judgment claps thatthey seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so ins-tantaneously did they appear with their clothesin their hands.

"What d'ye see?" cried Ahab, flattening his faceto the sky.

"Nothing, nothing sir!" was the sound hailingdown in reply.

"T'gallant sails!—stunsails! alow and aloft, andon both sides!"

All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line,reserved for swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they werehoisting him thither, when, while but twothirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahe-ad through the horizontal vacancy between themain-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised agull-like cry in the air. "There she blows!—thereshe blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is MobyDick!"

Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneouslytaken up by the three look-outs, the men ondeck rushed to the rigging to behold the fa-mous whale they had so long been pursuing.Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feetabove the other look-outs, Tashtego standing

just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's head was almost on alevel with Ahab's heel. From this height thewhale was now seen some mile or so ahead, atevery roll of the sea revealing his high spar-kling hump, and regularly jetting his silentspout into the air. To the credulous mariners itseemed the same silent spout they had so longago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and IndianOceans.

"And did none of ye see it before?" cried Ahab,hailing the perched men all around him.

"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, thatCaptain Ahab did, and I cried out," said Tash-tego.

"Not the same instant; not the same—no, thedoubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloonfor me. I only; none of ye could have raised theWhite Whale first. There she blows!—there sheblows!—there she blows! There again!—there

again!" he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, met-hodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongingsof the whale's visible jets. "He's going to sound!In stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand bythree boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay onboard, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luffa point! So; steady, man, steady! There go flu-kes! No, no; only black water! All ready theboats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr.Starbuck; lower, lower,—quick, quicker!" andhe slid through the air to the deck.

"He is heading straight to leeward, sir," criedStubb, "right away from us; cannot have seenthe ship yet."

"Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Harddown the helm!—brace up! Shiver her!—shiverher!—So; well that! Boats, boats!"

Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped;all the boat-sails set—all the paddles plying;with rippling swiftness, shooting to leeward;

and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hide-ous motion gnawed his mouth.

Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prowssped through the sea; but only slowly they nea-red the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grewstill more smooth; seemed drawing a carpetover its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, soserenely it spread. At length the breathless hun-ter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspectingprey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinc-tly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolatedthing, and continually set in a revolving ring offinest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast,involved wrinkles of the slightly projectinghead beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Tur-kish-rugged waters, went the glistening whiteshadow from his broad, milky forehead, a mu-sical rippling playfully accompanying the sha-de; and behind, the blue waters interchangea-bly flowed over into the moving valley of his

steady wake; and on either hand bright bubblesarose and danced by his side. But these werebroken again by the light toes of hundreds ofgay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternatewith their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy,the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance pro-jected from the white whale's back; and at in-tervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hove-ring, and to and fro skimming like a canopyover the fish, silently perched and rocked onthis pole, the long tail feathers streaming likepennons.

A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness ofrepose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale.Not the white bull Jupiter swimming awaywith ravished Europa clinging to his gracefulhorns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intentupon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleet-ness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower inCrete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme!

did surpass the glorified White Whale as he sodivinely swam.

On each soft side—coincident with the partedswell, that but once leaving him, then flowed sowide away—on each bright side, the whaleshed off enticings. No wonder there had beensome among the hunters who namelesslytransported and allured by all this serenity, hadventured to assail it; but had fatally found thatquietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yetcalm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on,to all who for the first time eye thee, no matterhow many in that same way thou may'st havebejuggled and destroyed before.

And thus, through the serene tranquillities ofthe tropical sea, among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding raptu-re, Moby Dick moved on, still withholdingfrom sight the full terrors of his submergedtrunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideous-ness of his jaw. But soon the fore part of him

slowly rose from the water; for an instant hiswhole marbleized body formed a high arch,like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warninglywaving his bannered flukes in the air, thegrand god revealed himself, sounded, andwent out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dip-ping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longinglylingered over the agitated pool that he left.

With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheetsof their sails adrift, the three boats now stillyfloated, awaiting Moby Dick's reappearance.

"An hour," said Ahab, standing rooted in hisboat's stern; and he gazed beyond the whale'splace, towards the dim blue spaces and widewooing vacancies to leeward. It was only aninstant; for again his eyes seemed whirlinground in his head as he swept the watery circle.The breeze now freshened; the sea began toswell.

"The birds!—the birds!" cried Tashtego.

In long Indian file, as when herons take wing,the white birds were now all flying towardsAhab's boat; and when within a few yards be-gan fluttering over the water there, wheelinground and round, with joyous, expectant cries.Their vision was keener than man's; Ahabcould discover no sign in the sea. But suddenlyas he peered down and down into its depths,he profoundly saw a white living spot no big-ger than a white weasel, with wonderful celeri-ty uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till itturned, and then there were plainly revealedtwo long crooked rows of white, glistening te-eth, floating up from the undiscoverable bot-tom. It was Moby Dick's open mouth and scro-lled jaw; his vast, shadowed bulk still halfblending with the blue of the sea. The glitteringmouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb; and giving one sidelongsweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled thecraft aside from this tremendous apparition.Then, calling upon Fedallah to change places

with him, went forward to the bows, and sei-zing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew tograsp their oars and stand by to stern.

Now, by reason of this timely spinning roundthe boat upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation,was made to face the whale's head while yetunder water. But as if perceiving this strata-gem, Moby Dick, with that malicious intelli-gence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplantedhimself, as it were, in an instant, shooting hispleated head lengthwise beneath the boat.

Through and through; through every plankand each rib, it thrilled for an instant, the whaleobliquely lying on his back, in the manner of abiting shark, slowly and feelingly taking itsbows full within his mouth, so that the long,narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up intothe open air, and one of the teeth caught in arow-lock. The bluish pearl-white of the insideof the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's head,and reached higher than that. In this attitude

the White Whale now shook the slight cedar asa mildly cruel cat her mouse. With unastonis-hed eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms;but the tiger-yellow crew were tumbling overeach other's heads to gain the uttermost stern.

And now, while both elastic gunwales werespringing in and out, as the whale dallied withthe doomed craft in this devilish way; and fromhis body being submerged beneath the boat, hecould not be darted at from the bows, for thebows were almost inside of him, as it were; andwhile the other boats involuntarily paused, asbefore a quick crisis impossible to withstand,then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furiouswith this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, whichplaced him all alive and helpless in the veryjaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seizedthe long bone with his naked hands, and wildlystrove to wrench it from its gripe. As now hethus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him;the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snap-

ped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears,sliding further aft, bit the craft completely intwain, and locked themselves fast again in thesea, midway between the two floating wrecks.These floated aside, the broken ends drooping,the crew at the stern-wreck clinging to thegunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oarsto lash them across.

At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yetsnapped, Ahab, the first to perceive the whale'sintent, by the crafty upraising of his head, amovement that loosed his hold for the time; atthat moment his hand had made one final ef-fort to push the boat out of the bite. But onlyslipping further into the whale's mouth, andtilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat hadshaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him outof it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fellflat-faced upon the sea.

Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, MobyDick now lay at a little distance, vertically

thrusting his oblong white head up and downin the billows; and at the same time slowly re-volving his whole spindled body; so that whenhis vast wrinkled forehead rose—some twentyor more feet out of the water—the now risingswells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlin-gly broke against it; vindictively tossing theirshivered spray still higher into the air.* So, in agale, the but half baffled Channel billows onlyrecoil from the base of the Eddystone, triump-hantly to overleap its summit with their scud.

*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. Itreceives its designation (pitchpoling) from itsbeing likened to that preliminary up-and-downpoise of the whale-lance, in the exercise calledpitchpoling, previously described. By this mo-tion the whale must best and most comprehen-sively view whatever objects may be encirclinghim.

But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Mo-by Dick swam swiftly round and round the

wrecked crew; sideways churning the water inhis vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up tostill another and more deadly assault. The sightof the splintered boat seemed to madden him,as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast befo-re Antiochus's elephants in the book of Macca-bees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in thefoam of the whale's insolent tail, and too muchof a cripple to swim,—though he could stillkeep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirl-pool as that; helpless Ahab's head was seen,like a tossed bubble which the least chanceshock might burst. From the boat's fragmentarystern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyedhim; the clinging crew, at the other driftingend, could not succor him; more than enoughwas it for them to look to themselves. For sorevolvingly appalling was the White Whale'saspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemedhorizontally swooping upon them. And thoughthe other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard

by; still they dared not pull into the eddy tostrike, lest that should be the signal for the ins-tant destruction of the jeopardized castaways,Ahab and all; nor in that case could they them-selves hope to escape. With straining eyes,then, they remained on the outer edge of thedireful zone, whose centre had now become theold man's head.

Meantime, from the beginning all this had beendescried from the ship's mast heads; and squa-ring her yards, she had borne down upon thescene; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in thewater hailed her!—"Sail on the"—but that mo-ment a breaking sea dashed on him from MobyDick, and whelmed him for the time. Butstruggling out of it again, and chancing to riseon a towering crest, he shouted,—"Sail on thewhale!—Drive him off!"

The Pequod's prows were pointed; and brea-king up the charmed circle, she effectually par-

ted the white whale from his victim. As he su-llenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue.

Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot,blinded eyes, the white brine caking in hiswrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodilystrength did crack, and helplessly he yielded tohis body's doom: for a time, lying all crushed inthe bottom of Stubb's boat, like one troddenunder foot of herds of elephants. Far inland,nameless wails came from him, as desolatesounds from out ravines.

But this intensity of his physical prostration didbut so much the more abbreviate it. In an ins-tant's compass, great hearts sometimes conden-se to one deep pang, the sum total of those sha-llow pains kindly diffused through feeblermen's whole lives. And so, such hearts, thoughsummary in each one suffering; still, if the godsdecree it, in their life-time aggregate a wholeage of woe, wholly made up of instantaneousintensities; for even in their pointless centres,

those noble natures contain the entire circumfe-rences of inferior souls.

"The harpoon," said Ahab, half way rising, anddraggingly leaning on one bended arm—"is itsafe?"

"Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it," saidStubb, showing it.

"Lay it before me;—any missing men?"

"One, two, three, four, five;—there were fiveoars, sir, and here are five men."

"That's good.—Help me, man; I wish to stand.So, so, I see him! there! there! going to leewardstill; what a leaping spout!—Hands off fromme! The eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bonesagain! Set the sail; out oars; the helm!"

It is often the case that when a boat is stove, itscrew, being picked up by another boat, help towork that second boat; and the chase is thus

continued with what is called double-bankedoars. It was thus now. But the added power ofthe boat did not equal the added power of thewhale, for he seemed to have treble-banked hisevery fin; swimming with a velocity whichplainly showed, that if now, under these cir-cumstances, pushed on, the chase would provean indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one;nor could any crew endure for so long a period,such an unintermitted, intense straining at theoar; a thing barely tolerable only in some onebrief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it so-metimes happens, offered the most promisingintermediate means of overtaking the chase.Accordingly, the boats now made for her, andwere soon swayed up to their cranes—the twoparts of the wrecked boat having been pre-viously secured by her—and then hoisting eve-rything to her side, and stacking her canvashigh up, and sideways outstretching it withstun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of analbatross; the Pequod bore down in the leeward

wake of Moby-Dick. At the well known, met-hodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout wasregularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be reported as justgone down, Ahab would take the time, andthen pacing the deck, binnacle-watch in hand,so soon as the last second of the allotted hourexpired, his voice was heard.—"Whose is thedoubloon now? D'ye see him?" and if the replywas, No, sir! straightway he commanded themto lift him to his perch. In this way the day wo-re on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless; anon,unrestingly pacing the planks.

As he was thus walking, uttering no sound,except to hail the men aloft, or to bid them hoista sail still higher, or to spread one to a stillgreater breadth—thus to and fro pacing, bene-ath his slouched hat, at every turn he passedhis own wrecked boat, which had been drop-ped upon the quarter-deck, and lay there rever-sed; broken bow to shattered stern. At last he

paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh troops of clouds will some-times sail across, so over the old man's facethere now stole some such added gloom as this.

Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending,not vainly, though, to evince his own unabatedfortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place inhis Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeingthe wreck exclaimed—"The thistle the ass refu-sed; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha!ha!"

"What soulless thing is this that laughs before awreck? Man, man! did I not know thee brave asfearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swearthou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh shouldbe heard before a wreck."

"Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis asolemn sight; an omen, and an ill one."

"Omen? omen?—the dictionary! If the godsthink to speak outright to man, they willhonourably speak outright; not shake theirheads, and give an old wives' darkling hint.—Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles of onething; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb isStarbuck; and ye two are all mankind; andAhab stands alone among the millions of thepeopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors!Cold, cold—I shiver!—How now? Aloft there!D'ye see him? Sing out for every spout, thoughhe spout ten times a second!"

The day was nearly done; only the hem of hisgolden robe was rustling. Soon, it was almostdark, but the look-out men still remained unset.

"Can't see the spout now, sir;—too dark"—crieda voice from the air.

"How heading when last seen?"

"As before, sir,—straight to leeward."

"Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night.Down royals and top-gallant stun-sails, Mr.Starbuck. We must not run over him beforemorning; he's making a passage now, and mayheave-to a while. Helm there! keep her full be-fore the wind!—Aloft! come down!—Mr. Stubb,send a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, andsee it manned till morning."—Then advancingtowards the doubloon in the main-mast—"Men,this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let itabide here till the White Whale is dead; andthen, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon theday he shall be killed, this gold is that man's;and if on that day I shall again raise him, then,ten times its sum shall be divided among all ofye! Away now!—the deck is thine, sir!"

And so saying, he placed himself half way wit-hin the scuttle, and slouching his hat, stoodthere till dawn, except when at intervals rou-sing himself to see how the night wore on.

CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day.

At day-break, the three mast-heads were punc-tually manned afresh.

"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing alittle space for the light to spread.

"See nothing, sir."

"Turn up all hands and make sail! he travelsfaster than I thought for;—the top-gallantsails!—aye, they should have been kept on herall night. But no matter—'tis but resting for therush."

Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit ofone particular whale, continued through day

into night, and through night into day, is athing by no means unprecedented in the Southsea fishery. For such is the wonderful skill,prescience of experience, and invincible confi-dence acquired by some great natural geniusesamong the Nantucket commanders; that fromthe simple observation of a whale when lastdescried, they will, under certain given cir-cumstances, pretty accurately foretell both thedirection in which he will continue to swim fora time, while out of sight, as well as his proba-ble rate of progression during that period. And,in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when aboutlosing sight of a coast, whose general trendinghe well knows, and which he desires shortly toreturn to again, but at some further point; likeas this pilot stands by his compass, and takesthe precise bearing of the cape at present visi-ble, in order the more certainly to hit aright theremote, unseen headland, eventually to be visi-ted: so does the fisherman, at his compass, withthe whale; for after being chased, and diligently

marked, through several hours of daylight,then, when night obscures the fish, the creatu-re's future wake through the darkness is almostas established to the sagacious mind of the hun-ter, as the pilot's coast is to him. So that to thishunter's wondrous skill, the proverbial evanes-cence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to alldesired purposes well nigh as reliable as thesteadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviat-han of the modern railway is so familiarlyknown in its every pace, that, with watches intheir hands, men time his rate as doctors that ofa baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up trainor the down train will reach such or such aspot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost,there are occasions when these Nantucketerstime that other Leviathan of the deep, accor-ding to the observed humor of his speed; andsay to themselves, so many hours hence thiswhale will have gone two hundred miles, willhave about reached this or that degree of lati-tude or longitude. But to render this acuteness

at all successful in the end, the wind and thesea must be the whaleman's allies; for of whatpresent avail to the becalmed or windboundmariner is the skill that assures him he is exac-tly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from hisport? Inferable from these statements, are manycollateral subtile matters touching the chase ofwhales.

The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in thesea as when a cannon-ball, missent, becomes aplough-share and turns up the level field.

"By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swiftmotion of the deck creeps up one's legs andtingles at the heart. This ship and I are two bra-ve fellows!—Ha, ha! Some one take me up, andlaunch me, spine-wise, on the sea,—for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gaitthat leaves no dust behind!"

"There she blows—she blows!—she blows!—right ahead!" was now the mast-head cry.

"Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it—ye can'tescape—blow on and split your spout, O wha-le! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow yourtrump—blister your lungs!—Ahab will dam offyour blood, as a miller shuts his watergateupon the stream!"

And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh allthat crew. The frenzies of the chase had by thistime worked them bubblingly up, like old wineworked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebo-dings some of them might have felt before; the-se were not only now kept out of sight throughthe growing awe of Ahab, but they were bro-ken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairiehares that scatter before the bounding bison.The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls;and by the stirring perils of the previous day;the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed,unfearing, blind, reckless way in which theirwild craft went plunging towards its flyingmark; by all these things, their hearts were

bowled along. The wind that made great belliesof their sails, and rushed the vessel on by armsinvisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbolof that unseen agency which so enslaved themto the race.

They were one man, not thirty. For as the oneship that held them all; though it was put to-gether of all contrasting things—oak, and ma-ple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, andhemp—yet all these ran into each other in theone concrete hull, which shot on its way, bothbalanced and directed by the long central keel;even so, all the individualities of the crew, thisman's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guilti-ness, all varieties were welded into oneness,and were all directed to that fatal goal whichAhab their one lord and keel did point to.

The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the topsof tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted witharms and legs. Clinging to a spar with onehand, some reached forth the other with impa-

tient wavings; others, shading their eyes fromthe vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rockingyards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals,ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they stillstrove through that infinite blueness to seek outthe thing that might destroy them!

"Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?"cried Ahab, when, after the lapse of some mi-nutes since the first cry, no more had beenheard. "Sway me up, men; ye have been decei-ved; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet that way,and then disappears."

It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, themen had mistaken some other thing for thewhale-spout, as the event itself soon proved;for hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardlywas the rope belayed to its pin on deck, whenhe struck the key-note to an orchestra, that ma-de the air vibrate as with the combined dis-charges of rifles. The triumphant halloo of thir-ty buckskin lungs was heard, as—much nearer

to the ship than the place of the imaginary jet,less than a mile ahead—Moby Dick bodilyburst into view! For not by any calm and indo-lent spoutings; not by the peaceable gush ofthat mystic fountain in his head, did the WhiteWhale now reveal his vicinity; but by the farmore wondrous phenomenon of breaching.Rising with his utmost velocity from the furt-hest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms hisentire bulk into the pure element of air, andpiling up a mountain of dazzling foam, showshis place to the distance of seven miles and mo-re. In those moments, the torn, enraged waveshe shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases,this breaching is his act of defiance.

"There she breaches! there she breaches!" wasthe cry, as in his immeasurable bravadoes theWhite Whale tossed himself salmon-like toHeaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain ofthe sea, and relieved against the still bluer mar-gin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the

moment, intolerably glittered and glared like aglacier; and stood there gradually fading andfading away from its first sparkling intensity, tothe dim mistiness of an advancing shower in avale.

"Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!"cried Ahab, "thy hour and thy harpoon are athand!—Down! down all of ye, but one man atthe fore. The boats!—stand by!"

Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of theshrouds, the men, like shooting stars, slid to thedeck, by the isolated backstays and halyards;while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly wasdropped from his perch.

"Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had rea-ched his boat—a spare one, rigged the afterno-on previous. "Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine—keep away from the boats, but keep near them.Lower, all!"

As if to strike a quick terror into them, by thistime being the first assailant himself, MobyDick had turned, and was now coming for thethree crews. Ahab's boat was central; and chee-ring his men, he told them he would take thewhale head-and-head,—that is, pull straight upto his forehead,—a not uncommon thing; forwhen within a certain limit, such a course ex-cludes the coming onset from the whale's side-long vision. But ere that close limit was gained,and while yet all three boats were plain as theship's three masts to his eye; the White Whalechurning himself into furious speed, almost inan instant as it were, rushing among the boatswith open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered ap-palling battle on every side; and heedless of theirons darted at him from every boat, seemedonly intent on annihilating each separate plankof which those boats were made. But skilfullymanoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like trainedchargers in the field; the boats for a while elu-ded him; though, at times, but by a plank's bre-

adth; while all the time, Ahab's unearthly slo-gan tore every other cry but his to shreds.

But at last in his untraceable evolutions, theWhite Whale so crossed and recrossed, and in athousand ways entangled the slack of the threelines now fast to him, that they foreshortened,and, of themselves, warped the devoted boatstowards the planted irons in him; though nowfor a moment the whale drew aside a little, as ifto rally for a more tremendous charge. Seizingthat opportunity, Ahab first paid out more line:and then was rapidly hauling and jerking inupon it again—hoping that way to disencum-ber it of some snarls—when lo!—a sight moresavage than the embattled teeth of sharks!

Caught and twisted—corkscrewed in the mazesof the line, loose harpoons and lances, with alltheir bristling barbs and points, came flashingand dripping up to the chocks in the bows ofAhab's boat. Only one thing could be done.Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached

within—through—and then, without—the raysof steel; dragged in the line beyond, passed it,inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sun-dering the rope near the chocks—dropped theintercepted fagot of steel into the sea; and wasall fast again. That instant, the White Whalemade a sudden rush among the remaining tan-gles of the other lines; by so doing, irresistiblydragged the more involved boats of Stubb andFlask towards his flukes; dashed them togetherlike two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach,and then, diving down into the sea, disappea-red in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a spa-ce, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks dan-ced round and round, like the grated nutmeg ina swiftly stirred bowl of punch.

While the two crews were yet circling in thewaters, reaching out after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, whileaslope little Flask bobbed up and down like anempty vial, twitching his legs upwards to esca-

pe the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb waslustily singing out for some one to ladle himup; and while the old man's line—now par-ting—admitted of his pulling into the creamypool to rescue whom he could;—in that wildsimultaneousness of a thousand concreted pe-rils,—Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemeddrawn up towards Heaven by invisible wi-res,—as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularlyfrom the sea, the White Whale dashed his bro-ad forehead against its bottom, and sent it, tur-ning over and over, into the air; till it fellagain—gunwale downwards—and Ahab andhis men struggled out from under it, like sealsfrom a sea-side cave.

The first uprising momentum of the whale—modifying its direction as he struck the surfa-ce—involuntarily launched him along it, to alittle distance from the centre of the destructionhe had made; and with his back to it, he nowlay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes

from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bitof plank, the least chip or crumb of the boatstouched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, andcame sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as ifsatisfied that his work for that time was done,he pushed his pleated forehead through theocean, and trailing after him the intertangledlines, continued his leeward way at a traveller'smethodic pace.

As before, the attentive ship having descriedthe whole fight, again came bearing down tothe rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up thefloating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever elsecould be caught at, and safely landed them onher decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists,and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpo-ons and lances; inextricable intricacies of rope;shattered oars and planks; all these were there;but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to havebefallen any one. As with Fedallah the day be-fore, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging

to his boat's broken half, which afforded acomparatively easy float; nor did it so exhausthim as the previous day's mishap.

But when he was helped to the deck, all eyeswere fastened upon him; as instead of standingby himself he still half-hung upon the shoulderof Starbuck, who had thus far been the fore-most to assist him. His ivory leg had beensnapped off, leaving but one short sharp splin-ter.

"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean someti-mes, be the leaner who he will; and would oldAhab had leaned oftener than he has."

"The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpen-ter, now coming up; "I put good work into thatleg."

"But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubbwith true concern.

"Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!—d'yesee it.—But even with a broken bone, old Ahabis untouched; and I account no living bone ofmine one jot more me, than this dead one that'slost. Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, canso much as graze old Ahab in his own properand inaccessible being. Can any lead touchyonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof?—Aloft there! which way?"

"Dead to leeward, sir."

"Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship kee-pers! down the rest of the spare boats and rigthem—Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the bo-at's crews."

"Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks,sir."

"Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now!Accursed fate! that the unconquerable captainin the soul should have such a craven mate!"

"Sir?"

"My body, man, not thee. Give me somethingfor a cane—there, that shivered lance will do.Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet.By heaven it cannot be!—missing?—quick! callthem all."

The old man's hinted thought was true. Uponmustering the company, the Parsee was notthere.

"The Parsee!" cried Stubb—"he must have beencaught in—"

"The black vomit wrench thee!—run all of yeabove, alow, cabin, forecastle—find him—notgone—not gone!"

But quickly they returned to him with the ti-dings that the Parsee was nowhere to be found.

"Aye, sir," said Stubb—"caught among the tan-gles of your line—I thought I saw him draggingunder."

"MY line! MY line? Gone?—gone? What meansthat little word?—What death-knell rings in it,that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry.The harpoon, too!—toss over the litter there,—d'ye see it?—the forged iron, men, the whitewhale's—no, no, no,—blistered fool! this handdid dart it!—'tis in the fish!—Aloft there! Keephim nailed—Quick!—all hands to the rigging ofthe boats—collect the oars—harpooneers! theirons, the irons!—hoist the royals higher—apull on all the sheets!—helm there! steady,steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle theunmeasured globe; yea and dive straightthrough it, but I'll slay him yet!

"Great God! but for one single instant showthyself," cried Starbuck; "never, never wilt thoucapture him, old man—In Jesus' name no moreof this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two

days chased; twice stove to splinters; thy veryleg once more snatched from under thee; thyevil shadow gone—all good angels mobbingthee with warnings:—

"What more wouldst thou have?—Shall wekeep chasing this murderous fish till heswamps the last man? Shall we be dragged byhim to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towedby him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,—Impietyand blasphemy to hunt him more!"

"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved tothee; ever since that hour we both saw—thouknow'st what, in one another's eyes. But in thismatter of the whale, be the front of thy face tome as the palm of this hand—a lipless, unfeatu-red blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. Thiswhole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehear-sed by thee and me a billion years before thisocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; Iact under orders. Look thou, underling! thatthou obeyest mine.—Stand round me, men. Ye

see an old man cut down to the stump; leaningon a shivered lance; propped up on a lonelyfoot. 'Tis Ahab—his body's part; but Ahab'ssoul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundredlegs. I feel strained, half stranded, as ropes thattow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may lookso. But ere I break, yell hear me crack; and tillye hear THAT, know that Ahab's hawser towshis purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the thingscalled omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry enco-re! For ere they drown, drowning things willtwice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sinkfor evermore. So with Moby Dick—two dayshe's floated—tomorrow will be the third. Aye,men, he'll rise once more,—but only to spouthis last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?"

"As fearless fire," cried Stubb.

"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then asthe men went forward, he muttered on: "Thethings called omens! And yesterday I talked thesame to Starbuck there, concerning my broken

boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out ofothers' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!—The Parsee—the Parsee!—gone, gone? and hewas to go before:—but still was to be seen againere I could perish—How's that?—There's ariddle now might baffle all the lawyers backedby the ghosts of the whole line of judges:—likea hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'LL, I'LL solveit, though!"

When dusk descended, the whale was still insight to leeward.

So once more the sail was shortened, and eve-rything passed nearly as on the previous night;only, the sound of hammers, and the hum ofthe grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, asthe men toiled by lanterns in the complete andcareful rigging of the spare boats and sharpe-ning their fresh weapons for the morrow. Me-antime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wreckedcraft the carpenter made him another leg; whilestill as on the night before, slouched Ahab sto-

od fixed within his scuttle; his hid, heliotropeglance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial;sat due eastward for the earliest sun.

CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.

The morning of the third day dawned fair andfresh, and once more the solitary night-man atthe fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds ofthe daylight look-outs, who dotted every mastand almost every spar.

"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale wasnot yet in sight.

"In his infallible wake, though; but follow thatwake, that's all. Helm there; steady, as thougoest, and hast been going. What a lovely day

again! were it a new-made world, and made fora summer-house to the angels, and this mor-ning the first of its throwing open to them, afairer day could not dawn upon that world.Here's food for thought, had Ahab time tothink; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels,feels, feels; THAT'S tingling enough for mortalman! to think's audacity. God only has thatright and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be,a coolness and a calmness; and our poor heartsthrob, and our poor brains beat too much forthat. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brainwas very calm—frozen calm, this old skullcracks so, like a glass in which the contents tur-ned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair isgrowing now; this moment growing, and heatmust breed it; but no, it's like that sort of com-mon grass that will grow anywhere, betweenthe earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesu-vius lava. How the wild winds blow it; theywhip it about me as the torn shreds of split sailslash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind

that has no doubt blown ere this through pri-son corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals,and ventilated them, and now comes blowinghither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!—it'stainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more onsuch a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl so-mewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tisa noble and heroic thing, the wind! who everconquered it? In every fight it has the last andbitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but runthrough it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes starknaked men, but will not stand to receive a sin-gle blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing—a no-bler thing than THAT. Would now the windbut had a body; but all the things that mostexasperate and outrage mortal man, all thesethings are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects,not as agents. There's a most special, a mostcunning, oh, a most malicious difference! Andyet, I say again, and swear it now, that there'ssomething all glorious and gracious in thewind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that

in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strongand steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer notfrom their mark, however the baser currents ofthe sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mis-sissippies of the land swift and swerve about,uncertain where to go at last. And by the eter-nal Poles! these same Trades that so directlyblow my good ship on; these Trades, or somet-hing like them—something so unchangeable,and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along!To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloongoes a-begging! See the sun! Aye, aye, it mustbe so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start?Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM—that'sbad; I might have known it, too. Fool! the li-nes—the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, Ihave run him by last night. About! about! Co-me down, all of ye, but the regular look outs!Man the braces!"

Steering as she had done, the wind had beensomewhat on the Pequod's quarter, so that nowbeing pointed in the reverse direction, the bra-ced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as sherechurned the cream in her own white wake.

"Against the wind he now steers for the openjaw," murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coi-led the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail."God keep us, but already my bones feel dampwithin me, and from the inside wet my flesh. Imisdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeyinghim!"

"Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advan-cing to the hempen basket. "We should meethim soon."

"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck didAhab's bidding, and once more Ahab swung onhigh.

A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out toages. Time itself now held long breaths withkeen suspense. But at last, some three points offthe weather bow, Ahab descried the spoutagain, and instantly from the three mast-headsthree shrieks went up as if the tongues of firehad voiced it.

"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this thirdtime, Moby Dick! On deck there!—brace shar-per up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's toofar off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails sha-ke! Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul!So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But letme have one more good round look aloft hereat the sea; there's time for that. An old, oldsight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and notchanged a wink since I first saw it, a boy, fromthe sand-hills of Nantucket! The same!—thesame!—the same to Noah as to me. There's asoft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewar-dings! They must lead somewhere—to somet-

hing else than common land, more palmy thanthe palms. Leeward! the white whale goes thatway; look to windward, then; the better if thebitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, oldmast-head! What's this?—green? aye, tiny mos-ses in these warped cracks. No such green we-ather stains on Ahab's head! There's the diffe-rence now between man's old age and matter's.But aye, old mast, we both grow old together;sound in our hulls, though, are we not, myship? Aye, minus a leg, that's all. By heaventhis dead wood has the better of my live fleshevery way. I can't compare with it; and I'veknown some ships made of dead trees outlastthe lives of men made of the most vital stuff ofvital fathers. What's that he said? he should stillgo before me, my pilot; and yet to be seenagain? But where? Will I have eyes at the bot-tom of the sea, supposing I descend those end-less stairs? and all night I've been sailing fromhim, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, likemany more thou told'st direful truth as tou-

ching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thyshot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head—keep agood eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone.We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when thewhite whale lies down there, tied by head andtail."

He gave the word; and still gazing round him,was steadily lowered through the cloven blueair to the deck.

In due time the boats were lowered; but asstanding in his shallop's stern, Ahab just hove-red upon the point of the descent, he waved tothe mate,—who held one of the tackle-ropes ondeck—and bade him pause.

"Starbuck!"

"Sir?"

"For the third time my soul's ship starts uponthis voyage, Starbuck."

"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so."

"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever af-terwards are missing, Starbuck!"

"Truth, sir: saddest truth."

"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water;some at the full of the flood;—and I feel nowlike a billow that's all one crested comb, Star-buck. I am old;—shake hands with me, man."

Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck'stears the glue.

"Oh, my captain, my captain!—noble heart—gonot—go not!—see, it's a brave man that weeps;how great the agony of the persuasion then!"

"Lower away!"—cried Ahab, tossing the mate'sarm from him. "Stand by the crew!"

In an instant the boat was pulling round closeunder the stern.

"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from thelow cabin-window there; "O master, my mas-ter, come back!"

But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice washigh-lifted then; and the boat leaped on.

Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pus-hed from the ship, when numbers of sharks,seemingly rising from out the dark waters be-neath the hull, maliciously snapped at the bla-des of the oars, every time they dipped in thewater; and in this way accompanied the boatwith their bites. It is a thing not uncommonlyhappening to the whale-boats in those swar-ming seas; the sharks at times apparently fo-llowing them in the same prescient way thatvultures hover over the banners of marchingregiments in the east. But these were the firstsharks that had been observed by the Pequodsince the White Whale had been first descried;and whether it was that Ahab's crew were allsuch tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore

their flesh more musky to the senses of thesharks—a matter sometimes well known toaffect them,—however it was, they seemed tofollow that one boat without molesting the ot-hers.

"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuckgazing over the side, and following with hiseyes the receding boat—"canst thou yet ringboldly to that sight?—lowering thy keel amongravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical thirdday?—For when three days flow together inone continuous intense pursuit; be sure the firstis the morning, the second the noon, and thethird the evening and the end of that thing—bethat end what it may. Oh! my God! what is thisthat shoots through me, and leaves me so dead-ly calm, yet expectant,—fixed at the top of ashudder! Future things swim before me, as inempty outlines and skeletons; all the past issomehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in

pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see butthy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest pro-blems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweepbetween—Is my journey's end coming? My legsfeel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feelthy heart,—beats it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!—stave it off—move, move! speak aloud!—Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the hill?—Crazed;—aloft there!—keep thy keenest eyeupon the boats:—

"Mark well the whale!—Ho! again!—drive offthat hawk! see! he pecks—he tears the vane"—pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck—"Ha! he soars away with it!—Where'sthe old man now? see'st thou that sight, ohAhab!—shudder, shudder!"

The boats had not gone very far, when by asignal from the mast-heads—a downwardpointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale hadsounded; but intending to be near him at thenext rising, he held on his way a little sideways

from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintai-ning the profoundest silence, as the head-beatwaves hammered and hammered against theopposing bow.

"Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! totheir uttermost heads drive them in! ye butstrike a thing without a lid; and no coffin andno hearse can be mine:—and hemp only cankill me! Ha! ha!"

Suddenly the waters around them slowly swe-lled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, asif sideways sliding from a submerged berg ofice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rum-bling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum;and then all held their breaths; as bedraggledwith trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, avast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely fromthe sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil ofmist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowedair; and then fell swamping back into the deep.Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed

for an instant like heaps of fountains, then bro-kenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving thecircling surface creamed like new milk roundthe marble trunk of the whale.

"Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and theboats darted forward to the attack; but madde-ned by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded inhim, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessedby all the angels that fell from heaven. The wi-de tiers of welded tendons overspreading hisbroad white forehead, beneath the transparentskin, looked knitted together; as head on, hecame churning his tail among the boats; andonce more flailed them apart; spilling out theirons and lances from the two mates' boats, anddashing in one side of the upper part of theirbows, but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar.

While Daggoo and Queequeg were stoppingthe strained planks; and as the whale swim-ming out from them, turned, and showed oneentire flank as he shot by them again; at that

moment a quick cry went up. Lashed roundand round to the fish's back; pinioned in theturns upon turns in which, during the pastnight, the whale had reeled the involutions ofthe lines around him, the half torn body of theParsee was seen; his sable raiment frayed toshreds; his distended eyes turned full upon oldAhab.

The harpoon dropped from his hand.

"Befooled, befooled!"—drawing in a long leanbreath—"Aye, Parsee! I see thee again.—Aye,and thou goest before; and this, THIS then isthe hearse that thou didst promise. But I holdthee to the last letter of thy word. Where is thesecond hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! thoseboats are useless now; repair them if ye can intime, and return to me; if not, Ahab is enoughto die—Down, men! the first thing that but of-fers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thingI harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms

and my legs; and so obey me.—Where's thewhale? gone down again?"

But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bentupon escaping with the corpse he bore, and asif the particular place of the last encounter hadbeen but a stage in his leeward voyage, MobyDick was now again steadily swimming for-ward; and had almost passed the ship,—whichthus far had been sailing in the contrary direc-tion to him, though for the present her head-way had been stopped. He seemed swimmingwith his utmost velocity, and now only intentupon pursuing his own straight path in the sea.

"Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it,even now, the third day, to desist. See! MobyDick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madlyseekest him!"

Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boatwas swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oarsand canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding

by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguishStarbuck's face as he leaned over the rail, hehailed him to turn the vessel about, and followhim, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval.Glancing upwards, he saw Tashtego, Quee-queg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to thethree mast-heads; while the oarsmen were roc-king in the two staved boats which had but justbeen hoisted to the side, and were busily atwork in repairing them. One after the other,through the port-holes, as he sped, he alsocaught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, bus-ying themselves on deck among bundles ofnew irons and lances. As he saw all this; as heheard the hammers in the broken boats; farother hammers seemed driving a nail into hisheart. But he rallied. And now marking that thevane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had justgained that perch, to descend again for anotherflag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it tothe mast.

Whether fagged by the three days' runningchase, and the resistance to his swimming inthe knotted hamper he bore; or whether it wassome latent deceitfulness and malice in him:whichever was true, the White Whale's waynow began to abate, as it seemed, from the boatso rapidly nearing him once more; though in-deed the whale's last start had not been so longa one as before. And still as Ahab glided overthe waves the unpitying sharks accompaniedhim; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat;and so continually bit at the plying oars, thatthe blades became jagged and crunched, andleft small splinters in the sea, at almost everydip.

"Heed them not! those teeth but give new row-locks to your oars. Pull on! 'tis the better rest,the shark's jaw than the yielding water."

"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades growsmaller and smaller!"

"They will last long enough! pull on!—But whocan tell"—he muttered—"whether these sharksswim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?—Butpull on! Aye, all alive, now—we near him. Thehelm! take the helm! let me pass,"—and so sa-ying two of the oarsmen helped him forward tothe bows of the still flying boat.

At length as the craft was cast to one side, andran ranging along with the White Whale'sflank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its ad-vance—as the whale sometimes will—andAhab was fairly within the smoky mountainmist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout,curled round his great, Monadnock hump; hewas even thus close to him; when, with bodyarched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, andhis far fiercer curse into the hated whale. Asboth steel and curse sank to the socket, as ifsucked into a morass, Moby Dick sidewayswrithed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank

against the bow, and, without staving a hole init, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had itnot been for the elevated part of the gunwale towhich he then clung, Ahab would once morehave been tossed into the sea. As it was, threeof the oarsmen—who foreknew not the preciseinstant of the dart, and were therefore unprepa-red for its effects—these were flung out; but sofell, that, in an instant two of them clutched thegunwale again, and rising to its level on a com-bing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboardagain; the third man helplessly dropping as-tern, but still afloat and swimming.

Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volitionof ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, theWhite Whale darted through the weltering sea.But when Ahab cried out to the steersman totake new turns with the line, and hold it so; andcommanded the crew to turn round on theirseats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the

moment the treacherous line felt that doublestrain and tug, it snapped in the empty air!

"What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!—'tiswhole again; oars! oars! Burst in upon him!"

Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to pre-sent his blank forehead at bay; but in that evo-lution, catching sight of the nearing black hullof the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source ofall his persecutions; bethinking it—it may be—a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he boredown upon its advancing prow, smiting hisjaws amid fiery showers of foam.

Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "Igrow blind; hands! stretch out before me that Imay yet grope my way. Is't night?"

"The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oars-men.

"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, Osea, that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab mayslide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: theship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye notsave my ship?"

But as the oarsmen violently forced their boatthrough the sledge-hammering seas, the beforewhale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burstthrough, and in an instant almost, the tempora-rily disabled boat lay nearly level with the wa-ves; its half-wading, splashing crew, tryinghard to stop the gap and bale out the pouringwater.

Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tash-tego's mast-head hammer remained suspendedin his hand; and the red flag, half-wrappinghim as with a plaid, then streamed itselfstraight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, stan-ding upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sightof the down-coming monster just as soon as he.

"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh,all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close!Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a wo-man's fainting fit. Up helm, I say—ye fools, thejaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my burstingprayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab,Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady.Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us!Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towardsone, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. MyGod, stand by me now!"

"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoeveryou are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb,too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinningwhale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubbawake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye? Andnow poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrassthat is all too soft; would it were stuffed withbrushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assas-sins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his

ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses withye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh!thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty ofgulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me,off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in hisdrawers! A most mouldy and over salted death,though;—cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask,for one red cherry ere we die!"

"Cherries? I only wish that we were where theygrow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother'sdrawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few copperswill now come to her, for the voyage is up."

From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamennow hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank,lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained intheir hands, just as they had darted from theirvarious employments; all their enchanted eyesintent upon the whale, which from side to sidestrangely vibrating his predestinating head,sent a broad band of overspreading semicircu-lar foam before him as he rushed. Retribution,

swift vengeance, eternal malice were in hiswhole aspect, and spite of all that mortal mancould do, the solid white buttress of his fore-head smote the ship's starboard bow, till menand timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon theirfaces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of theharpooneers aloft shook on their bull-likenecks. Through the breach, they heard the wa-ters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

"The ship! The hearse!—the second hearse!"cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could onlybe American!"

Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ranquivering along its keel; but turning under wa-ter, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off theother bow, but within a few yards of Ahab'sboat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent.

"I turn my body from the sun. What ho,Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye threeunsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked

keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck,and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, andwithout me? Am I cut off from the last fondpride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh,lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel mytopmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho,ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye nowin, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life,and top this one piled comber of my death!Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying butunconquering whale; to the last I grapple withthee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate'ssake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffinsand all hearses to one common pool! and sinceneither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces,while still chasing thee, though tied to thee,thou damned whale! THUS, I give up thespear!"

The harpoon was darted; the stricken whaleflew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran

through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stoopedto clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turncaught him round the neck, and voicelessly asTurkish mutes bowstring their victim, he wasshot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he wasgone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in therope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub,knocked down an oarsman, and smiting thesea, disappeared in its depths.

For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stoodstill; then turned. "The ship? Great God, whereis the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewilder-ing mediums saw her sidelong fading phan-tom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only theuppermost masts out of water; while fixed byinfatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their oncelofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still main-tained their sinking lookouts on the sea. Andnow, concentric circles seized the lone boatitself, and all its crew, and each floating oar,and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate

and inanimate, all round and round in one vor-tex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod outof sight.

But as the last whelmings intermixingly pouredthemselves over the sunken head of the Indianat the mainmast, leaving a few inches of theerect spar yet visible, together with longstreaming yards of the flag, which calmly un-dulated, with ironical coincidings, over the de-stroying billows they almost touched;—at thatinstant, a red arm and a hammer hoveredbackwardly uplifted in the open air, in the actof nailing the flag faster and yet faster to thesubsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly hadfollowed the main-truck downwards from itsnatural home among the stars, pecking at theflag, and incommoding Tashtego there; thisbird now chanced to intercept its broad flutter-ing wing between the hammer and the wood;and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill,the submerged savage beneath, in his death-

gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so thebird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, andhis imperial beak thrust upwards, and hiswhole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab,went down with his ship, which, like Satan,would not sink to hell till she had dragged aliving part of heaven along with her, and hel-meted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yetyawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat againstits steep sides; then all collapsed, and the greatshroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled fivethousand years ago.

Epilogue

"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TOTELL THEE" Job.

The drama's done. Why then here does any onestep forth?—Because one did survive thewreck.

It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappear-ance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to takethe place of Ahab's bowsman, when thatbowsman assumed the vacant post; the same,who, when on the last day the three men weretossed from out of the rocking boat, wasdropped astern. So, floating on the margin ofthe ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, whenthe halfspent suction of the sunk ship reachedme, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards theclosing vortex. When I reached it, it had sub-sided to a creamy pool. Round and round,

then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowlywheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve.Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubbleupward burst; and now, liberated by reason ofits cunning spring, and, owing to its greatbuoyancy, rising with great force, the coffinlife-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fellover, and floated by my side. Buoyed up bythat coffin, for almost one whole day and night,I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The un-harming sharks, they glided by as if with pad-locks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawkssailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day,a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up atlast. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that inher retracing search after her missing children,only found another orphan.