Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his
foolish pride of reason—a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing
that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the
sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and
abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a
Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah’s going to Nineveh
via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of
the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly
enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah.
And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris’s
Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which
mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
PITCHPOLING.
To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are
anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an
analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it
to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly
be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are
hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to
make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing
his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau
disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation;
crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing
in the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of
hair from the craft’s bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience
to some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the
event.
Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down
to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered
flight, as of Cleopatra’s barges from Actium.
Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb’s was foremost. By great
exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the
stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal
flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the
planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became
imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But
to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and
furious. What then remained?
Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and
countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced,
none exceed that fine manœuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small
sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it.
It is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand
fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance
is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under
extreme headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten
or twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the
harpoon, and also of a lighter material—pine. It is furnished with a
small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be
hauled back to the hand after darting.
But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though
the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it
is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, on
account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as
compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As
a general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before
any pitchpoling comes into play.
Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness
and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to
excel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow
of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty
feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice
along its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly
gathers up the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free
end in his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance
full before his waistband’s middle, he levels it at the whale; when,
covering him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand,
thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced
upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a
juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid,
nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the
foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of
sparkling water, he now spouts red blood.
“That drove the spigot out of him!” cries Stubb. “’Tis July’s immortal
Fourth; all fountains must run wine to-day! Would now, it were old
Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then,
Tashtego, lad, I’d have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we’d drink
round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we’d brew choice punch in the
spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the
living stuff!”
Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated,
the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful
leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is
slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and
mutely watches the monster die.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
THE FOUNTAIN.
That for six thousand years—and no one knows how many millions of ages
before—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea,
and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so
many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back,
thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the
whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings—that all this should
be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter
minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D.
1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings
are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a
noteworthy thing.
Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items
contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their
gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times
is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring
or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above
the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives
him regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by
inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the
necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot
in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude,
the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the
surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his
mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the
top of his head.
If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function
indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a
certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with
the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think
I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific
words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could
be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not
fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then
live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely
the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his
full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single
breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for,
remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each
side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan
labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the
surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for
an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus
stock of vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless
desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four
supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is
indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable
and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise
inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in _having his spoutings
out_, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested,
upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a
period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings.
Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires
seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have
his seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a
few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging
up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those
seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his
full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these
rates are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should
the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to
replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious
is it, too, that this necessity for the whale’s rising exposes him to
all the fatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could
this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath
the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great
necessities that strike the victory to thee!
In man, breathing is incessantly going on—one breath only serving for
two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to
attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the
Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time.
It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole;
if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water,
then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of
smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at
all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so
clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power
of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout—whether it be water
or whether it be vapor—no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived
at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has
no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no
violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.
Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting
canal, and as that long canal—like the grand Erie Canal—is furnished
with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of
air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice;
unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles,
he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say?
Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to
this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a
living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!
Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as