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MOBY-DICK OR THE WHALE ETYMOLOGY (SUPPLIED BY A LATE CONSUMPTIVE USHER TO A GBAMMAB SCHOOL) THE pale Usher threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain ; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a q***r handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars ; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. ETYMOLOGY ' WHILE you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true.' Hakluyt. 1 WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling ; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted.' Webster's Dictionary. ' WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. W alien ; A.S. Walw-ian y to roll, to wallow.' Richardson's Dictionary. Hebrew. Greek. Latin, Anglo-Saxon. Danish. Dutch. Swedish. Icelandic. English. in, CETUS, WHCEL, HVALT, WAL, HWAL, WHALE, WHALE, BALEINE, BALLENA, PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, French. Spanish. Feegee. Erromangoan. EXTRACTS (SUPPLIED BY A SUB-SUB-LIBRARIAN) IT will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub -worm of a poor devil of a Sub -Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, pick- ing up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird's-eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own. So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commen- tator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm ; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong ; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too ; and grow convivial upon tears ; and say to them bluntly with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness Give it up, Sub-Subs ! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye forever go thankless ! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye ! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts ; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! xii EXTRACTS ' And God created great whales.' Genesis. * Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him ; One would think the deep to be hoary.' Job. ' Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.' Jonah. ' There go the ships ; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein.' Psalms. ' In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent ; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.' Isaiah. * And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch.' HollancFs Plutarch's Morals. ' The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are : among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land.' Holland's Pliny. ' Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous size. * * * This came towards us, open- mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam.' Tooke's Lucian. The True History. xiii xiv MOBY-DICK ' He visited this country also with a view of catching horse - whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king. * * * The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days.' Other or Octher's verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King Alfred, A.D. 890. 1 And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea- gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.' Montaigne 1 s Apology for Eaimond Sebond. ' Let us fly, let us fly ! Old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.' Rabelais. ' This whale's liver was two cart-loads.' Stowe's Annals. 1 The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.' Lord Bacon's Version of the Psalms. ' Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.' Ibid. History of Life and Death. 1 The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an in- ward bruise.' King Henry. ' Very like a whale.' Hamlet. ' Which to secure, no skill of leach's art Mote him availle, but to returne againe To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine.' The Fairie Queen. ' Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil.' Sir William Davenant's Preface to Gondibert. EXTRACTS xv ' What s***maceti! is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit.' Sir T. Browne's Of S***ma Ceti and the S***ma Ceti Whale. Vide his V.E. ' Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. ****** Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears, And on his back a grove of pikes appears.' Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands. ' By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Common- wealth or State (in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.' Opening sentence of Hobbes's Leviathan. 'Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale.' Pilgrim's Progress. * That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.' Paradise Lost. 4 There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land ; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.' Ibid. ' The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them.' Fuller's Profane and Holy State. ' So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathans to attend their prey, And give no chace, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.' Dry den's Annus Mirabilis. ' While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come ; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.' Thomas Edge's Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas. xvi MOBY-DICK * In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.' Sir T. Herberts Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll. 4 Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.' Schouten's Sixth Circumnavigation. * We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale. * * * Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable. * * * They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains. * * * I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly. * * * One of our harp**neers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.' A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Coll. ' Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife). Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale -bone kind came in, which, (as I was informed) besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.' Sibbald's Fife and Kinross. 4 Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this S***ma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.' Richard Strafford's Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668. ' Whales in the sea God's voice obey.' N. E. Primer. 1 We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one ; than we have to the northward of us.' Captain Cowley's Voyage round the Globe, A.D. 1729. EXTRACTS xvii ****** an( j ^e breath of the whale is fre- quently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.' Ulloa's South America. 1 To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.' R**e of the Lock. ' If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation.' Goldsmith's Nat. Hist. ' If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.' Goldsmith to Johnson. ' In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to en- deavour to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.' Cook's Voyages. ' The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.' Uno Von Troil's Letters on Banks' s and Solander's Voyage to Iceland in 1772. ' The S***macetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and bold- ness in the fishermen.' Thomas Jefferson's Whale Memorial to the French Minister in 1778. 1 And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it ? ' Edmund Burke's Reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale Fishery. VOL. I. b xviii MOBY-DICK ' Spain a great whale stranded on. the shores of Europe.' Edmund Burke. (Somewhere.} ' A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and pro- tecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the pro- perty of the king.' Blackstone. c Soon to the sport of death the crews repair : Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends The barbed steel, and every turn attends.' Falconer's Shipwreck. ' Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets blew self driven, To hang their momentary fire Around the vault of heaven. ' So fire with water to compare, The ocean serves on high, Up-spouted by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy.' Cowper, On the Queen's Visit to London. ' Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.' John Hunter's Account of the Dissection of a Whale. (A small-sized one.) ' The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water- works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale's heart.' Paley's Theology. ' The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.' Baron Cuvier. ' In 40 degrees south, we saw S***macetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.' Colnett's Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the S***macetti Whale Fishery. EXTRACTS xix ' In the free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, Fishes of every colour, form, and kind ; Which language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen ; from dread Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave : Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through that waste And trackless region, though on every side Assaulted by voracious enemies, Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw, With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.' Montgomery' '<$ World before the Flood. ' lo ! Paean ! lo ! sing, To the finny people's king. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is ; Not a fatter fish than he, Flounders round the Polar Sea.' CJiarles Lamb's Triumph of the Whale. ' In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed ; there pointing to the sea is a green pasture where our children's grand-children will go for bread.' Obed Macy's History of Nantucket. ' I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones.' Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. ' She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.' Ibid. ' " No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom ; " I saw his spout ; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He 's a raal oil-butt, that fellow ! " ' Cooper's Pilot. ' The papers were brought in,, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there.' Eckermanris Conversations with Goethe. xx MOBY-DICK ' " My God ! Mr. Chace, what is the matter ? " I answered, " We have been stove by a whale." ! Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large S***m Whale in the Pacific Ocean. By Owen Chace of Nan- tucket, first mate of said vessel. New York, 1821. ' A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, The wind was piping free ; Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, As it floundered in the sea.' Elizabeth Oakes Smith. ' The quantity of line withdrawn from the different boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted alto- gether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles. * * * t Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.' Scoresby. 1 Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated S***m Whale rolls over and over ; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at every- thing around him ; he rushes at the boats with his head ; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and some- times utterly destroyed. * * * It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a com- mercial point of view, of so important an animal (as the S***m Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient oppor- tunities of witnessing their habitudes. 5 Thomas Beale's History of the S***m Whale. 1839. ' The Cachalot ' (S***m Whale) ' is not only better armed than the True Whale ' (Greenland or Right Whale) ' in possess- ing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively, and in a manner at once so artful, EXTRACTS xxi bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe.' Frederick Debell Bennett's Whaling Voyage round the Globe. 1840. ' October 13. " There she blows," was sung out from the mast-head. " Where away ? " demanded the captain. " Three points off the lee bow, sir." " Raise up your wheel. Steady ! " " Steady, sir." " Mast-head ahoy ! Do you see that whale now ? " " Ay, ay, sir ! A shoal of S***m Whales ! There she blows ! There she breaches ! " " Sing out ! sing out every time ! " " Ay, ay, sir ! There she blows ! there there thar she blows bowes bo-o-o-s ! " " How far off ? " c< Two miles and a half." " Thunder and lightning ! so near ! Call all hands ! " J. Ross Browne's Etchings of a Whaling Cruise. 1846. 4 The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.' Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by Lay and Hussey, Survivors. A.D. 1828. c Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance ; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat ; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable. 5 Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett. ' Nantucket itself,' said Mr. Webster, ' is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons, living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.' Report of Daniel Webster's Speech in the U.S. Senate, on the Application for the Er****on of a Breakwater at Nantucket. 1828. xxii . MOBY-DICK ' The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.' The Whale and his Captors, or the Whale- man's Adventures and the Whale's Bio- graphy, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble. By Rev. Henry T. Cheever. ' " If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, " I will send you to hell." ' Life of Samuel Comstock (the Mutineer), by his Brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the Whale-ship Globe Narrative. ' The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid open the haunts of the whale.' McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary. 4 These things are reciprocal ; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again ; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North -West Passage.' From ' Something ' unpublished. 4 It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean with- out being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in a regular voyage.' Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex. 1 Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.' Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. ' It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew.' Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the Whale-ship Hobomack. EXTRACTS xxiii ' It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed.' Cruise in a Whale Boat. 1 Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.' Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman. ' The Whale is harp**ned to be sure ; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken c**t, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.' A Chapter on WJialing in Ribs and Trucks. ' On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone's throw of the shore ' (Tierra del Fuego), ' over which the beech tree extended its branches.' Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist. ' " Stern all ! " exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large S***m Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction ; " Stern all, for your lives ! " Wharton the Whale Killer. ' So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harp**neer is striking the whale ! ' Nantucket Song. ' Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale, In his ocean home will be A giant in might, where might is right, And King of the boundless sea.' Whale Song. MOBY-DICK CHAPTER I LOOMINGS CALL me Ishmael. Some years ago never mind how long precisely having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth ; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul ; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bring- ing up the rear of every funeral I meet ; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword ; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down -town is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and VOL. I. A 2 MOBY-DICK cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water -gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath after- noon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see ? Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles ; some seated upon the pier-heads ; some looking over Vhe bulwarks of ships from China ; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen ; of week days pent up in lath and plaster tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this ? Are the green fields gone ? What do they here ? But look ! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange ! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land ; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand miles of them leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither ? Once more. Say, you are in the country ; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your LOOMINGS 3 caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as everyone knows, meditation andli water are wedded forever. But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the S**o. What is the chief element he employs ? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within ; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle ; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hillside blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee -deep among tiger-lilies what is the one charm wanting ?- Water there is not a drop of water there ! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it ? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach ? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea ? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first ; told that you and your ship were now out of sight of ' land ? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy ? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove ? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild 4 MOBY-DICK image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life ; and this is the key to it all. Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Be- sides, passengers get sea-sick grow quarrelsome don't sleep of nights do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing ; no, I never go as a passenger ; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respect- able toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind what- soever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook, though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on shipboard yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls ; though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respect- fully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous do tings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids. No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, LOOMINGS 5 like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old estab- lished family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Ran- dolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off hi time. What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks ? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament ? Do you think the arch- angel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance ? Who ain/t a slave ? Tell me that. Well, then, however the~old^sea -captains may order me about however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right ; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is ; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder- blades, and be content. Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, what will compare 6 MOBY-DICK with it ? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah ! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition ! Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in this world, head-winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the com- modore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first ; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage ; this the invisible police-officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveil- lance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage formed part of the grand programme of Provi- dence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more exten- sive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this : ' Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. ' WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. 1 BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.' Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby LOOMINGS 7 part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces though I cannot tell why this was exactly ; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which, being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment. Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a gortentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk ; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale ; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements ; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail for- bidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it would they let me since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in. By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome ; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, midmost of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. CHAPTER II THE CARPET-BAG I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was on a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday. As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I 5 for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides, though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original the Tyre of this Carthage ; the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the leviathan ? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adven- turous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobble-stones so goes the story to throw at the whales, THE CARPET-BAG 9 in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harp**n from the bowsprit ? Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnelsJE had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver. So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom toward the north with the darkness toward the south wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too particular. With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of 'The Crossed Harp**ns ' but it looked too expen- sive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the ' Sword-Fish Inn,' there came such fer- vent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement, rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorse- less service the soles of mv boots were in a most miserable V plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go i on, Ishmael, said I at last ; don't you hear ? get away l from before the door ; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns. Such dreary streets ! blocks of blackness, not houses, 10 MOBY-DICK on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I carne to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public ; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha ! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah ? But ' The Cfossed Harp**ns ' and 4 The Sword-Fish ' ? this, then, must needs be the sign of ' The Trap. ' However, I picked myself up , and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door. It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer ; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church ; and the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weep- ing and wailing and teeth -gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ' The Trap ' ! Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air ; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath ' The Spouter-Inn : Peter Coffin.' Coffin ? Spouter ? Rather ominous in that particu- lar connection, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might THE CARPET-BAG 11 have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt dis- trict, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea-coffee. It was a q***r sort of place a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, never- theless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to anyone indoors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. 4 In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,' says an old writer of whose works I possess the only copy extant ' it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that Cashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier.' True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it 's too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished ; the cope-stone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon ! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper (he had a redder one afterward) pooh, pooh ! What a fine frosty night ; how Orion glitters ; what northern lights ! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories ; give me 12 MOBY-DICK the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. But what thinks Lazarus ? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights ? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here ? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator ; yea, ye gods ! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost ? Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice-palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a- whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this ' Spouter ' may be. CHAPTER III THE SPOTTTER-INN ENTERING that gable -ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some con- demned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil- painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal cross-lights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbours, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavoured to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft-repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window toward the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hover- ing in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet there was a sort of indefinite, half- attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you in voluntarily, took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. is 14 MOBY-DICK Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through. It 's the Black Sea in a midnight gale. It 's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. It 's a blasted heath. It 's a Hyperborean winter scene. It 's the breaking-up of the ice-bound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop ; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish ? even the great leviathan himself ? In fact, the artist's design seemed this : a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane ; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible ; and an exasper- ated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads. The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws ; others were tufted with knots of human hair ; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long- armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling-lances and harp**ns all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harp**n so like a corkscrew now was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years after- THE SPOUTER-INN 15 ward slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump. Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low- arched way cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fire-places all round you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den the bar a rude attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks ; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death. Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without within, the villainous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered down- ward to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny ; to this a penny more ; and so on to the full glass the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling. Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light 16 MOBY-DICK divers speiimens of skrimshander. I sought the land- lord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full not a bed unoccupied. ' But avast, 5 he added, tapping his forehead, ' you hain't no objections to sharin* a har- p**neer 's blanket, have ye ? I s'pose you are goin' a- whalin 5 , so you 'd better get used to that sort of thing. 5 I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed ; that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harp**neer might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the harp**neer was not decidedly objectionable, why, rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man 5 s blanket. ' I thought so. All right ; take a seat. Supper ? you want supper ? Supper 5 11 be ready directly. 5 I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn't make much headway, I thought. At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland no fire at all the landlord said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey-jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half- frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings ; good heavens ! dumplings for supper ! One young fellow in a green box-coat addressed himself to these dumplings hi a most direful manner. ' My boy,' said the landlord, ' you '11 have the night- mare to a dead sartainty.' THE SPOUTER-INN 17 'Landlord,' I whispered, w that ain't the harp**neer, is it ? ' 1 Oh, no/ said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, 4 the harp**neer is a dark - complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't he eats nothing but steaks, and likes 'em rare.' ' The devil he does, ' says I. ' Where is that harp**neer ? Is he here ? ' ' He '11 be here afore long,' was the answer. I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this ' dark-complexioned ' harp**neer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into bed before I did. Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening as a looker-on. Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, ' That 's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning ; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys ; now we '11 have the latest news from the Feegees.' A tramping of sea-boots was heard in the entry ; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy watch-coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all be- darned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale's mouth the bar when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he VOL. I. B 18 MOBY-DICK swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather-side of an ice -island. The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously. I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once ; and since the sea- gods had ordained that he should soon become my ship- mate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast ; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unob- served, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised a cry of ' Bulkington ! Bulkington ! where 5 s Bulkington ? ' and darted out of the house in pursuit of him. It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these or**es, I began THE SPOUTER-INN 19 to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen. No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harp**neer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else ; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor kings do ashore. To be sure, they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. The more I pondered over this harp**neer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harp**neer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harp**neer ought to be home and going bedward. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming ? ' Landlord ! I Ve changed my mind about that harp**neer. I shan't sleep with him. I '11 try the bench here.' ' Just as you please ; I 'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it 's a plaguy rough board here ' feeling of the knots and notches. ' But wait a bit, Skrimshander ; I Ve got a carpenter's plane there in the bar wait, I say, and I '11 make ye snug enough.' So saying he procured the plane ; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. 20 MOBY-DICK The shavings flew right and left ; till at last the plane- iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study. I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too short ; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed one so there was no yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night. The devil fetch that harp**neer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal a march on him bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings ? It seemed no bad idea ; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harp**neer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down ! Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown THE SPOQTER-INN 21 harp**neer. Thinks I, I '11 wait awhile ; he must be dropping in before long. 1 11 have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all there 's no telling. But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harp**neer. 4 Landlord ! ' said I, ' what sort of a chap is he does he always keep such late hours ? ' It was now hard upon twelve o'clock. The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. ' No,' he answered, ' generally he 5 s an early bird airley to bed and airley to rise yes, he 's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a-peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, maybe, he can't sell his head.' ' Can't sell his head ? What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me ? ' getting into a tower- ing rage. ' Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harp**neer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town ? ' ' That 's precisely it,' said the landlord, ' and I told him he couldn't sell it here, the market 's overstocked.' ' With what ? ' shouted I. ' With heads, to be sure ; ain't there too many heads in the world ? ' ' I tell you what it is, landlord,' said I, quite calmly, ' you 'd better stop spinning that yarn to me I 'm not green.' 6 Maybe not, ' taking out a stick and whittling a tooth- pick, ' but I rayther guess you '11 be done brown if that 'ere harp**neer hears you a-slanderin' his head.' 22 MOBY-DICK ' I '11 break it for him/ said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. ' It 's broke a 'ready,' said he. ' Broke/ said I ' broke, do you mean ? ' ' Sartain, and that 's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess.' ' Landlord/ said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snow-storm, 'landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed ; you tell me you can only give me half a one ; that the other half belongs to a certain harp**neer. And about this har- p**neer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling toward the man whom you design for my bedfellow* a sort of connection, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harp**neer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harp**neer is stark mad, and I 've no idea of sleeping with a madman ; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.' ' Wall/ said the landlord, fetching a long breath, 'that 's a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, this here harp**neer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from the South Seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he 's sold all on 'em but one, and that one he 's tryin' to sell to-night, cause to- morrow 's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin' THE SPOUTER-INN 23 human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions.' This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me but at the same time what could I think of a harp**neer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolaters ? ' Depend upon it, landlord, that harp**neer is a danger- ous man.' ' He pays reg'lar, 5 was the rejoinder. ' But come, it 's getting dreadful late, you had better be turning flukes it 's a nice bed : Sail and me slept in that 'ere bed the night we were spliced. There 's plenty room for two to kick about in that bed ; it 's an almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a-dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I '11 give ye a glim in a jiffy ' ; and so saying he lighted a candle and held it toward me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute ; when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed, ' I vum it 's Sunday you won't see that harp**neer to-night ; he 's come to anchor some- where come along then ; do come ; won't ye come ? ' I considered the matter a moment, and then upstairs we went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harp**neers to sleep abreast. ' There,' said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea-chest that did double duty as a wash-stand 24 MOBY-DICK and centre table ; ' there, make yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye.' I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced round the room ; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fire-board representing a man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner ; also a large seaman's bag, containing the harp**neer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish-hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harp**n stand- ing at the head of the bed. But what is this on the chest ? I took it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory con- clusion concerning it. I can compare it to nothing but a large door-mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible that any sober harp**neer would get into a door-mat, and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise ? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harp**neer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck. I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced THE SPOUTER-INN 25 thinking about this head-peddling harp**neer, and his door-mat. After thinking some time on the bedside, I got up and took off my monkey-jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt -sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about the har- p**neer 's not coming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven. Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing toward the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door. Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harp**neer, the infemal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without looking toward the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag 's mouth . This accomplished, however, he turned round when, good heavens ! what a sight ! Such a face ! It was of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large, blackish- looking squares. Yes, it 's just as I thought, he 's a terrible bedfellow ; he 's been in a fight, got dreadfully 26 MOBY-DICK cut, and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so toward the light, that I plainly saw they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this ; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man a whaleman too who, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harp**neer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adven- ture. And what is it, thought I, after all ! It 's only his outside ; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning ; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man into a purplish-yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas ; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this harp**neer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a sealskin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head a ghastly thing enough and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his hat a new beaver hat when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head none to speak of, at least nothing but a small scalp -knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the^stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. THE SPOUTER-INN 27 Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance, js^the parent^QJJear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. Meanwhile, he continued the business of un******ng, and at last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face ; his back, too, was all over the same dark squares ; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whale- man in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mine heavens ! look at that tomahawk ! But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three-days-old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby pre- 28 MOBY-DICK served in some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire -board, sets up this little hunchbacked image, like a ten-pin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol. I now screwed my eyes hard toward the half-hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantime to see what was next to follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol ; then laying a bit of ship -biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled <the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty sn**ches into the fire, and still hastier with- drawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit ; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all ; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last, extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. All these q***r proceedings increased my uncomf ortable- ness, and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business operations, and jumping into bed THE SPOUTER-INN 29 with me, I thought it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound. But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say was a fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then hold- ing it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of to***co smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, toma- hawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now ; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me. Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill compre- hended my meaning. ' Who-e debel you ? ' he at last said ' you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.' And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the dark. 4 Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin ! ' shouted I. ' Landlord ! Watch ! Coffin ! Angels ! save me ! ' 1 Speak-e ! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e ! ' again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot to***co ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him. 4 Don't be afraid now,' said he, grinning again. ' Quee- queg here wouldn't harm a hair of your head.' ' Stop your grinning,' shouted I, ' and why didn't you tell me that that infernal harp**neer was a cannibal ? ' ' I thought ye know'd it ; didn't I tell ye, he was a-peddlin' heads around town ? but turn flukes again 30 MOBY-DICK and go to sleep. Queequeg, look here you sabbee me, I sabbee you this man sleepe you you sabbee ? ' ' Me sabbee plenty,' grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in bed. ' You gettee in/ he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely- looking cannibal. What 's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself the man ? s a human being just as I am : he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. 'Landlord,' said I, 'tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you call it ; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It 's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured.' This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bed rolling over to one side as much as to say, I won't touch a leg of ye. ' Good night, landlord,' said I, ' you may go.' I turned in, and never slept better in my life. CHAPTER IV THE COUNTERPANE UPON waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles ; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade owing, I suppose, to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt-sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together ; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me. My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me ; whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous ; and my stepmother, who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless, my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, the 31 32 MOBY-DICK longest day in the year in our hemisphere. 1 felt dread- fully. But there was no help for it, so upstairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets. I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed ! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too ; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse and worse at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at her feet, be- seeching her as a particular favour to give me a good slippering for my misbehaviour ; anything indeed but con- demning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze ; and slowly waking from it half steeped in dreams I opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame ; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard ; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand ; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew THE COUNTERPANE 33 not how this consciousness at last glided away from me ; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterward I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it. Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg 's pagan arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm unlock his bridegroom clasp yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse him * Queequeg ! ' but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar ; and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet -faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I ; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk ! ' Queequeg ! in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake ! ' At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow-male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt ; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pikestaff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether re- member how I came to be there, though a dim conscious- ness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly VOL. i. c 34 MOBY-DICK observing so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bed- fellow, and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact, he jumped out upon the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress afterward, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilised overture ; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will ; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compli- ment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness ; staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilet motions ; for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, a man like Quee- queg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding. He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and then still minus his trowsers he hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himself boots in hand, and hat on under the bed ; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strain- ings, I inferred he was hard at work booting himself ; though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of is any man required to be private when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transi- tion state neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilised to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not been a small degree civilised, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all ; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have THE COUNTERPANE 35 dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones pro- bably not made to order either rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on, I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his panta- loons as soon as possible. He complied, and then pro- ceeded to wash himself. At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face ; but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harp**n from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harp**ning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. Afterward I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine steel the head of a harp**n is made, and how exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept. The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey-jacket, and sporting his harp**n like a marshal's baton. CHAPTER V BREAKFAST I QUICKLY followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice toward him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my bedfellow. However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing ; the more 's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were nearly all whalemen ; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and sea- carpenters, and sea-coopers, and sea-blacksmiths, and harp**neers, and ship-keepers ; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards ; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey-jackets for morning gowns. You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky ; he cannot have been three days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades lighter ; you might say a touch of satinwood 36 BREAKFAST 37 is in him. In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal ; lie doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg ? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the Andes' western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone. ' Grub, ho ! ' now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast. They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though : Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one ; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlour. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo 's performances this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere. These reflections just here are occasioned by the cir- cumstance that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some good stories about whaling ; to my no small surprise nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas entire strangers to them and duelled them dead without winking ; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast table all of the same calling, all of kindred tastes looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. A curious sight ; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen ! 38 MOBY-DICK But as for Queequeg why, Queequeg sat there among them at the head of the table, too, it so chanced as cool as an icicle. To be sure, I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harp**n in to breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony ; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks toward him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and everyone knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here ; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll. CHAPTER VI THE STREET IF I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilised town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable sea- port will frequently offer to view the q***rest -looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut Streets, Mediterranean mariners will some- times jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays ; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water Street and Wapping. In these last -mentioned haunts you see only sailors ; but in New Bedford actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners ; savages outright ; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare. But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatabooarrs, Erro- manggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and besides the wild specimens of the whaling -craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hamp- shire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames ; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and sn**ch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green 40 MOBY-DICK Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there ! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor -belt and a sheath- knife. Here comes another with a sou '-wester and a bombazine cloak. No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one I mean a downright bumpkin dandy a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distin- guished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea -out fit, he orders bell- buttons to his waistcoats ; straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed ! how bitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps/ buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest. But think not that this famous town has only har- p**neers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a q***r place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, hi all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough : but not like Caanan ; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk ; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses ; parks and gardens more opulent, than hi New Bedford. Whence came they ? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country ? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harp**ns THE STREET 41 round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes ; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harp**ned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander per- form a feat like that ? In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises apiece. You must go to New Bed- ford to see a brilliant wedding ; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in s***maceti candles. In summer time, the town is sweet to see ; full of fine maples long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent \ is art ; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at Creation's final day. And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer ; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweet- hearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands. CHAPTER VII THE CHAPEL IN this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incom- municable. The chaplain had not yet arrived ; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote : SACRED OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. 42 THE CHAPEL 43 SACRED ^o tlje em orp OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA, Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Ofi-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 3lst, 1839. THIS MABBLB Is here placed by their surviving Shipmates SACKED Eo tfje OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a S***m Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance ; because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscrip- tions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the 44 MOBY-DICK seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not ; but so many are the unre- corded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. Oh ! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass ; who standing among flowers can say here, here lies my beloved ; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black- bordered marbles which cover no ashes ! What despair in those immovable inscriptions ! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here. Li what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included ; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands ; how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth ; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals ; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago ; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss ; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead ; wherefore but the rumour of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. THE CHAPEL 45 But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems ay, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then ? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact, take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket ; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. CHAPTER VIII THE PULPIT I HAD not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered ; immediately as the storm- pelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regard- ful eyeing of him by all the congregation sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whale- men, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harp**neer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age ; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot-cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner ; when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit. 46 THE PULPIT 47 Like most old-fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling-captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental k***s of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upward, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main -top of his vessel. The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec. I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this thing ; furthermore, it must symbolise 48 MOBY-DICK something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connections ? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self- containing stronghold a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, borrowed from the chaplain's former sea- farings. Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face ; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. ' Ah, noble ship/ the angel seemed to say, 'beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm ; for lo ! the sun is breaking through ; the clouds are rolling off serenest azure is at hand.' Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea -taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle -headed beak. What could be more full of meaning ? for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part ; all the rest comes in its rear ; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world 's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete ; and the pulpit is its prow. CHAPTER IX THE SERMON FATHER MAPPLE rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. ' Starboard gangway, there ! side away to larboard larboard gangway to starboard ! Midships ! midships ! ' There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher. He paused a little ; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea. This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn ; but changing his manner toward the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy : * The ribs and terrors in the whale Arched over me a dismal gloom, While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down to doom. ' I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there ; Which none but they that feel can tell Oh, I was plunging to despair. VOL. I. D 50 MOBY-DICK 4 In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints No more the whale did me confine. ' With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne ; Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God. ' My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour ; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.' Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued ; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said : ' Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah " And God had pre- pared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." ' Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters four yarns is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea-line sound ! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet ! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly ! How billow-like and boisterously grand ! We feel the floods surging over us ; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters ; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us ! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches ? Shipmates, it is a two- stranded lesson ; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard- heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punish- ! THE SERMON 51 ment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do remember that and hence, He oftener com- mands us than endeavours to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves ; and it is in this dis- obeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. ' With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that 's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That 's the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates ? Cadiz is in Spain ; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, ship- mates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian ; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world- wide from God ? Miserable man ! Oh ! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn ; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God ; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self -condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been 52 MOBY-DICK arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he 's a fugitive ! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet- bag, no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo ; and as he steps on board to see its captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this ; but in vain he tries to look ah 1 ease and confidence ; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other " Jack, he 's robbed a widow " ; or, " Joe, do you mark him ; he 's a bigamist " ; or, " Harry, lad, I guess he 's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from S***m." Another runs to read the bill that 's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a. parricide, and con- taining a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill ; while all his sympathetic ship- mates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summon- ing all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected ; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it ; and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin. ' " Who 's there ? " cries the captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs "Who 's there ? " Oh ! how that harmless question mangles Jonah ! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. " I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish ; how soon sail ye, sir ? " Thus far the busy captain had THE SERMON 53 not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him ; but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinising glance. " We sail with the next coming tide," at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him. " No sooner, sir ? " " Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger." Ha ! Jonah, that 's another stab. But he swiftly calls away the captain from that scent. " I '11 sail with ye," he says, " the passage money, how much is that ? I '11 pay now." For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, " that he paid the fare thereof " ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning. ' Now Jonah's captain, shipmates, was one whose dis- cernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a pass- port ; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum ; and it 's assented to. Then the captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive ; but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still mo**st the captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, anyway, he mutters ; and Jonah is put down for his passage. " Point out my state-room, sir," says Jonah now, " I 'm travel- weary ; I need sleep." "Thou look'st like it," says the captain, " there 's thy room." Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds 54 MOBY-DICK the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that con- tracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowel's wards. ' Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah's room ; and the ship, heeling over toward the wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with reference to the room ; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah ; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. " Oh ! so my conscience hangs in me ! " he groans, " straight upward, so it burns ; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness ! " ' Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race -horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him ; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed ; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there 's naught to staunch it ; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. c And now the time of tide has come ; the ship casts off her cables ; and from the deserted wharf the un- CHAPTER X A BOSOM FRIEND RETURNING to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone ; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his ; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way. But being now interrupted, he put up the image ; and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity ; at every fiftieth page as I fancied stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next fifty ; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited. With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face at least to my taste his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart ; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed 60 A BOSOM FRIEND 61 tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide ; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an ex- cellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were like- wise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed. Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half pretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the case- ment, he never heeded my presence, never troubled him- self with so much as a single glance ; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affection- ate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings ; at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are over- awing ; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever ; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular ; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand I 62 MOBY-DICK miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is which was the only way he could get there thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter ; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease ; preserving the utmost serenity ; content with his own companionship ; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy ; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, per- haps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have ' broken his digester.' As I sat there in that now lonely room ; the fire burn- ing low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at ; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain ; the storm booming without in solemn swells ; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilised hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was ; a very sight of sights to see ; yet I began to feel myself mysteri- ously drawn toward him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. 1 11 try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these advances ; but presently, upon my referring to his last night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were A BOSOM FRIEND 63 again to be bedfellows. I told him yes ; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented. We then turned over the book together, and I en- deavoured to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest ; and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke ; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us. If there yet lurked any ice of indifference toward me in the pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him ; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married ; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends ; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted ; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply. After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head ; took out his enormous to***co wallet, and groping under the to***co, drew out some thirty dollars in silver ; then spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them toward me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate ; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper fire-board. By 64 MOBY-DICK certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him ; but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise. I was a good Christian ; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolater in worshipping his piece of wood ? But what is worship ? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth pagans and all included can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood ? Im- possible ! But what is worship ? to do the will of God ? that is worship. And what is the will of God ? to do to my fellow-man what I would have my fellow-man to do to me that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow- man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me ? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his ; ergo, I must turn idolater. So I kindled the shavings ; helped prop up the innocent little idol ; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg ; salaamed before him twice or thrice ; kissed his nose ; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat. How it is I know not ; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other ; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg a cosy, loving pair. CHAPTER XI NIGHTGOWN WE had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back ; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we ; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future. Yes, we became very wakeful ; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up ; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were warm- ing-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors ; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason VOL. i. E 66 MOBY-DICK a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes ; for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed ; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake ; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew NIGHTGOWN 67 over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp. Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island ; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. CHAPTER XII BIOGRAPHICAL QUEEQUEG was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the west and south. It is not down in any map ; true places never are. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nib- bling goats, as if he were a green sapling ; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King ; his uncle a High Priest ; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins royal stuff ; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth. A Sag Harbour ship visited his father's bay, and Quee- queg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit ; and not all the King his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef ; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand ; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out ; gained her side ; with one backward 68 BIOGRAPHICAL 69 dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe ; climbed up the chains ; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces. In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard ; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists ; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage this sea Prince of Wales never saw the captain's cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottom so he told me he was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were ; and more than that, still better than they were. But, alas ! the \ practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even j Christians could be both miserable and wicked ; infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbour ; and seeing what the sailors did there ; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it 5 s a wicked world in all meridians ; 1 11 die a pagan. And thus an old idolater at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the q***r ways about him, though now some time from home. By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having a coronation ; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he being very old and 70 MOBY-DICK feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet ; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return, as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harp**neer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap ; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joy- ously assented ; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harp**neer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea as known to merchant seamen. His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping. CHAPTER XIII WHEELBARROW NEXT morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and com- rade's bill ; using, however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amaz- ingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg especially as Peter Coffin's cock-and-bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person whom I now companied with. We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and Quee- queg 's canvas sack and hammock, away we went down to the Moss, the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared ; not at Queequeg so much for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets, but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harp**n barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling-ships did not find their own harp**ns. To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harp**n, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and 71 72 MOBY-DICK mowers, who go into the farmer's meadows armed with their own scythes though in no wise obliged to furnish them even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harp**n. Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbour. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding-house. Not to seem ignorant about the thing though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow Quee- queg puts his chest upon it ; lashes it fast ; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. ' Why/ said I, ' Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn't the people laugh ? ' Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoa-nuts into a large stained calabash like a punch -bowl ; and this punch -bowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander from all accounts a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea-captain this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg 's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well ; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this captain marches in, and being assigned the post of honour, placed himself over against the punch- bowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg 's father. Grace being said, for those people have their grace as well as we though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such times look downward to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upward to the great Giver of all feasts Grace, WHEELBARROW 73 I say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island ; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed - beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself being captain of a ship as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King's own house the captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punch-bowl ; taking it, I suppose, for a huge finger-glass. ' Now/ said Queequeg, ' what you tink now ? Didn't our people laugh ? ' At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice -covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale-ships lay silent and safely moored at last ; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start ; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second ; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, forever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort. Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh ; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young c**t his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air ! how I spurned that turnpike earth ! that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs ; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records. At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart ; he 74 MOBY-DICK showed his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew ; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast ; ducked and dived her brows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted ; every rope-yarn tingling like a wire ; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow-beings should be so companionable ; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some bo***es and bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his harp**n, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost miracu- lous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air ; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his toma- hawk-pipe and passed it to me for a puff. ' Capting ! capting ! ' yelled the bumpkin, running toward that officer ; ' Capting, capting, here 's the devil.' ' Halloa, you sir/ cried the captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to Queequeg, ' what in thunder do you mean by that ? Don't you know you might have killed that chap ? ' ' What him say ? ' said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. ' He say,' said I, ' that you came near kill-e that man there,' pointing to the still shivering greenhorn. ' Kill-e/ cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face WHEELBARROW 75 into an unearthly expression of disdain, ' ah ! him bevy small-e fish-e ; Queequeg no-kill-e so small-e fish-e ; Queequeg Idll-e big whale ! ' ' Look you/ roared the captain, ' I '11 kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here ; so mind your eye.' But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the mainsail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side, com- pletely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard ; all hands were in a panic ; and to attempt sn**ching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and noth- ing seemed capable of being done ; those on deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Quee- 76 MOBY-DICK queg now took an instant's glance around him, and seem- ing to see just how matters were, dived down and dis- appeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a life- less form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump ; the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle ; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. Was there ever such unconsciousness ? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water fresh water something to wipe the brine off ; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to himself ' It 's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We canni- bals must help these Christians. 5 CHAPTER XIV NANTUCKET NOTHING more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning ; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket ! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies ; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddy- stone lighthouse. Look at it a mere hillock, and elbow of sand ; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting-paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't grow naturally ; that they import Canada thistles ; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil-cask ; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome ; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time ; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie ; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes ; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way enclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea-turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois. Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by the red men. Thus goes the legend. 77 78 MOBY-DICK In olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket, the poor little Indian's skeleton. What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood ! They first caught crabs and quohogs in the sand ; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel ; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod ; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world ; put an incessant belt of cir- cumnavigations round it ; peeped in at Behring Straits ; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the Flood ; most monstrous and most mountainous ! That Himalayan, salt-sea mastodon, clothed with such por- tentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults ! And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea- hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders ; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada ; let the English over swarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two-thirds of this terr- aqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his ; he owns it, as Emperors own empires ; other seamen having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges ; armed ones but floating forts ; NANTUCKET 79 even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea ; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships ; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home ; there lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie c***s in the prairie ; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land ; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows ; so, at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. CHAPTER XV CHOWDER IT was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore ; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter- Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and more- over he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot- luck at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was : these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse our first point of departure must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking. Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and sus- pended by asses' ears, swung from the cross-trees of an 80 CHOWDER 81 old topmast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old topmast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over-sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns ; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It 's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port ; tombstones staring at me in the whale- man's chapel ; and here a gallows ! and a pair of pro- digious black pots too ! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet ? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt. 1 Get along with ye, 5 said she to the man, ' or I '11 be combing ye ! ' 4 Come on, Queequeg,' said I, 'all right. There's Mrs. Hussey.' And so it turned out ; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our de- sires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said, ' Clam or cod ? ' ' What 's that about cods, ma'am ? ' said I, with much politeness. 4 Clam or cod ? ' she repeated. ' A clam for supper ? a cold clam ; is that what you VOL. I. F 82 MOBY-DICK mean, Mrs. Hussey ? ' says I ; ' but that 's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey ? ' But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word ' clam, 5 Mrs. Hussey hurried toward an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out ' clam for two, ' disappeared. ' Queequeg,' said I, ' do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam ? ' However, a warm savoury steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends ! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship- biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes ; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we dispatched it with great expedition : when leaning back a moment and bethink- ing me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word ' cod ' with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavour, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us. We resumed business ; and while plying our sp**ns in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head ? What 's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people ? ' But look, CHOWDER 83 Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl ? Where 's your harp**n ? ' Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots; which well deserved its name ; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra ; and Hosea Hussey had his account-books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavour to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea 's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye. Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed ; but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his har- p**n ; she allowed no harp**n in her chambers. ' Why not ? J said I ; ' every true whaleman sleeps with his harp**n but why not ? ' ' Because it 's dangerous, 5 says she. ' Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harp**n in his side ; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg ' (for she had learned his name), ' I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder ; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men ? ' ' Both,' says I ; ' and let 's have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.' CHAPTER XVI THE SHIP IN bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo the name of his black little god and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbour, and in concert selecting our craft ; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us ; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by chance ; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg. I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising forecast of things ; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touch- ing the selection of our craft ; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances pro- 84 THE SHIP 85 duced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigour, that should quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bedroom for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day ; how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and ###IX Articles leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk-pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years' voyages the Devil-Dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-Dam, I do not know the origin of ; Tit-bit is obvious ; Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians, now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-Dam ; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit ; and, finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us. You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I know ; square-toed luggers ; mountainous Japanese junks ; butter-box galliots, and what not ; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything ; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather- stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French grena- dier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts cut some- 86 MOBY-DICK where on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief mate, before he com- manded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the principal owners of the Pequod, this old Peleg, during the term of his chief mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, un- matched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled like any bar- baric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A canni- bal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bul- warks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the s***m whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land-wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea -ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller ; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy ! All noble things are touched with that. Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody ; but I THE SHIP 87 could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the mainmast. It seemed only a temporary er****on used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high ; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped toward each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie sachem's head. A triangular opening faced toward the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward. And half concealed in this q***r tenement, I at length found one who by his aspect seemed to have authority ; and who, it being noon, and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious carving ; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed. There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of the elderly man I saw ; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style ; only there was a fine and almost microscopic network of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to windward ; for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together. Such eye- wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. ' Is this the captain of the Pequod ? ' said I, advancing to the door of the tent. ' Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him ? ' he demanded. 88 MOBY-DICK ' 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 dare say eh? ' ' Nothing, sir ; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I 've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that ' Marchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that leg ? I '11 take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed ! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But flukes ! man, what makes thee want to go a-whaling, eh ? it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh ? Hast not been a pirate, hast thou ? Didst not rob thy last captain, didst thou ? Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea ? ' I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of these half-humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard. ' But what takes thee a-whaling ? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye.' 4 Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world/ ' Want to see what whaling is, eh ? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab ? ' ' Who is Captain Ahab, sir ? ' 4 Ay, ay, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the captain of this ship.' ' I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the captain himself.' THE SHIP 89 ' Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg that 's who ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt finxl that he has only one leg.' ' What do you mean, sir ? Was the other one lost by a whale ? ' ' Lost by a whale ! Young man, come nearer to me : it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the mon- strousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat ! ah, ah ! ' I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, ' What you say is no doubt true enough, sir ; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.' ' Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d' ye see ; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye 've been to sea before now ; sure of that ? ' ' Sir,' said I, ' I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant ' ' Hard down out of that ! Mind what I said about the marchant service don't aggravate me I won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is ; do ye yet feel inclined for it ? ' 4 1 do, sir.' ' Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harp**n down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it ? Answer, quick ! ' 90 MOBY-DICK ' I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so ; not to be got rid of, that is ; which I don't take to be the fact.' 6 Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a -whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world ? Was not that what ye said ? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there.' For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather -bow, I perceived that the ship, swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing toward the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding ; not the slightest variety that I could see. ' Well, what 's the report ? ' said Peleg when I came back ; ' what did ye see ? ' 1 Not much,' I replied 'nothing but water ; considerable horizon though, and there 's a squall coming up, I think.' ' Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world ? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, I eh ? Can't ye see the world where you stand ? ' I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would ; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any I (thought the best and all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me. ' And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off, ' he added ' come along with ye.' And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin. THE SHIP 91 Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel ; the other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants ; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards ; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling- vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest. Now Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nan- tucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect ; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale -hunters. They are fighting Quakers ; they are Quakers with a vengeance. So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names a singularly common fashion on the island and in childhood naturally imbib- ing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom ; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart ; who has also by the still- ness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently ; receiving all nature's sweet or savage 92 MOBY-DICK impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language that man makes one in a whole nation's census a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatic- ally regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half- wilful over-ruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another ; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg who cared not a rush for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the veriest of all trifles Captain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life ; and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn all that had not moved this native-born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific ; and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight -bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know ; but it did not seem to concern him much, THE SHIP 93 and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a Oman's religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harp**neer in a broad shad- bellied waistcoat ; from that becoming boat-header, chief mate, and captain, and finally a shipowner ; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income. Now Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea -going days, a bitter, hard taskmaster. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especi- v ally for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to \ say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said ; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chief mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something a hammer or a marling-spike and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished from before him. His own person was the exact embodi- ment of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat. Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks was small ; and 94 MOBY-DICK there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him ; his legs were stiffly crossed ; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin ; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume. ' Bildad,' cried Captain Peleg, ' at it again, Bildad, eh ? Ye have been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad ? ' As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly toward Peleg. 4 He says he 's our man, Bildad/ said Peleg, ' he wants to ship. 5 ' Dost thee ? ' said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. ' I dost/ said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. ' What do ye think of him, Bildad ? ' said Peleg. ' He '11 do,' said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. I thought him the q***rest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages ; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were THE SHIP 95 proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company. I was also aware that being a green-hand at whaling, my own lay would not be very large ; but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay that is, the 275th part of the clear nett proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing ; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one stiver. It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortune and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make. But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this : Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad ; how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, there- fore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was 96 MOBY-DICK vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings ; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth ' ' Well, Captain Bildad,' interrupted Peleg, ' what d' ye say, what lay shall we give this young man ? ' ' Thou knowest best,' was the sepulchral reply, ' the seven hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it ? " where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay " ' Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay ! the seven hundred and seventy-seventh ! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed ; and though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a lands- man, yet the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy -seven is a pretty large num- ber, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy- seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy -seven gold doubloons ; and so I thought at the time. 4 Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,' cried Peleg, ' thou dost not want to swindle this young man ! he must have more than that.' ' Seven hundred and seventy -seventh,' again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes ; and then went on mumbling ' for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' ' I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,' said Peleg, ' do ye hear that, Bildad ? The three hundredth lay, I say.' THE SHIP 97 Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly to- ward him said, ' Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart ; but thou must consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship widows and orphans; many of them and that if we too abundantly reward the labours of this young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred and seventy -seventh lay, Captain Peleg.' ' Thou Bildad ! ' roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. ' Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn.' 4 Captain Peleg,' said Bildad steadily, ' thy conscience may be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell ; but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one ; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.' ' Fiery pit ! fiery pit ! ye insult me, man ; past all natural bearing, ye insult me. It 's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he 's bound to hell. Flukes and flames ! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but I '11 I '11 yes, I '11 swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured son of a wooden gun & straight wake with ye ! ' As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him. Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I VOL. i. G 98 MOBY-DICK stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. ' Whew ! ' he whistled at last ' the squall 's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack- knife here needs the grindstone. That 's he ; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael 's thy name, didn't ye say ? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay.' ' Captain Peleg,' said I, ' I have a friend with me who wants to ship too shall I bring him down to-morrow ? ' ' To be sure,' said Peleg. ' Fetch him along, and we '11 look at him.' ' What lay does he want ? ' groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in which he had again been burying himself. * Oh ! never thee mind about that, Bildad,' said Peleg. ' Has he ever whaled it any ? ' turning to me. ' Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.' ' Well, bring him along then.' And, after signing the papers, off I went ; nothing doubting but that I had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me ; though, indeed, in many cases, a whale- ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all her crew THE SHIP 99 on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriv- ing to take command ; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceed- ingly brief, that if the captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at him before irrevocably commit- ting yourself into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found. * And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab ? It 's all right enough ; thou art shipped.' ' Yes, but I should like to see him. 3 ' But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly what 's the matter with him ; but he keeps close inside the house ; a sort of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick ; but no, he isn't well either. Anyhow, young man, he won't always see me, so I don't suppose he will thee. He 's a q***r man, Captain Ahab so some think but a good one. Oh, thou 'It like him well enough ; no fear, no fear. He 's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab ; doesn't speak much ; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned ; Ahab 's above the common ; Ahab 's been in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals ; been used to deeper wonders than the waves ; fixed his fiery lance hi mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance ! ay, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle ! Oh ! he ain't Captain Bildad ; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg ; he 's Ahab, boy ; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king ! ' ' And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood ? ' 1 Come hither to me hither, hither,' said Peleg, with 100 MOBY-DICK a significance in his eye that almost startled me. ' Look ye, lad ; never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gay Head, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It 's a lie. I know Captain Ahab well ; I 've sailed with him as mate years ago ; I know what he is a good man not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good man something like me only there 's a good deal more of him. Ay, ay, I know that he was never very jolly ; and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell ; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as anyone might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he ? s been a kind of moody desperate moody, and savage sometimes ; but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it 's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So good-bye to thee and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name. Be- sides, my boy, he has a wife not three voyages wedded a_ sweet, resigned girl. Think of that ; by that sweet girl that old man has a child : hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab ? No, no, my lad ; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities ! ' As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfuhiess ; what had been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't know what, ^unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I THE SHIP 101 also felt a strange awe of him ; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe ; I do not know what it was. But I felt it ; and it did not disincline me toward him ; though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind. CHAPTER XVII THE RAMADAN As Queequeg 's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till toward night -fall ; for I cherish the greatest respect toward everybody's religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to under- value even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad- stool ; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unpre- cedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half -crazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan ; but what of that ? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose ; he seemed to be content ; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail ; let him be, I say : and Heaven have mercy on us all Presby- terians and pagans alike for we are all somehow dread- fully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending. Toward evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door ; but no answer. I tried 102 i THE RAMADAN 103 to open it, but it was fastened inside. ' Queequeg,' said I softly through the keyhole : all silent. ' I say, Quee- queg ! why don't you speak ? It 's I Ishmael.' But all remained still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time ; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key- hole ; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the keyhole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Quee- queg 's harp**n, which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That 's strange, thought I ; but at any rate, since the harp**n stands yonder, and he seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no possible mistake. ' Queequeg ! Queequeg ! ' all still. Something must have happened. Apoplexy ! I tried to burst open the door ; but it stubbornly resisted. Running downstairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person I met the chambermaid. ' La ! la ! ' she cried, ' I thought something must be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was locked ; and not a mouse to be heard ; and it 's been just so silent ever since. But I thought, maybe, you had both gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La ! la, ma'am ! Mistress ! murder ! Mrs. Hussey ! apoplexy ! ' and with these cries, she ran toward the kitchen, I following. Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. ' Wood-house ! ' cried I, ' which way to it ? Run, for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door 104 MOBY-DICK the axe ! the axe ! he 's had a stroke ; depend upon it ! ' and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up- stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. ' What J s the matter with you, young man ? ' ' Get the axe ! For God's sake, run for the doctor, someone, while I pry it open ! ' ' Look here/ said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free ; ' look here ; are you talking about prying open any of my doors ? ' and with that she seized my arm. ' What 's the matter with you ? What 's the matter with you, shipmate ? ' In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant ; then exclaimed 4 No ! I haven't seen it since I put it there.' Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's harp**n was missing. ' He 's killed himself,' she cried. ' It 's unfort'nate Stiggs done over again there goes another counterpane God pity his poor mother ! it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister ? Where 's that girl ? there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with " no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlour " ; might as well kill both birds at once. Kill ? The Lord be merciful to his ghost ! What 's that noise there ? You, young man, avast there ! ' And running after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force open the door. ' I won't allow it ; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the locksmith, there 's one about a mile from here. But avast ! ' putting her hand in her side-pocket, ' here 's THE RAMADAN 105 a key that '11 fit, I guess ; let 's see.' And with that, she turned it in the lock ; but, alas ! Queequeg 's supple- mental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. 6 Have to burst it open,' said I, and was running down the entry a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing I should not break down her premises ; but I tore from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the k**b slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling ; and there, good heavens ! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected ; right in the middle of the room ; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life. ' Queequeg/ said I, going up to him, ' Queequeg, what 's the matter with you ? ' ' He hain't been a-sittin* so all day, has he ? ' said the landlady. But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him ; I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so pain- fully and unnaturally constrained ; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upward of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. 'Mrs. Hussey,' said I, 'he's alive, at all events; so leave us, if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself.' Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavoured to >revail upon Queequeg to take a chair ; but in vain. There he sat ; and all he could do for all my polite arts and blandishments he would not move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in any the slightest way. 106 MOBY-DICK I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan ; do they fast on their hams that way in his native island ? It must be so ; yes, it 's part of his creed, I suppose ; well, then, let him rest ; he '11 get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year ; and I don't believe it 's very punctual then. I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whaling voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the Line, in the Atlantic Ocean only) ; after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went upstairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no ; there he was just where I had left him ; he had not stirred an inch. I began to grow vexed with him ; it seemed so downright sense- less and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his head. ' For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake your- self ; get up and have some supper. You 11 starve ; you '11 kill yourself, Queequeg.' But not a word did he reply. Despairing of him, therefore, I deter mined to go to bed and to sleep ; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night ; and he had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle ; and the mere thought of Queequeg not four feet off sitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and dark ; this made me really THE RAMADAN 107 wretched. Think of it ; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide-awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan ! But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of day ; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but with a cheerful look ; limped toward me where I lay ; pressed his forehead again against mine ; and said his Ramadan was over. Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic ; when it is a positive torment to him ; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncom- fortable inn to lodge in ; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him. And just so I now did with Queequeg. ' Queequeg,' said I, ' get into bed now, and lie and listen to me.' I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I laboured to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense ; bad for the health ; useless for the soul ; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of hygiene and common-sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in ; hence the spirit caves in ; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half -starved. This is the reason why most 108 MOBY-DICK dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively ; hell is an idea first born on an un- digested apple-dumpling ; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Bamadans. I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with dyspepsia ; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it in. He said no ; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great feast given by his father the King, on the gaming of a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening. 4 No more, Queequeg,' said I, shuddering ; 'that will do ' ; for I knew the inferences without his further hint- ing them. I had seen a sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor ; and then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoa- nuts ; and with some parsley in their mouths, were sent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys. After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his own point of view ; and, in the second place, he did not more than one-third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would ; and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such THE RAMADAN 109 a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety. At last we rose and dressed ; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones. CHAPTER XVIII HIS MARK As we were walking down the end of the wharf toward the ship, Queequeg carrying his harp**n, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced their papers. ' What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg ? ' said I, now jumping on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. ' I mean,' he replied, ' he must show his papers.' ' Yea,' said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from behind Peleg 's, out of the wigwam. ' He must show that he 's converted. Son of darkness/ he added, turning to Queequeg, c art thou at present in communion with any Christian church ? ' ' Why/ said I, ' he 's a member of the First Congrega- tional Church/ Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches. ' First Congregational Church/ cried Bildad, ' what ! that worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Cole man's meeting- house ? ' and so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at Queequeg. IIP HIS MARK 111 * How long hath he been a member ? ' he then said, turning to me ; ' not very long, I rather guess, young man.' 4 No/ said Peleg, ' and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face.' ' Do tell, now/ cried Bildad, ' is this Philistine a regular member of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting ? I never saw him going there, and I pass it every Lord's day.' ' I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting/ said I, ' all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.' ' Young man/ said Bildad sternly, ' thou art skylarking with me explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean ? answer me.' Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, ' I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of us belong ; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world ; we all belong to that ; only some of us cherish some q***r crotchets no ways touching the grand belief ; in that we all join hands/ ' Splice, thou mean'st splice hands/ cried Peleg, draw- ing nearer. ' Young man, you 'd better ship for a mis- sionary, instead of a foremast hand ; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy why Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it, and he 's reckoned some- thing. Come aboard, come aboard ; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there what 's that you call him ? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harp**n he 's got there ! looks like good stuff that ; and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, 112 MOBY-DICK or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat ? did you ever strike a fish ? ' Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats hanging to the side ; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harp**n, cried out in some such way as this : ' Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere ? You see him ? well, spose him one whale eye, well, den ! ' and taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight/ ' Now, 5 said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, * spos-ee him whale-e eye ; why, dad whale dead.' ' Quick, Bildad,' said Peleg to his partner, who, aghast at the close vicinity of the flying harp**n, had retreated toward the cabin gangway. ' Quick, I say, you, Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we '11 give ye the ninetieth lay, and that 's more than ever was given a harp**neer yet out of Nantucket.' So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged. When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for signing, he turned to me and said, ' I guess, Quohog there don't know how to write, does he ? I say, Quohog, blast ye ! dost thou sign thy name or make thy mark ? ' But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed ; but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact counterpart of a q***r round figure which was tattooed upon his arm ; HIS MARK 113 so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touch- ing his appellative, it stood something like this : Quohog. his >J< mark. Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and stead- fastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled ' The Latter Day Coming ; or No Time to Lose,' placed it in Queequeg 's hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, ' Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee ; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew ; if thou still clingest to thy pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon ; turn from the wrath to come ; mind thine eye, I say ; oh ! goodness gracious ! steer clear of the fiery pit ! ' Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. ' Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harp**neer,' cried Peleg. ' Pious harp**neers never make good voyagers it takes the shark out of 'em ; no harp**neer is worth a straw who ain't pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat- header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard ; he joined the meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones.' c Peleg ! Peleg ! ' said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, 'thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time ; thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of VOL. I. H 114 MOBY-DICK death ; how, then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, didst thou not think of Death and the Judgment then ? ' ' Hear him, hear him now, ' cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets, ' hear him, all of ye. Think of that ! When every moment we thought the ship would sink ! Death and the Judgment then ? What ? With all three masts making such an everlasting thundering against the side ; and every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then ? No ! no time to think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of ; and how to save all hands how to rig jury-masts how to get into the nearest port ; that was what I was thinking of. } Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some sail-makers who were mending a topsail in the waist. Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of the tarred twine, which otherwise might have been wasted. CHAPTER XIX THE PEOPHET ' SHIPMATES, have ye shipped in that ship ? ' Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers ; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. 4 Have ye shipped in her ? ' he repeated. 4 You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,' said I, trying to gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him. ' Ay, the Pequod that ship there/ he said, drawing back his whole arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. ' Yes,' said I, ' we have just signed the articles.' ' Anything down there about your souls ? ' ' About what ? ' ' Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any,' he said quickly. No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got ly, good luck to 'em ; and they are all the better off for it. A soul 's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.' ' What are you jabbering about, shipmate ? ' said I. 115 ! 116 MOBY-DICK ' He 's got enough, though, to make up for all de- ficiencies of that sort in other chaps,' abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he. ' Queequeg,' said I, ' let 's go ; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere ; he 's talking about something and somebody we don't know.' ' Stop ! ' cried the stranger. ' Ye said true ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet, have ye ? ' ' Who 's Old Thunder ? ' said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner. ' Captain Ahab.' ' What ! the captain of our ship, the Pequod ? ' ' Ay, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye ? ' ' No, we hav'n't. He 's sick, they say, but is getting better, and will be all right again before long.' 4 All right again before long ! ' laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh. ' Look ye ; when Captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right ; not before.' i What do you know about him ? ' ' What did they tell you about him ? Say that ! ' ' They didn't tell much of anything about him ; only I 've heard that he 's a good whale -hunter, and a good captain to his crew.' ' That 's true, that 's true yes, both true enough. But you must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl ; growl and go that 's the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights ; nothing about that deadly scrim- mage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa ? heard nothing about that, eh ? Nothing about the silver cala- bash he spat into ? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn't ye THE PROPHET 117 hear a word about them matters and something more, eh ? No, I don't think ye did ; how could ye ? Who knows it ? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, may- hap, ye Ve heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it ; ay> ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh yes, that every one knows a 'most I mean they know he 's only one leg ; and that a parmacetti took the other off.' 4 My friend/ said I, ' what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don't know, and I don't much care ; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg.' ' All about it, eh sure you do ? all ? ' * Pretty sure.' With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled re very ; then starting a little, turned and said, ' Ye Ve shipped, have ye ? Names down on the papers ? Well, well, what 's signed, is signed ; and what 's to be, will be ; and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Anyhow, it's all fixed and arranged a 'ready ; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose ; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em ! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning ; the ineffable heavens bless ye ; I 'm sorry I stopped ye.' ' Look here, friend,' said I, 'if you have anything im- portant to tell us, out with it ; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game ; that 's all I have to say.' ' And it 's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way ; you are just the man for him the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, morning ! Oh ! when ye get there, tell 'em I Ve concluded not to make one of 'em.' ' Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way you 118 MOBY-DICK can't fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.' ' Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.' ' Morning it is,' said I. ' Come along, Queequeg, let 's leave this crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?' ^Elijah/ Elijah ! thought I, and we walked away, both comment- ing, after each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor ; and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and look- ing back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah follow- ing us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner that we did. He did ; and then it seemed to me that he was do***ng us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half -apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod ; and Captain Ahab ; and the leg he had lost ; and the Cape Horn fit ; and the silver calabash ; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous ; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig ; and the voyage we had bound ourselves to sail ; and a hundred other shadowy things. I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really do***ng us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me ; and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug. CHAPTER XX ALL ASTIR A DAY or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging ; in short, everything betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands : Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at the stores ; and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were working till long after night-fall. On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given at all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their chests must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, resolving, how- ever, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for several days. But no wonder ; there was a good deal to be done, and there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod was fully equipped. Everyone knows what a multitude of things beds, saucepans, knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut -crackers, and what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, which necessitates a three -years' housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers . And though this also holds true of merchant 120 MOBY-DICK vessels, yet not by any means to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbours usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling-vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harp**ns, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare captain and duplicate ship. At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the Pequod had been almost completed ; com- prising her beef, bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small. Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kind- hearted, who seemed resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the steward's pantry ; another time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log ; a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in ALL ASTIR 121 which she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars. But it was startling to see this excellent-hearted Quakeress coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and a still longer whaling- lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once and a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard every day ; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing. At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start. CHAPTER XXI GOING ABOARD IT was nearly six o'clock, but only gray imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf. ' There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right/ said I to Queequeg, ' it can't be shadows ; she 's off by sunrise, I guess ; come on ! ' ' Avast ! ' cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah. c Going aboard ? ' ' Hands off, will you,' said I. ' Lookee here,' said Queequeg, shaking himself, ' go 'way ! ' ' Ain't going aboard, then ? ' ' Yes, we are,' said I, ' but what business is that of yours ? Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent ? ' ' No, no, no ; I wasn't aware of that,' said Elijah, slowly and wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable glances. ' Elijah,' said I, ' you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be detained.' c Ye be, be ye ? Coming back afore breakfast ? ' ' He 's cracked, Queequeg,' said I ; ' come on.' 122 GOING ABOARD 123 ' Halloa ! ' cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few paces. ' Never mind him/ said I ; ' Queequeg, come on. 5 But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my shoulder, said, ' Did ye see anything looking like men going toward that ship a while ago ? ' Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, ' Yes, I thought I did see four or five men ; but it was too dim to be sure.' ' Very dim, very dim,' said Elijah. ' Morning to ye.' Once more we quitted him ; but once more he came softly after us ; and touching my shoulder again, said, 4 See if you can find 'em now, will ye ? ' ' Find who ? ' * Morning to ye ! morning to ye ! ' he rejoined, again moving off. ' Oh ! I was going to warn ye against but never mind, never mind it 's all one, all in the family too ; sharp frost this morning, ain't it ? Good- bye to ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess ; unless it 's before the Grand Jury.' And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. At last, stepping on board the Peqiiod, we found every- thing in profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within ; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his face downward and enclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber slept upon him. ' Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to ? ' said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at 124 MOBY-DICK all noticed what I now alluded to ; hence I would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down ; and again mark- ing the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body ; telling him to estab- lish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough ; and then, without more ado, sat quietly down there. ' Gracious ! Queequeg, don't sit there,' said I. c Oh ! perry dood seat,' said Queequeg, ' my country way ; won't hurt him face.' ' Face ! ' said I, ' call that his face ? very benevolent countenance then ; but how hard he breathes, he ? s heaving himself ; get off, Queequeg, you are heavy, it 's grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg ! Look, he '11 twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't wake.' Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and lighted his tomahawk-pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans ; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion ; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks ; upon occasion, a chief calling his attend- ant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. While narrating these things, every time Queequeg GOING ABOARD 125 received the tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet - side of it over the sleeper's head. ' What 's that for, Queequeg ? ' ' Perry easy, kill-e ; oh ! perry easy ! ' He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe, which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong vapour now completely filling the contracted hole, it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness ; then seemed troubled in the nose ; then revolved over once or twice ; then sat up and rubbed his eyes. 4 Halloa ! ' he breathed at last, ' who be ye smokers ? ' ' Shipped men/ answered I. c When does she sail ? ' ' Ay, ay, ye are going in her, be ye ? She sails to- day. The captain came aboard last night.' ' What captain ? Ahab ? ' ' Who but him indeed ? ' I was going to ask him some further questions concern- ing Ahab, when we heard a noise on deck. ' Halloa ! Starbuck 's astir,' said the rigger. ' He 's a lively chief mate, that ; .good man, and a pious ; but all alive now, I must turn to.' And so saying he went on deck, and we followed. It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and threes ; the riggers bestirred themselves ; the mates were actively engaged ; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin. CHAPTER XXII MERRY CHRISTMAS AT length, toward noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last gift a night- cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward after all this, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg said : ' Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right ? Captain Ahab is all ready just spoke to him nothing more to be got from shore, eh ? Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here blast 'em ! ' ' No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,' said Bildad, ' but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding.' How now ! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of him was yet to be seen ; only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot's ; and as he was not yet completely recovered so they said therefore, Cap- tain Ahab stayed below. And all this seemed natural 126 MEKRY CHRISTMAS 127 enough ; especially as in the merchant service many captains never show themselves on deck for a consider- able time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, before they quit the ship for good with the pilot. But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and commanding, and not Bildad. ' Aft here, ye sons of bachelors,' he cried, as the sailors lingered at the mainmast. ' Mr. Starbuck, drive 'em aft.' ' Strike the tent there ! ' was the next order. As I hinted before, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port ; and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. ' Man the capstan ! Blood and thunder ! jump ! ' was the next command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes. Now, in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it known, in addi- tion to his other offices, was one of the licensed pilots of the port he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot -fee to all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty goodwill. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in 128 MOBY-DICK getting under weigh ; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman's berth. Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up ; involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, how- ever, with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay ; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick. ' Is that the way they heave in the marchant service ? ' he roared. ' Spring, thou sheep-head ; spring, and break thy backbone ! Why don't ye spring, I say, all of ye spring ! Quohag ! spring, thou chap with the red whiskers ; spring there, Scotch-cap ; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out ! ' And so saying, he moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day. At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas ; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armour. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight ; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows. Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever MERRY CHRISTMAS 129 and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, * Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green. So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.' Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store ; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside. It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet ; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a voyage beyond both stormy Capes ; a ship in which some thousands of his hard-earned dollars were invested ; a ship, in which an old shipmate sailed as captain ; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw ; loath to say good-bye to a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him, poor old Bildad lingered long ; paced the deck with anxious strides ; ran down into the cabin to speak another farewell word there ; again came on deck, and looked to windward ; looked toward the wide and endless waters, only bounded by the * r-off unseen Eastern Continents ; looked toward the VOL. I. I 130 MOBY-DICK land ; looked aloft ; looked right and left ; looked every- where and nowhere ; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, * Never- theless, friend Peleg, I can stand it ; yes, I can.' As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher ; but for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate. But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look about him, 4 Captain Bildad come, old ship- mate, we must go. Back the main-yard there ! Boat ahoy ! Stand by to come close alongside, now ! Careful, careful ! come, Bildad, boy say your last. Luck to ye, Starbuck luck to ye, Mr. Stubb luck to ye, Mr. Flask good-bye, and good luck to ye all and this day three years I '11 have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away ! ' ' God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men/ murmured old Bildad, almost incoherently. ' I hope ye '11 have fine weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye '11 have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, ye harp**neers ; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent, within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh ! the sail-needles are in the green locker ! Don't whale it too much a Lord's days, men ; but don't miss a fair chance either, that 's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb ; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornica- MERRY CHRISTMAS 131 tion. Good-bye, good-bye ! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. Starbuck ; it '11 spoil. Be careful with the butter twenty cents the pound it was, and mind ye, if ' Come, come, Captain Bildad ; stop palavering, away ! ' and with that, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropped into the boat. Ship and boat diverged ; the cold, damp night breeze blew between ; a screaming gull flew overhead ; the two hulls wildly rolled ; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic. CHAPTER XXIII THE LEE SHORE SOME chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winter's night the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington ! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid- winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable ; deep memories yield no epitaphs ; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succour ; the port is pitiful ; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that 's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy ; she must fly all hospitality ; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore ; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward ; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again ; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril ; her only friend her bitterest foe ! Know ye, now, Bulkington ? Glimpses do ye seem to 132 THE LEE SHORE 133 see of that mortally intolerable truth ; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea ; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore ? But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety ! For worm-like, then, oh ! who would craven crawl to land ! Terrors of the terrible ! is all this agony so vain ? Take heart, take heart, Bulkington ! Bear thee grimly, demigod ! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing straight up, leaps thy apotheosis ! CHAPTER XXIV THE ADVOCATE As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this busi- ness of whaling ; and as this business of whaling has some- how come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit ; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales. In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the company as a harp**neer, say ; and if in emulation of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (S***m Whale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed pre- eminently presuming and ridiculous. Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring us whalemen is this : they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business ; and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge, have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honour. And as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally 134 THE ADVOCATE 185 unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the s***m whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the charge in question to be true ; what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battlefields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies' plaudits ? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier's profession ; let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the s***m whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the inter- i linked terrors and wonders of God ! But, though the world scouts at us whale-hunters, yet does it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage ; yea, an all-abounding adoration ! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory ! But look at this matter in other lights ; weigh it in all sorts of scales ; see what we whalemen are, and have been. Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling-fleets ? Why did Louis xvi. of France, at his own personal expense, fit out whaling-ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket ? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties upward of 1,000,000 ? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now\ outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen hi the \ world ; sail a navy of upward of seven hundred vessels ; manned by eighteen thousand men ; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars ; the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000 ; and every year importing into our harbours a well-reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How 136 MOBY-DICK comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling ? But this is not the half ; look again. I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in them- selves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential f issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian / mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years \ past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If Ameri- can and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage harbours, let them fire salutes to the honour and the glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of exploring expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusen- sterns ; but I say that scores of anonymous captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For in their succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathen- ish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines and muskets would not willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the lifetime commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three THE ADVOCATE 137 chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship's common log. Ah, the world ! Oh, the world ! Until the whale-fishery rounded Cape Horn, no com- merce but colonial, scarcely any in*******se but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies ; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts. That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous ; but the whale -ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale -ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that double -bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due ; for already she is on the threshold. But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you jre, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time. 138 MOBY-DICK The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you will say. The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler ? Who wrote the first account of our levia- than ? Who but mighty Job ! And who composed the first narrative of a whaling voyage ? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale -hunter of those times ! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament ? Who, but Edmund Burke ! True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils ; they have no good blood in their veins. No good blood in their veins ? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel ; afterward, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket ? and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and har- p**neers all kith and kin to noble Benjamin this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. Good again ; but then all confess that somehow whal- ing is not respectable. Whaling not respectable ? Whaling is imperial ! By old English statutory law, the whale is declared 'a royal fish.' l Oh, that 's only nominal ! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way. The whale never figured in any grand imposing way ? In one of the mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession. 1 Grant it, since you cite it ; but, say what you will, there is no real dignity in whaling. 1 See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. THE ADVOCATE 139 No dignity in whaling ? The dignity of our calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south ! No more ! Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg ! No more ! I know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honourable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns. And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me ; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of ; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone ; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling ; for a whale -ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

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