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 pa.s.sed 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, weredetached in pursuit. Pulling further and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the masthead. 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 pa.s.sed 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, sc.r.a.ping 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 gla.s.s on the water, while the whale beyond alsorose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly. But the f.a.gged 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 mult.i.tudes 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 ma.s.s 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 ign.o.ble a leviathan.
"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat"s bow, "did you never hear that the ship which butonce 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 c.o.c.k 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 oak.u.m 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 ofrigging."
"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 d.i.c.k."
"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 thegovernor-- 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--ain"t 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 b.l.o.o.d.y-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 porthole? 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. d.a.m.n 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 parmacety"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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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...o...b..th 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 Pa.r.s.ee occupied his shadow; while, if the Pa.r.s.ee"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 pa.s.sing things.
CHAPTER 74.
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 ma.s.sive 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, givingtoken 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 distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale"s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan.
But I must be content with a hint. So long as a man"s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one"s experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examineany two things--however large or however small-- at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man"s, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison.
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt overthese two heads for hours, and never discover that organ.
The ear has no external leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ears of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare"s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel"s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.--Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind? Subtilize it.
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant over the sperm whale"s head, so, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling,lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins.
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at right-angles with his body; for all the world like a ship"s jibboom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.
In most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised artist-- is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips.With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an anchor; and when the proper time comes-- some few days after the other work--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of wild woodlands. There are generally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.
CHAPTER 75.
The Right Whale"s Head - Contrasted View.
Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the the Right Whale"s head.
As in general shape the n.o.ble Sperm Whale"s head may be compared to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale"s head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker"s last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.
But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to a.s.sume different aspects, according to your point of view.
If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous ba.s.s viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its soundingboard. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comblike incrustation on the top of the ma.s.s--this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown," and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some hugeoak, with a bird"s nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term "crown"
also bestowed upon it; in which case you will take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter"s measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.
A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam.
Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical, scimitar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part ofthe head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature"s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of a.n.a.logical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable.
In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous "whiskers" inside of the whale"s mouth;* another, "hogs" bristles"; a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: "There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth."
*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts impart a ratherbrigandish expression to his otherwise solemn countenance.
As every one knows, these same "hogs" bristles," "fins,"
"whiskers," "blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne"s time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a tent spread over the same bone.
But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing in the Right Whale"s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest Turkey--the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a pa.s.sing glance I should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that amount of oil.Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started with-- that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale"s there is no great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale"s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.
Look your last now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will not be very long in following.
Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale"s there?
It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head"s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel"s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.
CHAPTER 76.
The Battering-Ram.
Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale"s head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history.
You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole-- is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head; nearly one third of hisentire length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale"s head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial development.
So that this whole enormous boneless ma.s.s is as one wad.
Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange.
Just so with the head; but with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not handled it.
The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses" hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it.
Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indian-men chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming contact,any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By itself this sufficiently ill.u.s.trates the obvious fact I drive at. But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water; considering the un.o.bstructed elasticity of its envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes.
Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a ma.s.s of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is-- by the cord; andall obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a pa.s.sage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread G.o.ddess"s veil at Lais?
CHAPTER 77.
The Great Heidelburgh Tun.