make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these
..
very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea
which aboriginally belongs to it. The first boat we read of, floated on an
ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without
leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean
destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood
is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. Wherein
differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon
the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, when under the
feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for
ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the
live sea swallows up ships and crews. But not only is the sea such a foe to
man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own offspring;
worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the
creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in
the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales
against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks
of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting
like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean
overruns the globe. Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish
brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty
embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the
universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other,
carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then
turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the
sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in
yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the
soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but
encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
..
God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
..
That part of the sea known among whalemen as the Brazil Banks does not bear
that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows
and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance,
caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes,
where the Right Whale is often chased.
..
.. < chapter lix 4 SQUID >
Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the
Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a
gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three
tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms
on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,
alluring jet would be seen. But one transparent blue morning, when a
stillness almost preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with
any stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a
golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secresy; when the slippered
waves whispered together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the
visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.
In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and
higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our
prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a
moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently
gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo.
Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a
stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out
-- There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale,
the White Whale! Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in
swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun,
Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness
to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast
..
his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched
motionless arm of Daggoo. Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and
solitary jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to
connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the
particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness
betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly
perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders
for lowering. The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and
all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with
oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot where
it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all
thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the
secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in
length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water,
innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like
a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within
reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of
either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an
unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life. As with a low sucking
sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated
waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed -- Almost rather had I
seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!
What was it, Sir? said Flask. The great live squid, which they say, few
whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it. But
Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest
as silently following. Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general
have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse
of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with
portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them
declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few of
them have any but
..
the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding,
they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food. For though other
species of whales find their food above water, and may be seen by man in the
act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones
below the surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what,
precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will
disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them
thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that
the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed
of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied
with teeth in order to attack and tear it. There seems some ground to imagine
that the great Kraken of Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into
Squid. The manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising
and sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two
correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible
bulk he assigns it. By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the
mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of
cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to
belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.
..
.. < chapter lx 26 THE LINE >
With reference to the whaling scene shortly to
be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes
elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible
whale-line. The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp,
slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the
..
case of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp
more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more
convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary
quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it
must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general
by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may
give it compactness and gloss. Of late years the Manilla rope has in the
American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for
whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far
more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all
things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is
a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired
Circassian to behold. The whale line is only two thirds of an inch in
thickness. At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is.
By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one
hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly
equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures
something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is
spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though,
but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded sheaves,
or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the heart,
or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least tangle
or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm,
leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in
its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this
business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a
block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all
possible wrinkles and twists. In the English boats two tubs are used instead
of one; the same line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is
some advantage in this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more
readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American
tub, nearly three feet in diameter and
..
of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks
are but one half-inch in thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like
critical ice, which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but
not very much of a concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped
on the american line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a
prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales. Both ends of the line
are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up
from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge
completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is
necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to
it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale
should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally
attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted
like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the
first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This
arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the lower end
of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run
the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes
does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be
dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no
town-crier would ever find her again. Before lowering the boat for the chase,
the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the
logger-head there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat,
resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs
against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they
alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in
the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size
of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs
in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again;
and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box in
the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft,
and is then
..
attached to the short-warp --the rope which is immediately connected with the
harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry
mystifications too tedious to detail. Thus the whale-line folds the whole
boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost
every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so
that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with
the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of
mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen
intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at
any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible
contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus
circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to
quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit --strange thing! what cannot
habit accomplish? --Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter
repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the
half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses;
and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men
composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every
neck, as you may say. Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to
account for those repeated whaling disasters --some few of which are casually
chronicled --of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line,
and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat,
is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine
in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you.
It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils,
because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and
the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain
self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you
escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun
himself could never pierce you out. Again: as the profound calm which only
apparently precedes
..
and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;
for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and
contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder,
and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it
silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play --
this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of
this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in
whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only
when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the
silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher,
though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of
terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a
harpoon, by your side.
..
