becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in his
movements, to pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless, as the second
iron is already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence that
weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat,
somehow and somewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all
hands. Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare
coils of box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in
most instances, prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always
unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties. Furthermore: you must
know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a
dangling, sharp-edged
..
terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,
or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor,
in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly
captured and a corpse. Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats
all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to
these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of
such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be
simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied with
several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually
darted without recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here,
as they will not fail to elucidate several most important, however intricate
passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted.
..






.. < chapter lxiv 16 STUBB'S SUPPER >
Stubb's whale had been killed some
distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats,
we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now,
as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty
thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish
corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long
intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass
we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call it, in
China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted
junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we towed heavily
forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk. Darkness came on; but
three lights up and down in the Pequod's main-rigging dimly guided our way;
till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the
..
bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual
orders for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a
seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until
morning. Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had
evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature was
dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working
in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was
yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship,
all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon
you would have thought from the sound on the Pequod's decks, that all hands
were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged
along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those
clanking links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied
by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies
with its black hull close to the vessel's, and seen through the darkness of
the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two —ship and
whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines
while the other remains standing. If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at
least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with
conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an
unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his
..
official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management
of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was
soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat
intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate. A steak,
a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from
his small! Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a
general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy
defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the
proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers
who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale
designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body. About
midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm
oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head,
as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on
whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications,
thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan,
smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were
often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within
a few inches of the sleepers' hearts. Peering over the side you could just
see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters,
and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of
the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark
seems all but miraculous. How, at such an apparently unassailable surface,
they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the
universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, may
best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a
screw. Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight,
sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs
round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed
man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the
deck-table are
..
thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded
and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are
quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were
you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the
same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all
parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave
ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy
in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently
buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down,
touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially
congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or
occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or
more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a
whale-ship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your
decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of
conciliating the devil. But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the
banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the
smacking of his own epicurean lips. Cook, cook! —where's that old Fleece?
he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more
secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the
dish, as if stabbing with his lance; cook, you cook! —sail this way, cook!
the old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously routed from
his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his
galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his
knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old
Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his
step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened
iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of
command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard;
when,
..
with both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he
bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining
his head, so as to bring his best ear into play. Cook, said Stubb, rapidly
lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, don't you think this steak is
rather overdone? You've been beating this steak too much, cook; it's too
tender. Don't I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough?
There are those sharks now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough
and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell
'em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they
must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and
deliver my message. Here, take this lantern, snatching one from his
sideboard; now then, go and preach to 'em! Sullenly taking the offered
lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with
one hand dropping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of
his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and
leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks,
while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.
Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise
dare. you hear? stop dat dam smackin' ob de lip! massa Stubb say dat you
can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you must stop dat
dam racket! Cook, here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a
sudden slap on the shoulder, — Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear
that way when you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, Cook!
Who dat? Den preach to him yourself, sullenly turning to go. No, Cook;
go on, go on. Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters: — Right! exclaimed
Stubb, approvingly, coax 'em to it; try that, and Fleece continued. Do
you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I
..
zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness —'top dat dam slappin' ob
de tail! How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and
bitin' dare? Cook, cried Stubb, collaring him, I wont have that swearing.
Talk to 'em gentlemanly. Once more the sermon proceeded. Your
woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat is natur,
and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is
sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for
all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here,
bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale.
Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one
shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right
to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o' you has
berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de
small bellies; so dat de brigness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but to
bite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge
to help demselves. Well done, old Fleece! cried Stubb, that's
Christianity; go on. No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a
scrougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no
use a-preachin' to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is
full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get em full, dey wont
hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and
can't hear not'ing at all, no more, for eber and eber. Upon my soul, I am
about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to
my supper. Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised
his shrill voice, and cried — Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest
row as ever you can; fill your dam' bellies 'till dey bust —and den die.
Now, cook, said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; Stand just where
you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention.
..
All dention, said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the
desired position. Well, said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; I
shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old
are you, cook? What dat do wid de 'teak, said the old black, testily.
Silence! How old are you, cook? 'Bout ninety, dey say, he gloomily
muttered. And have you lived in this world hard upon one hundred years,
cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak? rapidly bolting another
mouthful at the last word, so that that morsel seemed a continuation of the
question. Where were you born, cook? 'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat,
goin' ober de Roanoke. Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want
to know what country you were born in, cook? Didn't I say de Roanoke
country? he cried, sharply. No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what
I'm coming to, cook. You must go home and be born over again; you don't
know how to cook a whale-steak yet. Bress my soul, if I cook noder one, he
growled, angrily, turning round to depart. Come back, cook; —here, hand me
those tongs; —now take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that
steak cooked as it should be? Take it, I say —holding the tongs towards him
— take it, and taste it. Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a
moment, the old negro muttered, Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy,
berry joosy. Cook, said Stubb, squaring himself once more; do you
belong to the church? Passed one once in Cape-Down, said the old man
sullenly. And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,
where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his
beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell
me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh? said Stubb. Where do you
expect to go to, cook?
..
Go to bed berry soon, he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke. Avast! heave
to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now what's your
answer? When dis old brack man dies, said the negro slowly, changing his
whole air and demeanor, he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel
will come and fetch him. Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they
fetched Elijah? And fetch him where? Up dere, said Fleece, holding his
tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly. So, then,
you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead?
But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top, eh?
Didn't say dat t'all, said Fleece, again in the sulks. You said up there,
didn't you, and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing.
But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's
hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the
regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be
done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your
tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and
clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What!
that your heart, there? —that's your gizzard! Aloft! aloft! —that's it —now
you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention. All 'dention, said
the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his
grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.
Well then, cook; you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I
have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't you? Well,
for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my private table here,
the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing.
Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that
done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in
the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in
pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now
ye may go.
..
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled. Cook, give
me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D'ye hear? away you
sail, then. —Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go. —Avast heaving again!
Whale-balls for breakfast —don't forget. Wish, by gor! whale eat him,
'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa
Shark hisself, muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage
ejaculation he went to his hammock.
..
A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable
hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes
or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier
than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death,
causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you
cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But
this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared
with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the
other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is
to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the made
whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the
body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the
point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
..






.. < chapter lxv 12 THE WHALE AS A DISH >
That mortal man should feed upon
the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light,
as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a
little into the history and philosophy of it. It is upon record, that three
centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in
France, and commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's
time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an
admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember,
are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine
eating. The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and
being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.
The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great
porpoise grant from the crown. The fact is, that among his hunters at least,
the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so
much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one
hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced
of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of
..
cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious. We all know how they
live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil.
Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for
infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me
that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by
a whaling vessel —that these men actually lived for several months on the
mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the
blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called fritters; which,
indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling
something like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.
They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly
keep his hands off. But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized
dish, is his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too
fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating
as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid
pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is;
like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third
month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter.
Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other
substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches of the night it
is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge
oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supper have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. The
casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish
lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are
then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor
somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some epicures;
and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually
dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their
own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own heads; which,
indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why
..
a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow
one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully
at him, with an Et tu Brute! expression. It is not, perhaps, entirely
because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the
eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the
consideration before mentioned: i. e. that a man should eat a newly murdered
thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first
man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung;
and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been;
and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of
a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows
of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's
jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable
for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a
coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in
the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who
nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy
pate-de-foie-gras. But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he?
and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle,
there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef,
what is that handle made of? —what but the bones of the brother of the very ox
you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that
fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the
Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formally
indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that that
society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.
..






.. < chapter lxvi 2 THE SHARK MASSACRE >
When in the Southern Fishery, a
captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at
night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once
to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly
laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set
about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm
a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the
reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is,
two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the
deck to see that all goes well. But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the
Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts
of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six
hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by
morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not
so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably
diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a
procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle
them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the present case
with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such
sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought
the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.
nevertheless, upon stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was
concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on
deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for immediately
suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so
that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these
..
two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an incessant
murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls,
seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy confusion of their mixed
and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this
brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe. They
viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like
flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed
swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by
the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses
and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality
seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the
individual life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his
skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he
tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw. Queequeg no care what
god made him shark, said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and
down; wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be
one dam Ingin.
..
The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about
the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to
the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly
flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower. This weapon
is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally
honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to
thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.
..






.. < chapter lxvii 23 CUTTING IN >
It was a Saturday night, and such a
Sabbath as followed! Ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all
whalemen. The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble;
..
every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten
thousand red oxen to the sea gods. In the first place, the enormous cutting
tackles, among other ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally
painted green, and which no single man can possibly lift —this vast bunch of
grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head,
the strongest point anywhere above a ship's deck. The end of the hawser-like
rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass,
and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this
block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached.
And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates,
armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the
insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-fins. This done,
a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and
the main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in
one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship careens over
on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads of an old house in
frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to
the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping
heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till
at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls
upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into
sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of
blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an
orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is
sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by
the windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water,
and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the
scarf, simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates;
and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself,
it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end
grazes the main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a
moment
..
or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from
the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it
swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard. One of
the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a
boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a
considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the
end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a
hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this
accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a
scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging
slicings, severs it completely in twain; so that while the short lower part
is still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear,
and is all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song,
and while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the
whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip
through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the
blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling
away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited
serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering
simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, the
blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and
all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general friction.
..






.. < chapter lxviii 29 THE BLANKET >
I have given no small attention to that
not unvexed subject, the skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it
with experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore.
..
My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion. The
question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you know what
his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence of firm,
close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from
eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. Now, however
preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of
that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no
arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other
dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the
outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that
be but the skin? True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may
scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat
resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible
and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only
contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several
such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is
transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have
sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At
any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles,
as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely
thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the
whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the
skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that
the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the
skin of a new-born child. But no more of this. Assuming the blubber to be the
skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large
Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it
is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed
state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some
idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part
of whose mere
..
integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the
ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff
of the whale's skin. In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not
the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all
over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick
array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these
marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above
mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the
body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant
eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground
for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call
those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is
the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of
the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with
a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous
hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those
mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This
allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the
other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not
seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great
part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches,
altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New
England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of
violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs —I should say, that
those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It
also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile
contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large,
full-grown bulls of the species. A word or two more concerning this matter
of the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it is
stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms,
this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is
..
indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still
better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It
is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to
keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.
What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of
the north, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found
exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are
your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators;
creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller
in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has
lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it
then —except after explanation —that this great monster, to whom corporeal
warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be
found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where,
when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,
perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found
glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by
experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo
negro in summer. It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a
strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare
virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the
whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world
without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the
Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain,
O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how easy and how
hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St.
Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!
..






.. < chapter lxix 2 THE FUNERAL >
Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go
astern! The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of
the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it
has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. it is still colossal. slowly it
floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the
insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming
fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale. The
vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and
every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods
of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost
stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild
azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous
breezes, that great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite
perspectives. There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The
sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in
black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I
ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral
they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which
not the mightiest whale is free. Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body
is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some
timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance
obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass
floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it;
straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down
in the log — shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware! And for
years afterwards,
..
perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a
vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held.
There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's
the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the
earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy! Thus, while
in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes, in
his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world. Are you a believer
in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far
deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.
..






.. < chapter lxx 14 THE SPHYNX >
It should not have been omitted that
previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded.
Now, the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon
which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves; and not without
reason. Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a
neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that
very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must
operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his
subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and
oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these
untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that
subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the
ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all
adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical
point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel,
..
then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm
whale? When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a
cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale it
is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown
leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces nearly one
third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that,
even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to
attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales The Pequod's whale being
decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship's
side —about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be
buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply
leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower
mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the
waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the
giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. When this last task was
accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner. Silence
reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper
calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its
noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. A short space elapsed, and up into
this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the
quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the
main-chains he took Stubb's long spade —still remaining there after the
whale's decapitation —and striking it into the lower part of the
half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so
stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. It was a black
and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it
seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. Speak, thou vast and venerable head,
muttered Ahab, which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there
lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing
that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest.
..
that head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's
foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and
anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with
bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was
thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast
slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives
to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their
flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to
each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate
when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the
deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on
unharmed —while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have
borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine! Sail ho! cried a triumphant voice from the
main-masthead. Aye? Well, now, that's cheering, cried Ahab, suddenly
erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow.
That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man.
—Where away? Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her
breeze to us! Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along
that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of
man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the
smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in
mind.
..






.. < chapter lxxi 2 THE JEROBOAM'S STORY >
Hand in hand, ship and breeze
blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began
to rock. By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned
mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. but as she was so far to windward, and
shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod
could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would
be made. Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the
ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which
signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels
attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders
are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable
distances, and with no small facility. The Pequod's signal was at last
responded to by the stranger's setting her own; which proved the ship to be
the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam
under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the
side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting
captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in
token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the
Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain,
was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though himself and boat's
crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and
an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously
adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come
into direct contact with the Pequod. But this did by no means prevent all
communication. Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and
the
..
ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep
parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this
time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at
times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed
some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings
again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a
conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not
without still another interruption of a very different sort. Pulling an oar
in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild
whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a
small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and
wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a
faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were
rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed — That's
he! that's he! the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's company told us of!
Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain
man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho.
According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that
the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost
everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this: He had been originally
nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a
great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times
descended from heaven by the way of a trap-door, announcing the speedy
opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which,
instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A
strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for
Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a
steady, common sense exterior and offered himself as a green-hand candidate
for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him;
..
but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity
broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and
commanded the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby
he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he
declared these things; —the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited
imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to
invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with
an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a
man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he
refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain
have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual's intention was to
land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his
seals and vials — devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition,
in case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his
disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and
told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain.
He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel
to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass
that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all
this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and
mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than
ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command;
nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors,
mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in
obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to
a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are
true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the
measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power
of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to return to the
Pequod. I fear not thy epidemic, man, said Ahab from the bulwarks
..
to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; come on board. But now
Gabriel started to his feet. Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious!
Beware of the horrible plague! Gabriel, Gabriel! cried Captain Mayhew;
thou must either— But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far
ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech. Hast thou seen the White Whale?
demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back. Think, think of thy whale-boat,
stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail! I tell thee again, Gabriel,
that— But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was
said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which
by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it.
Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently, and
Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his
archangel nature seemed to warrant. When this interlude was over, Captain
Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without
frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and
the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him. It seemed that the Jeroboam had
not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were
reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.
Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain
against attacking the white whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his
gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the
Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year
or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey,
the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself
being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the
archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading
five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after
..
much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last
succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the
main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling
forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his
divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and
with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations
upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo!
a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion,
temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant,
the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air,
and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of
about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any
oarsman's head; but the mate for ever sank. It is well to parenthesize here,
that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps
almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is
thus annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the
thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and
accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more
instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of
violence is discernible; the man being stark dead. The whole calamity, with
the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship. Raising a
piercing shriek — The vial! the vial! Gabriel called off the
terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible
event clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous
disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of
only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have
chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a
nameless terror to the ship. Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put
such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring
whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To
which Ahab answered — Aye. Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to
his feet, glaring
..
upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger
— Think, think of the blasphemer —dead, and down there! —beware of the
blasphemer's end! Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew,
Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for
one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag. Every
whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose
delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere
chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never
reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two
or three years or more. Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It
was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in
consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter,
Death himself might well have been the post-boy. Can'st not read it? cried
ahab. give it me, man. aye, aye it's but a dim scrawl; —what's this? As
he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his
knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way,
hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship. Meantime, Ahab
holding the letter, muttered, Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a woman's pinny hand,
—the man's wife, I'll wager) — Aye —Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; —why
it's Macey, and he's dead! Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,
sighed Mayhew; but let me have it. Nay, keep it thyself, cried Gabriel to
Ahab; thou art soon going that way. Curses throttle thee! yelled Ahab.
Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it; and taking the fatal missive
from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it
over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted
from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as
if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He
clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on
it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then
Gabriel
..
shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner
the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod. As, after this
interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many
strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.
..






CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him, as will presently be seen.

Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another's mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.*

*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder.

I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the whale and the ship—where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the carcass—the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive.

And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man.

Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark—he was provided with still another protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I admit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water, those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg than a tall. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there with that great iron hook—poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods.

Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea—what matters it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.

But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory glance hands him—what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water!

"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. "Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!—what the devil is ginger? Sea-coal? firewood?—lucifer matches?—tinder?—gunpowder?—what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg here."

"There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this business," he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just come from forward. "Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it, if you please." Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, "The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?"

"I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuff enough."

"Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teach you to drug it harpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to poison us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?"

"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that brought the ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub—so she called it."

"Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's orders—grog for the harpooneer on a whale."

"Enough," replied Starbuck, "only don't hit him again, but—"

"Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of that sort; and this fellow's a weazel. What were you about saying, sir?"

"Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself."

When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity's gift, and that was freely given to the waves.





.. < chapter lxxiii 23 STUBB AND FLASK KILL A RIGHT WHALE; AND THEN HAVE >

A TALK OVER HIM It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm
Whale's prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must let it
continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. For
the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is
to pray heaven the tackles may hold. Now, during the past night and forenoon,
the Pequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional
patches of
..
yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species
of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking
anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those
inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for
them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts
without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought
alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made
that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered. Nor
was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two boats,
Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further and further
away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the mast-head. But
suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of tumultuous white water,
and soon after news came from aloft that one or both the boats must be fast.
An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight, in the act of being
dragged right towards the ship by the towing whale. So close did the monster
come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he meant it malice; but
suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he
wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the keel. Cut, cut! was
the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the
point of being brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But
having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very
rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with
all their might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the
struggle was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the
tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the
contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet
advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it;
when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel,
as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under
her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its drippings, that
the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale
beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free
..
to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his
course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him, so
that they performed a complete circuit. Meantime, they hauled more and more
upon their lines, till close flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered
Flask with lance for lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle
went, while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm
Whale's body, rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking
at every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains
that poured from the smitten rock. At last his spout grew thick, and with a
frightful roll and vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse. While the two
headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, and in other ways
getting the mass in readiness for towing, some conversation ensued between
them. I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard, said
Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so
ignoble a leviathan. Wants with it? said Flask, coiling some spare line in
the boat's bow, did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm
Whale's head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right
Whale's on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never
afterwards capsize? Why not? I don't know, but I heard that gamboge
ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms.
But I sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half
like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of
carved into a snake's head, Stubb? Sink him! I never look at him at all;
but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the
bulwarks, and no one by; look down there, Flask —pointing into the sea with
a peculiar motion of both hands — Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to
be the devil in disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his
having been stowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why
you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries
it
..
coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he's
always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots. He sleeps in his
boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights
in a coil of rigging. No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he
coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging. What's the old man
have so much to do with him for? Striking up a swap or a bargain, I
suppose. Bargain? —about what? Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent
after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and
get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that
sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick. Pooh! Stubb, you are
skylarking; how can Fedallah do that? I don't know, Flask, but the devil
is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he
went a sauntering into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about
devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at
home. Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil,
switching his hoofs, up and says, "I want John." "What for?" says the old
governor, "What business is that of yours," says the devil, getting mad, —"I
want to use him." "Take him," says the governor —and by the Lord, Flask, if
the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before he got through with
him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look sharp— aint you all ready
there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get the whale alongside. I think
I remember some such story as you were telling, said Flask, when at last the
two boats were slowly advancing with their burden towards the ship, but I
can't remember where. Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three
bloody-minded soldadoes? Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did? No;
never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, Stubb, do you
suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was the same you say is
now on board the Pequod?
..
Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live for
ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any parson a
wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a latch-key to get into
the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a port-hole? Tell me
that, Mr. Flask? How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb? Do you see
that mainmast there? pointing to the ship; well, that's the figure one;
now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string 'em along in a row
with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that wouldn't begin to be
Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops enough to
make oughts enough. but see here, stubb, i thought you a little boasted
just now, that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good
chance. Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he
is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard —tell
me that? Give him a good ducking, anyhow. But he'd crawl back. Duck
him again; and keep ducking him. Suppose he should take it into his head to
duck you, though — yes, and drown you —what then? I should like to see him
try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show
his face in the admiral's cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the
orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he
sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask; do you suppose I'm afraid of the
devil? Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him
and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about
kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the
devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a governor! Do you suppose
Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab? Do I suppose it? You'll know it
before long, Flask. But I am going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and
if I see anything very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape
of his neck, and say —Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do
..
it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket
for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and
heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stump —do you see; and
then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion,
he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his
legs. And what will you do with the tail, Stubb? Do with it? Sell it for
an ox whip when we get home; — what else? Now, do you mean what you say,
and have been saying all along, stubb? Mean or not mean, here we are at
the ship. The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard
side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for
securing him. Didn't I tell you so? said Flask; yes, you'll soon see this
right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's. In good time,
Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards
the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained
her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one
side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other
side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight.
Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all
these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right. In
disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the ship, the
same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the case of a sperm
whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the
former the lips and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with
all the well known black bone attached to what is called the crown-piece.
But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done. The carcases of
both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a little resembled
a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers. Meantime, Fedallah was
calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever and anon glancing from the deep
wrinkles there to the
..
lines in his own hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee
occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed
only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish
speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing things.
..






.. < chapter lxxiv 7 THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD—CONTRASTED VIEW >
Here, now, are
two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay
together our own. Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and
the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales
regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of
all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them
is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment
hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one to the
other, by merely stepping across the deck: —where, I should like to know,
will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than here? In the
first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these heads.
Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a certain mathematical
symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly lacks. There is
more character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold it, you
involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point of pervading
dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the
pepper and salt color of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age
and large experience. In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a
grey-headed whale. Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads
— namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear.
..
Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either
whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye,
which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it
to the magnitude of the head. Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the
whale's eyes, it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly
ahead, no more than he can one exactly astern. in a word, the position of
the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for
yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects through
your ears. You would find that you could only command some thirty degrees of
vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; and about thirty more
behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with
dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more
than if he were stealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would have two
backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts):
for what is it that makes the front of a man —what, indeed, but his eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so
planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one
picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes,
effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which
towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys;
this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent
organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this
side, and another distinct picture on that side; while all between must be
profound darkness and nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look
out on the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window.
But with the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two