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






.. < chapter ix 23 THE SERMON >
Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of
unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. Starboard
gangway, there! side away to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard!
Midships! midships! There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the
benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet
again, and every eye on the preacher. He paused a little; then kneeling in
the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his
closed eyes,
..
and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at
the bottom of the sea. This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the
continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog —in
such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner
towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy
— The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, While
all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down to doom. I saw
the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but
they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to despair. In black distress,
I called my God, When I could scarce believe him mine, He bowed his ear to my
complaints — No more the whale did me confine. With speed he flew to my
relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God. My song for ever shall record That terrible,
that joyful hour; I give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the
power. Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the
howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over
the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper
page, said: Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of
Jonah — And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Shipmates,
this book, containing only four chapters —four yarns —is one of the smallest
strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul
does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this
prophet! What
..
a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly! How billow-like and
boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us; we sound with him to
the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is
about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches?
Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men,
and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a
lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness,
suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and
finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men,
the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command
of God —never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed —which he found
a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us
to do —remember that —and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to
persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this
disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. With
this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by
seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men, will carry him
into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth.
He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for
Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all
accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's
the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in
Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in
those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because
Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the
Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles
to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not
then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee 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 arrested
ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a
hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag, —no friends accompany him to the wharf with
their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship
receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its
Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in
the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he
tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile.
Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In
their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other —"Jack, he's
robbed a widow;" or,"Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or,"Harry lad,
I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of
the missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's stuck
against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five
hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and containing a
description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill;
while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay
their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and summoning all his
boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not
confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes
the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is
advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin. "Who's
there?" cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers
for the Customs —"who's there?" Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah!
For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. "I seek a
passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?" Thus far the busy
captain had not looked up to jonah, though the man now stands before him;
but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing
glance. "We sail with the next coming tide," at last he slowly answered,
still intently eyeing him. "No sooner, sir?" —"Soon enough for any honest man
that goes a passenger." Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls
away the Captain from that scent. "I'll sail with ye," —he says, —"the
passage
..
money, how much is that, —I'll pay now." For it is particularly written,
shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history,"that he
paid the fare thereof" ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context,
this is full of meaning. Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose
discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the
penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely,
and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all
frontiers. So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse,
ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's
assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the
same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when
Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain.
He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters;
and Jonah is put down for his passage. "Point out my state-room, Sir," says
Jonah now. "I'm travel-weary; I need sleep." "Thou 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 the little
state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and
jonah gasps. then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's
water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when
the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowel's wards. Screwed at
its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah's
room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of the
last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still
maintains a permanent obliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth,
infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels
among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his
berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful
fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in
the lamp more and
..
more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. "Oh! so
my conscience hangs in me!" he groans, "straight 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. And
now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and from the
deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea.
That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband
was jonah. but the sea rebels; he will not bear the wicked burden. A
dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the
boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are
clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling,
and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all
this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and
raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he
the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving
the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of
the ship —a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But
the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, "What
meanest thou, O sleeper! arise!" Startled from his lethargy by that direful
cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud,
to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther
billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship,
and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come
nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows
..
her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast
Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward
again towards the tormented deep. Terrors upon terrors run shouting through
his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly
known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of
him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to
high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great
tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how
furiously they mob him with their questions. "What is thine occupation?
whence comest thou? thy country? what people?" but mark now, my shipmates,
the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and
where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but
likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited
answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him. "I am
a Hebrew," he cries —and then —"I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath
made the sea and the dry land!" Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou
fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full
confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still
are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he
but too well knew the darkness of his deserts, —when wretched Jonah cries out
to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for
his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him,
and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant
gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the
other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. And now behold Jonah taken up
as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats
out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with
him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such
a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething
into the yawning jaws
..
awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like the Lord out
of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and so many white bolts, upon
his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he
is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his
dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting
himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still
look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful
repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how
pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual
deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place
Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a
model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like
Jonah. While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,
slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when
describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep
chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring
elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy
brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look
on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. There now came a lull in
his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and,
at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed
communing with God and himself. But again he leaned over towards the people,
and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest
humility, he spake these words: Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon
you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may
be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye,
and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly
would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you
sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other
and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me as a pilot of
..
the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true
things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of
a wicked nineveh, jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from
his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at
Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen,
God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of
doom, and with swift slantings tore him along"into the midst of the seas,"
where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and"the weeds
were wrapped about his head," and all the watery world of woe bowled over
him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet —"out of the belly of
hell" —when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God
heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the
fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came
breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air
and earth; and"vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;" when the word of the
Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten —his ears, like two
sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean —Jonah did the
Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the
face of Falsehood! That was it! This, shipmates, this is that other lesson;
and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this
world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the
waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please
rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!
Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not
be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the
great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!
He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to
them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly
enthusiasm, — but oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is
a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the
woe is
..
deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to
him —a far, far upward, and inward delight —who against the proud gods and
commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight
is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base
treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives
no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he
pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,
—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the
Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all
the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake
from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will
be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath —O Father!
—chiefly known to me by Thy rod —mortal or immortal, here I die. I have
striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is
nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out
the lifetime of his God? He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction,
covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the
people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.
..






.. < chapter X 24 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 tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand
devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the
Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like
a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was,
too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and
brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I
will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically
an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General
Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long
regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise
very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg
was George Washington cannibalistically developed. Whilst I was thus closely
scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from
the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so
much as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the
pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping
together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm
I had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this
indifference of his
..
very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know
exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm
self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also
that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other
seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire
to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty
singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in
it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape
Horn, that is —which was the only way he could get there —thrown among people
as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed
entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own
companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine
philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as
that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be
conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a
man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic
old woman, he must have broken his digester. As I sat there in that now
lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first
intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the
evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in
upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells;
I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No
more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish
world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very
indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies
and bland deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began
to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that
would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew
me. I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved
but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs
and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little
noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last
..
night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be
bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a
little complimented. We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored
to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few
pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we
went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen
in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch
and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs
from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us. If
there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's breast,
this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies.
He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and
when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me
round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his
country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if
need should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have
seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple
savage those old rules would not apply. After supper, and another social chat
and smoke, we went to our room together. He made me a present of his
embalmed head; took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the
tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the
table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of
them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he
silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. He
then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the
paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious
for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a
moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise. I was a
good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian
Church. How then could I unite with
..
this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship?
thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven
and earth —pagans and all included —can possibly be jealous of an
insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? —to do the
will of God — that is worship. And what is the will of God? —to do to my
fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me — that is the will of
God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg
would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of
worship. consequently, i must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn
idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little
idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or
thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at
peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep
without some little chat. How it is I know not; but there is no place like a
bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples
often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our
hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg —a cosy, loving pair.
..






.. < chapter xi 24 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 warming-pans. We felt very nice
and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of
bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I
say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be
cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by
contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all
over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to
be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip
of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed,
in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.
For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire,
which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of
this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and
your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one
warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. We had been sitting in this
crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my
eyes; for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether
asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the
more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever
feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were
indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to
our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant
and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the
unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable
revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it
were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides
he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it
said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in
..
the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when
love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have
Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such
serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord's
policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential
comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. With our
shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one
to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke,
illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp. Whether it was that this
undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not,
but he now spoke of his native island; and, eager to hear his history, I
begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I
but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures,
when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to
present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.
..






.. < chapter xii 21 BIOGRAPHICAL >
Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an
island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true
places never are. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native
woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a
green sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong
desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two.
His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the
maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors.
There was excellent blood in his veins —royal stuff; though
..
sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his
untutored youth. A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg
sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement
of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence
could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off
to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted
the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of
land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding
his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat
down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by,
like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his
foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing
himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ringbolt there, and swore not
to let it go, though hacked in pieces. In vain the captain threatened to throw
him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the
son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate
dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last
relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young
savage —this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the captain's cabin. They put him
down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter
content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no
seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening
his untutored countrymen. For at bottom —so he told me —he was actuated by a
profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his
people still happier than they were; and more than that, still better than
they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even
Christians could be both miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all
his father's heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what
the sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they
spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost.
Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.
..
and thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore
their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer ways about
him, though now some time from home. By hints, I asked him whether he did
not propose going back, and having a coronation; since he might now consider
his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts.
He answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or
rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled
throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would
return, —as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however,
he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They
had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre
now. I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future
movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this,
I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention
to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous
whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany me to that island,
ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the
same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in
his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously
assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an
experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness
to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though
well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen. His story being
ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his
forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each
other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping.
..






.. < chapter xiii 2 WHEELBARROW >
wheelbarrow next morning, Monday, after disposing of
the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's
bill; using, however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as
the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had
sprung up between me and Queequeg — especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull
stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person
whom I now companied with. We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our
things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and
hammock, away we went down to the Moss, the little Nantucket packet
schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not
at Queequeg so much —for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their
streets, — but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we
heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now
and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why
he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling
ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied,
that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection
for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a
mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like
many inland reapers and mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with
their own scythes —though in no wise obliged to furnished them — even so,
Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. Shifting
the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first
wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners of his ship,
it seems, had lent him one,
..
in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant
about the thing —though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise
way in which to manage the barrow —Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes
it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. Why, said
I, Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn't
the people laugh? Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his
island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant
water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and
this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat
where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at
Rokovoko, and its commander —from all accounts, a very stately punctilious
gentleman, at least for a sea captain —this commander was invited to the
wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a pretty young princess just turned of
ten. Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo
cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the post of honor,
placed himself over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and
his majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said, — for those people
have their grace as well as we —though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who
at such times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying
the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts —Grace, I say,
being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of
the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into
the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next
the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself —being Captain of
a ship —as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the
King's own house —the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punch
bowl; —taking it i suppose for a huge finger-glass. now, said Queequeg,
what you tink now, —Didn't our people laugh? At last, passage paid, and
luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down
the Acushnet river. On
..
one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees
all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on
casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale
ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of
carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the
pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most
perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended,
only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the
endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort. Gaining the
more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the
quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that
Tartar air! —how I spurned that turnpike earth! —that common highway all over
dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the
magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records. At the same
foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrils
swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and
our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast; ducked and dived her
brows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted;
every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian
canes in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood
by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering
glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two
fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything
more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and
bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart
and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings
mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come.
Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an
almost miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the
air; then slightly
..
tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon
his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk
pipe and passed it to me for a puff. Capting! Capting! yelled the
bumpkin, running towards that officer; Capting, Capting, here's the devil.
Hallo, you sir, cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to
Queequeg, what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you might have
killed that chap? What him say? said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.
He say, said I, that you came near kill-e that man there, pointing to the
still shivering greenhorn. Kill-e, cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed
face into an unearthly expression of disdain, ah! him bevy small-e fish-e;
Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale! Look you,
roared the Captain, I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of
your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye. But it so happened just then,
that it was high time for the Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious
strain upon the main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous
boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after
part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was
swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the
boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again,
almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of
snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of
being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom
as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this
consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the
path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks,
and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept
over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all
was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were
clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from
the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three
..
minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms
straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through
the freezing foam. I looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one
to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly
from the water, Queequeg now took an instant's glance around him, and
seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few
minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the
other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor
bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain
begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea,
till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. Was there ever such
unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal
from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water —fresh
water — something to wipe the brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes,
lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those
around him, seemed to be saying to himself — It's a mutual, joint-stock
world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians.
..






.. < chapter xiv 23 NANTUCKET >
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy
the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the
world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the
Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it —a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all
beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in
twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will
tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don't
..
grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send
beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in
Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people
there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer
time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day's walk a
prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snowshoes;
that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and
made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables
small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea
turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.
Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by
the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle swooped down upon
the New England coast, and carried off an infant Indian in his talons. With
loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide
waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their
canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they
found an empty ivory casket, —the poor little Indian's skeleton. What wonder,
then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a
livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in the sand; grown bolder,
they waded out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in
boats and captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the
sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations
round it; peeped in at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans
declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived
the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea
Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his
very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious
assaults! And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing
from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like
so many Alexanders; parcelling out among
..
them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did
Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the
English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun;
two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is
his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right
of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but
floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as
highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the
land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless
deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he
alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it
as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business,
which a noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the
millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he
hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For
years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells
like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With
the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep
between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land,
furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush
herds of walruses and whales.
..






.. < chapter xv 27 CHOWDER >
It was quite late in the evening when the
little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we
could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed.
The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey
of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to
..
be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and
moreover he had assured us that cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for
his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do
better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us
about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white
church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we
made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first
man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very much
puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the
yellow warehouse —our first point of departure —must be left on the larboard
hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard.
However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then
knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to
something which there was no mistaking. Two enormous wooden pots painted
black, and suspended by asses' ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old
top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees
were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a
little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at
the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague
misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining
horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous,
thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port;
tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a
pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints
touching tophet? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a
freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of
the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an
injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen
shirt. Get along with ye, said she to the man, or I'll be combing ye!
Come on, Queequeg, said I, all right. There's Mrs. Hussey.
..
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs.
Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our
desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for
the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread
with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and
said— Clam or Cod? What's that about Cods, ma'am? said I, with much
politeness. Clam or Cod? she repeated. A clam for supper? a cold clam;
is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey? says I; but that's a rather cold and
clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs Hussey? But being in a
great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt, who was waiting
for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word clam, Mrs.
Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out
clam for two, disappeared. Queequeg, said I, do you think that we can
make out a supper for us both on one clam? However, a warm savory steam from
the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But
when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained.
Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely
bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut
up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully
seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty
voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favorite fishing food before
him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with
great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs.
Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment.
Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word cod with great emphasis,
and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savory steam came forth again, but
with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed
before us. We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the
..
bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the
head? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? But look,
Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?
Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name;
for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and
chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for
fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved
with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra;
and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin.
There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account
for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some
fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and
marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking
very slip-shod, I assure ye. Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and
directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as
Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her
arm, and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. Why
not? said I; every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon —but why not?
Because it's dangerous, says she. Ever since young Stiggs coming from that
unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only
three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his
harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich
dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg (for she had
learned his name), I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till
morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men? Both,
says I; and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.
..






.. < chapter xvi 2 THE SHIP >
In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow.
But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand,
that he had been diligently consulting Yojo —the name of his black little god
—and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it
everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in
harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo
earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me,
inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to do so, had already
pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should
infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by
chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present
irrespective of Queequeg. I have forgotten to mention that, in many things,
Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and
surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem,
as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole,
but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. Now, this plan of
Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the selection of our craft; I did not
like that plan at all. I had not a little relied on Queequeg's sagacity to
point out the whaler best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But
as all my remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to
acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business with a
determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that
trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with
Yojo in our little bedroom —for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or
Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo
that
..
day; how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself to it
several times, I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX Articles —leaving
Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at
his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After
much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there
were three ships up for three-years' voyages —The Devil-Dam the Tit-bit,
and the pequod. devil- dam, i do not know the origin of; tit-bit is
obvious; Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated
tribe of Massachusetts Indians, now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered
and pryed about the Devil-Dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and,
finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then
decided that this was the very ship for us. You may have seen many a quaint
craft in your day, for aught I know; —squared-toed luggers; mountainous
Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and what not; but take my word for it,
you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a
ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old fashioned
claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons
and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a
French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her
venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts—cut somewhere on the coast of Japan,
where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale —her masts stood
stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient
decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in
Canterbury Cathedral where Beckett bled. But to all these her old
antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild
business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old Captain
Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded another vessel of his
own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the principal owners of the
Pequod, —this old Peleg, during the term of his chief-mateship, had built upon
her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both
of material and device, unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's
carved buckler or bedstead. She was
..
apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants
of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft,
tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her
unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the
long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her
old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of
land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a
turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that
tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her
hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt
like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A
noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched
with that. Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having
authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at
first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or
rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a
temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet
high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from
the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their
broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually
sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where
the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like a top-knot on some old
Pottowotamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows of
the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward. And half
concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by his aspect
seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the ship's work
suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command. He was seated
on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious carving; and
the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic
stuff of which the wigwam was constructed. There was nothing so very
particular, perhaps, about the
..
appearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old
seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style;
only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles
interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual
sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to windward; —for this
causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together. Such
eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. Is this the Captain of the
Pequod? said I, advancing to the door of the tent. Supposing it be the
Captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him? he demanded. I was
thinking of shipping. Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou are no Nantucketer
—ever been in a stove boat? No, Sir, I never have. Dost know nothing at
all about whaling, I dare say —eh? Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I
shall soon learn. I've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I
think that— Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost
see that leg? —I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest
of the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now
ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But
flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh? —it looks a little
suspicious, don't it, eh? —Hast not been a pirate, hast thou? —Didst not rob
thy last Captain, didst thou? —Dost not think of murdering the officers when
thou gettest to sea? I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that
under the mask of these half humorous inuendoes, this old seaman, as an
insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and
rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the
Vineyard. But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think
of shipping ye. Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see
the world. Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on
Captain Ahab?
..
Who is Captain Ahab, sir? Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the
Captain of this ship. I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the
Captain himself. Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg —that's who ye are
speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the
Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including
crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou
wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way
of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye
on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg.
What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale? Lost by a whale!
Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the
monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat! —ah, ah! I was a little
alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in
his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, What you say is
no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar
ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as
much from the simple fact of the accident. Look ye now, young man, thy
lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure,
ye've been to sea before now; sure of that? Sir, said I, I thought I
told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant— Hard down out of
that! Mind what I said about the marchant service —don't aggravate me —I
won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint
about what whaling is; do ye yet feel inclined for it? I do, sir. Very
good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's throat,
and then jump after it? Answer, quick! I am, sir, if it should be
positively indispensable to do so; not to be got rid of, that is; which I
don't take to be the fact. Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to
go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to
..
go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well
then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and
then back to me and tell me what ye see there. For a moment I stood a little
puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether
humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet into one
scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing
over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with
the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The
prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the
slightest variety that I could see. Well, what's the report? said Peleg
when I came back; what did ye see? Not much, I replied — nothing but
water; considerable horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I
think. Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to
go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where
you stand? I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would;
and the Pequod was as good a ship as any —I thought the best — and all this I
now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness
to ship me. And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off, he added
— come along with ye. And so saying, he led the way below deck into the
cabin. seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with
Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares,
as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old
annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning
about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the
ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same
way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.
Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers,
..
was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to
this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the
peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by
things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are
the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting
Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance. So that there are instances among
them of men, who, named with Scripture names —a singularly common fashion on
the island —and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and
thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless
adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown
peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a
Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite
in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a
ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long
night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen
here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently;
receiving all nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin
voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from
accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language —that man
makes one in a whole nation's census —a mighty pageant creature, formed for
noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded,
if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful
overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically
great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young
ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to
do with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed
peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by
individual circumstances. Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do,
retired whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg —who cared not a rush for what
are called serious things, and indeed deemed those selfsame serious things
the veriest of all trifles —Captain Bildad
..
had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of
Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many
unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn —all that had not moved this
native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of
his vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common
consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from conscientious
scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably
invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed,
yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan
gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad
reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not
seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the
sage and sensible conclusion that a man's religion is one thing, and this
practical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a
little cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a
broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and
captain, and finally a ship-owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded
his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age
of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his
well-earned income. Now Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of
being an incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard
task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious
story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving
home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn
out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly rather
hard-hearted to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men,
they said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated
hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his
drab-colored eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous,
till you could clutch something —a hammer or a 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 embodiment of
his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare
flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it,
like the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat. Such, then, was the person that I
saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin.
The space between the decks was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old
Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat
tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed;
his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he
seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume. Bildad, cried Captain
Peleg, at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been studying those Scriptures,
now, for the last thirty years, to my certain knowledge. How far ye got,
Bildad? As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,
Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and
seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. He says he's our man,
Bildad, said Peleg, he wants to ship. Dost thee? said Bildad, in a
hollow tone, and turning round to me. I dost, said I unconsciously, he was
so intense a Quaker. What do ye think of him, Bildad? said Peleg. He'll
do, said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a
mumbling tone quite audible. I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw,
especially as Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer.
But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a
chest, and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him,
and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time to
settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage.
I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all
hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called
lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance
pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's company.
..
I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be
very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship,
splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had heard I
should be offered at least the 275th lay —that is, the 275th part of the clear
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,
therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly
the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know
but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping
hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there
in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while
Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my
no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these
proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of
his book, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—
Well, Captain Bildad, interrupted Peleg, what d'ye say, what lay shall we
give this young man?
..
Thou knowest best, was the sepulchral reply, the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it? — "where moth and rust do
corrupt, but lay—" Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven
hundred and seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I,
for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do
corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the
magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the
slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven
is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you
will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a
farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold
doubloons; and so I thought at the time. Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,
cried Peleg, Thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have
more than that. Seven hundred and seventy-seventh, again said Bildad,
without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling — for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also. I am going to put him down for
the three hundredth, said Peleg, do ye hear that, Bildad! The three
hundredth lay, I say. Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly
towards him said, Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must
consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship— widows and
orphans, many of them —and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this
young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans.
The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg. Thou Bildad!
roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. Blast ye, Captain
Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had
a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest
ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn. Captain Peleg, said Bildad
steadily, thy conscience may be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms,
i can't tell; but as thou art still an impenitent man, captain Peleg, I
greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end
sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.
..
Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye
insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he's
bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start
my soul-bolts, but I'll—I'll—yes, I'll swallow a live goat with all his
hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden
gun —a straight wake with ye! As he thundered out this he made a rush at
Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that
time eluded him. Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal
and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all
idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded,
I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt,
was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to
my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed
to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to
impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as
he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb,
though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. Whew! he
whistled at last — the squall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou
used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife
here needs the grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young
man, Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, 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'll look at him. What lay does he
want? groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in which he had again been
burying himself. Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad, said Peleg. Has
he ever whaled it any? turning to me. Killed more whales than I can count,
Captain Peleg. Well, bring him along then.
..
And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I had
done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that
Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. But I had not
proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the captain with whom I was to
sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship
will be completely fitted out, and receive all her crew on board, ere the
captain makes himself visible by arriving to take command; for sometimes these
voyages are so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly
brief, that if the captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of
that sort, he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but
leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as
well to have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his
hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab
was to be found. And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right
enough; thou art shipped. Yes, but I should like to see him. But I
don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly what's the
matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort of sick, and
yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick; but no, he isn't well either.
Any how, young man, he won't always see me, so I don't suppose he will thee.
He's a queer man, Captain Ahab —so some think —but a good one. Oh, thou'lt
like him well enough; no fear, no fear. he's a grand, ungodly, god-like
man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may
well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been
in colleges, as well as 'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than
the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier stranger foes than whales. His
lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he
ain't Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; he's Ahab, boy; and
Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king! And a very vile one. When
that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?
..
Come hither to me —hither, hither, said Peleg, with a significance in his
eye that almost startled me. Look ye, lad; never say that on board the
Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a
foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was
only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that
the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her
may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a lie. I know Captain
Ahab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago; I know what he is—a
good man —not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good man