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CHAPTER 87

The Grand Armada.


The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward
from the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all
Asia.  In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long
islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others,
form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with
Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the
thickly studded oriental archipelagoes.  This rampart is pierced by
several sally-ports for the convenience of ships and whales;
conspicuous among which are the straits of Sunda and Malacca.  By the
straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels bound to China from the west,
emerge into the China seas.

Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing
midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green
promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little
correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled
empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and
silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand
islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant
provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of
the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual,
of being guarded from the all-grasping western world.  The shores of
the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering fortresses
which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the
Propontis.  Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the
obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of
ships before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day,
have passed between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with
the costliest cargoes of the east.  But while they freely waive a
ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce their claim to
more solid tribute.

Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the
low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the
vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at
the point of their spears.  Though by the repeated bloody
chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers,
the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed;
yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and
American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly
boarded and pillaged.

With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these
straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and
thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here
and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine
Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great
whaling season there.  By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod
would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the
world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific; where
Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted
upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to
frequent; and at a season when he might most reasonably be presumed
to be haunting it.

But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his
crew drink air?  Surely, he will stop for water.  Nay.  For a long
time, now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring,
and needs no sustenance but what's in himself.  So Ahab.  Mark this,
too, in the whaler.  While other hulls are loaded down with alien
stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering
whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and
their wants.  She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample
hold.  She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable
pig-lead and kentledge.  She carries years' water in her.  Clear old
prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the
Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish
fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian
streams.  Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China
from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports, the
whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of
soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like
themselves.  So that did you carry them the news that another flood
had come; they would only answer--"Well, boys, here's the ark!"

Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of
Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most
of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen
as an excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained
more and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed,
and admonished to keep wide awake.  But though the green palmy cliffs
of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted
nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single
jet was descried.  Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with
any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when
the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a
spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us.

But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with
which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm
Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached
companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in
extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it
would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn
league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection.  To this
aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be
imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you
may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being
greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what
sometimes seems thousands on thousands.

Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and
forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon,
a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the
noon-day air.  Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the
Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like
the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting
spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist,
continually rising and falling away to leeward.

Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill
of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into
the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze,
showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis,
descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.

As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains,
accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage
in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the
plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying
forward through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their
semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic
centre.

Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their
yet suspended boats.  If the wind only held, little doubt had they,
that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only
deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of
their number.  And who could tell whether, in that congregated
caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like
the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the
Siamese!  So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along,
driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of
Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention to something in our
wake.

Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our
rear.  It seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling
something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so
completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally
disappearing.  Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly
revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and
buckets to wet the sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!"

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should
fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in
hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay.  But when the
swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase;
how very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding
her on to her own chosen pursuit,--mere riding-whips and rowels to
her, that they were.  As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced
the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and
in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such
fancy as the above seemed his.  And when he glanced upon the green
walls of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and
bethought him that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance,
and beheld, how that through that same gate he was now both chasing
and being chased to his deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of
remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were
infernally cheering him on with their curses;--when all these
conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt and
ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been
gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.

But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and
when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the
Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra
side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the
harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been
gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so
victoriously gained upon the Malays.  But still driving on in the
wake of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed;
gradually the ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was
passed to spring to the boats.  But no sooner did the herd, by some
presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of
the three keels that were after them,--though as yet a mile in their
rear,--than they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and
battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing lines of
stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.

Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and
after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the
chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave
animating token that they were now at last under the influence of
that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the
fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied.  The
compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and
steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout; and
like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they
seemed going mad with consternation.  In all directions expanding in
vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by
their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction
of panic.  This was still more strangely evinced by those of their
number, who, completely paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like
water-logged dismantled ships on the sea.  Had these Leviathans been
but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce
wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such excessive dismay.
But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding
creatures.  Though banding together in tens of thousands, the
lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary
horseman.  Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together
in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest
alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding,
trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death.
Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied
whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth
which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced
nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place.  As is
customary in those cases, the boats at once separated, each making
for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal.  In about
three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken fish
darted blinding spray in our faces, and then running away with us like
light, steered straight for the heart of the herd.  Though such a
movement on the part of the whale struck under such circumstances, is
in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more or less
anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous
vicissitudes of the fishery.  For as the swift monster drags you
deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to
circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb.

As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power
of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him;
as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we
flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset
boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving
to steer through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at
what moment it may be locked in and crushed.

But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off
from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging
away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while
all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking
out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for
there was no time to make long ones.  Nor were the oarsmen quite
idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with.
They chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business.  "Out of
the way, Commodore!" cried one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden
rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threatened to swamp
us.  "Hard down with your tail, there!" cried a second to another,
which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with his
own fan-like extremity.

All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally
invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs.  Two thick squares
of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they
cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable
length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other
end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a
harpoon.  It is chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used.
For then, more whales are close round you than you can possibly
chase at one time.  But sperm whales are not every day encountered;
while you may, then, you must kill all you can.  And if you cannot
kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be
afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is, that at times like
these the drugg, comes into requisition.  Our boat was furnished with
three of them.  The first and second were successfully darted, and we
saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous
sidelong resistance of the towing drugg.  They were cramped like
malefactors with the chain and ball.  But upon flinging the third, in
the act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under
one of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and
carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom as the
seat slid from under him.  On both sides the sea came in at the
wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in,
and so stopped the leaks for the time.

It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were
it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way greatly
diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from
the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning.
So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing
whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting
momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of
the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene
valley lake.  Here the storms in the roaring glens between the
outermost whales, were heard but not felt.  In this central expanse
the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek,
produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more
quiet moods.  Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say
lurks at the heart of every commotion.  And still in the distracted
distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and
saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going
round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so
closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might
easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on
their backs.  Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales,
more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no
possible chance of escape was at present afforded us.  We must watch
for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had
only admitted us in order to shut us up.  Keeping at the centre of
the lake, we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves;
the women and children of this routed host.

Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving
outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods
in any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture,
embraced by the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or
three square miles.  At any rate--though indeed such a test at such a
time might be deceptive--spoutings might be discovered from our low
boat that seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon.  I
mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had
been purposely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide
extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the
precise cause of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young,
unsophisticated, and every way innocent and inexperienced; however it
may have been, these smaller whales--now and then visiting our
becalmed boat from the margin of the lake--evinced a wondrous
fearlessness and confidence, or else a still becharmed panic which it
was impossible not to marvel at.  Like household dogs they came
snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them; till
it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.
Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with
his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained
from darting it.

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and
still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.  For,
suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing
mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed
shortly to become mothers.  The lake, as I have hinted, was to a
considerable depth exceedingly transparent; and as human infants
while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as
if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing
mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly
reminiscence;--even so did the young of these whales seem looking up
towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in
their new-born sight.  Floating on their sides, the mothers also
seemed quietly eyeing us.  One of these little infants, that from
certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have measured
some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in girth.  He was a
little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered
from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal
reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring,
the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.  The delicate
side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the
plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from
foreign parts.

"Line! line!" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; "him fast!
him fast!--Who line him!  Who struck?--Two whale; one big, one
little!"

"What ails ye, man?" cried Starbuck.

"Look-e here," said Queequeg, pointing down.

As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds
of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and
shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling
towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical
cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still
tethered to its dam.  Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the
chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes
entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.
Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in
this enchanted pond.  We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep.*


*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but
unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a
gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing
but one at a time; though in some few known instances giving birth to
an Esau and Jacob:--a contingency provided for in suckling by two
teats, curiously situated, one on each side of the anus; but the
breasts themselves extend upwards from that.  When by chance these
precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the
mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for
rods.  The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it
might do well with strawberries.  When overflowing with mutual
esteem, the whales salute MORE HOMINUM.


And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations
and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely
and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely
revelled in dalliance and delight.  But even so, amid the tornadoed
Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in
mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round
me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal
mildness of joy.

Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic
spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats,
still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or
possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance
of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them.  But the
sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to
and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes.
It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly
powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by
sundering or maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.  It is done by darting
a short-handled cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for
hauling it back again.  A whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in
this part, but not effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from
the boat, carrying along with him half of the harpoon line; and in
the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now dashing among the
revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the
battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went.

But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling
spectacle enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he
seemed to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at
first the intervening distance obscured from us.  But at length we
perceived that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery,
this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he
had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free
end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in
the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade
itself had worked loose from his flesh.  So that tormented to
madness, he was now churning through the water, violently flailing
with his flexible tail, and tossing the keen spade about him,
wounding and murdering his own comrades.

This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their
stationary fright.  First, the whales forming the margin of our lake
began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted
by half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly
to heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries
vanished; in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more
central circles began to swim in thickening clusters.  Yes, the long
calm was departing.  A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then
like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river
Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling
upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common
mountain.  Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck
taking the stern.

"Oars!  Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm--"gripe your
oars, and clutch your souls, now!  My God, men, stand by!  Shove him
off, you Queequeg--the whale there!--prick him!--hit him!  Stand
up--stand up, and stay so!  Spring, men--pull, men; never mind their
backs--scrape them!--scrape away!"

The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving
a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.  But by desperate
endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way
rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet.
After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided
into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by
random whales, all violently making for one centre.  This lucky
salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who,
while standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat
taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing
of a pair of broad flukes close by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon
resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having
clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their
onward flight with augmented fleetness.  Further pursuit was useless;
but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged
whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which
Flask had killed and waifed.  The waif is a pennoned pole, two or
three of which are carried by every boat; and which, when additional
game is at hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a
dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of
prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that
sagacious saying in the Fishery,--the more whales the less fish.  Of
all the drugged whales only one was captured.  The rest contrived to
escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen,
by some other craft than the Pequod.



CHAPTER 88

Schools and Schoolmasters.


The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm
Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing
those vast aggregations.

Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must
have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are
occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals
each.  Such bands are known as schools.  They generally are of two
sorts; those composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering
none but young vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly
designated.

In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see
a male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm,
evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight
of his ladies.  In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman,
swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by
all the solaces and endearments of the harem.  The contrast between
this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is
always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at
full growth, are not more than one-third of the bulk of an
average-sized male.  They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare
say, not to exceed half a dozen yards round the waist.  Nevertheless,
it cannot be denied, that upon the whole they are hereditarily
entitled to EMBONPOINT.

It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent
ramblings.  Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in
leisurely search of variety.  You meet them on the Line in time for
the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having just
returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and
so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and warmth.  By the
time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator
awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the
cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of
the year.

When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange
suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his
interesting family.  Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan
coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the
ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases
him away!  High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him
are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though
do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario
out of his bed; for, alas! all fish bed in common.  As ashore, the
ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival
admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly
battle, and all for love.  They fence with their long lower jaws,
sometimes locking them together, and so striving for the supremacy
like elks that warringly interweave their antlers.  Not a few are
captured having the deep scars of these encounters,--furrowed heads,
broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and
dislocated mouths.

But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at
the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to
watch that lord.  Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again
and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young
Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand
concubines.  Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen
will seldom give chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand
Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence their unctuousness
is small.  As for the sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons
and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the
maternal help.  For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that
might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however
much for the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his
anonymous babies all over the world; every baby an exotic.  In good
time, nevertheless, as the ardour of youth declines; as years and
dumps increase; as reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a
general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and
virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the
impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands
the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all
alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and
warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.

Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so
is the lord and master of that school technically known as the
schoolmaster.  It is therefore not in strict character, however
admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should
then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly
of it.  His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived
from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised
that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must
have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a
country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days,
and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into
some of his pupils.

The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale
betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm
Whales.  Almost universally, a lone whale--as a solitary Leviathan is
called--proves an ancient one.  Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel
Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he
takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she
is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.

The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously
mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools.  For while
those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or
forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious
of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter;
excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met,
and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal
gout.

The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools.
Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and
wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking
rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he
would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard.  They soon relinquish this
turbulence though, and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and
separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems.

Another point of difference between the male and female schools is
still more characteristic of the sexes.  Say you strike a
Forty-barrel-bull--poor devil! all his comrades quit him.  But strike
a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with
every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long,
as themselves to fall a prey.



CHAPTER 89

Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.


The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one,
necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale
fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.

It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in
company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be
finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are
indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this
one grand feature.  For example,--after a weary and perilous chase
and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by
reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be
retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside,
without risk of life or line.  Thus the most vexatious and violent
disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some
written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all
cases.

Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative
enactment, was that of Holland.  It was decreed by the States-General
in A.D. 1695.  But though no other nation has ever had any written
whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own
legislators and lawyers in this matter.  They have provided a system
which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and
the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling
with other People's Business.  Yes; these laws might be engraven on a
Queen Anne's forthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the
neck, so small are they.

I.  A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.

II.  A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.

But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable
brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to
expound it.

First: What is a Fast-Fish?  Alive or dead a fish is technically
fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any
medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants,--a mast, an
oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it
is all the same.  Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a
waif, or any other recognised symbol of possession; so long as the
party waifing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it
alongside, as well as their intention so to do.

These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the
whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder
knocks--the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist.  True, among the more
upright and honourable whalemen allowances are always made for
peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for
one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or killed
by another party.  But others are by no means so scrupulous.

Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover
litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a
hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the
plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last,
through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their
lines, but their boat itself.  Ultimately the defendants (the crew of
another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and
finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs.  And
when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped
his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by way of
doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line,
harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the
time of the seizure.  Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the
recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.

Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the
judge.  In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to
illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case,
wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's
viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in
the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action
to recover possession of her.  Erskine was on the other side; and he
then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally
harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of
the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned
her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and
therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then
became that subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever
harpoon might have been found sticking in her.

Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the
whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.

These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the
very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--That as for the
boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely
abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the
controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the
defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the
final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made
off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles;
and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them.
Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid
articles were theirs.

A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge,
might possibly object to it.  But ploughed up to the primary rock of
the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling
laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord
Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching
Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the
fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its
complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the
Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on.

Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the
law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession?  But
often possession is the whole of the law.  What are the sinews and
souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof
possession is the whole of the law?  What to the rapacious landlord
is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish?  What is yonder undetected
villain's marble mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that
but a Fast-Fish?  What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the
broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to
keep Woebegone's family from starvation; what is that ruinous
discount but a Fast-Fish?  What is the Archbishop of Savesoul's
income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of
hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven
without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular L100,000 but a
Fast-Fish?  What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and
hamlets but Fast-Fish?  What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull,
is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish?  What to that apostolic lancer,
Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish?  And concerning all
these, is not Possession the whole of the law?

But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.  That is
internationally and universally applicable.

What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck
the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and
mistress?  What was Poland to the Czar?  What Greece to the Turk?
What India to England?  What at last will Mexico be to the United
States?  All Loose-Fish.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but
Loose-Fish?  What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish?  What
is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish?  What
to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers
but Loose-Fish?  What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish?
And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?



CHAPTER 90

Heads or Tails.


"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam."
BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.


Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with
the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the
coast of that land, the King, as Honourary Grand Harpooneer, must have
the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail.  A
division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is
no intermediate remainder.  Now as this law, under a modified form,
is to this day in force in England; and as it offers in various
respects a strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and
Loose-Fish, it is here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same
courteous principle that prompts the English railways to be at the
expense of a separate car, specially reserved for the accommodation
of royalty.  In the first place, in curious proof of the fact that
the above-mentioned law is still in force, I proceed to lay before
you a circumstance that happened within the last two years.

It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one
of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and
beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off
from the shore.  Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under
the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord
Warden.  Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all
the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become
by assignment his.  By some writers this office is called a sinecure.
But not so.  Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in
fobbing his perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same
fobbing of them.

Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their
trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their
fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good L150 from the
precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their
wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their
respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian and
charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and
laying it upon the whale's head, he says--"Hands off! this fish, my
masters, is a Fast-Fish.  I seize it as the Lord Warden's."  Upon
this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation--so truly
English--knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their
heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the
stranger.  But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften
the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone.
At length one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas,
made bold to speak,

"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?"

"The Duke."

"But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?"

"It is his."

"We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is
all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing at all for
our pains but our blisters?"

"It is his."

"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of
getting a livelihood?"

"It is his."

"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of
this whale."

"It is his."

"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?"

"It is his."

In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of
Wellington received the money.  Thinking that viewed in some
particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small
degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an
honest clergyman of the town respectfully addressed a note to his
Grace, begging him to take the case of those unfortunate mariners
into full consideration.  To which my Lord Duke in substance replied
(both letters were published) that he had already done so, and
received the money, and would be obliged to the reverend gentleman if
for the future he (the reverend gentleman) would decline meddling
with other people's business.  Is this the still militant old man,
standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing
alms of beggars?

It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the
Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign.  We must
needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally
invested with that right.  The law itself has already been set forth.
But Plowdon gives us the reason for it.  Says Plowdon, the whale so
caught belongs to the King and Queen, "because of its superior
excellence."  And by the soundest commentators this has ever been
held a cogent argument in such matters.

But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail?  A
reason for that, ye lawyers!

In his treatise on "Queen-Gold," or Queen-pinmoney, an old King's
Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: "Ye tail is ye
Queen's, that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone."
Now this was written at a time when the black limber bone of the
Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies' bodices.  But
this same bone is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad
mistake for a sagacious lawyer like Prynne.  But is the Queen a
mermaid, to be presented with a tail?  An allegorical meaning may
lurk here.

There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers--the
whale and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain
limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's
ordinary revenue.  I know not that any other author has hinted of the
matter; but by inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be
divided in the same way as the whale, the King receiving the highly
dense and elastic head peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically
regarded, may possibly be humorously grounded upon some presumed
congeniality.  And thus there seems a reason in all things, even in
law.



CHAPTER 91

The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.


"In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this
Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry."
SIR T. BROWNE, V.E.


It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when
we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, that the
many noses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant discoverers than
the three pairs of eyes aloft.  A peculiar and not very pleasant
smell was smelt in the sea.

"I will bet something now," said Stubb, "that somewhere hereabouts
are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day.  I thought
they would keel up before long."

Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside; and there in the
distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of
whale must be alongside.  As we glided nearer, the stranger showed
French colours from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture
sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was
plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a
blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea,
and so floated an unappropriated corpse.  It may well be conceived,
what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian
city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the
departed.  So intolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no
cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it.  Yet are there
those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that the oil
obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no
means of the nature of attar-of-rose.

Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the
Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed
even more of a nosegay than the first.  In truth, it turned out to be
one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a
sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct
bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil.  Nevertheless,
in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever
turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun
blasted whales in general.

The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he
recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were
knotted round the tail of one of these whales.

"There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed, standing in
the ship's bows, "there's a jackal for ye!  I well know that these
Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes
lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale
spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold
full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing
that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's
wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here's a
Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I
mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that
other precious fish he has there.  Poor devil!  I say, pass round a
hat, some one, and let's make him a present of a little oil for dear
charity's sake.  For what oil he'll get from that drugged whale
there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no, not in a condemned
cell.  And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get more oil by
chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he'll get
from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may
contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris.  I
wonder now if our old man has thought of that.  It's worth trying.
Yes, I'm for it;" and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that
whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with
no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again.  Issuing from
the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the
stranger.  Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance
with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was
carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green,
and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there;
the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red
colour.  Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read "Bouton
de Rose,"--Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name
of this aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the BOUTON part of the inscription,
yet the word ROSE, and the bulbous figure-head put together,
sufficiently explained the whole to him.

"A wooden rose-bud, eh?" he cried with his hand to his nose, "that
will do very well; but how like all creation it smells!"

Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he
had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close
to the blasted whale; and so talk over it.

Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he
bawled--"Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses
that speak English?"

"Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to
be the chief-mate.

"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?"

"WHAT whale?"

"The WHITE Whale--a Sperm Whale--Moby Dick, have ye seen him?

"Never heard of such a whale.  Cachalot Blanche!  White Whale--no."

"Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a minute."

Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning
over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two
hands into a trumpet and shouted--"No, Sir!  No!"  Upon which Ahab
retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.

He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the
chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort
of bag.

"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb.  "Broke it?"

"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!"
answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was
at very much.  "But what are you holding YOURS for?"

"Oh, nothing!  It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on.  Fine day,
ain't it?  Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of
posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?"

"What in the devil's name do you want here?" roared the Guernseyman,
flying into a sudden passion.

"Oh! keep cool--cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack those
whales in ice while you're working at 'em?  But joking aside, though;
do you know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil
out of such whales?  As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a
gill in his whole carcase."

"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't
believe it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer
before.  But come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't
me; and so I'll get out of this dirty scrape."

"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow," rejoined
Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck.  There a queer
scene presented itself.  The sailors, in tasselled caps of red
worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales.
But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in
anything but a good humor.  All their noses upwardly projected from
their faces like so many jib-booms.  Now and then pairs of them would
drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air.
Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar,
and at intervals held it to their nostrils.  Others having broken the
stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously
puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their
olfactories.

Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding
from the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction
saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar
from within.  This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain
remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself
to the Captain's round-house (CABINET he called it) to avoid the
pest; but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and
indignations at times.

Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to
the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the
stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited
ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable
a pickle.  Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the
Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the
ambergris.  He therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise
was quite frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly
concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the
Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity.
According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under
cover of an interpreter's office, was to tell the Captain what he
pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter
any nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the interview.

By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin.  He was a
small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain,
with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton
velvet vest with watch-seals at his side.  To this gentleman, Stubb
was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once
ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them.

"What shall I say to him first?" said he.

"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals,
"you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish
to me, though I don't pretend to be a judge."

"He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his
captain, "that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain
and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from
a blasted whale they had brought alongside."

Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.

"What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him
carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit to command a
whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey.  In fact, tell him from me he's a
baboon."

"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one,
is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he
conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish."

Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his
crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast
loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.

"What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to
them.

"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that--that--in
fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps
somebody else."

"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any service
to us."

Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties
(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down
into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

"He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the
interpreter.

"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to drink
with the man I've diddled.  In fact, tell him I must go."

"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking;
but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then
Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from
these whales, for it's so calm they won't drift."

By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat,
hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,--that having a long tow-line
in his boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out
the lighter whale of the two from the ship's side.  While the
Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way,
Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way,
ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line.

Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the
whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance,
while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's whale.  Whereupon
Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to
give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of
his unrighteous cunning.  Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced
an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin.  You would
almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and
when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like
turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam.
His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their
chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters.

And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and
screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them.  Stubb was
beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay
increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague,
there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide
of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow
into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for
a time.

"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something
in the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!"

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of
something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old
cheese; very unctuous and savory withal.  You might easily dent it
with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour.  And
this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any
druggist.  Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably
lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured
were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and
come on board, else the ship would bid them good bye.


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